Collected Writings

The papers, books, and articles herein are taken from editions in print while F. G. Patterson lived. Sometimes latter editions are “edited” and do not always reflect the original writer’s thoughts. The reader has before him, then, unedited copies of the originals. The reader will find material added in braces ( ). Some of these are added Scripture references for Scriptures cited by the writer. In some cases where he referred to a chapter only, the book and verse was substituted without the use of braces. That is not what is meant by editorial change. Moreover, this assists creating a Scripture index.

Some footnotes have been added, and all added footnotes are enclosed in braces ( ) so that the reader knows such a footnote was not written by F. G. Patterson. On occasion a few words have been inserted, in braces, in the text to smooth the sentence a little.

A paper on Baptism is found in an appendix because the paper from which this was copied stated that it had not been published. Therefore it was not included in Part Two: From Published Pamphlets.

Collecting F. G. Patterson’s writings in one book has made it possible to create both a Scripture and a Subject Index to his writings.

F. G. Patterson edited a periodical, Words of Truth, vols. 1-8, and Words of Truth, New Series, vols. 1-3. It seems that this periodical ceased at the end of 1876. Articles in this periodical which had his initials appended are included herein. Possibly he wrote some other articles to which his initials are not appended. Present Truth Publishers is not aware of this, if that be the case. However, all answers to questions in Words of Truth are assumed to be his answers unless otherwise indicated. These answers to questions form Part 3 of this book; and, no doubt, the reader will find them helpful.

Concerning personalia regarding F. G. Patterson, it appears that at present nothing is known of him. A number of letters of J. N. Darby were written to him. Which ones may be determined in The Correspondents of John Nelson Darby, 1800-1882 available from Present Truth Publishers.

The last book herein, Lessons from the Wilderness, is dated Wellington, N.Z., April, 1883. This seems to be one of two of the last things he wrote. His paper, Forty Days, pp. 5-24 herein, was printed in a periodical edited by Christopher Woolston, Words of Faith, during 1883.

Part 1: Articles from Various Magazines — Paul’s Doctrine: Is There Ever a Time When It is of No Practical Value? (Col. 1; 2 Tim. 3)

The truths unfolded and warnings given in the Epistles of Paul, invaluable at all times, are of incalculable value at a day like the present. The seeds and first symptoms of all that which is now seen in well-developed character around us had their existence thus early in the history of the Church; and divine wisdom, foreseeing the results of them all, has not only foreseen but provided for the difficulties and exigencies of such an evil day. This is one of the blessed characters of the ever-living word of God. It proves, as the difficulties arise and complicate themselves, how matchlessly full of divine and unerring wisdom it is. One is not surprised at anything that teas arisen. Scripture has prepared us to expect that the evils would arise, and the truth would be surrendered, and falsehood glossed over with an appearance of the truth, as we painfully discover around us. Still the unerring and unfailing manner in which it meets, and guides, and directs the Christian who is subject to it in every difficulty of his path, in a labyrinth of evil, and unfolds its varied and wondrous beauty and resources for the Church’s need, elicits a note of praise, often silent, but deep, to Him who is its author, and whose perfect wisdom shines in that which is so worthy of Him!

One is struck with the wisdom and beauty of the style in which Paul, when writing to the Colossians unfolds before their eyes the glories and magnificence of Christ, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell (Col. 1:19). The work of the Father for them and in them, in making them meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, translating them into the kingdom of the Son of His love, the center of all His counsels. Their danger lay in “not holding the head”; and thus they were allowing themselves to be deceived by the craft of Satan under the presence of humility and lowliness, and were turning ordinances into a means of gaining a standing before God, instead of using them as a memorial of their having been introduced into a standing known, and enjoyed, and possessed before Him.

Before one word of warning or upbraiding falls from his pen, he discloses the glories of the Son, the center of the Father’s counsels; by whom, through sin-bearing, and death, and judgment, the fullness of the Godhead had cleared the ground for the reconciliation of “all things,” in the new creation, of which He was the center, and through whom believer had been reconciled to God.

What a rebuke to the state of things which we find touched upon in the second chapter of the epistle! — “philosophy,” “vain deceit,” “traditions of men,” “elements of the world,” “meats,” “drinks,” “keeping of holy-days,” “new moons,” “sabbaths” (which were shadows which had vanished into their nothingness, when the substance, Christ, had come, “voluntary humility,” and such like. Things with which the natural mind could occupy itself, and which had a “show of wisdom” and worship devised by the human will, so gratifying to the flesh.

The apostle ranges as it were through the region of creation, providence, redemption, and glory (Col. 1:16-22); as if he said, “There is not a spot in the wide universe of these things that I will not fill with Christ. I will so unfold and expand Him before your eyes, that I will only have to mention the follies of chapter 2 which have occupied your minds, to make you blush about them; and this is the very One in whom all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell, and who dwells in you (Col. 1:27), and ye are complete in Him (Col. 2:10). Foolish people, see what you have been doing. Is not that a more touching rebuke for you, than if I had charged you with the infantile follies of which I have heard?”

I desire to put before my readers a line of truth which has struck me much of late in Colossians 1, coupled with 2 Timothy 3; and to bring before their minds certain truths of great importance which the apostle presses, when the seeds of the evil had begun to show themselves, and which in this day have grown up and ripened into such a harvest. It seems to me that he has them specially in his mind as the grand preservatives which would guard the faithful against all that was coming. This is the more remarkable when we find that be presses the very same things on the consciences of the faithful in the perilous times of the last days. So that whether in the beginning, or the ending of the church’s sojourn here, the truths which would preserve and gird the loins of God’s people would be the same.

I gather from the general teaching of the epistle that the apostle, who had never seen the Colossians (ch. 2:1), had heard of them through Epaphras, whose ministry of the gospel had evidently been blessed to them. He had brought tidings of them to the apostle (Col. 1:8), of their fruit-bearing reception of the gospel. The apostle contemplates a double condition of soul: first, that of the knowledge of the glad tidings; and secondly, a condition produced by being filled with the knowledge of God’s will, for which he prayed (Col. 1:9, 10); in order that, through it, they might walk worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing, and be fruitful in every good work, and thus grow through the knowledge of God. In a word, it is the knowledge of the mystery of Christ and the Church.

Consequently, he contemplates his own ministry under these two heads: first, that of the gospel to every creature under heaven (Col. 1:23); and, secondly, that of the Church, which completed all the counsels of God (Col. 1:22-26). Revelation up to the point of Paul’s ministry had embraced creation, the law, redemption, the person of Christ, the ways of God, His government, &c. There was but one thing now, and that was the revelation of the mystery of the Church, which when given, completed or filled up the word of God.

Christ — the Son of David and heir of his throne — rejected by the Jews and by the world; crucified and slain; raised up again by the power of God, and by the glory of the Father, seated in the heavens in the righteousness of God, having answered God’s righteous judgment against sin, death, judgment, wrath, the curse of a broken law, all borne and passed through to the glory of God; sin put away, sins borne; the “old man” judicially dealt with, and set aside forever; a man — the Second man — the last Adam — in heaven in divine righteousness. The Holy Spirit personally on earth witnessed to the righteousness of God, and to the justification of the believer according to its full display. Eternal life by and in the Spirit, and its conscious possession, communicated to the believer by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit acting as the power of this life in his walk, guiding, directing, controlling, and rebuking him. The believer in Jesus sealed with the Spirit, his body a temple for His indwelling, uniting him to Christ — a Man in glory; and thus the bond of union between all those who are His, one with another, and with Christ. His presence and baptism constituting “one body,” composed of such, here in this world. God dwelling amongst His saints here, as a habitation, in Spirit, not in flesh. The Holy Spirit, the power for the exercise of the gifts that Christ, when He rose and ascended up on high, received as man, and bestowed on men — members of His body — thus “dividing to every man severally as he will”; reproducing too, “Christ,” the “life of Jesus,” in the mortal bodies of the saints the power also of worship, communion, joy, love, rejoicing, and prayer. Teaching them to await the hope of righteousness by faith, even the glory itself. Leading them to await for Christ, and producing the longing “Come” in the “Bride”; while her Lord still continues, the object of her hope, in the hearers, as the “Bright and the Morning Star.” Meanwhile transforming them into Christ’s image by unfolding in the liberty of grace, the glories of Him in whose face shines all the glory of God.

Such are some of the features of the “doctrine” of Paul.

We find then a condition of soul in the Colossians for which the apostle can give thanks (Col. 1:8-6). They had received the gospel, and it was bringing forth fruit in them since the day they knew the grace of God in truth. But he will know that the mere knowledge of the gospel, blessed even as it is, would not enable them to “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.” It needed something more than the mere acceptance of the glad tidings to guide the steps of the Lord’s people in a walk worthy of Him; and hence, while he can give thanks for the first condition of soul produced by the glad tidings, he ceased not to pray for them that they might have the second.

How many of the Lord’s people are in the first state in the present day rejoicing in the grace of the gospel and yet who never have attained to the second! nay, who even think that anything beyond the mere knowledge of the gospel is but speculation, or opinions of men, without power or value for the practical walk of the saints. I think I am warranted in saying that after Epaphras saw Paul, and learned the deep and paramount importance of that knowledge for which Paul prayed that they might know that Epaphras was so fully convinced of the value and importance of their learning the second character of the apostle’s ministry, that he himself likewise, labored earnestly in prayer for them that they might “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.” (Compare Paul’s prayer in chapter 1:9, 10, with Epaphras’ prayer in chapter 4:12).

We see therefore three prominent and important matters which the apostle presses in Colossians 1.

First. the importance that the saints should be instructed in the second character of the ministry, of the Church — the body of Christ, its Head. So that understanding the deep responsibility which flowed from membership of such, they might hold fast the Head, and walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.

Secondly. That the scriptures were now filled up, or completed, by the revelation of this mystery. No room was left consequently for tradition or development of any kind. It was the grand summing up of all the revealed counsels and purposes of God the Father, for the glory of the Son. They had, up to this, embraced and treated of creation, law, government, the kingdom, the person of Christ, the Son; redemption, &c. There might be, and doubtless was, still a further development of the details of these subjects, as by John in the Apocalypse, &c., but still it would only be the unfolding, and the summing up of the details of what had been the subject of inspiration. Paul’s ministry it was then revealing the mystery concerning Christ and the Church, which completed the word of God (Col. 1:25).

Thirdly. The glory of the person of the Son, who is the image of the invisible God. No man had seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, had declared Him (John 1:18). He had created all things. By Him all things were upheld. He was the first-begotten from among the dead, and as such the Head of His body, the Church. All fullness was pleased to dwell in Him, and to reconcile all things to Himself; and He had reconciled the saints, who before had been aliens, and enemies in their minds by wicked works, in the body of His flesh through death. Thus the regions of creation, providence, redemption, and glory, are ranged through by the apostle, and Christ unfolded as filling all things. It is the glory of the person of the Son.

To repeat them, that the mind may recall them simply, they are three: namely, “1st, the doctrine of Paul; 2ndly, the scriptures, which had been now completed by his ministry; and, 3rdly, the person of Christ.” These were the truths on which so much hung and flowed from, which would be the safeguards for the faithful in an evil day.

I do not here enter into more detail, but notice them as those truths to which he directs special attention to meet the dangers he foresaw in the beginning of the history of the Church.

I now turn to the instruction which he gives in the Second Epistle to Timothy, which would afford an unerring guide to the faithful in the closing of the history of the Church in the last days. The mournful heart of the apostle unbosoms itself to one whom he loved, and to whom he could communicate his thoughts freely; he unfolds to him the irreparable ruin into which the Church was fast drifting in her outward, responsible condition. He does not look for any restoration — not even the ability on the part of the faithful to leave the outward professing mass. He does not in the Epistles to Timothy speak of the inward graces and Christian affections, which are to be the more cultivated than ever in such a state of thing, as he does in the Epistle to the Philippians. He does not speak in them of the Church as the body of Christ or bride, nor of the relationships of father and children as elsewhere. What he treats of is the outward thing before the world, in the character (as in 1 Tim. 3:14-16) of what it had been set in the world to be for God. It was His house, the assembly of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth, the vessel in which the truth was to be displayed; and the mystery of godliness — the manifestation of God in Christ, and the surrounding truths — was to be her testimony in the world. She was as a light-bearer to reflect Him as His epistle, and respond to God’s purposes in this place. In the second epistle the apostle sees that all was now hopelessly and irrevocably gone. The house of God had become a great house in which iniquity was rife, and vessels to dishonor had found a lodgment and were at home in it. Paul had been “turned away from” by all in Asia. He is here, I doubt not, a representative man, one through whom the Holy Spirit can say, “Be ye followers together of me” (Phil. 3); and one who walked in the power of his own doctrine. He marks out in a clear line the pathway of the faithful in such a state of things: they were to depart from iniquity — “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord (κυριου),depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19). Every one who owned Him as Lord. Whatever form it would take, the simple and primary step should be to depart from iniquity. From vessels which were not honoring Christ in their walk, one was to purge oneself, and thus that one might become a vessel unto honor, suited and meet for the Master’s use. Fleeing from youthful lusts (that is, inward personal holiness) was to be the character of one’s walk. And then (all before this being negative) the positive following of righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who were calling on the Lord out of a purged heart. (See 2 Tim. 2:19-22).

But the question now comes, When the saints had done this, when they had departed from iniquity, purged themselves from the vessels to dishonor, were walking in holiness and following these things together, is there anything provided for them, when corruption surrounds them on all sides, to keep them together after a divine fashion in the midst of it all? Would they not be open to the admission of evil amongst them again, and thus find that separation from it was of no avail? In the Epistle to the Colossians, Paul had shown an Epaphras the necessity of having the saints instructed in the second part of his ministry when they had been established in the first: that is, when they had received the grace of the gospel, that they might know the full counsels of God in the doctrine of Paul, in order to walk worthily of the Lord. Yea, that he ceased not in all earnestness and in the Holy Spirit, to pray that they might be thus instructed. Would this now be that to which he would again point them? Here then comes the grand truth, he recalls the very same three things as those which at the beginning he had pressed upon the Colossians as the safeguard for the faithful in the perilous times — times when the profession of Christianity is described in words so nearly like those by which he had described the corruptions of the heathen world, when sunk down into the lowest ebb of degradation and departure from God. If the closing verses of Romans 1 are compared with the first four verses of 2 Timothy 3, this will at once be seen. In describing the various manifestations of evil in these verses, three prominent features will be found in them: namely, “1st, Self predominating (Christianity is the denial of self); 2ndly, a form of godliness, while the power would be denied; and, 3rdly, active opposition to the truth by the most subtle device of the enemy — that of imitation — the device of Satan in Egypt by the magicians, by copying Moses’ miracles performed by the power of God, and thus Satan’s power practically nullifying that of God.” To counterbalance those characteristic features, and to keep the faithful after a divine fashion, the apostle names the same things as before we noticed to the Colossians: “1st, “my doctrine”; 2ndly, the “Scriptures”; and, 3rdly, the person of Christ as an object of faith.” These he unfolds in the remaining portion of the chapter (vss. 10-17).

The doctrine of Paul (see also the manner of life which flowed from it) is that which is to keep divinely together those who would call on the Lord out of a pure heart. It embraces all the principles and truths connected with it, as when first revealed. Ruin and failure could not affect it nor hinder the practice flowing from it. Nor would it ever be impracticable for the faithful few to exercise the godly discipline and exclusion of evil from their midst, inculcated by him. (See 1 Cor.) Outward unity, seen to such a beautiful degree at the first (Acts 2;4), might be gone forever. The unity of the Spirit in the body of Christ would never fail, and this the Christian was exhorted to endeavor to keep (Eph. 4:3, 4). Come what would, there never would be a time while the Church would sojourn here, when Paul’s doctrine would be a nullity or impracticable to the veriest handful of the faithful who sought to call on the Lord out of a pure heart, and live godly in Christ Jesus.

Such then is the prominent and first-named point in the chapter. “But thou hast fully known my doctrine,” &c. The resource — the safeguard — the ground or principle of action of the saints in an evil day. Without Paul’s doctrine, they had nothing stable to preserve them and keep them together on divine ground in the midst of corruption; with it, they would find that under their feet which would never fail.

Have we then Paul’s doctrine? We may boast, as all do, that we have the scriptures — surely it is well. We may have confidence that an ever faithful Lord will never leave or forsake His people, and that He knows them that are His, and will keep them unto the end. But can we say that we have Paul’s doctrine of the Church — the body of Christ on earth formed by the presence and baptism of the Holy Spirit? Having it, can we say that we are as living members, acting upon the truth of it through the never-failing supply of grace He gives? Or, do we come under the character of those who are described as “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth?” — Those whose mind and intellect the truth has reached, but without faith, and hence without practical value in our lives? Of the truth, we can say as of faith: “What profit, my brethren, if a man say he have the truth?” if he have not shown that he has faith in it; and thus has learned to act upon it as something in which he believes? It is always a sign that a man has faith in the truth which he knows, when it has had its corresponding effect upon his life — when it has been acted upon in practice. No man has ever had the joy and power of a divine truth till he has accepted it, and walked therein. Many are thus ever learning and never able to come to a divinely confirmed knowledge of it, because the practice is wanting. It is learned in the intellect; the natural mind is touched perhaps with the beauty and divine excellence of it; it cannot be denied, but there is no faith in it. It has not been learned in the conscience and in the soul; and when tribulation or persecution arises because of it, he is offended — deems it non-essential perhaps — and surrenders that to which he has never come to a divinely given knowledge. If ever there was a day when there was such a thing as “salt which had lost its savor,” it is the present. The most touching — the very highest — truths of God have become the topics of the world’s conversation. They are held by many after a fashion, in which the edge and power of them are lost. A worldly walk and conversation are coupled with the intellectual knowledge of the highest truths of God; and like salt that has lost its saltness, one can but ask of it, “Wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but (even) men cast it out” (Luke 14:34, 35). “But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them” (2 Tim. 3:10-14). May the Lord open the understanding of His beloved people, that in the midst of the confusion and corruption of such in evil day — when men are saying, “What is truth?” and yet not caring for the reply, they may find that there are such principles in the word of God as no amount of man’s failure can ever touch, and which are ever practicable to those who desire humbly to walk with God, and to keep the word of the patience of Jesus, till He comes. May they learn to walk together in unity, and peace, and love in the truth, for His name’s sake. — Amen.

Bible Treasury 6:342-346.

Forty Days

There are hardly any who have read the scriptures, with even a small measure of intelligence, who will not have remarked how constantly the period of “Forty days” occurs. Various interpretations have been suggested as to the typical meaning of the number “forty” — composed as it is of the multiple of “four” with “ten.” However, without dogmatizing on it, it is happy to be able to draw some real spiritual lessons from the places where the “Forty days” occur in the word of God, remembering that our God has deigned to use these periods Himself, with profound wisdom, and for the blessing and instruction of His people, in that book which contains the revelation of Himself, and His ways for the glory of His Son.

The number “Forty,” then, is, I judge, intimately connected with the probation or testing of man; as also with the penalty, or confession, or punishment of sin under the government of God. We read of the “forty days and forty nights” of the temptations of Christ; of the “forty days and forty nights” that the waters of the flood prevailed on the earth (Gen. 7.); of the “forty years” that Israel was condemned to wander in the desert for their sin (Num. 14); of the “forty stripes” an offender against the law of Moses, in certain matters, was to receive (Deut. 25; compare 2 Cor. 11:24). Egypt was to be desolate for “forty years” (Ezek. 39). Moses, too, intercedes for Israel for “forty days” (Deut. 9) The Ninevites proclaim a fast for “forty days” (Jonah 3). Ezekiel must bear the transgression of Judah “forty days” (Ezek. 4).

Many other cases might be cited, leading to the conclusion that this typical number is always connected with the probation or testing of man; and having reference to sin, and the condition into which sin had brought man, with the confession of it; its penalty or its punishment.

There is one very remarkable feature, however, in this interesting study; we find these instances of “Forty days” begin at a certain moment in the history of man in scripture, and end at another of remarkable significance.

The first time “Forty days” is spoken of is at the waters of the flood. “Forty days and forty nights” the rain was upon the earth; a moment which was marked by this awful judgment of God.

The last time we find these “Forty days” in scripture was after the resurrection of Christ, and is bright with hopes of better things; when He remained on earth amongst His disciples, “being seen of them forty days” (Acts 1). Within, and comprising these two cases, the sevenfold series of “forty days” is found, presenting a picture of the whole moral relations of God with man, and man with God. A well-ordered and comprehensive picture, which cannot fail to strike us as designed and planned by the Author of scripture Himself, in His infinite wisdom and grace.

Let us enumerate the instances where they are found:

1st. We have the “Forty days” of the flood, which are characterized by sin and its judgment.

2nd. Next we have the “Forty days” of Moses on Mount Sinai, at the giving of the law (with the second “Forty days” of his intercession for Israel). This may be characterized by law and mercy.

3rd. We have after this the “Forty days”‘ searching of Canaan (Num. 13;14), which speak to us of faith and unbelief.

4th. In the “Forty days” journey of Elijah from Beersheba to Horeb (1 Kings 19:1-8) we see human weakness and divine strength.

5th. In the “Forty days” of Nineveh (Jonah 3), repentance and forgiveness.

6th. The “Forty days” of the Lord’s temptation present most blessedly conflict and victory.

7th. And the “Forty days” after the resurrection, redemption and glory.

Thus the picture is complete: the utter corruption of the world opens the sequence of these “Forty days”; they run their course through scripture, presenting the varied claims of God, His ways of mercy and forgiveness, and the exercises of heart of His people; until, fittingly, the blessed Lord’s own conflicts and sufferings close them when, as Man, He takes His place at God’s right hand in glory.

Forty Days: 1. The Forty Days of the Flood

The subject before us now is the moment when God for the first time judged the world for sin. An awful, resistless, overwhelming judgment fell upon the earth, washing away every trace of the violence and corruption which filled the scene, by the waters of the flood.

This scene is alluded to nine times in scripture, by patriarchs, prophets, evangelists, and apostles, and by the Son of God Himself, more than once. It is used as a type also, though only a type, a faint shadow, of that awful moment of judgment which must overtake the world — a greater judgment than that of water, of the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty. It is not the judgment of the dead that is here before us, but of the living, those who are taken in the avocations of life — eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage; pursuing the ordinary course of things, but sinning, sinning, sinning, till that awful moment comes, when resistless judgment falls on the world that God, in longsuffering, has borne with for six thousand years.

What, then, was it that caused God to judge the world in this way in Noah’s time? The answer is, “SIN.” Sin caused God to resolve on judgment the most awful that ever yet came from the hands of perfect love. And yet how faint is it the shadow of that eternal judgment which must come, when mercy is past, when the day of grace is over, when no cry for mercy will receive an answer of peace.

I think it is a common human expression — which is not to be found in the word of God — that “in the midst of judgment He remembers mercy.” There is nothing in the word of God, that I have discovered, which would carry out such a thought. When judgment falls, it falls with resistless power, and mercy then has ceased. Mercy and judgment cannot go together. No doubt “mercy glorieth against judgment” (James 2:13) — that is blessedly true now; and the cry of faith is, “In wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2); but the moment that judgment — God’s strange act — begins, then mercy, in which God delights, has closed; judgment will then accomplish its solemn mission.

How awful is the delusion under which men lie as to this! They think that God is too merciful to damn them. Oh, do not so delude yourselves — do not suppose you can cry for mercy in that day, and be heard. Mercy waits in long-suffering now; but that solemn day will not come till mercy’s day is past forever.

A flood of “SIN” filled the earth; violence and corruption characterized that fair world that God had made “very good.” It began in individual hearts, it spread in families, it corrupted homes and communities with its leavening power. God describes the state of things by these well-chosen, weighty words (Gen. 6:5): “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” How comprehensive are those words! — “every,” “only,” “continually.” “Every” means without exception. One would have thought, perhaps, that that conscience which God took care man should receive when he fell (Gen. 3:5,22) might have retained some trace of longing after “good,” even though powerless to “perform” it. Nay, “every” imagination of his heart was “evil.” But this might not have been always so: surely there were some traces of God’s handy-work left, and some mixture of good. Nay, we read again, these imaginations were “only evil” — that is, evil without admixture or trace of good. And they were “continually”; morning, noon, and night the aggregate of his heart’s thoughts were only evil, without exception, without admixture, without intermission! Sin, without restraint, thus came forth in its hideous deformity.

Is the world better now? It is just the same. We have moral, social, religious, political restraints on man; sin cannot break forth unhindered, nor do in broad day what it can when the world’s eye cannot gaze upon it. But remove these restraints, let them stand in abeyance for an hour, put the world on its trial, and see how it would behave itself. The result would be, that every peaceful home in the land would be filled with bloodshed and abomination.

Man’s heart is man’s heart, and there it is. Much more responsible, I grant you, now than in the days of the flood; and that tide of evil is swelling, till it breaks forth again, and is met once more by the resistless judgment of God.

“The world of the ungodly” was once judged by the waters of the flood, and “as it was in the days that were before the flood, so shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until!” — no warning for aught but faith — “the flood came, and took them all away.”

No wonder, then, that “it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth,” and it “grieved him to his heart.” We should not like our handy-work corrupted; nor does He; He resolves, therefore, to destroy it. But before He strikes the blow, He will give time, and a testimony to man’s heart, “whether he will hear, or whether he will forbear.”

Thrice forty years, then, were the days of respite. “Mercy rejoiceth against judgment.” Yet when judgment is resolved upon, God says, I will give them time! The “long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” It “is salvation.” But more: He will send them a preacher. Noah was a preacher of righteousness to the world of the ungodly. I do not think that God told Noah the length of time He had accorded to the world to repent: this one hundred and twenty years. To have done so would have been to break the threefold cord of faith, hope, and love. All three were in exercise in the patriarch’s heart while he preached and testified, and the ark was a-preparing. God knew Himself the allotted time, as He knows all. During that strange one hundred and twenty years there were four testimonies going on, side by side, to man’s conscience.

1st. God’s Spirit was striving with man. He would not always strive. Where, in many a heart, are the strivings of God’s Spirit which found a voice there, time after time, in years gone by? “My Spirit shall not always strive with man” tells its solemn tale.

2nd. Noah was preaching. Christ’s blessed Spirit was in him, as we read of the Spirit of Christ being in the prophets (1 Peter 1:11). By that Spirit of Christ Noah testified to the spirits of the lost now in prison, while once the

3rd. Long-suffering of God waited; and we learn in another place that that “long-suffering is salvation.” Has it been so with my readers, or have they forgotten that every day or hour of that blessed trait of God’s character adds to their condemnation? Are you an unbeliever still? — a man with whom God has been striving — one on whom His long-suffering waits?

4th. There was a silent, eloquent appeal, too, going on for that one hundred and twenty years. Noah’s ark was a-preparing; its strange superstructure rearing itself daily before their eyes. It appealed to his inmost soul. It proved the reality of the preacher’s faith — he was governed by the word he announced — it formed himself. To others it was, perhaps, a jest, something to be laughed at by the old-world wits in their humor. Perhaps science, too, would pronounce that it could not float, could not bear its burden, or weather the storm. The construction was faulty, the “lines” were not laid down according to the world’s then best skill.

These four testimonies spake, day by day, in the ears of men, with the results of which now we have to do. How many heard and believed them? I am bold enough to say, Not one! The blessed Lord’s own words, which said, “They knew not, until the flood came, and took them all away,” decide me in believing this; nevertheless they perished not without God’s testimony, but they believed not after all.

At last the one hundred and twenty years ran to their close. The seasons had gone on as before. The sun had shone as brightly, and the earth had yielded her increase, and corruption ripened for judgment in the sight of Him who cannot look upon sin, and coalesce with it. The one hundred and twentieth year drew to its close, and no sign was seen. Unbelief grew bold in its wickedness. But “because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11).

And now the blow of judgment is about to fall, when God (none but He is worthy of such a deed) stayed the blow! How we read and recall such a word as this — He is “not willing that any should perish.” And the voice of mercy is again heard: “Yet seven days!” — seven days more of the long-suffering of God — seven days of the strivings of God’s Spirit — seven days for the preacher to preach — seven days for one last sermon, one last appeal — an appeal that none ever heard the like before; seven days for the beasts that perish to preach their sermon to unbelieving man — more obedient to a Creator’s voice than he! They trooped in by twos and twos, and by sevens, into the ark!

The seven days became six — five — four — three — two — one; and still no sign of impending wrath; unbelief could triumph its short triumph still. The ox knew his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, better than man his Creator’s voice. The stupor of death is over men’s souls! There are times when the frenzy of despair is seen; and even, at times, when hope is gone, and the soul has settled into dark despair; and dull sense of ruin falls on men’s hearts in a shipwreck at sea, and men anticipate the judgment, and plunge into the seething waters. Worse stupor here on men’s souls, for no sign of a relenting heart or a troubled conscience is to be found. The stupor of death has fallen on man, and God’s long-suffering is past. “The Lord shut him [Noah] in,” we read, and then went back to heaven.

Now came a strange sight —unknown in “the world that then was.” From paradise, and onwards, we read of no rain — “a mist came up, and watered the earth,” before the flood. Now the rain began to descend, and the waters began to rise, and rise, and rise. Then the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were unstopped: God’s controversy waxes fiercer and fiercer, and it rained upon the earth forty days and forty nights. The ark was lifted up above the earth: and the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered: the mountains too were covered, and all flesh died. Every living substance was destroyed, man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowls of heaven. In these few short days the world’s life was gone! Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. The pall of mighty waters shrouded the scene, wrapping all living in its folds of death and judgment. One man remained, and they who were with him, saved by that which was death and judgment to all the rest.

God has drawn a veil over the scene; the cries for mercy are not recorded: the sense in men’s souls, in which despair now filled, and the details of all that passed, are not told us. We may well believe the terrors of despair which filled their hearts, as one by one dropped down into the flood of waters; but this has not been recorded. Enough for Him to say that they were “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not till the flood came, and took them all away.”

Of Noah we read that he possessed two things, which made him to differ from all the world around: reverent faith in God’s way of escape; and holy fear of that mighty judgment of which he had heard. “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” The fear of God — who, if He be God, must vindicate His outraged name by judgment, the faith of Him who, before that day comes, has sent the Judge first to be the Savior. To know Him as a Savior is never to know Him as a Judge; to know Him as a Judge is never to know Him as a Savior. He has already been at the cross, where, in holy and righteous judgment against sin in Him who was made sin for us, He has fully dealt with the whole question, and settled it forever! There He bore the wrath — there He drank the cup — there He bore our sins — and there He died, accomplishing redemption for all who come unto God by Him.

But He is not there now. Mark the crucifix that is presented religiously to man — Christ is there. Man’s thought gets no further than Christ upon the cross, and unaccomplished redemption! Christ is not there. He was there — He is not there now. God’s thought is not a crucifix with Christ upon it, but off it, and in the glory! He did not carry the sins He bore there; they were purged before He left the cross, and blotted out forever for those who are His. He settled that question before ever there was a Christian on the earth. All the sins of every Christian were future when He bore them. Then, having purged them, He went on high, and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. The conscience is purged when we believe; the sins were purged at the cross. Faith knows this; God knows this. “The righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise” (that of which Noah became heir): “Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven?” — God wants no great thing of you — “or who shall descend into the deep?” Nay, “The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach: that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in shine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” And again: “Whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed.”

Does your heart, my reader, rejoice that He is longsuffering, and waits upon sinners? Well, have you bowed to this, and believed? That His Spirit still strives with man? Yes, but He has also said, He “shall not always strive.” Say, then, have His strivings found an answer in your soul? If so, how blessed is your lot!

But you may still be uncertain — still a doubting one. How often has it been preached that that is a healthful state of soul! How often have souls doubted, and doubted their lives through, until they found themselves in heaven, and then they could doubt no more! Faith was mingled with fear too long, but now is passed away. Faith has changed to sight, and fear is cast out by His perfect love forever!

Words of Faith, 1882, pp. 123-132.

Forty Days: 2. The Forty Days of Moses on Mount Sinai

The second of those remarkable “Forty Days” of scripture we find in the case of Moses on Mount Sinai, when he received the law for the first time from Jehovah. In his case there were two periods of forty days, as afterward in the Lord Jesus’ ministry: the first, before He entered upon it, when in the temptations in the wilderness; and the second, after His resurrection.

In Moses’ case these two periods are spoken of distinctly in Deut. 9;10, where we find two givings of the law connected with these two “Forty Days”: first, the law, pure and simple; and, second, the revelation of mercy and long-suffering added to the law.

We read, “When I was gone up into the mount, to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made for you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights: I neither did eat bread, nor drink water: and the Lord delivered me two tables of stone, written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words which the Lord spake with you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly. And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant. And the Lord said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves: they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them, they have made them a molten image... So I turned, and came down from the mount... And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made you a molten calf... And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.

“And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water; because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger. Then I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the Lord had said he would destroy you. I prayed therefore unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy not thy people, and thine inheritance...

“At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood; and I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark... And there they be, as the Lord commanded me (Deut. 9:9;10:5).” There were altogether — as we may see — three givings of the law.

First, by the voice of God out of the midst of the fire (Ex. 19, 20);

Secondly, by the first tables of the law, written by the finger of Clod. These Moses broke after he came down from the mount the first time — his face darkened with wrath at the sin of Israel;

And thirdly, by the second tables which Moses brought back after the second forty days’ and forty nights’ intercession for Israel, at which time the skin of his face shone with the glory of Jehovah’s mercy. These tables he placed in the ark (the figure of Christ, by whom, and in whom only, they would be kept fully). There was no breaking of them this second time, and, as we read, “there they be” unto this day.

We have thus Israel dancing round the calf, and the broken tables of the law, figure of their condition, after the first forty days.

And Israel spared in mercy, but with the law still in their midst — within the ark of the covenant — unbroken, at the end of the second forty days.

I do not dwell much on the first announcement of the law, by the voice of God in Exodus 19, 20. It was given by One who shut Himself up in the “thick darkness,” and spake amidst thunderings, and lightnings, and the voice of words. So terrible was the sight, that even Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake.” God had proposed these terms, and Israel, ignorant of themselves accepted them, in the words, “All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do.” Mark the two things — first, the word of the Lord, expressing His claim; and, secondly man supposing he is capable to take it up, and do it. No doubt he is responsible to do so, but he has not the power. No man ever heard the law of God, and denied his responsibility to obey it; his conscience accepts it, whether he like, or no. When the “Ten Words” were spoken, the result was the people removed, and stood afar off. Immediately, when man finds there is a claim from God to which his conscience must bow, he desires some one to stand between him and God — he wants a Mediator (Ex. 20:18,19). “Speak thou with us,” they say to Moses, “and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” At once God answers this desire with directions for an altar, and sacrifices of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, in all places where He would record His name.

These four things are the result of God’s expressing His claim: the desire of a mediator by the people; God’s answer in the work of such; an altar, and sacrifices of acceptance and communion; and His presence with them in all places where He would record His name, to be with them, and to bless them. How touchingly does His unvarying grace break out, even in the midst of the solemn scene of law-giving on Mount Sinai!

Now, if we examine Exodus 24, where Moses was called up into the mount to receive the law, we find it was prefaced by a seven days of preparation. (Just as, before the blow of judgment of sin at the flood, there were also seven days of respite.) “And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mount, in the eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and get him up into the mount; and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights (Ex. 24:15-18).” In the seven chapters that follow we find the unfolding, in type, of what afterward shone in the full blessedness of Christ, there given in the “shadows of things to come.” Moses could dismiss the history of creation with one chapter, but what spake of Christ, and of God’s desire to dwell amongst men, seven chapters are devoted to that theme (Ex. 25-29), unfolding the heart of God, afterward to be fully revealed in His Son.

The order and arrangement of these chapters are very beautiful. First, in the various parts of the tabernacle and its furniture, He reveals how He can approach man — coming out from the light of the glory in the holy of holies, from the ark and its mercy-seat (Ex. 25), until, step by step, He reaches the brazen altar (Ex. 27), type of the cross of Christ. There He meets man as a sinner, and then He returns with the saved one, as each step of His backward path testifies in the furniture of the tabernacle, now needed — such as the laver, which was for him (Ex. 30), not a display of God in Himself as such — to meet all the saved one’s requirements by the way, in returning to God’s own presence.

Meanwhile the high priest’s garments are introduced — garments of glory and beauty; and the names of the redeemed are graven upon the stones of memorial on His shoulders, and on the breastplate, where all were borne, in the light of God’s presence, in Him. Thus, the believer dwells in the light, and is borne upon the strength, and carried in the affections of Christ, in the presence of God for us.

When all this was being transacted in the mount with God, a dark and terrible scene was being enacted below, on the plain, by Israel (Ex. 32); their great original and corporate sin was committed, which reaped its bitter fruits to the end, in Babylon and judgment. I refer to the making of the golden calf.

The seed of Abraham, who had been himself called out of idolatry, now turning back from Jehovah, to dance round the similitude of a “calf that eateth hay” — and Aaron the great actor in this revolt against God.

God desires Moses to go down, telling him that the people had revolted, and made them God’s of gold, and that He would cut them off, and make of Moses a great nation. Moses uses his place of nearness, not for himself, but for the people he loved; and beseeches the Lord for Israel, and God is entreated of him. Then Moses comes down with the first tables of the law in his hand, and breaks them ere he reaches the guilty camp, thus preserving both the people from judgment, and the honor of Jehovah. They never, therefore, stood under pure law at all.

The tribe of Levi consecrate themselves in the discipline of that moment, and take the Lord’s side against their guilty brethren. Moses returns, with the words, “I will go up, peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” He pleads, “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and made them God’s of gold: yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” He asks that he, not they, should be blotted out of God’s book. The answer is, “Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.”

Moses then, when the people are convicted, and stripped of their ornaments, takes the tent, and pitches it outside the camp, afar of from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of the congregation. Every one, therefore, that sought the Lord, went out there.

The most touching scene follows. The most glorious moment in all the history of Moses, and the most blessed revelation of God he ever had, was then made. The cloud came down, and talked with Moses as a man speaks with his friend! He pleads there with God, and God answers the one who never stood under law at all, but had found grace in His sight. Still, he does not feel that all is clear; his spirit has no rest yet, for two things press on his heart —

(1) the people are not relieved, therefore

(2) God is not yet fully revealed.

He cries, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory.” Nay, this would but consume them — it was not the time. He would afterward be seen in the same glory with Christ in the mount of transfiguration; but another deeper spring was now to be reached. Something was now to be known of God’s nature, never before revealed in its true and real depths. This was “Mercy!” Never was its true meaning known before. Doubtless the word was there, and used too in scripture; but that deep spring in God’s own being, so rich, so full, so blessed; that in which He delights — taking pleasure in them that hope in it. The theme ever after for Israel’s song was to be made known; the chorus of every divine melody of theirs from that moment would be, “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever!” How touching the subsequent words — “And he said, I will make all [yes, “all”] my goodness pass before thee. and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion!”

Who could have seen His face, and lived? Moses might “bow his head, and worship,” when that deep spring was reached. When He passes by we can see His back parts, but His face, who could know? Who could have anticipated the incarnation, the cross, the counsels and ways of God; or this — His mercy? None indeed. We may be placed in the “cleft of the rock,” and, covered by His hand, gaze upon Him as He passes by, and see His back parts; but none can see His face — none can anticipate His ways, and live!

The deep spring was reached at that dire extremity. The divine outflow of grace had been abused. The law had been broken. All ordered relations had been disrupted by the rebellion and ruin of Israel. Now, mercy — sovereign and absolute — was the resource of Him who retires into Himself, and who chooses to act from Himself; — who alone can say, “I will,” and who can hinder? It presupposes a condition of things, and the absolute necessity for God to act from Himself in some way, either to vindicate Himself by resistless judgment, or to extricate the people in absolute mercy. It was not now of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

Brethren, do our souls understand that attribute in which God is so rich? Do we not constantly find it confounded with grace (which is the divine outflow of His unconditional favor), to the soul’s great loss indeed? Have we never sinned against and outraged His grace, as well as broken His law? What then is left for us — absolute sovereign mercy, which presupposes all this condition of things. Can I explain it to the soul that has never tasted it? Nay: it must be tasted in those moments of deep, deep need, which nothing can meet but the revelation of His character and nature as sovereign and absolute — but who chooses to act in that sovereignty, and absoluteness in mercy, and not in judgment.

From the moment that Moses saw that strange sight — the Bush burning with fire, and which was not consumed, at the back side of the desert; until the waters gushed out of the Rock at Rephidim — all was a pure stream of grace. This grace-history is taken up, even going back to the Patriarchs, in Psalm 105, and the Psalm recounts what “He” did for them: it runs on to the Smitten Rock, and there it stops. But when we turn to Psalm 106 we find the mercy-history — and it recounts what “They “had done. What then is the burden of the Psalm? “O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever!” “Moses, his chosen, stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them”; and He “repented according to the multitude of his mercies.”

Do Israel’s songs ever recount His grace? Ah no; it was too late after the golden calf was made. Too late after grace was abused and thrown back in His face, as it was, and Law was hopelessly broken. What has been the burden of their songs in the past; as well as those for the time to come? Their burden and theme is mercy for evermore!

What an absence of this “mercy” do we find in those chapters of Romans (1-8) which unfolds the relations of our souls with God, by grace through righteousness!

But if we turn to the next three chapters (Rom. 9-11) all is mercy, for Israel is in view! Yet the last does not close without shutting up all, Jew and Gentile, in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all! “O the depth of the riches,” says the apostle, in the contemplation of His ways — past finding out, yet how blessed when revealed!

Look again at the fact, that in the church Epistles we find them addressed in grace and peace; but not mercy. Yet, when we come to the Epistles to individuals, mercy is added there. But in that of Jude, which gives the full tide of the corruption of Christendom surging on to judgment, we find “Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied”: and the saints are taught to look for the “mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life.” Why is this? because the grace, in which all were set, has been abused and outraged; and nothing remains but absolute and sovereign mercy for all!

“Who,” says Micah, “is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy!”

The soul of David, in singing the praises of the Lord for His lovingkindnesses and His tender mercies (Psa. 103), seeks to measure this mercy which so suited his case. “As the heaven,” sang he, “is high above the earth, so great is his mercy.” Still that does not reach it, for the soul that has tasted its heights and its depths. Again he essays, in the words, “as far as the east is from the west”; but it is infinite, and greater than the finite — great as it may be. At last he finds its only measure is the nature of Him who, “from everlasting to everlasting,” is God (Psa. 90). So His “mercy is... from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him” — who grasp His outstretched hand reached down into the abyss of sin, which none have ever grasped in vain.

Hear him again, who so learned its sweetness to his own soul: “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. O that men would praise the Lord for his mercy; and for his wonderful works to the children of men! Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the mercy of the Lord (Psa. 107).”

How blessed, too, in Ephesians 2, if “God, who is rich in mercy,” would act according to that deep spring in His being, He must do so in a manner becoming that mercy; and as “the angle of incidence is equal to that of refraction,” so, if He acts, in forming His church out of the materials we find in Ephesians 2, and from that deep spring, He will place those who have been reached by mercy, far above all heavens: above all principality and might and dominion, in Him in whom it is expressed!

Ah yes, beloved brethren, mercy and grace are never mixed up in the thoughts of God, as in ours. We do it to our deep loss indeed. Mercy was first really learned in scripture, when Moses “bowed his head and worshiped,” at the suited name and character and attribute of Him, who chose to act — not according to the insolence of sin in Israel; but according to His sovereignty in mercy.

May it, in all the depth and fullness of God, be my own and my readers’ portion, in Christ Himself forever! In Him, whose own blessed lips spake those words to those who hated Him: “But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners (Matt. 9:13).” Sacrifice was what they could do for God, and failed to do. But mercy was what He could, in spite of all, show to them. And again, “But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless (Matt. 12:7).” How sweet it is for the soul to rest thus in the Lord in His known nature and character, learned, too, in measure, through the deep needs of the soul, as a sinner as a failing saint. To have found that He delights in mercy, which He has revealed in His Son; and to be able to sing of Him — “O give thanks unto the God heaven: for his mercy endureth forever”!

The first “forty days,” then, of Moses on Mount Sinai, ended with a broken Law and a ruined people: the second with that blessed revelation of God’s attribute of mercy, which can never fail. There our souls can stay themselves in peace: whether as sinners needing and finding salvation in Christ; or as those who have outraged that loving grace of God, and have now no hope but in Him against whom we have sinned. In Him on whom we have no claim, but to count on that character on which we can cast ourselves unreservedly; to whom we may come as saints or sinners, for salvation for eternity; or pardon and deliverance under His righteous government in time for all in which we have exceeded. We can cast ourselves at His feet, asking nothing; suggesting nothing but resting on His nature — Himself, which so fully expresses itself in righteous consistency with Himself through the cross and work of His own beloved Son.

To Him and through Him be praise to God, both now and for evermore.)

Words of Faith, 1882, pp. 155-164.

Forty Days: 3. The Forthy Days' Searching of Canaan

The Book of Numbers has a very peculiar place and significance in the word of God. It is the Book of the Wilderness: of the journeying or itinerary of the children of Israel, after redemption was accomplished, and they had been brought out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, to go onwards and upwards to the Land of Canaan.

The wilderness way never was in the purpose of God for Israel, though it took forty years to accomplish it; just as your pathway here, as a saint, does not enter into the purpose of God for you. It is His place to test and try you, to see what is in your heart; to teach you lessons which could be learned in no other place. But God has not redeemed you for earth, but for heaven; not for this world, but for glory; this is His purpose.

You will notice here a very solemn thing. This journey, which took forty years to accomplish, was really a pathway of only eleven days. This we see from Deut. 1: “There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir, unto Kadesh Barnea...” Kadesh is on the very borders of the land, at the southeast extremity. But mark the next verse, “And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month,” &c. It was a short journey if taken direct, right into the land of promise; but through unbelief it took forty long weary years to accomplish it.

How long, may we not ask, would the journey have been, from the day that the Lord had ascended up on high, after He had risen from the dead, and sent the Holy Spirit to form the church of God, until He would return again, had she been faithful to His desire, “that they all may be one, that the world may believe”? (John 17). How soon all would have been gathered together, and the Lord have taken her home! But soon all was ruin — and God’s longsuffering waited ever since, in patience, to accomplish His purpose; and we ourselves are the fruit of man’s unfaithfulness and His delay.

Let us not be discouraged then because of evil: God is able to turn it all to blessing in His own way.

Now we know from 1 Corinthians 10:11, that “all these things happened unto them [Israel] for examples [types], and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” It is not that the people are the type; but the “things which happened unto them” a most important distinction.

We will now turn to some passages of scripture to show that the wilderness never entered into the purpose of God at all.

Let us look at Exodus 3, at “the section on the bush.” When God appeared to Moses by that strange sight, “A bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.” Israel was in the furnace of Egypt; therefore God will be in the bush burning with fire. He would identify Himself with His people — wherever they are, when about to deliver.

We find this purpose told us in the seventh verse concerning Israel: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.” How blessed to think that even when no cry was addressed to Him, He could say, “I have seen”; “I have heard”; “I know.” These touching words unfold to us three degrees of suffering and sorrow in His own. There is the outward sorrow that can be seen by others. This is the easiest to bear, and that in which often most sympathy is known from others. It may be with us a sickness, or some outward thing which may be recognized, and which others can share. Of this God says, “I have seen the affliction of my people.” There is a deeper sorrow than this, which may be expressed by a cry out of the depths of the heart to God. “I have heard their cry,” saith the Lord. It is a sorrow which can be put in words before Him, or before a sympathizing friend, and in which the heart often finds that friend’s sympathy, and God Himself hears the cry which expressed the agony. But there is a deeper sorrow still; a sorrow in which the kindest friend can have no share — the sorrow that eats away the heart, and could not be expressed in words, which, if it were possible to be expressed, had better be left untold; the unuttered sorrow of the anguished heart, which cannot even be told to God in words — the “groan which cannot be uttered.” Such can only be laid before Him in the silence of His presence, while the soul is sustained by those blessed, truly blessed words of His, “I know their sorrows.” What rest there is in these words! “I have seen” what could be seen; “I have heard” the cry that others may have heard; but “I know their sorrows” when no words could express them even to Me; how much less even to the friend or companion who might truly sympathize!

And “I am come down to deliver... and to bring them out of that land, unto a good land, and a large; a land flowing with milk and honey.” This, then, was His purpose. Not one word of the waste deserts which lay between.

When the Lawgiver comes (Ex. 6) to announce this purpose to them, he tells them, in those sevenfold “I wills “of the Lord:

“I will bring you out,”

“I will rid you out of their bondage,”

“I will redeem you,”

“I will take you to me,”

“I will be to you a God,”

“I will bring you into the land,”

“I will give it you for an heritage.” Here, again, no word of the wilderness is expressed. It was not His purpose.

Thus faith takes up this wondrous purpose in its song — the first we ever find in scripture — (Ex. 15): “Till the people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over which thou hast purchased. Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of shine inheritance.” Through the wilderness? No; not a word about it in the song of faith; for faith takes up God’s thoughts because He has revealed them.

So in Ephesians, we kind no time, no earth, no wilderness there. We are taken out of the depths of ruin, a set in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 2:6), without the pathway there at all. Like the robber on the cross beside the Lord: he is taken from the depths of degradation at once into the paradise of God with Christ!

Why, then, does the wilderness intervene? Why the pathway of sorrow and distress, unredeemed by a single feature of good in ourselves, as from ourselves? Why bring in that dreary journey where our failures are seen, and our hearts exposed?

The eighth chapter of Deuteronomy is the reply. It is a synopsis of the whole book that is before us. “And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee, these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart,” &c. There are two things God would always have us remember: “The day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt, all the days of thy life” (Deut. 16:3), and “all the way” they passed through. Not an incident was to be forgotten; but all was turned to blessing by Him who alone could say it was “To do them good at the latter end” (Deut. 16:8).

It was the trying of their faith; and the testing of patience too; disclosing what was in the hearts of His redeemed. He knew it well, before they were tested; but they learned it, as we do, through those testings by the way. Bitter, too, are these lessons; humbling us to the dust, as they should do; but filling the heart with a deeper, fuller knowledge of Him who has redeemed us, and of what was ever in His heart the while.

The people of Israel are now at Kadesh Barnea, (Num. 13). They had gone the “eleven days”‘ journey, and were on the borders of the land of promise. There were its sunny plains, stretching out before their view — the garden of the Lord; that good land, which flowed with milk and honey. Their feet were almost treading upon their possessions; when in one short moment the prospect is clouded through unbelief!

These things are written for our admonition, that they may warn and instruct our souls. I speak to you who are Christians, who profess to believe in Him — the Christ of God. Many of you are true Christians; many, alas, only Christians in name, Christless Christians and lost. Yet all profess His name. This is the state of things that Christendom presents before the Lord. A place of privilege, yet a place of solemn responsibility as well.

They had all come out of Egypt: all seemed to be nearing the land of Canaan; yet thousands fell in the wilderness, and never got there at all. Why was this? The answer is ready: “So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief (Heb. 3:19).” “Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall, after the same example of unbelief (Heb. 4:11).” The people then were at Kadesh Barnea — just a step from the land — where every hope, and every promise could be fulfilled. Immediately the hitherto secret cloud of unbelief, not larger at first than a man’s hand, is seen growing black, and full of sorrow. It seemed so very wise; so like prudence and caution to send up men to spy out the land. It looked well, as it reads in Num. 13, and as if all was according to the mind of the Lord. He spake to Moses saying, “Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I have given unto the children of Israel.” This is most solemn. There is no secret spring seen in the opening of this chapter which would lead us to suppose anything was wrong.

Do we not find oftentimes the same kind of thing in our own histories? You do a thing; you seem fully to have the Lord’s mind and word for what you are then carrying out. I may meet you in six months’ time, and you will say to me, “It was all unbelief”! How solemn! How sad to discern that the Lord often permits a thing; yea, orders a thing “because of unbelief,” as He does here. The thermometer of faith had gone down: the bright first song of faith in Exodus 15, which seized God’s purpose, where faith, too, sets its seal to all that He had made known; all was gone now. Prudence and forethought were now the guiding principles; and all looked well for the moment. God then descended to their evil, and said to Moses, “Send thou men!”

Has God never done this with us, my brethren? Has He never met our desires where we were? and we thought it a good sign, and that all seemed according to His mind. Have we never discovered, after a while, that all was the fruit of unbelief?

See Moses, too, the meekest man that was in all the earth, how he was deceived; the very leader of the people of God. “And I said unto you, ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord our God doth give unto us. Behold the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee; go up and possess it... And ye came near and said unto me... we will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land &c.... And the saying pleased me well”! (Deut. 1) My brethren, faith never reasons. Faith does not trust God for the things that are difficult; but for the things that seem impossible! Do not say a thing is difficult, and therefore we must trust God about it, Say rather it is impossible, and therefore we will trust Him.

The people’s faith, then, had gone down, and the Lord directs them to send the spies. Nay, it seems as if the Lord desired it so to be. Nay, alas, He permits it. How often have we gone on our knees and pleaded with God for things; and how did it turn out? He gave us our request and sent leanness into our souls. Have not lives been spared at the pleadings of His saints, individually or collectively, which have been the bitter sorrow of after years? Have not ways of life been sought to find our daily bread withal, and have been given to us too; which afterward broke our hearts with the sorrows they entailed? How fearful we grow as we advance in life, lest we should ask anything from Him but the right thing — that which is according to His own will.

Words of Faith, 1882, pp. 201-206.

Mark the end of this cloud of unbelief — no bigger that day than a man’s hand; mark where the fruit of that day placed Israel, and where they still are seen. We read, “Yea, they... believed not his word; but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord. Therefore he lifted up his hand against them, to overthrow them in the wilderness: to overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands (Psa. 106:24-27).” Indeed, we might take a pencil and write across the pages of the Book of Numbers, “According unto your faith, be it unto you.” This is the motto of the book. Each one got according to what faith or unbelief counted on. Moses says, “I am not able to bear all this people alone — and the unbelieving word had scarcely passed his lips, when God says: “Gather me seventy men of the elders of Israel! (Num. 11:14, 16). Israel says: “Would God we had died in this wilderness.” In the same chapter we read, “As truly as I live, as ye have spoken in mine ears so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness” (Num. 14:2, 28, 29). “Who shall give us flesh to eat?” was the cry of lusting Israel (Num. 11:18). “The Lord shall give you flesh to eat,” was the reply of Moses. But what was the result, “He gave them their request, but sent leanness to their souls.” What a comment on that whole chapter (11) is the word of James! (1:15). Lust had conceived; it had brought forth sin, and sin when finished had brought forth death, as Kibroth Hataavah solemnly witnessed.

Caleb, in the splendid language of faith, cried out, “Let us go up at once and possess it [that is, the land]; for we are well able to overcome it;” and God took him, too, at his word, and said as it were, “You shall have the land!” And Joshua: If the Lord delight in us then he will bring us into this land, and give it us.

Beautiful language of faith — so fully answered in his own words at the end: “Ye know in all your hearts, and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you: all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof (Josh. 23:14).” The twelve men are then appointed to search the land. They go through it in the length and in the breadth of it. They see its beauty and fertility; its streams and springs, its mountains and its valleys. Full forty days did they journey through it, kept by the hand of God. No son of Anak molested them; no enemy barred their way. They cut down the cluster of grapes at Eshcol, with the pomegranates and the figs; and they returned to their brethren “from searching of the land after forty days!”

Now hear their report. The land is good, say they, and God’s word as to it is true; all agree as to this, all agreed, too, as to the difficulties, and the obstacles, and the enemies that were there. Caleb cries, “Let us go up at once, and possess it.” To this Joshua agrees in the next chapter: “If the Lord delight in us, he will bring us in.” But ten men of the spies now give an evil report of it: “We be not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we!” The horizon was clouded by unbelief and the fear of man, and in one moment God was forgotten. His strength was not measured against the sons of Anak, but their own; and in very deed they were but grasshoppers in their own sight, as they were also in the sight of Anak’s sons — “for they are stronger than we.”

Ah, beloved reader, have you never seen this? Have you never seen a soul in a divine position, rejoicing there before the Lord, seeking, too, to bring others into the same blessedness? Perhaps that soul has got away from the Lord, and you meet it again in a short time, and hear it speaking evil of the place so recently the boast of its lips. Can we not recall the tendency of our own hearts to do so, even without openly avowing it? We are disappointed with the place where God has brought us, when faith has lost sight of Him.

Look at these spies; at one moment delighting in the land of promise, the next, condemning it, from first to last, as the difficulties rose before their eyes. Mark, too, the two witnesses for God — Caleb and Joshua. How lovely is the meaning of Caleb’s name — “all heart” — the man who followed the Lord fully. (Of Joshua I do not speak, for he is more the type of a heavenly Christ, who leads His people into the possession of all.) He (Caleb) took the scales of the sanctuary in the hand of faith; and in the one scale he put the children of Anak, and all the power of the enemy, and the cities walled up to heaven; in the other scale he placed the promise of the living God. The scale he held did not hesitate in the beam; the single word of Jehovah outweighed them all. “We shall be,” said he, “more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

Yes, beloved brethren, Numbers is the testing and total failure of man walking in the wilderness under the government of God; yet God preserving two witnesses for Himself, of that energy which counts on God with undimmed faith, and runs the whole way through, to the very end. All fail but they: Moses fails; Aaron fails; the people fail; yet God brings in the little ones whom they said would be a prey. He takes care of and glorifies Himself in weakness, as that in which His strength is perfected; for His power is made perfect in weakness itself.

We find, then, the first thing Israel does is to speak evil of what God gives them; and next, they speak evil of Himself: “Wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.” Caleb and Joshua seek to cast the people back on God’s heart, but hopeless unbelief had thoroughly set in. The Lord then speaks of smiting and disinheriting them; and Moses pleads that “mercy” — his resource which never failed. The Lord answered, “I have pardoned according to thy word” (Num. 14:20). Then He sentences the people, and commends Caleb: “Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers; neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: but my servant, Caleb, because he hath another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.” Thus, then, runs the sentence of the Lord: “Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me; doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years; and ye shall know my breach of promise.”

They had waited for “forty days” for human testimony, and when they had received it, they believed it not; nor had they believed the testimony of God. Fit testimony to the world and its character through which we pass. Man does not trust God, nor trust his fellow. Ask yourselves — is it not so? We have a lock on our door; a bank in which to put our money; a policeman to guard it. No man naturally trusts his fellow, and the last thing he does is to trust God, and this only when grace had taught him that he had nothing else that will avail.

Forty years’ wandering was the result of the unbelief of a moment, and to the sin which flowed from it. How often is a life marred, and a forty years of sorrow prefaced and introduced by one moment of sin and unbelief. It may be a sin had been committed, so secret that no eye had ever seen it but God’s alone. Yet it leaves its scar, though His pardon has been known. Does it not so, my reader? Are there any scars left in your own soul? Have you never seen a life marred for every act of service and usefulness for God, which had been prefaced by one act of unbelief, which led to some secret or open sin?

Beware, then, of unbelief. It shut Israel out of Canaan; take care that it shuts not you out of heaven! “The fearful and the unbelieving shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.” How many will turn out, by-and-by, not to be believers at all, though making a good profession now!

The ten spies were judged for their sin. Israel, repentant, say, We will go up, we will obey; we plead His promise; we will confess our sin. What more, we might say, than these, then, could they do? “And they rose up early, and get them to the top of the mount” — and they do these things. But “Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the Lord? But it shall not prosper. Go not up, for the Lord is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies. For the Amalekites [mark it well, beloved, this had been the reason of unbelief not to go when the Lord had commanded] and the Canaanites are there before you; and ye shall fall by the sword; because ye are turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up unto the hill-top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not out of the camp. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah [destruction].” We must accept and bow to God’s government when He has so ordained, and take the consequences of our sin.

We turn now to another man — the man of “another spirit” — Caleb, the man with an undivided heart. These two men (Joshua and he) went right into the land of Canaan, and passed through it for forty days: then they came back, and traversed the desert the whole forty years. Did it not seem hard that such should be to those faithful men? To have to bear the consequences of the sins of others, if they had not shared in them? Nay, they would not have been without the journey; they learned wondrous things of the God of Israel by the way. They saw the rod of Aaron budded, and blossomed, and fruitful. They saw the judgment on Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; the brazen serpent too. And they walked with God all through the way, and at the end they had an “abundant entrance” ministered unto them into the glorious land!

If we turn to Josh. 14, where Caleb’s history is referred to, we read, “Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenezite, said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God, concerning me and thee in Kadesh-Barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-Barnea to spy out the land; and I brought word again, as it was in my heart [ this man of an undivided heart; and] I wholly followed the Lord my God.” When a man can stand up before his fellows of forty years, and say this, he is entitled to our belief. None could say it without fear of contradiction, were it not true. It is not often a man can testify of himself; when he can, I believe him! And Moses testifies, too, of him, and said (vs. 9), “Thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God.” The Lord, too, had said of him (Num. 14:24), “My servant, Caleb... hath followed me fully,” and now Joshua, at the end: “And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, Hebron for an inheritance... because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.” Four precious testimonies of that single-hearted man.

Would you like to be a Caleb, my reader; or to be of that great multitude whose carcases fell in the wilderness? Can you put yourself with that man in spirit and say, “From henceforth we will live, not unto ourselves, but unto Him who died for us, and rose again”? “From henceforth”: how often have these words been but the purpose of an hour, and then have passed away. We want more of “another spirit,” like Caleb. “We have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God,” my brethren; and those two spirits are in full opposition, each claiming the allegiance of our souls.

If we turn for a moment to 1 Chron. 2:18-55, we find how God carries out the promise that his seed should inherit the land. We may have passed over this chapter as a dry list of names, and never have seen any of the divine principles that even such can teach us. We find here the genealogy of Caleb traced onwards, till we read at the end, “These are the Kenites (compare Judg. 1:16) that came of Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab.” We find their descendants still in the possession of their portion, in the words of one of the last prophets of Israel — Jeremiah. If you turn to Jer. 25, you will find how the Rechabites would not forfeit the vow that their father had put upon them. They were the descendants of this very man, who wholly followed the Lord God of Israel; and in the very end we read, “Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before me (said the Lord) forever!” Such is God’s reward of faith; and His faithfulness to a faithful, undivided heart.

Words of Faith, 1882, pp. 234-240.

Forty Days: 4. Human Weakness and Divine Strength

We have in this scripture an episode in the history of one of God’s most remarkable servants. The place, too, where we find him had been the scene of several striking incidents, or at least that mountain range, of which this mount Horeb forms a part, in the history of Israel.

There was the scene of the burning bush, when Moses turned aside to see that great sight. There, too, Israel drank of the water from the rock at Rephidim; and discomfited Amalek and his hosts, with the edge of the sword. There Moses received the Law from Jehovah; and now we find the great prophet of the Lord fleeing in weakness to the same place, at the voice of a woman.

Elijah was a most remarkable man. He played, and will again play, a striking part in the history of Israel. He was one of those who were on the mount of transfiguration with Christ. He and Moses appeared with the Lord there. All had been, at different times and in different conditions, sustained for “forty days” without food. They, to be separate from nature and nature’s support, to be with the Lord: He, to be tempted of the devil. And both of them “spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” They passed in review, and spake of things, which in their natural life here they had not known. Moses — buried long before by the Lord upon mount Nebo; and Elijah, caught up to heaven without dying at all: yet both in that interval, up to the scene of the transfiguration, do not seem to have lost intelligence as to what had passed on earth, and the interests of Christ. What Moses on Pisgah did not know; and Elijah on Horeb, or on the banks of Jordan, never heard of in their day; Moses and Elias on the “Holy Mount” conversed about familiarly to their Master — namely, “His decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” Where was Jerusalem when Moses lived on earth? In the hands of the Canaanites. He never had been there. Perhaps it had not even that name, but was the “Jebus” of the Jebusites. Had God yet told man He would give His Son; or that He should die? Nay: yet all was familiar to them as they discoursed with Him.

In the chapter before us we see a pitiful sight; we find this remarkable servant of God fleeing away at the word of a woman. It was a time of ruin and apostasy in Israel. Solomon’s servant had rent the kingdom from Solomon’s son, and God had preserved two tribes to David’s house, in accordance with His promise to him. And now, under the seventh king of Israel — Ahab — when apostasy and ruin were complete, the Prophet of Fire was raised up; Elijah, the Tishbite, comes on the scene.

What do you suppose made him great? Was it the great deeds that made him famous in the eyes of men? Nay, when we turn to the New Testament we find the answer, in the divine comment on these things. God takes up the spring of everything: He passes by without comment all those actions that made him great in the eyes of the world. He says, “Elias was a man subject to like passion as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again and the heaven gave forth her fruit.” Here was the spring of inward communion with God that He owned. It was not the great outward acts of service; it was the secret exercises of heart in dependence on God, which felt for His honor and for Israel’s sin, expressed by his earnest prayers. James would say of this, “He prayed in prayer.” This, beloved readers, was what made him great in the sight of the Lord.

Let us see somewhat of what this man’s service was. We do not find anything of those secret exercises of soul in the seventeenth chapter of first Kings. It is the history of the care of God for His servant, whom He was training in secret for His great outward work in Israel. “And Elijah, the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” How true it is that perfect exercises of soul before God, lead to perfect calmness before men! What simple power was expressed in those words: yet not a power of man, but of God, in which the complete sense of God’s mind and God’s power had so absorbed the prophet’s thoughts that self, and all the wisdom of man, were absolutely forgotten. His inward springs of life were in communion with the Lord God of Israel; and he could stand forth at this terrible moment of apostasy, braving all the terrors of an apostate age, and speak thus.

Israel was worshiping Baal. Ahab, the son of Omri, had done evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. He had made a grove, and reared up an altar for Baal, in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. In his days Jericho, the city of the curse (Josh. 6:26), was rebuilt; and all was complete apostasy. In the face of all this, Elijah dares to stand forth for Jehovah, and speak those words to Ahab. Then he retires for fresh lessons for his own soul. The brook Cherith sustains his thirst for a time, and the ravens feed him there morning and evening. After a while the brook dries up, and God sends him to the widow of Zarephath. There he is sustained for a whole year: the widow’s cruse failed not; nor did the barrel of meal waste, until the time of judgment was past, and God sent rain upon the earth.

Thus was he trained in secret, and thus did he slowly but surely advance in the school of God, until greater things still were to be shown in Israel. These we find in chapter eighteen, when the apostasy of Israel is exposed.

Picture to yourselves this scene of solemn grandeur: On the one side Baal’s prophets — four hundred and fifty men; on the other side one solitary man standing for the true God of Israel. Elijah waits until all the incantations of Baal’s prophets had failed to bring forth a reply. Satan had beguiled his votaries into their delusions, and then forsook them — mocking them, as it were, in their extremity. Then God’s prophet raises his voice: “How long halt ye between two opinions? if Jehovah be God follow him, but if Baal follow him.” He had proposed that the God who would answer by fire would prove himself to be the true God. Baal’s prophets had cried aloud, and cut themselves with knives until the blood came; but Baal answered not. Elijah lifts up his dependent and prayerful voice to the Lord, and at the time of the evening sacrifice, the answer comes. The Lord sends the fire from heaven and consumes the sacrifice, the people fall on their faces when they behold, and answer, “Jehovah, he is the God; Jehovah, he is the God!” Israel confess Jehovah once more; Baal’s power is destroyed (for the time). Final judgment is executed on his worshipers and three years of judgment have passed away. Again Elijah is on his knees before God. He gets him to the top of Carmel to prayer; while Ahab gets him to eat and to drink. Elijah casts himself to the earth with his face between his knees in prayer. The answer, at first a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, comes, but soon the fruitful rains (type of the “latter rain “when Israel is restored) fall, proving the goodness of the Lord.

This was great outward service — “turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the Just,” as it were; yet with all this there was much to be corrected in the heart of Elijah. His outward service of power had taken him away from his inward communion with God. So when Israel returns to his apostasy and Ahab to his sin, he finds all in failure again, and instead of standing before the Lord God of Israel he flees away from his work, which had exalted him in the eyes of men, at the threat of the wicked Jezebel.

This is what we have constantly to discover in our own history. A man is never nearer failure than when he has done well! This is to be observed much, and guarded against. We must learn, too, that if we serve outwardly before men, we must preserve the inner life of communion with God, or all will be but failure and shame.

Now, at the very moment when Elijah ought to have been most particularly at his post, and have trusted the same God that had been his strength in times gone by, in the flood of evil, he flees in cowardice from his duty; he murmurs against God, and said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers!” In his misanthropic spirit and wounded pride, he abandoned even his fellow-men — leaving his servant at Beer-sheba. And in bitterness of soul, more bitter than the juniper tree that overshadowed him, he lays him down, and requested for himself (mark, for himself) to die! Because he cannot be all he wished to be, and retain his importance in the eyes of men; because self was uppermost, even in this devoted servant’s mind.

Elijah; God can do without you; but you cannot do without God! And God must teach you this, as He will teach us all!

Mark his word — “I am not better than my fathers!’ Do you believe a man who says this? I do not! When a man stands up and says this, I believe he thinks that he is a great deal better than others, but that he is not appreciated as he should be! Even God does not appreciate him enough is the thought of his heart, though he might not express it in so many words.

Elijah is overpowered by the poor effort of nature in fleeing away: he sleeps under the bitter shrub; and what do we find? A loving God watching over His servant while he sleeps; preparing food for his wearied body; carrying a cruse of water to slake his thirst; and then awaking him by the angel’s touch, saying, “Arise and eat!” Still filled with self, he does what he is told, and lies down again. Again, the second time, the angel of the Lord came and touched him, saying tenderly, “Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.” Surely it was! though it was but “a day’s journey” (compare verse 4), taken without dependence on God!

Was there ever a moment he deserved this tender care less than now? and yet it was now God Himself directly — not even by a raven, or by a widow’s cruse — who now cared for him. This is touchingly lovely. Have I, have you, my reader, if you are His servant, ever experienced this? Have you found that at moments when you only deserved to be cast out, as man would do; or even your brethren might do; then God’s care, God’s ministry both to soul and body were the more conspicuous? Blessed, ever blessed God! He alone is worthy.

But God had his soul in view, and He was about to convince him of his sin, of his human weakness and frailty; but before He does this, He will convince him of His own unchanging love.

God never gives a man up! Let him be a successful man, and he will command the respect of others: others will crowd after him. The moment he fails — even in measure, his fellows will give him up; they will search and find, if possible, ten thousand things against him that never would have been questioned before. Not so God. He will rebuke, and chastise, and train His servants, and use them too; but He never gives them up. Aye, He will use them too, sooner or later, to do the very things they assayed to do in their own strength, and in which they failed. But first they must learn that power is of God, and that it only works in their weakness.

Look at this man at another day, on the mount of transfiguration with Christ, and hear the prophet Malachi as to the service he will yet accomplish before the end: “Behold I will send Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord (Mal. 4).” He will accomplish yet what he assayed to do in the day of Ahab, but which was but a type of the end!

Elijah was thus in the desert solitude in the bitterness of his soul. One day’s journey had been too much for him, as taken in his own strength, and he laid himself down, and wished for death, to end his misery. He wakens to his sorrow, to find a gracious and loving God seeking to break his heart by His perfect goodness. But his heart is not yet reached. Like many, he took God’s tender care as a matter of course. Alas, how many do this! How many murmur at the least sorrow or cross that comes, and never dream of counting up the ten thousand mercies of each day and hour! Alas! there are others, too, who are spoiled by blessings, or what they deem such; their hearts are taken away from God by the very blessing His hand bestows. Blessings are always a hindrance when they do not lead the heart to the Blesser Himself. How much more frequently a sorrow does this, rather than a blessing! In the sorrow the soul is softened, and turns to God. “At the second time he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God.” At length, when these “forty days” are over, he is found in the cave lodged there. God’s eye had been on him in his wanderings in the desert for those forty days, and now His eye is on him in the cave at Horeb. His object is to break that proud and petulant spirit, to destroy that self, which so hindered His servant — yea took him away from his work. He is about to send him back to other work, but He must deal with Elijah first; so He sustains him in that “forty days and forty nights” by the meat of His own providing, to bring him to His own true “end,” which is “very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”

Elijah had but little confidence in the virtues of other people. This is a had sign; it is a worse sign even when you find people lose confidence, too, in God about His people. It has been well said, “Confidence in the virtues of another is no slight proof of your own!” How much more when confidence in God about His own is there! Now Elijah had not a bit of confidence in Israel, and, as a consequence, he had lost confidence in God about His people too. The word of the Lord reaches him in the cave: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” There were two things in that question: first, reproof from God; and, secondly, a recall to his duties which had been forsaken. Elijah answers in what the Spirit of God calls his “intercession against Israel” (Rom. 11:2). “I have been jealous for the Lord God of Hosts.” Now this is striking indeed. When he was in the flush of faith and nearness to God, at the opening of his career, he could turn to the wicked Ahab, and say, “As the Lord, God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand.” But this was now forgotten. “The Lord God of sabaoth” is substituted in his mind and soul for “the Lord God of Israel.” This is most instructive. “I [oh, that selfish “I”] have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down shine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” He is commanded to go forth, and to stand upon the mount before the Lord; and we find those manifestations of power, with which Elijah was so familiar, pass by him: first, the “strong wind”; then the “earthquake”; then the “fire”; but the Lord was in none of these. These manifestations were not God Himself. It was this the prophet wanted (needed) — to be brought into His presence. His conscience and God needed to be brought together.

At last a “still small voice” is heard by him; his soul is touched; God and his conscience are now face to face, and Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle. At the cave’s mouth again, with his face hidden in his robe, the voice came to him the second time: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” This question must be answered ere all is accomplished in his soul’s present lesson. He replies, as before, “I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts; because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down shine altars, and slain thy prophets [had it ever crossed his mind that he had just been throwing down altars, and slaying prophets, himself?] with the sword; and I, even I, only am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” Thus far to justify himself at the expense of others.

Now the Lord replies — taking no notice of that self-justifying spirit, but sending him back to his work again — in the words, “Go, return”; he was to anoint Hazael, and Jehu, and Elisha, the son of Shaphet, of Abel-meholah. But now come the lovely, upbraiding, instructive, corrective words of the Lord — “Yet have I reserved to myself seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” How worthy of God is all this! First, sending him back to do further work in Israel; and then, disclosing what his heart had never discovered, the true godly ones of that day, who had refrained from evil when all others had been carried away. Yes, even those whom God owned, who had no outward appearance before others, but characterized by the “not” of that solemn day of evil; whom God noticed and valued, when Elijah knew them not.

How sweet is all this! to find that in a day of deep declension God owns and values the abstention of those who, though not outwardly witnesses for Him as Elijah was, had, in separation of soul and heart to Him, not done what others had done against His name. They had, so to say, “kept his word, and not denied his name,” and God would say of them, “I know their works,” though others know them not.

Elijah had never discovered those faithful souls; too much occupied with self and great acts of power, his heart and spirit had got away from the Lord until now. Now self was reached, and, without a rebuking word, he is sent back to his duty, and the blessed news told him that God had His remnant then, and they had loved His name, and not denied it, in a day of total apostasy and ruin: Elijah had never known of them till now.

Broken to pieces, he learned now what human weakness is, and what divine strength can accomplish working in the weakness of man. To this he yielded himself without a faltering spirit, until the day when he was rapt to heaven in the chariot of fire — a suited exit for a servant such as he. From heaven he returned to stand before the gaze of Peter, James, and John, with his Lord and Moses His servant, in the holy mount; and he will return, ere His people are restored, to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord (Mal. 4:5, 6).” John the Baptist came “in the spirit and power of Elias,” when the Lord first came to Israel. Israel refused her Messiah, but for faith John was he: “If ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come.” He was such for the faith of the few who attached themselves to Christ. But Elias himself will come, and do what he could not do before. The Lord will then “take away the names of Baalim out of Israel’s mouth, and they shall be no more remembered by their name (Hos. 2).” May we learn, then, some lessons of our own weakness, and of the strength of God, from the glance we have taken of the history of that remarkable man, and of his “forty days” journey from Beersheba to Horeb, the mount of God.

Words of Faith, 1882, pp. 269-278.

Forty Days: 5. Repentance and Forgiveness

“The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.

“Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.

“And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey; and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

“So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

“Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

“And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not (Jonah 3).”

“And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation.

The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here (Luke 11:29, 30, 32).”

Before entering on my present subject, I would note how the well-spring of God’s living grace rises up, and bursts forth at times, and under circumstances, even when the dispensation is dealing with other things. In the OT, grace was not flowing out dispensationally, as now, to the Gentiles — “to all men everywhere.” Yet God was God; and His grace is seen here, in sending a mission to the Gentiles, even in those days of dealing with Israel alone, “of all the nations of the earth.” It was a bright foretaste of the overflowings of His heart, to be fully made known when Jesus had accomplished His work on the cross, when God’s heart was free to flow forth in grace through righteousness.

Now it would appear that Jonah really understood, in some measure, this truth: God had sent him on a special mission to the Gentile city of Nineveh. He was to go and announce the judgment of God against it. God had said, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me (Jonah 1:2).” But Jonah feared that if he announced this judgment, and that the people repented, God would forgive and spare them; and thus his self-importance would be compromised. And so Jonah fled to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

Now let us look for a moment at Nineveh. At this time of the earth’s history it was the greatest city in the world. It was “an exceeding great city of three days’ journey,” that is, it was about twenty miles across: far larger than London. It was one of those enormous cities of ancient days, whose ruins, when discovered, seem almost fabulous to behold. It was the Capital of the Assyrian Empire: surrounded by walls, we are told, one hundred feet in height; with twelve hundred towers. All the “entourage” of Eastern splendor was there. It stood alone in its greatness — a city that seemed to be unconquerable. But its sins cried aloud to God for Judgment.

The striking narrative of Jonah himself unfolds God’s preparation of His messenger for this mission; the discipline, too, through which He passes him, until the vessel is prepared according to His mind, and ready to His hand. First, he flees by ship from God, to escape this duty; then the storm overtakes him, finding him asleep in the ship: the cry of the mariners awakes him; the lot singles Jonah out as the man for whose sake the storm was sent. Conscience now convicts him, owning that he is the man. The sea receives him. The fish swallows him up: and in the “Belly of Hell (Sheol),” as he calls his prison house, he passes through those deep and agonizing exercises of soul, detailed in chapter 2, until he owns that “salvation “was “of the Lord,” and then only does he stand on the dry ground — a man prepared for his work.

In all this he was eminently a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sign, too, that would be given to the Jews, as the Lord told them. A sign that would be no use for them — as they should have received a living Messiah. A dead and risen Savior, who would go away to the Gentiles; it would be too late for them to know when they had slain Him. Of course I thus look upon them as the people of God. Individuals He would bless at any time.

Jonah then goes his way. He enters Nineveh, a day’s journey”; and he proclaims the solemn message, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” This was the “preaching of Jonas.” Doubtless he told them his own strange history: a more striking text could hardly have been chosen. A man just emerging from a living tomb, and standing now on the ground of resurrection in figure, could vouch in himself for the truth of what God had done.

It will not be out of place here to say a word on the great truth of repentance. I trust it is becoming more generally known in its real meaning and power than hitherto; but still I feel there are many who are quite astray on this all-important subject. I say “all-important,” because you will find that it is one of the great leading doctrines of the New Testament.

The disciples when they went forth, being sent by the Lord, “preached that men should repent” (Mark 6:12). The Lord Himself, when John was cast into prison, came to Galilee, and preached “the gospel of the kingdom of God,” saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”

When He sent His disciples forth, after His resurrection, His commission to them was — “That repentance and remission of sins, should be preached in his name. among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24).” Paul, too, announces, amidst the learning and heathenism of Athens, how God “now commandeth all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30).

“Repentance,” then, is an integral part of the gospel on man’s side, while “forgiveness” belongs to God, and is accorded by Him to every repentant soul.

Some, doubtless finding it such an important element, have lost the balance of the divine meaning of it, and, supposing it to be a prefatory preparation towards the reception of forgiveness, have construed it into a certain amount of meritorious sorrow for sin; which, when sufficient, is met by forgiveness from God. Others have taken different views, but it is not my purpose to enter now upon what it is not; but in some measure to illustrate what it is, the Lord so guiding me.

Jonah’s preaching to Nineveh affords a most instructive and striking illustration of its true meaning: for “they repented at the preaching of Jonas.”

Now suppose he had gone to Nineveh and said to that great city, “Repent”; as one might suppose a case even now of a man going to the center of Africa and calling upon the heathen there to “Repent” — what would be thought of such? Nay; the first thing Jonah presented to the Ninevites was a certain truth from God, well calculated to inspire great searchings of heart amongst them. He announces God’s judgment being, as we might say, at the doors. Now what was the effect of this? The very first initiatory effect was, that the announcement was received in faith; and we read, “So the men of Nineveh believed God.” Here faith at once in the testimony was seen. This was necessary in order to produce what so eminently shone in these people — true full, and godly repentance: both as to the past, in the present, and for the time to come.

1st. They put them on sackcloth for the past.

2nd. They amended their ways in the present.

3rd. They purposed a turning from their sins for the future.

Here was true repentance, and this even before they knew anything of God’s forgiving grace. Up to this they only hope in God, with the words, “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? (Jonah 3:9).” But let us remember that the first thing was — they “believed God.” Faith was the initial movement in their souls. And I am bold to say there never was true repentance yet, without this being the case. Get up what frames and feelings you may; let sorrow for sin be there as deep as you please; let the soul be prepared for all that is coming as well as possible — faith in God, or in something which He has revealed, must and ever does go before it. I do not say that the soul may yet have entered on peace; rather I would say I do not believe it has: nor has it got hold of forgiveness yet, but the tender root of faith in God and His word, has struck deeply into the heart of that man, which never can be eradicated.

Thus it was with Nineveh. The solemn sound of judgment had burst on their astonished ears from the lips of that strange preacher, and had sunk down on hearts, plowing up the way for that which sprang up at the same moment within — faith in God and His word. True repentance followed; and “God saw their works,” and the golden scepter of forgiveness was at once extended, and Nineveh was spared! Thus it is always. Let a soul be in the true attitude before God, and at once it is forgiven.

There is a passage in Mark 1:15, already alluded to, which may seem to contradict this, as may others also; but, when rightly seen, it will but confirm all we have said. It would seem, then, as if repentance preceded faith: the words are, “Repent ye, and believe the gospel.” But if we only cast our eyes on the preceding clause, we read, Jesus came... saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” This presentation of something from God — no matter what He uses — produced a work in the soul; faith was there in that word, and such would bring repentance most surely, and belief in the glad tidings, as well as the sad tidings that had first moved their souls, that they were unfit for that kingdom of God.

What magnificent and soul-stirring results we find here from that “one day’s” journey and “preaching of Jonah”! Picture to yourself the king leaving his throne, and, doffing his royal robes, covering himself with sackcloth and sitting in ashes. His courtiers, too, and his people, with their wives and little children — perhaps six hundred thousand souls (for there were, even of that great number, one hundred and twenty thousand who were not able to discern their right hand from their left) “much cattle,” too — all partaking of the soul-humblings of that mighty City.

“One day” was enough for them. What a contrast to the thousands now-a-days who hear, year after year, the message of grace, and never yet have bowed down in true repentance before the Lord!

What does God use now to produce that work in the souls of men? Judgment was what sounded in the ears of Nineveh, and still judgment forms a part of the gospel testimony. It is still the dark background of the picture; while the presentation of Christ, of the “goodness of God” now, “leads” the soul to “repentance.” (See Rom. 2:4.) A loving God beseeches men to be reconciled to Him (2 Cor. 5:20), while dark and solemn judgment to come looms over the scene as the terrible alternative if men do not hear. “Despisest thou,” says the apostle, “the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” — leads them to that blessed spot where forgiveness is found by a truly repentant heart. Like the woman of the city of old, she was drawn to Him “by the cords of a man, by the bands of love.” True faith in Him had taken root in her soul (Luke 7), and led her to His feet, to shed those tears of self-judgment for her ten thousand sins; this was true repentance, ere she was forgiven. When there her soul was ready for all the rest which was so freely bestowed: “Thy sins be forgiven thee”; “Thy faith hath saved thee”; “Go in peace,” were the blessed words that greeted her ear. The root of repentance and forgiveness was faith, while the fruit of faith was love, and then she learned His whole heart.

Mark how different was the thought in the heart of the king of Nineveh, compared with the certainty of the gospel day, “Who can tell,” said he, “if God will turn and repent”? Now-a-days there is no “Who can tell” in the clear trumpet-sound of grace. “Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more” is now the word. We say, “Well, I forgive that man, but I cannot forget.” With God it is more than this; He remembers our iniquities no more!

Alas, poor Jonah! he was right about God, but it touched the self-importance of the man. God found them bowed to the earth in true repentance, and at once, as always, His forgiveness is extended to souls in such a state. “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my own country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth thee of the evil.

“Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live (Jonah 4:1-3).” Oh the heart of man, what it is! angry and sore displeased because God would not justify his words, and destroy a repentant city! Nay, the soul that would think thus has much to learn of His infinite and tender mercy. Poor messenger of judgment! you could be angry at God sparing the ten thousands of Nineveh but Jesus can, and does, rejoice over one repentant sinner. “Rejoice with me,” is the Savior’s word, “for I have found the sheep that I had lost.” “It was meet,” says the Father, “that we should make merry, and be glad; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found.”

Repentance, then, is that solemn judgment which I form of, and consciously pronounce about, myself in hearing a testimony from the Lord. I must believe something ere I could possibly repent. It may be that judgment has aroused my conscience; it may be that His goodness has drawn out my heart towards Him; but one thing is certain —faith in that something is there, and by faith the soul lives before God. Faith is the spring of life, the life of Jesus in the soul. That life may express itself in agonizing exercises for a time, but it is a proof that the soul is not dead, but lives. It is judging itself in view of the divine requirements; weighing itself in the balances, and finding itself wanting. The work of repentance, or self-judgment, proceeds, and the deeper the better. This leads to the spot where, hopeless in itself, it turns away, in despair of amendment, and finds its all in Christ. Forgiveness is now known and enjoyed as the result of Christ’s work alone, and the work of repentance was only leading the soul to the place and condition where forgiveness is applied — namely, where we have believed somewhat of our own hopeless ruin in our own sight, as hitherto in the sight of God.

Words of Faith, 1882, pp. 287-294.

Forty Days: 6. Conflict and Victory

“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.

“And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

“Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

“Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

“Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him (Matt. 4:1-11).

“And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

“And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

“And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them; for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

“And Jesus answered and said unto him, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

“And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

“And Jesus, answering, said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

“And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season (Luke 4:1-13).” We may recall very easily another scene that was enacted about a thousand years before this (of which we have two detailed accounts given by two of the writers of the Gospels); the former happened in the valley of Elah, as narrated in 1 Samuel 17. David — then a stripling, and just about to enter on his public service in the reign of Saul — had come down from his father’s house to the aid of his brethren and the people of God, who were trembling in terror at the power of the Philistines. Goliath, their champion, had challenged them each day for forty days, when David arrived on the scene. At once he is rejected by his brethren, and then entered into the conflict alone — a conflict, of which the issue was complete victory for the armies of God, and deliverance for His people, at that day.

It was but a shadow, forecasting that greater conflict of the greater than David, who came from His Father’s house to re-open that great question, commenced four thousand years before in Paradise, between man and Satan, and to show what the true “Man after God’s own heart” could do in the presence of the foe. It was but a faint type, but it points, as all things did in God’s hand, to Jesus.

If we examine these two accounts of the temptation of Christ, we find that He not only enters on this scene and conflict to prove His right as the Second man, the Lord from heaven, in all that in which the first man had failed; but He begins that wondrous course of education — if I may so say — in which He learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and suffered, being tempted, that He might be able to speak a word in season unto him that is weary, and that He might succor them also which are tempted; thus practically fitted to be a merciful and faithful High Priest for us.

We are not told what passed in those “forty days and forty nights.” God has drawn a veil over that solemn conflict. But we are allowed to see its close — “all the temptation” being finished.

We may note the difference in the order in which the temptations are spoken of in the two Gospels. This, like everything n the word of God, is of importance, and has its significance. In the account in Matthew, the order is this: you have His obedience tested first, then His dependence. These are the two characteristics of the new man — Christ in us-of which He was the grand and blessed exemplar. Then to this obedient and dependent One are presented all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and He triumphs over the enemy and all his toils.

In the Gospel of Luke I think another lesson is presented to us. Here we have the trinity of evil which came in in Paradise when our first parents fell. “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life,” then entered this fair scene: “when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.” This, then, is the order here. In verse 3, &c., we have the lust of the flesh; in verse 5, the lust of the eye; and in verse 9, &c., the pride of life. And at the close, we find that when the “devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.” Then, at the close of His course, He said to His disciples, at the end of John 14, on His way to the garden of Gethsemane, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” This was the second time the tempter was permitted to cross His path. At the beginning he sought to seduce Him from His path of obedience, and then to deter Him from being the Victim in making atonement at the end. This was the time when He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood in His agony, when accepting the cup from His Father’s hand.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, which unfolds the Priesthood and work of the blessed Lord, we find those two scenes alluded to separately and distinctly. In Hebrews 4:15, the Spirit of God specially refers to the close of the forty days’ temptations at the opening of His public service, in the words, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities: but was in all points tempted like as we, except sin (χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας);” and in Hebrews 5:5 we have the other scene at the close of His life: “who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.” In the scene of Gethsemane, in Matthew, we find those prayers, supplications, and strong crying and tears referred to in verses 39, 42, and 44, His “prayer” deepening to “supplication,” and His “supplication” to “strong crying and tears,” to be answered fully on the morning of resurrection, and to be dried up forever when He entered upon His heavenly joy and glory.

But when we contrast those words which describe His sorrow with those which describe the heart of the tried saint, in Philippians 4, instead of “prayer and supplication, with strong crying and tears,” as with Him, He has taken the sting out of every bitter sorrow for His own, and with them it is “prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving.” He has borne our sins — not one remains. He has tasted our sorrows — not one is without His sympathy. In life and in death, and in life for evermore, He is our perfect High Priest and Savior!

Over those “forty days”‘ temptations God has drawn a veil. “Afterward [mark the word] he hungered.” Note now the wisdom of the foe. We shall always find that the tempter adapts the temptation to our present state. With Christ it was ever perfection. He hungered; but this was not sin; there was nothing evil in being an hungered. Still, the temptation was suited to His then state by this father of lies.

Is not this the case with us? Does not the tempter know how to suit his temptation to our present state? Does he not know what is suited to move our lusts — to seduce us out of the path of obedience? Does he not know the love of the world in our hearts? — the ambition of another — the pride of a third — the vanity of another? Does he not see the covetousness of that heart — the lust working in this? Does not the tempter know how to draw each one away of his own lust, and entice such? There is a poor man struggling with the world and his children’s need. The tempter tempts him to be discontented with his lot. There is a godly woman with a bad husband. She is tempted to impatience with her life of sorrow. There is that rich man who hoards his money. He has been often deceived, he thinks, in giving it away. There is a corner of his heart over which “covetous” may be written. He gives way to the temptation to close his purse-strings, and the tempter has his victory.

I might go on in this strain; but all who read these words know well how the thing that suited the “old man, which is corrupt,” within them, has been ministered to by the tempter, and how, perhaps unknown to themselves, they have fallen his prey for the moment. I say “for the moment,” for I speak of those who are open to his devices — saints of God with the flesh in them. The poor child of Adam is often left alone by the tempter; he is his sure and certain prey, and needs no special watchful care from the enemy of Christ. With him, his course seems in Satan’s highway, and unless grace turns his heart there is no need; his own heart and his own lusts, and the world around, answer well enough for him.

But Jesus “hungered.” This was the will of God Could it happen without such? Nay. “Command that these stones be made bread,” suggested the tempter. “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God,” had passed the lips of the Eternal Son, and now on earth He will obey. Have we never satisfied our hunger, our need, at the expense of the word of God? Look at our daily life, reader; does it not cut home deeply into every motive of our life and ways? Our needs, too, each day, are they ever satisfied independently of God? Alas, for the reply, even from the lips and hearts of the brightest saints! How “Christ” detects our souls, yet, blessed be His name, forms us after the image of Himself who thus lays us bare. Jesus came to be the subject One, the will-less Man (though divinely entitled to have a will, surely). To “command,” then, was not for Him who came to show us how to obey. To command the winds and waves was His, when in obedience to His Father and God. To command for self and His need could never be, for “self “was never there! To obey was all with Him in a scene formed by man under Satan’s power, independently of God. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” No word had passed His “mouth” to “make stones bread” to satisfy hunger, apart from His will. Thus was the tempter stripped of his power; obedience to the word of God left him a conquered foe, and Christ was victor by obedience over man’s mighty conqueror.

We have a nature capable of being drawn aside, and an ever watchful enemy ready with his temptations. Christ had not this; but still, whether for Him or for us, obedience is victory. We never can be in a single circumstance where we cannot — nay, are not bound — to do the will of God, be that what it may. Thus we may ever be conquerors, as He was here. But let us ever remember that it is the state of soul in which we are to which the tempter presents his wile, adapting it to that which is uppermost at the moment in our heart; and each moment of each day and hour is the opportunity for his defeat or victory. If the latter, the soul may be restored, but the scar remains, telling us of a moment’s defeat in us, and of a victory of the enemy.

Now mark what ensues. The skillful general does not continue to attack the point where he has been repulsed successfully, he changes his mode, and turns the flank of his foe. How rapidly, too, is this accomplished by the successful tempter. How well the human heart is known. How frequently have those who have resisted well in his attacks fallen, forgetful that they were never nearer a fall than when they had resisted well.

In the case of Jesus how sudden was the change. “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, &c.”

So with us: one thing is tried, and we resist, and foil the foe; the next moment we fail where we least expected to have done so. Our success was thought to be our own. We ceased to be dependent, and withdrew our eyes from Him who withdraweth not His eyes from us; and thus, and only thus, we fall. A heart distrustful of itself, which ever looks to Him, He succors with His timely help to keep us from a fall.

Will Jesus, too, be a dependent One, and teach us so? The tempter says — using, as it were, the word of God, by which He lived, that to which He had appealed as His guide, and the director of His life — he says, “If thou be Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” The promise of God to His Messiah who dwelt in the secret of the Most High, and lodged under the shadow of Abrahams God, who had made Jehovah His refuge and fortress; His God, in whom He would trust. It was to Him this promise was made, just quoted by the enemy. But mark the word which accompanied this promise; how God, as it were, delighted to unite with His promise the dependent heart of this blessed One, which only brought out His deep perfections. “Because thou hast made the Lord my refuge, even the Most High thy habitation.” This was the dependence of Jesus; this, what drew forth the promise of the Lord just quoted by the enemy. He had made His God His refuge and His trust: no need, then, to try would He be as good as He had said — no need to test One fully trusted. We put the test to those we do not fully trust, not to those we do. To do so, would be but to “tempt the Lord.” Satan sought to inspire Him with confidence in the word of God in spite of disobedience. He quotes the promised security, omitting the required trust. Jesus quotes that word to Israel which made the obedience the ground of His security, and kept His blessings as the dependent Man!

Oh, my reader, have we no word in this for our own souls? Have the promises of our God been clung to, and even rejoiced in, by us when walking in disobedience? Have we never beheld this in those we love and esteem as His own? What He has done for them in salvation trusted in and enjoyed; while a disobedient pathway speaks so plainly as to need no word from us to point it out? In this, too, Jesus was the blessed Conqueror — in this the enemy of souls was foiled.

“Again” (vs. 8). What, “Again!” Yes, my reader, and “again,” and onwards to the end. No truce here in this path for us, no time here is allowed to put off the armor of God, even for a moment. “Again,” then, all the glory of the world is presented to Him whose own it is, but refused by Him from any hand but from His Fathers. The distant time might have been shortened, the path of suffering spared, the cross and shame avoided. But this was not to be. The Giver was valued in His gift, and the Son chose to have it alone from His Fathers hand. Let the blessing come only from Him, and all would be well. The malignant foe is discomfited, and Jesus stands at the close of this conflict a Victor! “Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve,” closes the scene.

Satan departs from Him “for a season,” and angels came and ministered unto Him. Mark, this striking scene. How it reminds one of that final day of victory which ushers in the millennial glory: “The kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” stretched out beneath His gaze; then all His own. Satan cast into the bottomless pit for the thousand years restraint; God’s unfallen creatures ministering to their true and only Lord with willing hearts and hands. It only wanted His own blood-bought ones, His church, to complete the scene. But the day is coming fast when she, too, will be there, and when Satan, as lightning, will fall from heaven, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of the Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.

There is a calm for human hearts, too, which conquer in temptation even now — a holy sense of deep dependence and of joy felt by those who have resisted, in the strength of Christ, the tempters power. The angels who ministered to those who shall inherit salvation may thus be employed even now. But the day is approaching when every trial of our faith will come forth as gold tried in the fire, and be found unto His praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

Would not the Lord, too, as He looked across that scene of sin, and sorrow, and evil which stretched before His view, as Satan was cast down before Him — the obedient and dependent Man — would He not think of all who then were His; and all who would come after, for whom He had thus learned what it was to “suffer, being tempted,” and how to speak a “word in season” to every weary heart? This, too, ere He descended to traverse that path which led only to His cross and shame.

But remember, dear friends, that, while the tempter thinks of your state of soul, and suits his temptations to your desires, there is Another, too, who thinks of us, who “ever liveth to make intercession for us,” One who has been in conflict and in victory, and thus has shown us how to obey, and how to conquer too. We have to do with a beaten foe, and to be sustained by his Conqueror. But this must ever be as dependent ones, who, like Himself, should “learn obedience by things which we suffer.” He learned as One to whom to obey was a new thing — new, for One who commanded all from eternity. We learn obedience, too, as a new thing as well as He, but new to us in another way; new, because God’s will is now taking its place in hearts hitherto opposed in will to Him, but taking its place surely, though it may be slowly, in hearts renewed by grace, to which the deepest joy will be, that His will shall flow in unhindered blessedness in that scene of rest, from our restless wills, when God will rest in His love forever.

Words of Faith, 1882, pp. 308-318.

Forty Days: 7. Redemption and Glory

“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen. To whom also he showed Himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, ye have heard of me: for John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence.

“When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

“And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power; but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

“And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

“And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner, as ye have seen him go into heaven (Acts 1:1-11). “

The last of these striking periods of “Forty days” is now before us, and suitably concludes the series which scripture presents, and which we have in measure received. The opening of the passage above, from Acts 1 begins with a risen Savior in the midst of His disciples, and closes with an opened heaven; and a Man, who having accomplished redemption, passes from the earth into the glory of God. The interval between the resurrection of Christ, until He went on high, was “forty days.” In the opening of His ministry there was the period of “forty days” of His conflict and victory, in the temptations in the wilderness. In the close there was the other “forty days” characterized by accomplished redemption and glory. (We may here recall that there were also two periods of “forty days “in the ministry of His servant Moses. The first, when he returned from Mount Sinai with the tables of the law, which he broke before he entered the camp of revolted Israel. And the second, when he returned — his face reflecting the mercy of Jehovah — to place them unbroken, eventually, in the Ark of the Lord.) There is thus a certain analogy lying between the two. But in the first period the Lord came down after His conflict with the Tempter, with His title made good by obedience, as a Jew, to the land of Israel (Deut. 8; Matt. 4). And as the second Man before God, His Messiah blessings also secured by His full answer to the dependence depicted of Him in Psalm 91; and much more indeed. Then in the second “forty days” He went on high after having made atonement, and borne the curse of the law, to begin a new service, then, in the glory.

The blessed Lord, too, as well as His servant, had His “seven days” of preface to these “forty days” — that solemn work after His entry into Jerusalem; His passion and His atoning death; His tomb, and His resurrection.

It needed but three days to establish the fact of His death; forty were needed to do so as to His resurrection. “Jesus” had been revealed, and proclaimed on earth. His “resurrection” was to be coupled with that theme. These two things were the grand subject now. “Jesus and Resurrection” — His Person, and His victory over death, were to meet all the need of man, and display the power and glory of God. God had intervened, when man in weakness as a sinner, and Man in grace in Jesus had met, and when the enemy’s power could go no further, and had wrought a new thing, against which the “gates of hades” could not prevail: Christ had died and risen again: He had emerged from the tomb, into that new sphere where Satan could no more reach, or man defile. The Conqueror of death — His mighty work was done: naught now remained but to enter upon its results on high, and make good its power in all who bow to that Name, and mighty victory.

Resurrection was but little taught in the OT scriptures. Enough, that it had been spoken of, and hoped for — vaguely it is true, still it was there. But when that mighty triumph of God had entered the scene and the Son of David was declared “Son of God in power by resurrection of dead [ones],” either in those He had raised to human life again, or in His own (Rom. 1:5), then it was the constant theme of His Spirit by His chosen witnesses; and the New Testament is lighted with the glories of resurrection. If Satan had his ready tools, to oppose Himself in life and ways on earth, in the Pharisee, full of his superstition, and his tradition, which made void the word of God; he had his fresh tools ready to his hand, when Jesus rose, to oppose His resurrection, which was the triumph of God over all that under which man had fallen, in the infidel, freethinking Sadducee.

But not merely was the resurrection of Jesus, and the resurrection of His people, and of those who had died in their sins — “both the just and the unjust” to be the preaching now, when the Lord had gone on high, but a resurrection, not of — but from the dead was to be the theme. One, of which Jesus was the “firstfruits,” from among the dead. No small wonder was it when the disciples heard for the first time of this, and “questioned one with another what rising [not “the rising”] from among the dead should mean” (Mark 9”9, 10), a resurrection which taking place for some, would leave the mass of men behind, who had died in their sins.

The resurrection was the divine proof of the accomplished mission and work of the Son of God. It was the foundation on which all was now to rest. “If Christ be not raised your faith is vain,” said the apostle, “you are yet in your sins.” “Yea,” he continues, “and we are found false witnesses of God, because we testified of God that he raised up Christ; whom he raised not up if the dead rise not” (1 Cor. 15). Satan, in the last days too, would seek to deny this, and find fresh instruments to say, “The resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some” (2 Tim. 2).

These “forty days,” then, were used of God to bring out, by the most incontestable proofs, the great and stupendous fact that Christ was risen. Without that, all the testimony was, we may say, worthless: with it, all would flow easily, and as a consequence. The disciples themselves were but slow to believe it: they looked upon the story of it as “idle tales, and believed it not”; Jesus, as it were, forces it upon their acceptance, in the most tender and gracious way, till every heart was convinced; and all were made bright and living witnesses of this new thing. He appeared to them in various ways, and at various moments, about twelve times, during those “forty days.” He did not seek to convince them by miracles; for there was but one enacted while He remained on earth: if indeed everything He did was not a miracle (compare John 20;21). But He took up His pledges given in His lifetime, and made them good in resurrection. What as a ministering Christ He had promised, as a risen Christ He performed. “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you,” said the Lord, when He would assure their hearts and say, “It is I myself: handle me and see.” He would eat, too, before them, assuring them that He who had been their human yet divine Companion, was still the same. Yet not the same, for since He had left them, and they had fled from Him in His hour of need, He had made peace with God, and the proof that it was made was a risen Savior in their midst — its first and blessed Preacher!

Let us look now at some of these appearings of the Lord to His disciples after His resurrection. The most touching one, and full of blessed teaching for our souls, is that to Mary the Magdalen. We find how the risen Christ is the answer to every condition of soul. Is there an ignorant but devoted heart? The risen Jesus will meet it in fullest sympathy and instruction. Is there one who has denied His Lord, when he had the opportunity of confessing Him? The risen Savior will restore. Are there ignorant ones, whose hearts are under the power of unbelief, and false hopes as to their own aggrandizement? He will correct and instruct and reveal Himself afresh, and fill their souls with joy; proving thus to each and all how truly he would meet every heart, with suited and needed instruction.

See this in Mary of Magdala. She was one who proves to us that the Lord does not teach us through the intelligence merely (while using it), but teaches us through the conscience or the affections. How often has that verse in John 14 (vs. 21) been used amiss! Have we never thought His meaning was that all His own have His commandments, and they that love Him keep them, and thus show their affection? Nay. Let us be clear in this — that all His people, alas! have not His commands. They live too far from Him; their affections are not stirred in love to Jesus. Does this not challenge our hearts, beloved? Nay, He means that, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, that is the one 5 that loveth me.” Yes, but the love to Him came first, and thus he received His commands! So it was with Mary. Her ignorance is plain to all; but so is her affection: that of a true heart which had lost its all, as she supposed, when Christ had died. The world was His tomb for her, and the shadow of death shrouded the scene. Angels may speak to her, she heeds them not. Others might go to their homes: she now had none. The night and the day were both alike to her. There was no dawn on her soul, for the Light of her life had been quenched, and all was darkness and tears. That heart loved Christ with deep, though ignorant affection. Once it had been the abode of seven devils; now it was the shrine of a crucified Savior. To such He will reveal Himself — the risen One: He will remove the sorrow, dry the tears, and make her a blessing to others, while blest herself. He would “bless her, and make her a blessing.” And He gives her His commands, for her own soul, and she kept them, and brought them to others that morning, and has done so ever since that day. The finest message that ever passed through mortal lips, first came through those of Mary! “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God (John 20:17).”

What awakening of hopes was here, which seemed buried forever, in His grave! What beams of resurrection flowed in upon her soul — taught through its deep affections. In that new sphere all His own were to stand on the same platform of resurrection with Himself: His Father, their Father; His God, their God.

Look, too, at those two poor ignorant disciples on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus (Luke 24), as they walked and were sad. They were full of reasoning among themselves as they communed together. This had to be rebuked and corrected; but their hearts were sad. This the risen One would meet and comfort. He would draw their eyes away from self and its earthly hopes, and fix them on Himself — His sufferings and His glory. He was now, though, ‘The hope of Israel, the Savior thereof in time of trouble,” but “a wayfaring man, that turneth aside to tarry for a night” (compare Lev. 14:8). They thought of themselves as yet, and not of Him and His glory; thus were their blessings hindered. They had built their earthly hopes on Him, and now He was gone; the cup was rudely dashed aside, and they were desolate, “We hoped that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel.” But the Author of scripture, and the Subject of scripture was there, beside them on the road, in the darkness of that night of their sorrow. He was there to make their hearts “burn within them by the way.” To create new hopes; impart fresh energy; unfold His glory; and make scripture tune with Christ Himself: “O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Would He send a message to His disciples that He was risen, and not think of one whose soul first wandered in self-trust and fallen — oh, how deeply; and forget to couple the name of “Peter” with that general message to all? To do so might be just: but He who had seen His poor servant’s bitter tears when no other eye beheld, and saw the right moment for a loving message to reach his heart, couples that name, which He Himself had given him, with the rest, in special recollection. A risen Savior meets and restores His warm-hearted, though erring disciple. Every heart is met; every ignorance instructed; every soul which erred restored, at the suited moment, in the suited way; and by those ways of grace which would be least known to each one personally. What splendid proofs were these, that “he himself” was there! Proofs which none could analyze for another. Such proofs that make us feel even now, in these poor cold days, that we still have to do with Him and He with us, by ways which are known best and only by him who has received them yet all tended to one great point Jesus the Lord is risen!

When this resurrection is, “by many infallible proofs,” made known, then comes His mission as the risen One (not yet the ascended One) to His disciples. In Acts 1:6 at the close of those “Forty Days, the disciples asked the Lord, if He would at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He replied that it was not for them to know the times and the seasons: such were for the earth and Israel, not for heaven and a heavenly company. “The Father” had such times and seasons in His own power: they would receive the power of the Holy Spirit in “not many days”; and they would be His witnesses — witnesses of a Christ risen from among the dead.

But now mark well the force of His reply. When He, in His incarnate days, was presenting the kingdom to Israel, and when sending forth the twelve on this behalf, He said, in detailing their mission in Matthew 10, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles; and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Here was the extent of this mission of former days. Strictly confined to the “lost sheep” of “Israel.” But all this had been refused. Israel’s day was past, and Zion had refused her King. The old enactment ceased then when Israel “would not.”

The barriers were thus broken down; the cross of a malefactor being the answer of Israel, to Him in grace, when they exclaimed, “We have no king but Caesar.”

As in enacting fresh decrees a nation must repeal the old, which only suited another day, so the Lord, it might be said, repeals the mission of former days: His heart is free now to go beyond the narrow circle of Israel. He was then “the minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers”; now He would inaugurate a new thing whereby the “Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy,” and yet still as Israel was now on sinner’s ground, not withdraw the hand of mercy from them.

He was now passing out to the Mount of Olives amongst His disciples; leading them out to the spot where He would say His last farewell on earth As His footfall grew lighter, and as the moment for Him to be received up drew nigh, He turns to them with those words, which repeal their old mission, and extend it on its fresh basis from the risen Savior: “Ye shall be my witnesses,” said He, “both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

As the stone, dropped into the peaceful waters, sends ripple after ripple from the spot where first it entered, till they are lost in the expanse around; so does this mission, now begun in Himself, extend with its waves and ripples of mercy, embracing the world of sinners within its ever-increasing circles!

Jerusalem had been the scene of His death and shame, there they should begin, where faith was dead and a lifeless form.

Samaria lay beyond that once-holy spot, with a faith corrupted for centuries: half heathen, half Jewish in its forms and its Gerizim.

The “uttermost part of the earth” had no faith at all! but lay in all its heathen darkness under the “veil of covering” upon all its peoples.

But whether for Jerusalem with her dead faith, or Samaria with her corrupt faith, or the uttermost part of the earth where no faith was, a risen Savior would be their testimony and meet it all! And thus they went forth in the “Acts of the Apostles”; those three concentric circles gradually unfolding themselves before us in the Book. For it is worthy of note that they divide the Book in a remarkable way. “Jerusalem” was the center of testimony from the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) until she refused finally the “sure mercies of David” when Stephen yielded up his spirit to the Lord. Then came “Samaria” with Philip and Peter and John. And lastly the scene enlarged to the “uttermost part of the earth “through the great apostle to the Gentiles, and those who companied with him (see Acts 2-7, 8, 9-22). God Himself had been revealed; His grace made known. Therefore He could not now confine His dealings to the “smallest nation under heaven,” as in the day of His testing man. The cross had broken down the “middle wall of partition” on earth; it had opened up the way for God to man, and man to God, through a veil rent from top to bottom; and thus the breadth of His ways should now take in all in its scope and aspect. All “had sinned” and are “come short of his glory,” and His glory was then the measure of the grace of His salvation. What a message to a world of sinners! None were left out: His parting words declare it. His heart was unchanged, and only more deeply and fully revealed through the revolted heart of man; and thus His heart, in grace, is still turned towards man, until that day comes when “This same Jesus “will come again to “judge the world in righteousness.” Thus He blest them, and in that attitude, with uplifted hands, He passed to His glory; and they returned to Jerusalem to begin their task, “praising and blessing God.”

We have now come to the close of our meditations on those “Forty days.” May the Lord in His good mercy apply some sweet lesson, to the hearts of His own beloved people, from what we have reviewed; and lead our souls into deeper, fuller communion with Him, of whom all scripture speaks, separating us more distinctly to Himself in these our days of weakness; and preparing our souls by that education which He knows so well how to apply, while we “look for his Son from heaven,” “even Jesus, who hath delivered us from the wrath to come.”

Words of Faith, 1883, pp. 9-18.

Is the Christian in Adam or in Christ? and What Is the Result of This as Regards His Standing and Walk?

A deeply important question strikes the thoughtful Christian mind at the present day, when words are multiplied without knowledge — a question which affects the whole tone and character of Christian practice, and the steady, solid peace of the soul. The question is, Is his standing before God in the first or the second (last) Adam?

Is he in the first Adam, responsible before God since he chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the error of his way, and was driven out from the presence of the Lord God, the ruined head of a lost world, his access in such a state, cut off forever from the tree of life, death his portion here and the second death his end? Or is he in the second (last) Adam (who entered, in divine grace and love, into the place of responsibility, death, sin-bearing, and judgment, in which he lay, but who has passed out of that state, risen, ascended, glorified, seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, head of the new creation of God), and is he made partaker, as born of Him, of a risen life, justified, sanctified, and waiting to be glorified?

Deeply important questions these, not only for individual peace of soul, but for walk and practice before God. May the gracious Lord vouchsafe His own guidance and teaching while we endeavor to answer these questions according to His truth and for His own glory.

In Romans 5:12-21 we find these two great fountains, or heads of nature and of faith, contrasted. And the effect of the acts of Adam and Christ upon the two families, namely, that which ranges itself under the headship of the first Adam, and that which ranges itself under the Second. The question of sin and its results —death, and of grace and its results —life and righteousness towards each family, is discussed. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned... But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more, the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many... For if by one offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by one offense upon all men to condemnation, even as by one righteousness upon all men to justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” Thus the effect of the transgression of Adam was not confined to himself but passed upon all his posterity, constituting them sinners before God. Even so Christ’s one accomplished act of righteousness and obedience, which reached unto death, the death of the cross, was not confined in effect with Himself, but flows to many, constituting them righteous before God. And as Adam, fallen and driven out from the presence of God, entered upon the headship of the family of nature, after his disobedience unto death; even so, Christ, enters upon the Headship of the family of faith, the new creation of God, after His one accomplished act of obedience unto death, the death of the cross.

Let us now look at the first of these. We turn to Genesis 3, and there we find Adam created in innocence, set in the garden of Eden, an earthly paradise, surrounded with blessing and good; and in this paradise there were two trees, the tree of life and the tree of responsibility (of knowledge of good and evil). He was left there to maintain himself in a position and in a condition in which he had been placed. He had access to the tree of life, but had no promise. He had simply to enjoy what God had given Him, and own the Giver in His gifts which surrounded him. He was given to understand that he had no further responsibility than to observe the command of God, to abstain from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, failing which, death would be the effect and consequence of his breach of the command. This was the measure of his responsibility. He had no position to attain to or object to gain by his obedience to the command. Alive in a certain condition, and observing it, he maintained himself in that condition. He was not told to “Do this and live”; but, alive in the position God had placed him in, he was to retain it by doing as commanded, and so enjoy all the blessings of his position. Satan now comes upon the scene. He suggests the thought to his mind that God was withholding the richest blessing in prohibiting him to eat of the tree of responsibility; that His love was not such a love as he supposed; and, moreover, that God had not been truthful as to the result He had placed before him; for that, instead of death, God knew that they would become as God’s, “knowing good and evil.” Man’s heart, already turned away from God, opened itself to these suggestions — doubted the love that was thus withholding the best blessing from him — despised the truth, and offended the majesty of God, and aspired to be a god himself, knowing good and evil. Satan thus obtained the place in his mind that God should have had. Adam’s heart — turned away from God — readily hearkened to the suggestions of Satan and fell! He thus constituted God the judge by his fall. If God had judged His creature before this, He would have been judging Himself; for He had made man after His own image and likeness and had pronounced His work “very good.” This was His judgment upon His own workmanship when it came forth from His hands. But when Adam transgressed, he constituted God a judge, and obtained the knowledge of good and evil — good, without the power to accomplish it; and evil, without the power to avoid it. His conscience, thus obtained, told him that he had made God his judge; for when the voice of the Lord God was heard in the garden, the man and his wife felt that the covering they had made to hide their nakedness, and which had, perhaps, satisfied them for the time, was no covering when God spoke. So when challenged by God he says, “I was afraid, because I was naked.” Conscience awoke under the voice of God, and thus drove Adam to hide amongst the trees of the garden. The knowledge he had obtained when he fell had no power to make him draw near to God, but rather drove him from His presence. It was the sense of responsibility, united to the knowledge of good and evil. And so we find that God “drove out the man,” cutting off his access to the tree of life. It was a blessing and a mercy, in such a condition as that which he now had attained; access to the tree of life would only have perpetuated a life of misery and separation from God and good. The man and his wife pass out from the presence of God with a knowledge they can never unlearn, and with a nature that never can be innocent again. We cannot return to innocence, and we never can unlearn the knowledge of good and evil. Nor can we ever return to paradise again, such as that from which Adam was driven. The man and his wife, thus driven out, become the root and head of a lost world. Their sin does not stop in effect with themselves; but condemnation passes upon the whole race, which is driven out from the presence of God in them. Death is their portion in this world. Judgment, the second death, the lake of fire is the end. In the judgment-resurrection (Rev. 20) we find the two things brought on the scene again, the principle of the two trees —life and responsibility. The book of life is opened, and the books, I doubt not, of their responsibility. They are judged out of those things which are written in the books, according to their works, “and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

Let us now look upon the Second. We turn to Luke 4, and there we find the last Adam — Christ. Instead of a garden eastward in Eden, surrounded with every good, as we saw at the beginning, we find Him led of the Spirit into the wilderness, and there He is confronted by Satan, who had succeeded in gaining the ear of the first Adam. Satan and Christ, then, stood face to face. The proof was there to undo Satan’s lie at the first, that God was withholding the best gifts in prohibiting to the man access to the tree of responsibility; for Christ, the Son of the Father, was there! The Son had come to prove God’s love as a Giver; and the Son, who was the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of His person, had renounced everything, and humbled Himself — took upon Himself a bondsman’s form — to vindicate the outraged majesty of God — outraged by the first man, who had aspired to be a god. Confronted by the enemy, He stood in His inheritance, and found it in Satan’s hands. “The devil... showed him all the kingdoms of the world. and the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it (Luke 4:5-6),” defiled by sin, and in ruins. Had He put forth His power as God, there would have been no conflict; it would then have been merely the question of God’s power, and that of a rebellious creature. But all the tempter’s wiles were put forth against the self-emptied, obedient man, who had come to obey, and to conquer by obedience where the other had failed; and not only so but in circumstances of trial and difficulty, where dependence and perfect subjection to the will of God were needed. By His obedience He bound the strong man who was in possession of His goods, and presented in the midst of a ruined, sin-defiled world, a perfect, spotless man to God. Satan then departed from Him for a season. He found nothing in Him to act upon, or by which he might draw Him aside. With a perfect will as man, He did not put forth His will; He waited upon the will of God; and by the words of His lips He kept Him from the paths of the destroyer (Psa. 17), and triumphed where the first man had fallen, and in the midst of the circumstances brought in by his fall.

But, again, and now at the close of His ministry — of His course through a sin-defiled world, Satan comes again. Had He picked up any of the defilement of the scene through which He had passed? Had the Lamb of God contracted a spot or a blemish to unfit Him for God’s altar? And were the terrors of death in the hands of Satan, and the horrors of the moment when the Father’s face, which had shined upon Him all the pathway through, would be alerted? When He would be forsaken, not only by those whom He loved, but also of God? Would all these be sufficient to turn Him aside from the path He had taken upon Himself to walk in? We follow Him to Gethsemane, at the close of the pathway through the world, and there we find the dependent, obedient Man again, meeting with “the prince of this world.” He had tried to allure Him from the pathway of obedience at the first; but here he tries his other power, which he had wielded so effectually in the hearts of men; and he tries by the terrors of the hour of darkness to drive Him out of the obedient place, but no! “the cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it?” He who was the Prince of life, and had a title to it personally, accepted the responsibility of His people inherited from the first Adam, that He might vindicate the truth of God, who had said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” For here we find those early principles of the garden again — life and responsibility. His presence in the world was the proof of the love of God. He had emptied Himself, as One who alone could do it, to vindicate the majesty of God. But there was His truth to vindicate as well, and we follow Him to His cross! There He offered to the righteousness of God a perfect, spotless victim; and He received from the righteousness of God the cup of wrath — the blow of divine judgment and wrath on account of sin. Spotless Himself, He was made sin on the cross. He could not be made sin otherwise than this. He stood there responsible for the glory of God on account of sin; and as the substitute for His people’s sins. Let us look at His cross. There the full evil of the heart of the first Adam, estranged from God, burst forth in its unmingled enmity against perfect good. The judge, into whose hands God had entrusted power and judgment, uses it to condemn the guiltless! Priests appointed to “have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way” (Heb. 5:2), set on their false witnesses, and plead against a righteous man, and urge on the multitude to clamor for the blood of One in whom no fault had been found. Disciples who had followed and leaned upon, and loved the Man who stood there, find the place too dangerous now. The most warm-hearted amongst them denies Him at the voice of a serving-maid — His “friend” betrays — the others forsake Him — and there He stands alone at the hour of the consummation of Adam’s wickedness! The cross of a rejected Christ exhibits the hatred of man’s heart against God and good. It displays ourselves by nature to ourselves. There we can read of what the heart of man, under every circumstance, is capable. It tells us of what we can be urged on by Satan to do under the plea of religion, loyalty, or what you will! But I follow on, and I find something more. I find God in judgment, and man in sin-bearing, face to face. The sword of divine judgment satisfying itself to the uttermost, and yet glorified in the sacrifice that presented itself to its demands. The cup of wrath wrung out and drunk to the dregs, and yet all the while the cry of conscious guiltlessness, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The truth of God — His majesty — love — holiness — every moral attribute, was displayed, vindicated, and glorified in the death of Christ!

We read in Luke 23 that there were crucified with Him two malefactors, the one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Let us pause for a moment and contemplate this scene. Around the cross of Jesus every expression of fallen man grouped itself; some “reaping the due reward for their deeds,” others mocking the Man who had professed His perfect trust in God, and yet, strange to say, who was there forsaken of Him. In Him we find the spotless Man who had “done nothing amiss.” He had renounced all that He might go down to the place of ruin in which the sinner lay. There the crucifiers and the crucified met, in the place of moral death and darkness that surrounded the cross. One amongst that company of fallen children of Adam was destined to be something more — to be the first trophy of the victory to be held up before the world as the spoils of the hour, snatched out of the hands of the enemy; one of the blaspheming malefactors who had joined with his comrades in railing upon the One who hung beside him, with no better a portion than himself. Before the scene closes, his convicted conscience confesses that he was only reaping the due reward for his deeds, but that the Sufferer between him and the other malefactor had “done nothing amiss.” Blessed position, the first step of faith; a convicted conscience consciously guilty, and a spotless Christ, met together in the same place of death and ruin; the one reaping what he had sowed, the other full of grace! The first step of faith, a convicted conscience, led to faith’s second step; it turned from the darkened scene within to light outside itself. Faith opened his eyes, “and turned them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Acts 26:18). “And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.” He had forgotten the cross, the pain, every surrounding circumstance in the scene; and instead of the darkness that hung around the cross to the children of Adam around, it was light to his soul, and in the far distant future he sees the Man who hung beside him, coming in His kingdom, and he merely asks to be remembered at that hour. Little did he anticipate the answer that awaited him. Place in the kingdom, perhaps a very lowly place, was his hope. “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” The veil of the temple was rent for his soul, and already he had passed into that Paradise of God with his Lord. Happy thief, thrice happy thief! The ruffian soldiers broke his legs, to be sure, to hasten his death, and to please religion in the world that was about to keep high Sabbath! But Christ had converted the gloomy portal, the entrance to the second death to the sons of Adam, into the entrance to the Paradise of God.

But the soul of Jesus had passed away meanwhile and the spear of the soldier is answered by the blood that expiates, and the water that cleanses. The responsibility was borne, and life and atonement come from a dead Christ. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:9,10).” Here we have the two things again life and responsibility: the one communicated, the other borne and atoned for. Life, when dead in trespasses and sins; propitiation, when responsible and guilty. The responsibility of the first Adam borne for His people, and the sin that attached to the responsibility put away. the whole scene cleansed of the first man and his belongings, and the Second man introduced into the glory of God.

They take His body down from the cross and lay it in a tomb in the garden. Let us contrast the two gardens — that of Genesis 3 with that of John 19. In the one was placed the first Adam, innocent, with access to the tree of life; but he chose the tree of responsibility, in the error of his way, and fell. In the other, lay He who had a right to the tree of life, but who had answered the responsibility in the dust of death. To the one, the garden eastward in Eden became the portals to a lost world, which ends in the lake of fire. To the other, the second garden becomes the portals for His people, not to Paradise regained, but to the Paradise of God.

The life was gone to which the responsibility attached, and the sin that accompanied the responsibility with the life — sins borne, sin put away, to the glory of God. Sin had constituted God a Judge at the beginning; to put away sin had also constituted Him a Savior. Adam’s sin had made God a Judge, but grace in presence of it made Him a Savior.

We have traced Him to the tomb, and God had been glorified in Him. The mercy-seat had been set forth and the blood had been sprinkled upon it; the claims of the throne had been answered as well as the end of the worshiper, and now God comes in and takes up the surety from among the dead, and seats Him at His own right band in heaven. In divine love He took the place of death and ruin in which the children of Adam, fallen, lay; and the righteousness of God takes up the Man in whom He had been glorified, and seats Him in heaven. “And God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:4-6).” Dead together — we in sin — He for sin — quickened together — made partakers of a risen, justified life, beyond the reach of death, sin, judgment, wrath everything (Christ having made satisfaction for all these, before He left the place of death), we are now one with Him in heaven. Dying for us on the cross we are one with Him in life, and “there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).” We are in the second (last) Adam, not in the first; in the Spirit, not in the flesh; under His headship. Responsibility was borne by Him in grace. Propitiation flows to us from the death of Christ, and His people are introduced into the new creation of God. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold all things are become new. And all thing are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:17, 18).” God has substituted His own righteousness and the person of the second (last) Adam for the sin and person of the first!

What now is the result of all this in practical life?

Before we answer this question, we must look back and ascertain what it was that applied to Adam, fallen, under the sentence of death. Man, alive and innocent in the garden, had but to retain the state or condition in which he had been placed; but to man fallen and driven out from God’s presence, with a conscience which he had received when he fell, is addressed the law, the requirement from God to him, a sinner, and which proposed life in the things of it, and gave him a rule to walk in, which would have been his righteousness if he observed it. In the law we find again the principle of the two trees, life and responsibility. It came in between Adam and Christ to propose the question, Had fallen man any righteousness for God? And it proposed “life in them,” upon the condition of man, thus responsible, fulfilling perfectly its requirements. His conscience tells him that he ought to fulfill all its demands; and he owns his responsibility to be all that it requires of him — to love God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself; that he should not lust, &c. Had it been addressed to Adam in the garden, it would have had no meaning whatsoever, for it proposed to give life whereas Adam had not forfeited life; and it prohibited lusts which had no existence. To man, fallen, alone has it any application. It prohibited lusts in a heart that was full of lust, and brought to light and defined the lusts of a heart that had departed from God. It found him a sinner, and instead of bringing life, as it proposed on man’s observing it, it brought death to his conscience, constituted him an offender, a transgressor; for “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” We read, “The law entered (that is, between Adam and Christ) that the offense might abound,” not sin, for sin was there. Consequently “death reigned from Adam to Moses,” by whom was given the law. It could not, therefore, give life, and as a result, it could not give righteousness; for “If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law” (Gal. 3:21). “It is not (therefore) made for a righteous man” (1 Tim. 1), but belongs to the first man, fallen and driven out from God, and has its direct application to none else.

What then is the guide for the practical life of the Christian, who has been made partaker of the risen justified life of the Second (last) Adam? The very essence of this flows from the fact that he has been brought to God in Christ, and placed in a new condition altogether in and by virtue of redemption. The life of the first man was forfeited; but Christ took the responsibility which belonged to His people, and bore it fully to God’s glory, when He went down into the place of death in which they lay as children of fallen Adam; and now life is come to them from the death of Christ, and their responsibility springs from the position in which they have been placed. As in earthly relationships, the responsibility of the child to his father flows from the relationship which exists — from the fact of his being a child; the wife’s to her husband, from the fact of the relationship she is in — that of being his wife. So the true Christian responsibility is founded on the existence of the relationship and the position he is in. Life has been communicated and he is before God, in the full light of His presence, in the Second Adam risen from the dead and gone up into the presence of God. It is the principle of real responsibility which sets him to act up to the place he is in, and to judge everything inconsistent with that place in his ways. It is not that he is to live up to what Adam, innocent, ought to have been; or to what the law required from fallen man; or according to the course of this world. But as dead to sin, dead to the world, dead to the law, in the body of Christ he is to let the life of Jesus be manifested in his body; to live the life that has been imparted to him, which was exhibited in Christ — a life that connects him with heaven, but is to be exercised in the world, and thus to bring forth fruit unto God. The law desired fallen Adam to love his neighbor as himself, and gave no higher standard or aim with regard to his neighbor than this. The new man has Christ for the measure of his walk and practice, and is not merely to love his neighbor as himself, but to renounce and surrender altogether, even as Christ did — “to lay down our lives for the brethren.” He is told to be an imitator of God, as a dear child, and to walk in love, having Christ for his example and standard; and abiding in Him, he ought so to walk even as He walked — surrendering self, life, everything for His enemies. Bible Treasury 5:316-320.

He Will Swallow Up Death in Victory

There would seem to be a difficulty from the position which the words “He will swallow up death in victory” occupy in the strain of the prophet Isaiah, which, containing many subjects, begins with chapter 13, and ends with chapter 27. But, as usual, every difficulty of Scripture serves only as an occasion to discover its perfection. The difficulty is that, according to the order in which the prophet brings the statement into his strain (Isa. 25:8), the event would seem to follow the great crash of universal judgment related in Isaiah 24, embracing, as it does, the world and all its systems, the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. Yet we know that St. Paul applies the passage to the resurrection of the Church, or first resurrection, embracing, of course, the saints of the OT days. This event we know happens previously to this crisis of judgment detailed in Isaiah 24, introductory of the kingdom — a clear proof, by the way, that the Church does not pass through the tribulation: her promise being that she would be kept from the hour of temptation which comes upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth (Rev. 3:10).

It would seem to mean that, in a general way, without giving the order of the events, the first resurrection would take place at such a time as that spoken of in the group of chapter 24-27, and without pointing out the order of the occurrences, or the moment of time for their fulfillment — a general thing with this prophet.

But the order is much more precise than this when we come to examine Revelation 20:4. We have there three classes of persons spoken of:

1st. Those who are received up when the Lord comes, that is, the OT saints and the Church.

2ndly. Those of the Jewish remnant who had been martyred under the 5th seal (Rev. 6:9), and

3rdly. Those who had not worshiped the beast, etc. The last two classes would, of course, lose their lives, and with their lives the earthly blessings of the kingdom about to be established; and they receive, instead, a heavenly blessing, and a place in the first resurrection, having loved not their lives unto death. All three classes enumerated compose the first resurrection, which, as we know, is not a period of time, but a class of persons, although not raised at the same moment of time but within a period extending from the taking up of the saints at the Lord’s coming (the rapture), and through the period of judgment which passes over the world, (the tribulation) and till the eve of the kingdom.

Now the last two classes not being raised at the same moment with the former, and being comprised especially of the slain remnant of the Jews, it is towards those the Prophet Isaiah has his attention specially directed, forming as they do the prominent subject in his burthen. Hence the order in which we find them in Isaiah 25, after the judgment of the world, and at the time when the Lord establishes His kingdom in Zion. This answers so beautifully to the word in Revelation 20:4, “They lived (this word applying especially to the two latter classes) and reigned with Christ a thousand years”; while the first mentioned class who raised previously to the time when the crisis or tribulation took place.

The mind of the Spirit in the prophet is chiefly occupied with these last mentioned classes, while Paul, who is the instrument used in the revelation of the higher and subsequently revealed truth of the Church, uses the same passage when speaking of the resurrection of the saints who compose it when Christ comes; the passage thus embracing all those of the first resurrection, and the order of resurrection of the Jewish prophet having in primary view the slain ones of the Jewish remnant who are raised last in order of time, and at the closing moment of the events related in Isaiah 24-27.

Bible Treasury 6:292, 293.

The Lord's Supper

For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake (it), and said, This is my body which (is) for you: this do for a remembrance of me. After the same manner he took the cup, when he had supped saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come (1 Cor. 11:23-26).

We have here the special marked and distinct revelation given to the apostle Paul of this blessed feast; and like all revelations to him, we find it differing from those given to the other apostles, in this grand feature, namely, that Christ in glory, a man in the glory of God, Head of His body the Church, is He who communicates it to him.

We also read in 1 Corinthians 10:16, 17. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread; and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” Here it receives a fresh character, unknown before Paul’s doctrine unfolded it, in that the Lord’s Supper — partaken of according to the divine thought — is the symbol of the unity of Christ’s mystical body, the Church; and the great outward center of the gathering together of the Church of God on earth. It expresses its unity as formed by the Holy Spirit: it is then in a special way that the Lord Himself and His presence in the Assembly are realized. It is that moral center, in view of which each member of Christ judges himself and his ways, that he may eat thereof “worthily” — in a manner suited to the holiness and truth of Him to whom he is united by the Holy Spirit given him. It is that great moral center with respect to which the partaking thereof or otherwise shows that the person is outwardly confessing and professing the reality of his portion in Christ. It is with respect to it that, in failing to judge himself and partake worthily thereof, the assembled saints must deal with the failing brother, and put him out from among themselves, as a “wicked person.” It is in view of it that, when the individual has failed to judge himself, and it has fallen to the responsibility of the assembled saints to do so; or when the assembled saints have failed (as at Corinth) to deal with what was unsuited to Christ and the table of the Lord, the Lord Himself had as over His own house, acted, removing some by death, and laid His chastening hand on others by sickness and weakness of body: for amongst them “many were weak and sickly and many slept” (1 Cor. 11).

It is in fact the great moral symbol and center outwardly and expressedly of the existence of the Church of God here below.

It is too, yet more blessedly, when partaken of in the power of an ungrieved Spirit, the most touching of all the “services of faith” of the people of the Lord: where the Lord is most sweetly realized as in the moment which God nor saint never can forget, when He gave Himself up for His glory and for our eternal salvation. The ministry of the gospel, from God’s heart to the world may be sweet to the soul. Souls are blessed, and the Spirit’s power is felt, and God is made known in a world that knows Him not. The ministry of Christ too for His saints, feeding them, and building them up, and producing worship in their hearts for all His unspeakable goodness, is touching to the soul, searching to the conscience, and freshness of love is shed abroad in the heart. All these and many more, are good and blessed; but at the Supper the soul and God meet as never otherwise: the heart of the saint and the sufferings of Christ Himself are together; His love is tasted; His perfections fed upon; in short the Lord himself is there in a way, that next to Heaven itself there is nothing like it here below. Man is not before us at such an hour. All this is put aside in the presence of a greater. It is indeed the gate of heaven, we may well say.

How we should therefore seek to get at God’s own mind about this feast. How we should seek to divest it from every thought and practice that mar the simple blessedness of what He — the Lord — has meant it to be to us. We shall sit down by and by at the marriage supper of the Lamb. We have no description of this scene. The Holy Spirit uses but one word to describe it, “Blessed” “Blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And He adds, “These are the true sayings of God.” But here at the “Lordly Supper,” (kuriakon deipnon) one sits down with others like himself, still in bodies of humiliation, though saved by grace, and made meet for glory, to feed afresh upon Christ in His death. The night when all the world was against Him, and God forsook him as well as His own who loved Him truly. When Satan’s power and glamor was over men’s souls, and Our perfect, blessed Savior passed through that night — His last with His disciples; and eat that paschal supper of which He speaks in those touching words, “With desire (“earnest yearning, longing,” as the word means) have I desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22). From that paschal feast, and the institution of His own Supper, He passes to His agony in the garden, where He receives from His Father’s hands His cup of sorrow. Bearing it (as it were) in His hands, and before He leaves the scene of His agony, He is betrayed by His “friend”: he who had eaten bread with Him; and lifted up his hand against Him. He passes onwards, and next He is denied with oaths by one who thought no power could make his love for his Master to fail. Then, after His “good confession,” He is mocked and arrayed in the scarlet robe and crown of thorns. From this He passes into other hands and is scourged and condemned. At last came the cross of a malefactor where He was numbered with the transgressors, and the things concerning Him had their end. Forsaken now of God, He enters the darkness of that scene, where no ray of light penetrated to relieve His soul; He cries to God at the hour of prayer — the “ninth hour,” and is “not heard.” What soul-depths were expressed in that unheard cry? But He who in view of all this, when instituting the feast, could twice “give thanks,” knew the light that was beyond it all, and the depths of that heart of God the Father, whose love He shared from past eternity.

These are some of the features which come before us as we remember Him. We could not “remember” one we knew not: we remember One we know. We know Him but in poor small measure: but it is the Lord who loves us we know, and we remember Him in the hour of His death and shame.

Now, although simplicity as to the line in which the Spirit of God would lead the gathered saints, in this “service of faith,” is what should characterize them; that is, in the remembrance of the Lord at that night of His betrayal, there is no special line of remembrance to be looked for prominently from the saints; still we must remember that “in the midst of the assembly (says the Lord) I will sing praise unto thee” (Heb. 2:12). We should therefore look for His presence most specially at such a time. But when Christ leads the praises of His own, we should not find many thoughts about our former state, or our deliverance therefrom through His word. It is Himself we are to remember, and all that this remembrance would embrace. I would dread much therefore to see souls thinking of their own blessing — their own side of things too muchapter It would seem to me that they have not come together with a true thought in their souls.

We know happily, that the “babes know the Father”: it is the spirit of adoption which characterizes them and they rejoice more in their own blessing than in Him, the Blesser. The fathers in Christ know Him. I am sure too, that in the Lord’s Supper we have every chord touched that every heart, blessed through Christ, can ever feel and rejoice in. No chord has ever been tuned in any heart which does not find its echo there, and while every soul who comes together to eat the Lord’s Supper is doubtless in a different spiritual state, the chords in each are divinely strung, and when Christ is before the soul they must yield harmony.

Just as the varied aspects of Christ in His perfect life, His death and sin-bearing, and all, are presented in the offerings (see Lev. 1-7), many offerings taken to make one blessed Christ. So in the Supper there is found that which meets the song of every heart even though the note struck may sound more of its own blessing.

Still I think true worship always has Him as its food and its object: “they worshiped Him.” He reveals and displays the Father, and where the Father is worshiped in the Son, the Son reveals Him: and the Father seeketh such to worship Him. When God is seen in Christ the Son, and the Father in Him, and the Spirit in us is free to unfold His things to us, there worship has its true and proper level, and He dwells now in the praises of His church, as before Jehovah dwelt in the praises of Israel.

So as of old we find that that which prefigured the communion of the church of God, (the peace- offering (1 Cor. 10:18)) came third in the order of the five offerings in Leviticus, to show us that the worship of the saints is grounded upon what Christ was to God as a burnt-offering and its meat-offering, which accompanied it, both of them offerings of sweet savor. They pointed to all that Christ was to God in His devotedness to death for God’s glory; bringing glory to His nature as to sin, in the place where sin was; and yielding Himself wholly up to God; this the burnt-offering typified. And this was accompanied by a meat offering, called “his meat offering.” (“The burnt offering and his meat offering.”) This was Christ’s person in its purity and grace, and was bloodless and not atoning, though it accompanied that which was. Even when the ashes of both were on the altar of burnt-offering, there, on those ashes, was the peace-offering (or its memorial) burnt ( see Lev. 3:5). The fourth and fifth offerings, that is, Sin-offering, and Trespass-offering, were what Christ was made for us — not what He was in Himself personally; and they come after the Peace or Communion offering (Lev. 3).

Has this no voice for us? Can we not see here that he who best can enter upon what Christ was to God as burnt-offering and meat-offering, in His sweet savor, can best sustain and lead the worship of the assembled saints — for he is on the true ground of the soul’s power of worship to the Father.

It is a cause of deep joy surely, and never to be forgotten, to know that Christ bore our sins, and brought us into this place of blessing; but it is not the prominent thought in praise. Was the prodigal thinking much of the far country, and his rags and misery, and the change that had come, when he ate the fatted calf with the father? His father’s heart and house and joy silenced him. It would have no kindred note in his father’s merriment, to have reminded him of the rags and the debt he owed his father: he must joy in his father’s joy, be that what it may (Luke 15). These and such like praises are those which Christ can sing and lead in the midst of His assembled saints. Could a soul uncertain of its salvation have a place at such a feast? Nay. In conscience and in faith we stand alone. But when seated with the Spirit, He leads our souls into communion with the Father and the Son. But all converted souls are not there. Surely not. Many souls are quickened but not at peace. The very life they have makes them feel their sins; feel their misery; but when they have believed, God seals them (Eph. 1:13), having done so with the Holy Spirit of promise. Until then they are not members of Christ, nor in union with Him, Head of His body in heavenly places. How needful then that it should be seen to, that the person has received the Holy Spirit since he believed (Acts 19).

The Supper therefore is for such only: members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. It is celebrated according to Scripture by such, as the expression of the unity of the whole body of Christ on earth. It must be spread, and the Lord’s Table be gathered, to express this. Tables of varied sects and parties in the professing church could not be owned as the “Table of the Lord.” They are not so. A sect or system in it has its own dogmas and rules, and creeds, and ministers — generally framed for the unconverted as well as the saved. Perhaps a human ministry is theirs, or some one person, who absorbs all the functions of the members of Christ’s body professedly in himself. The free action of the Spirit of God is shut out in the members. These and such like preclude and shut out the godly from its communion.

But when the Lord’s Table is spread according to God it must be,

1st. The expression of the whole body of Christ on earth.

2nd. There must be nothing then, amongst those who are together, which would hinder in a doctrinal or a moral way, one single member of Christ on earth seeing them. To have it so would make it cease to be the Table of the Lord; and become the Table of a sect or party in Christendom. It is not that each there is compelled to see and understand all and every truth and doctrine that others do: not in any wise. This would be but to make the intelligence of the members of Christ and their unanimity in doctrine a term of fellowship, instead of it really being this, that they are members of that one body, and sound in faith and morals. Nay: the great foundation truths of God’s holy Word must be held aright. These would be such as the pure and holy person of Christ the Son of God; His incarnation; His atoning work; His resurrection and ascension; His eternal Sonship; His coming in flesh. The doctrines too of eternal punishment; of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the Church; of the trinity of the persons of the Godhead, all such must be clearly defined in the soul. The babes in Christ know all these things. When the Holy Spirit dwells in a saint He has received the anointing that teaches all things. He is sensitive as to three things: touch Christ in any way and you touch the apple of his eye. Let him be true in the faith of Christ’s person, and you may depend that he is right in all these. Let him be false in his thoughts of Jesus, and his whole soul will more or less be filled with error. I trust no soul who has not God’s Christ then. He is the true test; the touchstone of true faith. All this assumes that he is at peace with God, and possesses His Spirit dwelling in him.

3rd. The first day of the week is the day of its celebration; as of all the great gatherings of the members of the church’s risen Head. When she was first formed at Pentecost His members continued daily with one accord in the Temple, and “broke bread” at home, “praising God,” &c. But when the Assembly was broken up at Jerusalem, and was no more to be found connected with the Jewish center of things, the Spirit of God led them together habitually on the first day of the week for this distinct purpose. “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread (Acts 20:7).” And this was endorsed by the Apostle abiding there to be with them at this feast.

How sensitive is the spiritually minded saint at this wondrous center of the church’s gathering. How spiritual one needs to be, to venture in the Lord’s blessed presence to aid in the worship of God. The more he thinks of the presence of his Lord and Master the more careful he is lest one word, one note he strikes, should not be in keeping with the Lord’s own heart, in communion with which the present Spirit leads His people’s songs. How the heart feels a discordant note at such a moment, when the ear of the soul is watching for the note to strike truly in the hearts of saints with the Lord’s. A hymn ill-chosen: the music unsuited to the words of the spiritual song: the haste of one: the tardiness of another: the lengthiness of some. What exercise of soul do not these things produce, and how they mar the meeting which should refresh and feed the soul. How frequently too the judgment of self is neglected till the moment when the Lord’s presence is felt; and then for the first time the soul feels that it is not in spiritual power, and it must think of self instead of Christ!

O that my brethren might ponder these things, and that, poor and feeble though we are, we may grow in the sense of what it is to gather around our Lord: to realize His presence: to forget ourselves: to wait on Him: to know our strength: to carry clear, though empty vessels, into His presence: to find them filled to overflowing by Him whose fullness is inexhaustible; so full that the overflowing cup returns to Him, as living waters refresh the soul and find again their own level in His presence, and the presence of the Father.

I feel sure too that at times there are many whose hearts would refresh their Lord and brethren with “five words “of praise, who hold back and “quench the Spirit” — forcing some other to speak out of the true order of the Spirit of God (because forced upon him), and lose much for their own souls as well as for the souls of their brethren.

The heart yearns to see the assemblies of God’s saints filled with the Spirit, and such freshness of power and worship which sets man aside, and gives only place to Christ, or what is of the Spirit of our God.

What comfort to know that every “first day of the week “brings us nearer to that glorious day, in view of which we show forth the Lord’s death till He come! When that day arrives, and when we see Him, He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; and every spiritual desire and longing will in us, as well as in Him, find its answer; and we shall enter that scene of which it is said: “They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.”

And it is His glory which touches the heart even in that scene, and leads those who surround His throne to forget their own blessing, and their own glory, to leave the one, and divest themselves of the other, in the sweeter occupation of enjoying His glory and to say, “Thou art worthy, O Lord.” “Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house: they shall be praising Thee to the ages of ages” (LXX of Psa. 84:4).

Helps by the Way, New Series, 2:7-16.

The Water of Purification

How rare it is to find the child of God walking in the consciousness of his true position before Him! Numbers there are (we bless God for the numbers) whose souls have felt the sting of sin, and who are trusting in Jesus, but who have not yet realized the full results of the work of Christ in their souls; and thereby fail to walk in the consciousness of sonship before the Father — fail to walk so as to please God, through the world; as those who have been separated and redeemed for a higher and better scene. Such souls have doubtless felt more or less deeply the fact of indwelling sin. Like the Jews of old, who when he committed a sin, brought a sacrifice — again and again a sin and a sacrifice — they have daily recourse to the blood of Jesus for cleansing from the workings of sin in their members. They do not see that sin has been once and forever, effectually and completely, put away from before God. Such is not the Christian state. It lowers the whole tone of practical Christianity, reduces the apprehension of the value of the blood of Jesus almost to the level of the oft-repeated sacrifices of the Levitical ceremonial, and weakens the apprehension of the character of purity and holiness of the place into which the believer has been brought, the unsullied presence of God, there to walk before Him. Jesus “died the just for the unjust to bring us to God.” The believer has been called into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:8). “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). God has “called us from darkness into His marvelous light.” He has “made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.” And He has set us to “walk in the light as He is in the light.” He has done all this in such a way that He can have us there without lowering the unsullied holiness of His presence in light.

When the believer has realized, even in some measure, that God has thus brought him to Himself, and accepted him in the Beloved, and has apprehended somewhat of the holiness of walk conformable to the place, it is then that he can estimate the provision that God has made in the work of Jesus, as typified in Num. 19, that the believer may thus enjoy unclouded fellowship with the Father and the Son. We can see in it the great fact that it is God’s thought that the worshiper once purged should have no more conscience of sin (sins; Heb. 10:2); and yet, such being the case, that when he is conscious of the workings of indwelling sin in his members, he has no need to go back to be re-washed in the blood, and, more than all, be learns in the precious type before us the jealous boldness of God, who will not go on with even a thought of sin in His child; and that in this type the provision He has made for all these exigencies stands in marked and precious precision before the renewed mind.

Let us now look at its varied and beauteous features. We read, “This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord hath commanded, saying, speak to the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke.” In this the person of our Lord Jesus Christ is brought before us. One wherein is no blemish and on whom never came yoke of sin. In His own person, free from every stain or taint of sin, take Him when you will, and where you will, and as you will, from the womb of the virgin to the cross, and you will find One who, while surrounded by evil on every side, in the midst of evil, and in contact with it, notwithstanding never was defiled, beauteous in the perfection of personal purity as man in the midst of a defiled world; One who, ever above the evil, adapted His heart to the need around, never in fellowship with evil, but morally above it; perfect in the holy calmness and evenness of divine goodness and love in His perfect pathway through the world. Paul, while such a wondrous instrument in the hands of God, had to say, “I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest.” And again, be “had no rest in his spirit because he found not Titus.” Moses too “spake unadvisedly with his lips.” As one has beautifully said in words that I deeply enjoy, vessels “such as Paul are chords on which God strikes, and on which He produces a wondrous music, but Christ is the music itself.” Compare them both in Matthew 16. Christ could be on the mount in glory with Moses and Elias, and be owned as Son by the Father Himself, and He can be on the plain in the presence of the multitude and Satan; but although the scenes are different, He is alike perfect in each. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul could glory as a man in Christ, one who had been in the third heavens; but when he comes down into ordinary life he must have a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble, lest he should be exalted above measure.

Thus was Jesus, and thus He walked — never equaled. The Lamb for God’s altar must be without spot and blemish, and such was He!

But when we turn to look at His cross, we find something else, perfect in His person, as perfect in the act He came to accomplish, we find Him then. We read, “And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times.” Would that the trembling one, whose heart has not yet found peace, or the anxious one whose conscience is still unpurged, the weak one who desires to realize all the blessings of acceptance and forgiveness, — would that such would read aright the soul-emancipating truth conveyed in the verse before us! We read of a sevenfold sprinkling at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. This suggests to us two thoughts. First, the place where true sprinkling was accomplished; and secondly, the value of the act that was done there. In Exodus 29:42, 43, we read about the place; and it was the place of fellowship or communion between God and Israel. “There will I meet with the children of Israel.” There was the blood of the unblemished heifer sprinkled seven times before God, at the place where He met His people.

Seven is the well-known number which conveys to us the thought of perfection in spiritual things. Every claim that a God of righteousness and truth and justice and boldness could righteously demand was answered there according to the divine standard of these things, in the sevenfold sprinkled blood His holy eye saw before Him that which responded to every claim as to sin and uncleanness, and proved Him a “just God” and yet “a Savior” — “Just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” Sevenfold was the sprinkling of the blood of the unblemished heifer, and in its sevenfold perfection was the blood of Christ, once offered to answer every claim of God and need of the sinner. He “made peace by the blood of his cross.”

But in Num. 19:5 we learn something more, we read “And one shall burn the heifer in his sight, her skin, her flesh, and her blood with her dung, shall he burn.” Here we get another view of the cross of Jesus, that meeting place between God and the sinner. We learn here that Christ was entirely consumed by the fire of the judgment of God on account of sin. The accents of His soul at that moment were “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint, my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” Entirely was He consumed by the fire of judgment on account of sin; the very levity of thought and sins we think so lightly of, wretched creatures that we are, — for these was He consumed to ashes, in exhausting the cup of wrath for His people!

Again, in Num. 19:6, another phase of the cross unfolds before us. We read, “And the priest shall take cedar-wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.” Another wondrous truth is here, one we may deeply ponder with subdued hearts before God. How many are the schemes around us to improve man, as he is, and to adorn the world which has departed from God. Here we find them all judged and set in their true light. Nature from its highest to its lowest is typified here; “From the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall.” This takes in the full range of the natural man. Let it be the moralist or the philosopher, the teetotaler or the drunkard the amiable or the churl, all are included here. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and never can be anything else. No doubt many of the schemes of morality, and self-improvement, and reform, have done much for men; but this, while good in its place, never alters the great fact that “the carnal mind is enmity against God.” The cross has revealed this, has written death upon all its varied plans, for improvement and amelioration; and the word of God comes alike to it all, “it must be born again!” This is its sentence after 4,000 years of probation and trial, it had been “weighed in the balances and found wanting.” And again, every human glory of the world, and its attractions found its true measure in the cross. The “scarlet” was cast into the burning of the heifer. “Now is the judgment of this world.” “The world hath not known thee.” “All that is of the world ... is not of the Father.” “The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” Thus we have seen in these verses, brought before us, the person of the Christ of God; the value of His cross before Him; and somewhat of the deep meaning of that cross, and how it puts everything in its right place — the flesh the natural man, and the world.

Now to apply this to the conscience of the believer who has been called to walk in fellowship with (the Lord) Jesus. Such an one has doubtless rested for acceptance more or less in the cross and blood-shedding of Jesus. He has been washed in the precious blood, it has been sprinkled on his conscience by faith, once and forever in its divine efficacy and sufficiency. Then has come his walk before God, in the light of His presence within the vail. Being there makes him feel the consciousness of indwelling sin, of sin in his members. Perhaps in an unguarded moment the evil fruit has come forth in the form of sins, which has clouded his perception of his place, and his communion with the Father and Son has been interrupted. How then is he to be restored? How has God provided in His jealous holiness against the least thought of sin in the practical walk of His people? The sevenfold sprinkled blood precludes the thought of the sin ever coming into His presence. He sees before Him that which has answered every claim according to the divine holiness of that presence. Nevertheless it has clouded the soul of His child, and He will not permit him to enjoy his place and fellowship with Him while the cloud remains.

We read then in verse 11, &c., “He that toucheth the dead body of a man shall be unclean seven days, he shall purify himself with it on the third day; and on the seventh day he shall be clean. But if he purify not himself the third day, then on the seventh day he shall not be clean... And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put there in a vessel, and a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon... him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave. And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall purify himself and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water and shall be clean at even. But the man that shall be unclean and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the Lord; the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him: he is unclean.” Here we learn first of all, that even contact with evil, or its smallest workings, defiles. Completely and perfectly has the soul lost the enjoyment of its communion with God: seven days was the Israelite unclean. As perfectly as had the sevenfold sprinkling answered the claims of God at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, as well as the need of the convicted conscience which approached there, so as perfectly had the soul lost its fellowship with God. And God would have one feel the loss, and feel it deeply too. The unclean person lay two days under his defilement; he must feel the privation of communion with God. There was no haste in bringing the water of purification till he had this adequate twofold testimony (as required under the law) that he had lost his communion, and that he was in the truth as to his state. Then, having lain two days under his uncleanness, the clean person was to take the ashes of the burnt heifer and running water, and with hyssop sprinkle it upon the unclean person the third day.

When we have fully felt the want of communion through having lost it, then we find these two things — the ashes and the water. To the Israelite, it was for purifying the flesh from ceremonial defilement; with us, it is spiritual purification. The ashes proved to the Israelite that the sacrifice was entirely consumed: it was the memorial of the perfect offering which had been consumed outside the camp, some of the blood of which had been sprinkled before God. To us, it is the remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ once offered in its perfection, brought to our minds by the Holy Spirit (typified in the running water; see Eph. 5:20), proving to us that He was entirely consumed on account of sin, by the searching fire of judgment. The ashes testified that the sin was gone forever. When the soul has felt that it has lost communion with God through carelessness or sin, the sacrifice of Christ, in all its perfection, is applied to the conscience by the Holy Spirit. The first application on the third day did not restore the Israelite. Nor does the first apprehension of the sacrifice of Christ, as applied by the Holy Spirit to the conscience of the believer, restore the soul to communion. It is the sense of the sin having been put away by the sacrifice of Christ, and then the second application, is the full restoration of the soul to God, with the sense of His grace triumphing over the sin. The unclean Israelite purified himself the third day, but the result of the second sprinkling on the seventh day, was that “he shall be clean” — perfectly restored.

How perfect in all its divine precision is the figure before us! It shows the jealousy of God about the holiness of His house, and the care He has shown that there should be practical holiness in His people and truth in the inward parts; the type divinely provides for both. And then we find, verse 19, that after his full restoration to communion, he had one thing more to do — he had to wash his clothes and bathe himself in water. He was to cleanse himself, by the washing of water by the word, from every defiling circumstance which surrounded him; and to cleanse himself, as having been in those circumstances and having thus become defiled by them; to lay the edge of the word to them, so that they might not affect him again in his walk, and that he himself might not be found in them so as to become defiled.

Such are some of the wondrous beauties of the type of the red heifer. We find that not only as sinners has the grace of our Savior God given us a place before Him, the work of Christ having fitted us to be there, and the Holy Spirit having brought us into the understanding and enjoyment of our place, but that as believers, God (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is engaged in keeping us in the place, in practical holiness, and fitness to walk in fellowship in the power of the Holy Spirit with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Bible Treasury 5:203-205.

The Red Sea and Jordan

Why are we said to be co-risen with Christ in Colossians 2:11, before we are said to be co-quickened with Him in Colossians 2:12?

The doctrine of the Epistle to the Colossians lies between that of the Romans and the Ephesians. In Romans the believer is dead with Christ to sin, dead to the law, but not risen. Romans 6 does not go so far as being risen with Christ. Our responsibilities, as in the old creation, are discussed most fully; all are under sin, all under judgment before God. The death of Christ — His precious blood presented to God — meets all our guilt, and we are justified freely by His grace, through righteousness. Our state then is taken up from Romans 5:12 and onwards, and deliverance from that (our old state) by our having died with Christ to sin and from under law, which had its application to our old state, as in Adam. Chapter 6 unfolds this truth with regard to sin; Romans 7 as regards the law, which is the strength of sin. But we are not seen as risen with Christ. The nearest approach to such is the statement of Romans 6:8: “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him;” and this verse leads us onwards towards the Colossians — putting it as a result of the doctrine there unfolded — forming the link with that Epistle. The saint, however, is not risen with Christ; but is dead with Him to sin, and to the law.

In Colossians we get a step further. Here he is risen, co-raised with Christ, and he is dead absolutely. “Ye are dead”; not merely dead to this or that, though “with Christ.” He is “dead with Christ” — “dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world” —but he is not in heavenly places yet. He has a hope laid up in heaven; and his state is a subjective one suited to heaven, though not there.

In Ephesians we find his responsibility in and of the new creation unfolded (compare Eph. 2:10); and he is not only dead with Christ to sin and the law (Romans), with the hope and result before him in the words, “If we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live through Him (Rom. 6:8),” nor merely “dead” absolutely and co-risen with Christ (Colossians), but he is co-quickened, co-raised, and co-seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, both Jew and Gentile (Eph. 2). He has left the place of death as a sinner, and the world as formed for the first man, and he is brought into the full place of being in Christ Jesus in heavenly places.

This ground has been gone over before, and I do not follow out what has been before many; but desire to present other features of truth.

First of all, let me remark that I do not think we find the typical teaching of the “Jordan” in Romans 6. It is the Red Sea; though, like it, Israel passed through, and enjoyed full deliverance from their enemies. In the type they saw sins, and death, and judgment all behind them. Sins were their part; death was Satan’s, who wields its power (Heb. 2); judgment was God’s part; and all are passed forever. They were, so to speak, dead to all these. But remark, it is never stated that they came up out of the Red Sea. Historically, of course, we know it was so; but it would have marred the type to have recorded it, as it would in Romans 6 to have said, we were risen with Christ. It is fully stated afterward that the people came up out of the Jordan; and there it was needed to say so, but not before. Thus the Red Sea is one aspect of the truth — that which is seen in Romans 6 — and like as in this chapter (vs. 8) we have to look out for more. So in the song of Moses (vs. 16) they anticipate the truth, yet to be experienced, in their passing over the Jordan, and. being planted in the mountain of the Lord’s inheritance — in the place He had made for Himself to dwell in; in the sanctuary which His hands had established. But they only looked for this in the hope of faith. They are not therefore said to have come up out of the Red Sea, as they are not said in Romans 6 to be risen with Christ. But in Josh. 4:17,19, we read that Joshua said to the priests, “Come ye up out of Jordan.” “And the people came up out of Jordan,” which rolled on in his channel as heretofore. And they were thus cut off from the world, as the death of Christ has done for us. And as at the Red Sea they looked forward to the Jordan, so now at the Jordan they look back at the Red Sea, as we read: “For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up from before us, until we were gone over (vs. 23).” The Red Sea and the Jordan thus coalesce, and form two sides of the same truth, though quite distinct. We cannot confound, and we cannot separate them. Romans 6 does not take in the Jordan and risen with Christ, though it looks out for it. Colossians 2 does not take merely dead to sin and the law and the type of the Red Sea, though it looks back at it, as we shall see. Exodus 14, 15 does not say that Israel came up out of the Red Sea, though they sang a song, which looked for more to come. At Jordan they are said to have come up out of the Jordan, and are taught to look back at and connect it with the deliverance of the Red Sea. Let the Red Sea and the Jordan coalesce for a moment in our minds, and let us drop out the wilderness from our thoughts. (Eph. 1 does this; as will Israel’s future deliverance, which bases the nameless Psalm 114 on this likewise. “The sea saw it and fled, Jordan was driven back.”) Let these two waters lie together, and let the wilderness lip of the Red Sea touch the side of Jordan eastward. Israel enter death from all who pursued at the Egyptian lip of the sea, and rise on the Canaan side of Jordan in full and complete deliverance and redemption, into the land of promise. The wilderness is never in the purpose of God, though it is His plan to test and prove His own heart and ours.

When He announced this purpose He left out all allusion to it. “I am come down to deliver them... and to bring them up out of that land into a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, &c. (Ex. 3:8).” When Moses proclaimed it, He said, “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out... and I will bring you in unto the land (Ex. 6:6, 8).” When Faith accepted it, it sang, “Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed. Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of shine inheritance (Ex. 15:13, 17).” When Experience looked back upon it with the words, “And He brought us out from them, that He might bring us in (Deut. 6:23).” Now when we turn to Colossians 2 we find an apparent difficulty; but, like all such, if we wait on divine instruction we shall get it from God. “If any lack wisdom, let him ask of God,” surely applies indirectly even in these things. Why are we said to be “risen” with Christ before we are said to have been co-quickened with Him? (Col. 2:12, 13). Let me draw your attention to it for a little. I must leave full details aside in doing so, interesting though they are. One first thought in his mind is to establish their souls (as all others whom he had never seen in the flesh, Col. 2:1) in conscious union with Christ in glory, and this without naming the bond — the Holy Spirit. He saw the danger in the want of this; and how the soul was open to every device of the enemy; and he would unfold the glories of Christ as he never had before, and give them the consciousness of “completeness in him.” To have even named the bond of union — the Spirit of God, to such a state would have been to occupy them with the Holy Spirit rather than Christ Himself, and damage their souls. Instead of this he would lead them most blessedly, as in Colossians 1:9-14, into the true experience of the Spirit in the soul which is at peace — that is, the thoughts begin with God, and flow downwards from the light of His glory into the conscience of him who is their recipient. The Spirit of God reasons ever from God to us; and when the soul is at peace and the heart free, the reasonings and experience of the soul flow in the same direction. How strange, and yet how lovely, then, to find the apostle in the one passage praying to God, writing Scripture, teaching the saints, and giving the true experience of the soul who stands in grace, by the same words! In Colossians 2:12-14, he begins in the light of the Father’s presence with praise, and by seven steps he reasons downwards from His heart, to the conscience of the worshiper, giving them the true direction of thought, when the soul is right with God.

1. “Giving thanks unto the Father.”

2. “Which hath made us meet.”

3. “To be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”

4. “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness,”

5. “And hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son,”

6. “In whom we have redemption,”

7. “And the forgiveness of our sins.”

We learn this in the inverse way, from us to Him: from the depths of the need of conscience, to the light of the Father’s presence. We see this in the order of the offerings, and in their application. How in the unfolding of the doctrine of them He begins with God, and in their application to the sinner he begins with him, and so on constantly. I allude to the first chapter of Colossians, because it helps us in the second. It gives us our apprehension, experimentally known, what we have through grace. Colossians 2 gives us God’s side rather. He looks at Christ Jesus, the Lord; He beholds Him in whom dwelleth all the completeness πληρωμα of the Godhead bodily, as man. In Him “we are complete.” From Him he reasons in the same way as in the first chapter — from God downwards to our depths of need. Here Christ and His identification with His people, that they may be thus “complete in Him,” is his theme. Again we find seven steps in the train of thought:

1. “In Him dwelleth all the completeness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him.” “God is complete in Christ for us; we are complete in Him for God,” as one has said.

2. “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” He has left the scene, given up His life here below, and all that connected Him to this scene and Israel His people. He is gone on high, the beginning of the creation of God.

3. “In whom also ye are co-risen through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead.” [Remark here that in verse 12 I have omitted the first clause — “Buried with Him in baptism.” I would read that clause as a parenthesis. Just as Romans 6 was the link forward with Colossians (see also Ex. 15:16), so this parenthesis is the link backwards with Romans 6. (See also Josh. 4:23.) This, too, relieves us from any controversy as to whether ἐν ᾧ should be translated “in whom “or “in which; “either translation being possible from the original words; the spiritual sense alone determines the true translation. Read verses 11 and 12 for a moment, omitting the parenthesis, and the meaning is plain. “In putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ ... in whom also ye are co-raised through the faith of the operation of God,” &c. This leaves baptism its own true meaning, that of the person baptized being buried to death. It does not, in my mind, go farther than that, and just ends there; the person is buried to death, as we read in Romans 6, “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death.” Read the first clause of Colossians 2:12 as a parenthetic link connecting us with Romans 6, and read what follows as in connection with “Christ... in whom ye also are co-risen,” &c., and all is plain. Faith in God’s operation comes in there and clears baptism of the thought of resurrection, though it follows where there is faith in God’s operation.]

4. “And you being dead in your offenses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He co-quickened us together with Him.”

5. “Having forgiven us all the offenses.”

6. “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us... nailing it to His cross.”

7. “And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

Thus we see the reason why the co-raising us up with Christ should come before the co-quickening; because the Spirit of God reasons in the true divine order — from God in Christ to us, and down to all our ruin in which we lay, by the seven steps of His truth.

(1) Complete in Him;

(2) circumcised in Him;

(3) co-risen with Him;

(4) co-quickened together with Him;

(5) forgiven through Him;

(6) the law nailed to His cross; and

(7) the whole power of Satan destroyed.

Now let me notice another thing which is very fine. The seven steps of Colossians 1 give us our subjective consciousness, what we possess and know in our own souls experience, what we have from God. Those in Colossians 2 give us rather the objective unfolding by revelation — what is in Christ for us, apart from our experience, though known to faith, of course. Both lines of thought reasoning from God to us, whether in a revelation objectively presented in Christ, or what our own souls consciously possess in Him.

Christian Friend, 1880, pp. 5-13.

The Personal and Corporate Actions of the Holy Spirit: 1. The Holy Spirit as a Quickener and a Witness

“What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?”

“It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63).”

“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected in perpetuity them that are sanctified.”

“Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us; for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord: I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”

“Now where remission of these is there is no more offering for sin (Heb. 10:12-18).”

In these two scriptures we find the two great truths which I desire to present to my reader —

1. The action of the Holy Spirit of God here on earth in quickening the souls of sinners, thus awakening them to the sense of their need in the sight of God; and —

2. His presence here on earth as a Witness to us of the perfection of the work of the Lord Jesus, and of its acceptance by God; thus providing an answer to the awakened soul by a testimony of the value of that work by which it is saved.

First of all, let us be clear as to the fact, that while the Son of God is the Actor by whom all divine actions are performed, the Spirit of God has always been the direct Agent in every action of the Godhead which has ever been done, whether of creation, or providence, or government, or redemption. We see references to this in all parts of scripture, even as to those actions which took place before the world was. In Genesis 1:14-19, where the appointment of the sun and the moon to rule the day and the night was made, we read of God having made these two great lights (the sun and the moon), “and the stars also.” And we read in Job (ch. 26:13) that the Spirit of God was the Agent in doing so, for “by his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens.” So also, when from the chaos of matter found in Genesis 1:1, God would form the Adamic earth as an abode for man, we read that ‘the Spirit of God brooded [or moved] upon the face of the waters.” He also filled Bezaleel, the son of Uri; and Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding and knowledge to do all the work of the tabernacle in which God was about to dwell in Israel. So also David had the pattern of the temple which Solomon built “by the Spirit” from God (1 Chron. 28:12). He came on the prophets; inspired the word of God; gave Samson his great strength; and, in short, all divine actions have ever been by the direct agency of the Holy Spirit. This is seen more fully when we come to the New Testament, both in the Lord’s ministry and acts of power (“by the Spirit of God cast out devils,” &c), as afterward in the church of God formed at Pentecost, which brings us down to the present interval. I only refer to these facts in passing, that we may have this great truth established in our minds, before we pass on to the special subject before us.

It will also be needful here to remark, that God had not fully revealed Himself in the OT days He is known there under various names, in connection with certain actions, and relationships entered into, whether in creation, or after the fall of man, or with individual souls of the elect, or with the nation of Israel — His elect earthly people. We find Him then as Elohim, and its derivatives; Jehovah, El Shaddai (Almighty God) Gnelion; Adonai, and its cognate words; as well as by other names.

Still, “One God” was the great truth presented, in contrast with the plurality of the God’s of the heathen; and to witness to this unity of the Godhead, Israel was chosen and called apart from the world: “Hear, O Israel; Jehovah, our God is one Jehovah (Deut. 6:4). But the Trinity of the Persons of the Godhead was not then the subject of direct revelation. There were hints as to it at all times; but the fact was not then made known. I might adduce many instances of this, such as the plural character of the name of Elohim — God; and also the thrice holy ascription of the seraphim in Isaiah 6 compared with John 12:39-41, and with Acts 28:25-27. See also Isaiah 48:16, “Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I; and now the Lord God, and his Spirit hath sent me.” The triune Persons of the Godhead are here plainly seen

It was therefore reserved for the advent of the Son of God into this world, when He had definitely assumed manhood, and taken His place as man on earth, that the Trinity of the Persons of the Godhead should be made known. This took place at the moment when the Lord Jesus commenced His service on earth, at thirty years of age. The Baptist had been arousing Israel with the testimony of the solemn issues of his mission, and as the one who was going before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways. His cry to Israel was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The ax was laid at the root of the trees; it was not now the time of the lopping off of branches; the root was reached, and every tree which bore not good fruit was to be hewn down and cast into the fire. Judgment was impending over all. The Lord appeared amongst the crowd which came to be baptized of John — confessing their sins. John resents this approach of Jesus, “I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?” The Messiah could pardon sins; but could not confess them, for He had none. But grace was moving in the hearts of Israel. God had touched their souls; and instead of saying, “We have Abraham to our father,” they were accepting their true place of convicted sinners — having no title on any ground to the promises, but that of sovereign mercy. With this movement of grace in their souls Jesus identifies Himself. The sheep of Israel were in the waters; the Shepherd of Israel would be there too! And His reply to the Baptist is, “Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us [He and thee] to fulfill all righteousness;” you to receive Israel’s confession of their sins; I to go with the grace which brought them there; and to receive, and delight in them as the excellent of the earth (Psa. 16). Straightway the heavens were opened! An object worthy of all heaven was seen for the first time. The Lord as a man on earth receives the Spirit of God. He is sealed as man by the Holy Spirit — proof of the excellence and perfection of His Person, on which the Spirit could descend as a dove and abide, without blood-shedding or sacrifice. The Father’s voice is heard from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The whole Trinity is here first definitely made known — Father, Son, and Spirit — the Godhead’s glory is revealed, in the Trinity of the Persons by whom the operations of grace are performed.

But we must now retrace our steps a little, in order to ascertain the varied spheres in which the Spirit of God had wrought with men in former days. We must, therefore, go back to the days before the flood. Here we find that the strivings of God’s Spirit had for their object the whole race of man. During the one hundred and twenty years previous to that moment of judgment, the word was, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man” (Gen. 6:3). It could not be said at any subsequent period that the race was the subject of His strivings. Hence we can say there is now really no salvation for man as a race in scripture; while there is salvation for men. “He turneth man to destruction; but saith, return ye children of men” (Psa. 90:3).

That period of dealing passed away. His Spirit strove for that allotted time, and the flood of waters closed the scene. The race would no more be the subject of such grace. But when the earth renewed itself, and men again re-peopled its surface, and then were scattered at Babel for their pride, God called out one man (Abraham) and in him a nation, by whom and in whom a fresh dealing began. This was the fresh sphere in which or by which the Holy Spirit would again carry on His operations — either working within, amidst that people by the many ways of grace then used, or by that people to draw the nations of the earth to that center of God’s ways.

This fresh platform corrupted its way, and was cast forth out of the land of Canaan. Still, the word for faith was, “My Spirit remaineth among you; fear ye not” (Hag. 2:1). And the godly remnant was sustained in faith until Messiah came. When that time came, Jesus alone was the One to whom the Spirit is given without measure. He is the Center to whom all must now gather, in the ways of God. But, cast out and slain, He ascends to heaven, and receives the Holy Spirit afresh there from the Father, and “shed forth this [as said Peter on the day of Pentecost], which ye now see and hear” (Acts 2:32,33). This sending of the Spirit forms the disciples into a spiritual house on earth, a “Habitation of God through the Spirit,” which becomes (as it is still, though enlarged into Christendom) the fresh sphere of the operations of the Spirit of God. There is now no action of God’s Spirit directly from heaven, on the heathen around us. There is no action apart from that sphere where the Spirit of God now dwells. God works in it, or through it, wherever His work is done. Many instances may be adduced to illustrate this fact. God had lit up a light-bearer on the earth, to be the “Epistle of Christ, known and read of all men”: “A city set on a hill which could not be hid.” He owns no other light, and works through no other channel than the church of God. We see this in the Acts of the Apostles at the first, when this habitation of God was formed. The Jews must be convicted by the Holy Spirit from that platform, through the mouth of Peter, of their sin, and find God’s remedy for it, and come into God’s habitation. The Gentile (Acts 10) who had been hitherto drawn towards the God of Israel, and had loved His people, as the channel of mercy in a former day, must now “send for Peter” and “hear words of him” whereby “he and all his house should be saved.” The angel sent from heaven to him can only point to the true sphere on earth where salvation, would be found.

And although the church of God has corrupted her way in the earth, God knows no other channel to those “without,” nor sphere of action for His Spirit but “within,” where the good word of God is heard, and the operations of His Spirit are carried on. The heathen or the Jew, whenever reached by the word of the gospel, hears it through the testimony of Christianity. The professing Christian within that sphere is the object of the varied operations of the Spirit of God. We hear of a heathen, the chief man in —, who used to reason, “I made this canoe; some one formed the tree from which I made it,” but there his reasoning ended. The Christians had established a missionary settlement in those parts many years before, but had found no fruit. At last this man came to hear. He heard of a Creator God, and one who had given His Son when His creature fell. “Ah,” said he, “this is what I have been looking for,” and he embraced the gospel. He learns the truth through the light God had set up on earth. His reasoning prepared the way for the testimony of Christ and His word to shine in upon his heart; but he must learn it through God’s ordered way. Like the centurion of old, whose faith eventually rose above that of Israel (Luke 7), he had loved their nation, and had built them a synagogue; yet now that Christ had come, his faith was directed to a higher object, and he learns from Christ Himself of His grace.

We hear, too (to cite a case from “within”), of two miners who met one day in the depth of their mine in — , when one said to the other, “Do you know that there are people come about here preaching, who say you should know your sins forgiven in this life?” “Oh” said his fellow, “that is nonsense; no one could ever know that here.” They parted for the moment, but happened to meet again in the course of some days. “Do you know,” said one to the other, “I know my sins forgiven?” “You!” said his comrade; “impossible!” “Not at all,” said the other; “come and hear for yourself.” He came, and he, too learned the gospel! Here was one of the ten thousand cases “within,” as the other was from “without,” illustrating the sphere of action or channel of blessing, from which God does not depart while present things remain, even though the light is dim, and the candlestick no more shines with its early light. Still the Spirit of God remains and works, abiding in the church of God during her whole pathway here, though outwardly enlarged to Christendom.

I will now draw your attention to the way in which the promise of the Holy Spirit came out during the Lord’s sojourn with His people on earth; that “other Comforter,” who was to take His place amongst them —”in you” and “with you” — when the Lord Jesus was gone away. He would abide with them forever; while the Lord Jesus must depart after His short sojourn with them on earth. This comes out definitely in the gospel of John. In the gospel of Luke, when the hearts and the consciences are so much exercised by the Lord; and the needs of the soul are suggested in advance of their then state, we find the Lord, after teaching His disciples to pray (Luke 11), and by parables showing how that while man needed to be importuned to grant a request, when his own convenience was at stake, God as a Father to His own, would “how much more, give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.” Thus, while in reality the Spirit was given in answer to the prayer of Jesus Himself to the Father (John 14), the Lord would produce desires in His people’s heart’s for what He was about to bestow.

When we turn to John 14, we learn that He was about to go away, and that ere He would return again to receive them to Himself, the Holy Spirit would be given to dwell with them — not for a few years, and then depart, as Jesus, but “forever.” “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever. The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him, for he dwelleth [or ‘shall dwell’] with you, and shall be in you (John 14:16, 17).” Again, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you of all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you (John 14:26).” In these passages we find the Lord praying the Father for the Holy Spirit to be given: and then the Father sending Him in the Son’s name.

In John 15:26, yet another step in advance of these, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.” In this passage the Lord Jesus, gone on high, is the sender of the Holy Spirit Himself. “And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me. Of righteousness, because I go unto my Father, and ye see me no more. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged (John 16:8-11).” All this came to pass in Acts 2. When the “day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, which filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them: and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” And in explaining this, Peter says, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear (Acts 2:32, 33,1-4).” Thus was the promise fulfilled — the Holy Spirit was sent, and filling each one, also filled all the house where they were sitting — forming these disciples into a habitation of God by the Spirit. This was from thenceforth that sphere in or through which, as we have seen the work of grace would be carried on on earth.

Now, the faculty in man in which, and by which, the Spirit works is the conscience; faith springs up in the soul thus wrought upon. The soul is thus alive to its true state, in some measure, before God. This is, in general, followed by great distress in the soul. But it is thus a proof of life being there, and as a consequence the soul turns to God, though in misery. There are times also when only the natural conscience of man is moved by the word or truth used by the Holy Spirit; and the effect then is to cause the soul to turn away from God. This is always the case where only the natural conscience of man is roused. The case of Adam when he fell, and ate the forbidden fruit, proves this. He became as God, knowing good and evil. This was conscience; the principle he received when he fell, and when he accepted his responsibility in eating the fruit which was forbidden. It was the interdict given of God to be the test if his will would be subject to his Creator or not. The man and his wife fell — the sense of guilt and nakedness was theirs, and as they cannot change it they seek to hide it from each other. This being done, they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hide from God. This is the effect of the word on the natural conscience of the sinner: it drives him away from God. But the moment God speaks to the man — “Adam, where art thou?” — the conscience is wrought upon by the word of God, and they come forth — guilty and naked, yet they are drawn towards Him.

This will be found the constantly-presented fact in scripture, especially when conscience is directly before us in God’s dealings in the New Testament. When awakened or quickened it draws towards God, but often in misery. When unawakened, the effect of God’s word, or the current truths of it, drives it away from Him even farther than before; and man’s heart keeps him away from God. The case of the prodigal son, so full of divine instruction for us, shows us the effect of the awakening of the soul when absorbed in the wretchedness of the far country of this world. “When he came to himself “the sense of his condition reached his conscience, and at once the sense of goodness in God springs up in his soul, and he is drawn towards Him, yet in deep self-judgment and misery. He finds no answer to this awakening of soul until he meets the Father; then all is settled by the Father. “God is love,” and “God is light”; the only two things He is said to be. These answer to the heart and conscience in man. The light deals with the conscience, and exposes our true state as sinners in God’s sight; but the love attracts the heart, and draws out hope in Him in the soul. One or other may and does preponderate before God is fully known in Christ; and the soul is swayed between the two until then. The light presses upon the conscience of the prodigal, and shows him his unfitness; but the love sends him on his way to meet the Father. All the while the Father had anticipated all, and was ready to meet both the conscience and the heart with the answer they required. Many instances are found in the word of God as to this work of the Holy Spirit, and many are seen around us every day.

But at times the natural conscience is wrought upon for a while by the Spirit, and like Herod, in whom we see a man who, by hearing John Baptist preaching, “did many things and heard him gladly” (Mark 6), yet returned to his lusts and beheaded John; and when Christ stood before his judgment-seat (Luke 23) was given over to these lusts, and Christ answered him never a word. He was silent towards him, as one whose day was past.

Now in these truths we find the action of the Spirit of God upon souls in awakening them to a sense of their state before God; a needful and preparatory action to that of witnessing to that work of Christ, which provides an answer to the need thus produced.

We will now examine the truth presented in the second scripture quoted at the head of this paper. Of the first we have already treated, by showing the action of the Holy Spirit as a quickener, producing life in the soul of the sinner by a work in the conscience, effected by the word of God, the flesh profiting nothing. “The words that I speak unto you [said the Lord] they are spirit, and they are life.”

As to the second, we will turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews — which we might characterize generally as God’s acceptance of the work of Christ, and the Holy Spirit’s witness on earth of this great truth. Hebrews 9 is occupied specially in contrasting the old oft-repeated typical ritual in Israel with the one perfect work of Christ, which obtained eternal redemption for us by His offering Himself through the eternal Spirit without spot to God once and for all. In the close of this chapter we find Him represented as appearing in three distinct ways. In Hebrews 9:26 we read, “Now once, in the consummation of the ages, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Then in Hebrews 9:24, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” And in Hebrews 9:28, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation.” The first of these “appearings,” was at the work of the cross, when the whole trial of the first man was over, there to accomplish that work, the final results of which will be seen in the state of eternal blessedness, in the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The second is now aging on; He appears before the face of God for all who believe. And the third: His being seen by every eye, at His second coming, will be to introduce us into the result of all His work. This third appearing is manifestly future.

In the two last verses of this chapter we find the state of sinful man contrasted with that of those who believe. One verse (Heb. 9:27) begins with “As,” and the other with “So,” placing each in contrast with the other, “As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.” Here we find the two solemn certainties which fill the heart of man with terror — “Death,” and then the “judgment.” What worlds would not man give to escape these terrible realities! Then come the two blessed certainties for those who believe — “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation.” Blessed certainties indeed! The full result of His first coming known, and our sins borne, and put away forever! The final result of His second coming presented for our hope; He will come again, apart from all question then of sin, for full and final salvation! We are placed, then, between the first and second comings of the Lord; cleared from our guilt by His first coming and His cross; the heart then set upon Him who is coming again to take us into the fruition of all.

With these two thoughts before us, we will read the next chapter aright. It opens with the grand results of His first coming, and work accomplished then, and closes with the hope of His return: “For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:37).” But in the interval between these points, we find from this chapter how the Holy Spirit is a witness to us” here below of the perfections of all. He calls upon our consciences to look back on the work of Jesus on the cross, and to know that the worshiper once purged should have no more conscience of sins. He leads us to look up into the holiest of all, and to enter there, by faith and at rest, to praise our God; and He leads the heart to look forward to that moment when Christ will come again, and the affections are at rest.

How blessed! to have a Divine Person here as truly as it was so when the Lord Himself was here on earth, bearing testimony to us — to every burdened, awakened soul — Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more!” How sweet for such to bow to this assurance from this faith-worthy Witness! We need not search our own poor hearts for such a testimony — they will but tell the opposite tale. A Divine Person sent from heaven to dwell on earth; to bear witness that the one perfect work of Christ is accepted of God, instead of the works of our ruined souls; to lead our hearts, out of ourselves, to behold in Him the divinely-given answer to our guilt. Here we may rest in the full assurance of faith — assured of God that our sins and iniquities are remembered no more. This requires no experience in us to realize; it needs but that the soul should turn to God, who thought of us when ruined and lost; to His Son who came to accomplish all His will, who, when He had done so, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; and to the Holy Spirit who was sent from the Father and the Son to bring the news of God — Father, Son, and Spirit, being all “for us,” giving our souls perfect and eternal rest!

Leading us, too, to look, with souls at rest, for Him who shall come again to take us to be with Him and like Him forever!

It is thus, dear reader, that the Holy Spirit not only awakens our souls to this need of a Savior, but becomes Himself the witness to us of that Savior’s work, answering, the awakened conscience with that which alone can purge our sins, and cleanse our consciences, and make us as white as snow.

Words of Faith, 1883, p.. 113-125.

The Personal and Corporate Actions of the Holy Spirit: 2. The Spirit as a Seal

“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified) (John 7:37-39).”

“For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts (2 Cor. 1:20-22).”

“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13).”

These passages present to us three great facts.

First, that the Holy Spirit was never given to dwell in the believer, until Jesus had accomplished the work of redemption, and had entered His glory on high. He had wrought, as had the Lord Jesus, before He came; and then as the Lord Jesus had come into the world, so was the Holy Spirit sent down to dwell — not merely to work, as in former days. This He did at Pentecost.

Secondly, we see that God anoints with the Spirit, and seals us in connection with the new place for man, “in Christ,” risen from the dead and ascended.

And, thirdly, in the last cited passage, we find that the believer in Him receives the Spirit as a seal, as a consequence of his faith in Christ.

I will ask you again, as in the former paper, to recall with me some of God’s dealings in the OT days, which will cause His present dealings to stand out in contrast with all that went before.

I pass over the pro-patriarchal days, and commence with Abraham, in whom these dealings of God began. We first find promise given to Abraham. “I will bless thee, [said the Lord to him] and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee... and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed (Gen. 12:2, 3).” These promises were confirmed and repeated to Abraham at the figurative resurrection from the dead of Isaac (Gen. 22), which was typical of Christ risen from the dead.

There were afterward promises given to David, as the root of the royalty of Israel, Abraham and David being the two great vessels of promise on the earth.

But previously to David we find an intermediate dealing of God with Israel by the law, which brought Israel under a covenant of faithfulness on their part to perform the terms of a covenant which was the ground of their blessing or otherwise. In the promises there was but one party who entered into certain obligations in perfect free will, to fail in which would be for God, who made them to fail — which can never be. If I were to say to a person, “I will give you this book to-morrow,” and I did not do so, it is I that would fail. But were I to say, “I will give you this book: to-morrow if you do so-and-so,” it depends both on his accomplishing the terms proposed, and then on my fulfilling my promise on his having complied with the conditions. This would be the principle of law; that of promise. If the latter were to fail, God would fail, which He cannot; all His promises and gifts and calling, are without repentance.

Now, these dealings of God were going on in the OT: Israel was being tested under law, and the promises of God, given before the law, stood in abeyance until God’s due time came. At last Jesus came to this world — “Born of a woman,” through whom sin had entered the world; and “born under the law,” through which Israel was under the curse. In Him all the promises of God were yea and amen. In His own Person He embodied them all, whether to Abraham or to David; the former, the root of a race; the latter, the root of royalty in Israel. But He was cast out and slain. Those who had the promises rejected them when they were fulfilled in Christ. And when this was so, and the work of the cross was accomplished, and Christ had risen and gone on high, a new thing is presented for faith, which is neither law, under which man was condemned, nor promise, which was now fulfilled. This was accomplishment; redemption was completed, and God’s righteousness established; His truth manifested, and His grace set free to act in sovereignty outside all former dealings, and to bring out what was in His mind before the foundation of the world.

Hence when the cross was past we have the “nows” of scripture brought fully out.

1st. “Now, once in the end of the world (consummation of the ages) hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” This was Christ upon the cross (Heb. 9:26).

2nd. “Now the righteousness of God is manifested” apart from the law. This was seen in Christ upon the throne of God (Rom. 3:21).

3rd. “Who 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. But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel (2 Tim. 1:9, 10). This was by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.

4th. And again, “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by means of the church, the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10). In this was we find the church of God displayed.

Let me here remark that we possess four things (with many others) which were never known in the OT times:

The righteousness of God as the ground of His grace to us;

a purged conscience through the blood of Christ; and, as a consequence,

the indwelling of the Spirit; and, still more so,

the knowledge of the Father.

All these are ours now through the accomplished work of Christ.

Let us, also, state that the new place for man as “in Christ” before God was never known, nor could it be until Jesus had taken His place in a new sphere for man — risen from among the dead. The patriarchs and saint in OT days could not be said to be “in Christ,” nor could such be said of those who were with Him in His sojourn here on earth. It would have no meaning to speak of such being “in Christ.” I name this, for it is in connection with this new place for man risen with Christ, as of a new creation, “If any man be in Christ [there is] a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) — that the Holy Spirit is given. This new state for the believer came out when the Lord went up on high; and carries with it the complete blotting out of his whole previous state, with the guilt thereto attached, as a child of Adam.

We come now to what happens as a consequence of faith in the Holy Spirit’s witness of the work of Christ when received by faith. It is that the Holy Spirit is given him as a Seal; I say a “consequence,” because it does not need that the believer should ask for the Spirit to be given him (though when he possesses the Holy Spirit he may seek to be filled with the Spirit as a true state indeed); but when the work of Christ is presented and received by the awakened soul (for it is not a sinner that is sealed, but a believer) as an answer to his need of conscience, the Holy Spirit follows, as from God, who sets His seal of appropriation upon the person so blest. Just as Paul could appeal to the Galatians, “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Of course it was by the “hearing of faith.”

Many instances may be seen in the Acts of the Apostles which illustrate this; such as that of the disciples who had previously been quickened as sinners during the Lord’s lifetime, and who received the Holy Spirit subsequently as believers on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). So also the Samaritans, through Philip’s preaching (Acts 8), afterward receiving the Holy Spirit. Saul of Tarsus also, when quickened by the voice of Jesus from heaven, is three days after sealed with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10). Cornelius, a truly-converted soul, who prayed to God alway, &c., must send for Peter, and hear words of him for salvation; and, as a consequence, the Spirit of God seals those who heard and received the word of grace.

In the passage from 2 Corinthians 1, already referred to, we learn the progress of this great dealing of God very simply. Christ, in whom all the promises of God were yea and amen, is cast out and slain, and the children of Abraham who had them are themselves cast out — having rejected them all in Christ. But all this only makes this new place for the redeemed, and “God stablishes us [Jews] with you [Gentiles] in Christ” risen, where there is neither Jew nor Gentile — and in keeping with this new place He anoints us with the Spirit. This unction or anointing is for power over the works of the flesh and knowledge of all things — we “have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things.” “Who hath also sealed us, and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” The same action of the Holy Spirit, doubtless, but having another character, that is, an appropriation on God’s part of those whom He has marked as His own, and an earnest to us of all that is coming in a future day, as in Ephesians 1, “An earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.”

We will now examine some passages of scripture which show the effect of the possession of the Spirit individually in us.

1st. First we turn to Romans 5:5, &c., where we read “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.”

Here is the first effect of the possession of the Spirit. We are assured of the love of God, who has saved us; it is assured to the heart. But lest in possessing the Spirit we should become mystical or introspective; lest we should turn inwardly upon ourselves to seek for evidences of this love of God, immediately the eye is turned outward upon that which is the full proof of God’s love to us in the verses which follow. There we learn how “God commends his own love” (this is omitted, but is in the Greek) toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

“Without strength” to appropriate this love of God;

“sinners,” still in our sins;

“ungodly,” for whom Christ died; and

“enemies,” who needed to be reconciled! How full and abundant is the proof of that love which the Holy Spirit sheds abroad in our hearts — pointing us to God, outside ourselves; yet giving the assurance of it, and the joy of it within!

2nd. Then in Romans 8:9 we are assured that we “are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be [or since it is true] that the Spirit of God dwells in us.” The standing is changed from “in Adam” to “in Christ,” from “in the flesh” to “in the Spirit,” and all proved by the Spirit being given unto us. God reveals this, faith receives it, and the Holy Spirit makes it good in the soul.

3rd. Again, in 1 Corinthians 2, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things freely given to us of God.” Here “the things” which are ours are made known to us by the Spirit. In the OT it was said, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that wait for him.” But now our portion is all made plain, to be realized and possessed. “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.”

4th. Union with Christ, too, is known by our souls, for “He that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). By the Spirit we know that we are in Christ, and Christ in us.

5th. Liberty is enjoyed in that new sphere to which we are brought. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17). The freedom of a soul which has done with all questions as to self, as to Satan, and as to God. Freedom with the Father in looking up to Him on high: freedom, too, with ourselves from all the workings of lust and flesh within. Alas, how little realized, but, nevertheless, ministered unto us by the Spirit of God given us from Christ in glory.

6th. Sonship, too, is known and enjoyed. “God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). Thus we are introduced into that positive relationship with the Father — as already the children of God.

7th. Power for our walk here on earth over the works of the flesh is found in the possession of the Holy Spirit. “Walk,” says the apostle, “in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16-23). Walking after the Spirit is ever to have the soul’s vision on Him whom the Spirit glorifies. If Christ is before the soul, then the workings of the flesh are kept in the place of death. It is not by the effort to reduce ourselves to order and manage ourselves, but by the superior occupation with the Lord Himself. This gives power, not intrinsic power in one’s own soul, but in the sense of weakness in ourselves and as over ourselves; the eye is turned on Him, and power comes forth to draw the heart after Him, and thus gives us victory over the flesh.

8th. Our Inheritance with Christ is made sure to us by the Spirit of promise given us (Eph. 1:13,14). He waits to redeem that inheritance of all created things from the enemy’s hand. He purchased it by His blood when here; took it with its load of guilt upon it, and died to redeem it all. But still the enemy is the usurper, and must be cast out. Power must be put forth to deliver it from the bondage in which it groans. Until then we also wait, but are sealed with the Spirit until the day of its redemption, when we shall inherit all as joint-heirs with Christ.

9th. We must “not grieve the Holy Spirit of God whereby we are sealed until the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). How often, instead of being the source of joy in Christ, and in all that is ours, is the Spirit of God turned into a Rebuker of us! We turn after the things of time and sense; we run after the things of the world and we wonder why our souls are not in their fresh joy. Ah, the Spirit is grieved; the soil is felt by that most intimate Guest who dwells in us; and in faithful love we are made to feel the stain, the heart is rebuked, and the soul made to feel its pain, and brought back humbled, but instructed to hearken afresh to this word to us, “Grieve [him] not!”

10th. Thus we find that this same blessed Guest within us, is as a well of water springing up into everlasting life, the source and power of prayer, of singing the praises of God, of worship, too. “I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also” (1 Cor. 14:15). “Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18). “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). And “We are the circumcision, which worship God by the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:2).

Thus, dear friends, we see how great a sphere of enjoyment and privilege, and responsibility, too, is opened up to us by the possession of the Spirit of God — given us as a Seal, consequent upon our faith in the work of Christ. The love of God is assured to our hearts: the New state, as “in the Spirit,” is made ours. The Things which God hath freely given us are made known. Our Union with Christ is by the Spirit given us. The true liberty of a saint from self and flesh and Satan’s power, and with our God, too, is enjoyed. By the Spirit of adoption we know our Sonship with the Father. Power for our walking outside the lusts of the flesh is ours. Our Inheritance is made sure, and we must not Grieve the Holy Spirit of God; and by the Spirit given us we Pray and Sing Praises, and Worship the Father who has sought and found us, and made us vessels for His eternal praise!

Words of Faith, 1883, pp. 150-157.

The Personal and Corporate Actions of the Holy Spirit: 3. The Body of Christ Formed by the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free; and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member but many (1 Cor. 12:12-14).”

“There is one body, and one Spirit (Eph. 4:4).”

We come now to examine, not the individual action, on persons, of the Spirit of God, but His corporate action, seen in the formation of the church of God on earth — the “body of Christ.”

Before doing so, I would note that the saint now has two callings: the one, an individual calling; the other, a corporate one. They are not confused, nor can they be separated. The first of these is his “heavenly calling”; the second, his church calling, as a member of the body of Christ. We must therefore examine each of these in some detail; for we shall find that certain scriptures in the New Testament treat of the one, and certain of the other. This shows us why it is that in certain scriptures of the New Testament we find ourselves in company with Abraham, and David, and other worthies of the OT, while in other scriptures we find ourselves apart from them altogether, and they are unnoticed, unless it may be casually, and in an inferior place in God’s glory. They may be seen as “principalities and powers,” while we are the body of Him who is set above them — “the fullness of him who filleth all in all.”

Now, as soon as the earth became the scene of divine disappointment, when man fell, God retired from the scene, and the elect became “strangers and pilgrims in the earth,” being called out of it to seek “another and a better country.” When God returned to visit the elect in it, He did so in gracious and condescending love; and when He concluded His momentary sojourn, eating with and sharing their hospitality, He then “arose and went his way,” for sin was there; and in such a scene God could not dwell. This is beautifully illustrated in His visit to Abraham, in Genesis 18. This, then, was the “heavenly calling” — a calling out of the earth, by the revelation of Himself, to another scene. This calling is witnessed in all periods and ages of the world by the elect, or some typical person, which presents to us the features of this vocation in their day.

1st. It is witnessed in the antediluvian days, in Enoch, the seventh from Adam. The earth was corrupt before God; all flesh had corrupted his way in the earth; and “Enoch walked with God.” Wonderful testimony! embracing all that man could desire. For three hundred years (Gen. 5), as the world was ripening for judgment, every step of Enoch was “with God.” His course began at the birth of his child; just as some striking incident in a man’s history becomes the divine voice to his soul. He names his son Methuselah, which signifies, “At his death he sends it.” Within the immediate circle of his family he witnessed that “the Lord cometh” in His judgments on the earth. His outward testimony amongst men was, “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him (Jude 14,15).” “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him; for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God (Heb. 11:5).” “He walked with God, and was not, for God took him (Gen. 5).”

2nd. It was witnessed in the patriarchal days in Abraham. The “God of glory appeared unto him, and said, Get thee out of thy country, and thy kindred, and thy father’s house, and come into the land that I will show thee.” He does so at last, and then when there, and he had left all behind, God says, “to thy seed will I give this land.” Here, then, was this man, outside of all he was linked to, and having nothing on earth but his tent and his altar — a stranger and a worshiper in the earth; a pilgrim journeying to a “city which had foundations, whose builder and maker was God.” He possesses nothing here but a sepulcher, purchased from the sons of Heth, with these words on his lips, “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight (Gen. 23:4).”

3rd. It was witnessed in the Mosaic age by the great leader of the people of God. “I pray thee,” said he, “let me go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. But the Lord... would not hear me; and the Lord said unto me, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter.” “And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land... and the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with shine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth his sepulcher unto this day (Deut. 3:24).”

4th. It is expressed in the royal days by David, in the words which he sang by the Spirit as the sweet Psalmist of Israel: “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence, and be no more” (Psa. 39:12,13).

5th. And in the prophetic age in Elijah, who went up to heaven, at the close of his prophetic task, by a whirlwind, with a chariot and horses of fire.

6th. And lastly, in the Christian period, in ourselves with our own heavenly hope, while here on earth as “strangers and pilgrims,” “partakers of the heavenly calling” (Heb. 3:1), and waiting for God’s Son from heaven to receive us unto Himself, that where He is there we may be also (John 14:1-3).

In all this we see that we follow in the great line of saints, patriarchs and prophets, kings and people who have journeyed onwards through and out of this scene to their rest. We see them as “the spirits of just men made perfect,” but awaiting the “first resurrection,” when they will with us, as “children of the resurrection,” be clothed with their resurrection-bodies, and enter into their full heavenly glory (Heb. 11:40). In the dispensation in which each lived, God marked and defined the manner in which they were to walk in existing things here on earth. Sometimes this was by an individual walk with God; at others as a member of His elect nation; but in none of them, before the present Christian interval, do we find that in which we ourselves are called to walk in, as members of the body of Christ, formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13).

Hence we find ourselves, not only in company with that great army of saints from the beginning to the end, having our place in that heavenly calling; but having a definite place in the counsels of God, which they will never share. In the church of God He glorifies Himself in a way beyond all that shall ever be. In us He displays in the ages to come the exceeding riches of His grace, and His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. While He has given His Son, as a Man, a place, setting Him above all principalities and powers, not only in this age, but in that which is to come, He has given us to be His bride, His body, His Joint-heirs; the Eve of the Second Adam for the Paradise of God!

It was His purpose “before the foundation of the world,” “His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus.” Still He kept the best wine to the last; He kept as His secret the mystery “hid in God,” to display at last to those “principalities and powers in the heavenlies the manifold wisdom of God.” He calls it the “unsearchable riches of Christ.” None ever anticipated it in His ways. All else about Christ was “searchable” in the OT Scriptures. His Incarnation was there, His life of suffering, His atoning death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension to the right hand of God, His receiving gifts in the man (Himself), His coming in power and glory, His glorious reign. All these are to be found; but that which lay between His going on high, and His coming again — the valley that lay between the mountain tops, which when we behold them, is hidden from our view — this was never told to the sons of men, as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This was that which was “unsearchable,” “past finding out,” in His untraceable ways!

But we must now examine the scriptures as to the formation of this body, by the baptism of the Spirit. We will therefore look at the first prophetic mention of this “baptism” before it took place. We hear it first, then, from the lips of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus. When announcing Him he says (Matt. 3:11), “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” In Mark 1:8, the announcement runs, “I indeed baptize you with water; but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.” In Luke 3:16, it is, “I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” While in John 1:33, we read, “And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize with: water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost.” And lastly, in Acts 1:5, the Lord tells His disciples, “For John truly baptized with water: but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” Here, then, we find the several passages of scripture where this baptism of the Spirit is formally announced. It will be seen that there is the additional baptism of fire named in certain of these passages, in keeping with the scriptures where they are found.

We are possibly aware that the four Gospels present Christ in various ways and characters. Matthew presents Him as the Son of Abraham and Son of David — the vessels of promise and Royalty in Israel. “He [thus] came unto his own, and his own people received him not”; and He will return to them again in power and great glory; thus having to do, in His first and second comings, both with grace and with judgment. Hence we have these two baptisms — that of the Holy Spirit, having to do with grace, and that of fire, expressive of judgment by-and-by. In Mark’s Gospel we have Christ presented as the Servant of God, “who went about doing good.” As such, it is plain He has only to do with grace, hence in keeping with this characteristic we find in Mark only the one baptism — of the Holy Spirit — named. Now, in Luke we have the Lord’s human genealogy and His Person presented to us as the “Son of Man.” In keeping with which, and because He has so blessedly, in that character, to do with grace, as well as with all judicial actions, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and that of fire are both named. God “has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man” (John 5:27). But all will see that as the Son of the Father — the Son of God, as John’s Gospel presents Him — He would only have to do with grace; therefore there is but one baptism, that of the Holy Spirit, mentioned. This same reason shows us why, in Acts 1, only one baptism, of the Spirit, is named, because the Acts of the Apostles present to us the work of grace begun after the cross is there unfolded to us. This makes all plain.

Now, “when the day of Pentecost was fully come,” this baptism of the Spirit took place. And it may be well to remark here that this baptism never has to do with an individual saint, but with a number of persons, as a corporate action; also that once it took place it never was repeated. These remarks will be found to have great importance in our true apprehension of the church of God or body of Christ.

The number of disciples together in prayer on the day of Pentecost were thus acted upon — they were baptized into one body at that moment. Previously quickened and drawn after Christ, this fresh action changes their status from being mere individual believers to that of a body united to its Head in heaven. Christ had gone up there after redemption was accomplished, and He has entered into a new state for man by resurrection, and a new place for man, as ascended and seated in heavenly places. And in connection with this new state and new place, the Holy Spirit acts as such down from heaven, forming this “one body “in union with Christ and with each other, as “members of Christ.” This is the only “membership” known in the word of God.

Now, here I would remark that, when this body was formed at Pentecost no one knew anything about it; because it was needful that a fresh offer be made, that Christ would return to Israel as a nation and bring in the times of the restitution of all things spoken of by the prophets, and bless His people on earth. The early chapters of Acts (2 — 7) are taken up with this tentative action towards that people; and it closed in the martyrdom of Stephen, and the message was sent after Christ, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” The ground was now cleared to bring out fully the “eternal purpose” of God; and Saul of Tarsus was converted by a heavenly Christ, and “separated from the people [Israel] and from the Gentiles, unto whom [said the Lord] I now send thee.” He was heavenly in his origin and destiny and ministry, to bring out that body, formed by the Spirit’s baptism on earth, while Christ hid His face from the house of Israel; those “unsearchable riches” never before made known to the sons of men; that valley between the mountain tops hitherto undiscovered and undisclosed. Saul of Tarsus hears from the Lord Himself that the saints on earth whom he was persecuting were Himself.

Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise [said he] and stand upon thy feet; for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of those things which thou hast seen [that is, Christ in glory] and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee (Acts 26:15, 16).

Here he receives an intimation that further revelations would be given at some convenient time not then arrived. Now all this happened after the whole assembly was scattered, at the persecution which arose about the death of Stephen, in Jerusalem. Outwardly, what was gathered together and formed in Jerusalem was destroyed; but Paul receives (he only of all the apostles ever speaks of the church of God) the revelation of that which had been formed at Pentecost into a divine unity, as one body, which never could be destroyed; nor could its unity ever be broken; God holds the unity of the body in His own hands.

The special revelations given to Paul (with that of his ministry generally), are noticed by his drawing marked attention to them in connection with this great subject. They are four in number:

1st. The unity of the body, “How, that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery [as I wrote afore in few words] which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men (Eph. 3:3-5).” He then proceeds to unfold this body, composed of Jew and Gentile, yet being neither when thus united into one.

2nd. He received a revelation of the Lord’s Supper in connection with these truths committed to him, “I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you,” &c., and he gives the details of the supper (1 Cor. 11:23, &c.), adding to it several new features not before given by the Lord in His institution of it on earth; but as now freshly instituted from heaven, as the Head of His body, which He was not until He went there. One marked feature being that it becomes, when observed in its truth, the symbol of the unity of the body of Christ on earth. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The loaf which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one loaf, one body; for we are all partakers of that one loaf (1 Cor. 10:16, 17).”

(3rd.) A third marked revelation we find in 1 Corinthians 15:51,52, in connection with the resurrection of the saints who have fallen asleep, and the being changed of those who do not fall asleep before Christ comes. “Behold, he says, I show you a mystery: We shall not (all) sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

(4th.) The fourth we find in 1 Thess. 4:15-17, “For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not go before them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with voice of the Archangel and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Thus we have in these four revelations: the unity of the body of Christ; the symbol of its unity on earth in the Supper; the first resurrection of the sleeping saints, and change of the living; and then the rapture of all to the glory of God. These embrace the constitution, employment, resurrection, and catching up, or rapture from this scene of the church of God or body of Christ; and form a complete and comprehensive summary of its whole truth.

Now, I must still endeavor to present more distinctly the present actuality of this body as here on earth, where as to personal place the Holy Spirit is. It is here that all its members are seen at one given time — as, for instance while I speak these words. It is true that when there is a general abstract statement of this body as the fullness of Christ, “the church which is his body, the fullness [or, complement] of him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:22, 23)”, there is no time contemplated; and then the body is seen in union with Christ in heavenly places, as a matter of counsel, in connection with His exaltation as Man. But in all other places in scripture when this body is mentioned, it only includes those members of Christ who are alive on earth at any given moment of its existence as you hear these words! For there as to personal place the Holy Spirit is, who constitutes its unity, as dwelling in each member, and baptizing all into one body.

Let us put a figure as to this. The —th regiment of the British army fought in the battle of Waterloo. It is now in the roll of the army of England, having its identity, and the same number and name as then. Yet all its members have died off, not one man being in it now that was then in its strength. Others have come in, and filled up the ranks, and though the members are changed, the regiment is the same. So with the body of Christ; those who composed it in Paul’s day have died off, and others have come in, and filled up the ranks. Those who sleep, their bodies are in the dust, and their spirits with the Lord. As to personal place, they have lost their connection with the body for the present. They are of it, though not in it, now. They will all take their place in it when it is removed from this scene. Here, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it,” &c. Suffering is not the part of those who have passed away from present connection with it.

Formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it has been carried along those eighteen centuries past in unbroken unity, souls passing away, and others coming in; and it is here to-day on earth for God and for faith, as truly as when Paul wrote, “There is one body and one spirit.” The baptism never was repeated, but individual souls have been quickened and sealed, and thus united individually to that which the Holy Spirit formed by His baptism at Pentecost; and all its members can now, therefore, say, “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” because we belong to that which was then definitely and permanently formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

There is one further important truth in connection with this doctrine, or the body, to which I would now refer before closing this paper. It is this — that wherever locally the members of this body were seen together “in assembly,” they were always treated as the body: this, of course, not separating them from the whole body on earth, but treated of God, as acting on the ground and principle of the body, and in unity with the whole body on earth. This is found in 1 Corinthians 12:27: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” Here the principle is applied. The apostle had been teaching the great doctrine of the body (1 Cor. 12:12-26): first, its unity, and then the diversity of its members, each having (whether comely or uncomely members) their place in the whole; and he applies this practically to the local assembly at Corinth, in the verse (27) above quoted.

This, then, is the body of Christ; this the corporate place of every member of Christ on earth; this the only membership known in scripture. The divine, positive fact and truth of that which no ruin of its outward unity, no corruption of Christendom, can ever mar or destroy. Grasping this in our soul’s consciousness, and by faith, we have something stable, amidst the ruins of the professing church, on which to act; on which to rest in the last days. Of the practical use of the truth we shall hope to treat in the concluding paper.

Words of Faith, 1883, pp. 174-184.

The Personal and Corporate Actions of the Holy Spirit: 4. The Walk of Saints According to the Spirit

“Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3) Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord, depart from iniquity (2 Tim. 2:19).” Our present subject is to examine and ascertain, in some measure, from scripture what our path is at the present time, and our responsibility in connection with the Holy Spirit’s presence on earth, as members of the body of Christ, formed by His presence and baptism. May the blessed Lord guide us, as those who would say, “Show me now thy way,” and “Give me grace to walk therein.”

First of all, then, we must examine the testimonies of scripture as to the state of ruin into which the professing church has fallen, and in which we ourselves are involved. God permitted the roots and germs of all this state to come out in the apostolic days, so that He might give us the testimony of His word as to it all, and mark a path for His own in the scene of confusion which exists around us. We cannot escape from it to go outside; nor, at the same time, does God force us to abide in a path where the conscience is outraged, and the word of God discarded, and practices are found which have no warrant from Him. He gives us a plain path, where we may obey His voice, and have the joy of His presence with us in our course while here.

It is striking and instructive to see that the epistle from which we have cited our text for this evening’s lecture, was not written in a day when everything was in order, when the church of God was walking, in the first freshness of power and blessing, with Christ. If this was the case when it was written, we might have admired it, and thought of its perfection and beauty in days gone by; but we should have found no practical value in it for our own path in days of weakness and failure and ruin. We see the wisdom of our God in giving us its teaching just when the days were darkest in apostolic times; when, as we read in Philippians (written at the same moment), “all were seeking their own, and not the things of Jesus Christ”; when “many walked,” of whom the apostle had told them before, and had now to tell them even weeping, that they were “enemies to the cross of Christ; whose end was destruction, whose god was their belly, who mind earthly things.” Such were the days when “Ephesians” was written: the aged apostle was in prison himself, and cut off from the work which he loved; all was rushing onward to ruin. It was then the time for God to bring forth by his means the most full and blessed unfolding ever given of the church of God. It was written in a day of ruin, as faith’s provision for a day of ruin, until we all would come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to full-grown men — into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we might no more be “babes,” &c. (Eph. 4:13,14).

The gradual, but sure, decay had begun at once in the early church. Tares were sown amongst the wheat, and false persons were introduced from without, as Simon the sorcerer (Acts 8); the enemy, too, had begun to sow evil and discord within. (See Acts 5;6.) This state of things is largely recognized in the various epistles. In Corinthians the wisdom of men and sectarianism were springing up, and moral evil had been allowed (1 Cor. 5), and doctrinal evil was spreading fast (1 Cor. 15). The law had been introduced in Galatia; asceticism and philosophy had been added to the law in Colosse. There was a return to Judaism and ceremonies on all sides (Hebrews), and the presence of the Spirit forgotten. All this may be seen largely in the epistles. But when we come to Paul’s Second Epistle to Timothy, these things were there, and recognized as current, and all those of Asia had turned away from Paul, though not yet, perhaps, from Christ. It is then that the Holy Spirit in the apostle forecasts the state of the “last days,” which was then coming in. “In the last days perilous times would be there,” and the state of nominal Christians would become like that of the heathen, as described in Romans 1:29-31, compared with 2 Timothy 3:2-5, with the difference of “a form of godliness,” or “piety,” while they “denied the power thereof.” From such the servant should “turn away.”

This, then, was the state of the professing church which had been established on earth as the “pillar and ground of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:15). It was now the sphere where error and evil existed unchallenged.

We must now ask, What are God’s principles, when the sphere set up by Him at any time in the earth became corrupted as this before us? We may even see that these principles were His before evil entered the scene and were the true principles, unchanged by any circumstances, which ensued. They were “separation” and “largeness, — separation to God because He is holy; largeness of heart because He is gracious! We see this in paradise before man fell. He planted a garden in Eden, and separated it from the rest of the scene, for the man to dwell in, and dress it and keep it; yet from it flowed four rivers, to carry its blessings to the four quarters of the earth. So, when the world was judged (at the flood of Noah), and again peopled, and divided into nations at Babel, God called a man out of it, separating him to Himself, because He was holy; yet, because He was gracious, He promised that “in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” So also in Israel; He brought them out of Egypt, that He might dwell among them, and His word was, “Thou shalt be holy with the Lord thy God” (Deut. 17). Yet they were to be the center from which blessing should flow forth to the nations, who might there learn that He was God. “In Judah God was known; his name was great in Israel.” In the church of God, too, the saints were not of the world, even as He was not of the world; yet the desire He expressed was, “that they all might be one, that the world may believe” (John 17). These instances show us the principles that should guide His own.

We see this illustrated in the day when Israel corrupted themselves, and, under Aaron, made the golden calf. Moses had gone up, to receive the law, to the top of Mount Sinai, when the people revolted against God, and returned to idolatry, out of which they had been redeemed. Moses came down with the tables of the law in his hands, and saw the calf and the dancing; but, with the blessed intelligence of one who was in spirit with God, he acts in a moment in a way that saves the honor of Jehovah, and spares the people. Had he kept the tables of the law outside the camp unbroken, he would have compromised the authority of the Lord. And had he entered the camp with them, the people would have to be cut off. So he broke the tables before the mount! He then returns to God, after the tribe of Levi had executed the discipline of God upon their brethren, earning their place as the priestly tribe (Ex. 32). Moses then prayed to the Lord to spare the people, or to blot him out of the book He had written. Nay, said the Lord, “Him that sinneth will I blot out of my book.” Moses then returns to the desert, and while he waited to see what the Lord would do, and the people stripped themselves of their ornaments before the mount, Moses “took the tent, and pitched it outside the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.” Here was the most glorious moment of all his history. The moment when he so apprehended God, and His holy nature, that, without even a command from Him, he does that which was suited to Him; and the cloudy pillar, emblem of His presence, came down, and spoke to Moses, as a man speaks with his friend! Here was separation to God, yet largeness of heart for His people, and for their true blessing.

We might trace through scripture many instances of this kind, which show us that separation to Him is the true path for His own, when that which He had set up in blessing had corrupted its way in the earth. We see it in Israel separated from Egypt: Moses separating from Israel at the moment cited. The Nazarite — Samson separated from Israel, when they were under the domination of the Philistines. David’s men separated to him in his days of rejection. Jeremiah’s directions to separate himself from the people to the Lord (Jer. 15), that he might be God’s mouth, to separate the precious from the vile. So the “mark” to be set upon them who sighed and cried for the abominations in Jerusalem (Ezek. 9). The Baptist separating the repentant remnant to Christ. The church separated from the nation at Pentecost. Paul separating the disciples from the others (Acts 19). The directions, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,” &c. (2 Cor. 6). But when we turn to the Second Epistle to Timothy, we find this principle applied to our path in the simplest and most striking manner. The aged apostle turns to his own son in the faith, with his heart burdened with the sin in which the people of God now were involved; yet bright in the freshness of the courage needed to lift one above it all, and give the sense that God was above all the evil around. It is often the case that the soul gets under the power and sense of the evil to such a degree, that it becomes occupied with it, thus losing sight of God. This is a wrong state to drift into, and never will give power to surmount the evil in anywise. Grappling with the evils in the world, or the so-called Christian world, is not our path. But while persuaded of their existence and power, the heart can turn to God, and find Him and His ways superior to the evil; and we are called to separate ourselves to Him.

This character of things occupies the greater part of the epistle. The Spirit of God recognizes that there is no ecclesiastical recovery for the church of God, as a whole, to be looked for; while there always is individual recovery by the truth. He had been treating of the false teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus, and such like, when he adds, “Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” How refreshing to think that no amount of corruption had destroyed that sure foundation of God! There stood the everlasting truths which never altered, though the house of God had enlarged itself to what he likens to “a great house,” with “vessels of gold and of silver, of wood and of earth, some to honor, and some to dishonor,” yet scattered abroad by the devices of men, and by the craft of the enemy, within that sphere were those who were Christ’s. “The Lord knoweth them that are his,” said one inscription of the seal of God! The eye of man could not single them out, nor even the eye of faith discern them. They may be like the seven thousand who had not bowed to the image of Baal in Elijah’s day, whom the prophet had never discovered. Still, God knew them; they might be as the godly ones in the day when Israel’s heart was as hard as an adamant-stone, when Ezekiel prophesied in vain; they were known of Him who knows all hearts, and He called to the executors of judgment in Jerusalem — “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof,” before judgment which would not permit of pity, fell on the rest (Ezek. 9:4). God knew those in that day those who were His; and He knows them now, as our passage in 2 Timothy 2:19 testifies. This is the privilege of all who belong to Him.

But now he turns to the reverse of the seal, and reads the second inscription: “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” Here, then, is the way I may see those hidden ones of the Lord; they must be separate from evil to Him. Simple yet comprehensive step! Let the evil be moral, doctrinal, intellectual, or religious, the path is the same — to “depart from iniquity” is the responsibility of the saint who names the name of the Lord. Vessels of honor and of dishonor — precious and vile — may be there. The Hymenaeus and Philetus may have to be condemned, but the true soul must “purge himself from these,” that “he may be a vessel unto honor, sanctified [or, separated], and meet for the Master’s use.”

Let me remark as to that word, “purge.” It is found but twice in the original tongue of the New Testament scriptures. The first place we find is in 1 Corinthians 5:7: “Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” This marked the responsibility of the whole church of God, set up on earth as “an unleavened lump.” She was to maintain her place in this, and to “purge out” all that savored of the old leaven — the evil which was then creeping in at Corinth, as this chapter shows. But she did not, as a whole, do this. She soon became indifferent to the evil, which soon, alas! became her characteristic, and not the holiness due to Christ. Now comes the second use of the word. The individual, finding himself in the midst of “a great house,” filled with “vessels to honor and dishonor,” was to “purge himself “from such, by standing apart from them, as from all this which dishonored the Lord, in order to be a vessel unto honor for the Master’s use.

But when a soul has taken this step, it might engender a Pharisaic spirit in him, in standing thus apart because of his Lord, and so we have next, “But follow righteousness, faith, love, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” He would find others who, like himself, had grace given to be separate to the Lord, and he was to walk with such, in holiness of conduct, and a pure heart likewise.

But this separation to the Lord has, so far, only a negative character. But this is the responsibility of the “house of God,” now become like “a great house” around him. We want something more, therefore; we require a positive ground of action for our souls in the midst of the scene. Here, then, comes in the never-changing truth of the unity of the body of Christ, of which he is a member. This abides here on earth in the midst of Christendom. It is within that sphere that the Holy Spirit maintains, in unbroken unity, the body of Christ. Granted that outwardly it is broken to fragments to our vision, and the members of that body are scattered in every section of the professing church; granted, too, that it is utterly impossible to restore it to its original state, that no skill or power can ever set it right again — all this is quite true; but then I am ever responsible to set myself to rights, before everything, with God. I am a member of Christ, and separate from evil; well, I am not the only one whom God has called so to act for Him because He is holy. I find others also; we meet as His members to worship the Father, to remember our Lord; but it is as members of Christ, and as acting in the truth of that body of which we are members — we can be together — and on no other ground! (I mean no other ground according to God.) We are thus in a breadth of truth which embraces every member of Christ on the face of the earth!

This is “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). We can neither keep, nor break the unity of the body — that is kept by the Spirit Himself intact, spite of every failure of man. But we are called to “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

What, then, is this unity? It is the power and principle by which the saints are enabled to walk together in their proper relations in the body, and as members of Christ. It may involve my separation from one member because he is attached in practice, or religiously, to that which will not stand the test of the word of God. It may call me to walk with another who is walking in godliness, and in its truth. I may find a true soul who sees the truth up to a certain point, but no farther; I enjoy with such all that he enjoys in the unity of the Spirit. Suppose fresh light reaches his soul, and he refuses it, then we part! I must never weaken the path I am called to by compromise with him of the truth. All this involves the body of Christ; it is the ground of action, because the Spirit of God maintains it.

This unity, too, excludes individuality most fully. No one can take an isolated place. If he is called to stand alone in some locality because of the word of the Lord, it puts him in communion, and on common ground, all over the world, in other localities, with all who are walking in such a truth. It excludes individuality, too, when together with others; one might be tempted to act in independency of other members of Christ to take action himself, not in communion with the rest. It throws us outside every system of man, too, but keeps us in that unity which is according to God!

Now here is the divine and positive foundation under our feet for this day of ruin. This is not merely a negative path. It is wide enough for all, because it embraces all in its breadth, whether they are there, or not. It is exclusive of evil from its midst, as known and accepted; to admit it would cause it to cease to be the unity of the Spirit. It is not merely the unity of Christians — which is the effort of the many to effect, often to the refusal of the truth of the body of Christ. How often do we see the effort to be together apart from its truth, merely as believers in the Lord. Then may make many unities, and attach Christ’s name to them, and call it the church. God attaches unity to Christ, not Christ to unity! Then it must be true in nature to Him whose body it is; it must be practically holy and true (Rev. 3:7).

Trial may come in, and the enemy seek to mar this effort of the faithful to act for God. Discipline, too, may have to be resorted to, to keep those thus gathered together true and right. When this is so, the action taken in one place in the Spirit, and in obedience to the word, governs all others, where the people of God elsewhere are thus acting in the truth. The Lord’s table being spread, as that in which we own the unity of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16, 17) is in the midst of those gathered together in the name of Christ. (Matt. 18:20). One in communion at it in one part of the world, as with those who are endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit, is in communion with all, wherever they may be found. One ceasing to be in communion in one place, ceases in all. Thus individuality is impossible, apart from unity; or unity from individuality.

It is only in the church of God, or in its principle, we have both maintained. In popery we see unity, but no individuality; in other sects individuality, but no unity. In the unity of the Spirit we have both, and there only.

Then the cry of others is, “You want us to come to you, and hear the truth; why do you not come to us?” The question is most natural, but the answer is plain: We never can make wrong right by mixing with it; we desire your blessing; we desire that you who are not with us may act on what you are, as members of Christ by one Spirit, and with us on the only divine platform on earth! You would be the first to blame us, did your conscience bow to the truth, for having weakened or falsified it by mingling with error, in order to win others to be with us. Your title is clear to be at the Lord’s table with us, if you are a member of Christ (we assume that you are walking in uprightness of soul before God). We dare not ask other terms than this for your being in your true place. I have heard it has been said by others that we look for more such as exacting promises that you go to no other gathering of Christians, and the like. This would be unintelligent in us in the strongest way; we would be making more than membership of Christ and holiness of walk your title to your place. Your coming to help us to be faithful to the Lord should receive a hearty welcome from us in His name. Let us not suspect any other motive in those who come than our own desire, through grace, to do the same. Often have I seen souls come in all simplicity, who would be scared away had they been placed under a condition; for when they came, they found His presence there, and never left again! A soul finding itself with Christ would not likely seek to wander away again to other paths, even though it may be a pathway of reproach “outside the camp” with Him.

A word now, in conclusion, as to the place of those who are together, in these last days, in the truth. We sometimes hear of being “a testimony.” I ask, To what? And I reply for all, We are a testimony to the present state of the church of God, not what it was once, but what it is. But suppose we are really thus a testimony to its failure, this involves much more than at first sight we would think. We must in such a case be as true in principle and practice as that which has failed! Though but a fragment of the whole, this must be really a true fragment. This will ever keep us lowly in our own eyes, and nothing in the sight of others. As long, therefore, as we are a testimony of this character we shall, by grace, never fail! The Lord alone will be our strength and our stay in days of ruin, and perilous times of the last days.

In the great sphere of the profession of Christianity on earth — the responsible church, or “house of God,” where His one Spirit dwells and operates, there is a divine current in which the faithful will be found. In one of the great lakes, or inland seas, of Switzerland we find what will illustrate my meaning. One of the great European rivers runs into this inland sea at one extremity, and out at the other; but it is found that the current of the river is traceable all through the vast sheet of water. There are also, as a matter of course, the eddies and the back-water, which is near the current, and the dead water outside its influence. Thus it is in the professing house. There are those to be found in the current of the Spirit within the great professing body; there are others whose position would be near it, though not in the stream, but, as it were, in the eddies which are close at hand. There are others who have turned aside, and been drawn into the back-water, and never seem to recover. Others, too, who are found in the dead-water, out of the reach of the current, or even of its influence. It becomes, therefore, a very real question for each — “where am I?” “Am I like a chip, or a withered leaf, in the eddies, or in the back-water, or in the stream?” If in the last, we are carried along in that one path, in the freshness and energy of the one Spirit of God, in the truth of that one body of Christ, of which we are living members; faithful to Him who loves us, yet will-less and obedient in His hands, who can use for His own glory, and the blessing of others, the weakest vessel, if in the current of His Spirit, in the truth.

Words of Faith, 1883, pp. 207-218.

The Vine

The vine, as the symbol of a fruit-bearing system on the earth, is used in a remarkable manner, and runs through a large body of Scripture. We read in Psalm 80:8, that the nation of Israel is likened to a vine which the Lord brought out of Egypt, casting out the heathen from Canaan and placing it there to bring forth fruit. Then in Isaiah 5:1-7, we learn all the care and culture He bestowed on His vine that it might bring forth grapes, “fruit meet for him by whom it was dressed.” The result was that, instead of fruit answering His culture, it brought forth “wild grapes.” And He says in Jer. 2:21, “I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” And so the Lord permitted the “wild boar out of the wood” to waste it. He also says, “I will take away the hedge thereof”; “I will lay it waste”; and “I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.” It was only fruitful in iniquity and false to Jehovah. “Israel,” He says, “is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself” (Hos. 10:1). So the Lord gave him up to the Gentile king, Nebuchadnezzar, to rule over him, commanding him to submit to this punishment as of the Lord. (Read Jer. 27:1-12, especially verse 12.) Under their last king, Zedekiah, they might have remained tributary, as we read in Ezek. 17, the kingdom might have remained “a spreading vine of low stature” under the Gentile king; who took an oath from Zedekiah, and allowed him to remain in his land. But this “vine of low stature,” instead of observing the oath which Nebuchadnezzar accepted of Zedekiah, and remaining tributary, he sent his ambassadors to Egypt. Or, as the parable in Ezek. 17 says, “this vine did bend her roots towards him,” and so the king of Babylon took him captive, and broke down his city and laid it waste, and so it ceased to be the “vine” of God in the earth, it ceased to be fit for anything but “fuel for the fire.” (See Ezek. 5.)

And into this vineyard which had been laid waste, at last came the Lord Jesus. Israel, as Jehovah’s vine, had been brought out of Egypt. So Jesus replaces and recommences morally the history of that people, and we read, “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15). The Lord then replaces Israel, which had been set aside as a fruit-bearing system on the earth. He presents Himself not as the best branch of that vine, but, “I am the true vine.” The root of the new fruit-bearing system on the earth; and the disciples then become the branches. Abiding in Christ, and Christ in them, they would be fruit-bearing branches — the Father glorified in them — and so they would practically be Jesus’ disciples. This lasts in principle all through the time of the calling out of the Church, but the point is fruit-bearing on the earth; not as raised and seated together in Christ in heaven, where there is no purging or pruning, nor fruit-bearing.

When the present time of the heavenly calling (Heb. 3:1) shall have passed, and the Church shall be taken away, Israel comes before God again, not yet as owned, but previous to the kingdom being established in the world. We find their state in Isaiah 18 aptly described as a “vine,” returned to their land by the help of some great maritime power, but not yet owned of God. “Afore the harvest [the harvest and vintage are figures of the last acts of judgment which take place before the kingdom is set up in glory], when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape ripening in the flower”; when all seems to man’s eye to go on well, the Lord does not interfere but considers apart in His dwelling, and then suffers the apparently re-established, fruit-bearing vine to be again trodden down and destroyed by the Gentile powers. And the end of what is again a corrupt fruit-bearing system in the world finds its judgment at the hand of the Lord in Revelation 14:15-20, as the “vine of the earth” whose grapes were fully ripe and which are then sent into the great winepress of the wrath of God. The Lord Jesus-Jehovah is sees in Isaiah 63:1-6 coming from this judgment of the vine of the earth and winepress of the wrath of God, in which the nations of the world share (see Isa. 34), His garments red with judgment; and He comes to renew His relationship with the spared remnant of Israel, for the “year of His redeemed is come.” And the result of all this is, that Israel again becomes His fruit-bearing “vine” in the world. “A vineyard of red wine,” which the Lord Himself (now that they had failed under the old covenant) will keep night and day watering it every moment; and “He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and till the face of the world with fruit” (Isa. 27:2-6).

Bible Treasury 6:224.

His Will - His Work

“My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work (John 4:34).”

There are two points to be observed in the reading of the OT, without which it cannot rightly be understood. The first is, that the gap or interval in time, from the ascension of Christ to heaven till the taking up, or rapture of His own, is never contemplated in its Scriptures; nor is it ever computed as time at all. And the second is, that what is said of the Lord in many cases in these Scriptures, is similar in language to what is said of the Church — His body, in the New Testament. Thus it is that Paul, speaking of the mystery of Christ and the Church, calls these truths, with all collateral ones, “The unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8).

The searchable things were all there: Incarnation, Life of suffering, Atoning death, Resurrection, Ascension to heaven, Receiving gifts in the man, Coming again in glory, His glorious reign, or Kingdom. All these were to be found in the OT. But the interval in time from the ascension — characterized by the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Church — as an habitation of God, His abiding with her during her earthly sojourn while Christ is hidden in the heavens, and His coming forth to receive her to Himself when caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air; these things were not in the Scriptures of the OT; they were “hid in God,” “according to the purpose of the ages.” Nor are they spoken of by any of the apostles or teachers of the New but Paul. OT Scriptures are silent as to them; so are New Testament apostles and prophets — with the exception of him.

I mention one Scripture out of many as to the interval, or gap, of the New Testament times being unnoticed in the Old. The well-known passage from Isaiah 51:1, 2, first clause, cited by the Lord in the opening of His ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:18,19), as far as the middle of a sentence, when He closed the book and sat down, causing all in the synagogue to fasten their eyes upon Him. The parenthesis of grace thus falling between that moment and the fulfillment of the next clause — “And the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” Yet when He foretells the long centuries of judgment which ensued upon is rejection, during which “Jerusalem (would) be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24), He touches upon His second coming in glory, according to Isaiah 43:1-4, connecting with that “day of vengeance” the words — “For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come” (Isa. 43:4); also, “For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled” (Luke 21:23); and again these — “Then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

The parenthesis of grace thus lying between that day in Nazareth, and the day of His coming in power and great glory. The parenthesis of glory of which Paul treats, lying again within the other parenthesis of grace of Luke, from His ascension to the rapture of the saints on high, while the “unsearchable riches of Christ,” “the manifold wisdom of God” — in Christ and the Church, are unfolded. These come forth when Christ is in the glory and the Holy Spirit here.

We see this, too, in the portion of the passages of Isaiah 49:6-8, cited by Paul in the New Testament, which apply to Christ Himself in the Old, and to the Church, His body, in the New. “I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth.” This the prophet speaks of Christ. And Paul at Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:47), “For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” Again, “Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time I have heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee (Isa. 49:8).” This of Christ. While Paul, of the Church, in 2 Corinthians 6, “We then, as workers together, beseech also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee; behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” In Romans 8 also, speaking of the security of the believer, “It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?” While Isaiah, of Christ, in chapter 1, “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that pluck off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting... He is near that justifieth me... who is he that shall condemn me?” Now while all this is true, and the general matter of the OT is silent as to these things, when it deals with the world and Israel, and Jehovah Messiah’s connection with them; there are two Scriptures in the OT which touch upon the counsels of God outside the earth, the line of His eternal thoughts, at which I would now look for a little. I speak of His eternal counsels as those connected with things which are outside all His dispensational dealings with the world. Prophecy connects itself with “times and seasons, and days and years,” which belong to the world, and exist while it exists, ending when it ends; then the eternal counsels of God have their fruition, and time has passed away.

1. In Proverbs 8:23-36, where Christ is seen as the Eternal One, the “wisdom of God.” He is there seen in two ways. First, as the resource of God; and second, as His delight, the One in whom all the good pleasure of the Eternal was.

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. “Then follows a lovely description of the priority of Him on whom all depended, before the mountains, or hills, or oceans, or clouds were.” Then, [says the Eternal One,] I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth (before it was formed); and my delights were with the sons of men.

2. Psalm 40 gives us the other; and while Proverbs 8 unfolds to us those thoughts before the earth was, in Psalm 40 the silence of eternity is broken by the words here spoken by the Lord. Time and earth had intervened; sin had entered the fair scene, and man fell; Israel had been redeemed, and had been tried under law; prophets, priests, and kings had been there, and His people all had failed. These blessed words are then heard, and connected with the lowly path of faithfulness of Christ: “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.”

In the epistle to the Hebrews we find the establishment of this “will.” The sacrifices proved wanting, and only recalled sin to remembrance — not putting it away; they are set aside by His one perfect blessed work, and the will of God is done. “He taketh away the first,” even these sacrifices, “that He may establish the second,” God’s eternal will. This had been outraged through man, under the enemy’s power; but could not be turned aside or disannulled (Heb. 10).

Thus we have in Psalm 40 the “will” of God to be made good in His cross on earth; and in Proverbs 8 the “good pleasure in the sons of men” revealed. In Hebrews we have the eternal will established; while in the Ephesians we find the “good pleasure of his will” brought forth from the secrets of eternity, when He is gone on high; and this to the “sons of men,” in whom His “good pleasure,” or “delights,” ever were. “If ye have heard of the administration of the grace of God, which is given me to youward; [and that] Ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed, &c. (Eph. 3).” From creation until He came to the earth, Jesus, the eternal Son, the wisdom of God, was ever “by Him” — His resource, and His delight.

Did the counsels of the Godhead resolve to create the universe, or to frame the world out of the chaos which is found in Genesis 1:2? The Son was the actor, for “by Him were all things created.” “Without Him nothing came into being that did exist.”

Did man in innocence succumb to the temptations of the enemy, the old serpent, the devil? Did sin and disobedience thus enter into the world? The seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head; and in the foretold “bruising of his heel,” and in the death which Adam’s coats of skins required, ere he could walk forth from the garden consciously and manifestly clothed of God — Jesus was again before the mind of the Father. How sweet to see that because of Him, in this first scene of the world’s youthful history, God was the first to move in approaching the sinful pair!

Again, when violence entered in, and Cain slew His brother, it was because Abel, finding himself “born in sin,” outside of paradise, his state as a sinner pressing upon his soul, and recognizing what a Righteous Being required to meet His nature and His claims, he brings “the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof.” He came with the pure and sinless life of another, but displaying in death the excellency of life. In all this he confessed that he could not provide that which God in His nature demanded, and he as a sinner needed; and God, as it were, seeing that faith apprehended something of His resource and His delight, pronounced him a righteous man.

Did Noah’s sacrifice ascend as a sweet savor in the sight of the Lord, after His judgment of the waters of the deluge, because of the earth’s corruption? He turns at once to His resource, His delight; and says in His heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; because (ᾧ) the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done (Gen. 8:21).” Again, idolatry enters the scene; and all the world was worshiping demons rather than God. He calls Abram out, and “preaches the gospel” in him (Gal. 3:8). “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). And when Abraham ascends the mount Moriah, in company with his only son Isaac, his faith entered upon the thoughts of God Himself in Jesus, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb.” The risen Isaac, “received from the dead in a figure,” speaks in the sight of divine omniscience, of that scene yet to be enacted between the Father and the One then “by Him,” “His delight.” And God, “because He could swear by no greater, sware by Himself,” to fill with “strong consolation” the feeblest heart that flees for refuge to Jesus (Heb. 6:16-18).

Mark the delight, the suddenness (Ex. 40) with which in after years, when Moses had reared the tabernacle, after the people had made the golden calf, and failed in their obedience to law, God enters, and fills the whole scene so fully, that even Moses himself could not but be an intruder — none could share His company in that tabernacle, which was the pattern of things in the heavenlies reared up in the obedience of faith, but He of whom every cord and pillar, board and altar, curtain and hanging testified.

Thus and thus was Jesus, God’s resource, always “by Him,” “His delight,” “rejoicing always before Him.”

But I need not go further. Step by step, Christ, in type and figure, in parable and shadow, kept God’s heart reminded of plans that never could be frustrated; but while hindered by Satan, and man, and sin, only disclosed the inexhaustible resource that Jesus was ever before Him.

The day came when Jesus, though always “by Him,” the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, was to divest Himself of the glory He had there, before the world was; and taking manhood in the womb of the virgin, was to be “Emmanuel, God with us”; yet ever His delight, His good pleasure. In the lowly manger in Bethlehem, the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, was laid; and the anthem, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure (His delights) in men,” is sung.

Thirty years elapse, and Jesus appears amongst the crowd who were confessing their sins in Jordan. The wandering sheep were in the waters, and the Shepherd would go there too. Grace was at work in their hearts, and Jesus would go with the grace; they were confessing their sins through grace, and Jesus would be with that grace, as He, in the Godhead, had produced its fruits. At once we hear the voice of the Father, as we had heard that of the angels at His birth, proclaiming, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I have good pleasure.” And the Spirit, in bodily shape, as a dove, alights upon Him. Father, Son, and Spirit, seen and heard, for the first time on earth, when He stood in the waters of Jordan, charged with the bringing forth of God’s “good pleasure in the sons of men,” and establishing on a revolted earth His will!

In a few short years we find Him on the mount of Transfiguration when about to be received up. His own had not received Him; the world, though made by Him, knew Him not. A momentary glimpse of His true glory evokes the words from a bystander, “Master, it is good for us to be here,” and the Father’s voice again is heard owning His earth-rejected, though heaven-honored Son, as “my beloved Son, in whom I have good pleasure; hear ye Him” (Matt. 17:5). He then returns to the scene of His sorrows, and steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. The seventy disciples return (Luke 10). He had not given them power over unclean spirits when sending them forth. But faith in Him had caused them to use the value of His name, and to their joy they were answered. They return to Him and say, “Lord, even the devils are subject to us through thy name” (Luke 10:17). How joy fills His heart, too, as they tell the tale, in the thought of the day of glory, when Satan will fall as lightning from heaven; and even the earth will yield no place for him, while he is chained in the bottomless pit for a thousand years.

But hearken now to what He says in their hearing: “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it was thy good pleasure (Luke 10:21).” And, lastly, in the gospels, when Jesus would cast the light of God on all that man’s ways present (Luke 12), between His leaving them and His return, He speaks of His people as a little flock; but even so they were not to fear, “for it was their Father’s good pleasure to give them the kingdom (Luke 12:32).

But to recall what we have touched upon, we have:

1. Before the world was, this “good pleasure” filled the heart of Jesus, “in the sons of men” (Prov. 8).

2. At the birth of Jesus it was shared by unjealous angels, and the heavenly hosts proclaimed from the excellent glory (Luke 2), “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men.”

3. When He came up out of the Jordan the Father’s voice again proclaims, “In thee I have good pleasure” (Matt. 3; Luke 3).

4. The same words are heard from the excellent glory; on the holy mount, “For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I have good pleasure” (Matt. 17; Luke 9; 2 Peter 1).”

5. And as He descends to His path of service, and sends forth the “seventy,” and receives them as they return, He tells of His Father’s “good pleasure” to reveal these heavenly secrets, not to wise and prudent, but even to babes, whose names were written in heaven.

6. And as He instructs them for their pathway (Luke 12) in this world of sin, He adds His “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” His “delights were with the sons of men.”

At last the hour was come, “Your hour, and the power of darkness,” when all was arrayed against Him, to stay the eternal Will being done on earth, as counseled in the heavens. If in the gospel of Luke we found the “good pleasure” so often expressed, as Luke presents Him a Man, in whom all was centered, it is in the gospel of John we find His heart set, who was presented there as the Eternal Son, to do this Will of God. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work (John 4).” “I seek not my own will, but the will of Him that sent me (John 5).” “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me (John 6:38). And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day (John 6:39).

He who expressed His own perfect will but twice in all His earthly path, was now to do His God’s. Once in Gethsemane He expressed it, to lay it down in blessed submission to the Father, “Not my will, but thine be done”; and once again in John 17:24, for the eternal blessing of those whom His Father had given Him, “I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” “Before the mountains were settled... Then I was by Him, one brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him (Prov. 8).” This hour then came, and Jesus in that hour could repeat, as it were, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire: mine ears hast thou opened; burnt-offering and sin-offering has thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart (Psa. 40).” And closing in the cross that work, and establishing that will, He cries, “It is finished.” His will is done, and “He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost.”

He died and lived again: He ascended on high in glory, and all now was removed which could frustrate that “will” of God. All was settled forever that established it. The “good pleasure” of the “will” could now be made known to the “sons of men.” We hear the exponent of it, now by the Spirit, unfold it in our calling on high of God, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ: according 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: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved (Eph. 1:3-5).” How sweet those words, “accepted,” “taken into divine favor,” “in the beloved.” “Whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord” (Prov. 8).

Now the Ephesian Epistle unfolds these eternal thoughts and counsels of our God. In it we find (as in Christ and by the Spirit) God most fully revealed and seen. His Church displays Him in these two ways:

1. God Himself to man, to the universe, as God now fully known.

2. Man before Him, displayed according to His counsels, as seen in Christ. His Church, Christ’s body, in union with her Head, by the Spirit, now in mystery, and in full display in the day of glory. The Spirit too now gathering to the confession of His name on earth those who are His own, until the day when He with His Church becoming manifestly the center of an ordered universe. As we read that, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He will gather together in one all things in heaven and earth, in Christ; in 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.

What a calling: God displayed in Christ, for “in Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1:19).

Christ displayed in the Church His body, His bride, “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:22), the ordered center of a reconciled universe, the helpmeet, the Eve of the second Adam, in the day of power.

How then is all this to be realized in the soul? How are we to walk in the power of this calling of God? We must be strengthened with all might, according to t he riches of the glory of the Father, by His Spirit in the inner man. But for what? What need of such blessed living action of God in us? It is that this Christ, this center of all things, to whom heavenly, earthly, and infernal beings must bow the knee (Phil. 2:10), “may dwell in our hearts by faith!” That the soul’s affections may center in Him, surround Him, entwine themselves in Him; that being rooted and grounded in love, no Satan’s power can disturb this planting of our souls in the soil of love! Down deeply have struck the roots there, though this will be tried and tested; far and wide the soul has spread its branches. Sorrows but unfold it, and want but finds in it its rich supply. Temptations to disturb it are met by the power of it ministered to the soul. The coldness of our brethren deepens the joy of its being ours. The world’s sneer and scorn turn the heart more distinctly to Him who loves. The entranced soul rises to the deeper contemplation of that central Sun, and looks out from Him to the length, and breadth, and depth, and height, which center in Him, and is lost in the fields of illimitable glory. Yet it finds itself at home there, recalled by that well-known love which, as a sinner once it tasted, and found itself at peace with God; as a saint too who failed along the way, and who found its never-dying power humbling to the dust the soul with its unchangeableness; or as a chosen one of the Father before the world was — the gift of His heart to the Son, one “whom thou hast given me.” How deep the wellspring of that love must be to one who was the object of His eternal choice, whose delights were in the sons of men!

Yet this love of Christ is that which touches the heart, and makes it feel itself at home in those fields of glory. Yet while known and tasted, “it passeth knowledge.” Too great for finite hearts to grasp, yet, like the babe which knows its mother’s love, unable though it is to explain its power, it is the link of heart with Him whom not having seen, even now we love.

The finite vessel is thus launched upon the infinite sea of light, and love, and God — filled into all His fullness! “Unto Him be glory by the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all generations of the ages of ages [see Greek]. Amen” (Eph. 3:21).

The more one enters upon and realizes what the Church of God is, and, connected with His counsels for Christ’s glory, what a place she holds in God’s plans for the ordered manifestation of His glory, the more one feels how hopeless is the ruin which lies far and wide around our path. How false is everything which pretends to be His Church on earth! How Satan has succeeded in destroying outwardly all that bears Christ’s name! How feebly do those, whose spiritual vision is opened to know somewhat of her blessing, grasp the thought of her place and calling in connection with her Head on high in glory! How few there are who care for more than that which speaks of their own blessing! How few even that have realized their personal blessing at all! How little is the voice of the Spirit heard in the bride, calling on the “bright and morning star” to “come!” How His people may say, even at their best, “My leanness, my leanness; woe is me!”

Yet God would gather a people in these days to the confession of the name of Jesus, and the truth of His body — His bride. He would awaken bridal affections which Jesus looks for in His Church, for which He gave Himself. He has brought forth in living power these long-buried truths. He would awaken His people, and recall them to the state of those who at first looked for and awaited God’s Son from heaven. He would form a heavenly company of true whole-hearted souls, whose aims, and life, and work, are for the glory of His Son. Are there not those who would respond to those Spirit-wrought desires? who long to answer in all things to the heart of Christ? Surely there are. Surely when God has again brought these things to light, He will find a people who will value them, and answer to His heart’s desire.

Christian Friend, 1880, pp. 120-134.

Zaphnath-Paaneah: Genesis 41 & John 4

To the Editor of the “Christian’s Friend”

Dear Brother, In Jacob’s blessing of his sons (Gen. 49) we find those familiar and lovely words about Joseph used by the aged patriarch: “Joseph is a fruitful bough, (even) a fruitful bough by a well, (whose) branches run over the wall.” We know now that a “greater than Joseph” was before the prophetic mind of the Spirit in the patriarch when he spake those words, of which I now only cite a part. The whole of the blessing may be seen in reading the chapter. The portion I have quoted will answer my present purpose in calling your attention to it.

If we turn back in the book of Genesis, and glance at the lovely narrative of Joseph (Gen. 37:1) — evidently that of one of the most blameless of men whose histories are recorded in Scripture — we find, in Genesis 41, the moment of his full exaltation over all the land of Egypt before us. At this time he was thirty years of age; he had been shamelessly and heartlessly rejected by his brethren, and sold to his captors, oppressed and afflicted, taken from prison and from judgment; the iron had entered into his soul. In all this, as in the many other details of his life, type of him who was to come. He had just interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh, and had counseled Pharaoh to be warned of God in preparing for the years of the famine that was to come. “And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find (such a one) as this (is), a man in whom the Spirit of God (is)?” (Gen. 41:38). And Pharaoh raises him to be head over all the land. There was none so discreet and wise as he. He would be over his house, and according to his word should all his people be ruled; only in the throne would Pharaoh be greater than he. Power over all flesh is his, and all is given into his hands (Gen. 41:43, 44).

He names him “Zaphnath-panneah,” or the “Revealer of secrets,” as the Coptic, it is said, indicates; and “Savior of the world,” as another authority. Of course I do not go further here than to notice the double significance of this title which Pharaoh gave to Joseph.

In the seven plenteous years — those years of grace — the earth brought forth by handfuls from the ripened fields. The reaper received his wage, and gathered fruit for the life to come, when famine would stalk through the land. Joseph too married a wife in the land of his rejection, and to him were born his two sons — Manasseh, his firstborn, signifying “forgetting”; and Ephraim, the second, bearing the name which means “fruitful.” He forgot his toil, and his father’s house; and he was fruitful of God in the land of his affliction.

When we turn to the gospel of St. John (chapter 4), and read of the opening of the public ministry of the Lord, we find the One in whom the Spirit of God is, the One to whom God gave not “His Spirit by measure” (John 3), going forth, when thirty years of age to Samaria, on His mission of glace. “He left Judah”; He left His own to whom He had come, morally rejected by them. He had come to His own, and His own received Him not. He passes out in the fullness of grace to defiled Samaria, morally now, as actually again, with “power over all flesh,” and all things given into His hand by the Father. There He proves Himself to be the true “Revealer of secrets” — One who told the sinful woman all that ever she did (John 4). He forgets His toil, and the long weary journey of that day through the burning heat, till He sat at noon on the side of the well —the most fruitful bough that ever shadowed it. He forgets His thirst; His hunger too — refreshed by the meat to eat of which the disciples as yet knew nothing. He forgets too His father’s house, and in the land of His affliction He is fruitful. The woman of Samaria is found by Him who came to seek and to save the lost. His word to the disciples in those years of plenty which now were dawning, was: “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” Many of the Samaritans too believed on Him; they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

He is the true “Zapnath-paaneah” now as then. Surely we can say, as in 1 John 4:14, “We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son, the Savior of the world.” We have learned how surely He is the “Revealer of secrets,” as did the woman of Samaria, through the window of our souls. The conscience of each can vouch for this. We need no proof or evidence that we have had to do with Christ, and He with us.

I only touch upon those few features of this lovely type. Perhaps it may encourage others to look for the more minute details for themselves. But, dear brother, when we know Christ, is it not a happy task to find some lines of Him portrayed on those who went before, and in whom His grace and Spirit was working? Shall we deem it a less happy task now to trace in those who are Christ’s, the hues of His life and ways, as the Spirit of God has done so blessedly in those who had gone before?

Yours affectionately in His love,

F.G.P.

Christian Friend, pp. 217-220, 1877.

Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.

Manna

How vain for an Israelite to have searched for a large piece of Manna — yet when all the small pieces (the “small round thing,”) were put together, they formed a large piece, quite sufficient to each man “according to his eating.” While vainly searching for a large piece, he would neglect to gather up the small pieces which were like Coriander Seed, and thus his time was spent, and the large piece not found. Do we keep looking for signal mercies?— or large revelations of Christ and do we neglect to gather together, and to store up and feed upon the little (?) mercies and revelations of Himself which strew our pathway all the day and in which we learn the heart of Him who has strewed them around us on all sides? Could my eyes be wandering in search of a large piece, when the wilderness is strewed on all sides around me with small pieces? Have I gathered them all up today? If so, depend upon it, I have more than my eating — “I have all things and abound” — surely I have enough at any rate.

The soul is on the way to find itself longing for fish, and onions, and garlic, if it is wandering after a large piece of Manna. Life here is made up of little things — and the soul finds Christ in the little things — (the “small round thing,” so to say) and finding Him I gather Him up, and feed upon Him, and find myself stronger and stronger.

I am almost afraid to say what I feel about the change in the taste of the Manna from Exodus 16:31, to Num. 11:8. The color too was changed from “white” to the “color of bdellium.” Does the soul ever recover its first freshness of taste when it has longed after Egypt’s fleshpots? Has Christ the same freshness to the eye when it has been upon the “ends of the earth,” and the soul has been thinking of Egypt and of making a “captain”?

One has said with regard to the above remarks, “How could a soul which has tried again to satisfy itself with Egypt’s food, find Manna the same thing after restoration? The pure and sweet Manna which has sustained the virgin soul which has unwaveringly followed the guiding pillar, must for the restored soul, have its color changed into that of tried gold, and its taste to that of healing oil. Nothing else would supply its need now.”

Words of Truth 2:56, 57.

O Wretched Man That I Am! Who Shall Deliver Me?

Romans 7

How often do we find a soul in the state which is in the Apostle’s mind in the closing verses of Romans 7! And how often is it judged to be the proper healthy state in which a soul should be! To be sure, the deep work which we find there is most useful to be learned in the conscience, but we should ever remember that it is not proper Christian experience at all. It is plain enough that the soul there is awakened to the sense, more or less deeply, of what it is in God’s sight, and even this is blessed. It is so blessed to see consciences searched to the very deepest depths by whatever means the Lord uses to this end. There never is a true work of God done in the soul till this is so. Many and many a “stony ground” hearer has had a thorough intellectual knowledge of the Gospel, without a single bit of conscience, or life towards God. What a solemn truth for many a heart. May such be led to see to it that they have more than an intellectual interest in the Gospel of God’s grace. Many a soul who has had views of the salvation of God in the Gospel, as clear and as correct as might be, will be found as those of whom the Lord Jesus says, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

This is not the case however in Romans 7. There it is the feelings of a conscience which is thoroughly searched and awakened, but miserable, Occupied entirely with self, and the claims of the law upon a man alive in the flesh, and responsible before God, and not possessing any knowledge of Christ as a Savior, or enjoying the Spirit of adoption. It is not the state of a dead sinner, but of a quickened soul before deliverance, groaning under the sense of the nature of sin within it, which is so twisted round the heart, that when it would do good, evil only is present with it.

Just picture a friend on a bed of sickness, groaning and writhing in pain. Well, you say, “he is not dead — he is alive; but that is a poor way of showing that he is alive.” So with the soul here, it is not dead. It is alive; but if alive, it should be happy to be in health: and not be showing that it is alive in such a miserable way as this.

There is an order too, in the discovery of self which we find here. For it is really the discovery of a nature, which the soul makes. It is not the fruits of that nature, or the sins which have come from the root within. It is (the discovery of) the nature and principle —the root of sin, which we find twisted round the heart, desolating it under the thought that, while I would desire to do the good, and delight to do it, I am unable to do it, for sin is present with me. But what happiness to discover even so far as we find in Romans 7:17, that “it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” That I have a nature apart from, and wholly distinct from the sinful principle which I find wrought into my very heart’s core. A nature which consents to the law that it is good, and hates the evil of which the other nature alone is capable. This is the first step of the soul here, but a step that is on the way to better things. How blessed for a soul that has been writhing under the sense of its own sinfulness, to make this discovery. To find out that what I thought was myself, was in truth only the workings of a bad, and hopelessly bad nature, which the possession of a good nature only brought to light. Blessed to discover that I have a better nature, which has the desire to do the right, even though I find that it has no power over the workings of the old.

But if I have made this discovery of two natures, I must find out something more. I discover that even this new nature has got no power to combat with, and contend with, the evil and bad nature. And that while “to will is present with me, how to perform that which is good I find not.” That even when with heart and soul I would do good, evil is present with me. That the law, or tendency, of the bad nature, “brings me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” I have discovered a new nature, but oh, desolating discovery, it has got no power, it cannot struggle successfully against the evil nature to which I am a captive. What then am I to do? Ah, there is the secret out. You want to Do! You want to get victory and peace by progress over this bad nature, and thus be delivered. Well, you never will get peace thus. If you did, you would be congratulating yourself for the victory. “What then must I learn?” you would say. “I have learned that I have got two natures. I have learned that the good nature has got no power in itself. What is now to be done?” “I am a wretched man, WHO SHALL DELIVER ME?” Ah, yes, now you have come to the end of yourself: you do not ask now “what shall I do?” You have discovered that you can do nothing — that you must have some one else to come in and deliver you — that you cannot deliver yourself. You have been like one floundering about in a quagmire — every plunge for deliverance only putting you deeper; instead of getting you out. You have now come to the end of your strength — the end of yourself; and to the conclusion when there, that you cannot deliver yourself — that you must have another to deliver you. Blessed discovery. When the soul is driven, as it were, to the cry, “O, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” — It is not now, What shall I do? but the cry of a soul that has consciousness that it can do nothing to get free, and that it must have another to do for it — another to deliver! And the moment the soul is there it discovers the soul-emancipating truth that all is done; and already it is thanking God for deliverance, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Yes, it has found that it was when we were without strength, in due time when this had been thoroughly proved, Christ died for the ungodly — that He had been down in the very depths in sin-bearing and judgment on account of sin — that what the law could not do, that is, give deliverance, or bring to God. God has done. How? He sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, a sacrifice for sin; and He condemned sin in the flesh! condemned what He could not pardon, that is, the nature of sin which was twisted and knotted round the heart of the groaner of Romans 7:24; and now, instead of the law of sin in his members. bringing him into captivity, it is the law of the Spirit of life (in resurrection) in Christ Jesus, has made him free from the law of sin and death.

The deliverance is complete, and he is thanking God through Jesus Christ. But the natures remain and their tendencies are unaltered — this he learns in Romans 7:25. “So, then, with the mind, (the new nature which he alone acknowledges as himself) I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” Not that he does serve it, but the characteristic tendencies of each are discovered; and he only speaks of the “the flesh” as an evil thing to be treated as an enemy and overcome.

It is remarkable that when the soul is in this state before the knowledge of deliverance, that it is all self — I, I, I — which occupies him. The passage shows us the soul under the breaking-up process under law, or the pressure of God’s claims upon a man in himself, still looking upon itself as a man alive in the flesh. This condition the apostle looks upon as a bygone thing to the Christian in Romans 7:5, “When we were in the flesh,” that is, when we were alive as children of Adam, and responsible in such a state to God. But the Christian is dead. He has died to, and from under, the law, by the body of Christ. Having died to that wherein he was held (vs. 6, read margin, which is correct), in coming into a new state in Christ risen from the dead, he might be to another, even to Christ risen from the dead, and thus, and thus only, bring forth fruit unto God. He is not now in the flesh — it is a bygone state. “When we were in the flesh.” Just as we would say, “When we were in such or such a place, in which we are not now.” He is now in the Spirit. “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit” (Rom. 8:9). Romans 8:1-11is the answer, in deliverance, to the cry, “Oh! wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me” and it goes on, as verse 11 shows, even to the deliverance of the body, or the dust of the saints, which is raised because of the Spirit of God having dwelt in their bodies. And in treating of this deliverance, notices by the way the natures concerned in it —the carnal mind and the spiritual mind.

The great secret of our Christian position is, that we are not alive “in the flesh” at all. The death and blood-shedding of Christ has met our whole condition as sinners, whether as regards the nature of sin which is in us, or the fruits of that nature — sins, and has put it away. But He was not only thus delivered for our offenses — He was also raised up from the dead. God raised Him up from the dead, after He was perfectly glorified by Christ on the cross, as to sin. Every moral character of God was exhibited there. God then comes in and raises Him up from among the dead, and brings Him into a new place in resurrection, and the believer, whose case as a sinner was met in the death of Christ, passes by faith into a new place in Christ risen. Thus, as dead with Christ, he is discharged or freed, as is Christ Himself, from sin. His business, then, is to reckon himself dead. To act upon this, and to count himself alive unto God in Christ risen from the dead. Thus he gets power over sin, over Satan’s power, who only can deal with the old nature. The law has lost its claim over him too. It applied to his fallen nature, and to it only. It forbade the lusts of a heart which had departed from God. By the law was the knowledge of sin. It pursued its claims upon him, as a man alive in the flesh, as far as the cross; then, having died with Christ, it can pursue him no farther. He has become dead to the law by the body of Christ. He has been delivered from the law, having died to that wherein he was held. Therefore, when the apostle comes to Romans 8:1, he sees the Christian in a new place — in Christ. Therefore, he says there is no condemnation for those who are there. How could there be? Christ had been in death and sin-bearing, had fully met the judgment of God on sin and sins. The wrath of God had discharged itself fully upon His head — the justice of God had been satisfied. He had come forth out of that place in resurrection — how, then, could there be any condemnation to those who are in Him They are in a new place, to which these things do not belong. The law of the spirit of life in Him hath set them free from that which, as children of the first Adam, fallen and estranged from God, they had been subjected — even from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do — it could condemn the sin, but without delivering the sinner. It could, and it did, discover the sin, and prohibit it —and, finding it there, it could and did establish the distance between God and the sinner —but it could not give life, or bring to God — well, what the law could not do, God has done. He has sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as a sacrifice for sin. He has condemned the nature that could not be pardoned, that is, “Sin in the flesh.” I forgive my child for its fault, but I do not forgive the nature from which it came. So with God — He forgives the sins, but not the nature from which they came. So He condemns what He could not pardon. Thus the holy requirements of the law, its righteousness, are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; never by being under it. And thus God has brought us to Himself in Christ.

The conflict, or breaking-up process, of Romans 7 is that of the flesh under law. There is no knowledge of Christ as a Deliverer, a Savior, known in the soul as such; and the Spirit of Christ is not there. It has been confounded with the conflict of Galatians 5:17, and wrongly. There, it is the conflict between the flesh and the spirit which goes on. And there we find, “If we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” And, “If we are led of the Spirit, we are not under law” at all. “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that ye may not (this is the force) do the things that ye would.” The whole context and teaching of the passage shows that living and walking in the Spirit, which is the proper Christian state, enables us to overcome the workings of the flesh, and walk in the liberty of grace. Therefore, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor. 3:17). No more the groanings of a soul under bondage, but entire and perfect liberty. A liberty for the new man to live unto God.

Words of Truth 1:192-197.

The Jews

It will be interesting at the present time to say a few words on the chapter at the head of this paper.

It is a sweet privilege to the Christian to know beforehand the things that are coming on the earth, although they do not immediately concern him. His hope is a heavenly one, where judgments cannot come. Those judgments happen preparatory to the establishment of the millennial kingdom. The Christian awaits the coming of the “Morning Star,” ere the darkness which now shrouds the world is dispelled by the rising of the “Sun of Righteousness” (Mal. 4), which fills the world with blessing — he will then “shine forth as the sun” with Christ, in the Father’s kingdom.

The chapter gives us, in seven verses, a complete history of the events which take place at the time the Jews return to their land in a state of apostasy. The Lord does not interfere, but allows things to go on apparently prospering, and Israel having even the appearance of fruit bearing in the land of the fathers. The nations who had favored this return then recommence the old hostility to the Jews, who become their prey. The Lord then interferes with His mighty arm, and brings a remnant of them as a “present” to Himself to the place of His name — the Mount Zion which He loved.

Verses 1-3. — The prophet pronounces “woe” upon some great unnamed nation which lies outside the rivers of Ethiopia or Cush (the descendants of Cush, we are told, made a settlement on both these rivers), the Euphrates and the Nile — the two great boundaries of the land of Israel. We read in Genesis 15:18, “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt (the Nile) unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” He pronounces woe upon this nation, which is evidently a great maritime power, and which is engaged in favoring and helping the return of the people of Israel, “scattered and peeled” — wonderful from their beginning hitherto. He then calls all the inhabitants of the world and dwellers upon the earth to see and to hear.

Verse 4. — The Lord then tells the prophet that He will take His rest, and consider, in His dwelling-place, all that goes on — as yet He does not interfere. He allows man to run on to the height of his madness and folly, that He may show him his powerlessness

Verses 5-6. — Before the harvest — a figure of separating and gathering for the vintage of judgment (both figures are used in many places of Scripture thus, see Rev. 4:14-20), when the returned Jews seem to be spreading out as a vine in the land; and even the appearance of fruit bearing putting itself forth — “the sour grape ripening in the flower.” The vine is an old figure of the nation (see Isa. 5; Psa. 80:8-16, etc.) All is then destroyed. The old hatred of the nations is turned against Israel. They are cut down and destroyed. The emissaries of Satan shall summer upon them; and the nations shall winter upon them; and all that appeared so promising is dashed to the ground. The time of the “great tribulation,” or “Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7) has come, “but he shall be saved out of it.” In the language of Deut. 28:26, “Thy carcass shall be meat unto all the fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.” Or, as the Lord Jesus, talking of this time of trouble, says, “For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together” (Matt. 24:28, and the whole chapter to verse 44).

Verse 7, —”In that time” — in such a state of things as will then be, “shall the present be brought-unto the Lord of hosts.” A remnant of the people scattered and peeled — from a people terrible (or wonderful) from their beginning hitherto. The Lord Himself brings to Himself a present of the residue, or spared remnant, of His people, “to the place of the Lord of hosts, the Mount Zion” which He loved. That little spot which is His rest forever! “For the Lord hath chosen Zion: he hath desired it for His habitation. This is my rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it” (Psa. 132:13,14). Having refused nationally to receive the Gospel of God’s grace, they (the remnant) are saved through the judgments of the Lord, which introduce the Kingdom.

As to the Christian’s hope, it is but one. The coming of the Lord Jesus to take His people out of the world, before these judgments take place. He has promised this. He has said to them,

Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth (Rev. 3:10).

This hour of temptation is detailed in Isaiah 24, and takes place ere the Lord of Hosts reigns in Mount Zion, and before His ancients gloriously. Isaiah 25 tells us of the deliverance of the remnant of the Jews, who say, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord: we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” Isaiah 26 gives us the song of the delivered remnant, and some details. Isaiah 27, the completing of the work, and the gathering of the ten tribes, to worship with their brethren of Judah, the Lord of Hosts at Jerusalem, in the glorious days of the millennial age.

The Lord’s coming is the hope of the Church — His appearing in glory with her, after this tribulation, which happens between these events, is the deliverance of the Jews, and the introduction of the Kingdom.

Words of Truth 1:209-212.

Noah Building the Ark, and Noah in the Ark: The Two-Fold Christian Testimony

In the sixth and seventh chapters of Genesis we find Noah in two positions. In chapter 6 he is building the Ark, and in chapter 7 he is in the Ark.

In the first position he was surrounded by a hostile, unbelieving world, to which he was a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2), this was his outward testimony towards it; while in his own personal walk, which was also a testimony to it of approaching judgment, he was building an Ark. “By faith, Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an Ark to the saving of his house” (Heb. 11:7); thus condemning the world. All his expectations, and hopes, and prospects, were centered in this Ark. It was the “one thing” which occupied his hands during that eventful time, when the “long-suffering of God waited” in his days (1 Peter 3). Everything around him had its value according as it served his purpose. Nothing was of use but as it helped him on. The world had corrupted itself, and was filled with violence and the end of all flesh in God’s sight had come. Noah waited for the judgment of the world. He knew that nothing else would close the scene, as soon a God’s long-suffering had come to an end — the world’s iniquity had long since come to the full, nothing now remained but the mo t dire and disastrous judgment, when the moment had arrived in the counsels of God.

In the second position he was shut in by the Lord’s own hand (Gen. 7:16), and seated in the Ark which floated securely over the waters of judgment, with which the world was enshrouded, as by a funeral pall! For a whole year (Gen. 7:6; 8:1), while the changes and vicissitudes of season had gone round — storm and calm — sunshine and shower — there he was securely floating over the waves and billows of judgment shut into the Ark. Not a drop of the mighty waters reached him in this secure place, which was pitched within and without with pitch. Ruin and death were all around and under him, the only place where there was life and sustenance of life was in the Ark.

All this speaks to the Christian, with this difference, that he is in a figure in both positions at the same time; and his testimony is defective when he does not witness to this. In Philippians 3, the Christian is building the Ark, and thus condemning the world which runs on to judgment; Christ is his only object and hope. Everything which does not serve his purpose in the “one thing” which occupies him, is “dross and dung.” It is set aside as worthless, savoring of human life and flesh which is about to be engulfed in the mighty waters — or, it is dropped as a hindrance in the testimony of the workman towards a world which Christ has forsaken, and which in rejecting God in Christ, sealed its own doom. The world around is hostile and unbelieving — speaking of progress and improvement, and adornment and beauty; confident in its own powers (“confident in the flesh”) to repair the distance between it and God. To remove the sentence of judgment under which it lies, by plucking up its “thorns and thistles,” and in “buying and selling, planting and building,” ignoring the tide of judgment which has flowed over it at the Cross. The Ark is his object — to “know Him” (Christ), is his aim — human righteousness is cast aside as worthless — confidence in self ignored — “what things” seemed to be gain, are counted loss for the Ark; they would not aid in the “one thing” which governed him. “All things” have got their own value — they are as “dross and dung” to the soul who is thus building an Ark, and by his walk condemning those “whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, who mind earthly things.” All his expectations, his hopes, his prospects, are centered in Christ, and in the desire to know Him in the glory, and the power of His resurrection, which works in him to bring him there, he desires fellowship with His sufferings, and conformity to His death, if by whatever means it may be, he might attain to the resurrection from among the dead. Confidence in flesh — birthright — righteousness by the law — worldly things, were loss; while the power of Christ’s resurrection — fellowship of His sufferings, and conformity to His death were courted and desired, as helping to build the Ark, as it were, in which all his expectations are centered. Nothing was of use but those things which helped him on. All that could not be brought into the Ark was set aside as a weight — all that could was cultivated and prized.

But while the Christian is thus as it were building an Ark, he is also shut in to Christ, and by His resurrection, and that power that wrought in Him, he is raised up together with Christ, and seated together in heavenly places in Him (Eph. 2). God has shut him in. He has a good conscience by the resurrection of Christ (1 Peter 3); and while the world is shrouded in the waters of a mightier judgment than ever it was in the flood, he is in the secure place; not a drop of its waters can reach him — — the vicissitudes of the world, its changes of storm and sunshine — wind and rain, do not affect him, for the entire period, till the judgment is removed. What has he to do with it all around? just to float over it all, enjoying the food and life which is shut into the Ark — “All spiritual blessings in heavenly places” which he possesses in Christ (Eph. 1). Death and destruction are around him and below him, and in the midst of it all he is floating securely above it, and the mighty waters, the waves and billows do not affect him at all. He is above all the ruin and death here below, in Christ, and he finds it is infinite gain. Do you suppose Noah lost anything by being shut into the Ark from the scene of desolation around? Do you suppose he found that he was mistaken when he was actually shut into that which had been all his expectation for many a year — for which he had surrendered all his earthly possessions? They were of but little value when they were sunk beneath the waters of death, while that which was his expectation and hope was riding triumphantly on the waves! Not a single living blessing was wanting in the Ark with him; not a single nourishing thing of “all food that is eaten” was absent. People talk as if they would lose a great deal if they were thus shut up to Christ. Not a beauty in all the creation was outside the Ark. — Every beautiful living object was shut into it with Noah; while every deathful thing was shut out of it in the flood of waters. People are afraid to drop the things which hinder them enjoying Christ — fearing that after all they would not be recompensed an hundred-fold if they did so. People try too, to realize that they are seated together in Christ in heavenly places, and at the same time hold on to all that savors of that which is under judgment here below. Would you think well of Noah if he had the desire, after God had shut him in, to go out again on the waters, and then try to realize that he was shut in? This is what many are doing. Do you think such people condemn the world by their walk? Do you think they have Noah’s faith? People talk of judgment which is hanging over the world as a thunder-cloud, and at the same time they are like Lot who said true things, but who “seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law” (Gen. 19). You see such persons perhaps preaching and teaching, and at the same time in the world, of the world — ministering, by their position, or rank, or such things to its moral state. What business have such to preach like Lot of judgment, and at the same time be as he — sitting in the gate — even Lot’s own family circle did not believe him.

Can my reader say honestly, “I do want to be shut up to Christ. I want to feed on all the sustenance and life that is there. I want not only to build the Ark, but to be in the Ark — shut into Him, and in Him realizing that all that is not in Him, savors of death and judgment.” If the Christian has any object before his soul than seeking to win Christ, he is not in his true place — he is not building the Ark, and condemning the world. On the other hand if he is not plainly showing that he has accepted the fact, that the end of all flesh — his own flesh, too — has come in God’s sight, and that he is shut in to Christ — riding triumphantly over the judgment with which the world is shrouded, seeking nothing outside Him; he is not witnessing and walking in the power of that which he has professed. His testimony is defective and comparatively worthless.

May the Lord give this condition of soul to His much loved people, and may they, on the other hand, desire such a condition of soul; for His name’s sake. Amen.

Words of Truth 2:43-47.

Correspondence on the Training of the Children of Believers

Dear brother, I have had your letters seeking for help on the extremely interesting and important subject of the training of the children of those who are Christ’s — I mean those of true children of God. I feel how poorly I can speak of such a subject; but am encouraged by that grace of which I learn so much every day.

You ask, How should we regard them? As children of wrath even as others? Part of the “world lying in the wicked one” with the wrath of God “abiding on them, etc., etc.” And here I think I would most clearly distinguish between a moral state in God’s eye, which all are in by nature, as dead in trespasses and sins, and the privileged place or sphere of blessing, in which God regards the “houses” of His people; that is, all whom God looks upon as attached to the head of that house. That there has always been such a sphere of privilege, certainly from the flood downwards, if not always indeed, is clear to me from Scripture. A sphere of blessing into which God has brought His child, and in which He has surrounded him with wife and children, in order that the light which He has lit up in the heart of the head of that house may shine out brightly, and carry by His grace the knowledge of God into the hearts of those in the house around him.

All this is different from the nature of those thus privileged and outwardly blessed of God. Of course it is just the same ruined undone thing as in the rest of mankind around.

But if God regards them merely as “children of wrath,” He would not say to the Christian parent, “Bring them up in the Lord’s discipline and admonition” (as we may read the passage.) And here you must not settle it in your mind, that it is believing children who are before the mind of the Spirit in Ephesians 6:1-4. The Apostle leaves it without defining whether they are or are not, addressing them simply as “children.” And He tells the parents to “bring them up” for Him (as Jochebed brought up Moses for Pharaoh’s daughter) “in the Lord’s nurture and admonition,” and surely He does not direct this if He intends to cast them off again.

I think there is much involved in the “Lord’s nurture and admonition.” He exercises it over and with us; and we are to observe a similar course with our children. His tender patience; His persevering love which never wearies, never casts off its object until the end is gained. His faithfulness which never flatters but deals with us, so that we may disallow practically all that savors of our evil nature, and the world from which He has delivered us. This disallowance of the flesh, and of all that savors of the old Adam and his ways on the one side, and complete conformity to the Son of God on the other is His aim, and characterizes His ways of discipline with us that He may be glorified And as we grow conversant with them as observed towards us whom He has brought to Himself, we learn the sort of dealing we are to pass on to our children, under Him. We must seek to show them whence the tendencies and wills of the flesh spring, and where they end; we must disallow them in our children, as the Lord does in us, seeking to draw their minds and hearts to Jesus, and thus with patient grace and persevering love discipline and admonish them for their good.

I feel too, that now, the family circle is the normal place for the conversion of the child. I am sure that much of what we are told of children’s conversions is but the bringing to a definite point what has long been there in the soul. It is most desirable that it should take its definite form in the way of a confession of Christ in the child; but what I fear, is anything in the way of excitement, by which the young, susceptible heart is easily wrought upon, thus forcing into immature development the hardly perceptible pulsations of life in the soul. I believe that in general such cases give a weakly tone to the soul, and in result are often like the too early removal of the shell from the little bird, a feeble state of soul will supervene.

My impression too, is, (and the exception proves the rule,) that the child of the believing, Christian parent will, as a rule, seldom if ever, be able to tell when he was converted, as we speak. It is true that, at the same time, the child or the parent may be able to look back to some moment when the faith and life which had been already in his soul took definite shape, and burst forth into activity and energy. Like the bursting forth into beauty and fragrance of the flower, which has grown up from the little unseen germ, or hardly perceptible bud, until the genial warmth of the sun and the gentle showers of the rain caused it to open its petals for the first time.

How lovely was the unquestioning faith of Hannah! Her son, the fruit of her prayer, was brought up to Shiloh, not without the offerings of faith too in her own and her husbands hands. At as early an age as his weaning time, ere living faith could work in the soul of the babe, she said to Eli, “Oh, my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto Jehovah. For this child I prayed; and Jehovah hath given my petition which I asked of him: therefore also I have returned, whom I have obtained by petition to Jehovah; as long as he liveth he whom I have obtained by petition, shall be returned to Jehovah (1 Sam. 1:26-28, marg.).” The contrast, too, in the case of Elis house is solemn and instructive; if illustrates the linking of the saint and his house in the sight of God. “In that day (said the LORD to Samuel) I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his Sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not” (1 Sam. 3:12,13).” Speaking, dear brother, of the conversion of the child of a saint, and noticing that the time of such is but seldom known, if known at all, in the normal state of things, I would cite the case of young Timothy. Brought up “from infancy” (άπὁ βρέφους) in the knowledge of the holy scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus, and trained by a pious believing mother, and perhaps grandmother, of the unfeigned faith of both of whom the aged apostle speaks in a most touching manner (2 Tim. 1:5); the blessed knowledge of the Word of God thus early imbibed into his young and impressible heart, and known as a child may know it too, paved the way for that moment when the life it brought to his soul burst forth into the liberty of grace and knowledge of Christ through the apostle Paul when at Lystra, who names him his “own son in the faith.”

Such, I believe, to be a true example of the conversion of the child of believing parents. He has the priceless boon of being in the circle where the name of Jesus is a household word, and the great circumstance and business of the lives of his parents. His parents feel that they have received him back from the Lord to be brought up under the yoke of Christ from the earliest moments of his existence, and they feel, too, that the One who has directed them to do this will not in vain be trusted in for that quickening of soul which he needs, as all do, that he may live indeed. They bring him up in the faith of Christ, never for a moment casting a doubt across his young and impressible heart that he is not the Lord’s. They teach him the way that God forgives and saves through the precious blood of Jesus Christ; they explain how the grace of God is received; they show the little one the awful results of unbelief, and of the rejection of Christ; they explain how real faith is known from the false and hollow profession around; they teach him that obedience and those desires to please the Lord under whose yoke he is brought up, are the true way in which the life of God displays itself in man. And thus by these teachings the conscience is awakened, and when, alas, failures in these things are seen, the necessity and meaning of the confession of sins, and the unburdening of the soul to Christ is pressed and encouraged. The desire, too, to make known to the Lord the wants of the heart for self or others are directed to their proper outflow — prayer: all these things lead the child onward to a confidence in God, and he grows up to Christ, as he does by the food of infancy by which his natural powers have been gradually developed.

While all this training goes on, how a true hearted parent will wait on God in secret, that that sovereign quickening power which belongs to Him alone may be put forth in behalf of his child, who he knows is by nature “dead in trespasses and sins.”

You will remark, too, dear brother, that it is in the “nurture (discipline) and admonition of the Lord.” This implies reverence for and owning the authority of One who is over the child. It does not imply a relationship as “Father” or “Christ”; the co-relatives of which would be “son” or “child” and “member of his body.” This is important too; because while none can truly please Him but those who are in relationship with Him, still the word “Lord” does not necessarily and exclusively mean this.

To treat children otherwise than thus, is in my mind to injure their souls, and hinder the work of God’s grace as far as we can do it. If a child finds his parent habitually treating him as outside the pale even of external relationship with God (compare Deut. 14:2 with Eph. 2:3; also 1 Cor. 7:14) and hears him praying for him as an unsaved one, he grows up in the thought (which may be true) that this is so. He is led to look at conversion as something to come to him some day perhaps, and perhaps not. Instead of fixing the eye on Christ and wholly away from himself, he turns it inwards, and thus is injured and hindered in soul: thrown back, it may be for a long season, in darkness, which occupation with self must do, while, if dealt with otherwise, he might, through grace, have been enjoying the favor of God which is better than life.

How Moses indignantly refused such a compromise of Satan as that proposed by Pharaoh (Ex. 10). “Go now ye that are men” with his reply, “We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters,” &c., and how often do Christian parents fall into the same wile of the enemy, and separate as to the external ground of blessing, between the parents and the children both in their own minds and the training they give them. Nay! All must be, as with Noah of old, in the same place of blessing. “Come thou and all thy house into the ark,” tells this blessed way of God’s goodness and mercy. “Thee have I seen righteous before me,” tells of the heal of the house being blessed in soul; and even his son, who alas, afterward dishonored his father, entered with him into the place of safety.

Surely a wise parent will not regard his child as a child of God, ere he sees the signs of a quickened conscience, and the fear of the Lord in him, but he seeks to lead his heart to Christ in practice, conversation, and ways; and thus, dependence on God, thankfulness of heart for His mercies, obedience to His will, is impressed upon his heart, and the faith of a parent will be answered of God in giving living faith to his child. I believe we ought to count on God for our children—every one of them — and where there is true faith in a parent as to this, He who gave it will answer it in making them His own.

There are many lines of thought in connection with this most interesting subject which we might enter upon, and, if the Lord will, we may do so in another letter.

Words of Truth 7:36-40.

Correspondence on Singing at the Graves of Our Brethren

... I feel so thankful to know that there were no hymns sung at the graves of our dearly beloved... I have long felt how much out of place they are on the sorrowful occasion of our committing the body of a beloved fellow-laborer or fellow-pilgrim to the tomb. If there is ever a moment in which hearts are torn asunder with grief, it is then; and I feel much that those who mourn for the departed one would rather weep and cry to our Father in prayer than sing. “Is any merry, let him sing psalms,” is the thought of God (James 5). How sacred are the sorrows of His people in the sight of the Lord! He “putteth their tears in his bottle,” and He “knoweth their sorrows.”

When I think of Him weeping, in going to the grave of His friend Lazarus, I feel that singing could not be there. It may be said that His was not the weeping of a sorrow stricken heart as was that of those around Him; and I say, Be it so. Theirs was the cry of bereavement or of sympathy; but His were tears indeed, and I love that wondrous word of Scripture, “Jesus wept.” He wept to see the power of death on the hearts and souls of those whom He dearly loved.

The Lord would have us feel the sorrows of the way, and when are they so keen as in a moment when one who has companied with us, and whom He has loved, has been called away? For them “to depart and to be with Christ is far better”; but what achings of heart for those who remain!

It has grated upon my spirit to hear hymns sung at such a time. If souls are filled with such joy that singing is its only expression I can say nothing; but I doubt this. In no case in Scripture do I find a thought of doing so amongst God’s elect. I need not cite the Old Testament, which in itself gives abundant proof of the contrary. The full joy of the departed one was not then made known as now we have it in New Testament Scriptures. It was seen in more or less measure, as were the hopes of those beyond the tomb at that day. The living, loving Savior, whose perfect human heart of hearts is now in glory, had not then taken manhood into union with His Godhead glory as Eternal Son. God Himself was not revealed, and the bliss of the state beyond the tomb, as then known, did not embrace the wondrous thought of a departing to be “with Christ.” It could not then be known. When the elect at that day left this scene, it was their happiness, most surely, and the lines of the hymn which speaks of “soaring to worlds unknown” was, doubtless, more their experience than ours now. It could not be an unknown world to those who know Christ; for He occupies the scene.

Yet, while it is the joy of the departed, and in measure we may be able to rejoice because they have gone to be with Christ, what a blank they have left behind! Can we sing, then, at such a time? When the proto-martyr Stephen passed away, praying for his murderers, and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” we read that “Devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him” (Acts 8:2). Singing could not have been at such scene. Yet here it maybe objected that these “devout men” were Jews, with their peculiar hopes and thoughts; that they may not, and very likely did not, know what has since been told us in Scripture. Yet I do not find Paul rebuking the dear Thessalonians for their sorrow for those who had fallen asleep from their midst. Nay, he owns the sorrow, but says that they should not sorrow as the rest, who had no hope beyond this scene. He would rather give the sorrow and mourning a divine character, as mingled with a hope by which they might “comfort one another.” (See 1 Thess. 4:13-18.)

I would add here, too, that if any saints were in the tone of soul in which singing would be possible at such a time, it was those fresh-hearted, loving children of God at Thessalonica. In no place in Scripture do we find such bright freshness of soul portrayed as there. Yet we read of sorrow and mourning rather than joy and merriment of soul. Doubtless they needed to have the sorrow corrected in its hopelessness, rather than its existence, and this Paul does so blessedly here.

I say not a word if the hearts of mourners are so full of praise that it can find no other vent than in song. Far be it from me to quench the Spirit in any. But I do say that such will not frequently be found, and for my part I would rather hear the quiet, earnest prayer of those who surround the tomb of a loved one, ascending and rising up to praise, if such were in unison with the hearts clustered around, than to hear what so grates on the ear of most — the hymn or song of praise — Affectionately in the Lord, F. G. P.

Words of Truth 7:97, 98.

Dear — I am glad you have written to me, as to my letter in “Words of Truth,” of May (p. 97), on the above subject, for I wished to have added a thought or so more to what I had written.

The letter, you will doubtless have perceived, left the matter quite open in cases which sometimes arise when there were no sorrowing mourners laying their dead in the grave, for the singing of hymns, as the Lord might lead, in the happy expression of Christian fellowship amongst those who are there. I have not the least objection to this. But I believe that those who go to the graves of their brethren, ostensibly do so, to “Weep with those that weep” (Rom. 12:15). If there are no weepers there, I am sure it is most happy to “Rejoice with those that do rejoice”; as it is to seize any occasion when we meet our brethren for Christian communion and joy.

I doubt if Paul could have sung at the grave of Epaphroditus had he died when performing this service for Paul, in bringing up the tender care — the “odor of a sweet smell,” of the beloved Philippians to his prison. “God had mercy on him,” says the aged prisoner, “and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should heave sorrow upon sorrow” (Phil. 2:27).

When the relative, husband of beloved wives, parents of beloved children, widows of beloved husbands, and the like, are surrounding the grave, the wrench has just come, and the deep wound of the tears is felt in its keenness (though, doubtless, it may be more keen later still), I should doubt it were spiritual power in their hearts to sing around the graves of those whom they had lost. I should (for myself at least), feel it were callousness and the want of “natural affection,” which characterizes the “last days” (2 Tim. 3). I am sure God would not have us think lightly — of these dealings of His hand. I would feel that His hand was upon me at such a moment, and that He was looking for a chastened, lowly spirit, that was bowing under the blow. I have no doubt but that “afterward” these things “yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness” to the exercised heart. But it is “afterward,” and not at the moment. Then, in the calm and quiet of an exercised heart, when the bitterness of the blow has passed away, we may surely rise above it all, and be able to praise Him, and be glad and rejoice for the joy of those who are “with Christ,” and away from the sorrows of this scene.

I believe that in John 14:28, “If you loved me ye would rejoice because I said I go unto the Father,” the Lord seeks such an interest in our hearts for His happiness, that He looks for our being happy in the thought of His happiness and joy, as gone on high, no more to be a “Man of sorrows” in this scene. I am sure none of them could have understood it at the moment. And besides it is not rejoicing that they were then about to lose Him; but, as I have said, present rejoicing in the consciousness of the happiness of Jesus as exalted in the Father’s glory. It may be in principle true of those who are His, but the application and meaning of the passage refers to what I have said. Thus when our sorrow will have subsided for a loved one, we do learn to rejoice no doubt, that they are with Him.

The substance of my letter was written to a brother, on the occasion of the funeral of a beloved co-laborer, who was snatched away in the midst of his field of usefulness. The brother to whom I wrote showed it to others, who approved much of it, and no hymns were sung. For this I was deeply thankful. Another wrote to me of the funeral, and said, None of us could have sung, there was not a dry eye there. This was as it should have been. The Lord’s people should collectively feel that God’s hand is upon them, when a valued laborer is taken away. They should do so individually, in like manner, when a loved one, closely linked by ties of flesh, or special ties, is removed.

I would hesitate to speak of what Scripture does not — “The joy of the blessed Lord at receiving that loved one,” etc. I would rather speak of and enjoy His sympathy in the sorrow of the moment, when hearts are deeply feeling the death of one they loved.

Affectionately in the Lord, F. G. P.

Words of Truth 7:138, 139.

Correspondence on the State of the Saints Under Promise, Law, and Grace

Dear ——

You ask — “Can we say that Abraham and the patriarchs knew themselves to be eternally saved, when Heaven, Hades and Hell were unrevealed?” I do not cite all your question, but embody it in my reply.

Salvation, as now revealed by the gospel in the New Testament, was then unknown, in fact, the salvation of the soul was not then the subject of revelation. The first time it is definitely spoken of in Scripture is in Matthew 1:21, where the thought is that Jesus, that is Jehovah-the-Savior, would save His people — not from their enemies, but from their sins. So also Peter speaks of the “salvation of your souls,” in contradistinction to that from their enemies, for which a Jew looked.

The great truths of Heaven, Hades and Hell were not then the subjects of revelation. Until the gospel was known, after the Cross was past, these things were but darkly hinted at, still they were there, and in measure referred to and known. The wrath of God from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom. 1:18) comes out with the righteousness of God to all, in the gospel, which is His power to salvation. Exclusion from God’s presence (Gen. 1) was seen in measure, as was the fact of the punishment of the wicked in a state beyond this life, but not in the clearness and distinctness which revelation has given it since then in the New Testament. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God,” shows that a punishment beyond this scene was known.

Before the Law was given, the saints walked with God, and Abraham, finding that he was to be a stranger and a pilgrim here “looked for a city which had foundations”; something stable outside this shifting scene; but saw it dimly and vaguely, as far as we are told. Thus a state of blessing with God, and after death, was looked for by the faithful. Confidence in God was blessedly seen in them. He had as yet raised no question of righteousness between Himself and His people, as afterward, by the Law. I do not therefore suppose they would have known the meaning of being “eternally saved.” They did not know that they were “lost” to which “saved” would be the correlative term. They lived and died in faith, no questions having been raised between them and God to disturb the blessed confidence of their hearts in Him, and their “faith was counted unto them for righteousness.”

With the wicked, natural conscience condemned them, “their conscience the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another” (Rom. 2:15). To this was added the responsibility of God’s Spirit striving with man, at one period of his then history at least, if not in all (Gen. 6:1), besides the recognition of “His eternal power and godhead” as displayed in creation, so that they were “without excuse” (Rom. 1:19,20).

When the Law was given, another thing came in. God raised by it the question, Had fallen man, a sinner, any righteousness for Him? When this question came in, all was changed. The free intercourse of God in grace with His people before that time, was all stopped. Perhaps Moses’ ease, individually, may have differed to the others. But God retired and hid Himself in the thick darkness. He hung up a vail between Himself and His people. Before that He used to come in and eat and converse familiarly with them at the tent door. All was now changed, and free intercourse over. When conscience awaked under the Law, there was perfect misery unless grace was known, and unless there was confidence in God, but that was outside of the Law altogether.

All this time God Himself was unrevealed. Much about Him doubtless was known, but as yet He had not come out and revealed Himself. Then came the Son of God, and here below He became a man. The unity of the Godhead was the great doctrine of the Old Testament, and this in contrast to the plurality of the God’s of the heathen. There were hints constantly given, and seen to faith doubtless in measure, that more was coming, and behind all this. But the unity of the Godhead was the subject in hand. “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our Elohim (God) is one Jehovah” (Deut. 6). “Unto thee it was shown, that thou mightest know that Jehovah he is Elohim (there is) none beside him” (Deut. 4).

The Trinity of the Persons was never known in the soul until the Holy Spirit was given to dwell in us. Hence even the apostles knew not fully who it was who graciously walked with them on earth. If it had been possible for them to know that God was there — when the Son was revealing the Father on earth — it would have been possible to know God in duality, that is, that He could be known in but two persons. This could not be. The Son reveals the Father on earth, the Father dwells in Him and does the works; but the Holy Spirit was the power by which the Son cast out devils — all was presented to man. But He must die and rise again, and go on high and give the Holy Spirit to those that obey Him, and now, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I know the Father, revealed in and by the Son. One God is thus known in the Trinity of the Persons, as a subjective truth in the consciousness of the soul. Peter might say, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and have a divinely-given revelation of this from the Father, but it was inoperative at the time, as many things are in ourselves, until known subjectively in our souls. A few verses on in the chapter (Matt. 16) he shows that flesh was not broken in him up to the height of the revelation, and indeed it never had its power until he afterward received the Holy Spirit. The Spirit given when Jesus was glorified made all the difference.

In Jesus “all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily.” There will never be, and there could not be, any further revelation of God, for all has been revealed, else the Son of God has not fulfilled His mission, which is simply impossible. The Trinity of the Persons is made known, and the Son has taken manhood into the Godhead — wrought redemption, and reconciled us to God by His death, and, risen with Him, we are sealed with the Spirit of God, and thus before Him in Christ Jesus, and He in us before men. The one settles our place before God, the other our duties before men (compare John 14:10).

There is no confounding the Persons of the Trinity, yet there is no separating them. Each Person (as we speak) does different things, yet all work in concert and in the unity of the godhead. The Father sends the Son, the Son does not send the Father. The Son dies for me, not the Father. The Spirit sanctifies, quickens, yet so do the Father and the Son. All this is now known in Christianity and under grace, and is quite different from what was hoped for by those under Promise, or felt by those under Law. Under the former, the Patriarchs knew Him as El Shaddai (God Almighty). See Genesis 17:1; and Exodus 6:3. He was the all powerful One, to watch over the pilgrim of faith. With Israel it was Jehovah — the self existing One, who would bring to pass all He had promised. With us it is the Father, revealed by the Son and known by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us — one God in Trinity. Yet He who is such to us — the Father tells us that He is the same who was Almighty to the Patriarchs, and Jehovah to Israel. Compare 2 Corinthians 6:18, and read Jehovah, for “Lord,” where it has this significance.

You ask also, “Would the knowledge of the character of God alone give certainty?” In the abstract I would reply, Yes. But I would qualify my answer by saying, that you could not know His character fully until the Cross was past, so that the work of Christ must come in, as well as God having been revealed on earth. I may be attracted to Him as a Man on earth; but the conscience must be purged by His work which rends the vail, and all God’s character known, perfect in grace, face to face with man at his worst. With the knowledge of such a revelation there must be certainty.

In Job’s case, it was a deep confident trust that God would come in and deliver him somehow (Gen. 19:23, 27). He desires that his hope and confidence may be graven upon a rock, to show how true and well-founded they are, as time would show. In the Spirit’s speaking by him, there doubtless was a deeper thing implied than that to which Job’s hope and confidence reached, just as the words, “I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” spoken to Moses (Ex. 3) were used in unfolding a deeper truth in the lips of the Lord Jesus afterward, in Luke 20, than the Jews saw. Job’s hope rises up to God, and so he puts life in Him, in contrast with the corruption of skin and flesh, seeing that in Him was a power of deliverance from all this in God Himself, his spirit reaching onwards to a better resurrection.

Affectionately yours in the Lord, F.G.P.

Words of Truth 7:157-159.

Dead to Sin: Dead to the Law

The only way in which a believer is not under the law, is by being dead with Christ. God counts the believer “dead to the law by the body of Christ”; faith accepts this and does likewise. Still, like other matters, experience and faith contradict each other when the soul is in a certain stage under the dealings of His hand; and until things, already true, are experimentally known. One finds in one’s own soul that many things are accepted as true abstractedly, and as of God, yet the soul’s experience has apprehended them but feebly, if at all. “If I may also apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” One can sometimes look back at the years it has taken under divine instruction and discipline, to learn experimentally some little sentence of Scripture that has just, as it were, dawned brightly upon one, and been as the voice of God.

One finds too, that there is no use saying to such and such a one, “you have not yet learned that!” with regard to certain truths. You could not make a soul understand that it had not! Thus, I have often said, there could be no proper doctrinal exposition of the Psalms by any man’s pen — no matter how deeply taught of God he might be. No two souls have ever gone through the same experiences, or the same circumstances in which such experiences might be found. Hence, the spiritual experiences produced by the Holy Spirit in one, would not be the same as those in another. The Spirit of God is the same of course; but the feelings of the vessel are different, and the circumstances are not the same. Christ alone has tasted, in divine grace, all that man ever could, or did, or will experience in his own person. He has gone through all, having willingly entered, especially at the close of His life, upon that period of His earthly history when He learned all, so as to be a perfect High Priest, and to be enabled to speak a word in season to him that is weary.

In the Psalms we find these expressions of exercises of heart that must be felt to be understood. Hence, no one could make them intelligible to another. When the soul finds itself in the circumstances, it finds the suited expressions that never could be understood unless it were there. Sometimes it finds Christ giving it the joy of being able to join with and enjoy Him what He could say; at others, Christ in divine grace gives the words that express the soul’s personal experiences, and not His own. Hence, the mistakes that have been made in attributing all the words of Psalms to the Lord’s own feelings personally.

I believe, to speak generally, we have in the New Testament three kinds of experiences; or rather experiences suited to three conditions of the soul.

In Romans 7 we find those of a soul before deliverance is known.

In Romans 8, those of a delivered soul entering in the power of the Holy Spirit upon the sorrows of a creation of which it yet forms a part as having a body unredeemed; and having relationships with the old creation that cannot be severed with impunity; while, at the same time, it is itself of the new creation.

In the Epistle to the Philippians, we have experiences which are the fruit of conscious union with Christ, maintained in practical power in the soul. It might be very justly called the Book of Psalms of the New Testament. The Psalms are the beatings of the heart of the Old Testament: Philippians, those of the New. It has been frequently said by another, that in this Epistle you do not find sin mentioned; I may add, nor do we find the experience of an undelivered soul. It has also been noticed that the flesh is not spoken of, only to say that the writer has no confidence in it. I question if Paul would have been employed to write this Epistle when he wrote that to the Romans. Not that the Holy Spirit could not do so by any one; but the vessel was not yet formed, so that out of his belly (the inward affections and experiences of the soul) might flow rivers of living water from Christ. “I have learned” so and so, is his language here.

But to return. The only way in which the believer can have nothing to do with law as a prohibitory code, etc., is by being dead with Christ. But how few know this in practical power even for deliverance! And while souls are taught that they have nothing to do with the law, which I should not state in so many words, they are left really under law as a principle, and Romans 7 describes their state; at least a modification of it, for this is an extreme case.

“Law, as a principle,” is not the same thought as “the law.” The former being the sense of responsibility to do God’s will, and to suppress all that is not suited to Him in my ways: the latter being a divine prohibitory code aimed against all that “sin” would bring forth in the form of “sins,” or rather “transgressions.” “In the flesh” and “under law” are correlative terms, describing a similar state of soul. The former describes the condition of a quickened soul which has not yet learned the liberty that is in Christ, nor deliverance from “the flesh.” In such a state the soul cannot take up the language of faith and liberty, and, say that the flesh is “not I myself.” It has not yet learned to look upon “sin,” and the new “I” as totally distinct and separate. The bond still exists in the soul’s experience, and though quickened it is “in the flesh.”

If verses 2 and 3 of Romans 7 be read parenthetically — taking verses 1 and 4 consecutively, we will arrive at the meaning more simply. The other two verses are a case put by the apostle by way of illustration, and in order to bring out in a fuller way what verse 4 teaches. The point the apostle is insisting on in the chapter is

(1) the believer’s deliverance from law:

(2) law is the strength of sin, and that which discovers it either as a code or a principle: and

(3) that deliverance is through death to it by the body of Christ, in order to be to another — even Christ risen, for fruit to God:

(4) this being in power of life in resurrection which is possessed: and this

(5) is the true “I.”

There is, in the experimental part of Romans 7, the discovery, first of all, — of the thorough evil of “sin” — the evil nature in me which, though my desires as a quickened soul are right, will not bend, nor do that which is good, but is ever fruitful in evil, and nothing but evil, continually. From whence come then the desires which aim, yet hopelessly aim at doing God’s blessed will, with desire and purpose of heart? Is there not — yea, must there not be another “I” — and a life and a nature which longs to fulfill the law of God, and to do His will? This dawns upon the soul. But there is the antagonism of “sin” to this right and proper will of the new man, which would do all God’s law most heartily if it possessed the power; and “the strength of sin is the law.” The law has provoked “sin,” and brought forth its latent evil and antagonism to the will of God. “I” — with its right desires, and its delight in the law of God, the new “I” and “sin,” are thus pitted against each other, and the soul longs for strength to combat “sin,” but only failure and defeat ensue. The person has no settled peace with God in such a state; and is really “in the flesh.” The new I and sin are one to the soul’s consciousness. The more the struggle goes on to fulfill the blessed desires of the new “I” — the more does the hopeless helplessness to do so become apparent. The “law of the mind”; (that is, its tendency or principle of action as we speak of the “law of gravitation” in accordance with which an apple falls to the ground,) of the new “I” is overcome by the “law of death,” that “other law” or tendency which is in my members — which are subservient to “sin”; and instead of liberty, captivity and bondage ensue.

This useful, though bitter experience leads the soul to the sense of thorough and hopeless weakness and inability to attain to, or to obtain the freedom it seeks, and the new “I” is not yet known as “I myself” — my proper self as before God; nor is “sin” yet known, nor “the flesh” — hateful hating God with tendencies which never cease to be the “law of sin.” In result, when the soul is led to look away to Another, even to Christ for deliverance from what it cannot overcome, deliverance is at once found, and liberty is known. The very moment the soul looked away to Another it owned, even it might be unintelligently, that it had no further hope in self, and this alone brought freedom. It can now look at “sin” in the nature as “no more I,” and deny its every claim — for notice in every way, even religiously; but only as a second person as it were that one is conscious of bearing about with them to the end, whose suggestions and thoughts and actions (if allowed) only inspire disgust and abhorrence, the more deeply and the better they are known: it only can be dealt with by being avoided, and by lending a deaf ear to its suggestions.

The person then is “not in the flesh.” The tie that existed between “sin” and “I” is forever broken — this tie was “the flesh,” and I am not in the flesh but in the Spirit, and am set free from the law of sin and of death (Rom. 8:2).

“Law” and “sin” are correlatives. But “sin” as an evil thing, that is “no more I,” is not what is first before it. The law, or law as a principle, is that which first presents itself to it, and which it seeks to obey. “Sin” is discovered by it, along with new desires which eventually are known as the new and true “I,” and the struggle leads to the discovery, unknown before, of the two in the one person.

I am quite sure that the state of soul described in Romans 7 from first to last does not portray one struggling against “sin” known as not the true and proper I, though there; but it is striving to obey law, or fulfill it as a principle, and the effort brings out the impossibility, by the discovery of ‘‘sin” as distinct from “I.” To begin by seeking to be set free from “sin,” would be to reverse the whole truth of the chapter. “Law” is before the soul; the discovery of “sin” is made in consequence; and the soul has to find deliverance through Another, in whom God has condemned sin in the flesh, and by being dead with Him to sin, and hence to law which was the strength of it.

“Reckon yourselves dead,” &c., “and alive,” &c. These are not to be taken up as reckoning “sin” dead, or the “old man” dead. It is, that we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin, &c., and “he that has died has been justified from sin. It is never said “sin” is dead at all, that I know of; but “I” am dead to sin — to the law, &c., and thus set free from them. Thus, faith is always in exercise. Romans 6:11 is abstractedly the bringing to bear upon the soul the great doctrine which he had been reasoning out; that is, our death with Christ to “sin,” and its effects for justification from it; and as possessing justification from “sins” by blood, in one who has died to “sin” itself, even Christ. We must bear in mind the great point of the apostle, stated in verse 1: that we cannot be alive to a thing, and dead to a thing at the same time; and as we possess justification by blood from sins, and justification of life in the Christ who had died and risen; we must be dead to what He died to, &c. Therefore, Romans 6:11 comes in as addressed to one who possesses all this in Christ Jesus, appropriating to faith the condition He was in as faiths possessions also.

It does not press the point whether it is for standing or practice; but it is an abstract reasoning by the apostle, of Christ having died to sin and being alive to God, presented to him who believes. It starts from the thought which he began with, that the unholiness of the thought that a person might continue in sin because grace was so free — grace, which reigned through righteousness to eternal life, and which had cleared him and justified him by virtue of what another had done, even Christ. Certain blessings devolved upon him through his federal head — Christ. The chapter takes up and applies Christ’s death to sin, and all that He died to, and His living now to God, as entirely free from anything whatever to do with it, and further, that it is made good to faiths reckoning, and in the practice of the believer. To make a separation at Romans 6:11, and say, it is for standing, and Romans 6:12 for practice, is not, I conceive, fair or right. Take all the statements for standing or practice (as faith may appropriate them), as in the abstract, and all seems simple; bearing in mind that it treats of the believer’s deliverance from sin, as chapter 7 shows his deliverance from law (from law as a principle, or basis, of standing before God), and that by being dead to both through Christ’s death.

Words of Truth, New Series 2:121-126.

Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy

Four of Paul’s Epistles have a special bearing one towards the other as to the truth.

1. Ephesians unfolds the doctrine of the Church of God as the body of Christ in heaven, and as builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit on earth, in its normal condition; ever true before God, and for faith. No ruin can affect what is thus maintained on earth, and will be finally presented in glory by the power of God.

2. First Timothy takes the Church up on the other side, also in its normal condition, but as presented before men. Consequently you do not find the Holy Spirit spoken of except as connected with Christ (1 Tim. 3:16); nor the relationships of Father and children — body and head — bridegroom and bride — which are most fully brought out or hinted at in the Ephesians. 1 Timothy treats of what it is as presented before men as the pillar and ground of the truth; Ephesians as before God and for faith. Both take up the Church in her normal state.

3. The 2nd Epistle to Timothy, on the other hand, takes up the abnormal state of things with reference to the outward state of evil which had come in, and the pathway of the servant or of the saint through it all, as to external things; showing the energy of faith and ministerial service, and what faith and devotedness can accomplish counting on God, in the midst of the ruin and falling away of the Church as a whole.

4. But while 2nd Timothy has its place of deep and lasting importance for us, as marking a pathway of separation from evil in the midst of the professing Church, Philippians has a specially lovely place marked, as in 2nd Timothy, by the absence of apostolic power.

Written in the prison at Rome, where the great apostle had now been for some years, this Epistle marks the resources of Christ (when the Church was deprived of apostolic ministry) in a special way.

To Paul, as has been said, were committed two special ministries. Peter was the apostle of the circumcision, and had his own place. Paul was

(1) “The minister of the gospel to every creature under heaven”; and

(2) “Minister of the Church (the mystery) to complete the word of God” (compare Col. 1:23-25; Eph. 3:8,9). Avowed and open enemy of that grace which rose above all the enmity of man’s evil heart — the apostle, as we may say, of the hatred of man’s heart to God; he is converted by the sight of Jesus in the glory, and the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; and delivered from the people and from the Gentiles, he is sent forth

(1) as the apostle or minister of that grace and glad tidings which rose above his sin. Wasting too, and persecuting the Church of God, he is converted to the union of these scattered saints in one body to Christ — the mystery of Christ and the Church, and

(2) was “the minister of the Church to complete the word of God.”

He had now (Philippians) been cut off for some years from both; a chained prisoner in Rome; all that were in Asia had turned away from him; the Church was settling outwardly into the world, and departing from her heavenly calling; all sought their own, not the things of Jesus Christ; many walked as enemies of the Cross. Who then, of all men, would seem to have been more needed than the devoted energetic Paul? But, wonderful to say, prison had matured his confidence in Christ and His resources; had made Christ increasingly his all, and he can write with beautiful calmness.

(1) “I would not have you ignorant that the things which happened unto me have turned out to the furtherance of the gospel,” (Phil. 1:12); and

(2), in Philippians 2:12, “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of (his) good pleasure.”

Thus the double ministry of Paul prospered in Christ’s hands, even when the vessel was no more free. The gospel was furthered by reason of his bonds, and the saints — the Church — if obedient when he was there, were now cast more entirely on God, and had the joy and opportunity of being more obedient than ever — God working in them to this end when Paul was gone.

It is an interesting study to examine the history, in the Acts of the Apostles, of the first planting of Christianity in those places which were afterward addressed by an epistle.

The Epistle to the Philippians illustrates this (Acts 16). Satan’s opposition to the gospel, first by patronizing flattery, and, failing this, by persecution, marks his work. In the midst of all this, “rejoicing” characterizes the servants of Christ. Paul and Silas, freshly scourged, their feet fast in the stocks, “played and sang praises to God at midnight.” “Songs in the night” ascended from those prison walls which no power of Satan could silence. In the Epistle the saints are under the persecuting hand of Satan, and the apostle in prison at the end of his course, as he had been in the beginning of his work at Philippi, in another, finds his heart overflowing with the rich consolation of Christ, and he writes to these beloved saints — “Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice.” The Epistle is characterized by this rejoicing in the midst of the enemy’s opposition, and the failure of the Church all the way through.

In 2 Timothy we find there what we may term the negative pathway of separation from evil. In Ephesians 4, the positive ground of action, and responsible place of the saints corporately in the unity of the Spirit, while in Philippians we have the practice of that platform — the living fellowship of the Spirit of God.

Ephesians presents the normal state of the Church to Godward, corporately.

1st Timothy — her normal state before man — the world; also in the corporate or collective condition. Philippians, the abnormal condition before the Lord, and the devotedness of individual faith.

2nd Timothy, the abnormal condition also, but more with reference to the evil which is largely spoken of.

Words of Truth, New Series 2:141-143.

Aaron and His Sons

The characteristic place from which Jehovah spake to Moses for Israel, in the Books of Leviticus and Numbers, has been remarked by others. In the former, He spake from the tabernacle of the congregation, giving directions how He was to be approached who dwelt there; in the latter, from the wilderness of Sinai, to instruct a people passing through a wilderness themselves.

Let us look for a moment at the moral significance of this, rather than at the historic and suited fact of His having done so.

In Genesis, when God had created the world, and pronounced it “very good,” He came down and spake in the garden of Eden, where He walked in the cool of the day, to hold familiar intercourse with His creature — man. But man had revolted from his Creator, and the blessed intercourse of God with him is over, on the ground of innocence; and while God drove him out of the garden, He Himself retired from the garden, never more to hold intercourse with man on this ground again.

In Exodus, when He had redeemed a people out of the nations, He bare them on eagle’s wings to bring them to Himself as a peculiar possession; He proposed terms of relationship between Himself and them in the Law. And when these terms were accepted in principle, He descended upon Mount Sinai — not now to the garden of Eden — and, amidst the terribleness of that sight, gave forth the just rule of conduct for man — the sinner, with regard to Him and with his neighbor. Again, as we know the proposed relations as broken up, man having revolted still more from God.

When we open Leviticus we find that it is no more from the garden of Eden God speaks, nor from the mountain where He had surrounded Himself with blackness and darkness and tempest, but He has, as it were, retired into His own resources, to His own fit dwelling-place in light, and there, from the Shekinah of glory, reminding us of the inaccessible light in which He dwells, He proposes, not now that He should approach man as innocent, nor man a sinner, in relations suited to these respective conditions, but that man, a sinner, may come, and come with welcome into His blessed presence in light; but when this is so, unfoldings of the perfections of His blessed Son irradiate the scene, and fill to overflowing the heart of him who finds that he cannot come to God without finding Christ there! Christ, too, in His varied loveliness, whether in life or in death, is presented to the soul of him who comes, that he may be filled with joy, and comforted and refreshed by that which also fills the heart of God. Step by step God had retired from the scene, until in Leviticus He has gone back into Himself, so to speak; but if so we find that Christ occupies the whole scene, to the satisfaction both of God Himself, and the one who has come to Him.

I need hardly say that I speak now of Leviticus as read in the light of the New Testament, when the way into the holiest is made manifest, through the vail being rent in twain from the top to the bottom.

God speaks, then, from “inaccessible light,” yet He speaks of Christ, and in such a way as leaves the conscience at rest, and the soul free to delight itself in Him who is invisible, and who, while He reveals Himself, lays bare the heart of him who approaches Him, and yet cleanses the conscience, and constitutes him a worshiper; worship becomes the spontaneous outflow of his soul.

But while the foreground (ch. 1-7) of Leviticus is exclusively occupied with Christ, whether in His own person, or the manner of the use of Him by the worshiper, we find that which has ever occupied God’s heart and counsels before us at once in chapter 8. For God has had counsels and purposes before the world was, for His own glory; and we find unfolded the intentions of His Son becoming a man, and of His associating man, and the sons of men, in whom was His delight, with His Son in eternal blessedness and in His supremacy over all the works of God’s hands.

We find this thought entering much into the texture of Lev. 8 so as to lead to the question, Why are the Sons of Aaron clothed before the sin-offering is applied to them? We frequently find in the Scriptures the knitting together of the purposes of God about His elect before the world was, with the cleansing of them by the blessed work of Christ on the cross, looking upon them as sinners needing redemption. In other words, the blessed association and identification of Christ and His people — as brought into the same place of blessing with Himself according to God’s intentions. And yet while perfect identity is theirs with Him, we shall always find that they are the redeemed while He is the Redeemer; they the sanctified while He is the Sanctifier, and so on. His divine place is preserved; while the highest blessings which they receive only prove the superiority of the Blesser who is the source of them.

It is remarkable the contrast and yet the complement — the one to the other which Leviticus 8 is with Leviticus 16. The latter chapter is connected in the mind of the Spirit with the former, in the opening verse, which as it were, gives a basis or occasion for God to unfold the provisions of chapter 16. The sons of Aaron are, with Himself, clothed in chapter 8. Failure then ensues, and Leviticus 16 opens with a reference to this failure. This connects them both.

In one chapter (8) we find that Moses was to take Aaron and his sons, the anointing oil, the bullock for a sin-offering, two rams for the burnt-offering and consecrations, with the basket of unleavened bread. All were thus prepared when the ceremony of the day began. And first we find that all — both Aaron and his sons — were “washed with water.” The same “word” which sanctified the Lord, and sent Him into the world (John 10:36) has set His people apart, and sent them into the world — sent into it because they were not of it. You could not send into it one who was of it in any wise. But those who are set apart by the Eternal Word of God, are sent into it when redeemed, as He was sent into it in virtue of who He was. The Father sanctifies the Son — sets Him apart and sends Him into the world. The Son sanctifies Himself when His work is done, and goes on high, in order that those whom the Father has sanctified and He has sent into the world, may be “truly sanctified” according to the pattern of Him, until they also go on high.

But when it becomes a question of Aaron’s official place, there he is alone. The coat and the girdle, the robe and the ephod, with its curious girdle; the breast-plate also, with the Urim and Thummim; the miter and its plate, and the holy crown — all these were put upon Aaron, and in this he stood alone. Jesus might be clothed and honored, He might be set in the place purposed for and suited to Him; but no need had He of blood being shed. He is robed and clothed with priestly glory in virtue of His own sacred person and its perfection, as answering to all the mind of God as Man and Mediator, and being the display and disclosure of it as Son.

But mark well. His sons do not come at once into further association with Aaron. But Moses, who stood in God’s place now anoints with the holy anointing oil the whole tabernacle and all its contents, sanctifying them. He sprinkles the altar too with oil; anoints it with its vessels, and both the laver and his foot, to sanctify them. Thus in connection with them Aaron is anointed all alone.

This is the more remarkable when we turn to Lev. 16 and find that on the great day of atonement when Aaron alone, had entered the presence of God, carrying the basin of the blood of the bullock and sprinkled it before and on the golden mercy-seat; that he then came out and sprinkled with blood the altar of incense; and with blood reconciled the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar (of brass I suppose) — these same things which he had anointed with oil in Lev. 8, and this before the other goat was offered.

Thus we have two distinct things before us.

Christ as Son is “appointed Heir of all things,” according to Hebrews 1. He will, according to God’s counsels, possess all things as their true Head, in the power of the Holy Spirit — the oil. But sin having defiled the inheritance, He must take it with all its responsibilities and inherit it; not only as Heir of all things, but as Redeemer; and then follows Hebrews 2. If, in Hebrews 1, He is “Heir of all things” as Son, by God’s appointment, in chapter 2. He, “by the grace of God, tastes of death for all” (τα παντα). If in Lev. 8 He possesses all things by the power of the Holy Spirit; in chapter 16 He redeems all things by the virtue of His precious blood. And thus God’s eternal counsels are brought to pass through the work of the cross, and will be brought to fruition when the joint-heirs are gathered together.

We have this like thought in Ephesians 1. There we learn that God will head up all things into Christ, in the “administration of the fullness of the times.” He will take possession of God’s universe as its Head — as the Second Man. Then follows the joint-heirs and their possessions in Him, and their being gathered out by the power of God in accomplishing His counsels (Eph. 2).

Still, in Lev. 8 it is not exactly in the condition of sinners needing redemption that the sons of Aaron are seen. It is more the value of Christ’s work in its various phases put upon them, fitting them for their official place as priests in connection with Aaron. The sin-offering and other sacrifices come in consequently after their investiture with their priestly robes in connection with Aaron. Thus the connection through the cross, of the counsels which associate the elect with Jesus, and their standing in the acceptance of the worth of Christ on the cross, is maintained. The sin-offering being brought, Aaron and his sons place their hands upon its head, showing the connection and identification, and yet the difference, between Him and them. For Jesus was as surely made sin (2 Cor. 5:21) as we were sin itself. He alone could be made what He was not. Still here there is no sprinkling of the sons with blood. It is the purifying of the altar by blood, which is poured out at its foot; and the fat and the inwards burned upon the altar. It seems to be more the identification of all with Him in the blessed act, by which the basis of God’s glory was established, by which the elect were brought into positive identity with Him who chose them, and delighted in them before the world was.

So also when the “Ram of consecration” was offered, after the burnt-offering, Aaron and his sons are again together. He who acted in God’s place and for Him — Moses (for it appears to be him all through here), did this with the burnt-offering. And Aaron and his sons are all anointed with the blood of consecration. So that the thoughts, actions, and walk are all put under the guardianship and value of the precious blood which He shed. How wondrously blessed! How poorly responded to by His people, is this place of blessing; yet how true it all is!

Then the meat-offering and the basket of consecrations — the unleavened cake and oiled bread are all placed upon and received from off Aaron’s and his son’s hands (vss. 27-28). Thus we learn in type what is taught in doctrine in Ephesians 5:1-2, that the elect who have been redeemed are to “Be therefore imitators of God as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us, an offering (meat-offering) and a sacrifice (peace offering) to God for a sweet smelling savor.” “An odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice (peace-offering) acceptable, well-pleasing to God” (Phil. 4:18).

After the anointing of Aaron and his sons, and his garments, and his sons’ garments with him, the Holy Spirit thus sealing and constituting all the priestly family, high priest and priests, in their persons and circumstances as one (vss. 30-36), they are shut up for the seven days of their consecration, to feed upon the consecrations, and “keep the charge of the Lord,” until the eighth day of glory (Lev. 9) comes, when the Lord will reveal Himself to Israel, and His glory appear to His earthly people, and they will fall on their faces in repentance and adoration of Jesus — their Jehovah-Messiah.

Words of Truth, New Series 2:161-166.

A Brief Word on Matthew 12:5

“Have ye not read in the Law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the Temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless.”

The Lord, in His reply to the Pharisees who charge His followers with breaking the Sabbath day in Matthew 12:1, 2, uses the above remarkable expression.

The disciples were an hungered, and had plucked the ears of corn on the Sabbath day, and the Pharisees had charged them with doing that which was unlawful to do upon it. It was quite lawful to “pluck the ears of thy neighbors’ standing corn” (see Deut. 23:25), but they made it an unlawful action when done on the Sabbath day. The gracious directions of God, were thus forced into the narrow lines of Pharisaism. The Lord does not vindicate the grace of Deut. 23:25, but by recalling cast-out David’s course with the show-bread in the days of Saul the usurper, He shows that when God’s anointed king was a wanderer and an-hungered, the show-bread was in a manner common; there was no value in forms and ceremonies when God was rejected in the king of His choice. So by the force of reasoning when God was rejected in His Christ, the Sabbath was no more than any other day. He touches here the springs of evil in the “blind Pharisee,” and takes no notice of the plucking of the ears of corn charged on His followers.

But more, His answer in verse 5 conveys a fine and blessed principle not to be overlooked. The Sabbath, given with the law, was a command or claim upon man under that law. Priests and sacrifices were not contemplated under pure law at all. They came in as God’s provisions of grace when and after the law was broken! In fact, the whole ceremonial of Leviticus, and of Exodus after the giving of the law by Moses and its breach through making the golden calf, etc., with all that then happened, came in as gracious provisions for the approach to God Himself of those who had failed under law.

We might say in a few words as to verse 5: — The Sabbath was the claim of law; the priesthood and sacrifices were the provisions of grace, and while under the law and its demands the provisions of grace through priesthood and sacrifices took the upper hand, its claims had to stand aside, that these provisions might express themselves; how much more should the Sabbath now stand aside in its claim, when God Himself was there in their midst in lowly grace — in the person of Christ!

This system of priesthood and sacrifices is commonly called the “ceremonial law,” in contradistinction with that which is named the “moral law”; but we might the more correctly term them “ceremonial grace”!

Alas, when we look around us, in how much do we find the same thing under a different guise! God and his grace rejected that ordinances and ceremonies without meaning or value might have their place in the religious thought and practice of man!

Words of Truth, New Series 2:182, 183.

The Bunch of Hyssop

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:16-18).”

“And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despiseth thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom. 2:3-5).

With the message of the fullest and richest grace of the Gospel comes the most solemn and final revelation of a Judgment to come. As final as it is solemn and searching to the soul. No threat — no language of denunciation or declamation; but the terribly calm, clear statement of the utter ruin, after every trial and test, of man’s estate. Of the sure and certain perdition and eternal ruin of every man with whom God will enter into Judgment, according to His works. The truth has come and disclosed all; it has shown what God IS, what man is, what Satan IS, what the world is, what judgment is — all things are laid bare. He does not threaten; but has revealed judgment to come as the solemn result of grace despised.

If we examine the parable of the Great Supper in Luke 14, we find that it was not those who were living in open sin who refused this final call of grace. I say final, because you will note that the Gospel Feast is set forth as the final meal of the day of God’s dealings with men. The Lord was at dinner in the house of this Pharisee at the time. The supper is the last meal of the day before midnight comes. This is very significant and striking. The Gospel comes after all God’s previous ways of testing and trial have passed.

The morning of innocence, with its lovely moments of freshness, when God came down to visit His creatures, and man fell, never to return to this state of creation blessedness.

Then came His noonday dealings with man, now with a conscience obtained when he fell. During their continuance came the frightful wickedness of men and angels; the earth was filled with corruption and violence; and God had to wash the polluted earth with the mighty baptism of the Flood! Then men set up the devil for God in the renewed earth, and the whole world was worshiping him in the passions and corruptions of their evil hearts.

The afternoon testing of the Law followed. It told man what his duty was, both positively and negatively — it’s “Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not,” taught him what he ought to be. But it never disclosed what he was, utterly and hopelessly ruined. Nor did it tell him what God was; with a heart full of tender pity and perfect love. Then the prophets were sent to recall him to its observance, lest judgment should overtake him, and these they stoned.

It was in the evening that at last God revealed Himself in Christ. Would man now be won? Alas, no! Not one single heart was attracted to Christ of itself. They saw no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. It was a lovely evening after a day of storm and evil which was ushered in so brightly; but how soon to close in around the darkness of the Cross, where men quenched (as far as they could) the light of heaven!

God had another moment of mercy. The supper-time of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, with the message that “All things are now ready,” “Come,” for the midnight of judgment was about to fall. But “all with one consent began to make excuse.” Men who were not living in sin, but who were doing lawful and right things — attending to the farm, the merchandise, or their family affairs — even they also refused the gift of God.

I know nothing more solemn than the fact, that when the Lord lifts the veil and points to the awful Judgment of a future scene, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16), we learn there the compelled remembrance (the deathless sting of remorse) of times gone by, and advantages lost forever, in this when His creation was unsoiled with sin, soon passed away, present day of grace. How dreadful then for the professor, the procrastinator, the careless man! “Son remember!” tells its own tale more truly than the many words which might be used to paint the scene. But it is not my present task to dwell on this side of the picture. I desire rather to unfold in some measure the certain way of escape from this judgment to come. The one is as certain as the other.

God had a serious question with Israel on the night of the Passover. They were sinners, and sin had constituted Him a judge. He had come down to deliver them, and to bring them to the land. He appoints a way in which He can righteously pass over us as sinners when judging, the world. The blood of a spotless lamb was to be taken, and placed upon the two side-posts and lintels of the doors of their houses, which were to be closed, and none of the people were to leave their houses till the morning. In the evening the lamb was to be slain, and its blood sprinkled by the believing Israelite in the “obedience of faith.” This was done by means of a “bunch of hyssop” (Ex. 12). Now this points to a significant and important thought in connection with the Gospel. Many know the “plan of salvation,” as it is termed; they are as clear as possible on the truth that salvation is by faith alone, and that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it only, is that by which security from judgment to come depends. They know well those words, that “without shedding of blood is no remission.”Yet they never have had, so to speak, the “bunch of hyssop” in their hands; there is no real link between their souls and Christ by the Gospel. The “bunch of hyssop” is used in Scripture to signify humiliation. The Psalmist refers to it in this way in Psalm 51:7, where he cries, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.” This was the moral cleansing of his soul by complete humiliation.

An Israelite who believed Moses concerning the plan of deliverance on that “night to be remembered,” did not fold his arms quietly, as many, and do nothing. No; he was up and doing in “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). “Believing in his heart” the glad tidings of Moses, he was seen outside the door of his house, before the world, “confessing with his mouth” the acceptance of this message, and thus appropriating his personal share in the efficacy of the blood of the lamb. It was truly humiliating for him to go outside before a world of idolatry, into whose sins he had sunk (Ezek. 20:6-8), and confess that, although he was one of God’s chosen people, he could claim no immunity from judgment but through the shelter of the blood of the lamb. He thus justified God and condemned himself. It was humiliating; but right to do so. “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” Here is the link between the soul and Christ which so many need. The bunch of hyssop has never been grasped; the soul has never bowed in the obedience of faith, and in the reality of its state, not only believed the Gospel in the heart, but confessed it with the mouth to salvation. The sprinkled blood was to meet and satisfy the claims of God. It was to present a righteous ground to Him when in judgment for passing over a man whose sins deserved that the blow should descend on him, even more righteously than on his Egyptian neighbor next door.

The midnight of judgment came, but all was settled beforehand, as it must be for us. Our sins cannot be worse in the day of judgment than now. God’s way of escape from judgment will not then have changed. It is as certain now as then. His love has anticipated that day in giving His Son. His Son has come, and has presented His blood before God. God has pronounced on our state as sinners already; and the day of judgment cannot speak more plainly than, “There is none righteous, no, not one!” (Rom. 3:10). Christ has borne our sins and put them away before that day comes, and God has sent the news of His having done so. “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). But you may say, I know it all. I ask then, Are you forgiven? Are you safe under the shelter of the blood of Christ? I do not ask, Do you hope to be so? I ask, Are you safe? If you believe God, you are. If you believe your own heart, you are deceived: “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool” (Prov. 28:26).

May you know what it is to have had the bunch of hyssop in your hand, your heart confessing that your only security is, that God, against whom you have sinned, has looked upon that precious blood of Jesus, that He has accepted it already, and the day of judgment will not change its value, or make it less precious in His sight: in virtue of it He has declared, “I will pass over you.” Do you dare to doubt that He has accepted it? You could not, for you know He has. I do not ask, Have you accepted it? — but, Do you believe He has done so? The proof that He has (accepted it), is that Jesus is at God’s right hand.

“When He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). He has by Himself purged the sins and he who believes has his conscience purged of them (Heb. 10:2). Suppose some one has paid a debt which I owed and could not discharge; well, I cannot be sued for it, but if I did not know that it was paid I should be afraid to meet my creditor. To be happy in his presence, I must know that some one has been kind enough to do it. So God declares that it is done: then my conscience is free, and I call now afford to look into my heart, which I dared not do before.

The question of all our sins has thus been settled before the day of judgment, and according to God’s mind; if not, we never can put them away. Christ cannot die again; “death hath no more dominion over Him.” He “was once offered to bear the sins of many.” I say “all our sins;” for all were future when that precious blood was shed — when Jesus bore them in His own body on the tree. If all were not there, if all were not then borne and put away, they will most surely come up again at the Day of Judgment, and that would be eternal ruin. Thank God, He has borne ours who believe. Others may reject it and perish, but there the love is, and there is the work of Christ to save all who will believe in Him.

“God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

London: Morrish, n.d.

The New Birth: 1. What Is It?

“Ye must be born again (John 3:7).”

The Word of God in the third chapter of the gospel of John, is deeply solemn to every poor sinner in this world; “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”! (John 3:3). It cuts at the very root of all the pretensions, and religion, and self-righteousness of man.

Reader, if ever you would see God, except as a righteous Judge — if ever you would spend an eternity in His presence where is fullness of joy, and would be saved from an eternity of woe with the lost, and with the devil and his angels; you “must be born again.” Pause, then, I beseech you, and think of this. It is the root of the matter of your precious soul’s eternal history. It meets you in whatever state you may be to-day, amid the varied characters and states of sinners around you, and embraces all, as on one footing before God — moral and immoral — honest man and knave — sober man and drunkard — religious and profane — young and old — teacher and taught — noble and ignoble — high, low, rich, and poor, there is not one particle of difference in the sight of God! If you would ever see God in light, and dwell with Him forever, “ye must be born again!”

The grace of God in the gospel brings salvation now to man as LOST! (Titus 2:11). It treats him thus. This is the grand distinction between it and all God’s previous dealings — previous dealings did not treat man on this ground. The law, for instance, addressed man as if he were able to help himself. God knew all the while he was not able to do so, but gave it to demonstrate the fact to man’s heart and conscience.

The gospel comes in at the “end of the world,” that is, the end of all God’s dealings with man, before judgment takes its course, and it proclaims him “LOST!” How many deceive themselves by thinking, that he is still in a state of probation or trial, as before the proclamation of the gospel. But it is not so. His history in probation closed with the cross of Christ.

It had lasted for over 4000 years. When God drove out Adam from the garden of Eden, He knew what he was; but it pleased Him to try out, under every dealing of His hand, the fallen race, so as to leave every man without excuse, and to demonstrate distinctly the ruin in which he lay; so that every man’s conscience ought to bow, and must bow to the fact that he has been weighed in the balances, re-weighed, and found wanting.

Poor perishing sinner, if you would but bow to God’s sentence on you, and accept His remedy; instead of trying the means which your fellow sinner suggests to your acceptance; which flatters your pride of heart by setting you to work, to pray, (?) or to be religious, or ascetic, or what he has so multifariously devised. Perhaps giving you Christ to make up for your failures, or to be a make-weight with what you propose to help you in your salvation. Perhaps telling you, and your poor vanity believes it too, that you can of your own will, become a child of God; can be born of God of your own free will. Poor spinnings of human brains which never have measured what sin is in the presence of God; or known what man is before Him.

It is a blessing from God to be clear, simple, decided in our acceptance, without qualification, that man is utterly and hopelessly lost; unable to put forth one effort of his own. “Dead in trespasses and sins,” — “without strength,” “none that seeketh after God” — without “holiness,” apart from which “no man shall see the Lord.” May the Lord grant to the reader to learn it now, as from Him, who, that you may learn His remedy, declares it.

We read of those who “believed in His name when they saw the miracles which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man; for He knew what was in man (John 2:23-25).” The very same nature that is in your bosom this moment, beheld Jesus doing the mighty works of God, and believed what they could not deny, and yet such belief never brought one soul from amongst them to heaven. You say, perhaps, as thousands do, “I believe in Jesus Christ; I know He was more than man, nay, that He was God Himself; I know He died for sinners, and rose again, and ascended into heaven.” And it may be after all this you are one to whom, up to this moment, Jesus has not committed Himself — one who has no part or lot in the matter.

I write not to discourage, to dishearten souls; especially the souls of those who have the weakest real faith in Jesus. God forbid. But with the desire in my heart of bringing the formalist, if this should meet his eyes; the careless; the professor of religion without vitality; to judge their state in view of these solemn truths.

If we see the necessity of this new birth, that man may see God and His kingdom; we then can go on to see how God in loving, living grace, not only reveals his ruin and his fallen condition, but also reveals how He has met this condition, and unfolds His rich mercy to all through His Son.

You will say then, “How am I to be born again? I desire most heartily to have this new birth.” Now, the Lord gives us to understand how this new birth takes place, in answer to Nicodemus, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” He tells us that this new birth is “of water, and of the Spirit.” This simply means that the word of God, which is the water, by reaching the conscience of the sinner, by the power of the Spirit of God — and received by faith into the soul, produces a nature which man never had before. It may be by preaching — reading — or a thousand other ways, or means used of God: the first principle of this new nature is faith, and “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17).

But some may say, “Is it not literal water, or the water of baptism, which is here meant — not the word, as has been stated?” (John 3:5). The answer is simply, No! For if so, none of the saints of old (OT saints) could have had this new nature, and none therefore could ever “enter into the kingdom of God.” The water of baptism was not even spoken of before John Baptist’s time, and the Lord declares it (that is, the new birth) as a positive necessity for all; and, moreover, that Nicodemus ought to have known this (necessity) from the prophets which he taught, who did not dream of water baptism. Ezekiel had spoken of Jehovah’s promise to Israel, to gather them out of the nations, and bring them into the land of Israel, and there He would sprinkle clean water upon them, and put His Spirit within them, cleansing them from all their filthiness, &e., (read carefully Ezek. 36:24-27).

The word of God is likened unto water, that is, that which cleanses morally, in Eph. 5:26, where it is said that Christ sanctifies the Church, cleansing it with the “washing of water by the word.” James (ch. 1:18) writes, “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth.” Again 1 Peter (ch. 1:23) “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” The Lord Himself (John 15:3), “Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” These passages show the word and the water as identical.

But, is not the wicked nature which the sinner possesses, and all the sins he has brought forth, to be set aside, and put away, if a new nature is to be bestowed? Surely. The nature which offended God, and the fruits of that nature must be put away out of God’s sight — His righteous requirements against it must be met — His justice must be satisfied. All must be swept out of God’s sight forever; that He may be set free, as it were, to bestow this new nature on every poor sinner who believes.

Now, sinners are represented of God as perishing under the effects of sin — under the sentence of death, wielded of Satan by the judgment of God. How then is the curse to be removed? For God does not undo the sentence of death which He has pronounced, as if it were a mistake. Like the Israelites of old who were dying under the bites of the fiery serpents (Num. 21), who cried unto the Lord, and the Lord did not remove the serpents, but provided a remedy which answered His own demands, and the bitten Israelite who looked upon it lived. So now we read that for this end, that is, to remove the curse under which poor sinners are perishing, the Son of man must be lifted up — must be made sin — and, dying under the judgment of God for sin, be the object of faith for the perishing sinner, in order that whosoever he be of the fallen race, who believes on Him, might not perish, and be lost forever, but (not merely be born again), have everlasting life.

What a grand sight then for a poor perishing soul! The Son of Man bearing in His own spotless person, the curse of a broken law, the judgment of God on ruined man — the sins — the nature from which the sins had come, and which had offended God. All these, for every poor perishing sinner who now gazes with a needy look of faith upon Jesus on the cross, effectually bearing all away that stood between his soul and the righteousness of God, forever!

This is God’s remedy, fellow sinner; look then, and live! Are you conscious you need a Savior? God has provided one. Was it for you He was provided? Certainly. Why? Because you needed one. Blessed thought, to be able to know by one, simple, needy look of faith, that all that separated you from God, is put away — and that your sins, nay, yourself, root and branch have been atoned for, and put away forever, and that you have got what you never had before, eternal life! Not merely that you are born again, but that believing in the lifted up and crucified Son of man, you have eternal life!

You see, beloved, that Jesus did not merely die to put your sins and sinful nature away by His death on the cross, but died that you might live — that you might have eternal life as your present possession. The double effect of His work is stated in 1 John 4:9-10, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” Here we receive life through and in Him. But more, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

May you know this priceless portion as yours, for His name’s sake.

The New Birth: 2. Repentance

In the last chapter we saw that a man is born from above, or born anew by the reception or belief of the word of God, applied by the Spirit’s power to the conscience. In simple words, faith, or belief in the testimony of God by His word, whatever may be the subject He is pleased to use, or the means employed in communicating His word. Faith is the first principle of this new nature. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). And, moreover, that the reception of this new nature by faith in God’s testimony is also, for every one who believes, eternal life.

Now, there is that which is an invariable accompaniment of the new birth, which troubles many an earnest soul who is looking for peace. I speak of Repentance. There are so many perplexing views of this really important work in a soul that I desire to put it simply before my readers, as the Lord may give grace for it, knowing His love and goodness to souls.

There is one thing I would state, in beginning such a subject, that there is never a real effectual work of God in a soul apart from true repentance. Some have stumbled souls by saying that such a work is a necessary preparation for faith, and a reception of the Gospel. That is, that it goes before faith, and hence before the new birth in a soul. Now, without hesitation, I would say that in every instance, in all Scripture, where the work of repentance is spoken of as a doctrine, or the fruits of it spoken of in a soul, it invariably follows faith. I do not say but that it has gone before peace. Peace with God may not be known for many a day, but the work of repentance has always followed faith, and consequently accompanied the new birth in every instance.

Many have thought that repentance is sorrow for sin, and that a certain amount of it is necessary before the reception of the Gospel. Others have got into the other extreme, and have thought that it is a change of mind about God. Now, these thoughts are both wrong. No doubt, as the apostle says — “Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of” (2 Cor. 7:10). But the Corinthians had been converted long before, and their sorrow of heart for that for which he charged them, led to a judgment of their ways under the power of God’s word to them through Paul. He says in another place that “the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance” (Rom. 2:4). One then “works repentance,” and the other leads to it, but neither of them are repentance itself. Repentance is the true judgment which I form of myself, and all in myself, in view of what God has revealed and testified to me, whatever may have been the subject He has used.

We will now examine some of the instances in the word of God.

Jonah, the prophet, went to the men of Nineveh, by the command of God, to preach of judgment. He said — “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” The result of his preaching was, that “the people of Nineveh believed God,... and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them” (Jonah 3:4-5). Here was a real work of repentance which followed faith in the preached word of God by Jonah. And we read, “The men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah” (Matt. 12:41). Here was a real work of self-judgment in view of the testimony of God. For this, simply, is repentance; it is the judgment we form of ourselves, and all in ourselves, under the effect of God’s testimony which we have believed.

Now turn to an example of repentance in the passage in Ezek. 26, to which we have before alluded. It spoke of the new birth to Israel by water and the Spirit which is necessary for them to enter into the earthly blessings of the kingdom. “I will sprinkle clean water upon you... and I will put my spirit within you... Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and for your abominations” (Ezek. 25-31).” Here is again a real work of repentance in a soul which has been born again of water and the Spirit.

John Baptist’s testimony to Israel was, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Belief in his testimony that the kingdom of heaven was at hand produced the truest repentance in their souls, that is, they judged themselves and their state as unfit for God’s Kingdom, and they did works meet for repentance — works which proved the sincerity of their self-judgment.

The Lord Jesus himself preaches in Galilee, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). They could not repent till they believed the good news of the kingdom. Faith in the testimony as to it produced repentance, or the judgment of self in view of such a testimony.

The mission to the disciples, in Luke 24:47, was “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” These things were announced in His name, but unless there was faith in His name no repentance or remission would follow.

Many instances could be adduced from the word of God to show that true repentance is always preceded by faith, or belief in the testimony of God, and is inseparable from the new nature which is thereby implanted in the soul.

When a soul is born again, and has thereby a new nature which it had not before, it begins to discover the workings of the old. Sometimes this work is very deep and long, and often the most wretched experiences are gone through, ere the soul learns peace with God. Tempted perhaps to think betimes that it is not a child of God at all.

Perhaps my reader is one who is in this state of misery and unhappiness of soul. You can look back, it may be, on a time when all went smoothly, and no trouble of soul came in to disturb your life. Then you had but one nature as a sinner. Some word of God, awakened your conscience, and since then your life has been miserable. You enjoy moments of hopefulness perhaps, in thinking of the love and grace of God, and the tenderness of Christ in dealing with poor, lost souls; and then come the accusings of conscience and a broken law; things that you know were right have been neglected, and things which were unfit for God’s presence practiced, and your soul is miserable, and there is no peace. How like your state of soul must have been that of the poor prodigal on his way to his father’s house, uncertain how all would end; at one moment looking at his rags and filth, at another at the fullness and plenty of the father’s house. So with you; the very new nature which you have got is that by which you are discovering the workings of the old. As long as you had no new nature there was no trouble of soul, but now the very trouble is the result of having a new nature which you had not before. It is your new nature which, loving the things of God, and having its source from the Spirit of God, which has learned to loathe what you find in self, and to long to be right before Him. (See carefully the state of a soul in Romans 7:14-25.)

How often, in such a case does the soul seek for peace by progress and victory over itself. It thinks, by suppressing this evil desire, and curbing that evil temper or disposition to get peace. In other words, to get peace by endeavoring to get better, instead of giving up all hopes of getting better and by surrendering every such pretension, and being cast over altogether upon Christ! To find that Christ has gone down under the waves and billows of judgment, not only for the sins which troubled the conscience before God, but also for that evil nature which so troubles and distresses the heart. When it was proved that you were utterly without strength, unable to do aught to deliver yourself, Jesus bore the judgment of it all before God, and rising out of it, God has transferred you to His side of the grave — that you live now by His life in resurrection (John 12:24), and that God sees you standing in redemption, alive in the life of His Son, and that the nature which so troubles you has been condemned and put aside forever. How sweet to discover this — to find that all God recognizes now is the new man. That all this terrible experience is but learning what your old nature is in God’s sight; that it is a true work of repentance in your soul.

God has given your old nature the place of death in the judgment of the cross of Christ. He does not attempt to improve it in any degree. His testimony is, that He has given to you everlasting life in His Son; it is this life and this only, which He owns, and directs, and by which He trains and educates you — never recognizing in any measure the old nature. Nevertheless it exists in you, and His spirit, through Christ’s advocacy, deals with your conscience about it, never letting you alone about its workings, although never imputing them to you, that you may continue to judge them and keep them in the place of death, which He has given them, by being engaged with Christ who is your life; and thus that the only thing which may be active is the life of Jesus in your body.

We will, in the next chapter (Lord willing), look into the fact that God does not change, or remove, or ameliorate, the old nature, in any degree, in imparting a new. Both natures remain as distinct as possible, but there is no necessity whatsoever that a Christian should live in the practice or power of any nature but the new; nay, rather, this is what God looks for in the Christian at all times.

The New Birth: 3. Two Natures - the Old Not Changed or Set Aside

In the first chapter we saw that it was a positive necessity that a man should be born again, ere he could even see the Kingdom of God. This grand truth comes out in John 3. It was all over with man’s moral history when the Son of God came. If it were possible for man in the flesh, that is, in his state as a sinner, and responsible for it before God, to have been recovered or restored to God, it would have been proved by his receiving Christ when He came. It would have proved that man in the flesh was recoverable, though he had sinned. But no! “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” — “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.”

How important it is for a sinner to accept this place of total, irrecoverable ruin. This is the state in which God meets him, and discloses the purpose of His heart in His gift “of eternal life which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” Like Israel in the 21st chapter of the Book of Numbers, who had wandered for thirty-nine years in the wilderness, and in the fortieth year, when they spoke against God, and loathed the light bread, and were dying under the bites of the fiery serpents. There was nothing now to mend in them, when God says, as it were: — “I’ll disclose a purpose — I’ll bestow life where there is nothing but death!”

So in John 3, God discloses His purpose by His Son. He does not mend man as He is — He bestows eternal life! To this end the Son of Man must be lifted up — a rejected Christ on His cross, outside the world, bearing the judgment of God against sin, is the door of exit for the sinner out of a charnel house — a place of death and ruin, where there is nothing to mend, into a new sphere in His resurrection — having eternal life! The Son of Man on His cross must bear the wrath and judgment of God on the old man, setting aside that which offended God, and thus leave God free (so to speak) to bestow eternal life in Christ, as His gift to every one who believes. But if there was this necessity on man’s side, there was another feature which came out as well. It was not the need of man merely which was the occasion of His thus acting. It was to disclose Himself. His Son comes down as the missionary of His heart, to ruined man, to reveal that it was the emanation of His own mind — the device of One whom man maligned, and whom Satan had slandered, to give proof which none could now gainsay, that “God is Love”! Love which gave unasked, its most prized and valued possession — the Only begotten of the Father — to reveal Himself — to give man a good opinion of God! It is God,” who “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

This gift of eternal life does not in any way mend or remove the old man. True the old man is judicially made an end of before God in the cross. Nor is it something in man apart from Christ. “This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5).

Has my reader accepted this? learned that his evil nature, as it is now, will never go to the presence of God? If so have you accepted eternal life in the Son of God? Thus owning by faith as dead, as God has done, the evil nature which you now possess?

This life comes to the sinner, who by faith accepts it, through death. The sinner lies in death; “You, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh” (Col. 2). God sends His own Son, a sacrifice for sin — He enters this domain of death. — When entering into it, He bears the judgment of God which was on man, so fully, that God glorified in all His nature and attributes by its perfection, raises Him up from the dead; and every one who believes, “hath He quickened together with Him.” The believer now lives in Christ before God — God recognizes no other life than this; and “all his trespasses” have been “forgiven” (Col. 2:13). All left behind, as it were, in the grave of Christ — the nature atoned for, and set aside judicially in the death of Christ: the believer lives now on the other side of death and judgment, in the life of the risen One (John 12:24), who was dead; while at the same time his old nature remains in him. This eternal life is something that he had not before: he is now a child of God, having put off “the old man,” and put on the “new” (see Eph. 4:21-24; Col. 3:9,10).

Let us be clear and distinct in our apprehension of this, where so many are at fault. It is true, that for condemnation, and before God, the old nature is set aside — root and branch — tree and its fruits — and is gone forever: it is not on the believer in His sight; and yet, all the while, the old nature is in him — an enemy, and to be treated as such, and overcome. He will bear about this nature till he dies or is changed.

God had sought fruit from man in the flesh, and had got none. The Lord in His own ministry in the gospel, always addresses man in the flesh, in this state as responsible. When He had tried him out, and had got no fruit in the flesh, we find Him saying of it, “The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.” He then charges Himself with the judgment due to it, dies, and rises out of the judgment, imparts, as God’s gift, His own life, as risen, to the believer, who now lives in Him — Christ is His life — his life is hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:3,4). God never seeks fruit again from the old man — never addresses it, or recognizes it in any shape whatsoever. Souls, when they are not in liberty, do recognize it, and often with deep sorrow — often seek fruit from it — seek, too, to repress its workings in their own strength, and with the desire and conviction that it should be repressed before God. God addresses the new man, recognizing the Spirit as life, and as making good the life of Christ in the believer. This nature never amalgamates with the flesh. Each has its own distinctive character. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit,” that is, it has its nature from the Spirit of God, who quickens, or gives life; the flesh profits nothing.

Now, although this is so, there is no necessity in any wise that the Christian should walk in the power of old nature, or practice its outgoings in any sort whatever. Nay rather, God gives grace and power, as we may see, to overcome its workings, and keep it practically in death, where He has placed it — to reckon it dead, as He reckons it.

Paul’s own case is a remarkable one, and illustrates the fact that the old nature, the flesh, is never set aside in the believer, or changed, or improved by the very highest realization of the place he has in Christ. Even then, it needs the dealings of God to correct it, and enable the believer to hold it dead. We find in 2 Corinthians 12, that he had been in the third heaven, and could glory as to his being a “man in Christ.” He comes back to the consciousness of his life here below, and the flesh in Paul is so incorrigible, that God is necessitated to send him a thorn in it, to buffet him, lest the old man might be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations. One would have thought, that if ever a man’s evil nature was likely to be removed, or extracted, or changed, it was Paul’s. Yet, no. Paul comes back to his conscious existence as a man, and he discovers that God in grace sent the needed corrective, to that which would otherwise have hindered him. Paul thought at first, it was something he had better be rid of, and he prayed thrice for its removal; but when he discovered it was the Lord’s grace in supplying that which kept him in the sense of his weakness as a man, that the strength of Christ might he unhindered to act in him, he then says, “I glory in my weakness” (as a man — not infirmities), for “when I am weak then am I strong.”

In fine, God does not remove the old nature when He imparts the new, — nor is His working the making better of the old. The believer is a compound creature, having two natures as distinct as possible the one from the other —

The old man which is corrupt, ... and ... the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:22-24).

The New Birth: 4. The New Man - Eternal Life

Let us now gather up what we have learned in our former meditations before we pass on.

1st — The absolute necessity that a man should be born again — that is, born anew — before he could ever see God’s kingdom. This new birth is not the putting the same nature into another condition, but the impartation of another which is totally distinct from the old. This nature is produced by the Word of God reaching the conscience by the Spirit’s power, and thus laying bare the roots and springs of one’s being, as unmendable, evil, and bad; and the soul, cast over upon Jesus, and believing in Him, has eternal life. Thus the person who believes in Jesus has received Him as his life, having been born again, on the ground of redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ.

2nd — The new birth (that is, the Word of God reaching the roots and springs of one’s nature) has produced such a judgment and a loathing of self, that the soul has been perhaps thrown into the deepest distress before it has got peace. All this was the true and necessary work of repentance, the learning what the old nature is in God’s eye, which followed the new birth.

3rd — This new nature is quite distinct from the old — never amalgamates with it, never improves it, and never sets it aside. Both natures remain to the very end, until the Christian is changed at the Lord’s coming, or until death. Yet he is entitled to recognize only the new nature as himself, and the old as an enemy to be overcome.

We will now meditate on the eternal life of the Christian, which he possesses in Christ. The soul is often feeble in this. There are often vague thoughts of what eternal life is. One thinks it is eternal blessedness; another thinks it is heaven when they die; another that it is future bliss, etc. Eternal life is Christ! He is the life of everyone who has been born again. In God’s eye, man — the whole race — lay in moral death. He had a purpose before the world was, to bestow eternal life (Titus 1:2,3). None had been entrusted of old to make this secret known. It was too glorious a thing for God to tell through man, even though he be a Moses or a David. It was reserved for His Son to disclose! He is the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us in the Son of His love (1 John 1:1,2). He came down from heaven — became a Man upon earth, and displayed before our eyes the virtues and beauties of eternal life; characterized by two features; that is, complete dependence upon God, and undivided obedience to Him. He was the bread of God which came down from heaven to give life unto the world. When He came, it brought out that there was not one single principal which governed the heart of man, that governed His; and not one principle which governed the heart of Christ governed the heart of man! His love was straitened — for His love He had hatred and scorn: a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Yet the mighty love of God was pent up in the heart of that lowly Man! He found no channel for it to flow in here, and so He was straitened till He poured it out unto death! God’s righteousness required that an end be made before His eye of the first man, that He might, so to speak, be free to treat the race as dead — gone out of moral existence before him. The Lord Jesus comes in and enters as the victim, in divine and mighty love and grace, into that scene of death where man lay. The world was shrouded with a pall of judgment, and no effort of man could cast off or break through the pall! He goes down into the scene. The pall of judgment, like a shroud, enclosed the blessed One. He bears in His soul, on the cross, the judgment of God which enshrouded the race — the first man — and pours out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. He rises out of the mighty waters, having exhausted their power, and established the righteousness of God — breaks through the shroud which wrapped itself round Him — annuls death — destroys him who wielded its power; He emerges from death, and stands — the last Adam — in His victory, in the majesty of His resurrection, the fountain, the stem, and source of life to every one who believes!

He is the last Adam — the Second Man (1 Cor. 15:47). The history of the first man in God’s eye is ended, excepting the judgment of the lake of fire! Faith believes this, and lives by the faith of the Son of God. The believer knows he has the old nature in him, but that in the eye of the Judge it has been judged on the person of Christ! His life is Christ risen out from among the dead. It is hid with Christ in God.

How feeble are our souls in this! How constant is the recognition of the old man. Some looking for fruit from it still; some giving it a place in their soul’s experience, hearkening to its unbelieving suggestions; others giving it a place before God in their religion; others, too, looking for a status, a recognition in the world for it again — reviving the man that God has swept out of His sight forever.

How glorious to know that there is but One Man alive before the living God! — One man on whom His eye can rest with full complacency — One life which fills the sphere, to which it belongs, with its beauty and that He is my life — the One in whom I live forever! This life is not in me — God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son! His Spirit, through whom I am born again, has communicated this life to me, and linked me up with the Son of God, forever! Oh for the eye of the soul to gaze, and gaze, and take in His excellency. To breathe the air, so to speak, where that life alone is. To draw down the supplies from Him. To live this life here below, and thus rise superior to a world amid a scene where there is not a breath of air but is detrimental to its display: and yet to be sustained in vigor and power in the midst of it all! to know experimentally the power of the word, “Christ liveth in me.”

Do you say, I have never experienced it — never tasted its wondrous power, and yet I see it is all true.

I have been reviving and recognizing the old man — yielding to its dictates — hearkening to its unbelieving suggestions — seeking a place of recognition for it in this evil world — supposing I could serve God with it — giving it a place of recognition in all my practical ways — obeying its lusts — its pride — its vanity — its gratification, and now I find that one throb of its whole being has never had recognition in God’s eye. How am I to drink in the excellence of this other life, and live in its power?

Well — this is not learned in a moment — yet it is where God begins with me. All my exercises of soul and conscience have been leading up to the consciousness of that glorious level — the new creation in Christ! but there it is where I have begun — it is there where God has begun with me. When my soul is consciously there, I am in the state in which I should begin to put forth leaves and fruit, and Christ be magnified in my body here below.

Now the great point is this, Do you accept it fully and wholly: and, by His grace, are you determined to have nothing else? This is the great thing, the acceptance of it! People go to work to curb this propensity, and clip that folly: to give up this lust and that vanity, in order to get into the consciousness of this life. If they but once accepted and tasted it, they would find that the things which minister to the old nature are not looked for in heaven. They would begin to hate the things and dread the things which come in to interrupt the soul’s joy of abiding in Christ. They would not be looking for the scene around to minister to them; but they would discern that they are down here, with the sweetness of their own things flowing through their hearts, to minister to it the life of Him who has delivered them from it.

Many a Christian here fails. He knows he is in Christ before God, and wonders why he has not the joy of it. Look at him in his daily life, and you will find he is ministering to the old man. Surrounding himself with those things which fill his eye. Yielding to those things that belong to him. Nurturing those desires and propensities which emanate from the old man. Giving it a place of recognition and revival. Taking it up again out of the death where God has placed it; and all the while wondering why he is not happy in Christ!

Oh for the soul to be peremptory with itself through His grace. To get the eye upon Christ in the sense and acceptance that He is its life. Would it not then be easy? If you have known the joy of this even for a moment — if ever you have tasted its sweetness, you will rise above yourself and everything around which would distract your eye from Him. You would dread the encroachment of aught which would turn your eye from Jesus, or fill your heart and engage your mind to the putting out of Him.

May the Lord give his beloved people to know this — to live, and move, and abide in Christ. To feed upon that death which severed your connection from the whole scene — yourself included — that death which was your deliverance from it, and which — fed upon — sustains the severance, and links up the heart to Him who died. and rose, and ascended into the bright and blessed presence of God.

The New Birth: 5. Walking in the Spirit

We now come to look at the power of this eternal life in Christ, which is possessed by the believer.

In Galatians 2, we find the language of one who has experimentally accepted this wonderful portion. The Apostle writes, “I am crucified with Christ,” — here is the distinct and positive acceptance by faith, that, in God’s sight, Paul the sinner existed no longer! The unrighteous being’s existence had come to a termination in the Cross of Christ! God’s righteousness demands that the whole race of the first Adam, which had revolted from him, be ended judicially in His sight. He could no longer allow the unrighteous thing to continue. In love He provided a sacrifice which would satisfy fully His demand. In His gift of His Son, He expressed that love which was without measure or end. “In the end of the world” His own Son comes in — enters in grace, when His hour came, into that terrible judgment to which the first man became subject — He bears its fullest outburst — dies — and is buried. He is then raised up and glorified of God, whose righteousness it was at once to set on His throne, the Man who had done so. He thus brings to a judicial ending the whole race. Until this was done God never gave man the place of death — never pronounced the sentence that man was “dead in trespasses and sins.” We read, Christ “died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). This was the state Christ’s death proved them to be in. Here, then, is the unspeakable privilege for faith’s acceptance, to know that I am dead! It is not that God asks me to be better, but tells me I am dead! “Nevertheless, I live” says Paul, the believer. “Yet not I.” No! that sinful “I” is swept away — gone forever! “But Christ liveth in me.” Yes! He has brought to an end, in God’s sight and to faith’s acceptance, the “I” that broke my heart with its vileness; and rose up out of the judgment having done so, the only life, the life of every one who believes! “And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Here then is the whole matter out, to the acceptance of faith: — I live by an object — I have my eye upon Him who is my life in heaven; the Holy Spirit has come down, and dwells in my body (1 Cor. 6:19), linking me up to Christ, and making good His life in me; so that it is “not I but Christ liveth in me.”

The Holy Spirit then, is the power of this life. It is by the Holy Spirit, in the first instance, using the water of the word, that the soul is born again. The word reaching the conscience, made the conscience bad. But the water and the blood came out of the side of a dead Savior (John 19:34). The blood purges the conscience, and makes it good. So that he that believes has got life out of the death of the One who had borne, when He died, the judgment of God; and who has Himself, as risen, become his life. The Holy Spirit then makes good this life — Christ — in the believer; “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin (its only fruit), but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10); the practical righteousness which flows from this. This life is in resurrection, at the other side of death and judgment. It is Christ risen who is the life in which we rejoice and live before God (Col. 3:4).

Now we have a principle in Scripture which we but feebly apprehend. It is Walking in the Spirit. We read, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:16.) “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:4), &c. If we may characterize one thus walking in the Spirit, it would be by saying, He has got his eye upon Christ. The soul has got the apprehension that Christ is its life, and that it is united to Christ by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, when ungrieved, maintains the soul in unbroken engagement with Christ Himself, who is the life; and the Christian thus walks in the Spirit, outside the flesh, and what his evil nature loves and lives in. The thoughts of Jesus — His lowliness and meekness, gentleness, grace, separation from all evil, while surrounded by it, in this evil world — the tenderness of His gracious heart — the absence of all living to self, which was found in Him — the beauties, and graces, and mind of Christ, thus engage the soul, which adoringly worships in the thought, that He is my life! The result of all this is that, the soul thus occupied, is walking outside itself — outside the flesh, in the life of another, by the Spirit. He walks in the Spirit, and no trace of his evil nature appears. It is not that it is removed or changed; but it is kept in the silence of death, where God has graciously put it. It is not by efforts to reduce it to order, and so to get the victory — a victory which would only restore the flesh to its own importance and recognition: but by the engrossment and engagement of heart with Him, who is my life, outside of self altogether. Thus the flesh is left in its true place — dead, not made better.

How frequently does the Christian excuse himself for failure, by pleading the fact that he has got another nature; a horrible nature in him! How frequent are the excuses which come up before the soul! because, forsooth, he has got two natures, while in practice he should have but one.

The case of Stephen, in Acts 7, gives an example of a man walking in the Spirit. In Acts 1:9, the disciples gazed after the ascending Lord Jesus, till a cloud received Him out of their sight; but they saw nothing more. In the second chapter, when the day of Pentecost had come, the Holy Spirit descended, and took up His abode in and amongst the disciples. In the seventh chapter, we find a man “full of the Holy Ghost, who looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God (Acts 7:55).” Here then is an example of a man living and walking in the Spirit; his eye is upon Christ. His testimony follows, as suited to those around him (Acts 7:56). This provokes the enmity of the world, and they stone him with stones; but so completely superior is he to their murderous hate — so engrossed with Him, who is His life in heaven, that he is living as much in the translated state here below as if he were there altogether. He is spending his last moments here for Christ, without an anxiety or troubled thought about himself. He is “delivered unto death for Jesus sake,” and the “life of Jesus” is manifested in his body (2 Cor. 4:10). All the passions and resentment of evil in his nature are so completely subdued that they appear no more than if they had no existence whatsoever.

How often we find souls trying to reduce to order their evil nature in their own strength — true souls too — conscious that it should be reduced to order in God’s sight, as before man. Many a long fruitless life is spent thus. Praying, perhaps, and mourning over a nature which distresses and breaks the heart, in the laudable effort to subdue its workings, and quell its risings; but without effect. The soul has not apprehended the power to subdue it in anywise. As one has said, “The flesh of man likes to have some credit: it cannot bear to be treated as vile, and incapable of good — to be excluded and condemned to nothingness, not by efforts to annul itself, which would restore it to all its importance; but by a work that leaves it in its true nothingness, and that has pronounced the absolute judgment of death upon it, so that, convicted of nothing but sin, it has only to be silent. If it acts it is only to do evil. Its place is to be dead, not better. We have both right and power to hold it as such, because Christ has died, and we live in His risen life. He has Himself become our life.” Rather should the soul turn away in abhorrence of the evil thing, and get the eye distinctly upon Christ. This is the normal office of the Holy Spirit in the Christian, to keep the soul engaged with Him — to give thoughts of Jesus, and keep them flowing through the soul. His interests and engagements, aims and ends, become those of the Christian who has His life; and the result of engagement of heart with Christ is the easy and natural subjugation of the evil thing. It is treated with the non-recognition it deserves: its desires, aims, and lusts are checked; they are held in death and practical subjection; they are passed by without recognition; and the soul drops easily and happily into practical life in the Spirit. Members are mortified; not by trying to mortify them, but by the superior engagement with “things above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God” (Col. 3). It is “through the Spirit,” we “mortify the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13); and the consequence is that, instead of the continual unhappy strife between the two natures, the flesh “lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh,” the Christian walks in the Spirit, and does not fulfill them in any wise. Instead of the sad “works of the flesh.” the “fruit of the Spirit” is the easy and natural outflow of that life which the believer possesses in Christ —”love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”

“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” is the exhortation founded on the fact that the Spirit is our life, connecting us with Christ. “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts.” The flesh has been crucified, and faith acts upon this wondrous privilege and deliverance, and “walks in the Spirit,” who is the power of this eternal life. The good Lord give His people to know it, and practice it, for His name’s sake.

The New Birth: 6. in the Light - Confession

The question remains, what is the sphere and measure of walk for the new man? It is a deeply interesting one. May the Lord give us to apprehend it.

The blow of judgment which fell on God’s dear Son on the cross, rent the veil which was between God and the sinner. The same blow which disclosed and expressed, at the same moment, the love and the righteousness of God, removed forever the sins and sinful condition which shut out His people from His presence. Thus the Christian who possesses eternal life in Christ, has been introduced into the presence of God in Light!

The sphere of his walk then, is the presence of God in the light! God has cleansed him, and begotten him anew for such a sphere; and now the standard and measure of his ways is nothing less than the Light —within the veil! Everything inconsistent with God’s presence in the light is judged as of the “old man”; thus the “new man” rejoices in liberty, in the presence of God. He was “once darkness;” now he is “light in the Lord”; and the exhortation is, “walk as children of light.” The light makes manifest all that is not of God in his ways.

What a wondrous measure is this? Yet the new man rejoices that no less a standard is given of God.

Called into fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, how could there be this fellowship, except in the power of eternal life? Impossible. Fellowship is the property and outgoings of eternal life. The Christian can walk in no other place; he can have no other standard than this. The life he possesses in Christ brings him to the presence of God in light. The light does not judge him, as questioning his title to be there. The brighter the light the clearer the title is seen to be. But the light makes him judge himself for all that is inconsistent with it. When the flesh is at work in one way or another (even if the action is purely inward), if there is anything whatever that the conscience ought to be exercised about; the soul is not, cannot be, in the enjoyment of communion with God in the light, because the effect of the light is to bring the conscience into exercise. But when the conscience has nothing that is not already judged in the light, the new man is in action with regard to God.

The possession of an evil nature never makes the conscience bad in God’s presence. It is only when it is at work in any way, that then the conscience becomes defiled. The cloud is felt, preventing the soul’s enjoyment of communion in the light. Here then comes in God’s blessed dealing with that which is made manifest in His presence, where there is failure in our ways as Christians. It is the advocacy of Christ (1 John 2:2), bowing the heart in self-judgment and confession of sins. Just as a man with his dress soiled or in disarray, enters a room full of light and mirrors, instinctively arranges his dress — the light discovers whatever was astray; so, one cannot help confessing when, in the light, there is the slightest soil; anything which the light reveals: “for whatsoever doth make manifest is light”; and God is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Alas, when the sinful nature is yielded to, and permitted to appear in the shape of “sins”; the conscience is defiled and unhappy; the Spirit is grieved; and the more sensitive the conscience, the more keenly it feels the stain. Here it is that we learn what has produced this bowing of the heart and conscience before God about the sin. The Advocacy of Christ has been in exercise. Not because I have repented of the sin, and judged myself about it; but because I had sinned, and it needed that my soul should be bowed for the failure before the Lord. A living person — Jesus — deals by His word and His spirit with my heart and conscience, makes me feel the sin, and bows my heart in confession to Him who is “faithful and just to forgive,” and “to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” It is, “If any man sin (not (“repent of his sin”), we have an Advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:2). He forgives the sin, and cleanses the heart from the remembrance of that which had caused the sorrow and distress of soul.

True confession is a deep, deep, painful work in the soul. It has not merely to do with the actual failure, but with the root of the matter, which, unjudged, had produced the sin. Peter’s case, in John 21, gives an illustration of this dealing of Christ, when he needed a sense of his sin, not heretofore possessed. Peter had “wept bitterly” over the sin (his denial of Christ), yet the roots were unreached, and liable to break forth again. The Lord deals with him — not charging him with the sin, or even making mention of it. “Lovest thou me more than these?” Hast thou still that overweening confidence in thyself? For he had boasted that if all others would deny Him, yet he would not. The Lord did not look to the stream, but to the source; He laid it bare, exposed it to Peter’s heart and conscience. The root was reached, and all was out before His eye. The spring was laid open, judged, and dried up. Blessed dealing of One who loves us perfectly, and cares too much for us to spare us when we need to learn ourselves. Nothing charged upon us, as imputed to us, but nothing allowed — to allow it, were not love — were not God. The heart adores Him when it sees His ways. But O, how little do souls profit by His ways! By and bye it will be seen how He had vindicated His own care — and how the exercised souls profited by them, and the careless ones lost by the way.

How wonderful is the place, the calling, the sphere of walk, of the Christian! Walking in the Spirit, outside flesh and self, in and by the life of Jesus. The light of God’s presence, its sphere, where no soil of sin, no spirit of the world can ever come. His whole being is open and simple in His presence; finding no motive for concealment from Him now, even if such were possible.

God Himself the resource of the heart, against all that is within. Thus the “light” is “armor to the soul.” It learns to be peremptory with itself, in refusing all that is not of God: it thus walks in the joy of uninterrupted fellowship with Him. It has the consciousness too of being well pleasing to Him. The eye is not turned inward to look for fruits there, but outward and upward to Him. It lives by another. Christ is before the soul distinctly and undistractedly. Flesh is detected in its roots — the fruits need not appear to learn what it is. It is seen as that which would break the communion and separate the heart from the joy of walking with God, and is refused. Things around are seen in their true value. The soul grows in His presence — not as contemplating its growth, but as not having yet attained, or being already perfected, in full and actual conformity to Christ in glory, it presses on towards the mark for the prize of its high calling of God in Christ.

Beloved Christian reader, we have got a life which connects us with heaven now, but which is to be displayed while we are here on earth. We have members to mortify, but no recognized life below (Col. 3). It is fashioned in us by the putting off of self — living in the denial and non-recognition of self. Its issues and outgoings are only those which God can own. The life of Jesus here was a life of perfect dependence, of undivided obedience; His perfect will was surrendered — “not My will, but Thine be done.” He is our life (Col. 3:4) — “He that is joined unto the Lord in one Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). His words tell us what He was when here — they were Himself! (John 8:25). They are they by which we live; they form and fashion us in conformity to Him. When we are not formed by them, we are checking (restraining) the outgoings of our life! stunting our growth up to, and in Christ!

The Lord give us, with steady growth, to go on from day to day, growing in grace and in the knowledge of Him. The life within us springing up to its source, in the brightness of the Father’s presence where He is, until we are fully conformed to Him, body, soul, and spirit, and with Him forever! Amen.

Glasgow: Bible and Tract Depository, n.d.

God's Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility

I desire to say a few words on the subject at the head of this paper; adding a little as to the true nature of the work of Christ, its results in redemption, with the complete deliverance of the Christian from his sins, and his whole state as sinful child of Adam. Although he ever has sin in him to judge and condemn, his responsibility is now on an entirely new footing, viz, that of relationship as a child of God, a possessor of eternal life in the Son of God, and called to manifest the life of Jesus in his mortal body.

It is of immense importance in the present day, when grace is preached and more clearly known in comparison with days gone by, that the true nature of Christian responsibility should be understood; as also the ground on which the sinners responsibility now rests. Here the high Calvinist goes astray, both with reference to the sinners responsibility in despising and refusing the grace of the Gospel, under the plea of waiting for the call of God, and of the Christians true responsibility in manifesting the life of Jesus in His mortal flesh. The possession of eternal life in Christ expresses itself by the action of that life, asserting its existence and its practical qualities in undivided obedience to every word of God, and complete dependence on its source and spring, by a broken will, and a heart subject to Christ.

Much has been said and written on these subjects; but except in Christ they cannot be reconciled. The Arminian unduly presses one side, namely, mans free will and responsibility, and loses the truth of God as to the other; while the Calvinist, on contrary, unduly presses the other side, that of God’s sovereignty and electing love, and so loses the balance of Scripture as to the former.

It has been wisely remarked by a better instructed scribe, that “Scripture does not teach by negatives.” It teaches by direct truth. Hence, when the direct truth has been apprehended by one school of doctrine, it has framed its own line of things so as to lose the beautiful balance of the sanctuary, and thus damage has come to souls as to the full knowledge of the truth in all its bearings.

When the Arminian declares that God’s love through Christ’s sacrifice is “unto all” men, and the presentation of the Gospel as wide as the suns meridian ray, he speaks the truth, for, blessed be God, so it is. But when he adds to this direct, affirmative truth of Scripture his own negative deduction — namely, therefore there is no electing love of God, he has lost the balance of the sanctuary.

When the Calvinist declares that the saints for whom Christ died are the objects of God’s eternal purpose, and His peculiar electing love, he states the truth. Blessed be our God, so it is. But when he goes on to add to this direct truth his own negative deduction, he errs. When he says, that because God foreknew His own, and chose and called them in His electing grace, and that Christ died in their stead, therefore the love of God by the Gospel is not “unto all,” he too has lost the balance. When both say “yes,” they say well; when they add their “not,” the whole truth is not known. If a Calvinist with his electing love of God, and an Arminian with his free will and responsibility of man, were to put their affirmatives together, and not add their deductions and “nots,” we should have the truth! Let them then seek what Scripture teaches as to the reconciliation of those two affirmations; and they will find that both have had a measure of truth, while both too, have lost one aide of the scale!

The great principles of the sovereign purpose of God, and responsibility of man, are interwoven. throughout all Scripture. They are found from the Garden of Eden to the Greet White Throne.

In the Garden of Eden they were marked by the Two Trees of Paradise — the Tree of life, and the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This latter marked the responsibility of man to God, as an intelligent creature. Adam had been made in innocence. Innocence was the absence of the knowledge of good and evil. The sense of his responsibility was marked — not by an exaction — but by a prohibition: he was not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, and thus to retain his place. He had nothing to gain, but everything to lose.

He forfeits all; he breaks the condition of the retention of his creation blessings, and the favor of God. Thus he becomes the possessor of a conscience which he only received when he fell; as God says, “The man is become as one of us to know good and evil.” This conscience may be thus defined: the sense of responsibility, united to the knowledge of good and evil. He has lost a state which can never lie regained. He never can be innocent — never can unlearn the knowledge of good and evil.

Thus he comes under the sentence of dying and death in this world, and, further, he is driven out from the presence of God; and finds in the solemn future, that after death comes the judgment. God retains His own sovereignty — barring the way to the Tree of life, lest man should partake thereof, and perpetuate his ruined condition; and man leaves His presence, with the responsibility of his condition as a sinner, known by a conscience and the sense of alienation from God, with the fear of what is to come, pressing on his soul.

Subsequently (for I pass over the scene from Adam to Moses), God gives His law from Mount Sinai, which in the main is coincident with mans conscience, but adds the authority of the Lawgiver to what conscience felt was due to God and his neighbor. The first Table was what God claimed — here it was an exaction — towards Himself: the second Table was what God directed in a fallen world to fallen man, as to his parents, his neighbors property, and his wife; personal rights having been set up in the world when man had departed from God. The law embodied the two great principles of responsibility and life. But it put having life as the result of fulfilling perfectly the responsibility. “This do, and thou shalt live.” “The man that doeth these things shall live in them.” Just as if I were to say, “if you do so and so, you will receive a fortune,” it would be a proof that you had not the fortune yet. It would be quite another thing if I told you how to use and spend your fortune when you had one. Thus, through the Gospel, God bestows eternal life as His gift, and then directs it, as we shall see.

Thus in Eden there was innocence without grace to sustain it; and out of Eden there was responsibility and law without life to fulfill it. Then came Christ after all the testing of man was over. When He came, He exposed the true condition of man as wholly lost. For His love He had hatred and scorn! God did not fully pronounce on mans condition, until he had had every chance of recovery presented to him. If there had been any latent good in man, which it only required fresh culture to bring forth and develop, it would then have been found. But no! God was there in perfect love and goodness, disclosing mans state, and reconciling the world to Himself — not imputing their trespasses unto them. If they would now receive Him, all should be forgiven. But they despised Him in His lowly path of love, and sought to have the world without Him. If you say, “It was my fathers that did it, and if I had been in their days, I should have received Him;” then you are a Pharisee: this was the ground they took also (see Matt. 23:30). The history of the world was told out, and mans condition proved: sinning, lawbreaking, and God-hating is the tale!

Jesus unites the two principles of the Two Trees in Himself. As Son of God He had life in Himself; He was the “eternal life which was with the Father” and was “manifested” in the Son, as man on earth (1 John 1:2). He takes up willingly the responsibilities of His people, accepts the cup of wrath — God’s divine and righteous judgment against sin; thus uniting in His own person on the cross the principle of the Two Trees. In His holy soul He bears all the terrible judgment of God for sin; He makes His soul an offering for sin; and bears our sins in His own body on the Tree. Thus clearing away by one complete act of suffering and wrath all our responsibility as children of Adam: not one vestige of it remains! Having done this to the glory of God. He rises again — God raised Him from the dead and expressed His perfect satisfaction and glory in what Christ had accomplished, by setting Him as man on His throne on high. Thus the second Adam risen and now in the glory becomes the Head of a new race. He has cleared away their responsibilities, and become their life! He is the life of every one who believes. The Holy Spirit is given consequent on this, and, dwelling in the believer, unites us to Him in glory. We are born of the Spirit of God, on the ground of redemption; we have eternal life in Christ, and all that stood between us and God’s righteousness, has been atoned for by Christ on the cross, and put away forever — both whet we have done, and what we are. God is thus righteous in justifying the man who believes in Jesus. It is His righteousness to do so.

What then is the Christians responsibility? It is this. He has a new life altogether — eternal life in the Son of God — the characteristics of which are dependence and obedience — both seen to the full in Christ Himself walking here. With a perfect will — He never did it, but lived in undivided obedience to His Father. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” While He could create a world, He never put forth His power for Himself — not even to quench His thirst from the well He had created! —but lived in dependence on His God. This was expressed often, outwardly by prayer — all night at times, in prayer to God. And He is our life! Where it exists, it must assert itself somehow: these are its chief features.

We have the treasure in earthen vessels, but are entitled to reckon ourselves dead; we have died with Him, and are alive to God only through Him, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. The power of this life is the Holy Spirit. He, when we grieve Him not, engages the heart with Christ: with the eye upon Him we “can do all things.” In the sense of utter weakness in ourselves (for strength here is only sin), the heart lives by Christ; He governs all the motives of our lives, and power works in the weakness of His people, for when we are weak, then we are strong.

What then is the sinners responsibility? It is this. Christ has offered His blood to God! On the day of atonement of old, (Lev. 16) the High Priest went in with the basin of blood to the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it upon the golden throne of God, and the holy place was filled with a cloud of incense. The incense came from the burning of ingredients which composed the holy material; “stacte and onycha, and galbanum... with pure frankincense” beaten out small — the minuteness of a perfect man’s nature, (that man, the Son of God), presented as sweet savor to the eye of God during His perfect pathway here. It was the blood of such an One which was presented; and more — One who had first borne the judgment and had willingly drunk the cup. Such in measure was the sacrifice of Christ to God. As a consequence, it is God’s righteousness to set Him in glory, and to rend the veil from the top to the bottom — every attribute perfectly unveiled and glorified by His work, and to send out the gospel to the wide world — to all! I say every attribute, yea, the very nature, of God is glorified more than if there never had been sin. Where could we see love to the sinner — where righteousness against his sin — where truth, majesty, holiness, light? IN THE CROSS! The moral glory of God unfolds itself at this unrivaled scene, where it was more fully told than even the displayed glory will reveal it. Thus He can say, “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.”

But this is God’s side — the first goat, so to say, of Lev.

16. There is another side too, that typified by the second goat: in it we have not God’s side but ours. If the blood of the first goat was offered to God, in that place which was all gold within (that is, God’s righteousness), the other goat tells us of the substitution of Christ for His people, in the place of responsibility outside, the brazen altar; sins, transgressions, and iniquities, were all confessed on its head, and it was sent away into the land of divine forgetfulness. On the ground of Christ having offered His blood to God, I can tell a world of sinners of the grace of God, and that He desires that all should come in. There is nothing to hinder — wilt thou come? It is the meeting place with God for every sinner in this world, who will come to God by Him.

You say, I have no power, I must wait for my call; till God gives me power to accept, I cannot come. Here is where so many err. They look for ability and talk of want of power; but God never attaches responsibility to power but to will! Suppose your child was outside that closed door, and you called him in. He refuses. Again you call: again he will not come. You go to punish him for not having come; he remonstrates and says, The door was locked, I could not come. Nay, you reply, that is no excuse; for you should have known that I had the key, and when I called, you should have known that I would have met you and unlocked the door. It was his will that hindered him; the plea of want of power will not excuse a soul at the day of judgment. It was his will that hindered — he would not come.

When the sinner comes to God, I can tell him another thing. I can tell him of the substitution of Christ in the second goat, on the day of Atonement; as he had been invited on the ground of the propitiation offered to God — of the first. The two goats are Christianity.

The sinner is now guilty of despising the riches of that grace, which rose in the triumph of God’s own heart above his total ruin. And while it tells him of a judgment to come, it looks not to him for power to accept the grace of God in Christ, but unfolds that God has accepted what His Son offered to Him for sin; that thus His heart has now a righteous channel to express itself, namely, through that precious blood. What hinders then? His will? Alas, his will!

Consequently you will always find in the preaching or teaching of the Apostle Paul, that he treats men not for their sins in detail (though they are guilty of them too), but for resisting the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven in His testimony of grace. “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering.” “Behold! ye despisers, and wonder, and perish.” They are guilty for despising the grace of God — the Spirit of grace that strives with them, and are treasuring up for themselves “wrath against the day of wrath and righteous judgment of God.” Men hated the grace and lowly revelation of God in Christ below, “they hated me without a cause;” and they despised the revelation of pardoning love which rose in the triumph of His love above the hatred.

Then comes the final action of judgment at the Great White Throne, where the principle of the Two Trees of paradise is again found. The book of life marks God’s sovereignty, and the books, in which were detailed the works of men, mark their responsibility, and they are judged according to them, and cast into the lake of fire! Men are not judged for what they are; but for what they have done!

If we examine Scripture, we shall find these two principles side by side. If there is a Calvinist side, so to say, in the shepherd seeking a passive sheep, and in the diligence of a woman sweeping the house for a passive piece of money, there is an Arminian side as well, in a prodigal returning to his father!

As to the Gospels, as has been remarked, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, give you Christ presented to mans responsibility, and consequently men are invited to “come;” John on the other side unfolds God come to man, and sovereign election marking all His ways. There is not one invitation in that touching Gospel to a sinner to “come.” The plaint of His heart is that, spite of all the testimony they had had, “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.” And “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.”

In 1 John 4:9, 10, you also find the principle of the Two Trees — God’s Son manifested that we might have life. How often you see a soul in an agony of exercise, just because the life, is there, before it knows all the blessedness of the work of Christ, who was made a propitiation for our sins (vs. 10); bearing away all our responsibilities, as children of Adam, before He bestowed upon us eternal life.

If the Lord be pleased to help souls, with this short examination of these momentous subjects, and clear the vision of some, it will be a fresh mercy from His hands.

London: Allan, n.d.

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 1. Preface to the Third Edition

For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth (2 Cor. 13:8).

Third Edition, Revised, with Notes, Etc.

London: Allan, 1872

It is with much thankfulness to the Lord of the vineyard, that another edition of this tract is now sent forth. The Lord has deigned to mark it with His distinct approval, and it has been used largely for the instruction and blessing of His people.

The tract has been the object of many attacks; but this was to be expected when it was, in the Lord’s hands, an instrument of blessing to many.

Kind suggestions have been made by some who have found it useful, as to altering sentences here and there. But I have thought it best to re-issue it almost entirely as it was, lest the great point of the present actuality of the Church, the body of Christ, maintained on earth by the presence of the Holy Spirit in union with Christ in heaven, and composed only of those alive and here at any given moment, should be weakened.

Those who may have read a small volume of Lectures on the Church of God, will know that I hold that the Church — the body of Christ, as a thing of God’s counsels, and in result as presented in glory by and by — is composed of all believers from the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was sent down from heaven (Acts 2:32, 33), until the Lord’s second coming, when He will raise the saints who have died, and changing the living, will translate all to glory.

This view of the body of Christ is presented in Ephesians 1:22, 23, and, as far as I am aware, there only. All other Scriptures view the body, as presented in this tract, on earth, where the Holy Spirit as to His personal place constitutes in the unity of one body those believers only who are here at any given moment.

This aspect of the truth had been much lost sight of — and indeed unknown to many — until this tract was first put forth. It caused much inquiry, and was used largely to establish or to re-establish the truth.

I may add, that when it was written, I was engaged in bringing the truths of the Church of God before a number of the Lord’s people who had not learned it before. A good many got hold of it at that time; and I myself was conscious of having received a grasp of the truth which I had not before experienced, and which seemed as a distinct revelation to my own soul. I showed the rough MS to other fellow-laborers, and some thought it would serve the Lord and His people to print it. But the tract was not written for publication, but in leisure moments, as a sort of index of the truths then under consideration, and for my own satisfaction.

Trusting that it may still find a place in the Church, and be a channel of further blessing from the Lord to souls, it is put forth again in confidence in Him who deigns to use the weak things of the world to confound those things that are mighty, that no flesh may glory in His presence.

F. G. P., Blackrock, March, 1872.

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 1. There Is One Body and One Spirit

I trust the following remarks on the momentous subject at the head of this paper, may be found useful at the present time, and that an ever gracious Lord may vouchsafe His blessing on the perusal of them to many of His people, and open up to their minds this most important of all truths, and enable them to seize it in some measure from this outline, and link their souls practically to the divine principles set forth therein.

The Lord has been most graciously working in many places around in these last days. Souls have been new-born to Him, and brought into the liberty of His grace in a moment, so to speak, through the Gospel. Souls thus set free from the bondage of sin and Satan have also found their freedom from the trammels of the sects and parties in the professing church. They have, in many cases, begun to act upon their privileges, and as the disciples of old (Acts 20:7), have assembled themselves to break bread, and thus show forth the groundwork of their redemption and liberty, in that which calls to mind the Lord in His death. Difficulties have arisen, and many have found that they still wanted a divine principle beyond this to guide them, and yet, possibly, feared to go deeper into these things, lest they should be led into something which, perhaps, they have been warned about, and perhaps have learned to fear. The confusion in which things are, and the sad failures of ourselves and of our brethren, have often been the means of driving timid souls away, and they have shrunk from inquiring more deeply into the divine principles, seeing the failures and hearing the recriminations of others.

In such a state of things, the enemy, as ever, seeks to keep the soul from learning the leading truth of God. Satan’s successful effort at the first was to seek to blot out in practice, if he could not blot out in fact, the great ever-living truth named at the head of this paper. The vessel, Paul, who communicated it to us through his inspired epistles, had to say at the close of his ministry, “All they which are in Asia be turned away from me” (2 Tim. 1:15). Ephesus was the capital of that proconsular province, and was the place where was an assembly of God, to which those high truths of the “mystery which was hidden from ages and generations, but is now revealed,” were written (Epistle to Ephesians); and in the close of the course of one who was walking in the power of his own doctrine, he has to say that all in Asia had turned away from him. God has been pleased of His own sovereign grace to revive out of the rubbish of centuries this wondrous truth, which has lain so long dormant. Many have learned it, and have sought in their weakness to walk therein. They have, in much weakness, and through evil report and good report, and failings innumerable, sought, in reliance upon a gracious God, to glorify Christ in the pathway of obedience to His revealed will, and the counsels, and purposes, and workings of God.

The enemy tries to keep the Lord’s people from learning this, His leading truth of the interval or period in which we live. What then I desire is, that the eyes of my brethrens understanding be enlightened by the Spirits teaching to discover what they really are before God, members of the one body of Christ, by one Spirit, and that they may act accordingly.

It is quite impossible that, as a Christian, I can be an individual merely, in the present time. I am a member of the body of Christ as well. And while seeking, as an individual servant, to serve my Lord, I find I have besides, in common with the rest of the body, a corporate responsibility to Christ, the Head of His body, the Church. I seek not then, to evade this responsibility by looking at the failures of others, or to try and use the truth of the Lord’ship of Christ over me as a servant, to evade my corporate responsibility to Christ, the Head of His body.

The Epistle to the Romans is that in which the Spirit of God treats us and looks at us with the most distinct individuality — as sinners, and as justified persons. And yet when He comes to the duties and walk which flow from our individual blessing and position, He at once turns us to our corporate responsibility, so that we cannot dissociate these things. No one could read the 12th chapter of Romans without discovering this. As an individual I am exhorted to present my body a living sacrifice — my reasonable service — to be transformed by the renewing of my mind, &c. Then, as to my corporate place, in the exercise of gift, or otherwise, I am to exercise it with respect to the body. “For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts,” &c.

I desire that my brethren may simply discover what they are, own the truth, and carry it out practically, walking therein with those whom the Lord has called and privileged to do likewise. Of this I am persuaded, that no one ever learned a truth after a divine manner till the soul was using practically what it had learned. It has then had its true power; so that to talk, as many do, of the body of Christ, &c., and never to have really acted upon this truth, is, depend upon it, but to prove that the truth has not been received into the conscience and soul, while, no doubt, there has been enough seen of it to guide the steps thereinto. With this desire I pass on to my subject.

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 2. Distinctive Positions of a Jew and a Gentile in the Old Testament

It will be well to seize the distinctive positions which the Jew and the Gentile occupied before God in the Old Testament days, before the formation of the body of a rejected and risen Christ was revealed. The quotation of two Scriptures will mark this distinction plainly.

As to Israel, I read, “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 9:4-5). As to the Gentile, “Wherefore remember, that ye, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:11, 12).

The simple reading of these passages will show that all the blessings, and privileges, and promises, and hopes that God then gave, were confined to the elect nation of Israel, and that, to partake of these blessings, a Gentile should come in and partake of them subordinately to the Jew, in whom they were vested as the vessel of blessing.

We read in 1 Corinthians 12:12,13, For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.

Now, before the formation of such a body out of both Jew and Gentile could take place, it was necessary that God Himself, who had surrounded Israel with a “wall of partition,” should remove the same. It was not sufficient that the wall of partition which God had placed around the Jew had been almost obliterated by the unfaithfulness of those who had been thus hemmed in. The partition wall existed as fully in the mind of God, and to faith, as though there had never been an unfaithful Jew on earth. God had placed it there, and God must remove it Himself, ere He would form the body of which we read here.

The prophets had spoken of a day of which it was said, “Rejoice ye Gentiles with his people,” &c. But even in such a state of blessing, “Gentiles” remained “Gentiles,” and “His people” remained “His people.” They never spoke of this “body,” where Jew and Gentile alike have lost their national position — where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free. There are three things before God in the world. Paul enumerates them in 1 Corinthians 10:32. They are, “The Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God.” In the last mentioned, both Jew and Gentile have ceased to be such before God, believers from amongst both having been incorporated into this body of which we speak. The prophets spoke of the time when that which we know familiarly as the millennium, or more correctly, the “kingdom,” will have been established on the earth; then the Jew will be the central nation, and the Gentile will rejoice with the people of Jehovah: a state of things which will come in after the Church has been gathered, and is with Christ in heaven.

The foreshadowing of the removal of this “wall of partition” was frequently seen in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself in the gospels. Instance the woman of Samaria who could not understand how that the Lord, a Jew Himself, should ask drink of her who was a woman of Samaria, as the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. (See John 4, see also the case of the Syrophenician woman in Matt. 15.) Before this “wall of partition” was removed, it was “unlawful for a man, that is a Jew, to keep company, or come unto one of another nation” (Acts 10:28).

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 3. The Wall of Partition Removed

This hindrance to the formation of the body of a risen and ascended Christ was formally removed by God Himself in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, where He wrought the redemption of His people. We read,

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition: having abolished in his flesh the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make (create) in himself of twain (of the two), one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby (Eph. 2:14-16).

The cross, then, besides being the scene where the Lord wrought redemption, was the removal of the difficulty, or wall of partition which then existed between Jew and Gentile. It was the basis or groundwork for the formation of this body, and to reconcile a people from both Jew and Gentile to God — giving access to both by one Spirit unto the Father (vs. 18), the name by which God has revealed Himself to each member of the body, in His Son Jesus Christ; as heretofore He had revealed Himself under the name of Jehovah to the one elect nation — the Jew (Ex. 6:3).

All this, however, does not constitute a body. It only removes the hindrance, and is the ground or basis of the whole work, as of redemption. The next thing, therefore, which is wanted is to have the Head of the body in heaven, raised up from the dead — a glorified man.

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 4. Christ - the Head of the Body, in Heaven

The remarkable quotation of the Eighth Psalm by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1:22, will be helpful to us in understanding this — read Ephesians 1:19-23: “The working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, and hath put all things under his feet (quotation from Psa. 8), and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”* The Eighth Psalm speaks of a “Son of Man,” to whom dominion over all creation is given. If we consult Genesis 1:26, we find that God gave to Adam and his wife a joint headship over all creation; but this headship was sinned away and lost when man fell. The whole creation, now groaning and travailing, was made subject to vanity through the fall of man. (See Rom. 8:19-23). This headship is given, as Psalm 8 tells us, to a “Son of Man.” And we discover who this Son of Man is in Hebrews 2:6, &c., where the Apostle, quoting the Psalm, tells us that we do not yet see the grand result of all things being subject to Him. He says, “For in that he put all under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor: that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man.” Thus we find who this “Son of Man” is. It is Jesus. This brings us back to Ephesians 1, where Paul quotes the Psalm. Christ, then, as Man glorified, has been taken up of God from the dead, and seated in the heavenlies, “Head over all things, to the Church, which is his body,” and is waiting there for the manifest assumption of this Headship, during which time the Body is here.

In Colossians 1:18, we find Him spoken of as “Head of the body, the Church; who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.” His headship is now connected with the fact of resurrection. It is as risen and ascended, that Christ is Head of the Church.

We have now the Head of the body in heaven, a glorified Man, as well as the difficulty removed. But this does not yet constitute the body; and before we look at it we must turn aside for a moment and see what Scripture says of union with Christ.

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 5. What Is Union With Christ?

In the Old Testament times the saints were new-born, but they were not united to Christ; they possessed life, although the doctrine of it was not made known. The Abrahams and Davids, &c., were all saved — they were new-born by the power of the Holy Spirit — saved by faith — lived and died in faith in God’s promises of a Savior to come. But faith in itself is not union. We could not speak to a patriarch of being united to a man at God’s right hand, by the Holy Spirit sent down; because there was no man there to whom to be united — and “the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (See John 7:37-39.) Even when Christ was here, a Man amongst men, there was no union between sinful men and the Lord. Hence He says,

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).

On the cross He enters in grace into the judgment under which man lay — bears the wrath, and all that the righteousness of God required; and in His death lays the ground that God may bring those whom He saves into a new state, through redemption, to Himself — He rises from the dead; having borne the wrath — ascends to heaven, and is glorified — a Man at God’s right hand. The Holy Spirit was then sent down, and dwells in the Church (Acts 2). He makes the body of the believer his temple (1 Cor. 6:19). He seals him — having believed — until (for) the day of redemption (Eph. 1:13; 4:30). He unites him to Christ — “He that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17), anoints him — seals him — baptizes him with all other saints into one body (1 Cor. 12:13; 2 Cor. 1:21). Hence union with Christ is by the Holy Spirit dwelling in the believer’s body, and uniting him to Christ in heaven, since the accomplishment of redemption.

This union neither existed, nor was it even contemplated for the Old Testament saints in the counsels of God. If we turn to John 7:37-39, we find the line drawn with great distinctness between what is now, and what was then. The Lord Jesus in the chapter cannot show Himself to the world, because His brethren, the Jews, did not believe in Him; and so He cannot bring in the Feast of Tabernacles, which is always used as a figure of the kingdom. The kingdom is then put off till another day, and instead of that, going up in secret He stood in the last day of the feast, and cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified).” The gift of the Holy Spirit to dwell in believers is thus brought in, and the kingdom which had been refused is put off till another day.

The disciples were told by the Lord after He rose from the dead, to remain at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, which they had heard of Him. (See Acts 1:4-5.) This promise was made at length in John 14:16,17-26, chapter 15:26. The Holy Spirit — the “other Comforter” was to be given, and to this end it was positively expedient that Jesus should go away (John 16:7), otherwise He — the Holy Spirit — would not come. The Lord tells them in Acts 1:5, “John truly baptized with water; and ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.” The Lord was seen of them for forty days after the time He rose from the dead (Acts 1:3), and there was an interval of ten days from His ascension till the day of Pentecost (or fiftieth day) was fully come. When it came (Acts 2) the promise was fulfilled; and Peter tells the Jews (Acts 2:32, 33), “this Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 6. The Formation of One Body by the Baptism of the Holy Ghost

We have heard of the Lord’s promise — “Ye shall be baptized by the Holy Ghost not many days hence,” brought to pass on the day of Pentecost. The little band of disciples, at first some 120 (see Acts 1:15), then about 3,000 (Acts 2:41), increased largely afterward (Acts 4:4), were baptized of the Holy Spirit, according to the Lord’s promise; but still this was only the Jewish side of the blessing. In Acts 10 Peter opens the door to the Gentiles, bringing them into the same position and privileges, not merely as individuals, but by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When they of Judea heard of this (see Acts 11), Peter was called to account for what he had done, and he rehearsed the matter from the beginning to them, and declared that the Holy Spirit had acted in a similar manner to that which he had done at the day of Pentecost with the Jews, and the Gentiles too had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Thus we have, in the clearest way, the Jew and Gentile receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

We must now turn to Paul, for it was to him alone of all the Apostles was the revelation of the “mystery” committed, of which he speaks in Ephesians 3:6, &c., which had heretofore been “hid in God” (Eph. 3:9), not even in “Scripture,” but “in God” — His eternal purpose. “That the Gentiles should be joint-heirs, and a joint-body (with the Jews), and joint-partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.” Thus should the passage be read.

Paul describes at length this body in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, where he says, “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is (the) Christ. (This name, “the Christ,” is here applied to the members and head, as to Adam and his wife jointly, in Genesis 5:2). For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit, for the body is not one member, but many, &c., &c. Here both Jew and Gentile lose their places, as such, and are brought into one body, and united by the Holy Spirit to each other and to Christ, the Head, a Man glorified.

Now this body is in the world, as is the Holy Spirit, whose presence constitutes it. It is not in heaven. The Head is in heaven, and the members have a heavenly position by faith; while in fact, they are in the world. This body has been passing along through the world; its unity as perfect as the day in which the presence of the Holy Spirit first constituted it. Nothing has ever marred its unity. True, the outward manifestation of this body, by the oneness of those who compose it, is gone; true that the “house of God,” as it first appeared in the world, has drifted into a “great house” of 2 Timothy 2:19-22; true, that all that was committed to mans responsibility has, as ever, failed. But the body of Christ was in the world then — was here through the dark middle ages — is now in the world; remaining all through the ruin of the professing church; its unity perfectly maintained by the Holy Spirit, who, by His presence and baptism constitutes it; for He as ever maintains the unity of the body of Christ!

Let me put a figure before my reader, which will convey simply the fact that the entire number of saints in the world at any given time (just as I write these words for instance), indwelt by the Holy Spirit, is that which is recognized of God as the body of Christ. Let us suppose a regiment of soldiers, a thousand strong, goes to India, and serves there for many years. All those who composed that regiment die off or are slain in battle, and their places are filled up by others — the numerical strength of the regiment is kept up — after years of service, the time comes for it to return home — not a man who went out, is in it now, and yet the same regiment returns without change of its number or facings or identity. Thus with the body of Christ. Those who composed it in the days of Paul, are not here, yet the body has passed along through the last eighteen centuries, the members of it dying off; and the ranks filled up by others, and now at the end of the journey the body is here — the Holy Spirit who constitutes its unity, being here — as perfect in its unity, as ever it was.

Now it is quite true that all the saints between those two great events are of the body of Christ —of it in the mind and council of God. But those who have died have lost their present actual connection with the body, having passed away from the sphere where, as to personal place, the Holy Spirit is. They have ceased to be in its unity. The bodies of the dead saints, once the temples of the Holy Spirit, are now in the dust, and their spirits are with the Lord. Their bodies not being yet raised, they do not now enter into account of the body as recognized of God. As those on the retired list of an army, they have passed into the reserve, or freedom from service, as it were, out of the scene now occupied by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. We read, “If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it,” &c. (1 Cor. 12:26), the dead do not suffer. The passage treats of those who are alive here, in a place where they may do so.

Thus the body of Christ, as now recognized of God, embraces all believers here upon earth, at the moment I write, as at any given moment. 1 Corinthians 12 treats of the church of God upon earth: healings, &c., are not set in heaven. The difficulty with many is not reading Scripture as God’s mind at any given moment — speaking of a thing before His eye. The Apostles spoke of a thing before their eyes; they never looked for a long continuance of the Church; they looked for the Lord’s coming. All was viewed as contemplating this, though prophetically ruin was predicted, and felt as it came in.)

In Ephesians 2:21, we have the purpose and mind of God, as the whole Building, that is, the entire complement of the saints from the day of Pentecost, till the moment when all are in heaven. In Ephesians 2:22, we have what the entire number of the saints are, who are alive in the world at any given moment between those two points of time which I have mentioned, namely, between the day of Pentecost and the moment when all shall have been taken up to heaven.

Ephesians 2:21, “In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.

Here we find a temple or building growing, but not yet grown: that is, it is growing up day by day, into that which it will be finally when in glory — a holy temple in the Lord.”

Ephesians 2:22, “In whom ye also (the saints and believers in Christ Jesus, to whom the Epistle is addressed) are builded together, for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” This gives me what the entire number of saints now or at any moment, constitute corporately in the world. They are a habitation, or dwelling-place of God through the Spirit.

These two thoughts may be illustrated thus. When Jehovah was passing through the wilderness, from Egypt to Canaan, He dwelt in a tabernacle, which in itself was perfect in all its parts and furniture — a complete thing. It moved along through the wilderness towards the Land of Promise, and was a habitation of God. But when at last Israel was settled in the land, Jehovah had a temple — a magnificent structure in dimensions and furniture, and appointments, far beyond the little tabernacle which was His dwelling- place in the journey.

Thus, with those two verses, verse 21 shows us what God will have in the Land (in heaven itself with us) when the temple now growing under His workmanship will have attained its full proportions, and be in glory. But verse 22 tells us what the saints are meanwhile — God’s dwelling place — His tabernacle or habitation through the Spirit.

This may serve to illustrate in some measure, and bring home to our hearts and consciences for our practical walk, what we are as a present thing. How responsible then, we are, in observing such a truth — to cast in our purposes, our aims, our all, into it — to act upon it. Not merely to know it as some nice truth or doctrine, but as a living member of it; to walk in it, to link my soul on to the practice of it, with those who are observing it in weakness; to separate myself from all that in practice disowns it; to act upon the living, abiding truth, that which occupies the mind and purpose of God; that which is now a “spectacle to the principalities and powers in heavenly places,” disclosing to them “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10). How solemn on the other hand to disown it!

What an amazing truth! Although the oneness prayed for by the Lord Jesus in John 17 has almost vanished away; and mans unfaithfulness, yea the unfaithfulness of God’s people, under the highest blessing ever vouchsafed to them in this world, has been shown in the almost entire obliteration of that oneness which the Son demanded of the Father. Although all that men could do to mar it has been done, still there is that which never changes, never fails, and never is spoiled; because (are we not ashamed to say it) it is not in our power to do so, for it is kept, as it is constituted, by the presence and baptism of God the Holy Spirit — the body of Christ, in the world!

How beautifully do we find Christ’s prayer for their oneness answered in Acts 2;4. We read there, “They lifted up their voices with one accord.” “The multitudes of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.” His prayer was answered for the little moment, “that they all may be one,” as in practice they were. But soon, indeed, did this oneness of practice fail. Then we find, in Acts 9, Saul of Tarsus, afterward Paul the Apostle, called out to reveal to us something that could never fail — the unity of the Spirit — the body of Christ.

The difference between oneness and unity is important; because we are exhorted “to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” To endeavor to keep practically that which exists in fact, by the presence of the Spirit of God. Not to make a unity but to keep, by the bond of peace, that unity which exists by the Holy Spirit.

Suppose a number of persons are led to have one aim, one mind, one object, one heart, and one purpose; this would be oneness of practice. But this would not constitute them into a body. But suppose that such were united together by an indissoluble bond, this would be unity. The Holy Spirit is this bond of the Body, and consequently its unity exists independently of the oneness of practice of those who are thus united.

Is it not a blessed thought, however, that this oneness, so well pleasing to the Lord, does exist amongst those who endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 7. The Lord's Supper

The Apostle Paul received a special revelation with respect to the Lord’s Supper. He was the vessel chosen of God to reveal to us the mystery of Christ and the Church. He alone of all the sacred writers speaks of the body of Christ. We read in 1 Corinthians 10:16,17, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? for we, being many, are one bread, one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread” (or rather “loaf”). Here we learn that the Lord’s table is the expression of the communion of the body of Christ. (Of course we speak of it now as the Lord’s table in the truth of the divine revelation concerning it.) There is immense importance in this truth. Because we learn that although the professing church has distorted the Lord’s Supper into a means of grace, and a life-giving sacrament, and a fresh sacrifice, in fact almost everything but what it is, still, if the Lord’s table is spread according to God’s mind, it expresses the communion of the one body of Christ, which is here in the world.

Now, if only two or three Christians in a place are gathered together on the ground of the one body of Christ, by one Spirit, to eat the Lord’s Supper, they are a true, even though feeble, expression of the one body. It is as in the communion of the one body, they break the one loaf, which is the symbol of the fellowship of the one body.

1 Corinthians 10:16,17 teaches us what they are; they “are one body.” 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 tells us what they do. They eat a supper, and show forth the Lord’s death.

Many have thought that they could now come together as individuals merely, to break bread. But such a ground is unknown in Scripture, since the revelation of the truth concerning the Church of God, through the Apostle Paul. The ground of the unity of the Spirit of God in the body of Christ is the only one we can take, except in ignorance or in disobedience to the revealed will of God. I must either own what I know to be here — to exist in the world — as a fact, that is, the one body of Christ, formed by the one Spirit of God; or I must disown it, which is indeed a very solemn matter. Coming together as disciples has been done in ignorance of these divine principles; and the Lord is very gracious and patient with us, in waiting upon us in our slowness to learn His mind. But when I learn the truth, and have my understanding opened to see what I am before God, a member of the body, by one Spirit, it is not taking up new ground in our mode of meeting together; but rather defining in its full sense what we really are, and discovering with this, all the responsibilities attaching to such a wonderful truth. I learn my responsibility to Christ the Head, and towards every member of His body on earth — I learn my deep responsibility to own and recognize all others who are thus owning and acting upon (however weakly it may be) the grand truth of one body, by one Spirit. It gives me a divine resting-place for my feet in the midst of the confusion of the great house of Christendom; a reality which will keep my soul steady in the midst of every ruin. It is the only thing which can do this. Coming together as individual Christians merely to break bread, is simply impossible. If done in ignorance, well — but with the knowledge of this unity, to do so would be the disowning of God’s highest truth.

It has been thought that now in the ruin of the church, the only thing we can do is to hold the Head (Col. 2:19) as individuals. But to suppose that we can hold the Head, and disown in practice that we are members of the body of which Christ is Head, is mischievous. A member of Christ has a Head in heaven, as a member of a body of which Christ is the Head. If I had a Head merely as an individual, I should have a head without a body, or one member would be the body. This demonstrates the inconsistency. Body and Head are correlatives — while Lord and Servant are also correlatives and individual. We are to hold the Head, but it is as members of His body, by the Holy Spirit uniting us to Him, we are to do so. “Not holding the Head, from which the whole body, by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God” (Col. 2:19).

How far from re-constructing anything is all this; for the body of Christ does not want re-construction from my hands. The Spirit of God constitutes it, by His presence and baptism, and its unity has never failed. I therefore merely own in practice what I know to be here in fact, but I cannot do it as an individual where there are other members of the body of Christ. Both must be together if grace is given for it, as the body, that is, on the ground and principle of it. Besides all this, our being together, and our owning this, do not pretend to manifest anything. This would be towards the world. I seek not to manifest, but to express what I am in common with all the other members —the body of Christ — in the symbol of its unity, the breaking of one loaf.

Before closing, I would revert to one further matter of much importance, as to seek to act upon it has been stated to be an impossibility; and not only so, but a denial of the ruin of the professing church. I mean the divine competency of the saints to carry out the discipline of the assembly; or to keep outside everything not of the Spirit of God. I feel quite sure that the carrying out of the discipline of the assembly, in putting out from its midst, will be, nay, should be resorted to as the very last extremity, when grace exercised to the uttermost has failed, and when it has become a question of the assembly accepting the evil as its own, or clearing itself from it. I would add, too, that of this I am sure, that where the Spirit of God is ungrieved and unhindered in an assembly, the evil will not remain long undiscovered, or in the midst.

We read, “What have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them also that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore, put away from amongst you that wicked person (1 Cor. 5:12, 13).” Now this divine competency remains unchanged. Nay, it is binding on the saints. The Lord holds them responsible for this. The thought has occurred to some, “Is not this putting out from the body, if we are gathered together as such, that is, on such a ground?” I reply, it is not. Scripture makes no difficulty in the matter whatever; it says “from among yourselves,” not “from the body” — which could not be done. Otherwise there would be no means left to exclude evil from the midst of the two or three when gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus. The idea is so contrary to all that we know of Him who has said, “Holiness becometh thy house forever.”

The Apostle addresses to the Corinthians this responsibility, binding it upon “all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours (1 Cor. 1:2); recognizing them (1 Cor. 12:27) as gathered together on the ground and principles of the one body of Christ; and unless we can remove that Scripture (1 Cor. 5) from the word of God, the divine competency and authority for this remains unchanged.

What Scripture teaches is the competency and duty of each assembly to carry out its own discipline, under the Lord, who has promised His presence and guidance in the matter. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” I am sure that when two or three, meeting in godliness and truth, come to a decision before the Lord in cases of discipline, that it is owned of the Lord, and the person who is the subject of it will never get comfort till he bows to it.

What is mistaken for, or put forth as, the cutting off of assemblies, &c., is, that when persons by a certain course of action, have put themselves practically outside the unity of the Spirit, by a course or action subversive to foundation truth, they have ceased to be guided by the Spirit of God. Assemblies, which are walking in the truth and unity of the Spirit, are forced to recognize the act of those who have slipped away. But the act is that of persons who have slipped away, not that of those who have discovered it, and refuse to slip away after them. They have cut themselves off, and put themselves out of the unity of the Spirit.

Then, an act of discipline done in any assembly walking in godliness and truth, is to be recognized most surely by every other likewise, to the ends of the earth. A person outside of one is outside of all. Do we suppose that when Corinth put out the wicked person (1 Cor. 5) from their midst, according to God’s mind, that Ephesus, &c., would not have accepted the act? Would Ephesus have re-opened and re-judged the case? Certainly not. Ephesus accepted the act of Corinth.

It is the habit of individuals, too, at times, of passing judgment upon the acts of an assembly. Upon this I would simply say, that the two or three gathered in truth and holiness have the promise of a faithful Lord to guide them in questions requiring united decision. The individual has not this promise for his guidance, be he ever so gifted in divine wisdom in the things of God. How could he expect to have the Lord’s promise to guide him individually in cases where a united judgment is required, and which has the Lord’s sanction and promise of guidance in the assembly?

It has been stated that “Its (the Church’s) PLACE, as a corporate witness of the ‘manifold wisdom of God,’ is lost. Its manifested UNITY has given place to every kind of division. Its ORDER is a scandal. Its AUTHORITY, which depended upon these other features being maintained, is, à fortiori, gone too. Its power of GOVERNMENew Testament necessarily has been forfeited.” As to the first, the remark is true — The candlestick (that is, a light for others) has been removed. But it is to “Principalities and powers in heavenly places,” it is a witness of “the manifold wisdom of God” — not to the world. This has not been lost. As to the third it is too true likewise.

As to the fourth and fifth, the statements have not the least foundation in Scripture. The authority was given long after its manifested unity was gone, and never depended upon it in anywise. In fact, its manifested unity was gone soon after Acts 2, 7. The earthly order at Jerusalem was broken up at the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7-8). The Church was the body of Christ, and acting as such, before it knew it was so, and before the conversion of Saul (Acts 9), the instrument through whom it was revealed. Even then its “manifested unity” was well nigh gone.

Besides this, in the very epistle to the Corinthians, where the authority of the discipline of the assembly is given (1 Corinthians 5) and bound upon “All that call upon Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours,” we find the manifest unity did not exist, for they were saying, “I of Paul,” &c., so that its authority never depended upon its manifested oneness.

In this epistle (1 Corinthians), too, we have no mention of elders, or office-bearers of any kind, but we have the principle taught us of submission to those who guide the conscience of the assembly through the ministry of the word (what an elder would have done), as to the course to be observed. It is, I doubt not, given in this epistle, where no elders are found or noticed, as a resource for times of failure, and when no apostolically appointed elders exist.

I beseech you, brethren (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints), that ye submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helpeth us, and laboureth (1 Cor. 16:15,16).

I am sure that an individual divinely gifted with wisdom, maybe used of the Lord to guide the conscience of the assembly in cases requiring such, or in cases where an assembly might have acted mistakenly and needs to correct its action, but this without even doing more than guiding the conscience aright. It is the assembly which acts before the Lord, not individuals for the assembly, which in principle would be Popery.

Before closing this note, I would mention the tendency of confounding things which differ, that is, the act of “putting out” from an assembly with that of refusing to “let in” or receive that which is not suited to the Lord’s presence, or of the Spirit of God. It is a common thing for those who have not been admitted amongst those in the fellowship of the Spirit of God, to talk of it as if they had been “excommunicated.” Such should remember that they must first have been “within,” to be the subjects of such an action, had it become necessary. Refusing to admit them because of their being a bar to their fellowship with the saints, as in the unity of the Spirit of God, is a very different action from that of putting them out. In one case, they were outside; in the other, they must have been within.)

It is a fine saying of Paul, in 2 Corinthians 13:8, “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.” Blessed thought, that God permits us — poor weak things in ourselves — to be for the truth in this world. The working of our own restless wills hinders this betimes; as far as we ourselves are concerned; and hinders others with whom we may come into contact. We hinder our own growth up to Christ, and our increase through the knowledge of God, as well as, perhaps, disturbing simple, true-hearted souls. Yet with all this restless striving, “we can do nothing against the truth.” There it stands in all the beauty of its own perfection — unhindered and unmarred by all our strivings. How blessed it is to be for it in our course here below. To cast into it the energies of our hearts and witness for it. ‘Tis thus we make “straight paths for our own feet,” and those who are lame souls, weak in the faith, are “healed,” by beholding our firm conscious tread in the truth of God. They are thus encouraged to go on firmly, rather than “turn out of the way.” God is glorified and Christ magnified (wondrous word!) by the firm walk of a truehearted disciple standing for the truth, by the grace of the Lord, in this evil world.

May the Lord bless my reader, and give him the single eye, and confirm and strengthen him in that which alone will keep his feet steady in the perilous times of the last days. Paul, when he had given the characters of things in the last days (2 Tim. 3:1-9), turns at once the mind of the disciple upon those things which alone would keep him at such a time. When he had departed from iniquity in a great house of Christendom (2 Tim. 2:19); and purged himself from the vessels to dishonor (vs. 21); and having fled from youthful lusts, was following righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with those who had likewise purged themselves — He turns the faithful disciples heart to what we find enumerated in 2 Timothy 3:10-17. They are in their large features, three in number, namely —

1. “My doctrine”;

2. The Scriptures; and

3. The Person of Christ, as an object of faith. Have we then Paul’s doctrine? If so, we have that which, with the Scriptures which were completed by it, and the Person of the Christ of God, will keep us in the pathway of truth in the evil day, through the grace which an ever faithful Lord supplies.

Appendix.

The principle in the confusion around is, Matthew 18:20. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” But this principle cannot be pleaded and sought as a ground of coming together to the rejection of the truth of the unity of the Spirit, in the body of Christ. To come together pleading the promise of Matthew 18:20, and at the same time to disown the ground of the body of Christ, is indeed impossible. This promise was given before there was any failure; it is a fundamental principle; and the resource to faith, when the outward manifestations of the one body of Christ, by the oneness of its members (as in Acts 2-4) has failed. Faith in the unity of the Spirit, in the body of Christ as existing here on the earth, is what we need the more. And then, when we cannot restore the state of things, in Acts 2-4., through the oneness of the members of the body, we have the principle “where two or three,” &c., as the resource; and to be counted upon by faith. Still, the Spirit of God gathers together the two or three faithful disciples, on the ground of this unity; and on no other. Of course when there is ignorance of the principle of one body and one Spirit, the promise of Matthew 18:20, has been looked for, and the faithful have rejoiced in the faithfulness of the Lord; and have found His presence in their midst. But to press this principle, to the disowning of one body and one Spirit, now that this truth has been made known, would be indeed to err. It needs but little discernment to see, that the Spirit of God constitutes the body in unity, which therefore exists here in the world by virtue of His presence; and He Himself would he disowning this, did He gather disciples apart from the principle of one body, and on any other ground.

The thought here strikes one, how solemn is the position of those who have attempted to set up another table claiming to be the Lord’s (sad to say, this has in some cases been done), and gather together another assembly, in a place where an assembly has been already gathered on the ground of the body; and where the Lord’s Table has been already spread, as in the communion of the body of Christ. If done in true-hearted ignorance, well — the Lord bears with such in patient grace, and instructs those who have a single eye. Nothing can justify such an act. Nothing would alter the principle of those who are already gathered on the ground of one body of Christ, unless there was an acceptance of something in their midst of that which touched upon the foundation truths of Christian faith, such as anything touching on the person or glory of Christ, or the acceptance of a line of action which would show an indifference on such a subject, or would be a denial of the truth of one body and one Spirit.

One has to bear with mistakes, and to seek, if we have grace for it, and with patience, to bring our brethren aright, if they have erred in judgment. But unless an assembly accept as the line of its action anything which would be subversive of the foundation truths of faith, it has its claim on me as an assembly of God. To set up another, is to break practically, as far as I can, the unity of the Spirit, which I am exhorted to keep. If we have grace for it, let us labor, Nehemiah-like, to bring our brethren into the consciousness of their position, that they may walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing, and be fruitful in every good work, and thus grow through the knowledge of God, and not by any act of ours reader confusion more confounded.

The Unity of the Spirit: Preface

The Unity of the Spirit is a sequel to the tract entitled There is One Body and One Spirit. Many souls have, more or less, apprehended the truth of “one body and one Spirit;” but have not yet grasped the force of the exhortation, which founds their practice on this fundamental truth.

It is hoped that, in the Lord’s rich mercy, this may be helpful to souls. “I, therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Eph. 4:1-6).”

Here we find that there are unities connected with the Spirit, with the Lord, and with God. I treat here of the unity of the Spirit, as being specially connected with the, object of this paper. The observing of this unity is our responsibility; the others fall into their own places accordingly.

I would remark the use of an expression, which is used often to convey a right thought, but which you do not find in Scripture, that is, “the unity of the body.” “There is one body,” the unity of which is constituted by the Holy Spirit Himself; and we are exhorted to endeavor to keep this “unity of the Spirit (not ‘unity of the body) in the bond of peace.” If we were exhorted to endeavor to keep the unity of the body, we would be obliged to walk with every member of Christ, no matter in what association he might be found, or whatever his practice might be — no evil whatever would give us a warrant to separate from him. The endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit necessarily keeps us in the company and association with a divine Person here upon earth. It is not unity of spirit, as has been put forward, but of “the Spirit” — the Holy Spirit.

Here I would note that which surely is so plain in the word as to make one almost ashamed of having to insist on it, that is, the personal presence of a divine Person — God, the Holy Spirit, here upon earth; not merely in each believer as an individual, but corporately, in the Church of God. The individual believer is indwelt by the Spirit of God — anointed, sealed (Rom. 8:9, &c.; 1 Corinthians 6; 1 Cor. 12:13; 2 Cor. 1:21,22; Eph. 1:13,14, &c.), baptized by the Holy Spirit into one body, with all other believers. The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not leave him an isolated person. Its action connects him with all other believers, as a body, and with Christ the Head of His body (1 Cor. 12:12,13). The promise of the Lord as to the Comforter, was that he should not only be with them, but in them. The Lord was with them — the Holy Spirit in His absence, would be both with them, and in them, consequently the Holy Spirit at Pentecost not only “filled all the house,” but He “sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,” &c. (Acts 2:24). He not only filled each one, in Acts 4:31, at the gathering for prayer, but manifested His presence collectively in their midst, by shaking the place where they were assembled.

The saints are the body of Christ by one Spirit; but they are also the “habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). God dwells amongst them, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them,” &c. (2 Cor. 6:16). We have almost come to the state of the men at Ephesus (Acts 19), in being obliged to insist on this truth, when they said, “We did not even hear if (the) Holy Spirit was (come).” (Lit.) Things daily arising make it necessary to do so.

If the Church of God was in a healthy state, there would be no difference practically in the expressions “unity of the body” and “unity of the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit Himself dwelling in the Church constitutes its unity, and practically embraces all the members of the body. If the Church was walking in the Spirit, the healthy action of the whole would be unimpaired. Still the unity remains, because the Spirit remains, even when the oneness, and healthy practice of the body as a whole is gone. The unity of a human body remains when a limb is paralyzed — but where is its oneness? The limb has not ceased to be of the body, but it has ceased to be in the healthy articulation of the body. Hence many Christians, while members of the body of Christ, are not endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

How, then, is the unity of the Spirit to be observed? What is “endeavoring” to do so? What is faithfulness to the nature of the Church, Christ’s body, in an evil day? It in Separation from Evil. My first duty must be to “depart from iniquity.” It may be moral, or doctrinal evil; evil assuming many shapes; I separate myself from it, to Christ. Thus separated, I find myself in the fellowship of the Spirit of God. Associated with the Holy Spirit here upon earth. He glorifies Christ, and dissociates me from everything contrary to Christ; associating me with that which is according to Christ. Thus it ceases to be a question of Christ’s members altogether, and becomes entirely a question of Christ, and of the Spirit of God, whom He glorifies. The notion that I may be wittingly associated with an evil principle, or doctrine, or practice, and undefiled, is an unholy notion. I may be perfectly free from it myself as not having imbibed it; but by practical association with it, I have left the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Thus separated into fellowship of the Holy Spirit — the Spirit of holiness and Spirit of truth, we find others who have done the same, and so we can be together happily in the fellowship of the Spirit of God. If there is a spot upon earth where the Lord can be, in unhindered blessing amongst His people, it in amongst those thus together, where there is nothing knowingly allowed inconsistent with His presence in the midst, or to grieve and hinder the Spirit of God. It is not a question merely of how the saints may be together, but of a place where the Lord Himself may be with them, in free and unhindered blessedness, to manifest His presence amongst those who seek to be faithful to Him in an evil day.

The primary step must be, “Let him that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19). Members of Christ are mixed up with much evil on all sides. I must separate myself from such, to walk in the fellowship of, and with, the Spirit of God, who keeps me in company with Christ. To Philadelphia, Christ says, “He that is holy, he that is true” (Rev. 3). The Spirit of God is the Spirit of holiness and the Spirit of truth. Holiness will not do without the truth, or the truth without holiness. The absence of either is not the Spirit of God.

Now, in an evil day, when the faithful endeavor, through His grace, to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, the practice of the fellowship and unity of the Spirit is necessarily a narrow platform, entirely apart from evil, and excluding evil from its midst, while, in the breadth of its principles, it contemplates the whole Church of God. Wide enough in principle to receive every member of Christ, all over the world; narrow enough to exclude evil most carefully from its midst. Anything short of this breadth is a sectarian principle, and ceases to be of the Holy Spirit; while the breadth of the principle contemplates every member of Christ. Those gathered thus in the unity and fellowship of the Spirit, necessarily are jealous, with godly jealousy, lest anything should be admitted, either of doctrine or practice, or witting association with such, that would put those who admitted it practically out of the fellowship of the Spirit.

[Before passing on with my subject, I would note that a person may be perfectly sound in doctrine, and holy in life and practice, and yet be a partaker of the evil deeds of another (2 John 9-11) who brings not the doctrine of Christ. The effort is made to graduate the amount of evil by remoteness of contact with it. Scripture makes but two degrees: either the person who brings not the doctrine of Christ, that is, personally unsound in the faith, or in other words, a heretic; and he who shows a courtesy to such. He who does so may remain himself sound in the faith, but is treated in Scripture as partaker of the evil deeds of the other. If he has imbibed the doctrine of the other, he ceases to be a partaker, and becomes a heretic himself. These are the two degrees. Evil is evil in Scripture, be the amount great or small; and good is good. It is either of the Spirit of God, or it is not of the Spirit of God.]

Now this “endeavor” does not confine itself to those only who have come together thus in separation from evil, and fellowship of the Holy Spirit. It is not observed merely one towards the other. Its aspect is towards, and has in view, every member of Christ, in whatsoever association he may be — even those not thus gathered in the fellowship of the Spirit. Those who are thus maintaining the truth, are by this showing their truest and most faithful love to those who are not practically with them. Abiding in the light, in uncompromising fidelity to Christ, and fellowship in the Spirit of God, is their truest love to their brethren. They do not compromise the light and truth of their position by leaving it for the darkness; but, if they have grace, they win their brethren into the light, to walk with them in the truth likewise.

A word here to my beloved brethren, who have been called and honored of God, to occupy such a place, in these last evil days. How deeply responsible are they that all their words and actions may so fully bear the test of the light and truth of God, that no occasion of stumbling be found in them, to hinder their brethren in any wise. Let there be such simple, blessed devotedness to Christ and His glory seen in them, that their brethren who are seeking God’s path in the labyrinth around, may be drawn towards the truth, and the place where Christ is with them so specially; and their feet guided in the path where He is, the place where He can freely be with His people. Let them be found in such a place in an evil day —and the character of their walk be simple and fervent devotedness to Christ; thoroughly dependent upon Him, as conscious of their weakness — thoroughly devoted to Him, and to that Church which He loves. I believe, if they were walking in the power and grace of the position they have been called to, that not alone their brethren, who ought to be with them, but the world itself would have to own, “If ought be true on earth, that is!” The counterfeits of the enemy, too, would expose themselves. Let them ever be prepared to make much of Christ and of the path into which He has called them in special association with Himself, in His unspeakable grace, so that He may say to them, “Thou hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.” There would then be a savor and a power in the simple fact, that Christ was everything amongst them, that nothing could imitate?

Through the Lord’s great mercy, this endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace has been accorded to His saints, and many have had faith, in seeing the pathway, to embrace it. When such exists, the effort many have made to take a place outside, and independently of those who have been thus led of the Lord, is merely the self-will of man, and to be treated as such.

If the simplest saints, as has frequently been the case, have been drawn together in the Lord’s name — even without any intelligence of what the ground of one body, one Spirit, is — of necessity it binds them with all those elsewhere, who have been before them in the way, because subjects of like action of God’s Spirit, and who may have learned the more fully Divine ground of gathering. They may slip away very easily from it, and get linked up with evil, if not watchful; and the enemy works incessantly to this end. But it is utterly untenable to suppose that they can intelligently maintain a divine ground of gathering, and ignore what the same Spirit has wrought amongst others before them.

Scripture admits no such independency, more especially when it is coupled with the profession of the truth of one body and one Spirit, without the practice flowing from such a truth. To maintain an independent position, is to accept one which puts them practically out of the unity of the Spirit. Very probably such had come together at first in the energy of the Holy Spirit, in all simplicity, as gathering in the name of the Lord. By falling into such a course they slip away from the company and fellowship of God’s Spirit. They had begun in the Spirit, and have ended, or are on the way to it, in the flesh.

Walking in the fellowship and unity of the Spirit, involves distinct separation from all who are not in practice doing so likewise. This tries the saints much at times. The enemy uses it to alarm the weaker saints. The cry of want of charity is at once raised. But when it becomes a question of being in the fellowship of the Spirit of God, it ceases to be a question of brethren merely. If those who are otherwise holy in practice will not walk therein; and others have had light and grace to do so, it must involve separation on the part of the latter. To the flesh this is terrible. But human love must not be mistaken for divine love; and fellowship in the flesh, for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will not bend Himself to our ways, or be in fellowship with us; we must bend our ways into practical fellowship with Him. Therefore Peter bids us to add “to brotherly kindness, love” (2 Peter 1:7). Brotherly kindness will sink into mere love of brethren, because we like their society, &c., if not guarded by the divine tie which preserves it as of God. God is love, and God is light; and, “if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” To exact brotherly love in such a manner as to shut out the requirements of that which God is (as light and as love) (and He dwells in the church by His Spirit), and of His claims upon us, is to shut out God in the most plausible way, in order to gratify our own hearts.

I beseech my brethren, as they value and love the Blessed One, who gave Himself for His Church, to pause ere accepting a position which must practically put them outside the unity of God’s Spirit. The Lord Jesus gave Himself to redeem you; and not only so, but He died, “that he might gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11:52). It ought to be on our hearts all day long, that that is scattered which Christ died to gather. He will surely gather them in heaven; but He died to gather them together in one, now. It can be but in keeping the unity of the Spirit of God; and if not thus, it is not what He died to effect. If it is not gathering with Christ, it is scattering, however plausible and well it may look in the eyes of men. God is working graciously in many places; and the enemy is working too, to try and mystify souls just emerging out of darkness, and link them up with the principles of neutrality, indifference, and independency; anything but the truth.

God has, in His mercy to His Church, gathered many saints together in the truth and unity of the Spirit, to the name of the Lord. They have, through much deep mercy, and failings and shortcomings innumerable, been maintained in it. A merciful Lord has sustained them in the pathway, through evil report and good report. To accept ground independently of that to which God had already by these truths recalled souls to walk in and act upon, is to forfeit the place in the truth and unity of the Spirit which has been accorded of the Lord, and to slip away from the fellowship of the Spirit of God.

The saints may be assured of this, that they will find, on the one hand, that there is no barrier placed by those who occupy this place which God has graciously given, to their walking in the truth; they will find, on the other, there is nothing that can be a bar to their being with them. The platform is as wide as the Spirit of God — wide enough for them all in principle. But it cannot admit of that which would exclude the free action of the Holy Spirit in the truth. They will find it to be a place, however feeble and little they are, that He owns and blesses. Sustaining His feeble ones in it, in richest mercy, and according to them the divine consciousness that it is His pathway in an evil day.

In conclusion, I add a word as to the reception of our brethren amongst us. The simple and blessed title to be with us at the Lord’s Table is, The confession of, and membership of Christ, with holiness of walk. There is no other — no inner circle. The intelligence of those received, while good in its place, has nothing whatever to do with their reception. Those that receive should be intelligent in what they are doing. The moment they look for intelligence in those who seek communion, it is they who cease to be intelligent. But there is a distinction to be observed in dealing with those who have had to do with evil associations, in jealous care for the Lord’s name; those who are wittingly associated with evil, and those unwittingly linked up with it. We read “of some have compassion, making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 22,23). Then again, there is surely a wide difference between those who have been mixed up with an ecclesiastical mistake (as the Established systems, &c.), and those who have been associated with what assumes a divine position, as of God; and have been false to it. Each has to be treated as he deserves.

The basis and principle of the unity of the Spirit, thus contemplated, embrace the whole Church of God. The fact of those who have been mixed up with evil, or worldly systems, seeking fellowship, shows that they are separating themselves to the Lord. This should meet with a ready response. The more deeply we become conscious of the divine character of the place we have been called into by the Lord’s grace, the more ready will be the response of our heart towards all Christ’s members. At the same time, we will grow in the strength and conviction of the holiness that belongs to God’s habitation through the Spirit; and, by His grace, we will watch against the wiles of the enemy in seeking to let in that which would grieve the Spirit of God, and hinder the Lord in identifying Himself with us, and manifesting His presence in our midst.

The Lord in His mercy keeps His faithful ones true and devoted to Him in these evil days. They may be but a remnant; but there were two things which ever marked the faithful remnant at any time,

1st, Devotedness to the Lord;

2nd, Strict attention to fundamental principles. We find, too, that they were ever the objects of His special attention and care. Their very feebleness drew this forth the more strikingly. It was with them He identified Himself most specially. They have but a “little strength” — but through His mercy they have used it; and it has brought them into the spot where He is. The Lord give them to keep His word, and not deny His name — to hold fast that which they have, that no man take their crown. Amen.

Scripture Queries and Answers: From Words of Truth Vol. 1

Q. N., Glasgow, Asks, (1) Baptism; what does it mean — death only — or death and resurrection? (2) Does the 6th chapter of Romans teach Baptism in water? and what is the teaching in that chapter?

A. (1) In Baptism one is always baptized unto some thing. In Christian Baptism, as many of us as are baptized unto Christ, are baptized unto death. “We are buried with Him by Baptism unto death” (Rom. 6:4). The thought of resurrection follows, in coming up out of the water; but is not the primary thought of Baptism; which is a going unto death; we are baptized for death — The thought is buried and death.

(2) — In Romans 6, the apostle refers to Baptism of water, to show that in it the person had gone to death, and that it contradicted the thought that one might consider himself alive in a sinful state, so as to continue in sin, that grace might abound. The chapter fully refutes the unholy thought, that the full, free, boundless grace of God, which constituted the believer righteous by the obedience of another, (Rom. 5:19,21) is a principle of sin. The argument is, that if we have part with Christ at all, we have part with one who has died to sin, and who is alive to God. We have died with Him, and we cannot be alive to that state to which we have died — we cannot be alive to sin, and dead to sin at the same time; the objection contradicts itself. Our Baptism was unto death. When Christ died, He died unto sin, He was, in His death, discharged from it. He came out of the position to which sin attached as a substitute. Alive in resurrection, He has nothing to do with sin, and lives to God only. We then should consider ourselves dead to sin — having come out by life in resurrection from the sin to which we died — and alive to God only; in a state outside the former, and so walk in newness of life. We have a right to do so, because He died for us. The subject of the chapter is practice, not standing, and in the allusion to Baptism, he gives us God’s thoughts, as to what Christian Baptism expresses.

Words of Truth 1:42.

Perseverance of the Saints

Q. A correspondent would be glad to know how far the doctrine of the “Perseverance of the Saints unto the obtaining of eternal life” is borne out by the passage, “He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of redemption,” or Jesus Christ.

A. The passage (Phil. 1:6) shows the perfect confidence there was in the Apostles heart, that God who had begun a good work in them, that is, the spirit of devotedness to the interests of the Gospel (vs. 5) as all other precious fruits which he saw in the Philippians, would continue it until the day of Jesus Christ. His confidence was sure, because it was God Himself who wrought in them, both to will and to do, of His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12). And these fruits which he had seen were the proof of the existence of the eternal life which God had implanted in their souls. Just as there cannot be the fruits of righteousness, till the righteousness is possessed (Phil. 1:11); or the fruits of the Spirit, till the Spirit is within; (Gal. 5:22) and “By their fruits ye shall know them.” In all these cases it is merely the happy natural outflow of that which the Christian possesses; and is to the Glory of God. Hence, dear friend, I don’t like the expression, “Unto the obtaining of Eternal life.” We never find the obtaining of it a future thing in Scripture. To be sure the full unhindered enjoyment of it — “reigning in life”; and its full fruition is always, as we well know, a future thing; but its possession always a present thing to the believer. It may be clouded and hindered, but it is there. He has obtained it as he has obtained forgiveness of his sins, by faith in the death and blood-shedding of Christ.

Life and Propitiation come to us through the death of Christ (see 1 John 4:9, 10). When we hear His words and believe on the Father who sent Him, we have eternal life (see John 5:24, 17:3). We are born again by His word, applied to our consciences by the Holy Spirit. “Of His own will begat he us with the word” (James 1:18). “Being born again ... by the word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). We have thus a life in our own souls which as sinners we never possessed. We were dead in sins; Christ came into the place of death for sin. In His death He put away sin, and bore the sins of many (Heb. 9:26-28). God raised him up from the dead, and has, by the same power, quickened, or given life to us, together with Christ thus risen, “having forgiven us all trespasses (read carefully Eph. 1:19,23,2:5, 6 and Col. 2:13); leaving them behind us as it were, in the grave of Christ, and thus bring us into a new place in resurrection before Himself. And so, Christ risen from the dead, and gone up to heaven, is our life, which is thus, “Hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1-4); and is — blessed be God — as secure as He! We have still the old nature (we had nothing else once) to treat as an enemy, to mortify, and subdue; but our life is secured forever. Hence, dear friend, it is not a question with us now of obtaining life; but of possessing Christ, who is our life; and thus safe in God’s own hand. “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). The fruits will be seen somehow, wherever there is life in the soul; still the fruits are not to be an object to occupy us. Let others see them — and let us be occupied with Him who is our life — risen, victorious over death, sin-bearing, judgment, everything: and its object and measure. If so occupied we will have but few doubts of the final issue — rather treating them as they deserve, as of the enemy. Faith, keeping the doer of our hearts, will admit of no such intruders there.

Proverbs 1:26

Q. “An humble believer,” Glasgow; asks, What is the teaching of Proverbs 1:26? Does that passage mean that God will rejoice over the punishment of the wicked? Does “Wisdom” in the context, mean the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, &c. &c.

A. In the passage it is “Wisdom” who speaks, crying in the streets to the simple, the scorner, and the fool, to turn at her reproof, and to love not their own ways; and that Wisdoms spirit would be given them, and Wisdoms words made known to them. (The fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, verse 7.) When they would therefore be reaping the fruits of the folly they had sown, under the retributive government of God in the world, in their fear and calamity they would call upon Wisdom to guide them, but they would not be heard — it would then be too late to learn Wisdoms ways. Wisdom would then laugh at them as it were (it is a figure of speech), for what they were suffering; having set at naught Wisdoms counsels and reproof, when she cried to them to learn her ways.

The Book of Proverbs refers to the government of God here below, on the principle that “Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). This is true of saint or sinner. Grace saves the vilest, but the Government of God is over all. It is on the principle that if a man squanders his money, or his time, or his health; he will reap the fruit of his ways in the loss of these things, &c. The grace of God in Salvation never sets aside these principles of His dealings with men; nor (does this marvelous grace alter the fact that every man reaps the fruits of his ways under God’s government. A true Christian may do something for want of discretion, and want of hearkening to Wisdoms words, which he may have to repent of all his days.

As to your question, who it is who speak? It is plain from 1 Corinthians 1:24. That Christ is the “Wisdom of God”; and that He is made unto us wisdom, verse 30. (Read Prov. 8:22-35, and compare with John 1:1-2). Christ’s word, that is, the expression of Himself, is to dwell in us richly in all wisdom. The Christian, too, is exhorted to walk in wisdom toward them that are without — the world, redeeming the time (Col. 3:16, 4:5).

It is plain that Proverbs 1:20-23, is not a gospel invitation at all. Hence the danger of using scripture out of its true place and connection. The passage does not teach that God will laugh at the punishment of the wicked, and the rejector of Christ, as you have heard. The divinely taught mind shrinks from such an idea.

Words of Truth 1:60-62.

Does the Holy Ghost Dwell in Christendom?

Q. “W.” Oswestry, Salop, writes, “I find that some Christians maintain that the Holy Spirit dwells in Christendom. Now I have always thought... that the Holy Spirit dwells exclusively in the Church. I would be so glad if you would give mc your thoughts about it through the medium of your ‘Answers to Correspondents.’”

A. I think that a right understanding of the distinction between the Church as the “Body of Christ” (Eph. 1:22,23), unto which believers are baptized by the Holy Spirit, (1 Cor. 12:13) and thus united to Christ, exalted and glorified in heaven (1 Cor. 6:17); and the “House of God,” a “habitation of God through the spirit,” (Eph. 2:21,22) in the world, will make the matter in your question simple and plain. When Christ was glorified as man to heaven, the Holy Spirit (not previously given, see John 7:39) descended from heaven and took up His abode in the saints, on the day of Pentecost, as God’s house (Acts 2). The Church thus begun, and set up as God’s witness, and abode through His Spirit, is styled “The House of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). This “House” was, as it were, a co-extensive thing at the first with the “Body,” its other aspect, and was the true thing which God Himself fitly framed together; a member in which was a living one, and in union with Christ the Head, by the Holy Spirit. But we find that immediately after its being set up, men began to build on the foundation, wood, hay, stubble; as well as gold, silver, precious stones &c., (1 Cor. 3); and as a consequence, the House as man built it, began to assume vast proportions, and entirely disproportionate to the Body, the true thing. But still the holy Spirit did not leave the House. And the House was, as far as mans responsibility went, “God’s building.” The temple of God and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you” (1 Cor. 3:17,9-16); that is, collectively as in a temple, which is a different thought from the body of the believer, being the temple of the Holy Spirit, as in 1 Corinthians 6:19. The House of God drifted soon into what the apostle speaks of in 2 Timothy 2:19-21, a “Great House” containing vessels to honor and dishonor; quite a different state of things from 1 Timothy 3:15, and which has characterized Christendom or the “Great House” since; at which judgment must begin (1 Peter 4:17).

So that we see I trust, dear friend, that the Holy Spirit, in the first instance, baptizes all believers since 1-us coining down into one Body, (“there is one Body and one Spirit” Ephesians 4:4), uniting them to Christ as Head; and God dwells amongst them as a habitation through His Spirit. What a wondrous thought, and what a wondrous privilege; and how much has the Church forgotten her calling. But not only so, He dwells in the “House” here below, and professing Christians (as well as true Christians) are responsible for His presence; and are, as far as His presence goes, thus made partakers of the Holy Spirit; although not, of course, “sealed” as the true believer, and indwelt by Him. Thus we often find, as the other day in Italy, a remarkable work of the Holy Spirit, where there may not have been previously a single living member of the “Body of Christ.”

A right understanding of the Church as the “Body of Christ,” composed of living members, and the “house,” or professing Church, is the key to much of the teaching of the Epistles.

Words of Truth 1:101, 102.

Galatians 3:10 and Philippians 3:18, 19

Q. “O.M.A.B.,” Boyle asks for replies to the following questions: (1) Tell me the meaning of Galatians 3:10. How can it be said of saints, justified sinners by faith in Jesus, even though they should make the law their “rule of life,” as they say, that they are under a curse? To be sure, such practically deny their oneness with Christ in resurrection; they are rendering themselves incapable of hiving in the power of the risen life, but this does not alter the fact that they are one with Christ — risen, ascended, and seated in the Heavenlies, and that God is looking at them as such. How, then, can it be said they are under a curse?

(2) What class does the apostle speak of in Philippians 3:18, 19?

A. (l) The Apostle, dear friend, is not speaking of the standing of persons, but is showing the effect of the law upon all who put themselves under it, or are striving to live on that principle in their relationships with God. That they are in fact putting themselves in a place to which the curse of the law applies, and consequently putting themselves under the curse, for the simple reason that they do not fulfill it, and it curses all who fail to do so. If a Christian puts himself under the law he must be consciously only in the position to which it refers; that is, he must be “in the flesh” (Rom. 7:5). Whereas the standing of a Christian is “not in the flesh, but in the spirit” (Rom. 8:9), and, as a matter of course, he is not realizing his place as risen with Christ. The law applies to a child of fallen Adam, responsible to God as a sinner, and to none else. It pursues its claim upon him as far as this death of Christ. There, the believer, as having died with Christ, disappears from its pursuit, and it can go no further. It has no claim over one who is dead, and has thus eluded the uncompromising grasp of the law, and is now alive in another state, in Christ risen from the dead. So that, if a Christian puts himself under it, in any way, he practically denies the place where Christianity has placed him, and cannot consciously be in his true position before God. Of course then he breaks the law — (who ever kept it as alive in that state?) — and it curses, without distinction, all who do so.

This is quite a different thing than if Paul was pronouncing upon the standing of a Christian, as God sees him, “in Christ.” Impossible that in such a position he could be under a curse; and, were he realizing it, he would not put himself back into a position to which the curse of the Law applies. When consciously there, he walks, not in the flesh, but in the spirit; and the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in him who does so (Rom. 7:4), but never by being under it.

(2) I believe whenever the Apostle writes such solemn words and warnings as these, that he has his mind upon those who have professed the name of Christ, but who, in their worldly fruitless lives, plainly show that it is a mere profession without reality, and are thus the greater enemies to the Cross of Christ — joining to the name of Christ a life which had the things of earth for its object, instead of that which filled the soul of Paul, that is, a Christ in heavenly glory, who had been rejected by the world.

Doubtless the end of such would be utter “destruction,” not merely the “destruction of the flesh,” of 1 Corinthians 5:5, to which you allude. Such solemn words as these, whole searching to all consciences, have in view the mere lifeless professor in the outward universal Church, and ate never used to stumble the true believer, or to throw the faintest shadow of a doubt on the certitude of his perfect, eternal, unalterable security in Christ. But when the walk is careless and disobedient, and one sees that souls are satisfied with the knowledge of grace, without seeking to grow up to Christ in all things, it is blessed to have such solemn words to search the conscience deeply, and provoke the Christian to make his calling and election sure, by adding to his faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity (see 2 Peter 1:5-11), and walking suitably to his high and holy calling. I am daily more deeply impressed — may the impression be deeply engraved upon the hearts of both writer and reader — that in our walk as Christians we should strain every nerve in practical Christianity and obedience to the Lord, as though our souls salvation depended entirely upon ourselves; and yet with the perfect consciousness, at the same time, that it does not depend on ourselves at all. This is so important in a day of much knowledge of the full free grace of the Gospel, and much high-sounding profession, and, alas I but little thorough reality, or true-hearted devotedness to Christ. A yielding up of ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God! and a bringing of every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ!

Words of Truth 1:121, 122.

The Cross

In reply to a communication from “Elo,” London: There is no subject in Scripture which demands more an exercised heart and a worshiping and adoring spirit than that of which you have written. It is not a subject for a cold, heartless, doctrinal analysis, but one for a heart which has had grace given to see something of the deep need of the soul for what Christ passed through on His cross; and who, with a chastened and reverential spirit, would seek to learn the meaning in some measure, if it could not learn it in its depths, of that unparalleled moment, which, once passed through, could not be repeated.

With such a state of soul, much can be, through grace, learned; and I believe the more the soul understands what passed on the cross, the more solid will be the peace which flows from it. With the mere knowledge of, the death and blood-shedding of Christ, forgiveness, shelter from judgment, and redemption in measure, may be, and are known; but there will not be the solid abiding peace with God till the soul understands in some measure (who could fathom its full depths!) the meaning of the cry which issued from the soul of Christ on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” That (to us) fathomless cry expressed the position, according to its truth, in which His holy soul stood at the time when He was enduring the judgment of God about sin! It was a moment when the whole moral nature of God, truth — majesty — righteousness — holiness, against and concerning sin, burst forth in its fullest power and expression, and discharged itself upon the head of Christ. It was a time when the moral nature of God about sin was so brought out, and exhibited, and vindicated, that He can turn towards a fallen world with the fullest display of love and righteousness, and declare himself a just God, in justifying those who believe, whosoever they be, and whatsoever be the ruin in which their sins have placed them; and do this without the least compromise of His nature in doing so! It was a time when Christ was drinking to the dregs the cup of divine and unmingled wrath — the cup which expressed the divine judgment of God against sin — when Christ was forsaken of God; His soul bearing directly the inflicted wrath of God for sin.

Oh for a worshiping spirit to gaze upon Him at that moment. To behold Him drying up, as it were, the river of death and judgment of God upon sin, that His people might pass over dry-shod. Not one sigh of Christ — — not one sorrow of His holy life, but is of infinite value to us. But it was at this unequaled scene that atonement was made: it ended in His death. Death consummated the work, but the act of death alone must not be dissociated from the previous scene. If so, it would separate it from the bearing of the judgment of God about sin. The death was the witness to this, but the cup of wrath was drained and finished when the death of Christ completed the work.

Simple souls do not distinguish in this, while they rest in peace on the cross — the death — the blood-shedding — the being made sin — the being made a curse. And in all these rightly; without entering into the meaning of that which God alone can fully know. They know that by means of death they are redeemed — that they are justified by blood — by His death they have life — by the shedding of His blood they have remission. His blood it is which makes atonement for the soul. They are reconciled to God by the death of His Son. But to confine atonement merely to the act of death would indeed be to err. It would be to omit the fact of the divine judgment of God about sin, which was borne to the full by Him when forsaken of God. When He cried and was not heard (Psa. 22:2) This psalm gives us the feelings of His holy soul on the cross at the time when the circumstances narrated in the Gospel took place, in which verse 1 of the Psalm is quoted. If we take verses 7 and 8, and compare them with Mark 15:29-31, nothing can be plainer. It was when He made His soul an offering for sin, when He bore sin judicially before God. Simple souls look on the work as a whole, and rightly so, and with adoring hearts, they rest upon it as undergone for them, without entering fully into its meaning. With such, one would pray that the feeling may indeed be deepened, and a more worshiping spirit flow from what they have gained, daily. But when the question is before the soul, it is well to guard against confining atonement to the bare act which was the climax and accomplishment of the work, and forgetting that to which Scripture attaches such deep and pre-eminent importance.

I would add, in conclusion, that God does not call upon a sinner to believe in anything that Christ did, but to believe in Christ. He knows what He did, and accepts the sinner who believes in Him according to His own knowledge of the value of Christ’s work, and not according to the knowledge the sinner possesses of it; still it deepens and strengthens the believer in the knowledge of God and His grace as the soul comprehends how the judgment on man has been borne by the Son of God — how he ended in Himself that to which the judgment attached; and rising out of the dead, is the One in whom every one believing in Him lives.

How Does God Create Evil?

In reply to “J. MM., Airdrie,” with reference to Isaiah 45:7 — “How does God create evil?”

From Isaiah 40-48, it will be clearly seen that there is a great question between Jehovah, the Lord’s and the idols of Babylon. The Lord declares that He had raised up Cyrus, King of Persia, the “righteous man from the east,” to deliver His people, Israel, in the face of and in the midst of this idolatry (consult 2 Chron. 36:22,23; and Ezra 1:1-4; and many other passages), and the idols of Babylon.

But there was then a danger also to be met, lest this Persian king or his people might attribute to their own God’s of Persia this deliverance or victory over Babylon and her God’s and idols (see an example of this in 2 Chron. 25:14-16;18:23).

We are told that the Persians were famous for a two-fold system of idolatry — Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. And so the Lord Jehovah declares His pre-eminence over all these principles, which the Persian mind had deified, and with which it was familiar. It does not convey the thought that the Lord Jehovah directly creates evil; but it establishes His divine pro-eminence as God, above principles which are mere creatures or abstract qualities, and which the Persians held as God’s; and to which he might attribute his victories.

Apart, too, from all this, God is Creator; and if He permits, in His wise purposes, a creature to work its own will, still He is Creator, and He made the creature, and permits it. No one in any sense is above Him, nothing can be carried on against Him. He allows evil to exhaust itself, and then His goodness — nay, himself, is manifested in overruling and counteracting it.

Words of Truth 1:199-202.

Leaven

T. S., Crewe. In reply to your question on Matthew 13:33: You will find it a rule in Scripture, that leaven is always used as typical of evil, whether in doctrine or practice; and this without a single exception. For instance, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees... Then understood they how that He bade them, not to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Matt. 16:6, 11, 12). See also Mark 8:15, Luke 12:1. In the last verse we read, “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

Paul writes to the Corinthians, with regard to evil practice, “know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5:6). And to the Galatians, with regard to evil doctrine, subversive of Christianity, “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (Gal. 5:9).

In Matthew 13:33, we are taught in one of six parables, which follow that of the sower, a similitude of the kingdom of heaven, in its new mysterious form, which was about to be brought into the world on the rejection of the King. For one peculiar and striking characteristic of the kingdom of heaven in mystery is that the King is not here. This was some of the “things new” which a scribe, instructed in the matter, would now bring out of his treasures, added to the “things old” which the prophets had aforetime written about the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 13:52). When it was said that it would be “as the days of heaven upon earth” (Deut. 11:21). And of the throne of the King, “His throne (should be) as the days of heaven” (Psa. 89:29). And again, the Gentiles should know that “the heavens do rule” (Dan. 4:26).

Now all this state of things was entirely set aside for the time, because of the rejection of the King —of Christ. And, instead of all the blessings consequent upon his reception, a state of things far different would be introduced. The enemy would come and sow tares amongst the wheat in the world, or, as it is called, “the field” (Matt. 13:38). The outward appearance the kingdom of heaven would then assume would be that of a vast sheltering power, under the figure of a tree, which would shelter the birds of the air, or as they are interpreted to be, the emissaries of the wicked one. (See Matt. 13:4,19,32). And again, as our parable tells us, doctrinal or moral evil would be introduced into the three measures of meal, or the sphere of the nominal profession of Christianity, till the whole should be leavened. One has only to lift up their eyes, with but a small amount of spiritual intelligence, on the state of Christendom around them, and see how fast this is coming to pass.

Words of Truth 1:220, 221.

Entering Into Temptation

Q. “Eva” asks, “What did the blessed Lord mean when He said to Peter, “Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation?” What is entering into temptation? (Matt. 26:41).

A. The Lord desires his disciples to “watch and pray,” instead of which they slept and prayed not, and when the hour of temptation came they fled; and Peter, who was so confident of his, own strength — saying, “Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee” — most signally failed. What brought him into the judgment hall? Why did he thus “enter into temptation?” — this was entering into temptation. He had not been told to do so. In Matthew 26:58, Peter followed Christ “afar off,” and “went in and sat with the servants to see the end.” He “entered into temptation.” There he was at that moment — flesh unjudged and trusted in — prayer and watchfulness wanting — a moral distance between him and Christ —temptation entered upon, and unhallowed companionship sought. What a fit one was he at that moment to be the sport of Satan.

How often do the Lord’s people thus fail? Instead of distrusting themselves, they enter into this or that, and when the time of trial comes, there is failure and a practical denial of Christ. The flesh has been unjudged, and leads them where the Spirit never would have led.

Thus we see many around us — with unjudged flesh — no moral nearness to Christ — temptations of one sort or another sometimes unthinkingly entered upon —an infidel publication opened and read — an association of one kind or other taken up — unhallowed companionship sought, or fallen in with, without divinely given moral courage to resist them — the ear opened to a suggestion of one kind or other which is known to be subversive to divine truth — and thus the poor, weak vessel becomes a stranded one on the shores of infidelity, or the clear divine testimony of one who might have been a faithful, firm, and devoted disciple, lost to Christ, through the machinations of an ever watchful enemy.

All these things, and many more of a like nature, come under the term “entering into temptation.” It is the exercise of one’s own will and the disregard of the will of the Lord — self trusted in, and “wisdom from above” unsought.

It would be a useful question to ask oneself, with regard to everything in which one is engaged — whether of a religions nature, or the business or other occupations of life, — “Am I sure that Christ has sent me here? — would He have me engaged in this association or that occupation? — would He have me read this book or take part in this or that folly?” If one cannot satisfactorily answer before the Lord, and to Him, such questions, depend upon it, we have engaged in that which is the exercise of our own wills, and thus have “entered into temptation.” We cannot count upon the result if we do these things. No doubt, God will take care of His own to the end — of this I am sure — but I cannot count upon Him if I “enter into temptation.” I may have to learn my folly, like Peter, by a deep and shameful fall. Oh, for a more thorough and growing distrust in self! If this was more fully felt, we would see but little of the shameful failures we have to mourn.

How can I expect to be preserved from contamination if I enter into some place, or companionship, or occupation which the Lord would not sanction, and to which He would not have me go? As long as I am in the path of obedience, I can count with the utmost confidence upon the care and protection of the Lord. He charges Himself with all the rest when I am there. But the moment I get out of this path I have left the place where He would have me, and where I could count with all confidence upon his care and love.

Depend upon it, the more we know the more we will distrust self. The more knowledge, the more prayer, the more will our sense of dependence upon the Lord grow and increase, so that we will never move one step till we know His mind and will.

I have answered your question at length, dear friend, with the earnest desire that we may be led to seek the paths of life with a single eye, and avoid “entering into temptation” — “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Words of Truth 1:234, 235.

John 1:51

Q. In reply to “M. S.,” Lyndhurst, with reference to John 1:51:

A. The first chapter of John’s Gospel is a magnificent epitome of the person and titles of Christ, from His existence as the Word of God the eternal Son — till His millennial glory as Son of Man; His heavenly characters, in the present interval, of High Priest and Head of His Body, being omitted. It begins by showing that He was God, then that He became flesh, and concludes by showing Him the Son of Man — God and Man. Nathaniel, at the close of the chapter, gives us a striking figure of the faithful ones of the Jewish nation at the end of this age, before the introduction of the Millennium, who own the Lord Jesus when he appears as the Son of God and King of Israel, according to His titles and person in the second Psalm, “Thou art my Son,” etc. “I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion” (Psa. 2). The Lord Jesus then says, in view of that time, which will be the introduction of the Kingdom, that “henceforth (this is more correctly the force of the word than ‘hereafter’) ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” In other words, when the Kingdom comes the once slain and rejected Son of Man will be the connecting link between the heavens and the earth: He will reign in His full Melchisedec character, — “a Priest upon His throne”; and the Lord “will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel” (Hos. 2:21-22).

It is worthy of note that Jacob saw the bottom of the ladder, and heard the voice of the Lord above it, while the angels ascended and descended upon it (Gen. 28). While Peter, James, and John saw the top of it, as it were (Matt. 17), when they were on the Mount of Transfiguration, beholding a fore-shadowing of Christ’s coming glory as Son of Man. In the passage before us, He is seen as the connecting link between the heavens and the earth, when all things in heaven and earth shall be gathered together in Him (Eph. 1:10).

Zacchaeus

Q. “Eva” writes, “And Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord, Behold, the half of my goods I give unto the poor: and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold” (Luke 18:8, 9). Do you think this the language of self-righteousness, or of a heart touched by the grace of God?

A. It is plainly the language of a benevolent and conscientious heart, without the knowledge of salvation, which the Lord brought that day to Zaccheus house. The tone of Zaccheus is as different as possible from that of the self-righteous Pharisee who “stood and prayed with himself,” in Luke 18:11, 12. Here was the case of a man who was truly in earnest. Neither his diminutive stature nor the crowd around the Lord were suffered to hinder him. (Would that we might see many as truly in earnest as the blind beggar and Zaccheus!) The Lord Jesus, the good Shepherd, calls his own sheep by name. He said “Zaccheus, make haste and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy house.”

Zaccheus tells the Lord what had been the habitual practice of “an honest and good heart”; but still, however blessed to see human righteousness where it exists, there was no recognition of this when it was the question of bringing salvation to him — “This day is salvation come to this house. For the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Christ Learned Obedience

Q. “In what sense did Christ ‘learn obedience to the things which he suffered?’ (Heb. 5:8). How is this to be taken?”

A. It was an entirely new thing for the glorious Son of God to learn obedience. He who commanded all things from all eternity came into this world of sin, and took the place of obedience, and in a pathway of suffering in which he never yielded to temptation, — “He suffered being tempted” — never yielded —He learned what it was in this world to obey. We learn obedience by the subjection of our wicked hearts and wills to God. He learned it as one with whom it was a new thing, and who had a perfect will, but who laid it aside — (“not my will but thine be done”) — who submitted to everything, obeyed in everything, and depended on God for everything. His obedience ended in death rather than fail in faithfulness or obedience to His Father. How contrary to the first Adam was the second (the last) in all this! And the Christian is “sanctified unto the obedience... of Jesus Christ.” May we have grace to be conformed to Him to obey!

Words of Truth 2:18, 19.

Quickening - Sealing

“J. K. M.” asks — What is the difference between being quickened by the Holy Spirit, and being sealed; and when are we sealed?

A. The difference is very great, and is of immense importance, and will account for the different states of soul one sees around. The difference is, that between the state of a saint before, and the proper state since the day of Pentecost, prior to which there was no sealing of the Holy Spirit. The saints, prior to that time, were born again. A saint now, in his normal state as such, is not only quickened, but sealed. Of old, the Holy Spirit was not given; nor was He given until Jesus was glorified (John 7:37-39).

Quickening is the Holy Spirit producing by a new nature, which a man had not before as a sinner, holy desires, hatred of evil, the love of Jesus, the love of all that God is, and of what is due to Him. A soul in being born again, receives a nature that it had not before as a sinner. A soul having this new nature, hating what it finds of the old, and loving the things of God, before deliverance finds itself in the deepest distress — delighting in the law of God after the inward man — consenting to God’s requirements in the law — finding to wil1 present, but how to perform that which is good finding not; in the deepest distress of soul because it finds it has no strength to carry out the desires of the new man. Finding another law in the members warring against the aspirations after holiness of the new man (the new nature), and bringing into captivity to the law of sin in its members. All these are the symptoms to be found in a soul born of God, without the knowledge of redemption. Sad to say that this is the most general state in which Christians are found. This is not the normal, proper Christian state at all. Many souls in such a state are seeking to get peace by progress and victory over self — that is, trying by suppressing the workings of an evil nature which is found twisted and knotted round the heart, to follow the desires and hopes for which the new man struggles so unsuccessfully against the old.

What then is to bring the sense of deliverance and set the new man (the person) free? The knowledge of redemption — of Christ’s finished delivering work, must be submitted to, and peace found by the surrender of every pretension to strength; and by being completely cast over upon Him for victory and deliverance. In other words, to find that the new nature has no strength, and cannot get peace or liberty by progress; but that it must get peace by surrender to the work of another. Then it is, when at the end of itself, and the thought of strength in itself, that it finds that the work of Christ applies to its ungodly, and not its improved state — that when it was without strength Christ died for the ungodly. Thus cast over upon the victory of another, the deliverance is complete and the new nature set free. It can thank God through Jesus Christ, in whom, on the cross, God condemned sin in the flesh; that is, the evil nature which so harassed and distressed the soul.

This will give some idea of the state of a quickened soul without the sealing of the Spirit. Now we will seek to ascertain what the sealing is, and when it comes.

In Ephesians 1:13,14, we read, “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest,” etc.

Here we find the sealing of the Holy Spirit the result of believing the gospel of salvation with which it is intimately connected. The Holy Spirit in sealing, gives the consciousness of deliverance and power, and the joy of His presence in the knowledge of the finished work of Christ. This is the normal and healthy state of a believer; and is the only normal and healthy state of a Christian known in Scripture — the full assurance of faith, and the Spirit of adoption. It is not that a soul has to pray for the Holy Spirit as a seal. Scripture teaches that the reception of the Holy Spirit as a seal, is the result and consequence of having believed the gospel of salvation. This involves a great deal; for here comes in union with Christ — membership of Christ. Union is only by the Holy Spirit. A Christian has life in Christ, but he is united to Christ only by the Holy Spirit — life in itself alone, is not union. “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). It is by the hearing of faith the Holy Spirit is received. We read in Galatians 3:2, “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”

We find instances which will illustrate these two states of soul in the Acts of the apostles. Cornelius was a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, and gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always (Acts 10). Here was a soul in which the desires and hopes of the new nature were at work. What he wanted was the knowledge of salvation to bring him into the enjoyment of true Christian state and privileges. Peter is to be sent for that he might hear words of him (Acts 10:22); who when he comes, preaches salvation and forgiveness and peace; and the result of the reception of the words of salvation, (“words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved,” Acts 11:14) was, that the gift of the Holy Spirit, came upon him and those in his house who believed. Again in Acts 19, Paul finds certain disciples at Ephesus whom he asks, “have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” They were believers of John Baptist’s testimony which was the announcement of a Messiah to come, and a Holy Spirit which he would communicate. They wanted the further testimony of the rejection, death and resurrection of Christ, and the efficacy of His work in salvation, and the consequent gift of the Holy Spirit as a seal on believing. The result of Paul’s testimony to them was, that they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

These instances show the difference between saints who had been quickened; and believers who were sealed.

How then do we know when a soul is sealed? when it has got peace with God, not merely a hope of it. When it is sealed? when it has believed the gospel of salvation.

Words of Truth 2:96-99.

The Olive Tree

“J. K. M.” It may help your understanding of the passages in Romans 11, to know that the first allusion to the Church, the Body of Christ, in the Epistle to the Romans is in chapter 12:5. Even there we do not find the doctrine of the Church taught; but the practical walk of the members one with another as “One Body.” It is not the subject of the Epistle to the Romans.

The Apostle in beginning his subject of the Olive Tree, writes, “I speak to you Gentiles.” He does not speak to the Church as such, although his teaching is for the Church. It is the Gentile dispensation which he has before him.

The Olive Tree symbolizes the line of the testimony and of the promises of God, under the figure of a tree, of which Abraham was the root, as being the depository of the promises — the nation of Israel — his posterity, the branches — the fatness, the promises of God. This tree of promise begins in Abraham, and runs on into the Millennium; and God always maintains a stock (that is, Christ), and the faithful of any dispensation, which sustains God’s testimony in the line of promise on earth. The Jewish dispensation proved itself a failure. They were the natural branches, and it was their “own Olive Tree.” “Because of unbelief they were broken off.” The Gentile dispensation commences, and the wild Olive branches are graffed into the stem, and thus brought into the place of testimony and line of promise; (to them spiritual) in which they stand “by faith”; and in such a place responsible to continue in the goodness of God, or failing in this to be cut off. God, who did not spare the natural branches, would not much less spare them. The Gentile dispensation not having continued in the goodness of God, will be cut off. Meanwhile God has His own purposes to fulfill, “and the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation.” “Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” Then the Jews will be graffed in again, as the natural branches, and thus Israel nationally will be saved (Rom. 11:26) — not individually as now.

It is not in anywise a question of the Church, as the Body of Christ; or of individual salvation, but of Jewish and Gentile dispensations, and the result of the failure in each of them.

Words of Truth 2:139, 140.

1 Peter 1:1-2

Q. What is the general meaning of 1 Peter 1:1-2; and why is obedience mentioned before blood? E. C.

A. James, in his Epistle, addresses the scattered twelve tribes, as Israel had still the character of God’s people in his eye: and he recognizes both the synagogue (James 2:2) and the assembly (James 5:14), as before the final separation of the believing remnant from the nation in general had taken place. It was a transitional moment, and he has the nation as a nation, although scattered, before him. Peter, on the other hand, takes up only the elect strangers of the dispersion, who were anywhere but in the land of Israel — Pontus, Galatia, etc. —and sets their eye upon a heavenly hope. Consequently, verse 2 is a complete reversal of the whole hopes of Israel, to this remnant of faithful ones. As to Israel of old, we might read it thus, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of Jehovah, through sanctification of ordinances, unto obedience of the law, and sprinkling of the blood of the old covenant” (Ex. 24), which sealed their condemnation. Now, he can write of the believing ones that they were “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father (the name He reveals Himself to Christians in the Son of His love, as Jehovah was His revealed name to his elect nation — see Ex. 6), through sanctification of the Spirit, (not ordinances) — who separates us from man, unto the obedience... of Jesus Christ” — that is, to obey according to His order and pattern, who never did even His own perfect will, but the Father’s; “unto obedience (of Jesus Christ) and (unto) sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” The Spirit separates us unto both. Thus separated or sanctified by the Holy Spirit unto His obedience — that is, unto that end — we come under the efficacy of the blood of sprinkling of the new covenant, which purges the conscience, instead of sealing our condemnation.

Hebrews 13:13

Q. Does Hebrews 13:13 — “Without the camp” — refer to Exodus 33, when Moses pitched the tent “Without the camp, afar off”? or, rather, is there an allusion to it; for I suppose there is no doubt the reference is to Lev. 16?

A. In the Gospel narratives we learn that Israel had refused their Messiah — “We have no king but Caesar,” is their word (John 19). Jesus said on His cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23). The answer to this intercession was the offer by the Holy Spirit, who came down at Pentecost (Acts 2), by Peter in Acts 3, “I wot that through ignorance ye did it,” he says, and that if they would now repent, Jesus, whom they slew, would return, and the times of refreshing would come. Their full answer to this offer of grace was at the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7), in which act the citizens who hated the nobleman, who had gone into the far country to receive a kingdom and return, sent a messenger (Stephen), after him, saying, “We will not have this man to reign over us” (see Luke 19). Stephen sees the Lord Jesus — the Son of man — standing at the right hand of God, till then ready to bring in the “sure mercies of David.” They had now refused these “sure mercies,” and the whole earthly order of things is broken up at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad, except the apostles. Hebrews now come in, and in it we find Jesus seated and expecting, till His enemies be made His footstool (Heb. 10:12,13). Till the day when He says, “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me” (Luke 19:27). In each Scripture it is a characteristic attitude in which He is seen. It characterizes very preciously these Scriptures, to the renewed soul, who is free to learn the beauties of the word of God. In consequence, the Jewish believers are called upon to “go forth therefore unto Him outside the camp.” They must come outside the earthly order of things, and everything of a religious character which recognized man in the flesh, and connected itself with the world. (Believers were now “in the Spirit,” with a heavenly sanctuary and High Priest.) This was most distinctly Judaism at all times. This word of the Lord holds good with regard to every religion which connects itself with the world, and recognizes and provides for man in the flesh, or unrenewed. An earthly formulary, which takes in all the nation, or country, or district, is the “camp” now, and the distinct call of God to the believer is uncompromisingly to disconnect himself with such, and take his true place with Jesus — “bearing His reproach” — “outside the camp,” or such an order of things.

Thus acting, he recognizes what God requires — separation from evil — in order to walk in fellowship with Him. Moses was quick in apprehension in the mind of God, when he pitched the tent without the camp (Ex. 33). He knew that God could not now dwell amid a rebellious and revolted people. Every one that sought the Lord went out to this place of separation to God; and God’s presence was found there; and there He spake to His faithful ones.

There is no doubt, as far as the offering went, that Lev. 16 is alluded to. It was the type.

Words of Truth 2:178-180.

Luke 16

Q. What is the teaching of the Parable of the Unjust Steward? Why is the spirit of the world held up for us to follow?

A. The principles which governed the Steward, leading him to sacrifice present for future advantages, are commended. He might have kept his master’s money; but instead of this he laid it out in view of the future — (see 1 Tim. 6:17-19).

The lesson taught us in the parable is, The use of riches now that the dispensation is changed. It is not now one in which earthly blessing and prosperity — the increase of basket and store — is a sign of blessing from the Lord, as once it was to the Jew. The dispensation is that of the grace of God seeking the lost. Luke 15 gives us its picture. It shows us that we may turn riches into a means of fulfilling love. The spirit of grace filling our hearts, (ourselves being the objects of grace) exercises itself in temporalities towards those who need.

In Luke 15 we find one who had departed in self-will from God, with the portion of goods which had fallen to him, (the blessings which man received in creation) and had wasted his substance with riotous living. In Luke 16 man is a steward who had proved himself unfaithful in his stewardship, wasting his master’s goods. Fallen man has done both; he has revolted from God, and as a steward, has proved an unfaithful one. God, in his grace, does not canvass our title to the goods we have in our hands, which we hold but on sufferance, not certainly as having a title to their possession. He does not remove the goods; but speaks of them as “another man’s”; and we should use them in view of the future, so that, by and by, we may find we have made a satisfactory use of them, and be enabled to give a satisfactory account of the use we have made of them for Him, who had left them in our hand. If we are faithful in the least, we are faithful in much; and according to the faithful use of that which is in reality “another man’s,” we get the sense of realization, and the joy of possessing that which is truly “our own”; that is, heavenly things — the “true riches.” We get the consciousness too of having “done wisely” in our use of the master’s goods, while we had them in our power.

Verses 4 and 8 may be read thus, “I know what I will do, that when I have been removed from the stewardship I may be received into their houses”; “And I say unto you: make to yourselves friends with the Mammon of Unrighteousness, that when ye fail ye may be received into everlasting dwellings.

Prayer to the Holy Ghost

Q. Is prayer to the Holy Spirit a Scriptural thought?

A. The Holy Spirit is God — a Divine person. When God, as such, without reference to the persons of the Godhead, is addressed in prayer, it includes the Spirit, with the Father, and the Son. In the New Testament prayer is spoken of, not as “to,” but “in” the Holy Spirit. (See such passages as Eph. 6:18, Jude 20, Rom. 8:26-27.)

After redemption was accomplished, and the Lord Jesus in heaven — a Man in the glory of God, the Holy Spirit was sent down from Heaven (Acts 2). The Holy Spirit dwells in the body of the believer individually (1 Cor. 6:19, etc.), and baptizes all believers collectively, into “one body” here on earth (1 Cor. 12:12-27), uniting them to Christ, the Head, in heaven. He is spoken of in Ephesians 2:18, as the power of our access to the Father, through Jesus, “For through him (Jesus) we both (believers from Jew and Gentile) have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” As Christians we “live in the Spirit” (Gal. 5), and “walk in the Spirit.” Hence, prayer should be in the Spirit also.

It is not that the Holy Spirit is not worthy of all worship and prayer — He is God. But since redemption has been accomplished, God has been pleased to take a place with us, and in us, through His Spirit, which precludes the thought of the Holy Spirit being made by us the object of our prayers. Hence we find the Apostles addressing, under His inspiration, the saints and assemblies of God; saluting them from the Father and the Son — the Spirit Himself, being the one who, dwelling and acting in the Church, sends the salutation. This is the same in principle. It is, therefore, in Christianity, unintelligent to do so. If done in ignorance, it is one thing, but to do so when we have learned the Lord’s mind, and this grand central truth of Christianity, is quite another.

Words of Truth 2:197-199.

The Judgment Seat of Christ

“A. B.” — “C.” ask: Does the Scripture —2 Corinthians 5:10 contemplate believers and unbelievers? Will the sins of believers, previous to their conversion, be manifested at the judgment seat of Christ? Will this manifestation be to the praise of divine grace? Will it be only the service of Christians which will then be brought out? If the sins of believers, as well as the deeds which God can accept of, be manifested there, how does this agree with, “their sins and iniquities will I remember no more?” (Heb. 10). Is not judgment past for the believer?

A. 2 Corinthians 5:10 is a broad general principle, which is applicable to all mankind, irrespective of what grace has accomplished in, and for, those who believe. It is however to be remarked, that when the apostle has before his mind both saints and sinners, he does not speak of persons being judged, but of their receiving for things done in the body — retribution is his thought. Because, for the saint, judgment is past — Christ has borne it for him: he does not come into judgment (John 5:24). “Condemnation” there is incorrect. All must be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive of the things done in the body, whether they be good or bad. The thought is, the perfect manifestation of all that a person is, and has been, before a throne characterized by judgment, yet without the judgment of the person being in question. It does not say “judged,” for then even the saints would be condemned. Yet, when the wicked “receive the things done in the body,” they must be condemned (Rev. 20).

The apostle has no sort of anxiety for himself as to this solemn thought of a judgment seat; instead of that, it has a sanctifying and practical effect upon him, as one now manifested to God (2 Cor. 5:11). While, when he thinks of the wicked, and knows that for such it is the “terror of the Lord,” it is an incentive to him to “persuade men.”

God, who has wrought us for the glory and assimilation to Christ, works morally in our souls, preparing the vessel by a moral dealing thus for glory. When man fell he came to know good and evil for the first time. Good which he had no power to practice — evil that he had no power to avoid. God works in the sinner, convincing him of, and cleansing him from the guilt — whether of nature or practice, according to His knowledge of it, and through the work of Christ. He reveals Christ as one in whom was perfect good, outside and above the evil, as the light by which the Christian thus purged may judge all within Himself. Without the knowledge of grace, the soul fears the light. With it — it rejoices to have a perfect standard whereby to judge all in itself that is inconsistent with the light. God works by His Spirit in the conscience which He has purged, to produce this entire and unsparing judgment of self; those who have benefited by His working thus in them, will have gained. If they have not, and that the fruits which God would have produced in them, have been turned aside, they will bear the consequences of the neglect, and lose what they might have gained; and which, if gained, although produced by Him, is counted in grace to them.

When manifested before the judgment seat of Christ they will then be enabled fully to judge according to God’s judgment, as being then, divested of the flesh that hindered, all their past career. On one side will be seen all God’s gracious care and painstaking wisdom, with which He deigned to deal with them all through their course; on the other, all their own frowardness and willfulness — how here they lost by not hearkening to Him; and there they gained and grew in stature by profiting by His ways. Here, capacity, which they might there have had, was stunted to the measure they will have then attained. There, the soul, exercised by His workings, had grown in a capacity for enjoying heaven and Christ, which it never then can recover or regain.

When the sense of this tribunal is kept in the soul, which has been established in grace (for without it none could for one instant bear the thought of receiving of the things done in the body), it has a present sanctifying effect upon the Christian. He rejoices to judge himself, in the thought that one day he will be able to do so perfectly, in the full blaze of God’s presence in the light. What he failed to do now, he will be enabled to do perfectly then. He thus keeps his conscience in the light; maintaining its rights and authority against all the subtle encroachments of the flesh. Holiness due to God governs his heart. The inward energy of holy grace which separates from all the evil within, connects the soul with God —binds the heart to Him, and rejects everything which is contrary to Him. When manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, the full sense of the divine grace, but imperfectly learned here below at best, will then be seen. Grace as immeasurable and as perfect as the God Himself whom it reveals. It will be to the praise of divine grace in the believer indeed.

The statement, “their sins and iniquities will I remember no more,” has reference only to condemnation. Christ having done a work which purges the conscience (Heb. 10:2), and has perfected the believer forever, God righteously remits his sins; He calls them to mind no more forever. Divine working in the soul enables us to call them to mind, and produces that moral judgment of ourselves about them, which deepens as we know Him the more. This work of manifestation is true now, as far as we have realized the light. Having learned divine grace, cannot I look back upon my whole course now, in perfect peace with God; and wonder and adore my God? Cannot I look back at what I was before my conversion, and, while abhorring myself, adore His grace to me? Cannot I look back at my failures since my conversion — be humbled about them — and worship Him, as to how I have learned Him in His patient grace with me; convicting, rebuking, chastening, and restoring my soul; and thus permitting me to grow in the knowledge of Himself and His ways? God be thanked for the grace that enables us to do so in unhindered liberty, and in the unsparing scrutiny and judgment of self I do not suppose that a period of time is the thought of this judgment seat. Certainly not an indiscriminate huddling together of righteous and wicked; than which no thought is more foreign to Scripture. It is, as I have said, a broad general principle applicable to saints of all times and dispensations to the end; and embracing sinners as well.

I trust, beloved friends, that what I have said, may lead into some apprehension of its great principles, and have a present sanctifying effect upon the lives of my readers. While, also, that it may prove a spur to the energies of those who know the true grace of God in which they stand, to persuade men — the thought, that for sinners, it is the terror of the Lord, weighing upon the heart; and the deep, deep love of Christ constraining us to make known Him who died in grace for all!

There is no doubt but that ministerial service will be the subject of divine scrutiny. You have this distinctly taught in 1 Corinthians 3:8-15. The subject there is “work” — (ministerial labor); not “works.” The subject of 2 Corinthians 5 is “things done in the body”; and thus far more general.

God be thanked we go there in the likeness of Him who sits upon that judgment seat. He has come there and received us to Himself as He has said (John). He has changed our vile bodies, and fashioned them like His own glorious body (Phil. 3). He who sits there is the righteousness of those (believers) who are manifested before Him (2 Cor. 5:21).

Words of Truth 2:217-220.

Keeping the Unity of the Spirit

Q. C.A.S. asks; How am I to endeavor to keep “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”? What does it mean?

A. The Holy Spirit came down from heaven personally on the day of Pentecost, and dwells in each member of Christ individually (1 Cor. 6:19; Eph. 1:13, 14, etc.); and the saints, thus indwelt, upon earth, form God’s habitation through the Spirit. He dwells corporately in the whole Church (Eph. 2:22, etc.). He unites each member to the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), each member to the other members (1 Cor. 12:13); and all the members to the Head. This is the Church of God — the body of Christ.

This unity has remained untouched by all the failures of the church. It is a unity which cannot be destroyed, because it is the Holy Spirit Himself. He is the unity of the body of Christ.

The Church of God was responsible to have maintained this unity of the Spirit, in practical outward and visible oneness. In this she has failed. The unity has not. It remains, because the Spirit of God remains. It remains even when the oneness of action is well nigh gone. The unity of a human body remains, when a limb is paralyzed; but where is its oneness? The paralyzed limb has not ceased to be of the body, but it has lost the healthy articulation of the body.

Still, no matter what the ruin may be — no matter how terrible is the confused and unhealthy state in which things are — scripture never allows that it is impracticable for the saints to walk in the fellowship of God’s Spirit, and maintenance of the truth. It is always practicable. The Spirit of God pre-supposes evil and perilous days; still God enjoins us to endeavor “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He enjoins nothing impracticable. We never can restore anything to its former state; but we can walk in obedience to the word, and in the company of the Spirit of God, who enables us to hold the Head. He will never sacrifice Christ, and His honor and glory for His members. Hence we are exhorted to endeavor to keep the “unity of the Spirit” (not the “unity of the body”; which would prevent us from separating from any member of the body of Christ, no matter what his practice). The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ — and walking in fellowship with Him, we are kept specially identified with Christ. In this endeavor, I must begin with myself. My first duty is to separate myself to Christ, from everything that is contrary to Him: —”Let every one that nameth the name Of the Lord depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19). This evil may be moral, practical, doctrinal: no matter what it is I must get away from it; and when I have done so I find myself practically in company with the Holy Spirit: and a nucleus for those who are truehearted likewise. If I can find such; that is, those who have done the same, I am to follow righteousness, faith, peace, charity, with them (2 Tim. 2:22). If I can find none where I am, I must stand alone with the Holy Spirit for my Lord. There are, however, the Lord be praised, many who have done likewise, and are on the line of action of the Spirit of God in the Church. They have the blessed promise as a resource, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). They are practically one, as led by the same Spirit, with every member of Christ in the world who has done likewise. I do not now refer to their absolute union with the whole body of Christ — but of the practice. The basis on which they are gathered (that is, the Spirit of God, in the body of Christ) is wide enough in its principle to embrace the whole Church of God. Narrow enough to exclude from its midst everything that is not of the Spirit of God. To admit such would put them practically out of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. This endeavor does not confine itself to those who are thus together — one with the other. It has its aspect towards every member of Christ upon earth. The walk of those thus gathered, in entire separation to Christ, and practical fellowship of the Spirit, and maintenance of the truth, is the, truest love they can show toward their brethren who are not practically with them. Walking in truth and unity — they will desire that their brethren may be won into the truth and fellowship of the Holy Spirit. They may be but a feeble remnant; but the true remnants were ever distinguished by personal devotedness to the Lord, who ever specially watched over them, in the most tender solicitude; and associated Himself specially with them! Words of Truth 3:18-20.

Indwelling of the Spirit

Q. “J. K. M.” If it be true that the Holy Spirit was not given to dwell in the bodies of believers, to unite them to Christ in Old Testament days; and that the personal presence of the Spirit in man after Pentecost, was a new thing previously unexampled in the word and ways of God; what is the meaning of Isaiah 43:10-11, “His Holy Spirit within him”; also 1 Peter 1:11, “The Spirit of Christ which was in them?”

A. Everything good that ever was wrought from the creation of the world, was done by the power of the Holy Spirit. He moved upon the face of the waters in the Creation. By Him, souls were new-born. He inspired the prophets to write, or to speak God’s mind. Bezaleel was filled with the Spirit of God, to prepare the Tabernacle, Ark, Vessels, etc. (Ex. 31:3).

David was instructed by the Spirit of God in preparing the pattern of the Temple for Solomon (1 Chron. 28:12-19). The saints were guided and instructed by Him. David prayed that the Holy Spirit might not thus be taken from him (Psa. 51:11). Noah preached righteousness by the Spirit of Christ. John Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mothers womb. To multiply instances is unnecessary. Still all this is far from dwelling in them.

The statement in John 7:39, cuts in a clean line between the saints before the Lord’s glorification, and since that time. Had the Holy Spirit been given then, God would have been sealing souls in a state short of the consciousness of redemption; and thus accrediting such a state. Consciences were unpurged then (Heb. 10:2), (although God was known in grace); and the Holy Spirit could not have sealed and accredited such a state. When the work of redemption was accomplished, and the soul thus introduced into the liberty of grace, the Spirit of God could then take up His abode and dwell in the body of the believer, as a seal of the perfection of Christ’s work. We see this clearly brought out in type, in the ease of the consecration of the Priests. The High Priest was anointed with oil (the Holy Spirit in type), without sacrifice; this was typical of the perfection of Christ’s person; the Holy Spirit descended in bodily shape like a dove upon Him. The Priests, Aaron’s sons, were anointed after sacrifices; this was a figure of the perfection of Christ’s work in which they stood. Habits of thought have confounded the state of the Saints before the day of Pentecost, with those since that time. Alas! too, souls are not free — they are not enjoying the liberty of grace which the Holy Spirit ministers to them now; and consequently they accept a state short of Christian liberty before God. They limit their experience to that of a godly Jew, under law, before redemption. They have almost come to the state of the men of Ephesus in Acts 19: “We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost”: that is, whether He was come yet or not. Nothing can be clearer than the line drawn by the Spirit of God in John 7:39, between believers before the glorification of Christ, and since that time. Before that time all that was ever done in or by a saint, prophet, or otherwise, was by the power of the Spirit acting in the vessel for the time. Now He dwells in the body of the believer, as in a temple (1 Cor. 6:19), seals him, having believed (Eph. 1:14), until the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). He may grieve the Spirit of God, but he never can lose Him. Besides all this, it was an action of the Holy Spirit, in whatever way it took place, in the Old Testament times. This is a different thing from His descending personally from heaven on the day of Pentecost, and dwelling amongst men. His person and presence upon earth is as distinct as that of the Lord Jesus when here. In the believer individually, and in the church corporately. The Lord’s promise of the Comforter — the Holy Spirit, was that He would not only be with them, (not for a limited time, as Christ had been); but in them as well; and that, “forever.” To this end it was expedient that He should go away. If He went not away, the Comforter would not come (John 16:7). The passages you quote have reference to the action of the Holy Spirit in the vessel, whether of a prophet, or otherwise, at the time.

Words of Truth 3:39, 40.

Saints and Faithful

Q. L.H., Jersey. — In Ephesians 1:1, we read, “To the saints, and to the faithful,” etc. Are these two classes of persons, or is one the standing and the other the walk?

A. The word “saints” is a general term applicable to all who are Christ’s, at any period of the history of God’s dealings. But the Spirit of God has been pleased to add the word “faithful.” This word may be rendered “believers.” It is to be found in the following passages, amongst many, in the New Testament. 2 Corinthians 6:15, “He that believeth,” or “the believer.” 1 Timothy 4:10-12, “Specially those that believe,” or, “specially believers,” and “Be thou an example to the believers.” These examples will serve to show that the word may be truly used in this sense. The Epistle to the Ephesians contemplates only the saints since the accomplishment of redemption, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, teaching truths peculiar to them. It is from God, who has Christ, now both God and Man, in His presence. “Saints” and “faithful” are used of the same persons; the former signifying their condition with reference to the world, the latter giving them a special character as having believed in Christ Jesus. The Patriarchs, etc., had hoped in faith for One who was to come; those before the mind of the Spirit in Ephesians had believed in One who had come, and had wrought redemption, and was now a Man in the glory of God: and who not only had believed, but who were faithfully maintaining the faith they had received; for, when Paul was writing, Christianity, and especially the doctrines he had enunciated, were beginning to be unpopular, not in the sense of the benefits of salvation and redemption, but in the holy and separate walk they inculcated, as the calling of the Church of God. The apostle contemplates this state of things in the mode of his address to the Ephesians and Colossians.

Words of Faith 3:59, 60.

Ephesians 1:18

Q. L. H.,” Jersey. Ephesians 1:8, “Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence?”

A. God has fully unfolded to us, in verses 3-5, His calling, as suited to His own counsels, and His own heart; which is “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” In these verses He does not take into account our sinful condition, but lets us know His own thoughts as to the way He desires to have us in His presence, as purposed eternally in His own counsels in Christ. In verse 7, He takes into account that we are sinners, needing redemption and forgiveness, and acts according to the “riches of His grace,” which (grace) He has caused to abound toward us, “in all wisdom and intelligence” (as it may be read), in making known the mystery of His will, which He purposed in Himself, for the glory of Christ. He treats us as friends (compare John 15:16, as illustration), in the place of intimacy and nearness. These counsels we learn in ver. 10.

Thank God we are placed in such a position, and called thus to share in His counsels as to Christ; not merely because we shall share the glory with Him (vs. 11), but because His glory is everything to us, and has a real interest in our hearts.

Peter's Fishing After the Resurrection

Q. Was Peter wrong in going a-fishing, and did he not draw others into it? What is the lesson?

A. It is plain that Peter’s going a-fishing was not in keeping with the commission given to him by our Lord in the previous chapter, “As my Father hath sent me, so send I you.” No doubt it was Peter’s suggestion which disclosed a similar weakness in six more of them; in that Peter afforded a vent for the exposure of their weakness, so far is he chargeable with their offense. What a great matter a little fire kindles! But he who applies the torch, is of course the one chiefly to be censured. The lesson I gather from it is, that no amount of acquaintance with Jesus, such as the disciples had; or no amount of intelligence without His personal keeping, or the power of the Holy Spirit; (which these seven were not enjoying at the time), will preserve one on the line, or divert one from earthly interests, in some form or other.

Simon, Son of Jonas

Q. What are we to learn by the Lord addressing Peter afterward as “Simon, son of Jonas?”

A. I believe it is to show, that He is addressing him as the man — the natural man; — as he was in nature. Is he in nature still? Can the man in nature reckon on his love to the Lord; or does he see his weakness, and will he cease to trust on the son of Jonas? The Spirit tells us that it was “Peter” who replied to our Lord’s question. If you will read carefully Genesis 48-49, you will see this principle carried out in the names “Jacob” and “Israel.” “Jacob” was his name in nature, “Israel” what God had called him. It brings the interchange of names most forcibly before us, as carrying a divine meaning.

When He said to him, “Lovest thou me more than these?” it was “more than the disciples.” Peter had professed, “Though all shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended.” He had made a greater profession in fleshly confidence than all the others, and had fallen more grievously than any of them. It was this appeal which touched him to the very quick.

Baptism of the Holy Ghost

Q. How is one to know that one is baptized with the Holy Spirit?

A. By faith, founded on the Word of God. It is a positive result to every one who has believed the gospel of salvation. “In whom after that ye believed (or having believed) ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,” etc. (Eph. 1:14). “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” etc. (1 Cor. 12:13). Besides, there is the absolute consciousness of it, in union with Christ. The consciousness of the believer is, “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). This is not merely a new nature; all must have it to possess the other; but positive union with Christ by the Holy Spirit, received on believing, as well as union with all believers here upon earth. Do we not know this? We meet those whom we have never seen before, and are conscious of a closer tie than that of father or mother, brother or sister in the flesh.

If I am to ask a man how he knew his body was joined to his head; he would tell me that he had the positive sense of it. As my hand is united to my body, and acts directly with reference to the welfare of the whole body, not merely for itself in particular; so a member of Christ never has a mere exclusive capacity, or in his own individual interest; and the more he acts as a member of Christ’s body so far is the whole body served, or the reverse. If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Cor. 12:26).

What Is the Perfect Man?

Q. Wm. C., Skreen, asks for an explanation of Ephesians 4:13. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” What is the perfect man?

A. The object of ministry by Christ’s gifts, (see verses 11 and 12,) is the perfecting of the saints, and the edifying of the body of Christ, till each, and all should arrive, in one uniform basis of faith, and the full knowledge of the Son of God, to the state of full grown men. Not remaining in the unhealthy state of babes, tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. “A perfect man,” means simply “a full grown man” — the fullness of Christ Himself being the measure of the stature desired; the Christian growing up to Him in all things. This is placed in contrast to the state of a babe. The state of soul of the individual is what is in question in verses 13-15.

You will find the word rendered “perfect” in this verse, in the following passages; 1 Cor. 2:6, “Them that are perfect” (1 Cor. 2:6). “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect” (Phil. 3:5). “Every man perfect in Christ” (Col. 1:28). “Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age” (Heb. 5:14. There are many other passages in which it occurs. The thought is “full grown.”

Words of Truth 3:76-78.

Lord's Supper: Eating and Drinking Unworthily

“D. M. A.” Deal. What is meant by eating and drinking “unworthily,” of the bread and the cup, in 1 Corinthians 11:29?

A. The “unworthily” refers to the manner of partaking of the Lord’s Supper, not to the person who partakes. Every believer, unless excluded by some discipline for sin, is worthy to partake, because he is a Christian. The work of Christ has made him meet for heaven, and worthy to partake of that which calls to mind his Lord in the solemn moment of death, sin-bearing, and judgment. If he bring unjudged sin, or carelessness to it, it is to profane the death of Christ, who died to put sin away from God’s sight forever. The Christian cannot be condemned for sin (the world is condemned); but Christ having borne his sin, God does not condemn him for it, although He cleanses him practically from it by chastening. It never escapes His eye — and while He never imputes it for condemnation, still He never passes it over, and if we do not judge it in ourselves, He deals with us for sin by discipline, which may reach to sickness unto death, as verse 30 shows. If we eat the Lord’s Supper with unjudged sin upon us, we do not discern the Lord’s body which was broken to put it away; thus we partake of it unworthily, and God cannot allow such carelessness. Grace makes us worthy to partake, but the government of God, administered by the Lord over God’s house, deals with sin or carelessness. Still, if we scrutinize our own ways, and judge ourselves, we are not judged of the Lord. Judging ourselves for failure, is our course, and then eating the Lord’s Supper. Some have thought they should absent themselves from the Supper when they have failed. But He does not say “Let a man judge himself and so let him stay away,” but “so let him eat.” Staying away is mere self-will. It is not enough to judge the mere action; it is ourselves we should judge. The state of our heart which allowed the failure, should be subjected to scrutiny and self-judgment. If I am a child, I judge my ways, if they are unsuited to my father; but I do not set about to judge if I am a child, when I fail; but how naughty I have been as the son of such a father. I may behave very unworthily of my kind father, but my behavior is not the ground of the relationship. I cannot be a naughty child unless I am a child: and the relationship is the ground of self-judgment, that I may behave myself suitably to the relationship, and to Him who is my Father.

Words of Truth 3:99, 100.

Judas and the Lord's Supper

Q. Sophia: Does John 13:2-4, and Matthew 26:20-26 refer to the same supper? Was Judas present? And if so, (since unbelievers should not be admitted to the Lord’s table) why did the Lord, who knows the secrets of all hearts, admit him?

A. There is no reason to suppose that the two passages do not refer to the same supper, or paschal feast. Judas was present surely; and during its continuance Jesus instituted, that which Scripture afterward calls the Lord’s Supper. The institution of the feast did not reveal other features, which were subsequently introduced into it when it became the symbol of fellowship in the Church, afterward formed by the descent of the Holy Spirit from heaven at Pentecost (Acts 2). It was then the church of God began to exist. When redemption was accomplished, and Jesus ascended to heaven as man; the Holy Spirit descended from heaven to dwell in believers, and in the church of God (Acts 2:22,23); baptizing all Christ’s members into one body (1 Cor. 12:13), and uniting them to Christ in glory. The Lord’s Supper was the recognized symbol of the fellowship of the body of Christ. The first institution of the supper did not embrace what was afterward revealed unto Paul the apostle as to this. He writes, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” “For we, being, many, are one bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread (or loaf)” (1 Cor. 10:6-17). This was a feature added to the first institution of the supper. One loaf was that which represented the communion of all who were united to Christ, and baptized into one body by the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Paul distinctly informs us that he had a special revelation as to the supper; and of course we should expect it to be so, as he alone had received the truth about the Church of God. Now the church — the body of Christ —is only composed of believers, members of Christ. When they gather together, as such, in His name, to eat the Lord’s Supper, it precludes all thought of unbelievers partaking of the supper amongst them. Even those who are Christ’s, and whose walk does not comport with the holiness and truth that becomes the house of God, are precluded from the Lord’s table. This makes it simple that no unbelievers should partake of it. If Judas did so, it was before the church had any existence, and before the supper had certain features attached to it, as subsequently added through the apostle Paul.

Is Righteousness God's Gift?

Q. “B.” Is it a correct expression, that is, Scriptural — to say that the Righteousness of God is, His gift, as life is?

A. Romans 5:17 is clear as to this, where it speaks of righteousness as His gift: — “Much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.”

Words of Truth 3:118, 119.

When Does Sealing Take Place?

“Q. N. L. Does sealing take place immediately on believing; or, is it possible for a person to be a believer and not be sealed in this dispensation?

A. Sealing takes place at once on believing. Ephesians 1:13 is plain on the subject: In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also, after that ye believed (or ‘having believed’) ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.

The Apostle connects sealing with “the gospel of your salvation.” God’s salvation is announced by the gospel; I have believed in the gospel of my salvation, and forthwith I am sealed by the Spirit. A saved man is one who has no doubt. Scripture never speaks of a man being “saved” who has any. We must not confound the state of many quickened souls with those who have believed (in the sense of believed the gospel of salvation (Eph. 1:13)). The action of God in quickening and in sealing are as distinct as possible. He quickens a sinner who wants life; He does not seal a sinner as such, surely; that were to seal him in his sins; nor does He seal a quickened soul in his misery. He does not seal Peter when he cried out “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5); or when the soul is crying out “O wretched man that I am.” He seals a believer (that is, one who has believed the gospel of his salvation); and “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17); not doubts, and bondage, and fears.

These two actions of the Holy Spirit are never, as far as I know, synchronous — they do not happen at the same moment; while on God’s part there is of course no reason why it should not be so. Many cases testify as to this in Scripture.

The disciples were quickened before the day of Pentecost, yet they were not sealed till then. The Samaritans received the gospel and were quickened before Peter and John came down, and they were not sealed till then; (“as yet he was fallen upon none of them.” See Acts 8:5-17). “There was great joy” we read, and there is often this without peace with God. Peace is a full and perfect word; it is far more than joy. A soul that has peace with God has been sealed by the Spirit. Paul was quickened by a voice from heaven (Acts 9:4), and yet he did not receive the Holy Spirit till the third day after, when he had gone through all the deep work in his soul for the three days (see Acts 9:17). Cornelius was a devout man, one that feared God, and prayed to God always — a quickened soul. He is told to send for Peter to hear words of him, whereby he and all his house would be saved (Acts

11: l 4). God does not call him a saved man, as merely quickened. When Peter comes he does not tell him he must be born again, which as a sinner he needed and had been, but he points him to Christ, and they accept the message, and the Holy Spirit fell on them. You get the same thing in Acts 19; those at Ephesus who were quickened souls had not as yet received the Holy Spirit.

It is not possible for a person to be a believer (compare Eph. 1:13) in the present dispensation without being sealed. There are many quickened souls who are not sealed, but no Christian ever dies and passes away from this scene, where as to personal place the Holy Spirit is since Pentecost, without being sealed. This is why you see cases in which there was no liberty, or peace with God, enjoyed during the lifetime, with occasional gleams of joy; and yet when on a death-bed they have got perfect peace with God, and are sealed.

I think we use the word “believer” too indiscriminately, for every state of soul in which God is working. A believer in Scripture language is one who is sealed. Scripture allows but one basis, or normal condition, for Christians. When we come to look at the condition of souls we find that in many cases they are not there; while there is no reason on God’s part why they should not be.

What Does the Number Five Signify?

Q. “C. Somerset.” What does the number five signify in Scripture?

A. Five seems to be used to signify that which is relatively small; the number characterizing weakness. In Lev. 26:8, we read, “Five of you shall chase a hundred.” The very smallness of Israel, if faithful, would easily discomfit their enemies in power. In Isaiah 30:17, on the other hand, it is said of them in the time of their judgment, “At the rebuke of five shall ye flee; till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill.” In the Parable of tile Ten Virgins, we find that after the midnight cry they were broken up into fives — weakness — in the interval between the hope of the Lord’s coming being revived in the Church, and the shutting of the door. We find the Lord (Matt. 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6) feeding the multitude from five loaves and two fishes. He is equal to the demand, no matter how scanty the supply, at times of peculiar moment in the gospel history. Paul says, “I had rather speak five words with my understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue” (1 Cor. 14:19).

There are many other places “five” is used in Scripture, but these passages will help to an understanding of its meaning as a symbol.

What Is the Meaning of Romans 6:17?

“R. P.” What. is the meaning of, “But ye have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which you were instructed (Rom. 6:17, N. T.) etc.

A. The disciples in Rome had given proof in their practical ways of the Apostle’s doctrine in this chapter by walking in the truth, that the old man had been crucified with Christ. They were counting themselves as dead with Him, and alive unto God through Christ. Thus sin as not having dominion over them, and as set free from its slavery they had become slaves to righteousness (he speaks after the mariner of men.) The heart was thus free to yield itself unto God in practical obedience, the conscience being at rest before Him.

I do not believe the thought you express is in the passage.

Their practice corresponded with the true spiritual meaning of their baptism, which was “unto death.” Baptism is never put as obedience in Scripture. It is always the act of the baptizer, never that of the baptized. It is never the sign of what a man is already, or of an inward state.

Many Called, Few Chosen

Q. What is the moral use of the words, “For many are called but few chosen,” in the different contexts, Matthew 20:16, and Matthew 22:14?

A. I apprehend that the two passages show the contrast of the external effect, and internal power. Matthew 22:14 is pretty plain. The gospel message, as men speak, had brought in a crowd, and where the true wedding garment was not, he who had it not was cast into outer darkness.

The application of Matthew 20:16 is less immediate; it is more the general principle. It connects with Matthew 19:29,30; there reward is declared to be the fruit of sacrifice, and to guard against enfeebling grace this parable is added, when, though there was appointed reward for labor, we are shown to be no judges of it. For those, though coming last, if God calls them to it, who will be first. For there may be a great appearance of labor and yet God not own it. It is still the contrast of the outward appearance, and those whom God has chosen; the fruits of His own grace, and not of following apparent principles by man, while only self is there. Only here it is labor and reward brings it in; in verse 22 external calling of grace.

Words of Truth 3:137-140.

Anointing and Sealing

Q. “B,” Islington. What is the distinction between the anointing and the sealing of the Spirit?

A. The anointing is the action of God, by the Holy Spirit, in sealing a believer as His. If I am to put a mark on something belonging to me, it is then marked as mine. It is the distinction between the putting on of the mark, and the fact of its being marked. God anoints us with the Holy Spirit, and the person who has been thus anointed is sealed.

Words of Truth 3:159.

Eternal Life and Renewing the Sacrifices

“A Learner” asks: “If the Old Testament saints had eternal life, what was the object of renewing the sacrifices year by year?”

It could not be then said that they had eternal life (as the New Testament speaks of eternal life in the Son). It was only brought to light through the Gospel (2 Tim. 1:10, Titus 1:22, etc.). We know that they were all born again, but there was no revelation then as to the distinction between two natures. They had the conscience of the “old man” unpurged (Heb. 10:2), and the desires of the “new man” (the new nature); but looked at as men in the flesh, they were under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the Father. Under Judaism, they were servants under the law as a schoolmaster, until Christ, and Christian faith, had come (Gal. 3). “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son unto your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” That which the sacrifices pointed to and typified had not come: the continued repetition of the offerings showed this. That of which the brazen serpent was a figure had not taken place. “The Son of man must be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” — now named for the first time. In only two places in the Old Testament is it named; and even there it is in view of the future (Psa. 133:3, Dan. 12:2). The Son of God had come and had displayed eternal life in Himself. It “was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” in the Son; a Moses or a David could not display it, and it was reserved for Him to speak first of that which He alone could display. He takes away the typical and oft-repeated sacrifices, unsatisfying to God, and leaving man’s conscience unpurged; establishes the righteousness of God against sin; and God, glorified at what He had done, puts Him, as man, in the glory of God in righteousness. Atonement was made, reconciliation accomplished, and now God in righteousness gives eternal life to every one believing on Jesus. “God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5). Our whole state as sinners — what we were, and what we had done, was thus dealt with judicially on the cross, once and forever; and Christ, risen out of the judgment, is our life — we are quickened together with Him, having been forgiven all trespasses (Col. 2:13).

A new nature, capable of enjoying God, was imparted by the Spirit, through faith in the word of God at any time. The recipient of it was born again. Now, more can be said: we have eternal life in Christ — Christ lives in us; and this eternal life brings us into fellowship with the Father and the Son (John 17:3, etc.), which could not be till the Father was revealed in Him, and the Holy Spirit given by which we enjoy it.

The Author and Finisher of Faith

Q. “M. W. K.” 1. What is the meaning of “The author and finisher of faith?” (Heb. 12:2).

2. Is there any difference, and what, if any, between the words “Faith of Christ,” or “of the Son of God”; and “faith in Christ Jesus”? Has 1 Peter 1:21 any relation to this subject? etc.

A. 1. The Lord is spoken of here as the one who had run the whole career of faith as a man on earth, until He sat down on the right hand of the throne of God. The cloud of witnesses of Hebrews 11 might fill up their little niche in the career of faith, and be an encouragement to those who were called to walk on the same principle; but there was one who had gone through the entire course, from beginning to end of the pathway. If the fathers had trusted in God and were delivered, He had cried and was not heard. All — even the cup of wrath — must be drained to the bottom before the answer came. He looked for comforters, and found none — His friend betrays; His disciples flee away; Peter denies Him. Forsaken of God, because made sin, He treads with unfaltering step the wondrous pathway, looking to the joy that was set before Him, till He sat down on high — the “Captain,” or “Leader, and Finisher of faith.” We look steadfastly upon Him, and are not only encouraged, as by the other witnesses, but are sustained and strengthened and upheld in the race that is set before us. In contemplating Him, the new man is in vigor and activity, and the weights and besetting sins are laid aside with ease.

“Author,” in this passage, is the same word as that translated “Captain” in Hebrews 2:10, and “Prince,” in Acts 3:15, and verse 31.

2. The expressions are substantially the same. There is, however; a nice shade of difference. In Galatians 2:16,20, we have the characteristic way by which we are justified, and by which we live — viz, “on the principle of faith,” Christ being the object of it — in contrast with “works of law.” So “we live,” also, by “faith” in the “Son of God,” as the object and motive and spring of our life.

In Galatians 3:25 — “Faith,” here, is the object of the apostle’s argument, in contrast to “the law” — Christ being He who is the object of this faith. 1 Peter 1:21 has no relation to this subject.

Words of Truth 3:178-180.

Colossians 1

Q. “R. A. H.” asks the following questions from Colossians 1.

1. “The firstborn of every creature”; verse 15?

2. “All fullness”; verse 19?

3. What are the “sufferings” of verse 24?

4. “The dispensation” of verse 20? and, “The mystery which hath been hid,” etc., verse 26?

A. 1. The apostle is unfolding the personal glory of the Son of God in these verses (16-19); when the Creator deigned to take a place in that which He created, He must necessarily be “first-born,” or “chief” of it all, in the sense of the dignity of His person. It is a relative name; not one denoting the date at which He did become a man, thus taking a place in it. Just as it is said of Solomon, who was not David’s first-born, “I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth,” in the place of priority given him. He adds, in verse 16: “For by him were all things created... and for him”; explaining and enlarging upon verse 15. He must be the chief of it all, even if He appeared last in order of time, as taking a place in it. Adam could not be this, and his children were only those of a fallen man. When God Himself takes a place in that which He created, He could not have a secondary place; but is “firstborn,” or “chief,” because He had created it. Wondrous and yet simple testimony to the deity of Jesus!

2. We should read Colossians 1:19 thus: “For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell.” This was the counsel of the Godhead. In Colossians 2:9, we find the fact: “For in him dwelleth all the fullness (completeness) of the Godhead bodily.” The fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in Christ. Christ is God; and Christ is man; yet it is Christ who is both. When He, the Son of God, walked here upon earth, it was not a partial manifestation of God, as if He were but a man. If He, the Son of God, wrought miracles, it was by the Spirit of God: “If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God” (Matt. 12:28). Yet, “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10); the Father wrought in the Son. It was not one person of the divine fullness of the Godhead acting alone, or to the exclusion of the rest. But all having, not merely similar counsels, but one counsel, end and aim; “all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him.”

3. Paul in a special manner suffered those sufferings of which he speaks here. To Christ alone, for Paul, as for all saints belonged those atoning sufferings which He bore once, and forever; which God never forgets. Still He suffered in many ways here below, in which His love led Him, and He does not exclude us from a share in them with Him — “the fellowship of his sufferings,” and if we are faithful we may know them in measure. Paul knew them in a peculiar way. It was not here so much “the afflictions of the gospel”; as, “sufferings for you” — Gentiles — and “for his body’s sake, which is the church,” of which he speaks. The truths concerning his testimony which led him to prison, and a life of unparalleled devotedness and suffering, which perhaps few, if any, have ever borne.

4. “The dispensation of God” given to Paul completed the word of God. Creation; Providence; Law; Government; the Kingdom; Incarnation; Atonement, every subject had been unfolded in the word of God, but one. When it was revealed through Paul the full circle of revelation was completed: this was the mystery of Christ and the church. 1st, That Christ should — as man — be set in the heavenlies, having all dominion, by redemption, (personally He had it as God,) as Head over all things in heaven and earth, to the church, His body, united to Him by the Holy Spirit come down from Heaven. 2nd, That He was “in you” — Gentiles — the “Hope of Glory.” This was a new thing. When Christ came He was the “minister of the circumcision (the Jew) for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers” (Rom. 15:8). Abraham was the vessel of the promises of God; they were repeated to the fathers, Isaac and Jacob; Israel took the promises on the ground of law and man’s responsibility, and forfeited them totally; then Christ came, in whom were all the promises of God, yea and amen. He came to establish the promises, as Heir of them all, to the people to whose fathers they had been made, that is the Jews. He was rejected, and instead of becoming the Crown of glory... unto the residue of his people” (Isa. 28:5), the Heir of glory goes on high, and the poor Gentile believer, who had no promises, comes in on the footing of pure mercy, not promise; as we read, “that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (Rom. 15:9): he gets a place in Christ on high, united to Him who is the Heir of all the glory; and not only are we in Him, but He is in us — not the “crown of glory”; but “the hope of glory.” “Christ in you the hope of glory.”

Hidden Manna and White Stone

Q. What is meant by the “Hidden manna,” and the “White stone,” of Revelation 2:17?

A. The church had departed from her first love in the state contemplated in the message to Ephesus (ch. 2). God had used the persecution, with which Satan had tried to drive her out of the world, as that which brightened her up for the Lord. This is Smyrna. Satan had not succeeded thus as a “roaring lion,” and he now tries seduction, as a “serpent,” and had drawn her into the world. This is what we find in the message to Pergamos. “I know... where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is.” Still there were faithful ones. Antipas, a faithful martyr, might be slain amongst them for His name. (Striking meaning, the name Antipas, that is “against all,” when all were slipping away into the world.) Now we find the promise to the overcomer in such a state of things — the “Hidden manna,” and the “White stone.” The manna was, in figure, Christ humbled here: there was no place on earth that He could take: doing so would but own the world in its state of departure from God. He was the lowliest on earth. Those who were standing firm in this lowly path, where the church should have trodden in His footsteps, would be fed thus with Him, as the humbled, rejected One, which the church was now ceasing to be. It was the “Hidden manna” too. This is an allusion to the golden pot of manna which was treasured up in the ark for a remembrance (Ex. 16). The humiliation of that Blessed One God never forgets. It was no mere passing savor of Him, as merely a means to an end, in accomplishing His great work. But that which abides in God’s memory and heart forever! Blessed to be fed on such food — “God’s treasured store.”

The “White stone” was, according to an ancient custom, a mark of approval — as a black stone was of disapproval — it is the approval of Christ to those who were satisfied with this lowly path. In the stone a new name written, known only to him who received it. There are common joys of God’s saints now: there will be common joys in heaven. But there are secret joys now between the heart and Christ, known to him who is recipient of them alone. There will be such in heaven.

Saul and the Witch of Endor

Q. “J.K.M.” If “all Scripture” is “profitable,” etc. (2 Tim. 3:16), what edification is the Christian to receive from the narrative of Saul and the witch of Endor? (1 Sam. 28).

A. We learn for ourselves a deeply solemn lesson from this chapter, beside the ways of God with His people Israel, instructive as they are. We find the closing days of one who had once maintained an outward form of piety, and had exhibited much apparent devotedness and zeal in the service of the Lord, but who never had faith. In Saul’s case we see how far flesh can go in an outwardly devoted pathway, yet, when the testing time comes, it proved that there never was any real link with God. His outward zeal had destroyed the witchcraft in Israel, when he was maintaining a religious character; but his conscience never was awakened — he had not faith. In his extremity in the face of the enemy he trembles, and inquires of the Lord, who did not reply to him by dreams, Urim, or prophets: and he has the solemn conviction forced upon him that the day of outward apparent serving of the Lord was gone. Like the sow that was washed, he has recourse to what he had once destroyed, and which even by natural conscience he knew was evil — to enchantments. Here God meets him, and exhibits a power that causes even the witch to quail — terrified by a power superior to the enchantments which she practiced. He finds now, when too late, that he had given himself up to Satan’s power, and made the Lord his enemy, who tells him his end. Like Judas — who had habitually yielded to temptation he finds now that the enemy cannot shield him from the judgment of God, whose grace he had traded upon so long.

Poor Saul! Poor Judas! how many a fair vessel, when the day of reckoning comes, will be found like you!

John 3:13

Q. If Enoch and Elijah were taken up to heaven, what is the meaning of John 3:13?

A. They were caught up to heaven. No man had “ascended” up to heaven till Christ. He did so in the calmness of His own divine and indwelling power.

Words of Truth 3:216-220.

The Believer's Confession of Sins

Q. “R. P.” 1. How is it said in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”; after it is said in Ephesians 1:7 and Colossians 1:14, “In whom we have redemption through His blood; the forgiveness of our sins”?

2. As a believer in Jesus Christ, whose blood has cleansed me from all sin, am I not already forgiven — washed every whit clean — so as to need no repetition of forgiveness, or application of it?

3. To which does this ninth verse apply — to the cleansing efficacy of the blood at the first: or the washing of our feet afterward by the water of the Word? especially as the next verse says, “My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not”?

A. 1, 2. I must preface my remarks on these questions by stating, first, that a sin is never forgiven until it is committed; let us be clear as to this: when I, as a poor sinner, believe the gospel, God forgives my sins on the ground of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done; He is just and consistent with Himself in doing so, as a righteous God. He justifies me, and I am pardoned for all the sins I have committed: God remembers them no more forever. But more; I find, after all, that I am still a sinner, and that if God in grace has removed the fruit off a bad tree, the tree is still there, and may produce a new crop. Then I learn another truth, not only that Christ died for me and bore my sins, but that I have died with Him, and thus for faith, as for God, the old tree is gone, that nature which produced the sins, for which there is no forgiveness; and as dead with Christ, I am justified from sin, and the Christ, who has died and risen, is now the true “I” — a new graft on an old tree, which has been cut down; “Christ liveth in me.” The old tree is there, and if I am not watchful it may — alas, it does appear; for “in many things we offend all.” Now I cannot say that I am forgiven for what I never have committed; for forgiveness has reference to actions which have been committed, not to the nature which produced the evil thing. Forgiveness assumes that the sins are in existence to which the forgiveness applies. Neither can I say that I must sin in the future — I may do so if not watchful; and if I do so, it is the allowance of the action of the old nature, which, as long as unconfessed and unforgiven, hinders fellowship and joy. As for imputation that cannot be, because Christ has borne the wrath for me, and is in God’s presence on high. I cannot enjoy the presence of God — and God will not allow me to do so — so long as the sin is unconfessed and unjudged. The righteousness has not changed in which I stand before God, as Christ is there, but the sin is on my conscience. God has said in His Word, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,” etc. I lay hold upon that principle by faith, and lay my heart bare before Him; a deep and painful work; much more so than asking forgiveness for which I have no divine warrant after redemption was accomplished, and which is really “taking it easy.” It is easy enough to ask to be forgiven, but a painful work for the heart to take the motive from which the evil action came, and the thoughts which conceived it — (“when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin” James 1) — to God, and to tell them out in the presence of a grace that does not impute it to me, and which breaks my heart down more than all else could. My heart thinks of the agony it cost Christ to put away that sin before God’s eye — feels, too, what it is to have a sin on my conscience, and learns the restoring grace of God, who is faithful and just to forgive me my sin; and more — “to cleanse” me — to remove the remembrance of it from my conscience in full restoring grace.

No doubt we have, as quoted, “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins”; but it is to sins that have been committed, to which this and like passages refer: Redemption, Quickening, etc., go much farther than this. The former is the total deliverance of the person out of the condition he was in as a sinner, and introduction into another state before God. Quickening is the impartation of a new life — the life of Christ risen, who had borne the sins away, and in whom I have the redemption. I ought not to sin after having been introduced into such a state, yet, alas, I do. Hence, when John speaks in the verse you quote (1 John 1:9), he adds, “My little children, these things (that is, the preceding verses) write I unto you that ye sin not.” To have said what he did might have been taken advantage of by flesh, and used as license to sin, thus he guards it, and adds the truth, “If any sin, we have an advocate with the Father,” One who has gone after us, and dealt with our hearts and consciences with His word and Spirit, making us feel the bitterness of sin, and thus has bowed our hearts before God in confession — a thing we would never do unless He exercised this advocacy.

We do not need to be justified again — to be redeemed again — to be quickened again; all that is accomplished once and forever. But we do need the sense of forgiveness when we have allowed the sinful nature in us to act in the slightest form. This is the value of the Priesthood of Christ during our whole course here; Advocacy is an action which flows from Priesthood. The presence of a sinful nature in us never makes the conscience bad. It is only when it acts that the conscience becomes defiled. The sin can never come to God’s presence, because Christ is there. Nor is there imputation for condemnation to me. But the conscience is defiled and the bitterness of sin felt. I cannot go to God and tell Him that I have a sinful nature, and could not help it, because, if I had used His grace which is sufficient for me, I had not failed. But I go and confess my “sins” — not “sinful nature” — and He is faithful and just to forgive me, and to cleanse me, because Christ died; and the righteousness is unchanged, because He is risen and in heaven.

3. 1 John 1:9 is very abstract: that is, it is a divine principle which the apostle states, without applying it to the state of the individual, as believer or sinner. John’s Epistle is full of general abstract statements. He takes things as he finds them, without allowing for the state of individuals. Faith uses the divine principle, and gets the good of it. It would pre-suppose that I must sin in the future, to provide such a resource for believers as such, specially. Yet when a believer does fail his faith seizes the principle, and uses it for his restoration. If a soul comes to God, confessing his sins, believing that God is faithful and just to forgive him, he gets the good of it, but I could not call him a mere sinner now, as grace has wrought in his heart.

The first two verses of 1 John 2 belong to the subject at the end of chapter 1. The apostle has those who have eternal life in Christ specially before his mind in the epistle. He writes these things which relate to communion with the Father and the Son, that their joy might be full. 1 John 1:7 is not an evangelistic statement of the Gospel, although frequently used in that way. It gives three features of Christian position.

1. Walking in the light, we are in the presence of God without a vail, and we walk there before His eye.

2. We have fellowship one with another in doing so: flesh is not at work in us: jealousies are gone: there is mutuality of joy, and all absence of seeking our own.

3. Although we have sin in us, and if we said we had none, the light in which we walk would contradict us: we know that the blood of Jesus Christ has given us a title to be there with God, and God to have us there. The light prevents us saying we have no sin. The blood gives us the consciousness that we can be there with God. It is not repeated cleansing of the blood, as such is done once and is never repeated, but it is the title.

You will say, Were not all my sins future when Christ bore them? True. But bearing wrath, and shedding His blood on account of them before God’s eye, in view of all His people’s sins, is not forgiveness. My forgiveness is on the ground of what He has done, and the application of the good of His work to me appropriated through faith. I object strongly to Calvinistic statements used at times in preaching, namely, “all the believer’s sins, past, present and future, are forgiven”; or the like. No doubt the work was completed full by the Lord Jesus Christ, by which they are put away, and the sense of forgiveness applied to my soul, but the sins must be in existence first, in order that it may be so.

Make Your Calling and Election Sure

Q. “Gershom,” you ask how is it that the saints whom Peter addresses as, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 1:2), are told in 2 Peter 1:10, “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure?”

A. It seems strange to say to a person who possesses a thing to “lay hold” of it, and “make sure” of it, as you find in many places — yet it’s always the way in Scripture. Timothy had eternal life, and yet he is told to “Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called” (1 Tim. 6). There are many instances of the kind. Scripture always looks upon the Christian, in the two-fold condition, “as having nothing, and yet possessing all thing.” It is the riddle of the Christian state. If he looks at Christ on high, and the changeless purpose of God who has called him, he knows that “He who (had) begun a good work in (him) will perform it,” and that born of God to-day, he never can be not born of God. If Christ bore his sins and put them away, there never can come a moment when He did not bear them. He is united to Christ on high, and knows it by the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. To all this condition nothing can be added, and it never changes. But when he looks at himself below, he is a poor worm, in weakness, and feebleness on earth, and has got nothing yet, unless the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, the earnest of all he possesses in Christ. Then he must get to heaven, and “so run,” that he “may attain,” “Lay hold” on what he has got, “make his calling and election sure” to himself, in a walk in which God ministers to his soul the joy and secure sense of his position. It cannot be made sure to God, because He has called him, and chosen him. A walk, as detailed in the preceding verses (5-9), fills the heart with the sense of security, and joy in which he dwells. It is the atmosphere of the place where God dwells in unhindered blessedness; and his “entrance” is “abundant’’ into that scene, when his time has come to enter it. Thus he makes it sure to his own heart.

Words of Truth 3:232-236.

Are Christians Under a Covenant?

Q. “M. A. W.” You ask for explanation as to the Covenant or Testament (διαθηκη) of Galatians 3:17, and Hebrews 8, 9 and if we are under the new covenant, or any covenant at all?

A. In Galatians 3:15-29, we have the relationship between law and promise discussed as to how they stand one to another. Unconditional promise was made of God to Abraham 430 years before the law, and law then coming in with its conditions could not set aside the unconditional promises. Moreover, in the law there were two parties and a mediator; in promise there was but one — God Himself, acting from Himself, and requiring no conditional terms. One was a contract, the other was grace. Read Galatians 3:16 thus: “Now to Abraham were the promises made (Gen. 12), and to his seed”; that is, Christ risen, as Isaac, in figure, raised from the dead (Gen. 22); where God ratified the previously-given covenant (Gen. 12; 15), by His oath, to which no conditions were attached whatever. Galatians 3:17, “And this I say, the covenant previously ratified by God to Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul,” etc. The law was added, “for the sake of transgressions,” but did not disannul the previous purpose of God, while testing man.

There are really but two covenants in Scripture — the old covenant and the new. Still the word covenant is used in several places in connection with the Lord, when it is but the enunciation of certain relationships into which He was pleased to enter with man or the creature (Genesis 9:8-17, &c.), or to be approached by him, but without conditions. The context must decide the sense.

In Hebrews 8; 9, He shows the setting aside of the old covenant, and the introduction of a second, yet to be made with Judah and Israel. Meanwhile a Mediator is introduced previous to the time when Israel and Judah are again in the land. This Mediator has shed the blood necessary for its establishment, but has not yet established it —the party concerned not yet being under this dealing of God; that is, Israel and Judah. If Jer. 31:31-40 be read, where the new covenant is enunciated, it will be seen that no mediator is named. Christ having been rejected when He came to fulfill the promises made to the fathers, sheds His blood and goes on high, and all direct dealings with Israel are suspended, while all necessary for its ultimate establishment has been accomplished. In Matthew 26:28, He says: “This is my blood of the new covenant”; not, This is the new covenant, but the “the blood” of it. The covenant itself has not yet been established.

Hence in Hebrews, while the writer shows the passing away of the old, and introduction of the new, he never shows its application as a present thing. The only two blessings of the new covenant which we get, as Christians, are forgiveness of sins, and direct teaching from God. Christians are not under a covenant in any wise. They have to do with the Mediator of it while hidden in the heavens before He renews His relationship with Judah and Israel, to whom alone the covenant pertains. See Jer. 31:31; Hebrews 8:8-12.

Hence, too, in Hebrews 9:15, he says: “For this cause he is the mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance”; not, the establishment of the new covenant, but “eternal inheritance,” as having to do with the Mediator Himself whose blood had been shed.

It is striking the way the writer avoids the application of the new covenant to Christians while speaking of it with reference to Judah and Israel, and at the same time appropriates to the former the two blessings which flow from it to them.

Hebrews 9:16 and 17 are a parenthesis. They show that even in human things a testament has no force as long as the testator lives. Death comes, and then it is valid. It is the same word, but used distinctly in this sense.

Reward in Colossians 2:18

Q. H. D. L. What is the “reward” in Colossians 2:18?

A. The passage might be rendered, “Let none circumvent you,” or “cheat you.” That is, as if he said, Do not allow things to get an entrance into your mind, so that you would be cheated out of that which Christianity had given you, in Christ, by voluntary humility, &c. There is no special separate word for “reward” in the passage, but the word is required to get at the full sense of the verb. The words I give in italics are all used to express one word in the original language, namely, “Let no man beguile you of your reward.” It is not used in any other place in Scripture.

Lie Not One to Another

Q. “Lie not one to the other” (Col. 3:9)?

A. The Christian as dead and risen with Christ, and as having put off the old man with his deeds, is to act in the truth of this, and disallow and refuse every movement of the flesh, the untruthfulness of which is unchanged, even by a new life in Christ risen. The life which he possesses in Christ is to be seen, and it only. If the believer is “in Christ” on high, Christ is in him below, and his responsibility is that “Christ” should be seen, and never anything else but “Christ.”

It is the practice of a Christian who is dead and risen with Christ dealing with his members, and refusing the action of the old man, because he is dead. He is never told that he has to die to sin in Scripture, but to act upon the great fact that he is dead with Christ, and his life is hid with Christ in God. This life is to be seen on earth in his mortal body.

Scripture Queries and Answers

The Foolish Virgins

Q. “Who were the five foolish virgins” Matthew 25:1-11?

A. They are all those who profess the name of Christ. It is the profession of Christianity, not exactly the Church as such. When all are awakened by the midnight cry, reality was found in the five wise virgins as well as profession. They had the Holy Spirit, of which the oil is the symbol. The others had no oil. It was with the foolish, profession, or religiousness without vitality. The door was shut, and they were shut out forever! Lost, I do not doubt.

It is a grave mistake to misapply this parable to the remnant of Jews in the “time of the end.” They have not the Holy Spirit dwelling in them at all, as the believer has now; even a babe in Christ has this (1 John 2:20). If they were not professing Christians, they would not be charged with having no “oil.” Nor does the godly Jew go forth to meet the Bridegroom; he flees in terror. It is not with him the Bridegroom in hope, but the abomination of desolation in fear. There will be no time of slumbering and sleeping then, for things will reel to their center in judgment.

Matthew 24 and 25 have three great subject divisions — a characteristic of Matthew’s Gospel.

1st. The desolation and final restoration of the Jews as a nation on the earth (Matt. 24:1-44).

2nd. Under three parables, instructions as to those who would be attached by profession to the Lord during His absence, and until His return (Matt. 24:45-51; 25:1-30); that is, professing Christians.

3rd. The result to the Gentiles as to their reception or rejection of the testimony the Lord gives them, as to His claims and kingdom; or, in other words, the judgment of the quick or living nations at His establishing the kingdom. In this scene you find three parties: Jews — His “brethren”; Gentiles who are blessed — the sheep; Gentiles who are condemned — the goats. This is not the judgment of the dead, but of the living (vss. 31-46), at the beginning of the millennium. The dead are not judged till the close (of the little season).

Words of Truth 4:41-44.

Dispensational Teaching of John 1; 2; 20; 21

C. Somerset. What is the dispensational meaning of the ‘days’ in John 1; and how do they correspond with the ‘days in John 20 and 21?

First, John’s testimony to his disciples, who attach themselves to Jesus during His lifetime here (John 1:35, &c.). Then the Lord’s, then that of the witnesses (John 1:43, &c.). Then, again, Nathanael figures the remnant in the last days; an Israelite in whom is no guile; (compare Zeph. 3:13; Rev. 14:5) who still sits under the Old covenant — “apart,” (compare Zech. 12:13) and upon whom the Lord’s eyes are in their time of distress, before they see Him. (See Isaiah 57:15; 66:2). Then they own Hun as “Son of God,” and “King of Israel,” according to Psalm 2. Still, Nathanael, now that he knew the Lord, would see greater things than these; heaven opened, and a “Son of Man” the object of the attention of the angels of God! For “hereafter” read “henceforth.”

Then (John 2), the third day, the Lord, in the marriage scene in Galilee, renews his relations with Israel. Becomes the host instead of guest, and turns the water of purification into the wine of joy of the kingdom. Thus He manifests His glory. Then follows His judicial action at Jerusalem, and cleansing the temple.

These days are wholly earthly, and with Israel. First, John’s testimony; then Christ’s and the witnesses; and then His connection with the Jews and the temple on His return.

In John 20; 21, there are no “days,” and here it is rather the contrary. He gathers His disciples after His resurrection and is in their midst in the first scene. Thomas represents the Jewish remnant who believe when they see him (Zech. 12; 13). He pronounces the blessedness of those who have not seen, but have believed. It is not the church (as taught by Paul), but an intimation of resurrection work; not a simply earthly one. There are no “days” here, but three consecutive scenes pointing to a Christ known as having left them in resurrection — not uniting by the Holy Spirit believers into one body; which belongs to ascension, and John does not teach the church, or mention it as such.

An intimation, I apprehend, in Thomas’ unbelief, that the Jew does not believe the testimony of Christianity and Christ risen through the Church (through the church’s testimony). He believes when He sees, as the Jews will do, according to Zech. 12; 13, &c., and owns him as his Lord and his God. (See Isa. 25:9.)

In the third scene, you get seven fishers and unbroken nets — the work of millennial ingathering is not marred. When the morning comes the Lord appears, and the nets are drawn to shore — the Lord has fish already on the land, taken through their night of toil.

Words of Truth 4:62, 63.

Continuous Prayer?

“E. G. D.” seeks to know the propriety of continuing to ask for many things of the Lord — such as more of the Spirits power; increase of faith; conversion of relatives, &c. Or whether, when these requests have been once laid before Him, should we leave them in His hands?

A. God exercises our hearts and our faith in delaying to give the answer to our prayers at times. The earnestness of our prayer will be according to the exigency of our need, and the consciousness that He alone can give the answer. The heart is exercised and kept in dependence, waiting on Him for the reply. Faith is kept alive. Other sources are not looked to when the soul has learned that He alone can do what is needed. It is a mighty engine, that of prayer. Fitting expression of the new-born souls dependence on God, in contrast to that nature which ever would be independent of Him, though it cannot escape His righteous judgment.

Daniel had to wait in fastings and mournings for three whole weeks at one time before he received the reply (Dan. 10). At another time, “While I was speaking,” he says, the answer came (Dan. 9).

It marks the fact that we are not indifferent to the result when the heart can in earnest entreaty wait upon God. We may find, like Paul, that it is better for us that our desires were withheld. He learned also the reason why they were withheld after his thrice repeated prayer; thus he could always boast in that which was the taunt of his enemies, and the trial of his friends (2 Cor. 12).

We need to be “filled with the Spirit.” We need that our faith may grow. Many are the needs of our hearts, as of others; and if God is pleased to bless His people, He exercises their hearts in prayer. Paul was indebted to some praying sister, perhaps, who could agonize in prayer before the Lord for those gifts with which he carried on his service in the gospel-field. He could agonize in prayer for those he never saw — (Col. 2:1) — and Epaphras, too, could labor earnestly (agonize) in prayer, for those he knew and loved (Col. 4:12).

In the midst of our cares and conflicts we have to “be careful for nothing,” but to “let our requests be made known to God.” He who has no cares, God, keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. But we have also to “continue in prayer.” We have also to “watch in the same,” and withal “with thanksgiving” for His ever opened ear. One of the exhortations in Romans 12:12 is, “continuing instant in prayer”; “pursuing,” as it might be.

The very “importunity” of the man at the unseasonable hour of midnight, was the occasion of his obtaining the loaves (Luke 11:8). One can lay down no rules in such cases. The truly exercised heart gets its own answer from God. At times we can, with simple confidence, “make known,” and commit the request to God. At others the heart is conscious that it cannot but cry to God until the heart is at rest as to the petition. He will not give it till His own time, and meanwhile the soul is kept in earnest exercise; faith is tested, and patience tried, and the heart watches and waits on Him.

Again, such is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us; and if we know that He hears us, we know we have the petitions that we desired of Him (1 John 5:14,15). He listens to everything which is in accordance with His will. He cannot fail in power, and we get the reply. The true heart would ask nothing contrary to His mind and will.

Words of Truth 4:83, 84.

This Ministry of 2 Corinthians 4:1, 2

“P.” What is the “ministry” (διακονια) of 2 Corinthians 4:1? Is it the ministry of the apostle, or that which he ministered? It could hardly be confined to his ministry merely, as he uses the same word, though translated “ministration,” in 2 Corinthians 3:7, 8, 9 where it is the thing ministered?

A. It is the apostle’s ministry, but ministry of and characterized by what he speaks of. This is a common ambiguity in English. Hope is what passes in my mind, (faith, hope,) but my hope is laid up in heaven. Thought a good thought is thought objectively; or we are of much thought, is the habit of thinking, in the man, and so of others; in chapter 3 the subject matter — law or gospel is the ministration, that is, the thing ministered; but it was ministered by Paul, and therefore his ministry — a candle was lit up in a lantern; it was itself the light — the candles light; but his light, because he carried it. God had shone in his heart to give forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. His ministry was this knowledge, still he ministered it, and so it was his ministry.

Living God in 1 Timothy 3:15

“F.” Why in 1 Timothy 3:15, do we get the “Living” God? Why “Living?”

A. “The Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16, 17) is what the Church was built upon. It is the power which has brought it above dying man, and withal is abiding. It is a term of power and dignity above idols, above death in man. He trusts in the living God (1 Tim. 4:10). We are converted to serve the living and true God (1 Thess. 4). See Acts 14:15: We “preach unto you, that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God,” &c. Well, this is His assembly on earth (1 Tim. 3:15).

Indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the Glory

“D.” As believers, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. Having believed, we are sealed until (for) the day of redemption, and He is the earnest of our inheritance (Eph. 1:13, 14). He will eventually quicken our mortal bodies, as we find in Romans 8. Is there any thought in Scripture as to his dwelling in us forever?

A. There are no specific Scriptures that I know which state that the Holy Spirit will abide in us forever. But His action in spiritual power is essential to our power in life. The Spirit is life, and it surely is not to be taken away as power of enjoyment in heaven. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free” (Rom. 8:2). We are to be fully conformed to the image of God’s Son; and we find Him a Man risen from the dead, giving commands through the Holy Spirit after His resurrection (Acts 1:2). We shall have the Holy Spirit thus after our resurrection, and His divine energy will be wholly free to guide and direct in the service committed to us by our God, and in unhindered power of joy and worship. This is now checked, because of His now giving power to restrain and mortify the flesh in us,

Words of Truth 4:103, 104.

The First Resurrection

I had difficulties as to the passage of which you write (Rev. 20:4). Comparing it with other passages, such as 1 Corinthians 15:54, &c., which disappeared in seeing that “the first resurrection does not describe a period of lime, but a class of persons having this characteristic name.

In the passage (Rev. 20:4), you will find three divisions named;

1. “I saw thrones, and they sat upon them and judgment was given to them.”

2. “And the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God.”

3. “And those (οιτινες) which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark in their foreheads, or in their hands.”

The first division is general, embracing all who reign with Christ, taken up at the Rapture. He sees not only thrones, (as Dan. 7:9; where for “ cast down,” read “ set”) but sitters on them; they are now occupied.

The second class are those slain under the fifth Seal. See Revelation 6:9, 10, 11.

The third class are martyr victors under the full power of the beast. See Revelation 15:2.

The two latter classes who seem to have lost the earthly blessings of the kingdom by death, are specially named as having gained by death a place in the heavenly glory, with those who then reign with Christ.

The first of these — the sitters on the thrones — have been raised or changed at the rapture; and the last two are said, in company with them, to ‘‘live and reign with Christ a thousand years”; and are all then named “the first resurrection.”

My chief difficulty was, how that Isaiah (25:8) used the words, “He will swallow up death in victory” — referring to the resurrection at the end of the tribulation and deliverance of the remnant of Judah. While Paul uses the same passage, quoting it in 1 Corinthians 15:54, with reference to those caught up before it begins, and when Christ comes, whether raised or changed. I may here remark that Isaiah 24:21 gives the judgment of the hosts of the high ones on high — Satan’s power (Rev. 12), and the Kings of the earth upon the earth (Rev. 19). Then, after that, in Isaiah 25, in the details of the deliverance to the remnant of the Jews, and the removal of the vail of idolatry from the nations, he uses this passage: — “He will swallow up death in victory,” with reference to what happens at the end of the tribulation.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul quotes and applies it to those who are taken up — raised or changed —before the tribulation. This seemed strange. But the moment you understand that the “first resurrection” is a class of persons running all through the crisis, or time of judgment, from the rapture of the saints, till Christ’s appearing, it is readily seen how the prophet and apostle legitimately use the same words, having a similar class before them, which are split up into sections, as I may say, in Revelation 20:4, and are technically named “the first resurrection,” though not raised and taken to heaven at the same moment of time.

Words of Truth 4:186, 187.

Isaiah 49:9-10

Q. “G.” Does Isaiah 49:9, 10, apply to Jews or Gentiles?

A. I believe it applies to the Jews. The chapter gives you a complete history of Christ, replacing Israel on earth as Jehovah’s servant, from the womb of the Virgin to the throne of the kingdom. In verses 4, 5, the Spirit of Christ makes the lament that He had spent His strength in vain, Israel would not be gathered by her Messiah! This brought forth those touching words (Matt. 23:37), “How often would I have gathered thee,” etc., as the moment of His city’s rejection of her King drew forth those tears, which, though they came from human eyes, took their spring in the heart of God.

The answer of God comes to His plaint in the sixth and following verses. It was a light thing the gathering of Israel compared with the new and wondrous work He should accomplish — not now gathering a little nation, but shining. forth as the light to the Gentiles, to make known God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. Strictly this is Christ here, yet to show how, when Christ is spoken of in the Old Testament, the Church is seen in Him, though not revealed then; Paul uses this passage in Acts 13:47, applying it to Christ’s members, and intelligently taking as a command what he had gathered from the spirit of the word. In verse 7, He is there looked upon as a rejected Christ — despised of man, and abhorred of His own people; but kings and princes would yet worship Him, because of the faithfulness of Jehovah who would choose Him. In verses 8 and 10 He is given as a covenant to the people, that is, Israel; to bring in the earthly blessing; to set free captive Israel — “Prisoners of hope” (Zech. 9:11,12) — and open the prison doors to those who are bound. Thus the true Shepherd of Israel feeds His now gathered flock which would hunger and thirst no more. How analogous is the language of Revelation 7:16,17, which the elder in heaven uses as to those who had come out of the great tribulation, and were marked and prepared for blessing below in the millennial earth.

The prophecy of the chapter runs on to the gathering of the tribes of Israel from the north and west, and from the Land of Sinim (China), and the judgment on their oppressors.

Gift: Government

Q. What are “Governments” in 1 Corinthians 12:28?

A. This word is found only here in the New Testament. He is speaking of members of the body set in the assembly. Those thus designated would be gifted to guide and direct the assembly, as a pilot does his ship in her dangers and difficulties. It might be by the word of wisdom, in the application of divine intelligence to those things through which she had to pass; or the word of knowledge, etc., as in

v. 8. The thought is guidance rather than rule. The latter would be by office-bearers, that is, elders. Here the thought is gifts, or spiritual manifestations in the body of Christ.

Numbers 23:19; Exodus 32:14

Q. How do you explain the apparent contradiction in Num. 23:19 and Exodus 32:14?

A. The context decides the use of the word, and meaning of the sentence. In the latter “Jehovah,” moved at the touching intercession of Moses, “felt compassion for” the people who had merited His judgments.

In the former, “God” is not man that He should lie, or the Son of Man that He should repent. Here the meaning is simply as it stands. His unalterable counsels are as unchangeable as His own nature.

The word is similar in both cases, but bears the meanings given to it, and the context decides that which is most applicable. In the one case it is Jehovah in government, whose thought of cutting off part of the nation and making of Moses (the faithful remnant) a great nation (Ex. 32:10), is turned at the intercession of Moses. In the other it is God in purpose, which is unchangeable.

Baptism of the Spirit

Q. Why is the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11), referred to so early in the gospels?

A. John Baptist, in announcing Jehovah-Messiah to His people in Matthew’s gospel, brings His two advents together whether in grace or judgment. This was suited to His gospel because He has, as Messiah, to do with both. Luke 3:16 also speaks of the two great actions, because as Son of Man the character in which Luke presents Him, He has to do with judgment as well as grace and suffering. Mark 1:8, and John 1:33, both omit that of “fire”; the former having to do with His then service on earth, and present service of grace with His servants — not with judgment. John only speaks of His baptizing with the Holy Spirit as connected with His revelation in grace of the Father. The thought, in presenting it so early in the gospels, is rather the person who was to do it, in contrast to His fore-runner, who baptized with water unto repentance, &c. We know it was not accomplished until Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost with the Jews; and Acts 10, subsequently with the Gentiles. See Acts 1:5, where only that of the Holy Spirit is named; not that of the fire of judgment, which will take place at His second advent, with the world. Also Acts 11:15-16, where the Gentiles are connected with this baptism. (See also 1 Cor. 12:13.)

Colossians 4:12

Q. What is to “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God?” (Col. 4:12).

A. Epaphras’ prayer was the echo of the apostle’s, as one may say (see Col. 1:9, and 2:1-3). Paul had never seen the Colossians, but had heard of them through Epaphras. He could thank God as to what he had heard of them (Col. 1:3, &c.), but he could agonize in prayer for them, that they might know more of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; thus to walk worthy of the Lord. That they might know, too, the mystery of Christ and the Church; or, as he terms it here, “The mystery of God, wherein are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Conversion only was not sufficient in Paul’s mind, and Epaphras had learned this, and his prayer (Col. 4:12) took its tone from his lesson and from Paul.

Words of Truth 5:37-39.

Grieving and Quenching the Spirit

Q. “C.H.” What is to “grieve” and to “quench” the Spirit of God?

A. The allowance of flesh in the least degree in a Christian is to grieve the Spirit of God by which he has been sealed until (for) the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). What a motive to holiness is the fact — true of every believe — that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in him! He may, alas, grieve Him in many ways. Rejection of light which God has given; worldliness; in fact everything that has not Christ for its motive and object must grieve God’s Spirit — hinder our growth and communion.

To quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19) is to hinder His free action in the members of Christ in the assembly. While there are special permanent gifts in the Church, (Eph. 4:11) there are also the “joints and bands,” which work effectually in the measure of every part, and by which the Body of Christ increases. If they are hindered in true spiritual service — a single word for instance — the Spirit of God is quenched.

There are dangers to be avoided on both sides, specially by those who seek to walk in the truth of the Church of God. On one side the danger is, that because there is liberty “that all may learn and all may be comforted,” there may be the undervaluing of special ministry, which is a permanent thing as long as the Church of God is here. On the other, there is the danger of quenching the Spirit in the various helps, and joints, and bands by which nourishment is ministered in the body of Christ, by putting special ministry in the place of the free action of the Holy Spirit in the members of Christ; both are to be cherished, and the most spiritual are those who will value all that God gives.

The following verses (1 Thess. 5:20, 21) show that it is ministry the apostle has in his mind. While in verse 12 he exhorts them to own those who labor amongst them and esteem them highly in love for their work s sake; in vv 19-21 they were not to quench the Spirit in any, but at the same time to “prove all things” which were said, and “hold fast that which was good.”

Words of Truth 5:59.

The Experience of Romans 7

Q. “R.P.” What is the difference between the bitter experience of Romans 7:14-24; and the conflict of flesh and the Spirit as in Galatians 5? How am I to know in which state I am? Do not both come to the same wretched experience in the end, if in the conflict the flesh gets the upper hand?

A. First; there is no proper Christian conflict in scripture but that of Ephesians 6:12; this is fighting God’s battles against Satan’s power. Romans 7 is not conflict but experience; not the experience of a person at the time of his feeling its bitterness, but that of a delivered man, who narrates what he felt when learning his powerlessness against the sinful nature he had discovered, and the sad evil of the flesh in which dwelt no good thing. As a man who had floundered in a morass, and found every plunge putting him deeper, drops his hands and cries out for a deliverer, who comes and pulls him out and sets him free. The delivered one turns round to thank his deliverer and tell him, now at peace, what he felt when there. He had much to think of when there, now he relates it on solid ground. So it is experience before deliverance, told by a delivered man. Galatians 5 states the fact of the two antagonistic principles — flesh and Spirit — in their contrariety one to the other. Not necessarily conflict. Because walking in the Spirit we are above the influences of flesh, and do not fulfill its lusts.

In Romans 7 the soul looks back to the struggle before deliverance. In Galatians 5 it is the two principles which remain in the delivered man.

When you are referring your acceptance with God to your own state in anywise, you are still under law. By which I mean your responsibility as a child of Adam; not necessarily the law of Sinai: and your experience is then that of Romans 7. You have not yet bowed to the injunction, “Reckon yourself dead”; and you are consequently not free from the power of the evil nature which harasses you. You reply, how can I reckon myself dead, when I feel I am alive? I reply, you never will “feel” yourself dead! but you must “reckon” it so, and accept God’s word as more true than your experience and thoughts. Then you will be able to say, “Yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me.”

Souls go through this painful process (Rom. 7) in order to discover the hopeless evil of the flesh — “That in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” It is bitter to discover right desires and strivings after God and good, and after all to be led captive to an evil “I,” so that you hate what you do, and the evil nature is your master, and you do what you hate. These experiences do not set you free, but bring you to the discovery of how evil the flesh is, and that even the possession of a new nature gives you no power! Then you are forced. to say, “Who will deliver?” “Who,” brings in another, and your eye is turned off yourself to Him and you are free! In Christ, God has condemned sin in the flesh when He was a sacrifice for it (Rom. 8:3).

The “flesh” in the delivered one is unchanged; he learns growingly the total depravity of his nature. But there is a new “I”; Christ is his life (Col. 3:4), and the Spirit of God dwells in his body (1 Cor. 6:19); and there is power in Christ to subdue the evil, by engaging his heart with Christ. The very evil he finds in himself becomes an occasion of communion with Him who has borne its judgment, that He may be delivered from its workings. He does not seek to subdue it himself — that were to labor into sorrow and failure, and recognize himself again. He keeps His eye on Christ, and lives by another, and the evil which would spring up if his eye were averted is subdued, and the power of Christ rests upon his weakness, and he can glory in it because of the power of Christ. He never receives intrinsic strength, that would be to take away the joy of living by Christ, and thus an unbroken engagement is needed for victory, and the subjugation of self He walks in the Spirit and does not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Matthew 16:19 and Matthew 18:18

Q. “A. L. O. C.” What is the difference between Matthew 16:19 and Matthew 18:18? Does the first refer to salvation in connection with the bringing in of the members to be added to the Church; and the second to the discipline of the Assembly? Or, do they both refer anticipatively to discipline?

A. The first refers to the administration committed personally to Peter, with reference to the “Kingdom of the heavens.” The second to disciples — “two or three” gathered together in Christ’s name, and connected with the “Assembly”; and valid at any time for two or three thus gathered.

In both cases it is “whatsoever” — thus not referring solely to persons; though slightly differing in form of expression.

To Peter was given — and to him alone of the Twelve — the administration of the kingdom of the heavens, brought in in its “mysteries” (Matt. 13), and commencing at the ascension of the Lord. This power he used, as the first great division of Acts testifies (Acts 1-13). He directed the choice of Matthias, Acts 1; he opened the door to the Jews, Acts 2; he bound Ananias’ and Sapphira’s sin on them, Acts 5; was chief in directing the choice of deacons, Acts 6; discerned Simon the sorcerer’s state; and with John communicated the Holy Spirit, in Acts 8. He opened the door to the Gentiles, Acts 10; he was one of the chiefest speakers in the conference about the law, in Acts 15, &c. Whatsoever he did under heaven’s authority, heaven ratified. Though Peter did not do all heaven did, for all that! This authority and commission was given to none of the apostles but him, and it ended there. This administration was continued to none.

The passage in Matthew 18:18 is authority to the “assembly,” and applicable to any “assembly” which scripture authorizes, though consisting of only two or three. It is continued to such. There is no individual authority in it at all. For making requests, and acting under heaven’s authority, the Lord was in the midst, and gave validity to what they did; though, like Peter, heaven might do, and did, a great deal more than the assembly.

It is of much importance to distinguish between the “Kingdom of the heavens,” of which the “keys” were committed to Peter; and the “Church” which Christ builds. It has been remarked that “men do not build with keys,” and the Church is built.

Words of Truth 5:97-99.

Kingdom of Heaven - Kingdom of God

Q. L. T. Would you please define in some measure the terms “kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God”? Sometimes they seem interchangeable, and other times not so. Matthew chiefly uses the former, and he only; Luke the latter, as others too.

A. “The kingdom of the heavens” — the true rendering — is only named in Matthew. It is a dispensational term; while “the kingdom of God” is a moral thing. In keeping with the gospels you name, you find the terms used. Matthew groups his subjects together dispensationally; Luke does so morally; both departing from the historic order, to which Mark keeps more than any of the others.

With a Jew the term “kingdom of the heavens” was familiar (see Deut. 11:21; Psa. 89:29; Dan. 2:44; 4:26-35, and other Scriptures). It is the “rule of the heavens” owned on earth. It was announced as “at hand,” not as come, by John the Baptist (Matt. 3); by the Lord (Matt. 4); by the Twelve (Matt. 10). Rejected; and in Matthew 12, which ends the gospel to the Jew, the curse of Antichrist is pronounced upon the nation, and a Remnant owned who obey His Father’s will. Then, in Matthew 13, the Lord begins a new action — as a sower; and the kingdom of the heavens takes a new character, which the prophet did not contemplate: a sphere overrun with evil, and a mingled crop — the “mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens”; and instead of the true subjects taking their origin from Abraham, they do so from the Word of God, which Christ sows; others accepting the authority of Christ nominally, as professors.

In Luke, who is the great moralizer, the term used is “kingdom of God,” of which He could say in answer to the inquiry of the Pharisees if it came with observation, that it was “in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21), for God was there in Christ; while of the “kingdom of the heavens” it could only be said it is “at hand” and it did not (and could not) commence until the ascension of Christ. To have come in during His presence it would have been the kingdom of the earth, so to say. His authority and that of the heavens was owned, even before the coming of the Holy Spirit, during the ten days of interval, by the disciples, who waited by His directions for that coming. It will run on in its present confused state until the Millennium; hence a good margin of time after the Church’s history is over, as it had commenced before it.

You get two places where it gets a moral character from Paul — “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 14:17); “The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20). It is the “exhibition or manifestation of the ruling power of God under any circumstances.” A man must be born afresh to “see,” or “enter in” to it, in the verity of it (John 3); not so of the kingdom of heaven, in which tares and wheat mingle. Souls may profess and submit to God’s kingdom, as merely profession. Hence, in Luke 13:18, he uses the term kingdom of God where nominal profession is noted in the parable, and where the “kingdom of the heavens” might be used interchangeably. Still, none but the saints would be really of it, as born of God.

When the Millennium comes in, the present confused state of the kingdom of the heavens will be set aside by the judgment of the quick (the living); and it will then be displayed in its verity in a two-fold, heavenly, and earthly state of things. The Son of Man gathers out of His kingdom

- that is, the earthly part of it (see Psa. 8; Heb. 2) — all stumbling-blocks, and them that do iniquity; and then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father —the heavenly sphere of it (see Matt. 13:41-43).

Words of Truth 5:118, 119.

Hebrews 12:23

Q. “A. B. M.” What is the correct thought of Hebrews 12:23: “to the general assembly and church of the first born”? Does the Holy Spirit repeat Himself, or is there a distinction?

A. The passage should be read thus, “But ye are come unto mount Zion; and unto the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem; and to myriads of angels a general convocation; and assembly of firstborn (ones) enrolled in heaven,” etc.

The writer is contrasting the order of things to which the Hebrews had come under Christianity and grace, with that of Mount Sinai and law. They were not come to the latter (vss. 18-21), they were come to mount Zion — the principle of perfect grace from God to His earthly people when wholly ruined in all classes of the nation; people, priests, and Kings, (vss. 22-24). This is the meaning of “Mount Zion” here; it is perfect grace. It refers to God’s intervention by His chosen King, David, in re-establishing His relationship with the people at mount Zion when all was ruined; in bringing back the Ark of God (see 2 Sam. 5-6). He opens in these verses a magnificent vista of all that will be in millennial glory, but as now true to faith. The word “and” divides each thought in verses 22-24. So that the last clause of verse 22 should not have been severed from the first part of verse 23. These two clauses refer to the great convocation of angels on high. Then comes, “and assembly of firstborn (ones),” enrolled in heaven, by grace; they were not like angels — indigenous to the place. (Compare Luke 10:20.)

Women Praying in Meetings

Q. What is the proper teaching of 1 Corinthians 11:5? Is there any ground in it for a woman praying in an ordinary meeting for prayer, of course not in church?

A. First of all, I believe that in an “ordinary meeting for prayer,” Christians gather together “in assembly”; any gathering together of God’s people to the name of the Lord, where the Holy Spirit’s action is unhindered — that is, an assembly which Scripture owns, is meeting “in assembly; and the woman is to keep silence and be in subjection — showing the sign of subjection by wearing a covering on her head.

No doubt, were there no men present, a woman would be perfectly free to pray or prophesy if she had the gift; and I believe many have the gifts of Christ. But even if so, it must be used in subjection to Christ in His ordered way, and in private, so as not to usurp authority over the man, and mar God’s order in redemption. To pray or prophesy with her head uncovered — she dishonors her head.

In the first sixteen verses the apostle is dealing with the order of headships according to God, which were forgotten by the saints at Corinth. God is the head of Christ (looked at as Man): Christ the head of the man; the man the head of the woman. In verse 17 and onwards, he deals with the coming together of the saints in assembly: “church” should always in Scripture be rendered “assembly”; and there should be no “the” in verse 18.

The woman (and man too) in Corinthians had forgotten this order, and the former were I suppose praying and prophesying with disheveled locks. Their hair was given for a vail, not for such a purpose. She ought also with her hair, to have power (a sign of subjection), on her head because of the angels (that is, a covering in addition to her long hair).

Old Testament Saints

Q. “A. L. O. C.” Will you kindly give a little help as to the Old Testament saints. We know they had life, and were saved as we are through faith; but had they the new birth, or new creation, in which the Holy Spirit dwells! Had they it without an inhabitant? What was their spiritual condition? To what things did our Lord refer in John 3, “Art thou a Master in Israel and knowest not these things?” How could Nicodemus know anything about the new birth? Was it the “new heart” and “new Spirit” of Ezek. 18:31?

A. The saints in the Old Testament days were born again. This is a positive necessity for any soul in order to “see” or “enter into” the kingdom of God. Whatever truth God had revealed, and was pleased to use and apply by the Holy Spirit to the conscience, when received by faith, produced a new birth in the soul. The new creation is quite a different thing. Man had not only corrupted his nature, and needed to be born anew, but he had been driven out from God, and thus had lost his place. The new creation is a new place, or order of things with God, into which Christ has entered as Man, dead and risen. We belong to it now because of redemption, and as possessing eternal life in Christ; but we are still connected with the old, and there are certain things of the old creation owned of God in which we have to walk, while morally we belong to the new order of things before God. Human relationships and the like, are the things to which I refer. They are of the old creation.

You do not express a scriptural thought in your phrase, “In which the Holy Ghost dwells.” He dwells in “your body” as a temple individually (1 Cor. 6:19), and also in the House of God as a Temple collectively; “know ye not that ye (plural) are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (1 Cor. 3:16). Hence “Had they it without an inhabitant?” has no force, if you mean that the Holy Spirit inhabits the new creation.

No doubt all the Old Testament saints were born again, and the life they received was eternal, though it was not definitely revealed under that name, until it was first displayed in the Son of God, a Man on earth. They were also morally of the new creation, although the time had not yet come to bring it to light. God was still dealing with and testing man on the earth. Eternal life is the Christian term for what we possess in Christ, for in it we are brought into fellowship with the Father and the Son, and thus have a nature suited to heaven.

The Old Testament saints trusted in God as known in grace. Their sins were passed over “through the forbearance of God,” in view of what the cross would accomplish (Rom. 3:25). In it God was proved righteous in His forbearance with them. Consequently sin was imperfectly known to them, and their consciences were unpurged, while our consciences are purged now by Christ’s blood (Heb. 10:2), which fits us to stand in the light of God’s presence. The tastes and desires of the new man in its aspirations after God and good were there; the conscience of the old man was there unpurged, but the distinction between the natures was not made known; they were looked upon and treated as concrete men, so to say. In conscience many go no further now, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit characterizing the Christian state, is indeed known to few.

Nicodemus, as a teacher in Israel, ought to have known that a new birth — “a new heart and new spirit,” was needed to partake of even the earthly blessings of the kingdom. The passage in Ezek. 18:31 bears on it; so does Ezek. 36:24-31, still more directly. In the latter they would have this new heart and spirit when gathered from the heathen, into the land of their forefathers, there to enjoy their “earthly things.” How much more fully needed to enjoy the “heavenly things” the Lord had now come to reveal.

The Christian has “spirit, soul, and body,” as a sinful man; self-will and “flesh” setting him against God. A new nature has been imparted from God Himself; it has not removed the old, or improved it. The same man, “spirit, soul, and body,” is now the property of another. A nature has been given suited to God, and to enjoy Him in light. The conscience is purged by the blood, on the ground of which he has been born of God. The Holy Spirit dwells in his body, and the same man, not now “his own,” but “bought with a price,” has to glorify God with his body, and hold it as the vessel, whether of the mind and character, or affections now wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, leading him to live by an object outside himself — even Christ. Thus the Apostle desires that “spirit, soul, and body” may be kept blameless till the day of Christ, when complete assimilation to Christ, even of his body, will take place. He has to walk as dead to the world, dead to sin, dead to the law; dead and risen with Christ. Morally of that new place into which Christ has entered as dead and risen, while still connected with the old creation, and in obedience recognizing what is of God in it; yet remembering that sin has come in and marred it all.

Words of Truth 5:176-180.

Governmental Forgiveness

Q. “A. L. O. C.” What is the meaning of the parable of the debtor who was forgiven, and then put in prison until he paid to the uttermost? Is it Jewish? and what is the application to us?

A. I presume you allude to Matthew 18:23-35. The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the Son of Abraham and Son of David, presented to the Jews and rejected; then the consequences to the Gentiles in two ways, namely, a new form to the kingdom of the heavens, and the bringing in of the Church, announced as replacing Israel. Consequently, you find, as in connection with the kingdom of heaven, the governmental dealings of God strongly marked. Primarily, you find God’s dealings with the Jew. He, as a servant, owed the debt of ten thousand talents, and could not pay. All God’s culture of him, culminating in His sending the Lord Jesus, only enhanced the debt. The Lord on His cross, in the name of that sinful people, pleaded for them in the words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” They were governmentally pardoned, and vengeance for the blood of Messiah was not demanded at the moment. (I mean governmentally in contrast to that forgiveness which has reference to eternal things). The answer to that prayer of the Lord was the offer of national pardon in Acts 3:14, etc., by the Spirit of God sent down from heaven, by Peter’s mouth: “I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.” Thus judgment was delayed for the time, through the compassion of God, although nationally they did not respond to the offer. Then came the free dealings of the grace of God to the Gentiles, through Saul of Tarsus. They owed, in comparison with the Jew, but “an hundred pence”; still, what they owed, they owed to them, for “salvation was of the Jews.” Thus, the same servant — forgetting the gracious forgiveness extended to him — went out and took his fellow servant by the throat, and demanded the debt. So, you find in 1 Thess. 2:14-16, the attitude of the Jew to his Gentile brother; so with Paul’s defense (Acts 22) where the Jews gave him audience to the words, “Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles,” and then they took the one who announced it, as it were, by the throat, and would not hear another word. Wrath came upon them then to the uttermost. God delivered them up nationally to judgment by the Gentiles under the Roman armies, and they have remained in bondage and ruin ever since under His righteous government, till they shall pay in suffering and sorrow, all that was due — until Jerusalem shall have received double for all her sins, and the word “comfort ye, my people,” is pronounced (see Isa. 40).

This is the direct thought in the parable; but, as is usual in Matthew, you find not only dispensational teaching, but personal lessons as well as moral principles. So here you learn the principles by which we should live as those who owed ten thousand talents, and whom grace has pardoned. We must go and imitate God, who has so dealt with us. Alas, how solemn to find that so many having taken up Christianity as a profession, have failed in grace to others, and thus proved the insincerity of their profession; surely they will not escape. The kingdom of heaven always assumes that there may have come in profession under the name of Christ, and that such will solemnly meet its end in judgment where no life is. Life is known by practice, characterized by grace that bestowed it, and thus its teaching is applicable to us.

Words of Truth 5:199, 200.

Commencement of Ministry Concerning the One Body

Q. “E. W. M.” Did the ministry of Paul, concerning “one body,” the church, commence when he was a prisoner at Rome? Because, at the conclusion of his oral testimony in Acts 26, he says to Agrippa that he was “saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come.” Now we know his written testimony goes much beyond this.

Does the Acts at all comprehend the church of God as united to Christ in heavenly glory? and is the distinction of Jew and Gentile (the absence of which characterizes the church) maintained all through the Acts?

A. In Paul’s answer before Agrippa you will find many more things stated than those embraced in verses 22, 23. The union of the saints with Christ on high is owned of the Lord by the words, “Why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4). Paul was to be a minister and a witness of what he had seen, i.e, the appearing of a glorified Christ, and of those things in which He would appear to Paul — embracing fresh revelations of truth communicated through him at subsequent seasons, for all truth was not communicated to him at the moment of his conversion. But the Jews, being his accusers, and king Agrippa being one who knew the prophets and was versed in the Jewish Scriptures, the statements of the verses quoted (Acts 26:22,23), rather show that he was saying nothing contrary to the testimony of God in the Scriptures, which the Jews who accused him professed to accept.

Besides, Paul wrote 1 Corinthians during the early part of his stay at Ephesus, and sent it by Titus (compare Acts 19:22, with 1 Corinthians 16:8-10, 2 Corinthians 7:6). In it he taught the doctrine of the Church as “one body” (see chapter 12. He also wrote the Epistle to the Romans from Corinth during his ministrations there (see Rom. 16:1), where he commends Phoebe, who served the assembly at Cenchrea, near to Corinth; and in it he speaks of the practical relationship of Christ’s members as “one body” in chapter 12.

His ministry of the church as “one body” was no new thing when at Rome. He had taught it all through before he became the prisoner of Jesus Christ.

We must remember that Acts is transitional in its character. Jewish Christians were emerging from Judaism, and God thought of the strong prejudices of His ancient people, and forbore with them until the last testimony to them in Hebrews to “go forth unto him, without the camp” (Heb. 13:13) before Jerusalem was destroyed by the armies of Titus (compare Matt. 22:7). The Acts is historic Scripture, the Epistles are doctrinal. This accounts for much; but strong traces abound throughout the book of the Acts to prove that the doctrine of “one body,” the church, was the groundwork of all, and that care was taken to maintain the unity. Samaria must receive the Holy Spirit from Jerusalem (Acts 8). Antioch was not permitted to settle the question as to the law, and so to create a breach with Jerusalem (Acts 15). Jerusalem herself must surrender the right of imposing the law on Gentiles. So in many instances.

Words of Truth 5:218, 219.

Quickening, Sealing, Deliverance

Q. “H W. T.” You ask (1) “When is a person sprinkled by the blood of Christ?” and also, (2) “Is the unbeliever quickened?”

A. 1. As to the first question: the only passages in the New Testament where παντιξω to sprinkle; or πάντισμός — sprinkling, are used definitely with reference to Christians, are Hebrews 10:22, “Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience”; in Hebrews 12:24, “To the blood of sprinkling”; also in 1 Peter 1:2, “Unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

In the first passage, there is reference in the writer’s mind to the triple action of washing with water, sprinkling with blood, and anointing with oil observed in the ceremonial consecration of the priests (Ex. 29; Lev. 8). He omits the last mentioned, which was typical of the anointing of the Holy Spirit; for, while teaching Christians as to their own privileges, he leaves it open, as far as the knowledge of remission of sins reaches for Israel’s blessing in the kingdom. Then the veil will not be rent for them, and while there may be access by faith within it to God, they do not draw nigh as we do, with purged consciences, and through a veil which has been rent, into the presence of God in the holiest. The glory will have then come out to them, instead of their going in to it — which is our portion; therefore, the anointing with the Holy Spirit is not mentioned. Israel’s blessings are founded on water and blood. I notice this important difference in passing.

In Hebrews 12:24, he unfolds the richer value of the blood of Jesus Christ, than that of Abel; called here the blood of sprinkling, in connection with the New Covenant, as there had been the analogous sprinkling of the book and the people when Moses inaugurated the Old. The blood of Jesus spake of fullest grace to those who shed it; that of Abel cried from the ground for vengeance against the murderer, Cain.

In 1 Peter 1:2, the apostle states, that believers out of the nation of Israel, being born of God, are sanctified unto two things; (1) To obey after the pattern of Jesus, in giving up their own wills for God’s; in contradistinction to the obedience of the law, to which they had been sanctified under the Old Covenant, and (2) thus sanctified, or separated absolutely to God, they come under the value and efficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ, through which they are cleansed from their sins, in contrast with the blood of the Old Covenant, which sealed their condemnation.

Thus far, as to the passages where the expression is used. Now I think that you will find, that in the Old Testament the blood is always presented to God, when it is a question of sins — sprinkled on the mercy-seat; before the mercy-seat; at the altar of burnt-offering; on the altar of incense, &c., &c. — to give a righteous ground for the Lord’s relationship with His people, His dwelling amongst them, or of their worship; also, to restore those relationships when interrupted. The only exception seems to have been in the ceremony of the cleansing of the leper (Lev. 14).

But in the New Testament the blood is always, without exception, presented to God, though we see it by faith. In Romans 3:25, Christ has been set forth as a propitiatory, or mercy seat, which answers to the propitiatory in the ark of the covenant, where God’s manifested presence was seen in the Holiest of all (see Lev. 16). And this rightly so in this chapter, for Paul is laying a righteous ground for God’s action in justifying the ungodly who believe in Jesus. Romans 3 is all God’s side; Romans 4 gives our side as sinners. On the day of Atonement (Lev. 16) the first goat’s blood was carried within the veil, to meet the claims of the throne of God; the blood was only presented for His eye. Also, in the Passover, He was to see it; and His passing over them was righteous, because it met His eye, and answered the claims of His holiness. So in Colossians 1:20, the peace of the throne of God was made through the blood of the Cross, on the ground of which creation will be, and we are reconciled. In Hebrews 9:12, Christ enters heaven through His own blood. In Hebrews 10:19, we enter into the holiest because of it. In 1 John 1:7, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from every sin, giving God a righteous ground to have us in the light with Himself; and so on.

I do not find in the New Testament the thought, that it was ever sprinkled on the person at all, to cleanse away his sins. He was justified because of it, has redemption through it, and forgiveness; access to the holiest, etc., because it has been offered to God. On this ground the Word of God (which is the water) comes, and by it we are born again — but born of God on the ground of the redemption which has been accomplished through the blood. This accounts for the different order of presentation of the water and blood in John’s gospel, and his epistle. In the former the blood comes first in order: — “One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.” The blood expiates, and answers God’s claims — and because of its value, He sends out the water of the word (compare Eph. 5:26); and through it we receive conviction of our sins, and cleansing in the value of the blood. The epistle being our side, as the gospel was God’s, the order is reversed. The water and blood is the order (1 John 5); the water has reached our consciences first, to bring us to God in the value of the blood.

I would, therefore, conclude that sprinkling of the person to cleanse away his sins, is not a New Testament thought; and I would also say that the moment the water of the word has reached the conscience of a sinner he is clean in God’s sight because of the blood, on the ground of which God has acted, though his conscience may not yet have entered upon the value of it. In fact the first action of the word is to make the conscience bad, creating unhappiness as to one’s state — conviction of sins — anxiety, &c. When the word has been received with joy at the first, it has only reached the natural conscience, or the intellect; there is no divine work, and the blade withers. A stony ground hearer has probably been produced. This is constantly the case in the ordinary preaching of the day in which we live. When there is a real searching of the conscience by the word of God, unhappiness and exercise is produced; then the value of the blood with God having been learned, the conscience is purged and there is peace.

2. Most assuredly it is an unbeliever who is quickened, otherwise he would be a believer of his own act. Where, then would be the truth of John 1:10-12; James 1:18? If God did not quicken us by the word, we never should be saved. No doubt, on the other side, man is responsible to believe; but that is beside this question. It is the action of the word of God by the Holy Spirit, on the conscience of the individual producing conviction of its state, and repentance or moral judgment of this state by the quickened one. God has acted on the ground of the blood in quickening him. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). The person who has thus received life may not have the conscious knowledge of redemption for many a day. The throes of a new birth may last long enough, indeed, before the soul is at liberty. When the conscience is purged, and the forgiveness of sins known, the Holy Spirit dwells personally as a seal (a further action) in the person who has believed. It is the knowledge of forgiveness which is thus sealed. Deliverance may not be known at the time.

Before the deliverance of the Red Sea, the cloud and pillar came down. Before the learning of deliverance from a sinful state (Rom. 5:12-21; 6; 7:8), and after the person’s sins are forgiven in Romans 4, the Holy Spirit is given unto us (Rom. 5:5). Forgiveness of sins would be followed by the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:38. It was so, historically, in Acts 10:43, 44, 45. Just as the words “forgiveness of sins” fell from Peter’s lips on the ears and hearts of those previously quickened, the gift of the Holy Spirit followed as a seal.

The Christian and Attractions to the Flesh

Q. “E. A. H.; Clare,” asks if a Christian would be attracted by those things which are pleasing to the flesh; or if it is possible to be in such a state of soul as that which would not be gratified by the things which formerly were desired.

A. It must ever be remembered that a Christian has not ceased, in becoming one; to possess the flesh — the carnal mind, which is as much opposed to God as before his conversion. Of it God says, “It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7); and this even in the saint has not been removed. The more mature we are in spiritual growth, the more deeply shall we distrust and have no confidence in it (Phil. 3:3). It has the same tendencies and lusts; it desires to feed upon that which supports and sustains it just as much as ever. But there is a “new man” which alone can feed on Christ. He is the “bread of God” by which the new nature lives and grows. We are practically living in and feeding either upon those things by which the evil nature is sustained, or the new nature grows, all day long. The “things of the Spirit” sustain the new nature: the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Christ and plants them in our hearts. There is nothing which tests the condition of our souls like everyday habits, dress, conversation: they come forth out of the heart, and indicate the internal occupation of soul — whether with Christ, and the things of Christ; or flesh, and the things of the flesh. But He ever liveth to make intercession for us; using His blessed services thus, the heart is kept free from the influences of flesh — that which feeds it is laid aside — the soul rejoices in denial of those things which would feed the nature from which He died to deliver us; learns His heart, and walks in communion with Him; finding the fact of an evil nature the occasion of more blessed intimacy with Him, that its workings may be refused, and the tendency to start aside from Him like a broken bow, judged. Then the heart feeds on Christ, and the state of soul which refuses the things that would shut Him out is there, and former things that gratified lose their power. It is quite possible that a Christian may be in such a state of soul, as not to desire those things that gave such gratification in times past. The superior engagement of the heart with Christ has produced this, rather than the effort in ascetic zeal to curb that which is discordant with it.

Words of Truth 5:231-235.

Character of Christ's Priesthood Now: Aaronic or Melchisedec?

Q. “Ina: Kent,” asks: 1. What is the character of Christ’s priesthood now; Aaronic or Melchisedec?

1. Is Aaronic priesthood, intercessory? and Melchisedec, blessing? If so, can Christ assume the latter order of priesthood until the millennium?

2. When did Christ assume His priesthood? Was it not after His ascension? (Heb. 8:4).

A. 1. As a rule, Aaronic priesthood is characterized by atonement and intercession; that of Melchisedec by power and blessing. He is “the high priest of our profession,” as Christians: He will be in result “priest of the Most High God” — God’s millennial name.

The order of His priesthood is (as ever) that of Melchisedec — its exercise at present after the pattern or character of Aaron, that is, intercessional. He was “called” to the priesthood by the word of Him that said unto Him, “Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee” (Heb. 5:5). This has reference to His being the Son of God, as born of a woman, and born in time on earth. Compare Psalm 2:7, and Luke 1:35. This is distinct from His being God’s eternal Son.

He is installed in His priesthood after the order of Melchisedec, as having gone on high when he had been rejected on earth, had died and risen, and had ascended to heaven. Compare Hebrews 5:6 and Psalm 110:4.

He was perfected for His priesthood (especially for its present exercise), “in the days of his flesh,” through strong crying and tears, and His pathway of sorrow and suffering, and then He went on high; Hebrews 5:7-9; Mark 14:33-40; Luke 22:40-53.

Having gone through all this, He was “saluted of God an High priest after the order of Melchisedec” (Heb. 5:10), when He ascended into the heavens. There and then He first practically exercised His priesthood. (See query 3.) When He comes forth again He will exercise it after its true order, as Melchisedec.

There was an action done on the cross by Him as priest before He took His seat on high. It is noticed in Hebrews 2:17. But strictly speaking it was not a priestly act, though it was the act of a priest. I allude to His making propitiation for the sins of the people. In Scripture you will find that priesthood in its true character follows the work of redemption. As sinners the people needed a sacrifice, but as saints they need a priest. The High Priest standing confessing the sins of the people, was not, in this act, in his normal place as standing between a reconciled people and God. Christ was both priest and sacrifice to make propitiation for the sins of the people; but having done this as a priest He enters on the exercise of His priesthood (in heaven), standing between a people who have been reconciled to God, and a God who has reconciled them to Himself.

Then follows an immense heavenly interval, characterized by the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling on earth, before Christ comes forth to minister joy and strength and blessing as Melchisedec, in the age to come. Here then, is where Christianity comes in. In the epistle to the Hebrews, He is only known as gone in, never as come out: though there is a promise that He will. This stamps the primary application of the epistle to Christians in the most characteristic manner. For, as Christians, we have to do with a Priest who is gone in to the holiest; Israel has to do with a priest who has come out!

No doubt, His priesthood in the holiest now sustains His people Israel as a separate people on earth, till the morning of their history arrives. They are apparently lost to man’s eyes, but the true Priest orders a light for this people “before the Lord continually,” “from the evening unto the morning” of their history: the twelve loaves on the pure table in their two rows, with the frankincense put on them, in type shows how He maintains them in a perpetual memorial before the Lord (see Lev. 24:1-9).

The typical exercise of the Melchisedec priesthood is seen in Genesis 14:18-20. Abram returns from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and the confederate Kings in Shaveh, and Melchisedec comes forth in connection with the name of the “Most High,” God’s millennial name — then, in millennial day, “possessor,” manifestly, “of heaven and earth.” He deals strength and joy (bread and wine) to the victorious Hebrew — blesses him, and blesses the God of Abram who had delivered him from his foes.

Thus, in the opening of the age to come (the millennium), when the great confederate battle of the kings of the earth is fought, and the seed of Abraham delivered from their foes, Christ appears, introducing joy and strength, and as Priest of the Most High God —then manifestly possessor of heaven and earth — the one now the abode of evil spirits, and the other the scene of man’s evil and Satan’s lie. He sits as a Priest on His throne (Zech. 6:13), the link between the then cleansed heavens, and the renewed earth, and Jehovah will “hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel” (the seed of God), “and I will sow her unto me in the earth” — that is, the restored and delivered people, which He never yet has done (Hos. 2:2123). A stream of full blessing then flows from God in that day through Melchisedec.

Thus this priesthood is all blessing, after He has come forth, at a future day. This answers much of query 2.

At present we only know Him as gone in to the heavens, ever living (there) to make intercession for those that come unto God by Him (Heb. 7:25). His order of priesthood never changes. His exercise of it is certainly not after its true order; but the activities of intercession constantly exercised to reconcile the condition of a poor, failing, feeble people on earth whom He has redeemed, with the perfection of the place of glory in which He has set them on high.

Ready on the one side to give loose rein to all that is in our hearts, in a scene of corruption suited to its evil; capable on the other hand of enjoying God in all His holiness in the light of heaven; the priesthood of Christ supports our weakness in the divine desires, and all that God has caused to spring up in our hearts, and sustains us against the encroachments of the flesh and the world — ministering to us the grace we need here below, which He learned in His own path; because He has seen to the righteousness we did need on high before God; and thus we find from our God (not as it is translated “help in time of need” but,) “opportune succor” (εὕκαιρον βοήθειαν) to prevent failure, and falling by the way. To pick us up when we have fallen, might be, indeed, “help in time of need”; but to minister “opportune succor,” supposes that we have discovered our constant need of it, and that we are in the place of danger and liability to fail. Thus prevention is better than cure. His present intercessional priesthood is active to sustain us before God by the way.

Advocacy and washing of our feet come in as actions which flow from priesthood, while not themselves strictly so.

Words of Truth 6:17-19.

When Is a Person Sprinkled With the Blood?

Several questions have come to hand, and as it seems that some have had difficulties about the reply in the December number of Words of Truth, to the question, “When is a person sprinkled with the blood of Christ?” I will take up the remarks and questions of correspondents in detail.

“Then the veil will not be rent for them” (that is, the Jew). What Scripture can be given for this? etc.

I believe that the want of understanding as to the place and standing of a heavenly people with God, in contrast with an earthly people before God, is at the root of this question about the veil. We need two things as Christians, in order to stand in the presence of God in the light:

1st, To know how what we have done has been met;

2nd, To know how what we are has been dealt with. The first thing that troubles the conscience is the former; a person finds that his sins are on his conscience, and then that they have been met by Christ bearing them and putting them away; the conscience knows it, when it believes in Him. But this does not meet what I am —for I am still a sinner in nature. Then I am told that I am dead to this sinful nature — or “sin,” and alive to God through Christ (Rom. 6). Thus both acts and nature, tree and fruit, are met; I can now stand in the light of God’s presence, or within the veil if you please. Hence you will find that Paul, who alone teaches the doctrine of the Church of God, treats of this double dealing of God with the tree and the fruit — because he sets us in God’s immediate presence. This is needed for the status of a heavenly people.

Now an earthly people, that is, the Jew, will not need this as we do; they need to know remission of their “sins,” so as to walk happily before God. But they are never called to stand within the veil as we are. Consequently, you find in the close of the book of Ezekiel, the priesthood is again established, between the Lord and His people (Ezek. 45:15,16). The sacrifices are all renewed, and the Feasts, with the exception of Pentecost, which had “fully come,” and had expended all its antitypical blessing on the Church formed at Pentecost. The Passover and the Atonement are renewed (Ezek. 14:1825), and the Tabernacles (Zech. 14), etc., etc.

Thus you have a nation, with a priesthood between it and God, with a divinely ordered ceremonial; but, as I gather, commemorative in its character, because the cross work of the Lord Jesus is past; rather than anticipative, or typical, which was the character of the ritual in the Old Testament.

There is a gate “shut” continually, by which even the earthly prince of the house of David may not enter; “because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered by it.” I should mention that there is a prince of David’s house, the Lord’s vicegerent upon the throne in the kingdom of Israel, by and by. The Lord Jesus has appeared and set all to rights, but His place is rather on high, in the glorified church; though there may be divine visitations.

Moreover, if you examine 2 Chron. 3, you will find a “veil” characterizing Solomon’s typical reign. It will be the same in the Lord’s during the kingdom. (There will be a two-leaved door — no vail in the millennial temple; Ezek. 41:24).

An earthly people with a priesthood and ritual do not need the truth of “dead and risen with Christ”; but they do need forgiveness of sins — the law written upon their hearts, etc., and this they will have. A heavenly people need much more, and they have it too. The total ignorance in most Christians of these things produces the kind of spurious Christianity you see around, which even at its best, only admits remission of sins and a purged conscience. Consequently, its followers walk as earthly men, as pious Jews would do; and take part with the powers that be, the wars and fightings, the politics, etc., which the least understanding of the place and standing of the heavenly calling of the church would judge in a moment.

The veil was rent at the crucifixion of the Lord. Its rending marked — first, that Judaism of the past was over; secondly, that man had consummated his guilt, and stood face to face with God; thirdly, that God had disclosed Himself in perfect grace; and fourthly, that the sins of His people were swept away by the same stroke forever. God and man are now face to face. For a saint, he is as white as snow; for a sinner, there he is in the presence of the richest grace of God, convicted by the light of God which reveals it, while it exposes him.

But we must distinguish all these moral truths and facts from a dispensational order of things on earth, to be again set up on the basis of Christ’s accomplished work. Still, I believe a godly Jew will draw near “by faith” into the presence of God, as a saint consciously does now when he knows his sins are forgiven.

You say again, “The paragraph on 1 Peter 1:2, tacitly excludes all believers (except) out of the nation of Israel,” etc. So it does. It is addressed to the elect strangers of the dispersion, and to no one else. But they are now Christians, and occupying the same platform before God as those of the Gentiles who had been called into Christianity, consequently, all the blessings of the Epistle are to be appropriated by the faith of those who are Christians now; while several passages would only be thoroughly appreciable by one who had been a Jew.

Again, “It is said, the blood is always presented to God. Is there no application of the blood to us in Hebrews 10:22?”

I have already spoken of Hebrews 10:22. I believe it to be a reference — though not solely — to the consecration of the priests of old. Now the consecration of a priest is not the cleansing of a sinner. Besides, “blood” is not named in the passage at all, though doubtless alluded to, and, as I have noticed, the anointing with oil is passed over in silence. The priest was first washed with water — typical of the new birth of the word and Spirit of God; secondly, he was sprinkled with blood to consecrate him; and lastly, anointed with oil — typical of the Holy Spirit’s anointing.

The blood has been presented to God by His Son. We may appropriate its value in any way that faith lays hold on Christ. But it would be absurd to say that it was literally sprinkled on any one, and I am sure it is not. Faith sings, “unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev. 1:5). Scripture also tells us that our consciences are purged through it (Heb. 10:2). But all that is faith entering on the value of the once shed blood of Jesus?

Blood was literally sprinkled on people and things in the Old Testament — never in the New. I have named the case of the leper, and the seal of the Old Covenant when the blood was sprinkled on the people, but certainly it was not for cleansing.

I do say, “because of its value He sends out the water,” and rightly. For all the testimony of Scripture — the word, or water, and the gospel of God’s grace is founded on, and sent out because of the value of the blood in the sight of God.

You say, “suppose there had been no blood-shedding, might there not have been the blood (qy. water,) for condemnation?” This I pass, because it is based on a supposition.

We often see the conscience aroused without any results following. Would it then be correct to say, that “the moment the water of the word has reached the conscience of a sinner he is clean?” Is it not when the sinner looks to the blood that he is clean, although he may not know full redemption?

Natural conscience is often aroused without any results — most surely. But I do not term this what you have quoted here. If the Spirit of God, in working by the Word, has reached the conscience, and has implanted the Word there, a quickening or new birth has taken place, and in God’s sight that soul is clean; but the very fact of his being quickened is to make him cry out “unclean”! Subsequently the soul is led to look at Christ and His work and blood-shedding for peace, and then he knows he is clean. The sins that troubled him were all borne away long before, and he was clean in God’s sight from them, but his eyes opened upon the fact when he believed in Christ for peace.

I would not term the arousing of a natural conscience through fear, or the like, “the water of the word (reaching) the conscience.” Far from it. I believe in much of the Revival preaching that goes on, such cases are frequently taken for conversions, and mistakenly so.

Another correspondent would kindly request the Editor, if time permits, to answer if Heb. 10:22 — “sprinkled from an evil conscience,” is not sprinkling of blood upon persons, and for sins? etc.

I have already spoken as to this. Blood is not mentioned in the passage at all, though I dare say alluded to. Nor is it so much a question of sins, as of consecration, as I have said.

I have read the article in question, and regret that some have found so much difficulty in what seems so perfectly plain. I invite those who have any difficulty to communicate freely in the matter, as the very presentation of their difficulty will, through mercy, serve to bring out the truth.

Words of Truth 6:37-40.

Robes

Q. “P. J. F.” (1) What is meant by their “robes,” in Revelation 7:14, and Revelation 22:14?

(2) What does washing their robes signify!

(3) Why are they said to do it, or to have done it, rather than having it done for them?

A. (1) Their “robes” is a figure of speech to express that in which a man appears before God.

(2) Washing their robes signifies that they have cleansed them before God, by washing them in the blood of the Lamb.

(3) There is no special force in their having done it themselves. They have gone by faith and appropriated the value of the blood of Him by whom, and in virtue of which they have been washed. It is man’s side, so to say — the subjective. You find in Revelation 1:5,6, the Lord’s side, or objective, and most certainly in their case, as for all, it is done by Him, however faith may appropriate the action. But faith having done so, He counts in tender grace the action to the person who by faith laid hold of His work. All the sufferings were His, by which we are saved; yet He delights to say, “Thy faith hath saved thee”! Not, My blood hath saved thee; though that is blessedly true: but the faith in the sinner who read His heart, and trusted the love which He came to make known.

2 Corinthians 3:12, 13

Q. What is the precise meaning of 2 Corinthians 3:12-13; with particular reference to the latter part of verse 13? “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech and not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished.”

A. The Apostle having now the key to all God’s ways then with Israel, in Christ, he can tell it all out with full freedom of speech, as one who had no vail on his face as Moses All was now open and unveiled; all ambiguity was gone — the vail was off, and the whole truth out; while the vail was on the heart of the Jew.

They “could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished.” For, when Moses came down from the mountain the second time, the skin of his face shone, reflecting the glory of the Lord, who had just revealed himself in long-suffering, mercy, and grace. But this had not removed the law with its exaction, and matters were thus made worse. For it was bad enough to have broken the pure law of God; but when its claim still remained, and the Lord had thus revealed Himself — the law’s claims alongside the perfect goodness of the Lord made matters worse if it was broken; because it was now broken in the face of this revelation of goodness in Him who claimed it. Thus it was the law brought down the second time by Moses, whose face then shone with the goodness of the Lord, which is termed by Paul the “ministration of condemnation.”

This glory the children of Israel shrank from, and could not look at; for they did not apprehend the mind of the Spirit in what was coming by Christ, and thus could not see to the end of that which is abolished, that is, the whole Jewish system. “He taketh away the first that he may establish the second” (Heb. 10:9).

Census Difficulties

Q. “K. W. B.” Q. In 2 Samuel 24:9, the census of Israel and Judah was 800,000 and 500,000. In 1 Chron. 21:5, it was 1,100,000 and 470,000. Why the difference?

A. In 2 Samuel 24:9, you have the “valiant men” — formed men of war, numbering 800,000. In 1 Chron. 21, you have the males generally, who were grown men, capable of drawing the sword; but not designated the “valiant” — that is, trained men of war.

In 2 Samuel 24 you find the males of Judah generally numbered at 500,000 men; but in 1 Chron. 21 470,000, they are specifically named, who “drew sword.”

Most probably the standing legions given in detail in 2 Chron. 27:1-15, were not mentioned in 2 Sam.; they were very well known. Of these, there were 24,000 for each month, with probably not less than 1,000 officers to every 24,000 men. If this 25,000 be multiplied by twelve, as each legion had to serve for a month, it will amount to exactly 300,000, and if this be added to the 800,000 mentioned in 2 Sam., it will be exactly the 1,100,000 mentioned in 1 Chron.

The census of Israel, if this proposition be true, is plain enough. That of Judah not so much on the surface, but in the text giving quite enough to show, that males capable of drawing sword are noted specially in contradistinction to “men of Judah” merely.

Three, or Seven Years?

Q. Why, in 2 Samuel 24:13, does God propose to David that seven years famine should be sent upon him, while in 1 Chron. 21:12 only three years are named?

A. The Septuagint, or Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures, which was translated some 200 years before Christ, is constantly quoted by the Lord and the apostles in the New Testament, and thus in measure authorized by Him. It gives in 2 Samuel 14 “three years,” the same reading as 1 Chronicles.

Fifty Shekels or Six Hundred Shekels?

Q. In 2 Samuel David is said to have given fifty shekels of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen, but 1 Chron. records that he paid Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight.

A. The word “silver” in 2 Samuel (in the Hebrew, Kehseph) is constantly used in the Old Testament for “money,” just as the French use the word “argent” (silver), technically for “money.” In 2 Samuel you probably have the value of what David gave; in 1 Chron. the “weight,” as it states. The weight of the six hundred shekels of gold being in value equal to fifty shekels of money.

There is, it is said, a good deal of difficulty in settling numbers in the Hebrew, owing to marks and figures. But the use of “silver” for “money” makes the matter simple. See Genesis 44:1-8, where you have, in verse 1, money, in verse 2, “silver,” in verse 8 “money” and “silver,” in same verse all the same word (Kehseph) throughout. This will show its general usage.

Care Meetings

Q. J. H. We have long had the practice amongst us, for those who take an interest in the affairs of the Assembly, to come together to confer and deliberate on things brought before them prior to submitting such things to the gathered Assembly. Some few altogether object to “brothers meetings.” They say that everything should go before the Assembly without any preliminary meeting.

Experience has taught us that we have been preserved from trouble and sorrow by having had certain matters discussed by brothers alone before laying them before the Assembly.

Some insist on the presence of sisters at such preliminary meetings, or that they be set entirely aside by having everything done at the Lord’s table after the breaking of bread.

Our desire is to be guided by the Word of God, and I shall feel obliged if you would favor me with your judgment on this question.

A. I believe your practice to be a right one, as to the gathering together of those who care for the Church of God, to look into cases of discipline, and of those seeking fellowship, cases of need, and the various matters in which godly care and oversight is needed.

In scripture I find that there was a body technically called the elderhood, or presbytery (πρεσβυτέριον) within the assembly. No doubt, in apostolic days, those composing this body may have been appointed by apostles, or their representatives (Titus 1:5); but still there was a recognized body — not merely men or elders individually, who acted in concert; but a body so named. See 1 Timothy 4:14. Such a body was known amongst the Jews. See Luke 22:66. “The elderhood of the people,” “The estate of the elders,” Acts 22:5; both having the same meaning as elderhood or presbytery, while, of course, differing in constitution.

I believe there is a great deal done by such meetings now, composed of those who have a care for the church, and who possess the confidence of the saints, and an aptitude for such care. Many cases, details of which would be hurtful if spoken of before the young, and females, have there been discussed before the Lord; the case carefully examined on all sides, and while no action of discipline or reception is taken, or could be, apart from the assembled saints, still the case is matured, and so brought forward, in a way that delicacy is not shocked, where such a case might exist.

It may turn out, too, that many a case need go no further; the personal rebuke of the “spiritual.” The interference of the two or three may save all this, and save the Lord’s name from reproach, as well as the Assembly from that most painful of all actions — the exercise of discipline and excision from its midst. Cases, too, of need, where that can be ministered to, with the quiet grace of the Lord, are saved from a parade and the like.

“Sisters” have nothing whatever to do with such meetings. They have their own place defined fully in scripture, and are not to exercise authority. But no action, I repeat, can be taken by such a meeting apart from the assembled saints.

The cases are looked into, and the Assembly — having confidence in those who thus love the care of the Church — receive their testimony, and act upon their evidence and wisdom, and the matter, requiring only adequate testimony from two or three faithful witnesses as to the true bearings of the case.

Words of Truth 6:55-58.

New Birth

Q. T. T. E., Ledbury. 1. Am I right in believing that God’s first action in the soul of the sinner is, by His word and Spirit, to beget a new nature?

1. If so, is the life the soul then receives everlasting?

2. That being the case, how would you reconcile it with those passages that put everlasting life as the result of believing?

3. In Acts 10:43, forgiveness of sins is said to follow believing. Would that be in its application to the sinner, or a fact as it stands before God?

A. 1. I believe that the thought is correct. God’s first action in the soul of a sinner is the application of His word by the Spirit to the conscience. This action produces faith in the soul; as we have it in Romans 10:17, “So, then, faith cometh by hearing, and bearing by the word of God.” Faith is the first principle of this new nature.

1. The life thus imparted is, most surely, eternal.

2. But God’s impartation of eternal life is never separated in Scripture from our reception of Christ by faith; thus, to believing in Him is attributed the reception of eternal life in Him.

3. I believe that Cornelius was born of God before Peter preached salvation, peace, and forgiveness of sins to him and his house. Acts 10:2 is a description of him; in it the Holy Spirit calls him a “devout man,” who prayed to God always. His knowledge extended only so far as that which could be known of Christ amongst the Jews, but with no thought of its application to a Gentile. Like the centurion in Luke 7 he owned, as faith ever does, those who were in external relationship with the Lord, and through whom the blessing to a Gentile must then flow; consequently he “gave much alms to the people,” that is Israel. Peter appeals to him in verse 37, “That word, ye know,” “the word which was sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ.” But he needed the comprehensive “whosoever” of verse 43, for his faith to claim the blessing. This God presented to him through Peter, and having received it by faith, the Holy Spirit at once sealed his reception of forgiveness of sins. The new nature was there before; now the Holy Spirit, in power and liberty. Forgiveness of sins thus followed believing in Christ and His finished work, and was the application to the sinner of that which was previously a fact before God.

Words of Truth 6:80.

Forgiveness, Sealing, Deliverance

Q. E. C., Guelph. Does the expression, “linked with Christ,” convey the truth taught in John 14:20?

A. If union with Christ is meant by the phrase, the word “linked” does not express it; for while the portions of a chain are linked together, and the chain is one, still it is a unity composed of many separate links, which are not united the one to the other.

The thought in John 14:20, is not exactly union, while it approximates closely to it in many ways. Paul alone teaches the union of the members to Christ in one body by the Holy Spirit. John treats more of nature and relationship to the Father, and in the passage alluded to I believe it is oneness of nature and life which is the Lord’s thought. The Holy Spirit would be given in answer to His prayer to the Father (vs. 16), and when He came He would give the consciousness of (vs. 20). They would know, in the oneness of nature and life with Him who had gone away, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus was in the Father, they in Him and He in them. It is a consciousness produced by the Holy Spirit acting in the life they possessed in the Son. I do not believe it goes as far as the unity of the body, to which the Lord never alluded; it was only taught by Paul, Union with Christ as a member of His body is a very real thing. It is not faith which unites to Him. Faith is the first principle of the new nature bestowed when the sinner is born of God. The Word of God has reached his conscience by the Holy Spirit’s application, and he is convicted of sin. Many exercises of heart may have to be learned until forgiveness of sins is known, and peace, but the life has been there. As a rule the Spirit of God seals the soul who has believed in Christ for remission of sins. It has set to its seal that God is true —this is what faith does, and God has set His seal on the soul that has believed. The Holy Spirit thus dwelling in the believer unites him to Christ in the heavenly places. This is as real as the union of a human body with its head (if not more so, for it is divine), all being vitalized by the same blood and soul. It does not depend on any amount of inward experiences, but on having received the Holy Spirit. This latter is a consequence on believing in Christ for remission of sins.

Typically, you find that the pillar of cloud and fire descended and took its place to lead Israel after the blood of the paschal lamb had been shed, and the question of sins and their judgment had been settled, and before they were out of Egypt by the redemption of the Red Sea (Ex. 13).

Historically, you find that forgiveness of sins would be followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:38. Such came to pass in Acts 10:43,44. The moment the words “remission of sins” passed Peter’s lips, the Holy Spirit fell on those who heard. Acts 11:17, shows that it was the gift of the Holy Spirit — in contradistinction to the gifts or signs which then and frequently accompanied it. He was given to believers — not to sinners to make them believers: “Forasmuch, then, as God gave them the like gift, as he did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,” etc.

Doctrinally, you find in Romans 3-5, that after remission of sins is known (Rom. 4:5,6), and peace (Rom. 5:1), we find the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit given unto us (Rom. 5:5), and this even perhaps before deliverance from a state is experimentally learned (Rom. 7;8).

I may be sure that if I have received remission of my sins by believing in Christ, I have, as a consequence, received the Holy Spirit. This being so, I need no further experience to know that I am united to Christ, for it is the Holy Spirit dwelling in me who effects this. The experience will follow the consciousness of relationship, and will be enjoyed in the cultivation of the things suited to it.

Put the thickness of a gold leaf between the body and the head and it is a corpse; and such is the union with Christ and His Church, that it is as real as that subsisting between the human body and its head! This union is by the Spirit of God. He unites living members in one body to Christ. “Linking” is a poor word, though a right thing may be meant.

Daniel's 70th Week

Q. “G.” Has the first part of the seventieth week of Dan. 9:24-27 had any fulfillment?

A. The seventy weeks are divided as follow. They refer to the period which was to elapse — taking the weeks as weeks of years — that is, 490 years = 7 x 70 — from the time noted in the prophecy until the full blessing of the people of Israel, at the close of their striking and eventful history, in which they have been (as in time to come they will be), the display of the Divine Government of God on earth.

From the decree to rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes, in the twentieth year of his reign, and embracing the troublous times in which the wall was re-building (7 x 7 weeks), 49 years. From the building of the wall until Messiah (7 x 62 weeks), 434 years. Total number of years accomplished, 483.

This leaves one week (seven years) still to come. But in Dan. 9:26 we read: “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, and shall have nothing” (marg.).

This leaves the moment of His cutting off vague — that is, it does not confine it to the moment of the conclusion of the sixty-ninth week (that is, 62 + 7) of years, but “after” it. This being so, the Lord’s ministry of about three and a half years, when He gathered a remnant of the people to Himself, ran on and was counted for those who received Him; while the nation refused Him, and thus the cutting off would have been for the former the middle of the seventieth week, leaving only half the week to come; but all is left vague, and purposely so. I believe that, for the remnant who were gathered, the first half of the seventieth week has gone by, while for the apostate Jews it has yet to come. Consequently, it has a double fulfillment. Just as John Baptist was Elijah for those who had faith for it, yet Elijah has yet to come for fact (see Matt. 17:10-13; Matt. 4); so the first half for faith was fulfilled, while in fact it would still have to come.

All comes to this. The “cutting off” is left vague, so that it may be at the end of the half of the seventieth week, or not. But when you come to counting out of days, etc., in Scripture, only the last half of the seventieth week is ever named. The Lord’s coming for the saints may happen at any moment; and, the first half-week being thus left vague, any period necessary (longer or shorter, as the case may be) for what has to be accomplished, may take place between the rapture of the saints and the commencement of the final events of the period of tribulation, during the three and a-half years or last half-week; at its close the Lord will appear for the deliverance of His people.

The passages of Scripture where it is counted are Dan. 7:25, 12:7; Rev. 11:2,3,14;12:6;13:5,11.

When Messiah was cut off at the Cross and got no kingdom, sixty-nine and a-half weeks were gone for the true saints, sixty-nine weeks only for the apostates. Then comes in the great heavenly Church parenthesis, when all time has ceased to be counted; because the Jews are set aside, and God is gathering a heavenly Church — the body of Christ — to which times and seasons do not belong. When that is accomplished He turns again to time, the earth, and the Jew. Half a week only then has to come, the last of the seventieth, for those who had received Him; a whole week for those who did not. The conclusion of it will bring in the full blessing of Israel.

Words of Truth 6:96-99.

Emptied Himself

Q. “J.W.P.” I was lately somewhat startled to hear the first two clauses of verse 7 of Philippians 2 applied to the Lord previous to His becoming man. I cannot myself find anything in Scripture to sanction such a thought.

On the contrary, to my own mind (so far as I have light — although yet a learner) to attribute such an application to any part of the statement of those verses, seems to involve not only the marring the truth of the solemn and blessed instruction of the chapter, but to deprive it of sense and meaning. It is urged that the Lord “emptied himself” by His ministrations and appearances to, and on behalf of Old Testament saints, etc. But how is “emptying” Himself involved hereby? Neither can I see the object of the Lord’s doing so before He became man. Does not the force of the whole passage connect itself with the exhortation in ver. 5?

A. The passage in Philippians 2 refers to the Lord’s pathway of obedience as a man here below, resulting in death, without which all was incomplete. It was the perfect contrast to the path of the first Adam, and accomplished in the voluntary humiliation of Jesus — the second Adam. There was no “emptying himself” in the Lord’s ministrations and appearances before His incarnation; to act divinely in these things was not to empty Himself. But as the first Adam, when in the form of a man, grasped at the idea of being a god, that he might command, and left his first estate, under the temptation of the devil; so the second — existing ever in the form of God —emptied Himself of His glory (never ceasing to be God, which He could not do), and took upon Him the form of a servant that He might obey. The only one who could leave his first estate without sinning was God Himself. Having thus emptied Himself and become a man, He humbled Himself — a second step in His pathway — not merely patiently enduring all that came upon Him in it, but humbling himself, and going lower and lower until He consummated His obedience by death — the death of the cross. It was the last point of obedience, for in death there is no will. A man might humble himself in pride; he will not do so “to death.” With the first Adam death was the penalty for his disobedience; with the last Adam it was the perfection of His obedience — “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.” The first Adam was the great example of “He that exalteth himself shall be abased” — the last Adam of “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” The first man was driven out of the Paradise of Eden when he had consummated his disobedience. The last was highly exalted and set on the throne of glory when He had consummated His obedience. And at His name every knee must bow of the created intelligences in Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Angels, men, and devils must own the person of Him who trod this path, from the throne of glory in divine love in humble obedience on earth, until He completed the orbit of His pathway in being placed on high, as man in righteousness. Every tongue must confess Him Lord, to the glory of Him who made Him so — God the Father. Verse 10 gives His personal glory; verse 11 His official (see Acts 2:36).

The Two Witnesses

Q. “G.” Does the testimony of the two witnesses commence with the last half-week; and, if so, when do the “three days and a-half” of Revelation 11:9-11 come in?

A. I judge that there is but one “half-week” counted (that is, directly indicated by numbers) in the Revelation, while in the symbolic part of the book there may be allusion to much that is antecedent to it. But the “Beast” has power for “forty-two months” — not for eighty four. During that “forty-two months” the witnesses prophesy, or, as it is written, “a thousand two hundred and threescore days,” during the raging of the Beast, who slays them in the end. This is, I judge, the last half-week. If you seek to put into the Apocalypse two half weeks in detail, you have the difficulty of placing the last half-week first in order, and the active before the passive testimony, and thus reversing the whole succession of events.

The “three days and a-half” affect both interpretations. By seeking to put in two (numerically designated) half-weeks in Revelation you must allow the three and a-half days to run into the second half-week. By allowing only one (numerically designated) half-week you have the same difficulty at the end. 21 These days may come in at the close of the last half-week, and may be embraced in their “testimony.”

Words of Truth 6:118-120.

Tribulation Saints

Q. “G.” Why is “the great multitude which no man could number” said to come out of “the great tribulation” (Rev.

21. (There are 75 days between the end of the 1260 days from the middle of the 70th week until the inauguration of the kingdom (compare Dan. 12). The 3 ½ days run from the 1260th day into this 75 day interval.)

7:14), seeing that it would seem to be drawn from among the heathen, to whom the widest of the three circles of tribulation “the hour of temptation” Rev. 3:10), applies?

A. I judge the great tribulation here spoken of to be a general expression for the period of judgment which passes over the earth in the interval between the taking away of the saints to heaven and the appearing of the Lord in judgment with them. It is not the definite tribulation which falls on the Jews in Judea, as given in Matthew 24:15-31. It is a comprehensive and technical expression for the interval or crisis of the world’s history preparatory to the millennium.

Earth-Dwellers of Revelation

Q. Are the dwellers on the earth, of Revelation 14:6, the same class as those thus described in Revelation 13:8 and other passages? If so, would it be correct to assume that the “everlasting gospel” is not confined to those nations that are not now under testimony?

A. They that dwell on the earth are they who accept this scene as their portion, like Cain. It is an expression characterizing this class of persons in the Apocalypse.

The “everlasting gospel” is a general and final testimony, of a providential character, sent out of God at the time of the end, just before the establishment of the kingdom for a thousand years. I believe its testimony will be very wide in character, embracing all who had not been shut up to judicial blindness, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved (2 Thess. 2:10-12). To such no testimony will be given; it will be sent to all who had not thus been given up of God.

It may be well to mention that the “everlasting gospel” is a warning to the whole world to flee from idolatry and idols, and fear the one God who created all things. It was the general testimony of the Old Testament, and will be the general testimony then, until one God is known from sea to sea, and to the ends of the earth; idols and false worship then are gone forever. From this we must distinguish the parenthesis in time, from Pentecost till the rapture of the saints, wherein we have the Church called out by the glad tidings, or gospel of His grace, which was not proclaimed before this interval? and will not be in that day.

Words of Truth 6:139.

Christ as High Priest

Q. H. How can Hebrews 2:17, be reconciled with Hebrews 8:4? The latter Scripture seems to imply that ascension seems to have been a necessary preliminary to the Lord’s entering upon the office of High Priest; yet the former speaks of His making reconciliation for the sins of the people.

What is meant by reconciling sins? Is not John 17 in character the High Priest’s prayer?

A. To me a very blessed aspect of the Epistle to the Hebrews is that it is the complement, in a certain sense, of that to the Romans. The latter sets the believer “in Christ” before God in divine righteousness, recognizing an unchanged evil nature, a carnal mind; but also a new nature, the spiritual mind (Rom. 8:1-11). The former shows us the divine provision of grace to maintain us there by the priesthood of Christ. This is alluded to in Romans 5:10; reconciled by His death, we shall be saved by His life, that is, His priestly intercession on high. So in Romans 8:34, “Who also maketh intercession for us.” Then in Hebrews 7:26, we read (as putting both thoughts together), “He ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

But all this supposes Him to stand in the capacity of High Priest, between a reconciled people and God; and to this Hebrews 8:4 refers. He exercised no true priestly service then, until He ascended to glory.

But still there was something which He did as a priest before He went on high. Just as the High Priest on the great day of atonement of old was making good the claims of God, and putting the sins of the people on the head of the scapegoat, while after all he was not in his normal place as between a reconciled people and God, so the Lord Jesus, ere He entered on the normal exercise of His priesthood, as a priest He did the work of the cross; both actively as offering Himself, and passively as the victim offered, in making atonement for the sins of the people. This is what is referred to in Hebrews 2:17, where the word is incorrectly translated “reconciliation.” There is no meaning in reconciling sins; there would be in reconciling people. It should be “to make propitiation (ἱλάσκεσθαι) for the sins of the people.”

John 17 is wrongly taken as an intercessional or priestly prayer. Now, the Lord is there as Son, not priest or advocate, and He is occupied in putting His disciples into His own place on earth before the Father and before the world, with an- allusion in the end to their place in the Father’s house by and by. He looks to the Father to keep them where He had kept them while with them.

Priesthood is for mercy and grace for help in time of need, to a feeble people who have to cry to God, in a place of danger and liability to fall and start aside from Christ.

The Word

Q. Why was the Lord Jesus called the “Word”?

A. He is called the “Word,” as the Person who is the impersonation of the mind of God in the abstract. Eternal in His being — “In the beginning was the Word”; having a personal existence — “The Word was with God”; His deity expressed in the words “And the Word was God”; His eternal personality in the words, “The same was in the beginning with God.” The Word then, was, before all creation, eternal; in nature divine; in person distinct, and in personality eternal: the expression of the whole mind that subsists in God.

The Church Is Both Body and Bride

Q. W. S. It is commonly held that the Body of Christ is also the Bride. Can you prove me this from Scripture, etc.?

A. There is no doubt that the Body of Christ and His Bride are both names used for the Church. At the same time it is to be understood that there is an earthly Bride of the Canticles (Song of Solomon) — the Jewish remnant of the last days. In Ephesians 5, while Paul is exhorting husband and wives, his mind cannot pass on without thinking of Christ and the Church. He quotes the passage (Gen. 2:23,24) referring to Adam in Paradise, and Eve taken out of the man — bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh — while he slept, and then the statement, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh,” used in Ephesians 5 to convey the union of Christ — the second Adam — and the Church; the Eve, so to speak, for the Paradise of God. “We are members of his body; we are of his flesh and of his bones.”

There is no allusion in Romans 7 as to union with Christ, or to the Church at all. It refers to the law and a risen Christ, and the impossibility of having rightly to do with both together, as for a woman rightly to have two husbands. The word “married” is not in the original at all (Rom. 7:4).

In 2 Cor. 11:2, the Church is espoused to one husband, that she may be presented as a chaste virgin unto Christ.

In Revelation 21:9-27, 22:1-5, the Church is distinctly named the “Bride, the Lamb’s wife.” Babylon, the whore, said she sat as a queen, and was also described under the figure of a city, or polity; so is the Bride. She is looked at here as a polity or center of administration of the kingdom in heavenly glory. It is not the Father’s house, but the displayed glory, in the light of which the saved nations walk (Rev. 21:24).

In Revelation 22:17, “The Spirit and the Bride say, come.” The Spirit dwelling in the Church produces bridal affections in her, and she invites Christ while He is absent, as the Morning Star (vs. 16).

There is an earthly Bride, of which the Song of Songs speaks — the elect remnant of the Jews.

Words of Truth 6:158-160.

Doing All to the Glory of God

Q. “G.” Please explain the meaning of 1 Corinthians 10:31: “Do all to the glory of God.” How is this to be the primary object of all we do, such as using natural talents and the like?

A. First of all we should seek to know the direct subject before the mind of the Spirit in any Scripture; for to introduce a thought which is not there only makes it more difficult to understand it. The apostle Paul has specially before him the thought of meats offered to idols, with the conduct becoming those who are Christ’s in their practical walk in the world. Whether it were eating or drinking, or whatever we do, all is to be done to God’s glory; and not to please ourselves and our selfish ends. We should think of another’s conscience, even if our own were free, and all things lawful to us. A weaker one might be stumbled by our liberty; better then, to deny ourselves than injure him for whom Christ died. Especially then, should we observe this care and solicitude for the conscience of another in the things of God. He is best kept himself who thinks most thus of his brother; and he who in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. No offense should be given by abusing our Christian liberty, whether to the Jew or to the Gentile, or to the Church of God; seeking thus the profit of others and not our own.

As to the use of natural talents the principle holds good. We are not our own, but are bought with a price (and what a price!) We should seek to know what is the will of the Lord in their use. We may be able to serve Him by them in working for our bread, or for others, or to help in the Lord’s work if the former be unnecessary. And we have to think of His will, not our own. When it becomes a question of doing our own will it is sin.

The Lord may use our natural talents in His service by bestowing spiritual gifts upon us. Natural ability is recognized in the Lord’s bestowing spiritual gifts in the parable of the talents, (Matthew 25). The ability is recognized, then the gift bestowed, and then increase is to be made by trading with the same in His service. But the simple question of every-day life is, whether it is the will of the Lord or my own will, which actuates me in the use even of natural talents and ability; if it be His, it will surely be to “God’s glory” in a scene where His glory is trampled under foot, and man’s will characterizes the world.

Another writes (from Hastings) as to ministering in every-day life to others, even when such is refused. Let us be assured that the Lord will open a door for service of such nature, as He does for every kind of true service to Him; when He does not, we cannot force one open. The flesh may refuse our services of love (even as it did Christ’s), but divine love is never checked by the ingratitude of its objects, as a spring is not hindered by the channel through which it flows. To resist flesh is to feed it; to bow to the will of the Lord in meekness is our path. To recognize flesh in another is but to provoke and call it into action, as recognizing it in ourselves is but to give it a place once more. Flesh likes this, for it cannot bear to be reckoned dead and incapable of good, whether in ourselves or in another.

The Cup of Wrath

Q. “H.” here is an expression often met with, “The cup of wrath,” and Christ drinking it. The thought may be scriptural, but I cannot find it in the Word, etc.

A. The expression is not cited as a text, but it is the expression of a truth in Scripture. This is a common and every-day thing. Christ made propitiation, and bore the wrath. We say He made atonement for sin, and rightly so; the word signifies that wrath was there, and should be appeased. The same word is used by Jacob, when he says, “I will appease him by a present” (Gen. 32). Christ did all this just because wrath was there against sin and sinners. He met fully the character of God without changing it, and thus opened a righteous channel for His love to flow. It is not said in terms that He bore wrath, lest you should think He was personally under wrath Himself; but as a propitiation He met it, thank God, as we can say. Wrath against sin and sinners is constantly mentioned in Scripture. “Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee” (Job 36:18). “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,” etc. (Rom. 1:18). “And were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Eph. 2:2). There are many other passages, as a concordance will show. I have not one by me at present.

This wrath must be met, and Jesus met it. But before He went to the cross, where He did so, He revealed the Father, which is always God’s name in grace as revealed by the Son. When you think of God as such, you think of a holy being; when of the Father sending the Son, you think of grace! At the cross He met all that the nature of God required, and brought more glory to Him than if there had been no sin, and this, too, as a Man (see John 13:31,32). There (the cross) you see a Man meeting God in righteousness and judgment against sin, as in life He was showing what God was for man in grace. There you see truth, holiness, righteousness against sin, love to the sinner, majesty, all uniting, yet for the moment the evil seemed to triumph over the good. Thus the cross was the perfect solution of the question of good and evil according to the nature of God Himself; evil completing itself and good having its perfect triumph; God glorified, and His justice which refused admittance to the sinner, hanging up a vail between him and God, is disarmed, and now only finds her happy task — the vail being rent by the stroke which met her claim — in clothing the sinner in the best robe, whose entrance to God’s presence hitherto she denied.

Jesus was the declarer of the Father when here; and all the fullness of the godhead was pleased to dwell in Him bodily (see Col. 1:19; 2:9). I do not believe there will be any other revelation of God — nor could there be. When God has been revealed there can be no more to reveal. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” We shall see more plainly when flesh and sense are gone, but the object will be the same Jesus — forever. Two verses of a well-known hymn, on Revelation 5., convey to my mind the thought better than most human words can do —

All the Father’s counsels claiming

Equal honors to the Son

All the Son’s effulgence beaming

Makes the Father’s glory known.

By the Spirit all pervading,

Hosts unnumbered round the Lamb:

Crowned with light and joy unfading,

Hail Him as the great I AM.

“The presence of his glory” would refer more to the unveiled glory of God, which we never yet have seen, nor could we with mortal eye. So Gabriel spoke of standing in the presence, or before God; Jesus, too, of the angels beholding the face of His Father; which means that they are mystically represented before Him who thinks in grace of such. To seek to learn some other thought from the passage would be, I fear, but to introduce one.

Words of Truth 6:198-200.

The Restrainer

Q. “A. L. O. C.” There are some who maintain that when the Church is taken away, the Holy Spirit will then be withdrawn. Is it so? 2 Thess. 2:7 speaks of a restrainer till the “wicked” sets himself up as God?

A. The personal place in the Church on earth which the Holy Spirit assumed, as sent down from heaven at Pentecost, only remains true as long as the Church of God is here. You must distinguish between His actions on earth previously and Himself now personally dwelling in the Church, which is peculiar to Christianity. When it ceases as a system on earth, as existing only during Christ’s rejection and absence, the Holy Spirit’s personally dwelling on earth is no more needed; for Christ will then be present Himself and reigning in power. The Holy Spirit will then work, and His actions be known and manifested, as was the case before He came to dwell, and will thus continue to carry out all divine good as God’s direct power, and in the unity of the godhead.

Scripture does not state that the Holy Spirit is the One who “letteth,” in 2 Thess. 2:9. The wisdom of God has left the restrainer unnamed. Of old the saints believed it to be the then Roman Empire, and were probably right. Now, it doubtless is the power of God working by His Spirit in the Church on earth — as we can gather from general intelligence of the Word. When the Church is taken away there may be a long or short interval before the manifestation of the “man of sin.” God will then use whatever He pleases as the restrainer. It may be the Holy Spirit’s action in the godly Jew or whatever He wills. Hence it is left vague in the passage. Any instrument may be at the moment this restrainer in God’s hand.

The Holy Spirit will be “poured out upon all flesh” in the millennial day — a remarkable manifestation of His power and action. As to “dwelling” it is peculiar to the period of Christ’s rejection and absence. He is the Spirit of communion, leading the children of God into the consciousness of the possession of their own things.

When He ceases thus to dwell, the Lord gives a testimony to the world, through His earthly people Israel — the Jew. This is termed the “spirit of prophecy,” because it is the desire produced in the hearts of the godly for what they have not yet possessed, but are looking for; and this expresses itself as “the testimony of Jesus,” that is, the testimony He gives at that day.

In Enoch you find illustrated the spirit of communion; in Noah the spirit of prophecy. The one walks with God; has the testimony that he is pleasing to Him, and is translated out of the scene before the judgments of which he testified were poured out on the world. In this he is a figure of the Church. The other must pass through the waters of tribulation and build an ark, prophesies about blessings he had not yet enjoyed, preaches righteousness to an ungodly world, and becomes heir of the renewed earth. He typifies the Jewish remnant in whom the Spirit of God works during the interval before the millennium is set up.

The Paraclete or Comforter is the name given to Him in His actions and sojourn on earth with and in the Church, as the Messiah was the Comforter or Consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25). “I will send you another Paraclete,” or “Comforter,” points to Christ Himself, as amongst those godly ones as their Comforter then; this, too, while Christ is away.

The Binding of Satan, and Sin

Q. Will sin cease when the Enemy is bound?

A. We learn of Israel — “Thy people also shall be all righteous,” etc. (Isa. 60:21). And that the multitude of Gentiles saved through the great tribulation (Rev. 7:9-17) all call upon the name of the Lord; “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto Jehovah; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee” (Psa. 22:27). But we also learn of a solemn outbreak of sin and sinners at its close, when Satan is once more set free (Rev. 20:6-9). We also find that during this time of blessing the direct manifested government of God will cut off by judicial death those who sin (See Psa. 101 passim; Isaiah 65:20, etc.) Those, then, who are born in the millennial day will need to be “born again,” as much then as now, though those who begat them are the Lord’s.

This being so, sin in man’s nature, that is, the flesh, is the same as since the fall; but Satan, who can act upon it by temptation, will be bound, and the “world” (the present great system built up on man’s departure from God) — “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life” — this moral system will then have passed away, and the renewed earth be under the peaceful sway of Jesus. Consequently the “world” will be no more an evil system to allure the “flesh,” through the power of the “devil,” and to sin in that day will be willful sin against Christ, in manifested power and glory.

“The evil heart of unbelief” will show how “evil” indeed it is, in a day when all is light and manifestation, should it be unbelieving at such a time; in contrast to that in which we have to walk in what is unseen and eternal. It came in when man departed from God; not surely in paradise.

What Is a Living Sacrifice?

Q. What is “a living sacrifice,” the reasonable service spoken of in Romans 12:1? Sacrifices require the death of the animal in the Old Testament.

A. I believe it refers to the meat offering (more than to sacrifices where death came in), as far as such can be applied to us. It should more correctly be termed the “meal offering,” or “mincha.” The fine flour mingled with oil was Christ’s human nature as conceived of the Holy Spirit by the Virgin Mary (Luke 1). Unleavened cakes anointed with oil point to his being anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism (Luke 3); the frankincense to those graces which God alone appreciated truly and fully, and all of it was consumed — all was tried by fire and only emitted a fragrant odor to God. No honey — the sweetness of nature, and no leaven — that which is sour and inflated. Salt always added, as the holy grace which binds the soul to God and enables the heart to refuse all that is presented to it which is not of Him. In short, a sinless man was before God’s eye in Christ, and was what none else ever was in itself offered to God.

In Romans 8:2,3, we are consecrated to God and presented to Him, as in Christ. In Romans 12 as priests for whom the mercies of God have opened our temple door, we have come out of all man’s corruption, and now present our bodies, hitherto slaves of sin, to God, a “living sacrifice” as the meat offering, and as in Christ and His life in us, “holy,” to which the salt pointed (compare Mark 9:49,50), and “acceptable,” the grace of Christ seen in us (the frankincense) — all presented to God as an “intelligent priestly service,” or “worship,” as it might be; in contrast to the ceremonial which might be under the law without intelligence of heart and conscience.

Earnest of the Spirit

Q. We have in 2 Corinthians 1:22, “The earnest of the Spirit,” and in Ephesians 1:14, “The earnest of our inheritance.” If the Spirit is the “earnest of the inheritance,” what is the “earnest of the Spirit”?

A. The subject in hand in Ephesians 1:1-14, is the calling of God (vss. 3-6), which is our present portion, and the inheritance which we have in Christ in the future over all created things. Christ’s place in the calling and Christ’s place in the inheritance is ours, as joint-heirs with Him. The inheritance being a matter still to come, we receive the Spirit as a seal, as looking back at the fullness of redemption which sets us in the calling, and looking forward as the earnest before we possess the inheritance. He is named, consequently, the “Spirit of promise,” as connected with what we have not yet received.

In 2 Corinthians 1 the inheritance is not named, but He who is its earnest has been given us. It is a wonderfully comprehensive passage (vss. 20-22). God had made promises of old; His Son comes in the “yea,” the fulfillment in His person, and the “Amen” — the certainty of them all. Those to whom the promises were made (the Jews) reject Him, and so the promises are deferred until another day, when Israel will “Amen” the promises of God, when grace restores the seed of Jacob.

Another thing now unfolds itself. God had purposes and counsels before He made the promises — before the foundation of the world. His “delights were with the sons of men” ere the world was (Prov. 8). The history of the first man’s responsibility was closed in the Cross; and the second Man enters into His glory when cast out in shame from this world. The people of God’s counsels are now called; His eternal purposes are unfolded, and God has a fresh and wondrous glory “by us” — Christians — the objects of those counsels. God establishes us “in Christ” before Him. Then He “anoints” us with the Holy Spirit for power for our pathway and service while awaiting the day of glory, and seals us as His own to secure all this glory to us. This brings into our hearts the conscious earnest of all, and by the Spirit thus given. The affections are thus kept in the joy and enjoyment of our own things.

The context in each case makes the difference of language simple.

Elect Angels

Q. “I charge thee before God... and the elect angels” (1 Tim. 5:21)?

A. The elect angels are the witnesses of God’s preserving a creature unfallen; men, the saints, of His redemption of creatures who have fallen. The fallen angels are those who exercised their own will without a tempter, as man, and lost their place irrecoverably. They are reserved in chains under darkness until the judgment of the great day. Angels are either “elect” or “fallen,” as far as I know from Scripture.

Missions of the Seventy and the Twelve

Q. What was the distinctive character of the missions of the “Twelve,” Luke 9, and of the “Seventy,” Luke 10?

A. The mission of the “Twelve” was, as sent out by the Lord the Messiah of Israel, before His ministerial rejection, which in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt., Mark., Luke) is seen before the “Transfiguration.” His final rejection was in His humiliation at the cross, and supplementally, in His glory, witnessed to by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven (Acts 2-7). They were sent out to preach the kingdom of God, and were given power over all evil spirits, and to cure diseases — the samples of the “powers of the world to come” or millennium, when Satan will be bound, and man’s diseases cured. Their mission was general and final, and not specifically confined to Israel. No provision for the journey was to be taken, for Messiah’s power commanded the hearts of men for all their need.

When this mission was over (vs. 10) they returned, and in verse 18 the Lord seems to ask what the results of His own mission (Luke 8) and theirs (Luke 9) had been. It was refused. Some said one thing, some another (vs. 19). Discussion and reasoning is not faith, and no real results as a general thing were seen. Those who had faith confessed Him (vs. 20) as “the Christ,” which is no more to be preached (vs. 21); the testimony was over. “The Son of Man” was now about to suffer, being rejected; and His followers would have a path of sorrow and rejection in this world like His own (vss. 23-26). The transfiguration scene follows to sustain their hearts in such a path of suffering, unfolding the glories that would follow when that day would come.

The seventy are sent out on their mission now (Luke 10), which is founded on His rejection as the Messiah; and the declaration of His coming glory as Son of Man, head over all things. His full glory as Man while Son of the Father, is the result of and follows His rejection here.

It is striking that while they are empowered to “heal the sick” (Luke 10:9), they were not empowered to cast out devils, yet they make some tentative efforts in faith, to cast them out (vs. 17), which were answered of God. Devils were subject to them, “through thy name,” they say. Such is God’s answer to living faith, wherever it is found.

Who Are the Two Witnesses?

Q. Who are the “two witnesses” (Rev. 11:3, 4). Do they answer to the “Saints of the Most High,” in Dan. 7:22?

A. During the period known as the “Great Tribulation,” which lies between the Lord’s coming for His saints, and His appearing in glory with them, the Lord Jesus gives a testimony through the Jews as to His claims as “Lord of all the earth.” This is referred to in the account of these “two witnesses,” in this symbolic part of the Revelation; “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” God is giving an adequate testimony at that day to what is then coming on the earth. The number which may be used to testify does not signify; adequate or sufficient testimony is the thought. This witness has a double significance, as the miracles show. They are similar to those performed by Moses, when the people of Israel were captives in Egypt (Ex. 7-10); and by Elias, when the people were apostate, worshiping Baal (1 Kings 18); as the shutting up of heaven, and the smiting the earth with plagues and turning the water into blood testify. They are owned as true worshipers in that day, and they have the spirit of prophecy, which is the “testimony of Jesus,” that is, the testimony He gives at that day to His royalty and priesthood about to be established (compare Zech. 4).

I believe they are godly Jews whom the Lord thus uses in this special manner, some of whom seal their testimony with their blood, looking for a “better resurrection.”

I judge that Dan. 7:22 refers to the appearing of the Son of Man in glory who is the Ancient of Days Himself, to deliver the godly ones who are trampled down by the beast. This results in two things here (vs. 22) stated generally; 1st, “Judgment was given to the saints of the high (or heavenly) places” — not “Most High”; and 2d, “The saints possessed the kingdom” — the heavenly and earthly departments of glory.

Words of Truth 6:215-220.

The Church and Ephesians 1

Q. Is there any direct reference to the Church in the opening verses of Ephesians 1? We sing —

“Abba chose the Church in Jesus

Long before the world began,”

which seems to be the thought in these verses.

A. There is no reference to the Church, as such, in Ephesians 1 until you come to verses 21, 22; still those only who compose it are before the mind of the Apostle. Individuals were the objects of God’s choice before the foundation of the world. Election has to do with persons. Here it is the intentions of God — His purposes, which are the subject (vs. 4). I would alter the word “church” in the hymn quoted, to “saints.” It would then be more like the truth, though it is rather too broad a term.

Tribe of Dan Not in Revelation 7

Q. verse J. A. How is it that Dan is not included in the tribes mentioned in Revelation 7?

A. God here draws back the curtain, so to say, and shows us that in the midst of these courses of judgment He remembers mercy, and thinks of His ancient people — sealing a perfect number, that is, 12 x 12 x 1000 = 144,000) for preservation for the millennial earth. But judgment being then in course He is silent about Dan. He was the first tribe that went into idolatry (see Judg. 18 passim). It was a son of a Danite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, who blasphemed the name of Jehovah, and cursed, and who was stoned. (Lev. 24:10-16). This apostate is said to be typical of the Antichrist in the end. Of Dan, Jacob a-dying said, “Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward” (Gen. 49:17). The deceit of the serpent and the treachery of the adder characterized his history.

How sweet to find that when grace restores these long scattered people after judgment has been satisfied under the government of God, that Dan has his portion and his ordered place in the land amongst the tribes. Ezek. 48 prophesies of this, and even counts him first in the order given. Jacob prophetically touched on his future blessing, even before he spoke of his apostasy (Gen. 49:16), in the words, “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.”

Half-Week in Revelation

Q. (1) Does Revelation 11:1 suppose the people to be in their own land, and the worship restored in the command to measure the temple, etc.?

(2) Is this the first half week, at the end of which the beast breaks his covenant? For a second half week appears to conclude with the second woe (vs. 2).

(3) Does the third woe give another half week, etc.?

A. (1) The passage supposes that the people are in the land, and worship restored in the measure such will be before the kingdom is established. The external profession of Judaism is not owned, while a true remnant are.

(2, 3) I believe the second half week, and it only, is here (as in all Scripture) counted and named. The first half week is always vague. (See my remarks on this in pp. 98, 99, 119, 120 of the present volume, Nos. 62, 63 (Vol. 6, 1871)). The second woe commences at Revelation 9:13, and runs on to Revelation 11:14, embracing in its scope the parenthesis of Revelation 10. The third woe trumpet is embraced in Revelation 11:15-18, which takes in the closing moments of judgment which usher in the kingdom, and embraces the judgment of the great white throne, as well as the whole kingdom, in general terms.

Words of Truth 6:232, 233.

What Is Renewed in Knowledge?

Q. “S.” What is the meaning of Colossians 3:10? What is “renewed in knowledge”? What kind of “knowledge”? Compare Ephesians 4:24.

A. Our language does not admit of the fine distinctions of that employed by the Spirit of God in Scripture. In Ephesians 4 you find the “new man” is expressed by a totally different word from that used in Colossians 3:10. French has its “nouveau” and “neuf,” as perhaps other languages. The Greek has “καιός” (kainos), and “νέος” (neos). In English we have but one word for all. Yet when we say, “That is quite a new fashion,” we mean one that has never appeared before. When we say. “That is new fruit,” “new wine,” we mean that it is new of the sort, but that it has often been before; as, fruit of this year, etc.

Now, Ephesians speaks of the former; a “new man,” which is not Adam in innocence, nor Adam righteous by the law, but a totally new sort of man, which had not been before at all: as we read, “Created in righteousness and true holiness” (or “holiness of truth”). This word “new” is used for the “new bottles” (Matt. 9, Luke 5), into which the new wine must be put, etc. The way in which the Lord will drink the wine cup “new,” or anew in His Father’s kingdom — that is, in a new and heretofore unrivaled manner of heavenly joy (Matt. 26). So “a new commandment I give unto you” (John 13). “A new creation” (2 Cor. 5). “Behold, I make all things new,” and “I beheld a new heaven and a new earth,” etc. (Rev. 21). Special care is taken when the thing is totally new, and appears for the first time, that this word (καιός) is used.

Not so the “new” of Colossians 3:10, for there we have not the new man as to his genus, but the putting on practically the new man (because we have absolutely put him on, by the death and resurrection of Jesus), that is, the practical life in which we live here below. Yet even while this is the case, the word “renewed” is made up of the first new (τὸν ἀνακαινούμενον), so that while the practice of the new man is the great thought, care is taken to show that it is that of a totally new sort of man which we have put on.

In short, the two words are characteristic of the Epistles in which they are found. In Ephesians 4 it is a “new man” in contrast to the old and all that went before. In Colossians 3 it is the practical new life in which we live, though care is taken to show by the word “renewed” that it is an entirely new thing; first formed of God, and then constantly renewed into His likeness by the practical judgment of evil within, and God’s nature taking its place in us more fully, by this putting off the old man and his deeds, and our deepening in the knowledge of Him as light and love.

The word “knowledge” (ἑπίγνωσις), too is very striking here. It is not the same as that used for “knowledge” (γνῶσις) in other parts of Scripture. It means full personal knowledge; that by which I recognize a person, as I say “I know that man as one I have met before. It is knowledge meditated upon and known subjectively in the soul. See Colossians 1:9, where the same word is used for the knowledge of His will, and in verse 10, where you find it used for growing by the true knowledge of God” as the passage should read.

There is a fine example of the use of these two words in 2 Peter 1:5 and 8. He desires (vs. 5) that we may add “to virtue knowledge,” etc. (γνῶσις), and in verse 9, that thus we shall not be barren in the knowledge, or full knowledge (ἑπίγνωσις), of our Lord Jesus Christ. The former was the knowledge received, as objectively presented to the soul; the latter was the same knowledge meditated upon and known subjectively. This is one of the beautiful touches of God’s hand in Scripture through the pen and heart of an uneducated fisherman of Galilee!

I do not pretend to give a critical exposition in noting these words, but to present what has interested me as so characteristic as to their use in Scripture.

Thou Shalt Surely Die: What Death?

Q. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” What death was meant?

A. Physical death of the body. The margin reads, “dying thou shalt die.” “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,” etc. The seeds of death of the body were laid in the man when the condition was broken through which he held his blessings from God. His physical condition became subject to death, which eventually feeds upon him. This goes no further than the body. “After this, the judgment,” was not yet spoken, though always true. The only thing that goes beyond government of God in this world in Genesis 3 is the sentence, “So he drove out the man.” This exclusion from the presence of God and all good went farther a long way. Total exclusion from His presence forever we find in the description of those shut out from God and the sphere and blessing in Revelation 22:15, “For without are dogs,” etc. Such find their place in “the lake of fire which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).

The Serpent of Brass

Q. Why was the serpent (Num. 21) made of brass? What brass? There was none then. What may be the teaching of it, whatever it may be?

A. It is “copper” or native brass: not what we term the latter, which is a mere alloy of copper and zinc of considerably little comparative value compared with copper.

I think we learn its typical import from the symbolic meaning of copper (brass), as used in making the brazen altar and the like. While gold symbolizes the righteousness of God, brass is typical of that righteousness in which God deals with man as a responsible being. Thus in a “serpent” we have portrayed the subtlety of sin — Christ was made “sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21), and “of brass,” Christ bearing the responsibility of man in judgment, as lifted up on the cross. The mercy seat was gold.

What Is the Reproach of Egypt?

Q. What is the “Reproach of Egypt” being rolled away, in its typical application to Christians?

A. They are heavenly men, and it is a reproach to such that the ways of Egypt (man in nature and under Satan’s power), out of which they have been taken by redemption, should be seen in them. In Jordan (typically considered) we have our being dead and risen with Christ, and introduced into heavenly places in Him. Circumcision then followed (Josh. 5): it never was done in the wilderness. There, we may walk in grace and faithfulness, but the moment we are “heavenly,” another thing comes in. Thus it should be plainly seen that we are dead and risen with Christ, and that we bear the marks of our heavenly citizenship, every trace of Egyptian bondage having been clean rolled away.

Suppose you see one who is a Christian running after the world, and the fashions and follies of the town: Well, you say, you may be dead and risen with Christ, but you had better go to Gilgal and have that reproach to His name rolled away by the practical putting to death of your members.

Words of Truth 7:18-20.

Why Am I Called to Gain That Which I Possess?

Q. “W. S.” 1. Why does God require a person to act so as to gain possession of that which the person needs to possess first, so as to enable him so to act? See John 5:40, Isaiah 42:18.

2. In what sense is “hearing” by the word of God? See Romans 10:17, etc.

A. Because of the twofold or duplex condition of the Christian at the present time. If you look on high he is seated in the heavenly places in Christ. If you look at him as on earth still, he has to run to obtain all, and has nothing as yet in actual possession which he has, of course, by faith. Thus he possesses everlasting life in Christ, as a present thing, by faith. Yet he is so to walk that he may have present “fruit unto holiness, and in the end everlasting life,” if he looked onward, as Paul exhorts Timothy to “lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called.” He has to lay hold on what he possessed already. Many passages of Scripture speak thus. Whenever the responsibility of a Christian is treated of, such exhortations are given. When grace is the subject, it shows that it flows from God.

So with sinners. God’s sovereign power in quickening a dead soul to life must never be set over against the sinner’s responsibility to receive the grace of God and obey His voice. Men often try to set the one against the other, in order to evade or reason away the responsibility. But you will generally find that they attach responsibility to power, or the want of it in man, not to that to which God attaches it — to man’s will. The Lord, addressing sinners, says — “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life”; not, ye cannot. Yet, speaking abstractedly, He also says — “No one can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” Ask a man who speaks of having no power to come to Christ, if he has the will — the desire — and you will soon test where he is.

This applies in such passages as, “Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind that ye may see” (Isa. 42:18). Besides, the prophet is speaking in figurative language of moral blindness and deafness, not physical.

Hearing is by the word of God. God carries it into the conscience thus; as also He does by the channel of the sight of the eye in reading, and the like. I heard once of a deaf person blessing God that hearing was by the Word of God, who could only hear it, so to speak, by reading it. But God found an inlet for it into his conscience, which is the only door of entrance for the word of God into the soul in its quickening power.

Formulary of Baptism

Q. “F.D.” How was it that neither Jews nor Gentiles were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — the formulary in Matthew 28:19? Compare Acts 2:38; 10:48; and 19:5, etc.

A. When the commission of Matthew 28 was given, the Lord Jesus Christ was present on earth. (He is not seen as ascended in Matthew). And the commission to baptize is founded on resurrection only, not ascension; which (ascension into glory) brings in the body of Christ, formed by the Holy Spirit, sent down from heaven.

In Acts He was absent in heaven, and some, in finding the formulary of Matthew 28 not given in Acts, have supposed that the formulary was then changed to the name of Jesus. This I believe to be a mistake. First, because Acts being, generally speaking, historical and not doctrinal scripture (though equally inspired), doctrines could not be founded on it! while at the same time it confirms doctrines given elsewhere. Next, the formulary once given is not changed nor intended to be changed, and is to the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — the Trinity of the Persons in the Godhead, as we know the one true God in Christianity. For Christianity is the revelation of not only the unity of the Godhead, as in the Old Testament, but also the Trinity of the Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The point in Acts is the recognition of Jesus as Lord when absent; and hence this reference to His name where the cases are recorded — the persons baptized owning Him, being presented to Him thus.

It is striking, however, to notice how that in nearly every case recorded, the Holy Spirit has seen fit to change the words, and even the prepositions — I have no doubt to prevent (with other reasons) its being taken up as a formulary. In Acts 2:38, it is, “In (ἑπὶ) the name of Jesus Christ.” In Acts 8:16, it is, “In (ἑις) the name of the Lord Jesus.” In Acts 10:48, it is, “In (ἑν) the name of the Lord.” In Acts 19:5, it is, “In (ἑις) the name of the Lord Jesus.”

I believe the formulary of Matthew 28:19 to be the correct and only true one which should be used, and when used, I should in addition recognize the Lordship of Christ, presenting the person to Him as such.

Words of Truth 7:59, 60.

Armageddon

Q. What if the thought in Revelation 16:16 as to the use of the name “Armageddon,” as the place of the gathering of the confederate kings in the last great battle of the eve?

A. It has been generally understood, and, doubtless, rightly so, that it referred to the “Megiddo” of Judg. 5, when Barak defeated the confederate kings of Canaan in that day of Israel’s weakness — (see also Zech. 12, etc.) —the Hebrew “Har”... being prefixed to denote the mountain of that name. But the following explanation seems still more to the point:

The word is literally Hormah-Gideon..., that is, The destruction of Gideon, and would refer to the well-known total route of the hosts of Midian by Gideon the Judge, after Israel’s seven years captivity to the Midianites (Judg. 6:1).

This victory was characterized by the turning of every man’s sword against his fellow (Judg. 7:22), and furnished a grand and impressive type of this last great battle of this age, when Israel will be delivered, and the confederate powers of the world destroyed. That moment is referred to in Ezek.

38:21: “I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord God: every man’s sword shall be against his fellow.” And in Haggai 2:22, “I will overthrow the throne of the kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen every one by the sword of his fellow.”

“The day of Midian” is also definitely named, and referred to by way of analogy, in Isaiah 9:4, 5, as characterizing this complete route of the enemy by the judgment of God. “For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian,” etc.

How Did Jacob Prevail Over God?

Q. W. F. W., Rhode Island, U.S.A. How did Jacob prevail over God? (Gen. 32:24-28).

A. By earnest weeping and supplication. God suffered Himself in mercy to be prevailed over, thus showing His acceptance of Jacob’s strong crying and tears, and when the wrestling had reduced Jacob to the sense of powerlessness in himself, he clings to the angel in his weakness, and God suffers him thus to prevail over Him.

This scene is referred to in Hos. 12:4 — “Yea, he had power over the Angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication unto him.” Jacob’s history remarkably unfolds that of a saint who did not walk with God, yet he was a saint, and valued the promises of God, but sought to enjoy them by human means which were not upright. We need faith for the means as well as for the end which God has in view. He had halted morally for twenty one years, and now the moment came when God brings His controversy to an issue with him. His dividing of the flocks and his present for Esau showed that he had no real faith in God’s care, though he prays earnestly enough at the same time. He was a froward man, and we read, “With the froward thou wilt wrestle” (Psa. 18:26, margin). God meets Jacob alone and wrestles with him to bring him to the sense of weakness and nothingness, but does not prevail. At last he touched the hollow of his thigh, and it was dislocated. Now he is reduced to the extremity of weakness and powerlessness, yet he clings to the Angel conscious of who was there, and with weeping and earnest entreaty he seeks a blessing from Him whose strength is “made perfect in weakness,” and he prevails. He is blessed, and for the name “Jacob,” that is, “Supplanter,” he receives that of “Israel,” that is, a prince with God, who had power with Him and prevailed. God answers now with His blessing, having reduced His servant to the consciousness of entire weakness and inability to do without Him. But Jacob bears the marks of the controversy, and he halts upon his thigh for life.

How often we see this! God’s controversy with the souls of His people slighted, and at last they are brought to a moment when all is gone but God! Then the blessing flows freely, but the mark of the discipline which was needed to reduce the soul to that point is seen for a lifelong after. Yet the day dawns and the sun rises on one who has had a deep and blessed lesson from a faithful God.

How all this puts us in mind of our perfect Lord and Savior! His weeping and supplications — “strong crying and tears” — mark the perfection of One who felt in its verity the place He had undertaken in love, yet He must go through and drink the cup, and be forsaken of God. Yet here was perfection perfected. If it must be so, He will have the cup from no hand but His Father’s. He goes on to the cross, and “all my bones were out of joint” was His cry at that solemn moment, when God was averting His face from His Son when made sin for us; and He bears the marks of His sufferings in glory, and forever!

Priesthood and Advocacy

Q. M. P. Please, define a little between Priesthood and Advocacy.

A. Priesthood is the divine provision of grace to sustain those who have been set in God’s righteousness before Him in Christ. It reconciles the condition of a poor feeble creature on earth, liable to fall at any moment, with the glorious position which is his in Christ. I believe that Hebrews is the complement of the Epistle to the Romans — the one setting us, through redemption, before God in Christ, the other maintaining us there. In its prime aspect it is preventive and sustaining. “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.” You find at the end of Hebrews 4 the provisions made in order that we may not fall in the wilderness — the detective power of the Word of God to deal with the will, the supporting priesthood of Christ to support us in our weakness. So we are to go boldly to the “throne of grace and find timely help” to sustain, that we may not fail. Priesthood, then, branches out in the other activities of Christ for us into two great divisions: Advocacy, and washing of water by the Word (1 John 2, and John 13.) The former is for absolute falls. “If any sin, we have an advocate.” He is engaged before and with the Father for us, and the result of His advocacy is to turn the Word, by the Spirit, in its convicting power, on the conscience; and then, when confession is produced, the soul having bowed under His action, restoration follows. A double action takes place — conviction for the failure, and, on confession, restored communion

In Num. 18 you have priestly service in grace to maintain communion. In Num. 19 the provision, not of maintaining communion by priestly grace, but for the restoration of communion individually when lost — the double application of the ashes and water on the third and seventh days answering to that of advocacy — the third day showing what sin is in respect of grace — the seventh what grace is in respect of sin. The ashes and water used here point, the first to the impossibility of the sin being imputed, as the victim on whom they were was wholly burnt — the latter to the Word of God in its convicting and restoring power by the Holy Spirit. This answers now to the thought of advocacy.

I do not like the word, One who manages your affairs — it is too long. Solicitor, though good, is not suitable, from its associations in common use — (Advocate is the same word in Greek as Comforter, in John 14) — but, One who manages your affairs is the thought.

Words of Truth 7:78-80.

Jephthah's Sacrifice

Q. Did Jephthah offer up his daughter as a positive burnt sacrifice by death? How could this be permitted when God had said, “Thou shalt not kill”? (See Judg. 11:30-40.)

A. There is nothing in the passage, when rightly understood, to suppose he did. If you read the margin of verse 31, you will find that his vow was made in the alternative. It ran: “Thus it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, ... shall surely be Jehovah’s, or (not “and”) I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” His only daughter met him, and hence her father’s sorrow, knowing that his vow had doomed her to be a virgin for life. He had said, “I will offer, etc., in verse 31, in the alternative of his vow, taking for granted that the first thing which should meet him might be fit for a holocaust or burnt offering. If this word was repeated in verse 39, it might have been supposed that he had offered her up; but it only says, “who did with her according to his vow,” etc. — not, who offered her, etc. The reading of the whole context will show that this is the true explanation, as also her own word, in verse 36, shows the same “Do to me,” etc. — not, Offer me, etc. —as the original language will show to those who can examine it. There is no thought of her death in the passage, but of her life-long virginity — the last thing desired in Israel.

Those who read the original will find an example of the copulative conjunction translated “or” in Exodus 21:15, as in the margin of verse 31, as perhaps in other places also.

Words of Truth 7:100.

Sin, Sins, Transgressions, Iniquities, Evil, Infirmities

Q. W. G. H., Perth, Out. You ask for something of the difference between the expressions Sin, Sins, Transgression, Iniquity, Evil, etc. Also a “practical word concerning Infirmities in contrast with Sins.”

A. As to the two first words, generally speaking “sin” is used for the evil nature from which “sins” — the actions — the fruit of that nature, spring, coming forth independently of any provocation by or resistance to the law. The latter may be divided into two classes, namely devil sins and brute sins, if I may so say.

“Transgressions” are sins which become such because of the positive infringement of a known command or prohibition — a stepping over the line laid down.

There are two words in the Greek language which are frequently both translated “iniquity” in the English Bible (ἀδιία and ἅνομος) the one correctly so, and simply meaning injustice — a departure from what is righteous, the other “lawlessness,” of which more again.

“Evil” is used for what is malignant, mischievous, wicked. It comes from the same word as that “Evil One,” the author of all that is malignant and wicked — he whose temptation caused man at first to fall, and become the heir of labor and sorrow, pain and misery.

In 1 John 3:4, we read, “Sin is the transgression of the law,” which is a totally false translation, and wrong doctrine. It should be, “Sin is lawlessness,” that is, the casting off the authority of God. It is the more remarkable when we kind that Adam’s failure is not termed “sin,” but “transgression.” See Romans 5:14: “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression,” etc. Here the apostle is speaking of those who lived between Adam and Moses, and died — death proving that sin was there, of which it was its wages even in this world. He speaks of such as having “sinned,” that is, come short of the mark, while God had not as yet given the law. Yet, when he speaks of Adam’s fall, he does not name it “sin” but “transgression” — because Adam broke through a known prohibition which God had given, forbidding the eating of the fruit of the tree — and thus going beyond the mark which God had laid down.

“Infirmity,” or its plural, is frequently used with reference to the sickness of the body, but, when used in a moral and not a physical sense, it might more correctly be translated “weakness.” See such passages as Romans 8:26, “The Spirit also helpeth our weakness,” 1 Corinthians 2:3, “I was with you in weakness,” 2 Corinthians 11:3. “These things which concern my weaknesses”; 2 Corinthians 12:5-9, which read, “For my power is perfected in weakness; most gladly, therefore, will I rather boast in my weaknesses,” etc., “that the power of Christ may dwell upon me.” See also 5:10, 13:4; Gal. 4:13; Hebrews 4:15, 11:34.

It (“infirmity”) is something of which we can glory, as you may readily perceive. Sometimes persons use the word with respect to the failings of the Christian, and I think that this, coupled with the way it is translated frequently in the English version, leads to the making excuses for these things. Scripture uses it with regard to the weakness of the Christian as a man, and, as 2 Corinthians 12 shows, that in this felt weakness (which God makes us feel consciously) He works, and thus the thing done is His work, through the weakness of the vessel. If the vessel works, it only hinders and ceases to be a vessel. If I have a tumbler on my table to hold water, that is its work; if it moves (supposing this possible), it ceases to be of use as a vessel, for the time. So with the Christian; he is “not sufficient to think of himself,” or to act of himself. Then comes in a power, which is not the life he possesses in Christ; nor is it the vessel which contains the treasure, but God, holding the vessel in weakness by and through the sorrows of the way, and manifesting the life of Jesus in our mortal flesh.

It is the same word as applied to the Lord, as “crucified in weakness” (2 Cor. 13:4).

Now, as to “sins,” we know that these are forgiven us, thank God, through the precious blood of Christ, who died for them, and by faith in Him. God says He will remember them no more. A person learns this through a free gospel, and is happy in the truth of it. Another thing comes, he finds, perhaps through some trip that he has the same tendencies and the same nature as ever in him albeit having learned forgiveness for what he had done. Then comes another thing; he must know not only that Christ died for his sins but that he has died with Christ, and has thus been delivered from sin — the nature, or state of the nature, for which there is no forgiveness. This becomes a question of experience, as that had been a question of faith, and hence more difficult to learn deliverance. I say to a person, “Christ died for your sins and put them away,” and he is happy at having learned this I continue — “And you’ve died with Christ — you’re dead.” “Not, no,” he says; “I foolishly lost my temper this morning over such a trifle — that proves I am not dead.” Thus you find the soul struggles and struggles to get free from the bondage of an evil nature, and really never gets deliverance till it ceases to struggle, and submits to be delivered by another — even Christ — and “reckons itself dead to sin.” Then all is free. Yet the nature is unchanged, but it is no more “I.” There is an old “I” and a new “I” discovered, and no confidence in the old.

It has often been pointed out how that Romans 3-5:1-11 deals with the question of “sins,” and Romans 5:12 — chapter 8, with “sin.” The first is met by Christ dying for me, the second, by my dying with Him. Adam brought in the state of sin, in which Cain was born, but Cain murdered his brother, which was the fruit of an evil nature in this state. The one was sin — the nature; the other the sinful deed produced by it. We must have deliverance from the former, and forgiveness for the latter, before we can stand in God’s presence in the light and at peace.

A sinner is not chargeable before God as a matter of judgment for what he is, but for what he has done. The son of an exile for high treason was not held guilty of what his father had done against the king. He was born in exile; but he might have returned as a loyal subject. But he sins against the king too in the state in which his parent involved him, and becomes expatriated himself for his own sin as high treason as well.

So we, born in sin, have also sinned against God, and thus our practice and our state are both a state of ruin. Take a common case to illustrate sin, sins, and transgressions. My child has had very evil habits; he throws stones and breaks the windows. His conscience tells him that it is wrong. Where did he get the mischievous nature that liked to do wrong? This is sin. But the actions are sins, known, too, by his natural conscience. I send him a message, forbidding this evil practice. Again he does it. This is transgression or trespass. This was like the law given to sinners. It added the authority of God to what the natural conscience knows of good and evil, in forbidding the evil. But the law always assumed sin in the nature, though it did not reveal the fact of its existence. You could not forbid a person to do a thing that he had no intention or nature capable of doing. Hence, “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” that is, the nature, which it has discovered. If you tell the children when you go out, that there is something in that drawer but that they are not to know what is there, every child in the house is at once, as the common expression goes, “dying to know.” The command provoked the nature which is opposed to it. This is what the law did. “Therefore,” says Paul, “it was added for the sake of (37’_+) transgression”; and “sin by the commandment became exceedingly sinful,” that is, it became transgression. Hence, too, in Romans 5:13, “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.”

Ambassador for Christ

Q. What do you take to be the credentials, what the power of an “ambassador for Christ?” (2 Cor. 5:20).

A. First of all, the Apostles are the “we” in the passage and context. God was in Christ reconciling; this was during His service on earth. Then He was rejected and crucified, man proving himself hostile to the fullness of His grace in Jesus. Then Christ’s ambassadors are sent with the word of reconciliation. Their credentials were that He had sent them — their power the Holy Spirit, who was sent down to witness to the glorification of Christ, and to the completeness of redemption in Him. Still while the Apostle had this ministry committed to him in a special manner, the principle goes on, and Christ sends those who can say as He, “We also believe, and therefore speak” (2 Cor. 4:13). This is ever the credentials of His ambassadors, their power the Holy Spirit, who speaks in and by them.

I believe, while there may arise a nice and delicate question as to the translation of verse 20, that it would be too familiar to say that God was the beseecher: it would be wanting in reverence to Him. Still, as done on His behalf by the ambassadors He sends, it amounted to its being done by Himself. Still, the Apostle would not say so formally, but softens it by the “as” (ὠς). The thought is conveyed tolerably in the authorized version (KJV) of the Bible: God was in Christ; then they were Christ’s ambassadors; He was as beseeching by them. This is the evident and lovely thought. I do not think the sense would warrant “considering that,” etc.

Beholding as in a Glass

Q. What do you take to be the exact force of the word in 2 Corinthians 3:18, translated, “Beholding as in a glass” (κατοπτριαὸμενοι τὴν δίξαν)?

A. The context, as the truth of the passage generally, seems to be best rendered by Liddell and Scott as “rejecting the glory.” I have used “mirroring the glory,” but it has been thought too poetical, while “reflecting” conveys the idea in a less poetical word. Contemplating the glory by faith, we become a reflection of it, we reflect it here, and are changed, etc. “Beholding” is scarcely adequate to convey the whole thought.

The passage is, I believe, one of acknowledged difficultly as to translation: but the sense of it is simple.

Words of Truth 7:118-120.

Romans 4:25

Q. “E. Le P.” What authority is there for translating Romans 4:25, “Was delivered in consequence of our offenses, and raised again in consequence of our justification”?

A. None whatever. Some have tried to render the διὰ, ‘in consequence of,’ others, ‘because of,’ but equally erroneously. This is because of the desire to connect the justification of the believer with the resurrection of Christ, instead of the time when faith operated in his soul. Scripture never separates those things. The first verse of chap. 5 would thus be wrenched off from its true connection: “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” etc.

I add the words of another:

As regards δικαίωσις, διὰ is translated ‘for,’ as giving the sense, but in English. The point is not there but in δικαιωσις. Διὰ, with an accusative is just ‘on account of,’ but δικαίωσις is not the thing done, but the doing of it, and it is this on which it turns. If it had been ‘on account of our having been justified,’ it would have been διὰ τὸ δικαιωθῆναι ἡμας, and this is not the ease till faith comes in... The Greek rule is, that words derived from the perfect passive are the thing done, doing it, and the doer; κρίμα, the judgment; κρίσις, the judging: κριτὴς, the judge; though all are not always there. We have δικαίωμα: I am not aware of δικαίωσις.

The Likeness of His Death

Q. “Q.” What is meant by “the likeness of his death,” in Romans 6:5?

A. “As to likeness (ὁμοιώματι), the reference is to baptism, but ομ is not merely likeness as comparison. Christ was made in the likeness of man, according to this pattern. It is not the thing itself but, in the case of Christ’s humanity, clearly not the denial of it. If I have taken my place with Christ, I have taken it with Him as dead and consequently, if it be His death, it involves, according to the same pattern, resurrection. He takes the reality of the thing, but takes it as expressed and patterned in baptism. In Romans we are not risen with Him in baptism.”

Is a General Judgment a Scriptural Thought?

Q. “Q.” Montreal. 1. Is the thought of a general judgment of all saved or unsaved, scriptural?

1. Is the believer ever brought into judgment?

2. Who are judged at the Great White Throne?

A. 1. The thought is not in Scripture. The giving up by the Church of the hope of the Lord’s coming for His saints — raising those who had died and changing the living was followed by the loss of the truth of a first resurrection out of the other dead, of those who are Christ’s at that coming, a general resurrection being accepted Then came wrong thoughts as to the present state of justification and acceptance in which the believer stood, and assurance of salvation was lost, a judgment to come was looked upon as the time and place to have that settled. This gave wrong thoughts as to the meaning of ordinances which came to be treated as a means to salvation; consequently power by superstition was put into the (hands of the) ecclesiastics, and this continued as a rule till the professing Church sunk into the world. Matthew 25:31, etc., is misused to favor the delusion of a general judgment of the dead — not seeing that it is the living, gathered before the Lord on earth — not the dead before the Great White Throne, and the earth and heaven fleeing away from His face who sat thereon.

2. The believer’s state being settled here, for him there is no judgment. The resurrection out of the other dead (the resurrection of the “just”), of which Christ was the first fruits, is that kind of resurrection of which he will partake: its time, character, and the condition of those who partake of it being the very opposite to the resurrection of the wicked, and the fruit and consequence of their acceptance, as it was of Christ’s, and of God’s seal on the perfection of His person.

He will be manifested before the βὴμα (judgment seat) of Christ 2 Cor. 5:12), and there repass his life; but he is already glorified before he arrives at it, so that it will be too late then to judge him and see if he is fit for heaven. Fancy the apostles being brought out of heaven to be judged, to ascertain if they were fit for the place they have been in for 1800 years, as well as other saints!

3. The dead in sins are raised for judgment at the Great White Throne. Those of the “first resurrection” have had their kingdom blessings for 1000 years with Christ, before this takes place (see Rev. 20:4-6).

Words of Truth 7:139, 140.

Fellowship One With Another

Q. E. le’P. 1 John 1:7. “We have fellowship one with another,” etc. Does not this mean the saints’ fellowship one with another? Can it, by any possible means, be made to mean our fellowship with God?

A. The simple meaning is, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship (that is Christians) one with another” (μετ’αλλήων). The word is a plural one, but one which has no singular. If “with God” were the thought, it would have been said, “we have fellowship with Him.” To say “one with another” would be irreverent and familiar to a degree, when talking of God.

I reject entirely its being with God in 1 John 1:7, not merely think the other right. αλλήων is mere mutuality, and God would have as much communion with us as a companion, as we with Him, which is to be utterly rejected as irreverent and wrong. Scripture never speaks so of God; for God’s having communion with us as between two equals, and αλλήων is thorough mutuality.

Righteousness of God by Faith

Q. “Q.” 1. What does Paul mean when he speaks of possessing the righteousness of God? Philippians 3:9.

2. What is “being made the righteousness of God in him?”

A. 1. The expression is rather “the righteousness from God” (Phil. 3:9). First of all, the sinner who believes on Him that justifies the ungodly, is reckoned righteous of God and by faith. It is not that so much righteousness is reckoned to him; but he himself is reckoned intrinsically righteous before God (Rom. 4). God acts righteously through the precious blood of Christ in so counting him. Christ, at God’s right hand, is the proof that God’s righteousness is manifested. His first act, when Christ met all His righteous claims as to sin and glorified Him, was to set Christ as Man in heaven. His next act is to count righteous all who believe in Jesus.

2. But this is not all. To the believer has been communicated a new life; even in Christ risen from the dead, the character of which is a justified life — (Rom. 5:18) — a life on the other side of death and sin. Christ risen is this life; our life is “hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:5). Christ has been “made sin for us,” that we might become God’s righteousness in Him, as gone on high. He is, in heaven, God’s righteousness, and we become God’s righteousness, that is, the expression of it, in Him.

Thus far as to what we now possess by faith. But we are journeying on to heaven to win Christ, and be found in Him, not having our own righteousness — even supposing we had all that Paul could boast of in Philippians 3:4-6. He throws it aside, and counts it dross and dung, desiring and looking for another thing when he reaches the goal, even a righteousness which is from God by faith.

Thus you find that on the one hand he is already righteous; he is already “in Christ” by faith; while he is still, at the same time, running towards the goal, as in Philippians 3, to be “found” “in Christ” at the close, and to have the righteousness which is from God at that day.

The anomalous state of the Christian, “as having nothing” in himself yet “possessing all things” in Christ, explains it.

Words of Truth 7:160.

The State of the Godly Remnant of Jews in the Last Days, in Contrast With Abraham

Dear ——, As to Abraham having seen “my day,” as the Lord tells the Jews in John 8:56; it seems to be a general expression. But I daresay that in the scene in the close of Genesis 14, when he returned victoriously from the slaughter of the confederate kings, we find a definite presentation of the “day” of the Lord, which he then saw. Melchisedec met him with bread and wine, and blessed the most High God and Abraham His servant.

This scene presents a tableau of what the ushering in of the “day” of the Lord will be, that is, the Kingdom. Israel (the seed of Abraham) return in weariness, but victoriously from their conflict with their enemies. Jesus comes forth as King of Righteousness from the heavens and from Jerusalem, the city of peace. He brings forth strength and joy (bread and wine) to refresh the weary remnant of His people, and He blesses the Most High God — God’s millennial name; then possessor of heaven and earth. The former, long defiled by evil spirits and Satan’s power, being cleansed by the casting down of Satan (Rev. 12). While the earth, long in rebellion against God and His Christ (Psa. 2, Acts 4., etc.), are in peace, all conflicting powers being then overthrown (Rev. 19). He also blesses “Abraham of the Most High God,” and is thus as Melchisedec — a Priest upon His throne (Zech. 6:13) — both King and Priest, the link between the then peaceful heavens, and the earth in blessing under His sway. The night has passed away; the day of the Lord has come.

The knowledge of the godly remnant of Israel differs from that of Abraham, in the first place by the fact of Exodus 6:3. “I appeared unto Abraham,... by El Shaddai, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them.” “God Almighty” (El Shaddai) was the patriarchal name of God, “Jehovah,” the name by which “I AM” revealed Himself to Israel. Next, Jesus has been “in all their afflictions, afflicted” (Isa. 63:9), and has given a divine character and voice to their cry in the Psalms.

When the time of the calling of the Church is over and she is taken to glory, the Lord will “turn his hand upon the little ones” of His ancient people, in the interval between His having come for His saints and His appearing in glory with them. This period is termed the “great tribulation” through which the godly remnant of the Jewish people have to pass. They are godly; under law; upright in heart, yet confessing their people’s blood-guiltiness, they are looking for Jehovah’s intervention against their enemies. They are persecuted under the beast, betrayed by their false brethren who have received the Antichrist. All these sorrows find expression in the Psalms. In using them they begin, as I understand it, but dimly at first, to perceive that some One has been in these trying circumstances before them. One, who when He cried to Jehovah, was heard. “This poor man cried and Jehovah heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles.” This encourages them to cry that He may deliver them. Gradually the thought of His being more than man dawns and grows on their souls. Jeremiah may tell them “Cursed is the man that trusteth in man” (Jer. 17:5), while Psalm 2 will say — “Blessed are all they which trust in him.” This seems a contradiction; but the perception of His divine nature is gradually but effectually taking its place in their soul, until the moment comes when. He appears to their deliverance, and they look on Him whom they pierced and mourn, and find him to be Jehovah’s fellow — nay, Jehovah Himself.

Another difference between Abraham and them is, that they look for the earthly blessings of the kingdom; not something outside this scene, as Abraham. Though if they are slain they find their reward in heaven itself.

Outline of the Parable of the Talents

Q. “S.” Will you give an outline of the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30). There being an “evil servant” is a difficulty to some. May not an unrenewed soul get a gift?

A. This is one of three Parables in Matthew 24:45-51;25:1-30, which refer to the relations of those who would really or ostensibly follow the Lord Jesus during the period characterized by His absence and the calling out of the Church; from Pentecost until the Lord’s second coming. During this time He has ceased to deal with the Jew. At its close He will judge the “quick,” and thus bring in the kingdom (25:30).

The Parable of the Talents is mainly a question of power, rather than of gift, if you mean by the latter such as the ascended Lord gives in Ephesians 4:8-11, as head, of His body to His members.

He is represented as “traveling into a far country,” Messiah rejected by His own people, goes on high. When He departed He called His own servants, and delivered unto them His goods, that is, spiritual things (in Judaism God had distributed earthly things) varying the power and measure according to the aptitude of the vessel. “Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one”; and then went away. Thus spiritual power is imparted. Three things are recognized.

1. The measure of spiritual power bestowed according to the sovereignty and wisdom of the giver.

2. The natural ability of the vessel.

3. Activity in trading with his Lord’s goods. Then, “after a long time” comes the reckoning, and some are found to have doubled their Lord’s money, and are to enter into the joy of their Lord. The rewards are all the same here, because when the talents were varied it was His sovereignty to do so. Each did his best, and each doubled his capital, no matter what the amount. We have to be diligent, that we lose not spiritual power. This has been the case frequently with many who have not traded with that which the Lord has bestowed, their power is weakened from want of diligence in trading with it.

It being a question of power, the evil servant is judged according to what was at his disposal, and the place he had taken. The question is not that of salvation, but of the power of the Spirit. Hence he is judged as a servant, but an evil one. He is not treated for not being a servant, but for being one with whom spiritual power wrought, and which he abused. Balaam in the Old Testament, Judas in the New, and those who had said, “Lord, Lord,” and cast out devils, and done many marvelous works in the Lord s name, are examples of this. A man might speak with the tongue of men and of angels, and not have love — the divine nature, and be nothing (1 Cor. 13). Hebrews 6 also speaks of those who were partakers of the Holy Spirit, and of the powers of the world to come, or coming age, and were unrenewed.

He is judged out of his own mouth, for “with the froward he will show himself froward.” Words of Truth 7:178-180.

The Hope of His Calling

Q. “E A. C.” 1. Does “the hope of his calling” embrace all the blessedness into which we are brought in Christianity, at this present time? Or does the word “hope” refer to the glory for which we wait, or both? (Eph. 1:18).

2. What is the meaning of the “riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints?” Does this refer to God’s portion and joy in His redeemed?

A. 1. The verses from which you quote embrace the two parts previously unfolded in the chapter. 1st, The “calling” of God, verses 3-6, and 2nd, the “inheritance,” in verses 8-11. Here (vs. 18) the apostle desires that the eyes of their heart (which is the correct reading) may be enlightened to know three things.

1st, What is the hope of their calling.

2nd, What is the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints.

3rd, What is the power which puts us into what the calling and inheritance confer, and which he had wrought in Christ, looked on as man actually, and which He had wrought in the believer spiritually.

The “hope of his calling” embraces both; what we have at present in Christ, as well as all we shall enter upon in glory, by and by. In this chapter no time comes into the thoughts, but it gives rather the thoughts and intentions of God which He has made good for us in Christ. It embraces, therefore, present possession of all by faith, as well as actual employment of all in fruition by and by.

2. The “riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,” is a peculiar expression. First, let us remark that the saints are never said to be God’s inheritance or portion, nor is it here His joy in His redeemed. In the Old Testament, Israel as a nation, is said to be His inheritance. “Jehovah’s portion is his people, Jacob (is) the lot of his inheritance” (Deut. 32:9). This is never said of the Church of God, or of His saints in Christianity.

But the created universe, “all things,... both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (Eph. 1:10), are to be brought into ordered subjection under Christ, in the dispensation of the fullness of time. That is at the time, or age, when the perfection of God’s ways in government are seen in result, in the Millennium under His Son. In, and with Him, we have obtained an inheritance as joint heirs individually — as His body, or Bride, looking upon the Church as a whole. We only have it now by faith.

“We see Jesus... crowned with glory and honor,” on high (Heb. 2), yet “we see not yet all things put under him.” He sits on high, in the title of all, in four ways.

1. As creator of them (Col. 1:16).

2. As heir of all (Heb. 1:2).

3. As man of God’s counsel (Psa. 8).

4. As Redeemer of all (Heb. 2). There He awaits His glory. We await it here below — a reconciled people in an unreconciled creation (Col. 1:20-22). The day will come for “the redemption of the purchased possession” — when that which has been purchased by blood, will be redeemed from the hands of the enemy by power. God will take possession of “His inheritance” in and by Christ and the Church. It is, therefore, God’s inheritance of all created things, taken into His own hands by Christ and the saints under Him. He desires that we may know the “riches of its glory.” If you take an analogous thought in the Old Testament. As the land of Israel was Jehovah’s (Lev. 25:23); and He took it into His hands and possessed it in His people Israel, so “all things” belong to Him, and He takes them into His own hands, and possesses them in and by His saints under Christ, and thus they become “His inheritance.”

Words of Truth 7:199, 200.

The Marks of the Lord Jesus

Q. “A.C.” Could you give me the meaning of Galatians 6:17? “From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

A. Paul uses these words in writing with reference to his ministry, which the false teachers were slighting. They had come down and imposed the law in the harvest fields of Galatia, where Paul had been gathering in golden sheaves by the Gospel. He finds the work of the Gospel subverted by these Judaizers — the bane of the Gospel of Christ ever since. They had not faith to do a work for Christ themselves, and could only subvert and destroy his. “Henceforth let no man trouble me,” says Paul, as these false teachers were doing. And he then alludes, in the most touching manner, to the marks of the scourge and lash of the enemy which he bore in his flesh, proof of the reality of his ministry from and for the Lord.

As the slave or soldier of that day was branded with a hot iron in his flesh with the initials of his owner or master, so Paul could point to the marks he bore in his, living proofs of the reality of his truly being the slave or soldier of his Master. These beautiful initials of Jesus were what these false teachers could not show or appeal to, in proof of their service and ownership to his true Master and Lord. They could come and subvert the glories of His Gospel and the liberty of His people in grace, as well as His bondsman’s work, but where in the flesh had they such marks of reproach, such stigmas engraved for Him?

Dead in Sins - Dead With Christ

Q. “Q.” What is the difference between being “dead in sins” (Col. 2:13) and being “dead with Christ” (Col. 2:20)?

A. The state of a sinner as “dead in sins” is that there is no spring in the soul to God-ward, but all the whole being going out in the will of the flesh in sin. In the Epistle to the Romans (chaps. 1-3) the sinner is described as what we might term “alive in sins,” that is, every movement of his heart active in the energies of sin. “Dead in sins” would be the aspect of the soul to God-ward, because there is no movement of the heart towards Him.

Christ goes in divine grace into the sinner’s place, bearing our sins... He dies, having borne them, and rises again, we are quickened together with Him and forgiven all trespasses. God thus having cleared us, counts to us in His grace all that His Son passed through. If He dies, we are “dead with Christ,” if He is buried, we are buried with Him (as in the first initiatory ordinance of baptism), if He is quickened out of death (as Man), we are quickened together with Him; if He is risen, so are we; if seated in heavenly places, we are seated there in Him (Eph. 2:6); if He appears in glory, so do we (Col. 3:4). Thus there is complete identity.

“Dead in sins” would describe the state of the sinner with regard to God. “Dead with Christ” would describe what God counts the believer in grace, Christ having identified Himself with his state when a sinner only.

Words of Truth 7:220.

The Heavenly Calling

Q. “W. T.” Is the “heavenly calling” of Hebrews 3:1, wider in its aspect than the Church?

A. The writer of Hebrews is addressing a peculiar remnant. They had been Jews (as living on earth, where those are who “sleep in the dust of the earth,” that is, Jews scattered amongst the nations — Dan. 12:2 — who will by and by be gathered out of such a condition for millennial blessing), and had come in for all the blessings of a “heavenly calling.” This calling is much wider in aspect than the “Assembly which is his (Christ’s) body,” and takes in all the Old Testament saints, all of whom will have part in the Father’s Kingdom (Matt. 13). “The Bride, the Lamb’s wife” will have a higher place in the glory, and we (alone), as “the Bride” in Spirit now, are “in Christ Jesus,” not merely “in Christ.”

There are three normal aspects in which a person may be said to be a “believer” in Scripture.

1. As one who is earthly in hope — a millennial saint, for instance.

2. As one who awaits perfection (actual) in Christ, in a glorified body. This all the Old Testament saints will have (see Heb. 11 passim); as also those who may be slain during “the great tribulation.” These receive a supplementary resurrection (it is part of the first resurrection) before Christ appears in glory.

3. As one who has lived on earth at any time from Pentecost till the rapture of the Church. Such an one, when sealed, is united to Christ above, and will (as being “in Christ Jesus”) have a portion in the glory above those who are as in the Heavenly side of the Kingdom, in the new Jerusalem.

Hebrews, then, is directly addressed to those who had been brought out of Judaism into the Church; yet much of the Epistle will suit the condition of those who will be slain during the tribulation, and even in the millennial kingdom on earth. The believer in Hebrews is seen on earth, but as looking for Him who “shall appear” ὀφθήσεται, that is, “be seen to the eye”) apart from sin unto (εὶς) salvation” (Heb. 11:28).

Luke 21 gives us this remnant, while Matthew 24, Mark 13, would include the millennial saints. The words “holy and “brethren” very likely refer to Hebrews 2:11, 12.

David’s words, “I shall go to him,” etc. (2 Sam. 12), are expressive of the thought that he would become a heavenly man, and thus a partaker of the “heavenly calling.” The heir after the flesh has passed away, and is sure above. This would bring in “the sure mercies of David.”

Baptized for the Dead

Q. “M. C. H.” Would you give me the meaning of 1 Corinthians 15:29?

A. It was as if the Apostle said, in view of this denial of the resurrection which had got in amongst the Corinthians, “Well, since the object in baptism is death-for we are baptized ‘with a view’ (εὶς) to it — the very fact of our baptism marks us out for death. What fools you are, then, to have become Christians, if, when the initiatory ordinance points to death, there is no resurrection.”

As in a “forlorn hope” men step forward to fill up the ranks of those cut down in death, so was the place of those who “are baptized (or ‘over’ ὑπἔρ) the dead”; thus filling up the places, as it were, of those, perhaps, who were martyred for Christ’s sake. “Now (he goes on, as it were) if dead persons do not rise at all, it would be folly to own practically what our baptism implies.”

Look at the scope of the chapter and the arguments of the Apostle against what was amongst them at Corinth, as well as at the objective character of baptism as having death in view and you will see the force of the verse more distinctly.

Words of Truth 8:38-39.

State of the Soul After Death

Q. “J. M. R.” asks for the Scripture thought of the state of the soul of the believer after death, before the Lord comes: if those who “sleep in Jesus” see Him, or if they do not until body and soul are united?

A. “To die is gain,” says the apostle (Phil. 1:2). Hence an advantage is had by the believer in the death of the body. If the separate state was a mere sleep of the soul, how could such language be used? Surely it would have been much more to be preferred if he were to remain and labor for his Lord in the body, than to lie in sleep while awaiting His return.

Again, in the same chapter, “to be with Christ” is the condition of the one whose body sleeps in the dust. This is “far better.” The words “sleep in Jesus” do not give the force of 1 Thess. 4:14. It is, “sleep through (the person of) Jesus.” Death itself is ours, because Jesus has annulled it for us. We have died already in His person. When, therefore, the body dies, we are only said to be put asleep through Him. We pass out of the earthly tabernacle, and the result is, “present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). We might freely render this verse — “We are confident, I say, and well pleased rather to be abroad from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.” Surely such a word or thought as this is incompatible with mere sleep, to be “at home”; to be thus with the Lord is indeed “gain.” The believer, as already dead and risen, has death as his friend now.

As to seeing Jesus when we are out of the body, we read in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16) that he “saw Abraham afar off,” etc., and this language is used by the Lord in speaking of the separate state. Paul says, “Have I not seen the Lord?” Why then should his passage out of the body hinder his seeing Him? The Lord had to open the eyes of His disciples in order to know Jesus after He rose. Though our body could hinder our looking on a risen Jesus, would it need even a changed body in order that we should see Him now? Still the Lord has not thought fit to answer the question further. Rather, then, let us seek to have Himself and His coming before our souls, as their hope and joy.

Words of Truth 8:60.

Eating Blood

Q. “W. M.” seeks to know the meaning of Genesis 9:4, Lev. 17:10-14, as to the prohibition to eat blood. Is the same command binding on Christians?

A. The conference at Jerusalem (Acts 15) settles for us the question of “abstaining from blood.” It does not take up Lev. 17 so much as the command to Noah as to this. The question to be settled was, could the Gentiles become Christians without first becoming Jews? Amos 9 is cited for the sake of the words, “And all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called.” It is not that the prophecy was fulfilled, but that the name of the Lord could be called on them as Gentiles. Jerusalem herself gives up the title to impose the law on the nations, and the apostle of the circumcision uses the remarkable expression, “We shall be saved even as they” (vs. 2), that is through grace; the manner in which a Gentile is dealt with, mercy being God’s way, through grace, with the Jew (compare Eph. 2:4-8, etc.). When the “apostles, elders, and brethren,” write their decision, in verses 23-29, they embody in it those “necessary things,” which were opportune and right for Christians to observe.

1st, The unity of the Godhead to be maintained, in contrast to the “idols” of the heathen.

2nd, That life belonged to Him, they were to abstain from “blood, and from things strangled.”

3rd, The marriage tie was sacred, and to be kept pure. In fact they go back to what was right and ordered of God in creation, coupling it with those things I name; not as enacting new laws, but giving what was right to be observed in the midst of an evil world.

Scripture Queries and Answers

Thus, what was enacted in Genesis 9:4, is held good in Christianity. I do not think therefore we are exempt, but bound, as in all things, to do the will of the Lord.

Words of Truth 8:80.

The Holy Ghost as a Seal

Q. “M, M.” What is the thought implied in the Holy Spirit as a Seal? Could a soul be sealed without knowing experimentally complete deliverance by death and resurrection?

A. The thought seems to be that God puts a mark upon those who believe, as His, by the gift of the Holy Spirit of Promise (Eph. 1:14), who is the earnest of their inheritance with Christ, over all things (creation, etc.) yet to come. This seal is the demonstration and earnest of their participation in that inheritance which Christ has purchased with His precious blood, and which He will take by power out of the hands of the enemy; that will be its redemption, the purchase having been made. This is when they look forward. Looking back, He is a seal of the perfection of the work in which they stand, and which was wrought by Christ on the Cross. In connection with the inheritance, as not yet possessed, the Spirit is here named the “Spirit of promise.” While in connection with life, and what we have now in Christ (Eph. 4:33), He is termed the “Holy Spirit of God,” the same Spirit most surely, but in a different connection of thought (ch. 1) being in connection with what they have not (ch. 4) with what they have.

They had heard the word of truth; they had believed the gospel of their salvation; and they were sealed — having done so. It was not that they were sealed as sinners, but as believers. By hearing and believing, a person is quickened; on believing (the gospel of his salvation, Eph. 1:13), he is sealed. God does not seal a sinner merely as such. That would be to seal him in his sins. He quickens a sinner; He seals a believer. These two actions never happen together, as far as I know; frequently there may be an interval of years between them. To speak in general terms, the moment a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and receives remission of sins (having rested on the finished work), he is sealed. He may not know deliverance, by death and resurrection, for long after this, and yet have the Spirit in him as a seal. Cornelius’ case is one in point. He was a “devout man,” and “one that feared God,” etc.; his soul really lived to God. But it needed that his conscience should be purged by the work of Christ, and this he had not yet known. Peter tells him — already a quickened soul — of Christ and His work, and the moment he names “remission of sins” (Acts 10:31), the Holy Spirit is given to him. He “set to his seal that God is true,” and God set to His seal on him that did so. There is always life in the soul first, before forgiveness of sins is really sought; then, when it is known, the gift of the Holy Spirit follows, and that soul is sealed. Deep lessons may be learned of his nature, and the experimental truth of death and resurrection may not be known for long after this. Even the experience of Romans 7:14-24 may be learned in a modified way after the Spirit has been given. However, the experience there given does not suppose this to be the case. Where free grace is preached, souls that have life find forgiveness, and then they are sealed. The complete deliverance may not yet be known, nor for long.

1. the man in Romans 7 is in “captivity to the law of sin” (Rom. 7:24);

2. whereas “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:2);

3. and thus, where the Spirit is, there is “liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17);

4. so that his cry, “who shall deliver me” (Rom. 7:24) is answered when he looks to One who has finished the work on the cross. Resting in His person and work, he is delivered and sealed with the Spirit.

If we seek to understand Romans 7 by trying to fit all sorts of cases of persons into it, rather than being guided by the Scripture itself, we shall have difficulty with the subject.

After this deliverance, the soul learns still more deeply what self is, and what God is for us, in spite of what we are in ourselves; learning more fully Christ’s death and resurrection for us, and our death and resurrection with Him, etc.)

The Fearful and Unbelieving

Q. “J. W. P.” What is the meaning of “the fearful,” as distinguished from “the unbelieving,” in Revelation 21:8? Is there not a solemn import attaching to the term?

A. The term seems to be used in contrast with “him that overcomes” in verse 7. It might be translated “the cowardly.” While pure grace says, “I will give unto him that is athirst (and who but God could create this thirst for what He alone can give?) of the fountain of the water of life freely.” Yet the responsibility to overcome sin and the world that he may inherit “these things” — the eternal blessedness of the new heavens and the new earth, etc., is thus expressed: The “cowardly” or “fearful” who did not overcome — lacking confidence in the pure grace of God, who must ever be the giver — are found in verse 8. Thus we find the conqueror and the cowardly contrasted. How blessed to be able to say, “We are more than conquerors through him that loved us!”

Words of Truth 8:118-121.

The Restoration of Israel

Q. “W.” “The second time” (Isa. 11:11). If the future restoration of Israel is the “second time,” what is the first? There is nothing about the return! from the Babylonish captivity in Isaiah.

A. It might have been said that the return of the Jews from the captivity in Babylon, as well perhaps as that of some of Israel from Assyria, etc., was the deliverance as forecasted by the prophet, had not the words “the second time” been used. Isaiah wrote and prophesied until the end of Hezekiah’s reign, some time before the Babylonish captivity. The prophetic Spirit thus makes the return from it only a little rehearsal of the great future one, but names this latter as the “second” great intervention of the Lord, when He would not only recover a remnant from Assyria and Babylon (Shinar), but from Pathros, Cush, Elam, etc., as well. He may refer, too, to the first great deliverance out of Egypt, as typical of the final one; still it was rather a whole “nation,” than the “remnant of his people, which shall be left.” The first and “second” seems to refer to the return from Babylon, &c., then to come, and the final return when the day of glory arrives.

We in John 3:11

Q. “We speak,” etc. (John 3:11). Whom does the Lord associate with Himself to make “we”?

A. There is nothing peculiar in the use of the plural here. The Lord speaks as personating the divine teaching of which He was the exponent, using the “we” in contrast with that other of which Nicodemus was the representative, as He refers to by “Ye receive not,” etc. The “we” and the “ye” stand in contrast in the same verse, though the Lord, as one person, spoke personally to Nicodemus as another.

Earthly and Heavenly Things

Q. What are the “earthly things,” and why so called?

A. The “earthly” blessings are those of this earth — of the kingdom for which a Jew looked according to the promises of God, and for which a new birth was needed, as the Teacher in Israel, Nicodemus, should have well known from the Prophets, as Ezek. 37, etc., showed. They are called “earthly” in contrast with the “heavenly” blessings which Jesus had come to reveal.

The Kingdom of God and Leaven

Q. “Zeta.” How are we to understand the “kingdom of God” in Luke 13? Is the kingdom of God corruptible; if not, what are we to understand by the “leaven”?

A. It is here the kingdom as left to the responsibility of, and taken up in profession by man — not, of course, the kingdom established by God in power, which works through righteousness. The “fig tree,” emblematic of the Jewish nation, was doing harm to all around; the name of God was blasphemed amongst the Gentiles through them. It cumbered the ground, and would be cut down. Jesus had sought fruit from it in the three years of His ministry, and found none. His intercession on the cross brought the answer in a fresh offer by the Holy Spirit sent down at Pentecost. This offer we have in Acts 3. This was met by the imprisonment of the apostles and the martyrdom of Stephen. Then all closed — it was “cut down.” “This year also,” was this fresh grace from God (see Acts 2-7, passim). Another tree takes its place (Luke 13:18, 19); but is taken up by man in responsibility, and thus it would become a great sheltering power; while God wrought out His own counsels.

“Leaven” is not used in Scripture as typical of what is good; but there are different uses of it, and possibly different shades of meaning. In 1 Corinthians 5:8, we find “old leaven,” and “leaven of malice and wickedness” distinguished. It would seem that old creation is the thought in the first-named clause, and the fruits of it in the second. Now the old creation in itself is not evil; but man having fallen, it has become different in state to what God had made. Evil came in, and what was perfectly good fell. The gradual and sure cropping up of the old creation in Christianity is manifest and allowed. The Church was set in the power of a new creation by the ascended Lord, through the Holy Spirit. She was to display its virtues while in the old. The workings of the old man and flesh soon began, and so displaced the place of the new: flesh took the place of Spirit. Thus the old creation — fallen, and under sin — worked like leaven, and will do so till all is leavened, — till the Lord removes those who remain of his people, and nothing remains but the old man — the old creation, fallen, and yet professing Christianity, and in responsibility that which owns, or had owned, God’s authority, His kingdom here on earth. Everything within the sphere of the kingdom in profession has this tendency. Every appeal in a religious way to man in nature, music, architecture, painting, sculpture; that which arouses the senses, gratifies the tastes of the natural man, is that which makes, so to speak, the leaven to rise. So also in sensational preaching — popular, and suited to gather the crowd. This leaven works in a hidden way at first, “till all is leavened” — till old creation replaces the new; till Antichrist replaces Christ. Then comes the judgment.

“The leaven of malice and wickedness” would be rather the evil fruits of the old creation, as fallen from God. “It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”

Words of Truth, New Series 1:216-218.

Waiting for the Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ

Q. “W. T.” If the “appearing” of the Lord Jesus be not the immediate hope of the saints (instead of His descent into the air), in what sense could the Corinthians be said to be “waiting for” His “revelation,” 1 Corinthians 1:7?

A. There are three words used in Scripture when speaking of that event — the Lord’s coming The “coming” or “presence” — (παρουσια) is one of large import, embracing the whole thing, from the rapture to His revelation, when every eye shall see Him. Hence, this word is used generally, and with reference at times to the first action of it — the taking up of the saints; or the subsequent details of it until He appears.

The “appearing” (επιφανεια) is used for the closing action of that event when He shines forth and is seen to every eye. The former word is used generally, as I have said; the latter not so but for that closing point of His coming.

The word used here (1 Cor. 1:7) in this sense, (as also in Rom. 2:6;8:19; 1 Peter 1:7,13;4:13; Rev. 1:1), might rather be translated “revelation” (αποκαλυψις), than by “appearing.” It is a well-chosen word (if we may so say) of the Spirit in this passage; for at that “revelation” all things will be made manifest — declared by the day. Even the use which the Corinthians were making of the manifold gifts of Christ, of which they came short in no respect, as Paul says. The manner of their use of them would then became the subject of the appraisal of the Lord Jesus Christ. How much more suitable then was the Spirit’s choice of this word, than that of His “coming” or of His “appearing,” which referred to that moment which would reveal all that passed now. He would bring their consciences under its power, while comforting them at the same time with the thought that God would preserve them blameless at the day of the Lord Jesus. If he would do this at such a time, they could rejoice that he would, in love, blame them for all and everything unsuited to Him now.

The New Jerusalem

A. “J. P.” I reply to your question without citing your letter. Revelation 21:9-22:5, gives us a description of the Millennial glory of the Bride — the Lamb’s wife. No doubt all in that day will “know the Lord,” that is, “Jehovah.” But this knowledge of Jehovah does not at all amount to what we now understand by “knowing the Lord”— Jesus Christ. The former may be external and by sight, and without life being possessed; the latter can only be by faith while He is unseen, and therefore the possessor has life in his soul.

When the Church is displayed in her heavenly glory to and over the earth, she is owned by these nations about whom you inquire, as the channel of Christ’s blessing to the earth. These nations, and kings of the earth, who have be n saved through the great tribulation, or during the time of it, own this, therefore, and bring their glory and honor to it. (We are told by competent persons that we should read this word, verses 24, 26, “to,” and not “unto.”) They could go into the earthly Jerusalem, but not into the Heavenly; rather, therefore “they bring the glory and honor of the nations to it.”

During the Millennium there are Jews (or Israel), Gentiles, Kings, Priests, &c. — all the time distinctions which we now know. In the eternal state which follows, all these time distinctions are gone away forever.

Words of Truth, New Series 1:235-236.

A Perfect Man

Q. “C.” What is the meaning of the expressions “a perfect man,” and “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” Ephesians 4:13? Is ανδρα τελειον here the completed mystical Christ of 1 Corinthians 12 — “the church which is his Body”? Or, is it the individual normal state contemplated for every Christian in contrast with “children” of the following verse?

Is the “fullness of Christ” here the same as in Ephesians 1:23, the fully developed growth or completeness of the mystic Christ; or is it the growth of the individual Christian to his normal stature in Christ, the effect of the ministry through the grace of Christ, already referred to in the previous part of the chapter?

A. “A perfect man” in this passage expresses the full grown normal condition of the individual Christian; “the measure of the stature of the fullness of (the) Christ” being that standard to which he is to reach, and to be conformed. Ανδρα τελειον is also the individual: there is really nothing whatever about the body of Christ — the mystical Christ and the church in this part of the chapter (Eph. 4:7-15). The expression is used in contrast with the “babes” of Ephesians 4:14. Remark too that the apostle uses νηπιοι for babes; betokening an unhealthy state, as in 1 Corinthians 2:1 etc.

The “fullness of Christ” here is not the same as in Ephesians 1:23. Here it is all individual, as effected through the ministry spoken of before, or by whatever means the Lord works to bring about His purpose in result. In chapter 1:23 the body is Christ’s fullness, who is set over all things. In chapter 3, the saint in whose heart Christ dwells, is “filled into all the fullness of God” (Εις παν το πληρωμα το θεου). In Ephesians 4:13, the saint is to grow to a perfect man — the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ — his normal status as you say; the effect of the ministry through grace previously named.

Words of Truth, New Series 2:19, 20.

Was Christ the First Adam?

Q. ZETA: (1) Was Christ the first Adam? etc.

(2) What is the difference between the “day of Jesus Christ,” and the “day of Christ”?

A. (1) 1 Corinthians 15 is explicit as to your first question. Christ was not the first Adam in anywise. He is said to be the “Last Adam,” and “The Second Man.” The Second man, in contrast to the first — retrospectively. The Last Adam — perspectively (prospectively?), for there can be no advance beyond Him, by whom God Himself is made known. He is not said to be either of these, in terms, until He was glorified. Doubtless in title He was all that and much more; but He is not said to be either until He is on God’s throne, and God’s eternal counsels are then revealed as to Him and all belonging to His glory.

As the “first Adam” was so in title before he left Paradise, the ruined head of a lost world; yet, he was not named so until the Second was brought in; so the Last Adam was not named such until He entered His glory as Man.

God substitutes the Last Adam for the “first,” when the “first” had run his course in responsibility, from innocence to the cross. Then He brought in the man of His counsel, to make good in Him all His purposes from eternity. The very terms, “Second” and “Last,” show the “first” morally judged and set aside, and that there can be no advancement beyond Him who is brought in.

It is of course another thing to speak of substitution in atonement for His people. For them He was absolutely and positively “made sin” — the very thing — sin itself. “He that knew no sin was made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21). The full and righteous bursting forth of the whole, unmitigated wrath of God fell upon Him, as thus made sin. This He met, as one alone able to do so, and answered all that was in God’s nature against sin — exhausting the wrath by so doing, and adding thus to God’s glory.

All this, in order that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him: the expression of God’s just appreciation in and by what He wrought. It is but the just value put upon that work to constitute him who believes in Jesus an unsullied ray of God’s righteousness in Christ.

(2) As to the “day of Jesus Christ,” and the “day of Christ,” there is a difference between, and in, the use of the varied names of the Lord in the New Testament. “Christ” is His official name. “Jesus Christ” more His personal name, as ascended, looked upon as having gone through the whole path — incarnation, life, sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, glory. He is first named “Jesus Christ” in Acts 2. The Gospels were written after that day, and when “Jesus Christ” is then used, it would seem that the mind of the Spirit is upon Him as on high. He then returns and traces His path and history as to how He reached that place.

Hence, in Philippians 1:6, when the course of the saints is before Paul’s mind, and the unfailing love and working of the Lord to bring them through, it is more suited to speak of the Person who will have His day, and had run the course Himself; it would then be “Jesus Christ’s day.”

In Philippians 1:10, the expression “day of Christ,” brings the day of the appraisal of all things — even of their present walk before the mind; this, more than the Person whose day would come, after His path of persevering service here. He prays that they might be “pure and without offense for (the) day of Christ.”

Words of Truth, New Series 2:77-79.

Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver

Q. What does “Apples of gold in pictures of silver” mean?

A. “Divine fruit shown out in redemption,” for gold is always divine and silver always redemption; and as you see fruit the result of His holy Spirit within us, it is displayed on the beautiful picture of redemption which we are in Christ Jesus.

Words of Truth, New Series 2:120.

Does the Holy Ghost Dwell in the Church, His Body?

A. E.le.P. It is quite unscriptural to speak of the Holy Spirit as dwelling in the body of Christ — “The church which is his body.” He dwells in the “House.” The Church looked at as the “body of Christ” — its Head in heaven — was formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, taking the aggregate number of the saints at Pentecost and baptizing them into one body in union with the Head, and consequently one with the other. No figure could possibly convey more completely the union of Christ and His people. They are, as joined unto the Lord, one Spirit with Him.

The Church looked upon as the place where God dwells here is spoken of as the “House,” or “a habitation of God by the Spirit” or spiritually. God is said to “dwell” in her, and to walk in the midst of his people.

Both terms embraced the same people at the first. They were coterminous in extent, though not convertible terms. For the “Body” expressed union. The “House” or “Habitation” not so. It has often been shown that into the latter, “wood, hay, stubble,” might be introduced, as has been the case, without the Holy Spirit leaving the house though thus defiled; while none could become united to Christ as a member of His body, unless he was a true believer who had received the Holy Spirit as a seal. Consequently, the history of things shows us that evil having crept into the house, the Spirit who dwelt there would point it out and warn and guide the saints, and act on the conscience of the evil, if the ear to hear was there; but all this as dwelling in that which was still the house of God in responsibility. Of course, the body of Christ being only the true living members, it is contained, as you say, the less in the greater.

2. Your body, as a believer, is a member of Christ, though made out of the dust (1 Cor. 6). The whole man — “spirit, soul and body” is destined to be with Christ in glory, its present condition being changed. The apostle is pressing personal purity and gives prominence to our “body” in this chapter, and in it we are to glorify God.

“Your body,” says the apostle, “is the temple of the Holy Ghost,” — adding “which ye have of God, and ye are not your own, but ye are bought with a price; therefore, he says, “glorify God in your body.” (The remaining portion of the verse is not authentic Scripture.) It cannot be said that the Spirit dwells in the “new nature.” That is produced by the Spirit’s quickening power through the Word of God acting on the conscience and producing faith in Christ. Then the Spirit of God having thus wrought, is given as a seal to him that believes, and is said to dwell in his body. There would hardly be any sense in saying the Spirit dwells in the new nature.

Has the Lord Fulfilled the Law in Any Sense?

3. You ask if the Lord has fulfilled, that is, completed or finished the law in any sense whatsoever; and if He ever kept the law for Israel or the Gentile or the Church, or any one? And that He did come “to fulfill” the law, but it is not said that He “fulfilled it,” as all will not be fulfilled, (that is all contained in the law and prophets), much before the eternal state?

Now, the Lord Himself states, in the sermon on the mount (Matt. 5), “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” And here we must ascertain the meaning of the word “fulfill.” It does not mean to obey it — nor is the thought that He came to add something to it; but to make good the whole scope and gist of the law in His own proper person, to complete the circle, and answer to the whole thoughts of God as far as therein was contained. This word is so used elsewhere: “Fill ye up the measure of your fathers”; “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”; “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us” that is, its whole import brought to fruition. And lastly I mention Colossians 1:25, where Paul’s ministry of “the Church” —the mystery, having the result of fulfilling the Word of God.” That is, this truth was needed to complete the circle of revelation, all other subjects having been revealed before.

Thus Christ, in His own person, was the summing up and complement of all that God’s mind contemplated in the law and the prophets; though, of course, much more also.

I have no doubt that whatever our blessed Lord did in keeping the precepts of the law, He did for His people. Israel went into the land on the condition of their observing the law; and their non-observance of it was to result in being driven out of it. (See, passim, the whole book of Deuteronomy, and especially chapter 28) Having lost it on the condition of obedience, the Lord comes, and it is remarkable that when He enters His course as an obedient Jew, under the law, He cites Deuteronomy in every case when undergoing the temptations in the wilderness. (Compare Matt. 4 with Deut. 6 and 8.) Everything which He ever did was for His people and for His God; though it must not be supposed that His keeping of the law was a substitutionary thing for our not keeping it, so as to work out righteousness for us. The righteousness in which we stand, or rather which we are counted by God — God reckons us such intrinsically by virtue of the work of another, Christ; in token of which He has placed Him on His throne — the result of His meeting all God’s holy nature as to sin on the Cross, so that He could righteously act according to the dictates of that nature in love.

By His having kept the conditions of Deuteronomy, under which Israel failed, He has earned a personal title to the land Himself; (compare Psa. 18:20-24), while, of course, also possessing such in the rights of His own person, as son of Abraham and David, while Son of God and Heir of all things.

As you say, much that is in the law and prophets will not be fulfilled, (in the sense I suppose of being accomplished), much before the eternal state. So it is. But the presenting in Himself as the complete scope of it morally, is a different thought from the accomplishment by Him of it in detail historically.

Words of Truth, New Series 2:137-139.

Your Body, the Temple of the Holy Ghost?

Q. He who taught His disciples to suffer patiently, and not to resist evil, and that he who took the sword would perish by the sword (Matt. 26:52), said also that “He that hath no sword” was to “sell his garment and buy one” (Luke 22:36). Why this apparent difference, and in the same period of His ministry?

A. The passage in Luke was specially applicable to “the hour,” that is, the period inclusive from the Last Supper until the death on the cross. Before this He had claimed all for His followers as the Messiah in power, and yet in lowly grace. (See Luke 9:3). To this experimental knowledge of His care and power He appeals (Luke 22:35), using that word “Lacked ye anything,” which calls to mind so beautifully the passage in 1 Kings 4:27, when, under Solomon’s reign, his subjects “lacked nothing.” This was touchingly known by those who followed a greater than Solomon. In verse 36 He announces the solemn change that was coming, because of the “hour” on which He was then about to enter. He says, as it were: — Now all my intervention thus on your behalf must cease. Those displays of my power to your hearts must now be suspended; I go to face the powers of evil — to drink the cup. Now you must shift for yourselves. “For this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned amongst the transgressors,” etc. To those who listened it was but a literal direction about selling a garment and buying a sword. His words were far above their ken; and the secret thoughts of their hearts were betrayed, as well as the secret preparations for carnal strife they had concealed in their robes. They answer Him, “Lord, behold, here are two swords.” His reply shows that He felt and knew that His words were beyond them, and He utters “It is enough” — you cannot hear my words or understand me now. It is not a literal meaning my words imply, as that which you attach to them (compare John 21:22, 23).

The other passage, Matthew 26, &c., is the sequel to, and result of their carnal thoughts. One of them smites with the sword outright. His carnal zeal, still undiscerning of the Spirit’s mind, leads him in act beyond the thoughts of those who, without understanding, say, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” The Lord then pronounces the word which is characteristic of the new Christian place of passive, unresisting grace — “All they that take sword shall perish with the sword.” Since it came in (the Christian place), it is as inconsistent and anomalous to see a sword by a Christian’s side as it would be to see a soldier of the Queen’s army fighting against the Queen in the ranks of her foe. The Christian’s weapons are not “carnal,” though “mighty” in another way. There have been Christian soldiers who knew not the heavenly calling of a Christian, and they have perished with the sword and gone to heaven. This latter is His grace. But they knew no better, let us say, in the same grace If they had, the sword would have been too heavy for a conscience that walked in the light with God in heaven, and heavier each day till it was thrown aside; or, alas! what has happened, I daresay, at times, worn by an exercised conscience, with the Spirit grieved, until the Spirit ceased to strive and the conscience felt no more!

Words of Truth, New Series 2:159, 160.

The Proper Formula to Be Used in Baptism?

Q. “Zeta.” What is the difference between being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), and being baptized in the name of the Lord, and Lord Jesus (Acts 10:48;19:5)?

A. The only formulary ever given was unto (εις)the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Some have supposed that this formulary was changed in the Acts of the Apostles. But when the commission was given the Lord was present, and baptism is founded on His resurrection — not on His ascension; while in Acts He was absent, and the point was then the owning of one who was not there in person. Hence the recognition of His name. Yet we find in nearly every case the term is changed, so that the thought of there being a fresh formulary is guarded against. In Acts 2. it is “in (επι) the name of Jesus Christ.” In Acts 8 “in (εις) the name of the Lord Jesus.” In Acts 10 “in (εν) the name of the Lord” In Acts 19 “in (εις) the name of the Lord Jesus.” The formulary, therefore, in Matthew 28 is the form which should be employed, while the recognition of the name of the Lord is added as presenting the person to Him.

Words of Truth, New Series 2:180.

Kingdom of Heaven Suffering Violence

Q. “J. R.” Will you define to me Matthew 11:12 — “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force”?

A. The expression is found in that chapter in Matthew which specially declares the rejection of the Blessed Lord in His mission to Israel; “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” The sermon on the mount (Matt. 5-7) followed the display of the powers of the kingdom as seen in Him, and detailed in a few striking verses at the close of Matthew 4:23-25. The fame of Jesus had spread throughout all the land. This “sermon,” as it has been called, enunciated the character of the kingdom, so different from what the carnal multitude expected and sought for; it supposes His rejection, and His followers a spectacle to the world, and governed by heavenly principles, and that they should look for a heavenly reward. Matthew 10 then details the mission of the “twelve” to Israel and its rejection: they would go forth as lambs in the midst of wolves. Then follows Matthew 11 in which is found the passage in question. The kingdom of heaven had “suffered violence” from the days of John Baptist; he had preached it (Matt. 3:2, etc.), and had been cast into prison (Matt. 4:12). Nationally, then, from that moment the kingdom had been refused; thenceforth as it was only received individually, the individual had to struggle against everything in order to enter it; he thus became in point of fact, “the violent.” He had to undergo the disruption of national, religious, and family ties. If he loved father or mother more than Jesus, he was not worthy of Him. Instead, then, of an entry into the kingdom, established under divine auspices, which brought the person blessed into the blessing with gentle steps, and apart from difficulties or hindrances to be overcome, it “suffered violence,” to use the Lord’s words, and “the violent” (as He terms those who entered it) “take it by force,” that is, they were obliged to force their way through every barrier, and count all things but loss that the goal might thus, at any cost, be won.

Zacchaeus

Q. “W. L.” wishes to know the place that Zaccheus took when he stood and said “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man, by false accusation, I restore him four-fold” (Luke 19:8).

A. He recounted the practice of his life, hitherto in secret it might be, with God. Perhaps the taunts of the multitude as to the Lord’s having “gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner” drew forth this half sort of vindication of his master, while it exposed the practices of an earnest heart who, being in a false position, sought to ease a sensitive conscience by doing as he just had said. Of the truth of his statement as to himself there could have been no doubt; nor was it questioned by those who were ready to accuse the Lord and him, and amongst whom his life was spent and known. Peace with God, or salvation, were not known to him: these efforts in secret had not answered the claims of an unpurged conscience with God. “Salvation” only came to his house that day as Jesus entered it and became known to His host. The Lord, too, took no notice of these works, and expressly said to all there that “This day is salvation come to this house.” It should be known and possessed first ere such things would be owned as acceptable to God.

Wilderness and Desert

“N.” My impression is that these words “wilderness” and “desert,” as you notice as being frequently used together in Scripture, have but a shade of difference, and seem to be the variation of thought in the Hebrew language, which gives such strength and force to the poetic strains of the prophets who uttered them. There is no doubt a difference between the words; “wilderness” conveying the thought of untracked solitudes, parched with want of water — “They wandered in a wilderness where there is no way”; “desert” conveying rather barrenness and drought, where the verdure of the earth is unknown — “He will make the desert and the solitary place blossom as the rose,” etc. Rivers in the desert would be given, to give drink to His people, His chosen.

Words of Truth, New Series 3:78-80.

The Ways of God: a Brief Outline of God's Dealings With Israel, the Nations, and the Church, and His Purposes for the Glory of Christ: 1. Preface

“Hold fast the form (outline) of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:13).

This little sketch of God’s Ways, will, it is hoped, be useful to some in grasping the great outline of the purposes and counsels of God. They were written by the author at the time the subjects were lectured upon to a small company of Christians in 1865.

That the Lord may deign to use and bless them to His glory and His people’s good, is his earnest prayer.

Blackrock, Feb. 1870

London: Robert L. Allan

The Ways of God: 1. Government, Grace, and Glory

At a time like the present so full of events crowding themselves together in the history of this present age — an age which ends with consequences so deep and solemn to the world, and so full of blessing to the Christian, and the Church of God — it is a blessing from the Lord to have our minds directed towards the Prophetic Word, and to the Ways of God. It is said of the Prophetic Word, that “ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19).

It is desired, as briefly as is consistent with the end in view, and as the Lord may graciously afford guidance and blessing, to bring before the reader, the general scope of the great dispensational dealings of God, which it has pleased him, in His infinite grace, to make known to us in His Word, so as to display those dealings in the Government of the world — His Grace towards sinners — and His purposes for the Glory of His Son. Those subjects have been entered upon with the desire that some may be enabled to follow those dealings in their consecutive order as nearly as such may be followed, and thus grasp the dispensational dealings and purposes of God thus revealed.

It is not pretended to give a complete view of these things, but such a general view of the whole dispensational dealings of God as may lead the mind to a closer searching after the more minute details of these dealings from the Word, and thus to a more perfect and growing apprehension of His purposes and ways.

In carrying out such a desire, many truths well known of late amongst the Lord’s people will be before us — needfully so — that the more important parts may not be forgotten or omitted in the consecutive order of God’s ways. And should it be found necessary to depart from this consecutive order, it will be with the desire but to link together the events more fully and clearly, that the mind may be enabled to pass along the chain without leaving any links behind.

The purpose of these papers is to put the truth plainly and simply before the mind from Scripture, for that “godly edifying which is in faith” — not to combat with error, however useful and necessary such may be in its season. For it is strongly felt that when the truth, with its divine and perfect Light shines into the soul, it dispels the darkness, and finds a resting-place in the heart that desires to be subject to the everlasting Word of God. It is like the bringing in of a light to a dark place — it dispels the not dispel it and the two things — light and darkness — cannot combine.

May the consideration of these truths prove a blessing from Him who alone can bless. And may He enable us to practice that which He teaches, and to live in the power of the things which are unseen and eternal — abundantly blessing His own word to our souls.

In searching into these subjects a very large scope of Scripture will be before us.

The prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament embrace five great distinct subjects, namely

1. The Corruption or Ruin of Israel, God’s elect nation.

2. Judgment following this ruin, whether from the hand of the Gentiles or otherwise.

3. The Times of the Gentiles, and their judgment.

4. The Crisis, or short period of judgment when the Lord will make “short work upon the earth”; introductory of that age when “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14).

5. The glory or Kingdom, which we know familiarly as the Millennium. Prophecy is in the main occupied with earthly events; and that of the OT is silent as to the mystery, “which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God” (Eph. 3:9). “The mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest through the prophetic writings” (Rom. 16:25, 26; διά τε γραφὦν προφητικῶν, that is the prophetic writings of the New Testament in which are revealed the mystery of “Christ and the Church”). God’s dear Son having been rejected by the world and the Jew, is to have a heavenly bride — a church gathered to Him out of Jew and Gentile — while He is hidden in the heavens, by the Holy Spirit come down, which will to joint heir with Him of all the glory which the Father has given Him when ‘He assumes openly the headship of all things.

I would make a remark upon 2 Peter 1:20, before passing on. “Knowing this first that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” There have been certain partial fulfillment of prophecy in times past which, no doubt, bore largely in them the features of the occurrences to which, when darkness; while the endeavor to combat with the darkness will fulfilled in a primary application, they referred. But if we were to say that their scope ended there, we should miss the mind of the Spirit in the object of the scripture, and at once make it of private interpretation, by confining its application solely to the occurrence which had come to pass. Prophecy begins in the mind, and counsels, and self-conceived purposes of God, and only ends in the full display of Himself and in the glory to be perfected and displayed in His Son. It links together two things — the counsels of God and their accomplishment in Christ. We cannot, therefore, begin at a subsequent point, or stop at any prior to the end, without losing its great aim.

No matter how accurate may have been the apparent fulfillment of certain prophecies; when we come to examine the details, we are sure to find features which clearly show that when God was pleased to use the circumstances that were then coming, or through which those who were addressed were passing at the moment; and even these before Him, — He has always shown that He had other thoughts in view, reaching on to the accomplishment of His full purposes and glory; of which the matter then before Him served as a type. Instance the plague of locusts in Joel, which the Spirit of God uses to bring the consciences of the people before Him at the moment; and yet it forms an impressive figure of the judgment of Judah at the hands of the northern army, and the deliverance of the nation and judgment of the Gentiles, at the time of the introduction of the kingdom. Many other instances could be adduced as to this principle.

The Ways of God: 3. the Past History of the People of Israel

After our short survey of the general dealings of God, we now come to consider His ways, as exhibited more in detail; and in doing so we turn to that people, or nation, which was peculiarly the platform for their display, in government, long-suffering, and mercy — the people of Israel.

We have seen the state of the world and failure of man in the days before the flood: and afterward Noah set up on the renewed earth, the world going into idolatry, and amongst the jarring elements of human wills, man striving to make a center and a name apart from God, and the judgment of God thereon — the divisions of the world into nations in the family of Noah. There was a purpose with God at that time, in His mind and counsels, which we find in Deut. 32:8. “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the peoples, according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” Here we find that centuries before they existed as a nation, the counsels of God were occupied about them. His dealings with the nations of the world were arranged with reference to the seed of Jacob.

The world had lost the knowledge of the one true God and had gone after idols, even the family of him of whom it was said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem.” Satan had succeeded in gaining the position God should have had in the mind and heart of man. “Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the river in old time, even Terah, the father of Abram, and the father of Nachor: and they served other God’s” (Josh. 24:2). We learn from 1 Corinthians 10:20, in which the apostle quotes Deut. 32, that these God’s were demons. This being the case, God chose one man, whom He called to separate himself from his country, associations, and his family, to be a witness in the world, and against the world for Him. To this man, Abraham, God gave certain promises, both of a temporal and of a spiritual nature.

The question before us being the past history of the nation of Israel, we pursue only the temporal promises. When Abraham came into the land of Canaan, God said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Gen. 12). When Lot had separated from him, these promises are renewed. “Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever,” &c. (Gen. 13:14, &c.).

Again in Genesis 15 we find the promise renewed, and the bounds of the land named; “And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.” And again, “Unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” In a vision in the same chapter God reveals to Abraham that his seed would be a stranger in a land that was not theirs and that they should serve them. “And they shall afflict them four hundred years. And afterward they shall come out with great substance.”

Now these promises were entirely unconditional: they were given by God, and received by Abraham without any condition whatsoever. We find them, still without condition, repeated to Isaac, in Genesis 26, and to Jacob in Genesis 28. We turn to Exodus 2 when the four hundred years were expired, and we find these promises to the father’s alluded to; “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob; and God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them” (Ex. 2:23-25). The people are now redeemed, and taken out of Egypt (Ex. 1214), the covenant name of Jehovah revealed to them (Ex. 6:2, 3). Afterward they are told God’s purpose in thus taking them out. “Unto thee it was showed that thou mightest know that the Lord (Jehovah) he is God, there is none else beside him” (Deut. 4:35). Or, as He says in Isaiah 43:12, “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I (Jehovah) am God.” On the redemption of the people God takes up His dwelling amongst them in the cloud and the glory.

The question, Had fallen man any righteousness for God? — had not, however, yet been raised. The people journey from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, the objects of perfect grace. Here God proposes certain terms of relationship with them; “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine, &c. (Ex. 19).” “And all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” See also Exodus 24:3, 7, where the covenant is ratified by blood. Thus they enter upon a covenant of obedience as the terms of relationship with God. Instead of saying, “No, we cannot trust ourselves in the least; if we accept such conditions as these, we shall surely fail: we shall not be able to keep our blessings for one hour.” Instead of this, they were full of confidence and ignorant of themselves. The result is plain and solemn. The lawgiver goes up to the mount that burned, to receive the terms of the covenant; and, ere he returns, the people make a calf and worship it, as the god that brought them out of Egypt: they say, “Up, make us God’s which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him (Ex. 32:1).

Moses returns with the tables of the law in his hand; he sees the music and the dancing when he came nigh unto the camp: he saw that on the side of the people the terms of the relationship were broken; and his anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hand, and broke them beneath the mount Pure and unmixed law never, therefore, came amongst the people. The lawgiver returns to the mount; he goes up again, “Peradventure he might make an atonement for their sin”; and in answer to the prayer of Moses, the people is spared, and a covenant of long-suffering, patience, and mercy added to that of the law; and it is established afresh in the hands of the mediator and the people (Ex. 34:27).

The Book of Leviticus, with other matters, settles the approach to God, who dwelt amongst them, and the priesthood, which as soon as it was consecrated was ruined, Nadab and Abihu offering strange fire, are destroyed (Lev. 10).

The Book of Numbers gives the journey through the wilderness, and the revolt of the Levites (Num. 16).

When about to enter the land, the covenant is renewed in the plainest way, establishing the terms of their possession of the land on condition of their observing them, in the Book of Deuteronomy. Deut. 27 states the principle of legal righteousness, and Deut. 28, as other parts of the book, the conditions of their inheritance and blessing, in the land. “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth, and all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field: blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep: blessed shall be thy basket and thy store: blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out” (Deut. 28:1-6). And the alternative, “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field; cursed shall be thy basket and thy store; cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land; the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep: cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out” (Deut. 28:15-19). The whole chapter, as the book at large, states in the most solemn manner the conditions of their possession and retention of their blessings in the land. And we read in Deut. 29:1, “These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab (in the borders of Israel), beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.” Accordingly we find them entering the land under the leadership of Joshua, the waters of Jordan separating themselves, and the “ Lord of all the earth” passing into the land before His people, to possess the land in them. This was an important title which the Lord thus assumes, to which we shall have occasion to refer again (see Josh. 3).

The Book of Joshua gives the history of their conquest and partial establishment in the land. In the last chapter we find Joshua establishing a covenant with the people, in which they bind themselves to serve the “Lord their God,” and to obey His voice, and under these conditions to retain the blessing.

We now see one point established clearly, of the utmost importance, which is, that the people never yet possessed the land, or the blessings promised to the fathers, under the unconditional terms promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These promises are yet to be fulfilled and accomplished in grace; they took them under the law.

The results of their inheritance of the land, and the blessings conditionally held, we find in the Book of Judges, as in other scriptures. “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim: and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other God’s; of the God’s of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtoreth... And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice: I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died; that through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord, to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it or not, &c. (Judg. 2:11, 13, 20-22).” This book shows their failure, and the faithfulness and long-suffering of God, who raised up judges and deliverers from time to time, to bring temporary relief to them from the hands of their enemies.

In 1 Samuel we find the failure of the priesthood in the family of Eli. We read, “Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial, they knew not the Lord” (1 Sam. 2:12). This chapter treats of this failure, and the cognizance the Lord takes of it. In Judg. 3 the Lord establishes the regular line of prophets in Samuel (Acts 3:24), “ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord,” to form the link between Himself and the consciences of the people. In 1 Samuel 4, the Ark of God, on which He manifested His presence, is taken. Eli dies, and the wife of Phinehas, dying on giving birth to her child, names him “Ichabod,” saying, “The glory is departed from Israel.” The prophet Samuel is now the link between God and the people. “He judged Israel all the days of his life.”

When he became old, he set his sons to be judges over Israel, but they “ walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment” (1 Sam. 8).

The people now desire a king, and “the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” The Lord now gives them a king, a man of their own choice, Saul the son of Kish. 1 Samuel 9-15 give us the history of his appointment and failure, in that which he had been raised up to do. “And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine, that is better than thou” (1 Sam. 15:28). God now gives them a king, a man of His own choice, “David the son of Jesse,” who at last is settled in the kingdom. After him, his son Solomon is established on the throne of the kingdom, in the full tide of prosperity and blessing, “neither adversary nor evil occurrent” (see 1 Sam. 16 — 1 Kings 5). But “Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt,” and he multiplied wives unto himself. Both of these things were expressly forbidden in Deut. 17, “And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice; and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other God’s: but he kept not that which the Lord commanded” (1 Kings 11:9, 10). They had now failed under prophets, priests, and kings. Solomon had for a little moment united all these in his own person, serving as a type of Him in whom all shall be established. We read in 2 Chron. 9:3,4, when the Queen of Sheba came up, she heard the wisdom of the prophet, and saw the magnificence of the king, and the ascent of the royal priest to the House of the Lord — a faint shadow of the coming day of the glory of the Millennial Kingdom. “God now stirs up the adversaries of the kingdom against Solomon, declaring by His prophet that He would take the kingdom from him; yet He would still preserve one tribe to David’s house, that he might always have a light before Him. Accordingly when Rehoboam came to the throne the mass of the nation revolted under Jeroboam, who established a separate kingdom, and idolatrous centers of unity at Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12:25, &c.). The tribe of Judah only was preserved to the house of David.

From this time we pursue the histories of these two divisions of the nation, under the kings of Israel, and the kings of Judah. That of the former is a tale of evil without any redeeming point, till we come to 2 Kings 17, when, under their last king, Hoshea, Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria came up and led away the nation of Israel captive. “In the ninth year of the reign of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes” (2 Kings 17:6). Read the entire chapter, which gives the account of this. These tribes have never been restored.

We follow the history of the kingdom of the house of Judah from Rehoboam’s day, which is such another tale of wretchedness, and failure, and departure from God, occasionally relieved by the reign of some faithful king, such as Josiah and Hezekiah, till the house of David consummated its guilt in Ahaz. This king had set up the altar of a strange god in the house of the Lord, and made molten images for Baalim, and followed the abominations of the heathen. He was scarcely exceeded in iniquity by Manasseh after the reign of Hezekiah. In the reign of Zedekiah the time had come when those touching and solemn words were pronounced:

The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes and sending, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy (2 Chron. 36:15,16).

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against the city of Jerusalem, and besieged it and took it, and brought the nation captive into the land of Babylon, and put out the eyes of the king and slew his sons, rifled the house of the Lord, and burnt it and the king’s house, leaving a few of the poor of the people to be vine-dressers and husbandmen in the land. They had failed under prophets, priests, and kings, and God pronounced these words by the prophet concerning their last king: “And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him (Ezek. 21:25-27).”

The glory, or presence of Jehovah, that had dwelt amongst them since they had been redeemed from Egypt, departs from its house. Turn to chs. 9 to 11 of the prophet Ezekiel. In chapter 9 the prophet sees the glory of the God of Israel gone up from the cherub, and standing upon the threshold of the house the Lord marks His own, who were faithful, then executes judgment. In Ezek. 10., the glory departs from off the threshold, and stood over the cherubim that were to bear it away. And in Ezek. 11, the glory goes up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mount of Olivet, that is upon the east side of the city.

As soon as the people had gone into captivity, the “sword” of government is handed over to the Gentile king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and the “Times of the Gentiles” begin. “Thou, O king, art a king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, hath he given into thy hand, and hath made the ruler over them (Dan. 2:37, 38).” Israel had been God’s servant up to this (in this position, however faithless). See Isaiah 43:10 — “Ye are my... servant whom I have chosen.” (See also Isa. 41:8;42:19;44:21.) The Gentile king now takes the place of the Lord’s servant, though in another sense. (See Ezek. 29:18,20; Jer. 25:9, &c.) During the times of the Gentiles, God assumes the title of the “God of heaven,” as we see all through the Book of Daniel, which treats of these times. He had gone over Jordan into the land of Israel, as we saw, under the title of the “Lord of all the earth,” and had exercised His government from the center of Israel. The people having proved themselves worse than the heathen around, utterly untrue witnesses to the “Lord of all the earth,” God removes His presence from amongst them, and bestows the government of the world into the hands of the Gentile king.

Thus ends, properly speaking, the past history of the nation of Israel. In the language of Hosea, “The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prime, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.” And again, “Call his name, Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God” (Hos. 1; 3). We must not however, close our brief review of their past history, without looking shortly at the return of a remnant, part of Judah and Benjamin at the close of the Babylonish captivity. We turn to Jer. 25 and we find that when they were about to be sent into captivity into Babylon they are told by the prophet, “Behold I will send... Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof... and this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” We find in the Book of Esther how God secretly watched over His people, without publicly owning them or manifesting Himself to them, in the land of their captivity.

We read in Dan. 9 that as soon as the seventy years of the kingdom of Babylon had expired, and Darius the Mede had taken the kingdom, “I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.” When the seventy years were over, a remnant of Judah and Benjamin came back, and settled in the land (Ezra 1, &c.); they rebuilt the temple, and reared up and repaired the city (Nehemiah).

The history of this remnant is touching and impressive. It was, however, an empty temple; they had neither the Shekinah, (the Glory, or presence of Jehovah), nor the ark, nor the Urim and Thummim. They did not pretend to more than they had, but did what they could in the ruins of everything around. This was not the national restoration as was promised by the Prophets; nor was it the inheritance of the land according to the promises to the Fathers; only a remnant of Judah and Benjamin returned under the permissive patronage of their rulers, to whom they were still subject. “Behold we are servants this day; and for the land that thou gavest to our fathers to eat the fruit thereof, and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it; and it yieldeth much increase to the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins: also they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress (Neh. 9:36, 37).” The national restoration will yet take place of which God declares, “I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all” (Ezek. 37:22). And again, “They shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors (Isa. 14:2).” This remnant of the nation remained in the land under their oppressors, until the coming of their Messiah, and His presentation to them. Only a little band of disciples attached themselves to Him, and received Him as the Christ: the mass of the people refused Him and choose a murderer in His stead. They were warned by Him that He had come in His Father’s name and that they would reject Him: and that if another would come in his own name, him they would receive (John 5).

With His own blessed, unwearying love He pleaded with, yearned over, and wept for the people still beloved for their fathers’ sakes, till compelled to say, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you desolate, for I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matt. 23:37-39). The sentence of judicial blindness, and hardness of heart, pronounced by the prophet seven hundred years before, but in longsuffering withheld (Isa. 6:9,10) came to pass (Matt. 13; John 12). The householder had sent His Son to receive the fruits of His vineyard, and the husbandmen said, “This is the heir, come let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours; and they caught him and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.” His love was not turned aside even by this; the Holy Spirit takes up the voice of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” by the mouth of Peter in Acts 3, who says, “And now brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also our rulers.” Repent and be converted, and even now He will return. But they gnashed their teeth upon His witness, Stephen, and stoned him and sent a message by him after Jesus, “We will not have this man to reign over us.”

Still in longsuffering He lingers until the day of Acts 28, when the final carrying out of the sentence was pronounced by Paul, “Well spake the Holy Spirit by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive, for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed: lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Acts 28:25-27).

It only remained to complete the sentence by the armies of Titus — till “The cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land” (Isa. 6:11,12). The great prophet had come into the midst of His people: to Him they would not hearken. Rejected, He had gone to heaven to be a Priest for those who now believe; and when He comes again as King He will unite all these glories in His own person, and His kingdom shall have no end!

The Ways of God: 4. the Times of the Gentiles and Their Judgment

We have shortly traced the past history of the people of Israel to the Babylonish captivity, when the sentence “Lo Ammi” (not my people) was passed upon them, the Glory, or symbol of the presence of Jehovah, departed from their midst, and the government of the world was transferred to the Gentiles. That is, “The times of the Gentiles” began (compare Luke 21:24; Dan. 2). We have also followed the history of the remnant of Judah and Benjamin, which returned to the land to have their Messiah presented to them, the sentence “Lo Ammi” (Hos. 1:9) not having been removed; till after their complete dispersion and the destruction of the cities of the land (Isa. 6:10).

Just before the time when Judah was finally called into captivity, God sends His Prophet to Zedekiah, and to the Kings of Edom, Moab, &c., who were plotting to throw off the yoke of the king of Babylon, requiring that they should bring their necks under his yoke. He says, “I have made the earth, the man, and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power, and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him... Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live” (Jer. 37:5-12). It is with this Gentile power, and those which succeed him, until the end of their “times,” we have now to do.

We turn to the Book of Daniel and read of one of the Hebrew captives enabled of God to recall and interpret his dream to the Gentile king, who had forgotten it (Dan. 2:31-45). The dream was of a great image, whose head was of gold; the breast and arms of silver; his belly and thighs of brass; his legs of iron, and his feet part of iron and part of clay. The interpretation shows that this image typified the Gentile power from the days of the first king, Nebuchadnezzar, till its close. When in its last state, a stone “cut without hands,” a kingdom set up by the God of heaven, smites the image on its feet, that is, at the close of its existence. Accordingly the component parts of the image, then fully formed, are broken to pieces, and consumed by a crushing act of judgment, inflicted by the stone. They become like chaff in the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carries them away, so that no place is found for them.

Thus it is that the stone, which executed this act of judgment, becomes a great mountain, and fills the whole earth. The vision is plain, and needs but few words. The Gentile powers exist in different stages, each inferior to the other, the farther it removes from the source of its first power, until an act of judgment most complete and destructive is executed on its last state, by a power not intrusted to the hands of men, so that every vestige of the image disappears from the scene; and the power that strikes the blow is then exalted, and stands forever.

Babylon was the head of gold; its source was God, as we have seen; its power absolute and unquestioned. “For the majesty that God gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up, and whom be would he put down” (Dan. 5:19). After it came the Medo-Persian, the breast and arms of silver, a united power (two arms), inferior to the first in its absolute power, inasmuch as if he who wielded the power made a law he was himself subject to that law as another; for “the law of the Medes and Persians altereth not.” And the power and, government of the Empire was divided among Satraps and Princes under the King. See Dan. 6:1; Esther 1; &c.

The third kingdom, of brass, the Grecian, was still inferior; as the fourth, that of the iron, and the iron mixed with the miry day, degenerates yet more. This last power was the Roman Empire.

The great point for us to understand is, that the great power given to the Gentile king, to which succeeded the other powers, as typified in the great image (which, as its existence is prolonged, deteriorates), runs on, till one great, crushing, complete act of judgment, yet to be executed, carries the whole, and every vestige of it away, replaces it, and then fills the whole earth.

I say “yet to be executed,” because it is a common thought to misapply this kingdom, which destroys the others and then fills the earth, to the Gospel. Grace, or the gospel, is never represented in Scripture as doing this. In the first place, the image did not exist in the state typified by the feet in the beginning of the Gospel-day. In the next, it is on them the blow is struck, which is a crushing act of judgment, not grace. And next, it is the first act of the stone, an act of judgment, before it begins to grow and to fill the earth. This is noticed only in passing, as the object of these papers is rather to establish the truth, in tracing these Gentile powers to their end than to combat with error.

We now turn to Dan. 7, where these four great powers are expressed under the form of four ravening beasts. From the vast sea of human passions and wills, which floated unorganized in the world, striven upon by the four winds of heaven, came up four wild beasts or kingdoms, The wind is the force of Satan’s power acting upon the sea — that is, the vast masses of human population in a disorganized state. The first like a lion, king among the beasts of the earth, with eagles wings, the chief of birds: a power rapid in its flight, and soaring above the other powers of the world. This we know was the first of the four great monarchies — Babylon (Dan. 1:1; 2:37, 38). It lasted 70 years.

Another wild beast follows — the Medo-Persian, which succeeded that of Babylon (see Dan. 5:28, 30, 31).

Then a third — the Grecian empire, formed by Alexander the Great, which followed the Medo-Persian (see Dan. 8:21, 22), afterward divided into four heads.

The fourth, diverse from all the other beasts and yet partaking of the qualities or materials of all (see Rev. 13:2), strong exceedingly, devouring and breaking to pieces and destroying the rest, which also had ten horns. It is with this fourth empire we have more particularly to do: the chapter we are looking at is principally occupied with him. The fourth great power was Rome, which replaced the Grecian empire after it was broken into four heads (Dan. 7:6; 8:21, 22). This imperial power is introduced by the ancient name of that which surrounded it, its center, Rome, in Dan. 11, where we read, “the ships from Kittim shall come,” &c. This is merely referred to, to show that we have all four powers defined from Scripture, either by name or circumstances adjacent. This power existed in its vast unbroken state in the days of Christ, as we read in Luke 2:1, “And there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.” And it is with this power we, as Christians, called out from the Gentiles, have most to do.

In the second vision of Dan. 7, we find that the fourth beast had ten horns, and that amongst the horns came up another horn, before whom three fell; and this horn had eyes, expressive of active intelligence and design; and a mouth speaking great things. He speaks great words against the Most High, wears out the saints of the Most High, prevailing against them; thinks to change times (Jewish festivals), and laws (ceremonies), which are given into his hand for a time, times, and the dividing of a time: (that is the last three and a half years of the times of the Gentiles). Thrones are set and the Ancient of days sits, the dominion of the little horn is taken away, (he personifies the beast in the end, taking the lead amongst the other horns, and so becomes the expression of the whole), his body destroyed and given to the burning flame. Judgment is given to the saints of the Most High (the heavenlies, “Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world” 1 Cor. 6), and the saints possess the kingdom; (the earthly, “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25). Afterward we find, in another vision, the kingdom of the Son of man substituted for that of the fourth beast (the Ancient of days is the Son of man Himself, see Dan. 7:22), which is personified in the little horn that came up last amongst the other horns.

The questions now arise,

1st. Has not the fourth kingdom long ceased to exist in its vast iron power?

2ndly. Has it ever assumed the features conveyed by the ten horns?

3dly. Has it ever done what is attributed to it in verse 25? Now these questions will he satisfactorily answered by other Scriptures. We turn to Revelation 13, and read of a wild beast which the prophet sees arising from the sea. It partook of the characteristics of the three foregoing beasts of Dan. 7, but it has another added, which was, that the dragon, Satan, gave him his power, and seat and great authority; this it had not before. It had seven heads and ten horns — seven forms of government and ten divisions in its administrative power. John saw one of its heads wounded as it seemed, unto death, and the deadly wound was healed. There is no doubt but that this head was its imperial form, which has long ceased to exist: some think forever — that the wound was unto death. But the apparently deadly wound was healed, and all the world wonders; and they worship him, and, through him, Satan, who had given him his power, and seat, and great authority; and they say, “Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” This is clearly the little horn of Dan. 7, for the same doings are attributed to him. But we have in Revelation this added — that he was the full expression and instrument of Satan when revived; for (as in Dan. 7:25) we read that there was given him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies; and power was given to him to make war forty and two months (three and a half years). He blasphemes God and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven, “the saints of the heavenlies”; and makes war with the saints on earth, and overcomes them — we know from Dan. 7 until the Ancient of Days comes.

Turning to Revelation 17, in the explanation of the vision to the prophet we find the same beast, which “was, and is not.” It had existed in its one vast empire, the fourth kingdom of Dan. 7; it had ceased to exist and “shall ascend out of the bottomless pit”; it would again appear, but when it did, it would be the full expression of Satan — “The dragon gave him his power, and his seat and great authority” (Rev. 13:2).

But we must proceed with his description under his last form. “There are seven kings,” seven forms of government of the Latin empire. “Five are fallen,” five had disappeared when the prophet wrote. “One is,” it existed then. Another form, not yet come, was to arise, and continue for a brief space. Then the Beast or last head of the Latin Empire, that was, and had ceased to exist, — he would be an eighth form, yet of the seven (Rev. 17:10,11).

There is now a feature to be explained as to the ten horns, not belonging to his former state of existence. The ten horns are ten kings, they had received no kingdom then, they did not belong to his antecedents as one vast empire, but they would appear, and receive power at the same time as he when he would re-exist in his final form. They would have one mind, and they give their power and strength to the beast; they would have each his separate existence, and yet would own the beast as their chief — the expression of the entire. These make war with the Lamb, and He overcomes them. Their end we find in Revelation 19. The rider upon the white horse, with the armies of heaven, comes forth at the last daring and blasphemous defiance of His authority; and the beast and these kings are gathered to make war against Him that sat upon the horse and His armies; and the beast was taken and was “cast alive into a lake burning with fire and brimstone.” His armies, too, are judicially slain.

We have one point to remark, to account for the presence of Satan on the earth at this closing scene, when he gives his power to the last form of the Latin empire, three years and a half before the execution of the judgment, which introduces the kingdom of the Son of man. We turn for this to Revelation 12. There we find the man-child (Christ and the Church, His body) caught up to God and to His throne, which is immediately followed by war in heaven. Satan is cast out to the earth; rejoicing in heaven follows; woe is pronounced upon the inhabitants of the earth, “for the devil is come down unto you, in great wrath, having but a short time.” He then turns his malice against the Jewish saints below, who are then the objects of the attention of God. He gives his power and authority to the beast for the 1260 days or forty-two months, or “time, times, and the dividing of a time,” before, the end of the beast’s existence: and the closing time of the times of the Gentiles.

Let us now sum up shortly what we have gathered from Scripture, that is, the history of the Gentile powers from its beginning to its close.

We have seen that four great kingdoms arose, commencing with Babylon, which had its power directly from God, followed by the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman; this last was in existence when John wrote, and for some hundreds of years afterward in more or less of its iron sway. It was then broken up into different kingdoms, and continued thus for a long time. Three and a half years before the end of the Gentile power, Satan is cast out of heaven. Next, the Latin empire, so long apparently destroyed and forgotten, is restored, but in a new form; not one vast iron power, but its divided kingdoms uniting to own one power amongst them as their chief, and giving to him their power and force. Satan makes him his ready tool, and the world wonders and worships. This chief blasphemes God, and as Satan cannot now accuse the saints in the heavenlies, ‘he makes his instruments blaspheme them. He turns his rage through this chief against a Remnant of the Jewish people then gathered into their country. And, finally, he leads him to turn his heart in open rebellion against Christ who comes to take possession of His world-kingdom, and put an end to the Gentile power. This chief and his allies gather together against the King of kings and His heavenly saints, and the end of the beast is the lake of fire and brimstone. This closes the history of the Times of the Gentiles.

We have now followed, without much diversion from our subject, the history of the Gentile empires to their conclusion, looking especially upon the features the fourth empire will assume, when revived as an imperial power, three and a half years before the close of its existence; when, in the person of its leader, it will be the plain and complete expression of diabolical power. Possessed by Satan, it will be instigated in rebellion against God and Christ and so be destroyed.

But, dear friends, we may remember when considering the past history of Israel, we saw that when Christ was presented to the Jews at Jerusalem, He was rejected, and received only by a little band of disciples, and that He told them that He had come in His Father’s name and Him they would not receive; and that if another would come in his own name, him they would receive. Now during the time of the crisis of the world’s history, synchronical with the three and a half years of the full-formed evil of the beast, which we have seen, the Jews will again have been gathered into their land, the chief part of them in a state of apostasy. Scripture largely shows that a false Messiah will present himself to them at that time, who will be received by the mass of the people, and rejected by a remnant of faithful ones — just the reverse of what occurred in the day when our Lord Himself was there. This personage is the connecting link between the Gentile powers in a state of apostasy and revolt, and the Jews in a similar state. Christ was presented to Pilate as the representative of the fourth monarchy, and to Caiaphas who spiritually represented the Jewish nation in that day: both united in crucifying Him. At the same time He was rejected by the mass of the Jews and received by a little band of disciples. At the close of the existence of the fourth monarchy in its revived state, this false Messiah will appear, the mass of the returned Jews will receive him, and he will be recognized by the imperial head of the restored Latin empire, into whose hands he will play his game; but he will be refused by a little remnant, whose hearts God is training, through unexampled tribulation, for the Kingdom about to be substituted for that of the Beast when judgment is executed.

After thus shortly introducing this false Messiah (Antichrist), we will follow in order the scriptures that speak of him. He is introduced in Dan. 11:36-39; and we may remark that the prophet is told in Dan. 10:14 that the angel was come to make him understand what would befall the Jews “in the latter days.” Dan. 10-12 are all one vision, and are occupied with this subject and the Lord Himself in His directions to the Jewish remnant in Matthew 24 alludes to prophecy (Dan. 12) as still future, and that the circumstance of the abomination of desolation, &c., come to pass, it would be the sign for the remnant to flee, adding that “Immediately after those days shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven... coming... with power and great glory.” We can apply it therefore, to no other time than to the hour of the great tribulation, or the closing 1260 days, before the appearing of Christ and the judgment executed by Him and the Kingdom set up (see also Dan. 12:11, where 30 days are added), and substituted for that of the beast.

“The king” (Antichrist) is at once introduced in Dan. 11:36-39, as one who has that title in the eyes of the Jews. He does according to his own will, exalts himself and magnifies himself above every god, speaks marvelously against the God of God’s, and prospers till the indignation is accomplished. He regards not the God of the Jews, nor the true Messiah, nor any god, magnifying himself above them all. The “indignation” is spoken of in Isaiah 10:5, 24, 25, where we find that there is an appointed time for its duration. These are the only verses in the book of Daniel which treat of the Antichrist.

We turn to Revelation 13:11, where we find this personage brought before us again, as the second beast, which comes up out of the earth, having two horns like a lamb some imitation of Christ, but his voice like a dragon. He cannot set aside the power of the Gentile king, the Beast or head of the Latin empire — that is reserved for Christ; but he ministers to him and “exercises the power of the first beast before him” the power of Satan, but subordinate to that of the Beast. “And he doeth great wonders, so that he causes fire to come down from heaven, on the earth, in the sight of men, &c.” He thus imitates the great power of God; (of course it is not so, but only in the sight or apprehension of men).

Read now Revelation 16:13, 14, where we find the three great allies in wickedness, the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet; unclean spirits proceeding from each, to gather together the kings of the whole habitable earth to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.

In Revelation 19:20, we find Satan’s two great instruments — the Beast and the false prophet. The Beast with his vassal kings, as we have seen before, gathered together to make war with the Lamb, the Lord of Lord’s, and King of kings, who is accompanied by His heavenly Saints. The Beast and the false prophet here meet their doom. Allies in wickedness and blasphemy, they are allied in judgment. “These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.”

There is a link now wanting, beloved friends, in this sad and sorrowful history. Sad and sorrowful it is, because in the judgment of these two men we see the end, first of one who personifies, in the close of the times of Gentile domination, the abuse of the power that had been delivered into the hands of man by God: filled with moral madness and impotent pride, he becomes the ready instrument of Satan, in the last and closing acts of his stupendous wickedness, till he is bound by Him whose heel he bruised when here, and who then exhibits in this world, so long the playground of Satan’s deeds, the blessings He had prevailed to procure for men, when He went down into the dark domain of sorrow and judgment. Sad and sorrowful, too, as to the second, that the minds of men, ever ready to receive the veriest lie of Satan, and ever ready to doubt the love of God, at last become so besotted in wickedness and moral blindness; as to receive such an one as he for their Christ.

But there is, as we were remarking, one link yet wanting, and that is, how this consummation of spiritual wickedness, this false Messiah, becomes the link, as we may say, between the history of professing Christendom and the Jews, in the close and the crisis of the history of this age, before the introduction of an age of blessedness and peace. This will be brought before our minds again; but before this we must consider another subject which comes in during the great Gentile parenthesis (the times of the Gentiles), which fills up the space between that time when Israel was the earthly people of God, owned and acknowledged, and that when they shall be so again.

This subject is the “calling of the Church.” In it is involved the second coming of Christ for His saints, before His manifestation with them to the world, in the judgment which we have been partially considering. Also the first resurrection, the resurrection from among the dead (of which Christ was the first-fruits) of the saints the “children of the resurrection.” This subject, dear friends, is a blessed one, near to the heart of Christ — the secret that was hid in God; the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:9-11; 5:32).

The Ways of God: 5. the Calling of the Church, and Her Glory

Turn to Psalm 2 where we read, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and his Anointed (or Christ), saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” Here we find a confederacy between Gentiles and people of Israel, the kings and rulers, to reject the authority of the Lord and His Christ. Turn now to Acts 4:24-26, where we find this Psalm quoted by the Holy Spirit as far as we have read, and the comment then added, “for of a truth against the holy child (servant) Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.” He was presented to Jew and Gentile, rulers and kings and people, as king in Zion, and rejected. The Lord is represented in this psalm as laughing at their impotent rage. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.” But with all their rage and rejection of Christ, He says, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” They could not turn His purpose aside.

Now while we are assured that the full rejection of Christ, as their Messiah, by the people of Israel, was at the cross, when they said, “We will have no king but Caesar”; still when we examine the gospel narratives we find that the spirit which showed itself in full hostility at the cross, had been exhibited in various ways, especially amongst the rulers and chief ones of the nation, during the Lord’s ministry amongst them. This caused Him, after declaring the new era that His rejection would introduce, to desire His disciples to say no more that He was “the Christ”; (there was no further good to be had by this testimony to the people, that is, as to His rights as the Messiah). He adds immediately, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day.” This latter clause He adds to the declaration of His rejection and sufferings. Consult Matthew 16:20,21; Luke 9:20-22, which convey, I doubt not, the truth we are about to see.

In considering Psalm 8 in connection with other subjects, we saw that there was a “Son of man” to whom dominion was bestowed over all creation, which Adam had sinned away and lost. He, we saw, was the Lord Jesus Himself as Hebrews 2 informs us, even as His inheritance will be enjoyed in an age to come. This title the Lord takes to Himself according to that Psalm, after His rejection as King in Zion according to Psalm 2 taking it in resurrection. He takes the headship and inheritance, with its load of sin and guilt upon it; and inherits it not only as His by right, but by redemption also. He takes it as the Redeemer-Heir. “We see not yet,” says Hebrews 2, “all things put under him; but we see Jesus... crowned with glory and honor.” Men said, “We will not have this man to reign over us”; God said, “Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”

We turn to Ephesians 1, and there we find that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ (looked upon here as the exalted and glorified Man), had raised Christ from among the dead, and “set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things in subjection under his feet, and given him to be head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” Here we find Him raised and seated in the heavenlies, as the glorified Man, all things not yet visibly put under Him, but His title declared; and while as the expectant Heir, He is seated there, a work is going on of quickening, raising up, and seating together in Him, the second (last) Adam, in the heavenly places, the joint heirs of all his glory.

It is a work, that, the more we search into and meditate upon its depth and magnificence, humbles us to the dust at the “exceeding riches of God’s grace.” Human words can but feebly convey to us just thoughts of a work which takes up the Magdalenes, and outcasts, and vile ones, lost and defiled through sin, and sets them in the same glory as the Son of God! Not only blessing them through Him and His blessed work on the cross, but with Him! conferring upon them every dignity, every glory, and every honor, conferred upon Christ Himself as the risen, and exalted, and glorified Son of man! and yet a work in which God is glorified, and in which He will, in the ages to come, exhibit to the heavenly hosts the exceeding riches of His own precious grace!

This serves truly to level every pretension of man, to think on these things. We look at ourselves, and we are inclined to ask the question, “How can these things be?” But we look at God and His purposes, for the glory of His Son; and that we serve now to manifest to the principalities and powers in the heavenlies, the manifold wisdom of God, (Eph. 3:10) and to teach them in the ages to come the meaning of “Grace!” May we learn to be silent, and to submit ourselves to Him, who does all things well!

The Epistle to the Ephesians is that Scripture which so fully brings out these things. We find there the purpose of God, and the execution of that purpose: His own counsels and the good pleasure of His will revealed; Himself the source of the blessings; His Son Jesus Christ the measure of them; ourselves by nature dead in trespasses and sins, the objects of them!

But to return. We have seen for a moment the work that is going on while the Head is seated in heaven — of quickening, raising up, and uniting to Him the joint-heirs. This is the work of the Holy Spirit since His descent at Pentecost. Now it is most freely admitted that saints were born again in all ages and dispensations. Sinners have been, since the fall of man, newborn by the Holy Spirit, through the word of God, and led to trust in the promises of God for salvation by a coming Redeemer, faintly seen in types and shadows of old. Still the saints were born again; they trusted, lived, and died in faith, and were saved. But individual salvation is not the Church of God. Every individual of that Church, no doubt, is a saved one; still, collectively, they occupy a place, as we shall see, beyond all that went before, and peculiar to the interval in which we live. It was reserved for the day when the Lord Jesus, rejected, crucified, dead, buried, risen, ascended, and seated at God’s right hand; not only as God’s eternal Son, but as a glorified Man, who had fully accomplished redemption in His own person, had put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, glorified God to the utmost as to sin, substituted Himself for His people on the cross, and had been thus seated far above all heavens — it was reserved for such a time, to bring out this mystery, which, from the beginning of the ages, had been hid in God, — the mystery of “Christ and the Church.”

The first notice of this work we find in Matthew 16, where the Lord declares the foundation in Himself, as Son of the living God. He speaks of the Church as that which was to come. He says, when Peter confessed Him to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” “Upon this rock I will build my church.” The Apostle afterward learned the true meaning of the foundation here declared, when he says by the Spirit, “To whom coming as unto a living stone... Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house,” &c. This, however, is by the way, as to Paul’s ministry, and to it alone, is entrusted the revelation of the mystery of Christ and the Church. The Lord Himself does not reveal it. He had disciples during His ministry here, but not disciples baptized into one body and united by the Holy Spirit to a glorified Man in heaven.

In the days of Judaism, it was an unlawful thing for a man that was a Jew to have any dealings with those of any other nation. He was separated from amongst the other nations of the earth to God. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth,” says God, by His prophet to that people (Amos 3:2).

When we look upon the Lord’s life and ministry here, we find that He was constantly going beyond the middle wall of partition which surrounded the Jewish enclosure, in the outflow of His own blessed grace, to those who had no relationship with God even in an outward way. Witness the woman of Canaan in Matthew 15, and the woman of Samaria in John 4. “He was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (Rom. 15:8,9). Still, the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile was not really destroyed till the cross, however our Lord’s actions may have shown what was coming, We find the position of Jew and Gentile forcibly contrasted in the following scriptures: “Who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever, Amen” (Rom. 9:4,5). And again, “Wherefore remember, that ye being in times past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:11,12). We find in this epistle, that the apostle speaks in the first chapter of the purpose and counsels of God, and the redemption of His people, the latter being an accomplished thing; adding His future purpose to be executed in the dispensation of the fullness of times, when all things shall have been gathered together, in heaven and earth under the headship of Christ; and when those who believe shall have entered on their inheritance with Him and in Him in these things. He goes on to show that the Head, who had been in death (he sees Him only thus) was alive again, raised up and glorified, Head of all principality, &c., set there as “head over all things to the Church, which is his body.”

In Ephesians 2 he sees both Jew and Gentile dead in trespasses and sins, as children of the first Adam. In Ephesians 2:1 and 2, he states what the Gentiles were, and then turns round upon the favored Jew and writes, “Among whom we also and... were children of wrath even as others.” This was the position of both Jew and Gentile by nature. We go on and find that Christ “hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the law of commandments contained in ordinances: for to make in himself of twain, one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both to God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” There could be, and there was, salvation for individuals, as we have seen, before the cross, by virtue of what Christ would accomplish there; but the cross itself is the foundation of this unity of Jew and Gentile in one body by the presence of the Holy Spirit come down from heaven. “He came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh. For through him (Christ) we both (Jew and Gentile), have access by one Spirit unto the Father (Eph. 2:17,18). Here we learn this unity, of which the cross was the basis.

The Holy Spirit, constitutes by His presence upon earth, individually dwelling in every believer, uniting him, and all Christ’s members collectively in one body to Christ in heaven.

Now it is freely admitted that everything good, and of God, that ever has been done in this world, was by the Holy Spirit. But, dear friends, it was reserved for that day when God’s people, by virtue of an accomplished redemption, would have their consciences so perfectly purged, that God could come and dwell by the Holy Spirit in the believer’s body; and that the Holy Spirit could be given in such a sort, as in this interval, since the day of Pentecost (see 1 Cor. 6:17).

We do not find in the experience even of a David, the possession of a purged conscience (Heb. 10:2). There was the most blessed and perfect trust and confidence in God known in grace, displayed and enjoyed, but a purged conscience never. That was reserved till the cross had made it possible.

We read in John 14 of the Lord, before He departed, promising His disciples the Holy Spirit, as the Comforter. He says, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter (He had been that when with them), that he may abide with you forever... he... shall be in you.” “In that day [when He was come], ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” This was the knowledge and consciousness the personal presence of the Holy Spirit would bring.

The Holy Spirit had wrought before He came; He came at Pentecost. Just as the Son of God had wrought before He became a man; He came down from heaven then. The Holy Spirit never dwelt here until redemption was accomplished. His presence thus was a new thing, and although there were believers before His descent, still it was on believers, as such, that the Holy Spirit was to be bestowed. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive for the Holy Ghost was not yet; because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-39). We find an example of this in Acts 19. Long after the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Spirit, Paul finds certain disciples at Ephesus. He asks the question, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” They reply, “We have not so much as heard if the Holy Ghost was come.” (Compare John 7:38). He asks again, “Unto what then were ye baptized?” They reply, “Unto John’s baptism.” “Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” He found here a company of disciples, believers as far as they had heard, but who had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Far from the center of the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit, they had not yet heard if He had come, not “whether there be any Holy Ghost.” Our English Bible is faulty here and might lead to wrong conclusions. As soon as “they heard, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus; and when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them.” It is sought to show that the great distinguishing feature between the state of the individual believer, under the period of the Holy Spirit’s presence, dwelling upon earth as now, and the saint in that, which is past, is, that he now receives the Holy Spirit to dwell in him; that “in the Spirit” is his proper state as a Christian, and the power which unites him with Christ risen. The corporate blessings we shall see again.

In the instance quoted there was the laying on of the apostle’s hands; but, doubtless, God was showing to us that there is a twofold thing — the new birth and the indwelling of the Spirit, the latter belonging specially to the present time.

Not seeing this, is much of the reason for the low state of numbers of God’s children. They think that Christianity is a sort of spiritualized Judaism, and that saints are only a little in advance of those before the descent of the Holy Spirit, as to their state.

Consequently you have in the lips of many a one of the prayer of David — “take not thy Holy Spirit from me”; while others are ever praying for the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon them. Now the least intelligent saint who has been instructed in Christianity, as such, could not use such prayers. He knows that he receives the Spirit now, as he does eternal life, from God and by faith, and consequent on redemption (Eph. 1:13). As the apostle asks the Galatians, who were getting under law, “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” And again, “That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” A Christian may, doubtless, sad to say, by his unfaithfulness, grieve the Holy Spirit much, indeed so much so, as almost to think he had never had the Spirit at all; but he could not with the least intelligence in Christianity say, “ Take not thy holy Spirit from me.” In Romans 8 the Spirit is the principle of our relationship with God, and Christian life is life in the Spirit, which depends on redemption being accomplished.

This is a fact assumed to be the case in all the apostolic teaching to the Church. In Ephesians 1:14 He is given as the seal of redemption, and an earnest of the inheritance yet to be enjoyed, till its redemption out of the enemy’s hand, the price for its purchase having been paid.

In no epistle are the official glories of the Holy Spirit brought before us more fully than this, which reveals the heavenly calling of the Church of God. In Ephesians 1:14, He is the seal of redemption. Ephesians 2:18, He is the medium of access by Jew and Gentile, through Jesus Christ unto the Father. Ephesians 2:22, the Church is the habitation of God on earth by His Spirit. In Ephesians 3:16, He strengthens the saints in the inner man, enabling them to lay hold of and enjoy their position and standing. In Ephesians 4, precepts are founded upon doctrines; the saint is told not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby he has been sealed till (for) the day of redemption. In Ephesians 5 he is told to be filled with the Spirit In Ephesians 6 is the power of the warfare in the heavenly places, and his prayer is to be “in the Spirit.” To multiply examples were needless.

This being established, we will now look into those Scriptures which speak of the Body of Christ and the unity of the Spirit. We saw that the Lord speaks of the Church as a future thing during His own ministry here (Matt. 16:18). He had disciples, but not disciples gathered into one body, constituting the “fullness” of a glorified Man in heaven, by the power of the Spirit, uniting them in one. Such, and such only, is the Church of God. It was reserved for the ministry of the Apostle Paul to bring out this grand central truth of the Church.

He tells us that he had it “by revelation,” and not therefore from others.

After the rejection of the Lord and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost we find the Church gathered in Jerusalem, and principally composed of Jews, affording a wondrous spectacle to the world around, united in one heart and soul, a dwelling-place of God by the Holy Spirit. The Lord lingered, in His longsuffering love, over His beloved, though now cast-off people, to see if even the testimony of the Holy Spirit to a risen and glorified Christ would touch their hearts. The enmity of the Jews and the religious leaders of the nation increased every hour, till it arrived at its full height, when the agents of the Sanhedrim (the great council of the nation) gnashed upon the witness of the Holy Spirit to a risen and exalted Christ, in the person of Stephen. This man, filled with the Holy Spirit, sees heaven opened, and, stoned by his murderers, is received by the “Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” The Church at Jerusalem is broken up as to its outward manifestation and dispersed. Saul of Tarsus, the young man at whose feet the murderers laid their clothes, on his journey from Jerusalem to Damascus with the high priest’s commission in his robe, and the purpose in his heart of wiping out, so to speak, if it were possible, the very name of Jesus from the earth, is struck down at midday with the vision of the glorified and exalted Jesus. He hears the wondrous truth, for the first time now proclaimed, that the poor persecuted Christians on earth were members of the body of Christ. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me... I am Jesus whom thou persecutest” (Acts 9:4). He arises and straightway preaches Jesus that “He is the Son of God.”

The short period of its earthly manifestation at Jerusalem having passed, the Church henceforth fully assumes its position as the Body of Christ; locally expressed by saints gathered (together) in the name of the Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 18:20). It is the habitation of God through the Spirit.

To the Apostle Paul is committed the testimony of the mystery, hidden in God in other ages, but now revealed (Col. 1:26). He tells us that he had it by revelation (Eph. 3:3). We will briefly notice some of the testimony by him as to this. The Epistle to the Romans being chiefly confined to the revelation of Christianity and the individual relationship of the saints with God and His dispensational wisdom in His dealings with the Jew, the subject is but shortly and practically referred to in Romans 12:4,5. He writes, “For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” And shortly in Romans 16:25,26. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-17, this subject is brought out more fully. The bare reading of the passage should be sufficient: “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit,” &c. Nothing can be clearer to the mind subject to Scripture. The Holy Spirit is the center and living power, of the unity of the body, Christians are “members of Christ” and “members one of another.”

How this overturns the ideas of men, who speak of being members of such and such a church (so-called) or religious association! This is the only unity a Christian is bound to acknowledge and own, and to endeavor with all his heart to observe, and to witness for the unity which exists by the presence of the Holy Spirit, constituting every believer on earth a member of one body, united to Christ The Holy Spirit is, we may so say, the soul which animates the whole body, dwelling not only in the individual believer, but in the whole church. When saints are thus gathered together, owning this unity, and this alone, they form the sphere for the manifestation of His presence, in the ministry of the word, “dividing to every man severally as he will”; taking up and using, according to His divine pleasure, those who have been gifted and set in the Church for the building up and edifying of the body, and for the perfecting of the saints. “God hath set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him (1 Cor. 12:18). So of Christ, “when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men... And he gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, &c.” The assembly on earth is the habitation of God by the Spirit (Eph. 2:22). “In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God by the Spirit.”

We are now, of course, looking at the Church as the ‘louse of God; others (other Scriptures), as we have seen, view it as the body of Christ. Both are true. Ephesians 1 speaks of the latter; Ephesians 2 of the former.

Such being the calling of the saints, the apostle founds upon it his exhortations, in Ephesians 4:1-6. He puts their privileges first before them, and then looks upon their responsibility. “For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles... beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called... Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit.” This then is the Church of God — this the unity we are exhorted to endeavor to keep: not to make a unity for ourselves, or choose one out of the many existing factions around, that best suits one’s education, thoughts, feelings, circumstances, &c., but to endeavor, with hearts subject to Jesus as Lord, to keep the unity which has been here by the Holy Spirit’s presence since the day of Pentecost — the body of Christ (actually, the unity of the Spirit).

We have in the same chapter (Eph. 4) the care of Christ for His body. “When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive.” He went into the domain of Satan and bound the strong man; but before He exhibits the results of His victory amongst men, in the blessing of the millennial earth, He does so in His body, bestowing gifts on men for the setting free of those captive under Satan, and the building up of those who have been delivered, “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ (Eph. 4:13).” Then, when the last member of Christ has been gathered in; the Church will be taken away to be, in actual fact, with Christ in heaven. Then will be the resurrection of the sleeping saints, and their translation with the living saints, when all shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:15-18).

The Scriptures are full of this blessed hope of the Church. In the earliest Epistle (1 Thess.) we find that, however unintelligently it may have been understood, the saints had been converted to this blessed hope. “Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven (1 Thess. 1:9).” It was the hope set before the sorrowing disciples, as they gazed up into heaven after the vanishing form of the Lord, in Acts 1:11, that He “would so come in like manner.” The Corinthians came “behind in no gift, waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:7). In Ephesians, the saints are looked upon as already seated in the heavenlies in Christ, there waiting for the gathering together of all things in the fullness of times. Their blessing is in the heavenlies, Ephesians 1:3; their position, Ephesians 2:6; their testimony, Ephesians 3:10 and their conflict, Ephesians 6:12. In Philippians 3:20,21, the citizenship of the saints is in heaven, from whence they look for “the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body,” &c. In Colossians 3:4, the life of the saints is so bound up with Christ’s, that, when He is manifested to the world, they are manifested with Him. In Thessalonians, the whole epistle is taken up with the hope. In 1 Thess. 1, it was connected with their conversion; in 1 Thess. 2, with the labors of Christ’s servant; in 1 Thess. 3, with practical righteousness and holiness; in 1 Thess. 4, the whole matter and the manner of its accomplishment is detailed. 1 Thess. 5 shows the desire of the apostle for their practical sanctification, and their being preserved blameless till the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thess. sets the hope aright in the minds of the saints, which had been disturbed by the receipt of a spurious epistle; and distinguishes the coming of Christ for His saints and their gathering together unto Him, their proper hope (2 Thess. 2:1), from His manifestation in judgment to the world, in which, we know from other Scriptures, He is accompanied by them.

I forbear to quote other Scriptures on this subject. It is almost sad to be obliged to press so blessed a hope on the hearts of the Lord’s people — a hope, of which the Scriptures of the New Testament are so full. Sad to say, it has become necessary to do so: even God’s people have imbibed so much of the character of the evil and worldly-minded servant, who said in his heart, “My lord delayeth his coming” (Matt. 24:48), and of the scoffers of the last days who say, “where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3:4).

In considering our first subject — “The general purpose of God” — we referred to three places in the New Testament where Psalm 8 was quoted. The first was Hebrews 2:7, where the “Son of man,” to whom all dominion was given, is seen in heaven “crowned with glory and honor,” all things not yet put under Him — the headship to be enjoyed in the habitable earth to come. The second was Ephesians 1;2, when the body was being prepared for the glorified head. The third remains now to be quoted again. “For he hath put all things under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:27). This will come to pass, as the chapter shows, in the day when the scriptures of Isaiah 24-26 are fulfilled, in the day of the first resurrection. “Behold I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed... So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory (Isa. 25:8) (1 Cor. 15:51-55).” The whole chapter treats of this resurrection, of which Christ was the first fruits, it is a resurrection in power and glory. “It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” There is no thought in the chapter of the resurrection of the wicked. We have before considered shortly, that, at that time, the restoration of the nation of Israel will take place — the veil will he removed from all nations. And it will be a period of universal judgment of the powers of the earth, and in the heavenlies, introductive of the kingdom in Zion and the renewed earth, which the saints of the first resurrection (Rev. 20:4,5) will inherit and reign over, in the heavenlies, as joint-heirs with Christ.

In short, it is the time of the “restitution of all things which God bath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). This period of universal judgment is, as we may see, synchronous with that spoken of in considering the “Times of the Gentiles” and their judgment.

The Ways of God: 6. the Corruption of Christendom

We have seen, in some measure, the nature and unity of the Church of God — the Church to which Christ has imparted the glory given to Him as Man, by God the Father. The glory was His by right as the eternal Son, as well as by creation. But the only way in which we could partake of His glory, was by His becoming a man; and taking this glory, and headship over all things, through death and resurrection — thus accomplishing the redemption of His people. How little do they enter upon and realize, and walk in the power of their heavenly calling! Rather may it be said of many, “They mind earthly things.” They are engrossed and absorbed in the pursuits and aims of this world — “this present evil age”; from which He died to deliver them (Gal. 1:4). They are conformed to its ways, its vanities, its projects, rather than following a rejected Christ, whom the world united under Satan its prince, to cast out; and declaring plainly in their walk and ways that theirs is strangership on earth, and citizenship in heaven, and that they are of those of whom Christ said, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world (John 17:14); and of whom the apostle, “As is the heavenly, even so are they also that are heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:48).

Would that there were more of that intense personal devotedness amongst those who are Christ’s — amongst the Remnant to whom He has in His marvelous glace, taught the nature and meaning of this heavenly calling, and the truth of His Church, His Bride; who are in the place of the testimony of God just now, in His own sovereign goodness!

Would that this testimony of God might press itself, more deeply on our souls, and lead us to that intense separation from the world; and personal, individual devotedness, as witnesses, or servants, as it may please Him! Surely all may serve Him in the former capacity: all may be witnesses, if all are not laborers! And surely the corporate testimony without the personal devotedness — or the personal devotedness without the corporate testimony, is faulty; both must go together to be in accordance, in our little measure, with the mind and purpose of God.

For a little moment the desire of Christ, “That they all may be one... that the world may believe” (John 17:21), came to pass at the first blush of the unselfish joy of the Church at Pentecost, when the world beheld with wonder the great multitude of one heart and soul, having all things in common. But we may remember in our former pages, when considering the testing of man from the garden of Eden to the cross, that we found that, tried in every way he had failed; let us now see what man under grace will do — if such a position will succeed. It is just such another tale of sorrow, with this difference — that he has now failed in and corrupted, as to its testimony in the world, that which was best!

When the Church assumed fully her heavenly calling, after the persecution and dispersion which arose at the death of Stephen, we find Paul raised up of the Lord, that He might bring out by him the true heavenly calling and doctrine of the Church of God — the body of Christ. In the devoted labors of the apostle, and the Scriptures given to us by his instrumentality, we find that it became necessary for the Holy Spirit to reveal the consequences which would result to the Church, from its testimony on earth being entrusted into the hands of man. Evil had crept into it from the very beginning, but as long as the apostolic energy was there, it was kept from gaining head, and was judged. Judaism, false brethren, and ungodly men crept in unawares, amongst those who were true disciples; and even those who were truly disciples, became impregnated with the spirit of the world, and with the evil. Witness those solemn words of Paul to the elders of the assembly at Ephesus, the scene where all they of Asia had heard the word of the Lord: “I know this, that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock: also of from your own selves shall some arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them (Acts 20).” And in view of such a state of things, he directs the heart of the faithful disciple to “God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified (Acts 20:32).” God, and the Scriptures of His truth, were to be his sure and never-failing resource, in the time of ruin, which was fast closing in.

In Corinth we find schools of doctrine, and human wisdom, taking the place of revelation and divine wisdom amongst them (1 Cor. 1;4). In the epistle to the Galatians, the influence of law-teachers and Judaizers compelled the apostle to stand in doubt of them for the moment, as to whether they had abandoned the ground of Christianity altogether or not; still he had confidence in them through the Lord. In Philippians “all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s” (Phil. 2:21). Again, “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things (Phil. 3:18,19).” In Colossians, “Satan was endeavoring to introduce ordinances, and philosophy, and vain deceit after the tradition of men; meats and drinks, holy-days, will-worship and neglecting of the body — between the Head and the members.” 1 Timothy, “law-teachers and Judaizers, ‘understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm’; and the warning of the apostasy of the later times.” 2 Timothy, “the tide of evil cam e in with such a torrent, that the apostle sees the Church which he had labored for, and watched over, and builded, as a wise master-builder, — ’The house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15), the house inhabited by the Holy Spirit — fallen into dilapidation and ruins, and becoming like ‘a great house,’ with ‘vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor and some to dishonor’” (2 Tim. 2:20). In such a state of things, in the “perilous times” of the “last days,” the faithful disciple has but one pathway — not to be satisfied with such a state, nor to think of being able to mend the ruin, but, to depart from iniquity, and to purge himself from the vessels to dishonor, and to walk with the faithful, who “call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:19-22).

And again does the apostle turn the heart of the faithful one to the Scriptures of God as profitable for all and every difficulty, that he might “be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” So deeply solemn is the warning here in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, that that which bears the name of Christianity, and which before men has the character of godliness, shelters all the worst features of the corrupt human heart, that the words are literally nearly the same, and morally the same, as those which the apostle uses in describing the corruption and moral degradation of the heathen world in the close of Romans 1. There is also the active energy of evil in those who, “reprobate concerning the faith,” are deceiving and being deceived; from such the man of God was to turn away, leaving them to the judgment of God.

In Titus we find the unruly talkers and deceivers spreading their baneful influence around. 2 Peter also testifies as to these evil influences at work amongst the saints. Jude traces the apostasy from the time when “certain ungodly men crept in unawares” until the Lord comes with His saints to execute judgment upon such. In Jude 11 we have a summary of the apostasy of the natural man; “the way of Cain”; teaching error for reward, and using truth for corrupt ends, “the error of Balaam”; and lastly, where the apostasy ends, “the gainsaying of Core.” This, it will be remembered, was the revolt of the Israelites, instigated by the Levite Korah, against the authority of Christ, in His royalty, represented by Moses, and His priesthood, represented by Aaron. The Levites sought the priesthood (“Seek ye the priesthood also?” Num. 16), and were the moving spring of the revolt of the simple Israelites. And thus it has been and is ever, the ecclesiastical evil urging the civil power on to rebellion. See the revolt of Absalom against David: the moving power was Absalom’s counselor, Ahithophel, who was a priest (see 2 Sam. 15:12). And so it is in the end, a beast and a false prophet, who urges on the former, and “exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed (Rev. 13).” Such has been the corruption, from the beginning, of Christianity. Those who ought to have occupied the position of the Levite; that is, those who were sent into the Church to labor for the Lord, instead of retaining the Levite place, recognizing that all the people of the Lord are priests, and thus entitled to enter into the holiest (see 1 Peter 2:5,9); the ecclesiastical, or priestly position, has been assumed as the medium between Christ and His people; and this is not confined to the grosser evil and corruptions of Rome, but it is the same in principle throughout Christendom. Both these epistles — 2 Peter and Jude — testify of the rejection of the Lordship of Christ. Revelation 2; 3, give us in successive stages the different phases in which the evil would be developed in the Church, looked at in her place of testimony here below, from her departure from her first love, till threatened with full rejection, as something loathsome to Him — a false witness in the world. “I am about to spue thee out of my mouth.”

We have also the testimony in Matthew 13 from the Lord Himself in the parable of the tares, by which we see that the evil produced at the beginning by the introduction of the tares amongst the wheat, goes on until the harvest, when the righteous are gathered into the garner, and the tares bound in bundles and then cast into the fire and burned; thus cleansing the kingdom of the Son of man. Instead of a change, such as men think, coming over the world; and, by the gospel, the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea, the evil increases till the harvest. How do the thoughts of men, who look for a millennium brought in by the preaching of the gospel, fall in with this? Properly Matthew 13 including the parable of the tares and the wheat, is a similitude of the kingdom of heaven, in the phase it would assume when the King would be finally rejected, not the Church, which had no existence; in a subsequent chapter (Matt. 16) the Lord speaks of it as a future thing. He came as their Messiah, to His people Israel — His vineyard — to seek for fruit, and He found none. He then sowed in the world (“the field is the world”) that which was to produce fruit — “the word.”

I have purposely passed over 2 Thessalonians and the Epistles of John, for in them we find the personage named who shall consummate all this wickedness in himself — “the man of sin” — “the Antichrist.”

In the former epistle, given to us on the occasion of a spurious epistle having been received by the Thessalonians as if from Paul (2 Thess. 2:2), telling them that the “day” of Christ (day of the Lord) was there, the apostle (2 Thess. 2:1) beseeches them by their proper hope, which he had taught them in the first epistle, that of the coming of Christ, and their being gathered together unto Him, that they would not be shaken with the thought conveyed by the false epistle, that the “day,” or manifestation, was then present (ενεστηκε). The apostle clearly distinguishes the “coming” from the “appearing,” or “day,” which is to bring rest to them from the trials and tribulations of the world, and judgments on their enemies; for, when the “day” of His manifestation would come, the saints would be manifested with Him in glory.

He goes on to show that the mystery of iniquity was already at work, and would go on, restrained as to its full development by the presence of a hindering power of good (2 Thess. 2:7,8). That hindering power once removed, the “Lawless one” would be revealed. “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth (hinders), will let (hinder), until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed.” The removal of the restraining power of good would give scope to the complete apostasy (or “falling away”) from Christianity (vs. 3). This would be coincident with the revelation of the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition. These two latter happening between the removal of the restraining power, and the “day” of judgment executed by the Lord Himself upon the Wicked, whom He would consume with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His coming. (2 Thess. 2:8). This would be the “day of Christ” (day of the Lord) which the false epistle told them was then present. The “coming” of the Lord for them was their proper hope to remove them from the terrors of that “day.”

We have seen some of the testimonies of Scripture as to the mystery of lawlessness, but there was a good hindering power (2 Thess. 2:7), which, when removed, then would the lawless one be revealed. The principles were all at work, but the Holy Spirit was in the Church, the power of God was here below, and the unbridled self-will of man, exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, was still restrained, till the fitting time was come; then the evil would assume its definite shape in the apostasy, and “the man of sin.”

We will follow to its close the mystery of iniquity. We turn to Revelation 17 and find the fourth Beast, or Latin empire, in his revived state, ridden upon by a false woman, “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.” Imperially and gloriously arrayed, and her cup full of idolatry and fornication, drunken with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, and the blood of saints. The prophet wonders at the end of what was once so precious, so beautiful — the work of grace at Pentecost. She over-rides the peoples, nations, and tongues, and their kings, who have been intoxicated with the wine of her fornication; until at last, wearied with her oppression, the ten horns and the Beast, “these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.” She waits not for the appearing of Christ for judgment, but suffers it at the hands of those over whom she exercised her pernicious influence so long. Revelation 17 gives her judgment in the eyes of God; and the lamentation of the kings of the earth, and those who profited by her traffic and rewards, for her overthrow. Such is the end of corrupt Christianity wherever it is found.

In considering the history of the Gentile powers, from their beginning to their close in judgment; and that of the Beast, who represents it, urged on by Satan in the end, we also saw his connection with the false Messiah (the Antichrist), whom the Jews would receive in the end of the age, and his judgment under the character of the false prophet, with the first Beast: I desired to show how this personage forms the link between their history and that of false, professing Christendom in the end.

We saw from 2 Thess. 2:3,4,8, that that wicked one would not be revealed till the good restraining power was removed: the mystery of iniquity worked, and the apostasy would come; this we traced to its end in the judgment of the corrupt woman of Revelation 17. Revelation 13 showed us also that it is during the revived form of the Latin empire, at the close of the existence of the fourth Beast, that this “man of sin” — the second Beast would be fully revealed. He has title of king amongst the Jews, and is the second Beast who ministers to the power of the first Beast, (not being able to set aside the Gentile power) during the short period before the close, when Satan shall have given him his power, and seat, and great authority.

We also saw that it was after the taking up of the saints, that Satan was cast out of the heavenlies (Rev. 12). Putting all these things together, we find that it is between the coming of Christ for His saints, and His appearance in judgment with them, that the man of sin, the lawless one, is revealed.

As described in 2 Thess. 2, he does similar things to those attributed to him in Dan. 11:36-38: he “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped so that he sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God... whose coming is after the working of Satan with all powers and signs and lying wonders:” even as Christ, as the Man of righteousness, was “approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him” (Acts 2:22 — see Greek). The attainment of this position — that is, of God — was the first suggestion of Satan to Adam, (ye shall be as God’s, &c.). Here we find it in man, fallen, fully developed and filled with the energy of Satan, in this man of sin, who opposes the Lord Jesus — Man in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9).

When examining Revelation 13 with regard to this personage, we saw that the miracles he performs have, in the apprehension of men, the appearance of divine energy, and they are mostly of a Jewish character. In 2 Thess. 2 they are more an imitation of Christ. With regard to those in Revelation 13, we may remember that when Elijah was raised up to witness for the name of Jehovah, before the apostate tribes of Israel (1 Kings 19), the question whether Jehovah or Baal was God, was decided by fire, which came down and consumed the sacrifice, and that the people then fell down on their faces crying, “Jehovah, he is the God.” In 2 Thess. 2, as we have seen in quoting Acts 2, it is more an imitation of Christ, though of Satan.

In the first Epistle of John he is termed “The Antichrist,” who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22); that is the revelation of Christianity. Thus it is plain that in these days of strong delusion — when men, not having received the love of the truth that they might be saved, will be given up to believe a lie —he forms the connecting link between apostate Christianity, and apostate Judaism, and the apostasy of the forth beast or Gentile power, and is in himself the expression of the apostasy of man, claiming to be God. Judaism, for he sits in the temple of God (I need hardly add, in Jerusalem) — Christianity, as we have seen. And we find him coming to his end, with his coadjutor in evil, in Revelation 19:20, under the title of the “false prophet, (the Antichrist), which is more his Jewish character; the ecclesiastical corruption having been destroyed, not by the Lord, but by those it had overridden, by God’s judgment.

We have now traced to their end the different agents in evil, in the apostasy of the natural man entrusted with power, personified by the beast, the Antichrist to his end, and false Christianity to her end. Deeply solemn subjects, and yet needful (or our God would not have warned us about these things), they affect not ourselves as to their judgment and their end, but we are in the midst of, and have to do with, the principles which are fast ripening up around us. Ours is a calling out of, and above, the world; and we shall be with the Lord, when the evils are fully manifested, and the world carried away in delusion by them. The citizenship of the church is in heaven (Phil. 3:20), where these evils cannot come. Blessed be our God! Evil is fast ripening to its head and the minds of men more blinded, and there are in spirit many antichrists (1 John 2:18). May the consideration of these things lead us into a more growing separation in all our pursuits and ways from that which ends so sorrowfully. And may we with greater earnestness long for the coming of Him who will put an end to the evil, and fill the word with blessing under Himself.

Our considerations have led us thus far. We see that the three great systems (1 Cor. 10:32) set up in the world for the display of God’s government and His grace, (namely, the Jew, under law; the Gentile, without law, and entrusted with universal dominion; and the Church, as Christ’s epistle in the world — His witness of grace and truth, and under grace) have all, as far as man’s responsibility reached, been a scene of ruin and failure and corruption — the ruin of that which was most excellent proving the worst of corruptions.

NOTE. It is deeply and practically important for us to see that while the ruin of Christendom has presented to us such a tale of solemn character; that the “unity of the Spirit” (Eph. 4:3), forming one Body in the world; united to Christ glorified, can never be marred. As to its outward manifestation, as a candlestick, or an Epistle of Christ, through the oneness of heart and purpose of its numbers this has truly been a failure. But what the Holy Spirit has constituted — the Body of Christ, cannot be marred; it is this unity we are responsible to endeavor to keep, as members of Christ, and as to this unity we are exhorted in Ephesians 4:3. This gives us a divine principle, and our resource now is, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). We can ever claim His promise when we come together in our weakness, and in principle as the Body of Christ.

The Ways of God: 7. the Judgment of Israel and the Nations Introductive of the Kingdom

In the opening subject of our considerations of the Ways of God, we mentioned that the prophetic Scriptures are occupied with earthly events; and embrace five great leading and distinct subjects, some of which, if not all, are often found grouped together in the same prophecy.

It is with the fourth of these subjects we shall now be specially occupied — the Crisis, or short period of judgment, which cleanses the world of all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, preparatory to the setting up of the kingdom — “The hour of temptation (trial) which comes upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3:10); “The time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer. 30:7). The nation of Israel is most prominent during this period, and is the subject of judgment, in which the Gentiles are sharers. The testimonies of Scripture are very full on this subject; and to help to clear it in our minds, I have classified them into three divisions, as follow:

1. The promises made of restoration to Israel, after their failure, and in view of it; besides the unconditional promises made to the fathers, both of which will be fulfilled to a remnant of the nation, who will be established in the kingdom, under Christ, in the land.

2. The testimonies of Scripture that Israel would be set aside for a long timeless period, known only to God, and again taken up to be restored.

3. That when this timeless period shall have run out, the nation will be restored by judgment, which delivers a remnant; and not only on them, but at the same time a universal judgment falls on the nations of the world; which introduces God’s kingdom in Zion, — the Millennial period, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea.

1. As to the first point, we will turn to Lev. 26, where we find the result placed before Israel consequent on their observing a the conditions they had accepted as the terms of their relationship with God; and retention of their blessings in the land: and the alternative in case of the non-fulfillment of these terms. “If ye will walk in my statutes... then I will give you rain,” &c. (Lev. 26:3-13); “ But and if ye will not hearken... I also will do this unto you,” &c. (Lev. 26:14-39). It goes on, assuming that the latter would be the case, till the cities are wasted, and the land and her sanctuaries brought to desolation, and the nation dispersed amongst the heathen, in their enemies’ land; and then, even when in the enemies’ land, God says, “I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God.” The Lord then returns to his own unconditional promises to their forefathers, after they have destroyed themselves: and when in their enemies’ land, He forgets them not, nor casts them off utterly. “If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers... and that they have walked contrary to me... then will I remember my covenant with Jacob... also my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the land (Lev. 26:40-42).” Turn now to Deut. 30:1-10: “And it shall come to pass when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind amongst all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the Lord thy God... that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee... and bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it: and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers, &c.” This is not so striking as Lev. 26, where the promises to the fathers are alluded to. Deuteronomy is more the principle of their acceptance as a nation after failure, and when “Lo Ammi” (Hos. 1:9) had been written upon them. It also lays down the principle of their acceptance as individuals in the interim by the gospel, and righteousness by faith. See the use made of it by the Apostle Paul in Romans 10:11-14.

There are other promises in view of their restoration, especially that to the house of David, to be made good in Christ. We read in 1 Chron. 17:11-14, “And it shall come to pass, when the days be expired that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me an house, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son; and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee, but I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established for evermore.” This passage is applied to Christ in Hebrews 1:5. We find the promises to the fathers alluded to in view of their full deliverance in the end. See Mic. 7:19,20. The prophet expresses the adoration of his heart in contemplating the goodness of God in their deliverance; he says, “Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old.” We must ever remember that if God were to fail in fulfilling those earthly promises to Abraham, we have no reason to suppose that He would not also fail in His spiritual promises to us as well. Consult Galatians 3:6-14. Neither, we know, can ever fail.

Again, when Christ came, “As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever” (Luke 1:54,55). In Luke 1:69-74, when both the promises to the fathers and to David’s house are recalled, “He hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David... to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he sware to our father Abraham.” It is almost needless to say that the earthly blessings were deferred, because of the rejection of Christ by the nation.

Turn now to Isaiah 49. We find that Israel having failed as God’s servant (see Isa. 40-48), is set aside, and Christ presented as the true servant; and yet He says, “I have labored in vain”; for Israel rejected Him. The answer of God comes in verse 5, &c. It was a light thing to raise up the tribes of Israel, but He should be exalted and given as a light to the Gentiles. In verse 8, He is given as a covenant to the people to deliver them in the end. The language of the prophecy is very beautiful: “Sing O heavens, and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains, for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.” Zion, apparently forsaken, then learns that the Lord’s faithfulness is greater than a mother’s towards her sucking child. “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls (Jerusalem) are continually before me.” Her children make haste to return to her, and her destroyers go forth from her. “Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold all these [the restored and gathered remnant of the people] gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doeth. For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me; give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold I was left alone: these where had they been? Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people, and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee, with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for they shalt not be ashamed that wait for me.” The thought of applying this to the Church is almost too overstrained to need a remark. When does the Church ever say, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me,” and that at the very time when the blessing is complete? The Church was then an unrevealed mystery; hid in God (Eph. 3:9; Rom. 16:25, 26; Col. 1:26).

In Romans 11 the Apostle Paul deals with this subject, showing that God hath not cast off His people; and he gives three leading reasons in his argument.

First: there is a remnant according to the election of grace. Secondly: through the fall of his nation, salvation is come to the Gentiles to provoke Israel to jealousy (see Deut. 32:21), and not to reject them. And, Thirdly, “There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob,” at the time that all Israel (that is, as a whole, or nationally), shall be saved (compare Rom. 11:26).

When we consider the third point proposed, many of those promises of restoration will come before us, connected with the judgment of the apostates of the nation, and the Gentiles.

2. As to the next point, we will turn to Dan. 9:24-27, where we find the answer to the prayer of Daniel, who was one of the captives of Israel in Babylon. Naturally the subject of all others most dear to his Jewish heart and affections, was the restoration of his people; and the subject of most importance was to ascertain the length of time they would be subject to their captors, under whose yoke they were reaping what they had sown when owned of God.

In the beginning of the chapter we find that, like any godly man, Daniel was a student of Scripture; and in the first year of Darius the Mede, who took the kingdom after the fall of Babylon, he had ascertained from the book of Jeremiah that the seventy years of the desolations of. Jerusalem were now past. Faith was at work in his soul, and he set his face to wait upon God and to humble himself before Him about his nation with prayer and supplication, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. He puts himself in the position of the nation according to its sins before God, and identifies himself with them (see Lev. 26:40, 41). His heart owns the God with whom he had to do, as one who never changed — a merciful and gracious God. God Himself is his confidence. “O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him.” It is something beautiful how his faith calls Jerusalem “thy city,” and Israel “thy people,” as Moses did when the people made the golden calf, and God could not own them. We read, “Whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin, and the sin of my people Israel... the man Gabriel... informed me,” &c.

In the communication which follows — that is, the prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan. 9:24-27) — he receives the answer to his prayer. We may remark that God speaks of the people to Daniel as “thy people” — as to Moses on the occasion to which we have referred; and the prophecy relates to the Jewish people, and to Jerusalem. “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy (place). Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after (the) threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off and shall have nothing, (marg.), and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm a (marg.) covenant with many for one week and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.” Here then is a clearly defined period, at the end of which a remarkable change would be brought to his people, the Jews, and to their city — their return and complete re-establishment in grace — transgressions pardoned, sins made an end of, iniquity forgiven, and everlasting righteousness introduced, the vision and prophecy sealed up, and the most holy place anointed.

Now let us call to mind the state of Judah and Jerusalem, as we saw when examining the past history of the people of Israel, at the time that Judah went into captivity to Babylon, in the closing chapters of 2 Kings. The king of Judah and the nation were brought into captivity (Israel, or the ten tribes, had long before been brought into captivity by the Assyrian), the city was broken up, and the house of the Lord burned with fire, and a few of the poorest of the people left to be vinedressers and husbandmen in the land. And let us compare that state with what is here in Dan. 9:24, where we find a complete and perfect restoration and re-establishment promised.

During the continuance of those seventy weeks of years (490), it assumes, or declares, that the people or a remnant of them, will be in the land; but not yet owned as God’s people, and still under the power of the Gentiles; the temple rebuilt, and the city restored. This is of much importance, to let us bear in mind those three points which together characterize the continuance of the seventy weeks.

1. The people (or some of them) are in the land but not owned of God.

2. The temple rebuilt, and the city.

3. The Gentiles still in possession of the throne of the world, or in other words, the “Times of the Gentiles” not run out.

These three things together do not characterize the present time.

The seventy weeks are divided into three periods, or divisions: seven weeks, sixty two weeks, and one week. The first division of seven weeks, or (of the) four hundred and ninety years, counts from the going forth of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem; this was the starting point. “Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.” First this rebuilding goes on for seven weeks of years (49). We read in Nehemiah that it was a time of great distress and trouble. “But it came to pass that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews. And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice I will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? &c.” Then we have sixty-two weeks of years (434) from the rebuilding of Jerusalem unto Messiah, in all sixty-nine weeks of the seventy (483). Messiah is then cut off and rejected, and does not get His kingdom. “After the threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off and shall have nothing.” Christ presents Himself to the nation as their King, and instead of getting His kingdom, He is crucified, after the threescore and two weeks; and the counting out of the seventieth week ceases for the time. Then the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. This was accomplished under Titus and the Roman armies at the destruction of Jerusalem (AD 70), after the rejection of Christ. The people whose armies accomplished this were the Roman people. In John 11:48, we find the fears of the Jewish leaders absolutely prophetic of this event. “If we let him (Christ) thus alone, all men will believe on him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” And the Lord Himself predicted when He beheld the city, and wept over it, “For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground (Luke 19:43).” And again, “And some spake of the temple how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down... and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:5, 6, 24). Messiah having been cut off after the sixty-ninth week, the chain of events with the Jewish people ceases (absolutely, when the city was destroyed), and time therefore ceases to be counted from that period to the present. God, as we have seen, becomes occupied with heavenly things. The seventieth week was to bring in and establish in full prosperity and blessing the people, according to verse 24; but instead of the blessing, the cutting off of Messiah after the sixty-ninth week, the city and sanctuary trodden down, and a long nameless period of desolations to the people and city follow. Evidently, as we have seen, it was the Roman people who were to do what is stated in Dan. 9:26, “The people of the prince that shall come,” &c. The prince was not there, only the people are named, but the prince himself was not come. He is brought before us after his long timeless period of desolations, still running on, “He shall confirm a covenant,” &c.

The rejection of Christ, therefore, suspended all relations and dealings of God with the Jewish people, as His earthly people, and this allotted period of seventy weeks ceased to run on. And when the Jews are again the objects of God’s dealings, in the short period of judgment before He owns them as His nation, the period which remains of the seventy weeks, will be counted out, and will bring in the full restoration. This short period, therefore, as we may easily see synchronizes with the closing events, or crisis of the history of the world, introductive of the kingdom.

We find the same thing in many other Scriptures. either assumed or declared. (See Isa. 8:14-22; 9:1-7.) Christ becomes a stone of stumbling to the nation — the testimony is confined to His disciples — the Lord then hides His face from the house of Jacob for a long, timeless period, and the prophet passes over to the last days, which introduce the kingdom by judgment. Again in Isaiah 61:1, 2, when the Lord announced His mission in the synagogue of Nazareth, He stops short in the middle of verse 2, which is separated from the next clause already for more than eighteen hundred years, and which clause announces the “day of vengeance,” and comforting them that mourn, the remnant of the nation in the kingdom.

The Ways of God: 8. the Judgment of Israel and the Nations Introductive of the Kingdom, Continued

3. Now consider the testimony of Scripture as to the third point proposed. Turn to Deut. 32. In the closing verses of Deut. 31, Moses gathers the elders and officers of the people of Israel together to recite in their ears the prophetic song given to him by the Lord as a witness, in view of their failure. He says, “I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way that I command you, and evil will befall you in the latter days, because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger through the works of your hands.” Then in Deut. 32 they are viewed as having corrupted themselves. “They have corrupted themselves; their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.” He then goes on to relate their wonderful history, and the counsels and care of God as to them, and the return they made to Him. “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked... they provoked him to jealousy with strange God’s... they sacrificed unto devils... And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them... and he said, I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end shall be, for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God... and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people.” And then in His anger He casts them off utterly, heaping mischief upon them.

When thus cast off He acts in His own sovereignty, and in view of this He declares, “For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he sees their power is gone, and that there is none shut up or left.” He judges His people, avenges the blood of His servants. When His hand takes hold on judgment, He renders vengeance to His enemies — makes His arrows drunk with blood — His sword devours much flesh; then He turns in mercy to His people and to His land. The result of this judgment on the nations is, that the Gentiles sing the song of deliverance with the remnant of His people who are delivered. (See Psa. 67; 117.)

Psalm 2; 8 — 10. In the first of these Psalms we find Christ presented as King in Zion and rejected, yet God’s purposes were only delayed for a while. Christ takes in resurrection the wider glory of the Son of man, according to Psalm 8; we saw before that the Holy Spirit, in Acts 4, quotes the first two verses of Psalm 2 and stops. The Lord is represented as laughing at their rage, but for all their rage He declares, “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.” Messiah is desired, “Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance,” &c. When rejected, and about to be crucified, He represents Himself as praying for His disciples, “I pray for them, I pray not for the world” (John 17), but the time is coming when He will ask for the heathen for His inheritance, and the answer comes, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” He inherits them by judgment, in which His people now being gathered share with Him; a proof that, wherever Christ is spoken of in the Old Testament, we find the portion of the Church as well. “He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken in pieces, even as I received of my Father (Rev. 2:28).” This however is not his best portion, for “I will give him the morning star” — Christ Himself. Then, not only is the name of Jehovah excellent in all the earth, but He sets His glory above the heavens (Psa. 8:1), and stills the enemy and the avenger.

Psalm 9, 10 show us the position and circumstances in which the nation is found in this crisis of judgment. The delivered remnant say, “For thou hast maintained my right and my cause... thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name forever and ever... the Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands... The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. Arise, O Lord; let not man prevail; let the heathen be judged in thy sight. Put them in fear, O Lord; that the nations may know themselves to be but men.” It is when there is none to say, “How long?” that the Lord appears to their deliverance.

Again, “The Lord is King forever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land. Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart [that is of the spared ones who are trained for the kingdom]; thou wilt cause their ear to hear, &c.” How mistaken to think the Psalms are the expression of Christian experience as such! How often the simple-hearted Christian has been stumbled at the cry for vengeance on enemies, running through this class of Psalms, put into his mouth, whose calling is to do well and suffer for it, and take it patiently, while in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ! The kingdom and power will be looked for by these Jewish hearts, as that which brings their deliverance. The trials of the heavenly saints end, just before those of the Jewish saints begin. See Revelation 12, where we find rejoicing in heaven when the accuser is cast down, and woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, “for the devil is come down to you.” He then turns his rage against the woman and her seed, the Jewish people. The Spirit of Christ has graciously entered into these trials, that He might give a voice to the remnant (as heard in these Psalms), in the closing days before the kingdom.

Read now Psalm 110. Christ rejected by men, and by His people as their king — who said, “We have no king but Caesar,” “We will not have this man to reign over us” — is exalted to God’s right hand. God said, “Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (see Heb. 1:13;10:13). He remains then for the nameless time “until” that hour known only to the Father. The Lord, when that hour comes, sends out of Zion the rod of His strength; and Christ rules in the midst of His enemies. His people are willing in the day of His power. (They are unwilling in the day of His humiliation.) “The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen,” &c.

Turn to Isaiah 1-4. Blessing and rest are proposed in chapter 1 consequent on the repentance of the nation; but they would not hearken. Eventually it is brought in by judgment — “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness; and the destruction of the transgressors, and of the sinners shall be together.” The result of this judgment is in Isaiah 2:1-4; 4:2-6, a time of peace and glory. “It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains... and all nations shall flow unto it... He shall judge among the nations... and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” How different the time in which we live, while the times of the Gentiles are running on, characterized by those words of our Lord, “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom... upon earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring, men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth,” precursors of the Son of man’s coming with power and great glory (Luke 21:10,25-27).

The remaining part of Isaiah 2., &c., shows the connection between the judgment of the nations and that of Israel. “Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty: and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of man shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day... when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.” The result of this universal judgment is the establishment of His people in the glory of the kingdom. “It will come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy; even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning. And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and a smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defense. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.” His own presence will be there, when His people are delivered, as in the wilderness of old.

Isaiah 11. The reading of this chapter is so plain as scarcely to need a word. A time of universal blessedness and peace; His people restored and under the government of Messiah, introduced by judgment, which falls on them and the nations. “He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut of, &c.” Isaiah 13, 14 treat of the same time, a time of universal judgment on the imperial throne of the world (ch. 13). “The day of the Lord [when] all hands shall be faint and every man’s heart shall melt. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob... and they shall take them captives whose captives they were, and they shall rule over their oppressors... in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations (Isa. 14:1-3, 26).” It goes on to the destruction of the Assyrian after their deliverance (the power that occupies at that day the territory of their ancient enemy); I say “after,” because in past history the Assyrian fell before Babylon; here, which proves its future application, he falls after Babylon is judged.

Isaiah 24-27. This prophecy we have examined shortly before; it shows the universal judgment upon the nations and Israel; and the deliverance of a remnant — the Lord’s throne established in Zion — the reproach of His people removed, the vail taken away from all nations. The Lord had hidden his face from the house of Israel while they were disowned: but He is spoken of as coming out of His place for their deliverance. “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee, hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain... And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.” Isaiah 30. “Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun; and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people and healeth the stroke of their wound. Behold the name of the Lord cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy; his lips are full of indignation; and his tongue as a devouring fire: and his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: that is, and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people causing them to err... And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lightning down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones. For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down which smote with a rod. And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass [the rod of vengeance which God hath decreed], which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps [when it is laid on the Assyrian, it is the source of joy and deliverance at the end of the indignation, to the remnant of Israel], and with battles of shaking will he fight with it. For Tophet is ordained of old, yea, for the king it is prepared” [the Antichrist, who has this title amongst the apostate nation]; he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.” Isaiah 59:15-21. Verse 20 of this passage is quoted by the apostle in Romans 11, in view of the future restoration of the people. “The Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob.” And then He establishes the new covenant with Israel; His Spirit is with His people, and His words are in their mouth, which would abide with them for even Verse 18, &c., shows that it is introduced by judgment; “He will repay fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies: to the islands he will pay recompense; so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. The next chapter declares that Jerusalem is restored in the glory of the kingdom, and her sons and daughters gathered from every side.” Isaiah 66. This chapter gives the judgment which introduces the glory and blessedness of the restored nation, described in the latter portion of Isaiah 65. First, we have the remnant who fear the name of Jehovah and wait for him; then, the apostates of the nation. The former are encouraged with the promise that the Lord would appear to their joy and deliverance, and to the shame of the apostates, who said in contempt “Let the Lord display his glory.” “Behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many (Isa. 66:15, 16).” This passage shows that He comes suddenly, like a whirlwind, and renders to His enemies the fire of judgment. Then we have the result of this in verses 6-14; the Jews are set up again in a wondrous manner, and Jerusalem restored. “Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her all ye that love her: rejoice with joy for her, all ye that mourn for her... for thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream... as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you: and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the Lord shall be known towards his servants, and his indignation towards his enemies.” Then, in Isaiah 66:19, 20, those who are spared go forth to declare the glory of the Lord among the Gentiles, and to bring back the dispersed of Israel. The whole chapter shows most clearly the connection between the universal judgment of the nations and Israel, with the deliverance of a remnant, and the Gentiles who are spared, blessed around the people of God.

Turn to Jer. 25. We referred to this chapter before; it declared the length of the captivity of Judah in Babylon to be seventy years: but God, having given the throne of the world to Babylon, when He had set aside His people and removed His presence from their midst — in principle, when Babylon is overthrown His people are delivered, because it was the only power that held its dominion directly from God — the other Gentile powers followed providentially. Jerusalem was only partially restored; however, it shows the principle. In examining this chapter, we find that the judgment goes on to the end, in which His people are involved; primarily it referred to the judgment which was executed on Jerusalem and the nations at the time to which the prophecy referred, Babylon which had executed it falling last of all; and serves as a type of the final crisis of judgment of all the nations of the world. “For lo,... I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth: for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh... and the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth, &c. (Jer. 25:29-33).” Jer. 30-33. In this beautiful series of prophecies we find, first, Judah restored; then Israel; then both established under the new covenant; the land restored; Messiah and the priesthood, all introduced by judgment on the Jews and the nations, which finds Jacob at the height of his distress. Let us examine it more closely. In Jer. 30:7, the prophet writes, “Alas for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him, but they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them. Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord, neither be thou dismayed, O Israel, for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee, though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished... therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured, and all thine adversaries, every one of them shall go into captivity, and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil and all they that prey upon thee will I give for a prey. For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord, because they called thee an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after... the city shall be builded upon her own heap... The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return, until he has done it, and until he has performed the intents of his heart: in the later days ye shall consider it.” Jer. 31 sets forth the deliverance, at the same time, of all the families of Israel: “And they shall plant vines in the mountains of Samaria and eat them as common things.” The language of this deliverance is touchingly beautiful. “Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child, and her that travaileth with child together; a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them, and I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters by a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn... He that scattered Israel, will gather them... Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd; and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all... Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah [both houses, the entire nation], “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant they brake... But this shall be the covenant... I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts... and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more... If those ordinances [of creation] depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.” When Messiah was cut off, the blood of this new covenant was shed, mid all necessary on God’s part was accomplished to their righteous establishment under it. Plainly the return from Babylon, of the remnant of Judah was not this reestablishment; for it will be established with all Israel, as it declares, and in grace. The blessing of it, however, never brings them within the veil, although giving them access, for worshiping there through faith, as we do as Christians now (???). “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord, from the tower of Hannanel unto the gate of the corner. And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shall compass about to Goath. And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook Kedron, unto the corner of the horse gate towards the east, shall be holy unto the Lord; and it shall not be plucked up nor thrown down, any more forever.” In Jer. 32 the Lord takes up the circumstances of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to declare His counsels in grace as to their final restoration. The prophet is directed to buy a field in token that the people would again possess the land (Jer. 32:37-44). “Behold, I will gather them out of all countries whither I have driven them in mine anger... and I will bring them again into their place, and I will cause them to dwell safely... Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart, and with my whole soul.” Read on to the end of this chapter.

Jer. 33 repeats the blessings, looking forward to the day when their Messiah would be with them. “I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel [both] to return... and I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me: and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me... In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David: and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. [“Judgment shall return to righteousness, and all the upright in heart shall follow it” [Psa. 94:15].” “In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the same wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness. For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the Throne of the house of Israel [not merely Judah].” “Thus saith the Lord, If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy upon them.” Turn now to Ezek. 20. The Spirit here retraces the idolatry of the entire nation, from the time of their deliverance out of Egypt. God had brought them out, and given them His sabbaths to be a sign between Him and them: but they had even rebelled in the wilderness against Him, and polluted His sabbaths. “Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes... they polluted my sabbaths... in the wilderness.” God had told them (Deut. 32; Lev. 26) that He would scatter them amongst the heathen. Yet when they had been brought into the land, they had forsaken the Lord for the high places, and the Lord had sworn that He would not be inquired of by them; but the nation, hardened in their idolatry, had resolved to be like the heathen, and serve wood and stone. Then the Lord said that with fury poured out He would rule over them. “And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered... and I will plead with you face to face... and I will cause you to pass under the rod... and I will purge out from among you the rebels [the apostates], and them that transgress against me... and they shall not enter into the land of Israel... For in my holy mountain... there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve me... when I shall bring you into the land of Israel; into the country for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers. And I will kindle a fire in thee... and all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it: and it shall not be quenched (Ezek. 20:33,48).” Israel is here dealt with, amongst the nations of the world, for idolatry; as Judah for the rejection of Christ, (for Israel is the ten tribes, never returned to have their Messiah presented to them, as Judah), which was her special sin, in which she was joined by the fourth Gentile empire, represented by Pilate. In the end she is found in close alliance with, and politically favored by, the fourth Gentile empire in its revived state. The unclean spirit of idolatry did not return to the Jews after the return of the remnant from Babylon. The Lord notices this in Matthew 12: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished; then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” Verse 48 shows the connection of the judgment of the nations with that of Israel.

Ezek. 36-39. In this series of chapters we get, first, the moral renewing of the nation; then the quickening and restoration of the people in national resurrection; then when restored and in their land, their last great enemy, which occupies the territory of the Assyrian, comes up against them; and is destroyed in the mountains of Israel.

Ezek. 36. The past failure of the nation is put before them that they may own it before God. The heathen said, “These are the people of the Lord and (yet) they are gone forth out of his land” (vs. 20.) But then God remembers that His name is involved, and for His holy name’s sake He delivers them. Then, as He had shown to Nicodemus, a master in Israel, the new birth was necessary even to the enjoyment of earthly blessings (John 3:12); which, as a teacher in Israel he ought to have known, from the testimony of the prophets. “I will sprinkle clean water upon you... a new heart also will I give you... and I will put my Spirit within you... and ye shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers... And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field...I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded, &c.” The nation is thus morally renewed that they may loathe themselves for their sins before God, in true repentance.

Ezek. 37. In the vision of this chapter we have a figure of the national resurrection of the people. The prophet sees a valley of dry bones, to which he prophesies, as commanded; and there was a noise and a shaking, and the bones came together, and the sinews and flesh came up upon them, and the breath came unto them, and they lived. “Then said he unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold they say [in captivity], Our bones are dried, our hope is lost; we are cut off from our parts... Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel... and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live; and I shall place you in your own land.” The figure of resurrection is here used to show the gathering of the nation, apparently long lost amongst the nations of the world, into their land. Clearly it only applies to this, not to the literal resurrection of the saints, who have died in the Lord; it would not be “in the land,” but to heaven, they would be brought. In what follows, we find that Judah and Israel, long apart, are united into one nation, under one king. God sets up his tabernacle and his sanctuary amongst them, and establishes His covenant of peace.

In Ezek. 38;39, the Assyrian, the ancient enemy of the people when owned of God — “the rod of the Lord’s anger” (Isa. 10:5) against His people, to chastise them for their sins — is here introduced under the title of Gog, the prince of Rosh (Russia); Mescheh (Moscow); and Tubal (Tobolsk). He embraces the territory under Russia, or which that power shall have gathered under her in that day. He is represented as wickedly coming up against the nation in Palestine when at rest and restored. “Thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages: I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely... to take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thy hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon their people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land... Thus saith the Lord... it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land... art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel... and it shall come to pass when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, my fury shall come up in my face... and I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood... and I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee... Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel... Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God; this is the day whereof I have spoken. Then shall they [the house of Israel] know that I am the Lord their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen; but I have gathered them into their own land... Neither will I hide my face any more from them; for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God.” Compare also for this destruction of the Assyrian, after the people are restored, Isaiah 24:24, 25; 33. We must carefully distinguish Gog the land of Magog in Ezek. 38;39, from Gog and Magog of Revelation 20. The former comes up when the people are restored, in the beginning of the kingdom; the latter, after the thousand years of the kingdom have expired. When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall he loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, &c., (Rev. 20:7,8).

The Ways of God: 9. the Judgment of Israel and the Nations Introductive of the Kingdom, Continued

Dan. 12. We have seen that the time of the great tribulation, spoken of here, is that to which the Lord Himself alludes, as happening at the time the abomination of desolation is set up in the temple, and which ends by the coming of the Lord Himself; and the deliverance of the people. It is the closing half of the seventieth week, when the restored Latin empire is the full expression of Satanic energy, the destruction of which makes way for the kingdom under Christ.

We read, “At that time shall Michael stand up... for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time; and at that time shall thy people be delivered... And many [not “all”] of them that sleep in the dust of the earth [this is a figure analogous to the moral death and resurrection in Isaiah 26:13-19, and the national resurrection as conveyed by the figure of the valley of dry bones in Ezek. 37] shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to [instruct the many in] righteousness, as the stars forever and ever... And one said... How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? [that is, to the end of the tribulation] and he sware, that it should be for a time, times, and a half;” to put an end to the dispersion of the holy people: the closing half of the seventieth week of Dan. 9, which brings in the full blessing.

Joel 3. It is but necessary to read verses 1, 2, 9-17, to show the connection. “For, behold, in those days... when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat [the judgment of Jehovah], and will plead with them there for my people, and my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land... Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles... assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about. Let the heathen be waked, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about [this is the judgment of the quick, or living nations]. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel... Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and then shall no stranger pass through her any more.” She shall be no more trodden down of the Gentiles; their times shall have been fulfilled.

Mic. 4;5. This prophecy shows in the most wondrously beautiful manner, the coming and rejection of the Bethlehemite by His people, who are then given up for a time until Zion, which travails, shall have brought forth, and the Son be owned as born to the nation (see Isa. 9); and the remnant shall he restored. The Assyrian then comes up, and He whom they had rejected is then their peace. “And he shall stand and rule in the strength of the Lord... And this man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our palaces. [He] shall deliver us from the Assyrian... and the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people, as the dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.” Jacob shall be the channel of refreshing grace from God to the world, and a testimony to His power.

Zeph. 3:8,20. “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations... to pour upon them my indignation... for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.” The remnant is thus encouraged to wait for this time of judgment from the Lord when He would rise up to the prey; this alone would set them free, and teach the nations to call upon the Lord, and serve Him with one consent. In that day God would gather His dispersed people from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia (Euphrates and Nile), and have in their midst a people that trust in the name of Jehovah; and “the remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem; the Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy; the King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall he said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not; and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty: he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love; he will joy over thee with singing... I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord.” Haggai 2. “For thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts... The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former... I will shake the heavens and the earth; and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen... saith the Lord of hosts.” This universal judgment, introductive of Christ and the glory of the restored nation, is referred to by the Holy Spirit, in Hebrews 12:26, as yet to come.

Zech. 10-14. In this series of chapters we have the restoration of Judah and Israel at a time of universal judgment; and this is spoken of still as future, long after the return of Judah from the Babylonish captivity. “And in that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people; all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it... and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem... And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all nations that come up against Jerusalem.” The verses following, which speak of the repentance of the house of David and the nation, are extremely beautiful. The rejected Messiah is the Jehovah who delivers them. They look upon Him whom they have pierced. There is a great mourning in the land as in the valley of Megiddon of old. This allusion to 2 Chron. 35:22, &c., is touching in the extreme. There, in the closing days of their former history, their faithful king, Josiah, had fallen, and there the nation had mourned and made great lamentation over their slain king. Here they learn to mourn in the dust, when they learn that the king whom their nation crucified is the Lord of hosts Himself!

In the past history of the nation we saw how that they had failed — the people, the priests, the prophets, and the kings. Here (Zech. 12:12-14) we find these classes all represented in this national and yet individual repentance. The house of David, which represents the kings — the house of Nathan, the prophets — the house of Levi, the priests — and the house of Shimei (Simeon), the people.

Judah is here dealt with, in the land, for the rejection of Christ; not like Israel, as we have seen, for idolatry. “And... in all the land... two parts therein shall be cut off and die, but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name and I will hear them; I will say, It is my people; [Ammi] and they shall say, the Lord is my God.” The sentence “Call his name Lo Ammi, for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God” (Hos. 1:9), is removed.

In Zech. 14 the Lord appears to their deliverance, in the place from which the “glory” of the God of Israel departed, when He transferred the “sword” to the Gentile. From the same place He had entered Jerusalem as their King, according to this prophet, Zech. 9:9, riding upon an ass’s colt. On the same Mount of Olives He sat, in Matthew 24, surrounded by His Jewish disciples; after He had left His nation, until the day when they would say, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” and instructed them as to the restoration and gathering of their nation from the four quarters of the earth, at the coming of the Son of man in His glory. And from the same mountain did He ascend, having been rejected by His nation and crucified, to heaven (Acts 1). And on that same mountain shall His feet stand when He returns to their full and complete deliverance in grace! “Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations... And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east... And the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee... And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem...And the Lord shall be King over all the earth... All the land shall be turned as a plain, from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem; and it shall he lifted up and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin’s gate, unto the place of the first-gate, unto the corner gate, and from the towers of Hananeel unto the king’s wine-presses... And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year and worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.” We have now followed without much comment, and allowing Scripture to speak for itself; which it has done, from the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, giving the testimony of a time of universal judgment; when God turns, to occupy Himself directly, with the world again; the nation of Israel being the special object before Him. All these dealings making way for God’s kingdom in Zion and the restored earth; at the time of the restitution of all things spoken of by the Prophets (Acts 3:21); — and we have seen most distinctly that this time of judgment is symbolical with the counting out of the closing part of the seventieth week of Dan. 9 — the crisis of the history of this world.

Before closing this subject, I would shortly notice the position of the heavenly and glorified saints — the Church of the first-born — during these scenes of universal judgment. We saw them taken up at the time of the first resurrection to be “ever with the Lord” (when the saying of Isaiah 25:8; 1 Corinthians 15:54, is brought to pass, “Death is swallowed up in victory”), when this period of judgment begins.

We find this in the book of Rev., in chapter 4-19, which are occupied with this period of judgment, precursory of the kingdom. It is assumed also in other Scriptures. In Revelation 1 we have “the things which thou has seen,” the vision of Christ walking amongst the candlesticks. Revelation 2;3, “the things that are” (Rev. 1:19), or the time-state of the Church as a light bearer here below for Christ, in her place of responsibility. The various features which would mark her existence in the world are portrayed, from the time of her departure from her first love, till she is threatened with total excision — “I will spue thee out of my mouth.” No doubt seven actual assemblies in Asia are addressed, but the moral state of each is seized to describe that which would be found in Christendom. That these seven assemblies, and they alone, could not be termed “the things that are,” is clear, as they did not constitute all that existed then; and besides, Revelation 3:10 clearly indicates that the whole time-existence of the Church is embraced, as it promises that the overcomer who kept the word of Christ’s patience would be kept from “the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth” — the period of judgment we have been considering, which introduces or rather precedes the kingdom. Revelation 4, &c., “The things which shall be after these things” (με τα ταυτα) begins this period. “Come up hither, and I will show the things which must be after these things.”

All through the course of these chapters of the Apocalypse, we find a company seated in heaven, calm and peaceful, amidst the thunders and lightnings and judgments, cognizant of the mind of God; and with full understanding of all that goes on beneath them in the world.

In Revelation 4 we find them, in the presence of a throne of judgment, seated as kings and priests, clothed with white raiment, and on their heads crowns of gold — the complement of the heads of the heavenly priesthood; those who had been received up at Christ’s coming. In Revelation 5 one of their number explains to the prophet that which caused his thoughts to be troubled; and they are again seen exercising priestly services around the Lamb. Again, in Revelation 7 we find them in heaven, and one of their number explains to the prophet, the meaning of the one hundred and forty-four thousand of Israel, and the palm-hearing multitude of Gentiles who had been sealed for preservation through the judgments for the millennial earth, no more to be subject to hunger, or thirst, or sorrow.

Again, in Revelation 12, we hear their voices celebrating the casting out of Satan and his angels from the heavenlies: “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth,” proclaimed because Satan had gone down in great wrath, having but a short time — the closing one thousand two hundred and sixty days of the beast’s power. The sorrows of the saints for the heavenlies cease, when they had been caught up, and just before those of the Jewish saints, sealed for preservation, begin. In Revelation 13 these saints are the objects of Satan’s blasphemy through the beast; he can now no longer accuse, or cause them sorrow, so he blasphemes “those that dwell in heaven.”

In Revelation 19, after the marriage of the Lamb, we see Christ as King of kings, and Lord of Lord’s, coming forth to judgment, accompanied by the armies of heaven, clothed with fine linen, which is the righteousness of saints. (Compare also Rev. 17:14.) He comes forth to exercise His power over the nations, and to rule them with a rod of iron, in which the saints have a part with Him. See Psalm 2:9, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel,” with Revelation 2:28, “He that overcometh... to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken in shivers: even as I received of my Father.” Then, in Revelation 20, the thrones are set, and “they sat on them, and judgment was given unto them... they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years.” In Revelation 20:4 we find three classes.

First, those who had been received up at the coming of Christ; second, those who, during the interval of judgment before His appearing, “were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God,” the souls that were martyred under the fifth seal (see Rev. 6:9); and, third, those who, during the raging of the beast in his last effort, set on by Satan, “had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands.”

These last two companies are not deprived of their blessing for having suffered. They lose those of the kingdom below, but are not forgotten, and receive the heavenly blessing with the others who had been received up at Christ’s coming. All three companies, taken together, compose the “first resurrection” (Rev. 20:4,5).

The Ways of God: 10. the Glory, or Kingdom

The short period of universal judgment which we have been considering cleanses the sphere of the kingdom from everything which offends, and them which do iniquity; and ends in the coming of the Son of man Himself with power and great glory, to execute the last blow of judgment; and to reign over the world during the continuance of the kingdom. When it is established, God will have accomplished in and under His Son, His counsels and purposes as to everything which had been put into the hands of the first Adam and by Him defiled and destroyed.

We have seen the first Adam, innocent, and surrounded with blessing, failing; losing his place of dominion over the earth, and subjecting the creature to vanity by his fall (Rom. 8:20). Left to himself when fallen, and outside the center of good, he fills the earth with corruption and violence, and Satan usurps the place God should have had in his mind. Afterward the three great systems, set up in the world— the Jew under law, the Gentile without law, and entrusted with supreme power, and the Church under grace — each proving a failure where entrusted to men; I speak of the Church as a witness in the world, in the place of responsibility and testimony, not as the body of Christ.

In the days of the kingdom the last Adam will be there. In His own perfect, stainless manhood, He came and stood among the ruins of a lost world, and was confronted by Satan, who had obtained his power over it, through the lusts of the first Adam when fallen (Luke 4). He stood in His inheritance, and found the “kingdoms of this world and the glory of them” in the hands of Satan, sin-defiled and in ruins. He took it thus, with its load of sin and defilement, and died to redeem it. He foiled and vanquished Satan in the place of his power; bound the strong man, and then proceeded to spoil him of his goods. The prince of this world came, but had nothing in Him. He went down into the domain of “him that had the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2) and through death He destroyed his power. In due time He will cast him out of the heavenlies with his angel (Rev. 12) and when he has for a short period consummated his stupendous wickedness, in the revived Latin Empire, and the Antichrist, He will bind him and cast him into the bottomless pit till the thousand years of the kingdom are ended, and then he will cast him into the lake of fire. When Christ was here, He exhibited the “powers of the world to come” (Heb. 6:5), or of the kingdom, casting out evil spirits, miraculously feeding and healing man. When that day shall be here, Satan shall be in the bottomless pit, and “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing (Isa. 35).” The creature, which was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of man when he fell, groaning and travailing in pain, waiting for that day of its deliverance, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. We read in Genesis 3, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake... thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” But of the day of its regeneration, “instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.” “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.” Again, the sentence pronounced upon Cain, “When thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength,” shall he removed; for we read of the day when God shall cause His face to shine upon restored Israel, that “then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us; God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him (Psa. 67).” The Jew, restored; will be the center of God’s recognized government in the world under Christ. Supremacy over the Gentiles established in Him, who shall rise to reign over them; Jewish royalty restored to the house of David, and priesthood in its excellence and purity made good.

Men had attempted to form a name and a center, apart from God at Babel, and had been broken into nations and tongues (Gen. 11). Israel was the nation with regard to which they had received their inheritance; it was proposed as the center of God’s government in the world (Deut. 32:8). It became unworthy of the trust; as we read of Jerusalem; “Thus saith the Lord God, This is Jerusalem, I have set it in the midst of the nations and the countries that are round about her. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her; for they have refused my judgments, and my statutes they have not walked in them (Ezek. 5:5,6).” And the Gentile king endeavored to make a religious unity apart from God (Dan. 3). Many have been the centers of gathering proposed amongst men to reverse that sentence of scattering pronounced at Babel, by God: and as many times have they failed — God has but One! “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be (Gen. 49:10).” When He came to Judah He was rejected — “Beauty and Bands” were broken (Zech. 11); and there was no gathering of the nations. Again, His name was proposed as a center, when mercy rejoiced over judgment at Pentecost, and God in grace took occasion of tongues, the sign of judgment, to let the nations hear, each in the tongue wherein he was born, of the wonderful works and grace of God. But again, His center was refused, and there was no gathering of the nations, but or a people out of them for His name and for heaven, to which the center of gathering, refused on earth, had been removed.

In the days of the kingdom, of which we speak, that which we find revealed in Genesis 28 to the wanderer of Jacob in a dream, of a ladder connecting the heavens with the earth (God Himself doing in grace what man had assayed to do in self-will at Babel). We see a type of the days of the kingdom, when Christ will be this link of union, between the heavens inhabited by the glorified saints, and the millennial earth, when the seed of Jacob, wanderers now on the face of the earth, without land or altar, “shall be as the dust of the earth”; and when God will have brought them again into their land, and have done all that He hath spoken of (Gen. 38:15). The seed of Jacob will then be the head and not the tail; (Deut. 28:13) and “many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you (Zech. 8:3).” Again, Jehovah had passed over Jordan before the tribes under Joshua, in their former days, by the title of “The Lord of all the earth” (Josh. 3); but when Israel ceased to be a witness to this title, and was set aside, and the dominion transferred to the Gentile king, God assumes the title of the “God of heaven,” as we have before seen, and retains such all through the “times of the Gentiles.” But during the introductive scene of judgment which we have considered, His claims as the “Lord of the earth,” are again proclaimed by His witnesses (Rev. 11). He then assumes that title fully, and the substance of the Gentiles who desire to have the world without God, is consecrated unto the “Lord of the whole earth” (Mic. 4:13). “And the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one (Zech. 14:9; see also Isa. 54:5).” Jerusalem — trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled — will, at that day, be restored: when the “Redeemer shall have come back to Zion” (Isa. 59; Rom. 11:26). It will be said to her; “Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee; and the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about and see; all they gather themselves together, they come to thee thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side; the forces of the Gentiles shall come to thee, the multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall minister unto thee; they shall come with acceptance on mine altar; and I will glorify the house of my glory... Thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish: yea those nations shall be utterly wasted... The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Whereas, thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations... For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron; I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness, violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders: but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates praise.” See also Isaiah 65. “Behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying... And they shall build houses, and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit, they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people: and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them... the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord (Isa. 65).” Jerusalem, long forsaken of Jehovah, as the beginning of Ezekiel informs us, when His glory departed to heaven, and He transferred the sword to the Gentile, becomes again the dwelling place of His glory. Ezekiel in view of her day of glory (ch. 40-48) describes the restored city and the sanctuary. We read in Ezek. 43:2-5, “And, behold, the glory of the God Israel came from the way of the east, and his voice was like the noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory. And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city... and the glory of the Lord came into the house... and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.” And again, “The name of the city from that day shall be Jehovah-Shammah, [or] the Lord is there (Ezek. 48:35).” “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord: and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem (Jer. 3:17),” and this in the day when Israel and Judah shall be one nation in the land. “Her people shall be all righteous, as we read, Isaiah 4:3:” “It shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is left among the living in Jerusalem.” And again, “Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hand, that I may be glorified (Isa. 60:21).” The law shall be written in their hearts. “After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people (Jer. 31:33).” The nations also shall all call upon the name of the Lord. When He has executed the judgment which delivers the remnant of His people, we read, “Then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent (Zeph. 3:9).” Again, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee (Psa. 22:27).” The unconditional promises to the fathers will then be fulfilled in grace, and brought in as we have seen, by judgment. Psalm 105 is prophetic of this, and offers thanksgiving to Jehovah, and calls upon the seed of Abraham and Jacob, to whom they had been made, to sing unto Him, and glory in His name. For “He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth. He hath remembered his covenant forever; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance (vss. 7-11).” We may remember that in considering the past history of the nation we saw that these promises have never yet been fulfilled the people having taken their inheritance under law — lost it They will be made good to them in sovereign grace, and, as verese7 declares, by judgment, evidencing most clearly their still future application.

The knowledge of the Lord and of His glory shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea; and the throne of God, and His righteous government shall be known in the world. “Judgment will have returned to righteousness” (Psa. 94:15). And “righteousness and judgment shall be the habitation of his throne” (Psa. 97:2). Christ will be the Prince of this world, and Satan bound, who is its prince now. Obedience will be paid to His manifested power, and when this obedience is not observed, excision will be the result; death if it takes place during the continuance of the kingdom, it will be recognized that it is by the judicial acts of God’s government; and all will go on peacefully and happily. Satan will not be there to act on men and tempt them to sin.

We find the principles of Messiah’s government in the land in Psalm 101 — “A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person. Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, him will I cut off; him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer. Mine eyes shall be on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me... He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house; he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. I will early destroy all the wicked of the land; that I may cut off all the wicked doers from the city of the Lord.” We have excision the result of sin, also, in Isaiah 65:20, where we read, “The sinner living an hundred years old shall be accursed,” that is, if cut off it will be recognized as excision for sin in the government of God. The kingdom of Israel will be the earthly center of the administration of God’s government in the world. “He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment... He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth... The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents; and the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him... There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like the grass of the earth... Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name forever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen (Psa. 72).” Again, “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment... Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever (Isa. 32).” Thus far we have briefly seen the earthly blessings of the kingdom. We left the saints of the heavenlies, who had been received up, at the coming of Christ, to heaven, as well as those who had been martyred during the crisis of judgment which introduced the kingdom, seated on thrones at His manifestation, to reign with Him for a thousand years.

Let us now look at the heavenly blessing of the kingdom. In Revelation 21:9,22:5, we find a description of the millennial display of the heavenly (new) Jerusalem to the world. The prophet sees her “descending” (not descended), out of heaven, from God. What the saints should be in this day of trial — “lights in the world” (Phil. 2); the Church is in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6), to the world, in the day of glory, reflecting all the glories of God and of the Lamb; the seat of the heavenly administrative power of the kingdom (“know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?”), her heavenly character and position, and yet her connection with the government of the millennial earth is revealed — clothed with divine glory, such as that of Him who sat upon the throne in Revelation 4.

Angels are the willing door-keepers of that secure city, which is the chief fruit of the travail of Christ’s soul. It has the fullness in perfection of administrative power towards and over the world — twelve gates, for the gate was the place of judgment.

The varied displays of God’s nature, under the figure of precious stones, which shone in creation (Ezek. 28), and in grace, in the high priest’s breastplate (Ex. 28), here shine in glory. The city and its street is formed in divine righteousness, of which gold is always the fitting emblem, and holiness of truth, “like unto clear glass.” The Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its temple and its light. The nations (spared through the judgments on earth) walk in the light of the celestial city, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor to it (never “into” it); they own that the heavenly kingdom now established, and the heavens themselves, are the source of blessing to the earth. “The Lord shall hear the heavens and they shall hear the earth”; and they own that “the heavens do rule” (Dan. 4:26).

No evil of man or Satan is there, and nothing enters in that defiles or makes a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life. The river of God and the fruits of the tree of life are for the refreshing of the Lord’s redeemed; no tree of responsibility is now there but one tree, which is the tree of life, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations of the world. The city is the vessel of grace to the world at that day — grace characterizes her; as the royal supremacy of the restored earthly sanctuary, and city of Jerusalem, is ever preserved; for we read, “ The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish” (Isa. 60:12). Thus we find all that have been ruined and defiled by the first Adam, made good in the day of the kingdom, in and under Christ. The three great systems set up by God, and destroyed by men, established in glory.

The Jew in earthly supremacy and blessing; the Gentile subordinately blessed around, governed in righteousness, and the Church of God in the heavenly glory; the center of the administration of kingdom, and the vessel of grace to the world.

The river of God (Psa. 66). His stream of blessing, ever full of water, has ever been dried up in its outflow in this world, not as to its source, but as from time to time God formed a channel for the blessing in and towards the world; it has been corrupted, and He has been forced to remove the pure stream to other courses, ever intent upon the blessing of man; the channel having proved itself unworthy of the stream. In Eden it took its rise in the beginning when the dispensation proposed was one of earthly good, and it divided into four heads, to bear to the world the riches of such a dispensation. Soon, however, as we know, its channels became corrupted, and there was found no place for such blessing to flow, and so the sources were stopped, and channels obliterated by the waters of the flood.

Again, when Israel was redeemed, and God amongst them, the river took its rise in the rock which was smitten for His people in the wilderness. “They drank of that spiritual rock which followed them,” during the forty years’ journey, till they were safe in the land. Then, in the daily and yearly round of feasts and gatherings to Jehovah, the people was refreshed with the waters of Shiloah, which ran softly amongst them — of the river “the streams whereof made glad the city of God” (Psa. 46).

But again the channels were corrupted, so that when He, who was their source, came to visit that one family, whom He knew of all the families of the earth (Amos 3:2), and whom He had chosen to form the objects of the outflow of the river of God’s blessing, and to be its channel to the Gentile world. He had found it had so corrupted itself that He could not own it or permit it any longer to defile the stream; and so, again, the source was transferred to another place, and the world became fully, what it was to Him and what it has been ever since to His people, “a dry and thirsty land where no water is” (Psa. 63).

The source was now to be the glorified Son of man in heaven; and the dispensation one of spiritual blessings in the heavenlies; and the channel of the blessing, His members on earth. We read in John 7:39, where the Lord passed by and could not own the channel (the yearly returning feasts), which had rendered itself unfit for the river of God’s blessing: “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” Faithless as His people have proved themselves in this dispensation, and much hindered as the stream has become, still it flows on and will never be exhausted or dried up. “He (the Holy Ghost) shall abide with you forever.”

But the day is coming when it will be not only a dispensation of spiritual blessings in heavenly places, but one of earthly good as well. When there will be one glory of the celestial and another of the terrestrial. When all things both which are in heaven and which are on earth, will be gathered together in Christ. When the Lord “will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth — and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel” (Hos. 2:21,22), the seed of God. The river of God’s blessing will then have a twofold source in heavenly and earthly blessing, its source in the heavenly glory will be the heavenly (new) Jerusalem — the Church of the glorified: “The pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the midst thereof (Rev. 22:1).” And the source of the earthly glory will be the sanctuary of the earthly Zion, when living waters shall flow out of the restored Jerusalem, for the blessing of the Gentiles and of the millennial earth. “Behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward,” &c. (Ezek. 47; compare also Joel 3:15; Zech. 14:8).” And Christ will be true Melchisedec, a Priest on His throne; the link between the heavenly and the earthly glory. The true feast of Tabernacles will be kept both by Israel and the Gentiles, after the harvest or ingathering, and the vintage of judgment, at the end of this age. “And it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all the nations which come up against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.” And the nations that refuse to go up, will not partake of the refreshing streams of the river of God. The Lord hasten the day in His time!

The Ways of God: 11. Satan Loosed for a Little Season, the Great White Throne, and the Eternal State

After the close of the kingdom, before Christ delivers up the kingdom to the Father, and God is “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28) we find another testimony of man’s ruin. Having beheld Christ, and having been set in the midst of, and surrounded by the blessings of the kingdom, still we learn that man is ever the same. We had the testimony of Scripture that all His people are righteous at the commencement of the kingdom. The inhabitants of the world had learned righteousness by the judgments which introduced it but we have not the same testimony as to those who shall be born during its continuance. And the closing scene proves to us the fact that grace, and being born again, are as necessary then, as now, that man may be brought to God. It is clear from this, that there will be a declension during the continuance of the kingdom.

After the close of the kingdom, Satan is loosed for a little season, and goes out to the four corners of the earth (he never returns to the heavenlies), and the nations are thus tested for the last time, and the unrenewed fall, in numbers as the sand of the sea, into his hands. They who are thus deceived, go up against the camp of the saints on earth, and are destroyed by the fire of God’s judgment — thus separated by judgment from the faithful. Satan is then cast into the lake of fire, where the beast and the false prophet had been, after which the great white throne is set; and the earth and the heavens flee away from the presence of Him that sat thereon; and no place is found for them. The wicked dead stand before the throne, and are judged by Him who judges the secrets of men (Rom. 2), and who knows them! This judgment is according to their works and their responsibility, marked by “the books.” The book of life was opened, but none of them are found therein, and they are cast into the lake of fire. Death, the last enemy, is destroyed, and Hades, the place of departed spirits, exists no longer; its whole contents were cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20). “Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God [Father, Son, and Holy Ghost] may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:24-28).” Then follows the eternal state, the new heavens and the new earth “wherein righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13), not that over which “a king shall reign in righteousness,” but where righteousness dwells, for all things had been brought into full order and subjection, so that blessing unhindered flows forth from God. God dwells amongst men! Yet in this state of supreme blessedness we find that the Bride, the New Jerusalem, has her own peculiar place, she is the tabernacle of God among men! (Rev. 21:3). He wipes away all tears, and there is no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain; for former things, connected with sin, have passed away. The overcomer has God for his God, and he shall be his Son. And yet — solemn thought for those who would oppose the truth — even in this eternal state, when the Lamb’s mediatorial kingdom has passed away, and God is all in all, eternal punishment goes on, side by side, through the endless ages of eternity, with eternal blessing! Unto God “be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen!”

NOTE. We may have observed that Revelation 20 and part of Revelation 21:1-8 is succeeded by the description of the millennial state of the Bride, the Lamb’s wife. Revelation 20 begins with the binding of Satan, at the commencement of the kingdom, and goes on through the time of the kingdom, or 1000 years, to verse 7, then it takes up the interval of Satan’s last acts of wickedness when loosed for the little season; and finally the judgment of the dead, and destruction of the last enemy, death, before Christ gives up His kingdom to God (to Him who is Father), and God is all in all; so that Revelation 21:1-8 follow on in their consecutive order into the eternal state, as the verses we have quoted in 1 Corinthians 15. Then the Spirit turns to describe that which had not before been given, the millennial glories of the Heavenly (new) Jerusalem, during the days of the kingdom, as is evident from verses 10, 24, 26, and verses 1 and 2 of chapter 21. The division into chapters and verses has thus disconnected the true order.

The Ways of God: 12. Conclusion

We have now passed along this outline of the great dispensational dealings of God in their larger features, as through grace we have been enabled: from the fall of man, out to the eternal state.

We read in Psalm 25, “The meek will he guide in judgment, the meek will he teach his way... The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.” And, in His dealings with His servants, we find that He acts according to the principles of His word: for we read in Num. 12, “Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” And in Psalm 103:7, “He made known his ways to Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” It is to those who are morally near Him He deals thus, giving them capacity to understand Him, and the communications of His mind. This is solemn. For while Israel could only know Him in His overt acts, they were morally far from Him, and consequently unfit to hear the communications of His counsels and ways. This is ever so: there is a moral fitness in one Christian — a practical obedience to His mind and will as revealed — a desire to bow to Him, and respond to the way He has revealed Himself, that He waits upon, and guides and instructs; while another is dull of hearing, and learns but little, and even that little has not its freshness and power in his soul. “The natural man [on the other hand,] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14).” “If any man will [desire] to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself (John 7:17).” — is a simple principle, and yet how much it involves! God does not reveal His truth, to be a mere sum of knowledge learned, for the gratification of the mind. What He teaches, with so much condescension, is imperfectly learned, if learned at all, when the conscience has been unexercised, and the claims of His truth have not found a response in the soul, so as to judge the darkness, and set the feet to walk in, and rise, and live in the power of it. And besides this, divine truth is so contrary to every thought of men, even of the best of men, that even the soul which enjoys the revelation of it, is prone to sink into human thoughts, arid human use of tire truth.

Our meditations have led us, we trust, through grace, into some understanding of the greater features of the dispensational dealings of God, than which nothing is more important: without an understanding of dispensational truth, the soul is unsteady in its testimony. If laboring for the Lord, it makes the need of souls the paramount object; and the claims of the Lord upon the souls of His people are too often forgotten. The “alabaster box of ointment” should be joined with “this gospel,” that is, the publication of the activities of the grace of God by the Gospel, meeting the soul’s need, united to such teaching as would lead the soul, through grace, thus satisfied and set at rest, into such an apprehension of the person of Christ Himself, and such an appreciation of Him, that the knowledge of His mind and will is sought; and the heart learns to bow to His claims, and to walk in the path of intelligent obedience, which His eye would mark out, and His written word direct, so that it may please God (1 Thess. 4:1).

I am bold to say that without a knowledge of dispensational truth, this is quite impossible: doubtless there may be, and there is piety amongst many; but piousness, while it meets with a certain amount of respect, even from the man of the world, whose heart is not seared, is not “the truth of God.” It is one thing to be pious, another to walk in the truth. The soul that has been established in dispensational truth, and that has ascertained the ways of God during the various dispensations (and even when the testimony entrusted to men in each dispensation has been corrupted and destroyed), learns how to respond to God’s way; how to walk before Him in accordance with His mind and will; even when the dispensation has fallen into ruins.

Surely one judges that the path marked out in one dispensation, would be unsuited for another; and judges, too, with spiritual discernment, that a path right in the beginning of a dispensation, necessarily changes its character when the dispensation has fallen into ruins through the unfaithfulness of those to whom the testimony is entrusted; yet all the while recognizing that divine principles never have changed, even while the vessel proved that it could not hold the treasure committed to it.

The Christian, thus instructed, sees that which answered to God in a divine way, the fruit of the Spirit’s teaching, in the soul of a godly Jew under law, when his nation, as an elect earthly one, was owned of God, necessarily altering its character when his nation became corrupted; while the divine counsels altered not. And still he is able to see the more vividly that the pathway of a godly Jew, in an earthly nation, under the law, cannot be that of a Christian in a dispensation where his calling is one out of and above the world altogether; and, moreover, that the experience of a godly Israelite in his dispensation is not such, in its best state, as is suited to a member of the body of a glorified Christ. That to be satisfied with such, is to ignore the position of the Christian as such, and to return to Judaism in principle. To walk as those of whom it is said, “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord” (Psa. 119:1), is right and blessed in its time while to “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7), is quite another, and far beyond it; it is to realize that the dispensation with an unrent vail has ceased, that the things permitted in such a dispensation have passed away, and that the Christian is now within the vail, in the full light of God’s presence, set there to walk as becomes such a position, and to judge everything in his ways inconsistent with the place, in the liberty of grace. The whole range of his responsibility flows from his position and from the relationship in which he is placed.

The Christian, so instructed, is enabled to pass through the world, with the truth girding his loins, and with a moral apprehension as to the worth of all its vaunted progress in civilization, religion, politics, and everything around: and although his testimony may be, as it were, an individual one, “clothed in sackcloth,” still his faith is confirmed by the very principles around him which tend in an opposite direction, — and he feels that through grace “none of these things move” him; and that the day is coming when his testimony, if in accordance with the mind of the Lord, will be owned, and that then he will see to the full the use the Lord has had for him as a witness, when to outward appearance he was, as Jeremiah, “shut up” — and when he “sat alone,” the word of the Lord the joy and rejoicing of his heart.

Let me ask the Christian soul a question. Are the claims of the Lord Jesus on you of deep and paramount importance in your eyes? In proposing such a question, I do so to those who profess to Jove and own Christ as their Lord; and whose consciences have been forever set at rest; and introduced by faith into the full cloudless presence of God, in Christ — to those who see every question that could hinder their perfect peace, answered by the atoning blood — past, present, future — all secure. Are the claims of Christ of sufficient weight, that you would seek to know His mind and will, even if it were to break up the most cherished associations of your heart? And, knowing His mind and will, are you seeking for grace to walk therein? I feel this a deeply solemn question in the present day, a day of the highest sounding profession, without conscience or life toward God.

Religion is putting forth her fairest and most seductive forms; seeking the aid of science, and poetry, and art, to deck herself withal; holding in her band a cup of prostitution, which stupefies the senses, lulls to sleep the conscience. And even where she is not putting on the outward adorning, she practices all sorts of deceits. Those whose senses would not be ensnared by the outward adorning, are ensnared by the specious arguments of expediency, and a round of evangelical activity — works perfect it may be, before men, but not perfect before God (Rev. 3:2). She is suiting herself more and more to natural, unrenewed man, and under the name of Christ, she turns away her eye from Christ, and boasts that she is “rich and increased with goods and has need of nothing” (Rev. 3:17). “The form of godliness, without the power,” surely is the condition of things around us. The Lordship of Christ is ignored. The presence of the Holy Spirit either denied in words; or, what is worse, professed to be acknowledged in words, and completely denied in practice. This is truly solemn. The very vital central truth of Christianity, and of the Church of God — that which marks off, in a clear line this interval, from all that went before or which follows, denied; and the whole merged into a heap of confusion, out of which souls can find no clue; and are “ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

“The foundation of God stands sure,” whatever man’s unfaithfulness has been. God’s principles do not alter; and the responsibility of His people never alters. While it is their blessing to know that “the Lord knoweth them that are his,” still their responsibility is, “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19, &c.).” The Christian is to purge himself from the vessels unto dishonor, that he may be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for his master’s use, prepared unto every good work. He must not, as we have before touched upon, rest satisfied with the corruption — nor need he try to repair the injury that has been done; that will never be repaired till the professing mass meets its end in judgment. His path is a plain one. “Depart from iniquity.” “Purge himself from the vessels to dishonor.” And now comes his personal walk of holiness. He is to “flee also youthful lusts”; and then his walk, in the company of others, to “follow righteousness, faith, peace, charity with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” This is the principle — a plain one — separation from evil, and to God in the midst of it.

May He, who alone can do so, give subjection to His word to those whose eyes fall upon these pages, and a growing separation and deepening subjection, as they go on their pathway, to those who by grace have learned in their measure to walk therein! “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; [and] if a man love me, he will keep my words (John 14).” This is characteristic of Christianity. It is intelligent obedience rendered to a person, not to a law. The time was when the faithful and undefiled in the way were blessed, who walked in the law of the Lord (Psa. 119:1, &c.). Then God was unrevealed. He was hidden behind the vail and the dispensational barriers of the age. He was hidden, and had sent forth His claims to men in the law; and although it had said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and with all thy strength,” still it did not reveal a person to attract the heart. That time has passed away. Christ has come; and “by him we believe in God” (1 Peter 1), and to Him we owe the love of our hearts and the obedience of our lives — one whose love constrains us to live henceforth, “not unto ourselves, but unto him who died for us and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:15). It is a person we are thus called upon to live for and to love; one who has sanctified us unto obedience such as that which characterized His own (1 Peter 1:2), surrendering self, life, all, for those who hated Him. The law proposed that a man should love his neighbor as himself. The obedience of Christ was the surrendering of self altogether for His enemies.

The Lord Jesus appealed in His day to the Jews (Luke 12:54, 57) to discern “ the signs of the times,” even by the force of natural conscience, and to judge what was right. His word should find an echo in many a Christian heart now, that has sunk down to sleep amongst the dead (Eph. 5:1). Everything around us in the present day, religion, the state of men, nations, powers, kingdoms, are each gradually and perceptibly taking their places for the closing scenes of judgment. The Christian, instructed beforehand of these things, can watch them calmly and quietly, awaiting the coming of his Lord. He knows his calling is a heavenly one (Heb. 3:1) where judgments cannot come. The coming of the Lord, the Son of God, for his people, is the one boundary, or horizon, of his hopes. His actions, and service, and plans, and sojourn here, are arranged in view of that event; and if called to serve his Lord and Master here, he does so in the sense that he serves as in the last days. May a deepening sense of this fill the souls of His people; and may this their proper hope, ere the day dawn be formed in their hearts, and serve to direct their ways!

It has been said that the Old Testament scriptures end with the hope of the coming of the Sun of Righteousness, and the New with that of the “Morning Star.” Sweetly beautiful is this. The godly remnant of Israel who feared the Lord and spake often one to another, &c. (Mal. 3), had that precious consolation before them — that of the coming of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings (Mal. 4). And we find them in Luke 2, the Simeons and Annas, and “all them that looked for redemption in Israel” (Luke 2:25,38), rejoicing in the advent of the “Sun of Righteousness,” “the consolation of Israel.” But, alas, His beams fell coldly on the hearts of His nation; they had no heart for Him. Men were morally unfit to have God amongst them; and so He was obliged to hide His beams of blessing in the darkened scene that surrounded the cross, and to reserve the day of blessing till another season. Meanwhile, our calling was revealed, and our hope presented to us; not as the “Sun of Righteousness,” but as the Morning Star!”

The more we contemplate the fitness of this symbol of our hope, the more does its divine origin appear. It is the watcher during the long night who sees the morning star for a few moments, while the darkness is rolling itself away from off the face of the earth, and before the beams of the sun enliven the earth with their rays. And so with the Christian’s hope; he watches during the moral darkness of the world, till the dawn; and just as the darkness is deepest and is about to roll itself away before the beams of the advent of the “Sun of Righteousness,” his hope is rewarded in seeing the “Morning Star” (Rev. 22:16), in His earliest brightness, coming to take His people to Himself, that they may shine forth with Him as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt. 13:43), when He reveals Himself to the Millennial earth as the Sun of Righteousness!

May He, who alone can give blessing, abundantly bless the consideration of these things, and give that hope its own sanctifying power in our souls! “I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify these things in the churches; I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and the Morning Star... He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus... Amen.”

A Chosen Vessel: 1. The Vessel in the Potter, the Potter in the Vessel

“The Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me” (Acts 9:15).

Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it (Jer. 18:3,4).

Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? (Rom. 9:21).

It is of immense interest and profoundly instructive to us, to trace the history of souls in the word of God. Not only does this interest grow upon us in apprehending His dealings with “men of like passions as ourselves”; but in such a study we learn what God Himself is, in His unspeakable goodness and mercy: One who never withdraws His gifts, nor repents of His calling; and who never falters in His purpose until it is accomplished fully; in vessels “which he afore hath prepared unto glory, even us whom he hath called; not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.”

In all this work His sovereignty shines conspicuously. Nay, He would have us accord to Him His own place in this; who “works all things after the counsel of his own will.” He has a right to do as He pleases, which man has not. Man would seek to bind God to certain laws of his own, and so fetter His sovereign will, as to refuse that He should act outside them, but once we know that all our blessing hinges upon His absoluteness-and that this absoluteness is pleased to display itself in mercy, in which He delights — all is changed. In fact, beloved reader, we are shut up to this in God. We have no more right to claim our soul’s salvation from Him, than we have power to change places with Him on His throne of glory! We may have grace given to surrender this supposed claim; to put ourselves before Him, conscious that He has a right to do just as it pleases Him. We may find, too — nay, we shall find, that our very title to mercy is the absence of any! and that rest of soul is found in His nature itself — which, had He not been pleased to reveal to us, in Christ, we never even would have known.

He was pleased to create a world, to set it revolving in space amongst the countless orbs which shine in the heavens around us. He was pleased to allow sin and death to enter that fair scene. Who can reply? He was pleased to choose and to call a people out of it, and to permit them to destroy themselves, while He, with long suffering, bore with them “till there was no remedy.” He was pleased to send His Son to endure the cross and bear His wrath. Who was before Him in all this? Not one! In all things He wrought He permitted; He ordered; and it is He who challenges the stubborn heart which would say “Why doth he yet find fault; for who hath resisted his will?” It is He who deigns to stoop to the reply, “Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?” (Rom. 9:20).

Have we ever stood in the potter’s house, and beheld him, as he wrought on the wheels? The workman takes the lump of clay; he presses it to the wheel; the wheel revolves before his eye. Where now, (let me ask) is the vessel? It is in the mind of the potter, before it is formed: the design is there. His fingers shape the mass before him: gradually it grows up before his eye: gradually the thought in his mind is transferred to the clay, and it rises up before him, and the thoughts hitherto unexpressed, grow into the vessel which his fingers mold.

He sees a flaw; an imperfection in the clay. Others, beholding, have not detected it, as with the artist’s eye. He crushes the clay, under his hand into a shapeless mass again. And again his fingers mold and fashion it into his design. Again, and again defects appear. Again and again the clay is reduced to a shapeless mass, until at last it rises, in perfection of design before him; his eye surveys it with satisfaction and pride; and he removes it from the wheel to take its place with the choice things of the earth around.

Where now is the potter? Where was the vessel before he began? It was in the potter! Where now is the potter? He is in the vessel All that his mind designed and wrought is there seen. The vessel is fit for that which he had intended.

And this is the history of the soul. The clay is in the Potter’s hand. His fingers fashion it, and it is marred; the clay needs more of His patient manipulation and skill. It is not yet smooth and even, nor pliable to His hand. He crushes it time after time. The perfect vessel stood before His mind and purpose ere His hand had taken the clay, and placed it on the wheel. But when all is done, He has transferred His thought with unerring skill to the clay; the Potter is now seen in His handiwork; and it is a vessel of mercy, which He afore has prepared for glory.

How important, as these crushings take place, is the need of the interpretation of these skillful workings of the hand of the Potter! How often are the lessons misunderstood; or not apprehended at all! In the history of souls in the Word these actions are seen; the results are reached. In them we read the history of His dealings with our own souls, and the handiwork of God. We look then for the lines of beauty, resulting from His hand; we yield ourselves to the things which happen; we see the end of the Lord: we know how it is that all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to His purpose.

As a Potter (Yatsar) the Lord God took of the dust of the ground, in the first creation; and fashioned it into a man; and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” But the vessel was marred. Again the divine Potter takes of the same lump, and puts forth afresh His skill, and forms a vessel of mercy, for eternal glory: a new creation in “ Christ.”

A Chosen Vessel: 2. The End of Man's History

“Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?”

There was but one man on earth, (once a child of Adam) who could say, “Be ye followers together of me” (Phil. 3:17); and this without any qualifying word. This man was the apostle of the Gentiles — Saul of Tarsus; afterward called Paul. In this he does not speak to us as an apostle, armed with the power and authority of Christ; but as a Christian-the leader or representative man, of the whole profession of Christianity; than whom none knew better when to assert and to prove his apostolic office, nor better how and when to lay it aside. He lays it aside here in this remarkable expression, as well as in the epistle generally, in which it is found.

There are other passages where he uses language apparently of like significance, but to which he adds some qualifying words: “Be ye followers of me, as I am also of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1, &c.). But the difference is very great, even without entering on the meaning of the words in the original tongue. In this, he is inculcating the surrender of all things for another’s wealth: this Christ ever did, and in this he followed Him. But in that (Phil. 3:7-14) he runs the Christian race for the goal, casting all behind his back, and looking to “win Christ, and be found in him,” to be like Him in full conformity! He runs to attain all, at the end. This Christ never did. He surrendered all indeed; but never ran to attain, for He was always Himself — whether here or on high.

I need not dwell on the fact, which is of course clear; that whether asserting his apostolate, or laying it aside, his writings have each and all the same authority, as the word of God. These fine and touching distinctions will only be the more valued, when apprehended by the spiritual mind.

Let us look then upon him as a Christian; a heavenly man; a vessel of mercy; a “chosen vessel unto me”; as the representative, or typical man, of the whole scheme of Christianity; a vessel filled with the Spirit, who can say, “Be ye followers together of me, and mark them which walk, so as ye have us for a type” (τύπος).

First of all, let us see the moment, in the history of the world, when the “chosen vessel” was called. This imparts great significance to the manner and method of his call; as well as to the state of mankind at that moment, out of which he is separated to Christ.

We will refer first to the parable of the fig tree, planted in the vineyard — used by the Lord Jesus in Luke 13. The hour of Israel’s judgment was fast approaching; yet their eyes were such as “see not.” They had made their Lord their “adversary” (Matt. 5:25; Luke 12:58) in rejecting Him, and He counsels them, if even so, to agree with their adversary “quickly, as thou art in the way,” lest when the end came the adversary would deliver them to the judge, and the judge to the officer, — the officer to the prison; from which there was no escape till the last mite was paid. Talking of judgment thus, some mentioned a partial one which had fallen on those Galileans who had been slain by Pilate. They spake of it as of the ordinary news of the day, and with the not uncommon thought, that a special visitation of such a kind from God’s hand, only marked those upon whom it fell, as deserving it beyond their fellows. They deemed that such was the sign of God’s outwardly and manifestly governing the world, so that they could approve or understand. The Lord at once applies this to the conscience of all around; as also the case of the eighteen persons on whom the tower of Siloam fell; saying that judgment would now be universal, and not partial, and that unless they repented, they would all likewise perish, not merely those of their brethren whom they were bringing up for His judgment.

He then speaks the parable of the fig-tree, planted in the vineyard (Chapter 13:6-9). This was a picture of what was passing around at the moment, and of its end. For three years the Lord had come, in His ministry, seeking fruit from His fig-tree — and finding none, He saith to the dresser of the vineyard, “Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none; cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?” Here was the sentence in righteousness. The fig tree was not only fruitless, but mischievous, “a cumberer of the ground.” But grace said, “Let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it; and if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.” This extra period of trial was the fresh ministry of the Holy Spirit sent down at Pentecost; and ended with the martyrdom of Stephen, when they finally refused Christ in glory. This closed the history of Israel, as of man under the dealings of God.

This extra year of grace was marked by every sign and pleading of the Lord with His people, until refused. When we open the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1), we find the Lord Jesus in resurrection amongst His disciples. Their hearts still lingered over the hopes of Israel-uncertain as to the end. “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in the uttermost parts of the earth.”

In the enactment of the laws of a country-when a statute becomes obsolete — the circumstances having changed under which it was given-the legislature repeals the old law, and then enacts a new one adapted to the fresh condition of things.

When the Lord had sent out the twelve to preach the kingdom of heaven to Israel (Matt. 10), the mission was confined and narrow. He was “a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers” (Rom. 15:8). All the promises to Israel were fulfilled in Himself. Their mission was “Go not into the way of the Gentiles,”-there was yet no word for them. “And into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not.” This mongrel race, half heathen, half Jew, had no promises from God any more than the Gentiles. But,” said the Lord, “Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” They were the objects of this narrow, but necessary and preliminary mission. And yet it did not even embrace all Israel, “For they are not all Israel, who are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6). Nay, “Into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy”! Narrowed up thus, was this mission, to the worthy ones — the godly remnant of the people. But the nation having refused Jesus, and His atoning work having been accomplished on that cross, where His own people had placed Him by Gentile hands, all was now over on the ground of promises to Israel.

But Christ had risen; triumphant over all His foes. The boundless grace of God was set free to bless all men in righteousness through His work on the cross. The old enactment of Matthew 10 must now be changed. The sphere was too narrow for this grace to flow out; and as His footfall grew lighter, as it were, as He neared the top of Olivet, He turns round to a lost and ruined world of sinners — giving His disciples in the breadth of His heart, their new and fresh enactment. They were to begin at Jerusalem, where faith was dead: they were to carry the mission onwards to Samaria, where faith was corrupted for centuries; and to the uttermost parts of the earth, where there was no faith at all! And the grand answer to every state of man would be found in a risen Christ, of whom they were witnesses.

May we not say that these three concentric circles give us the key to the Acts of the Apostles, in the twenty-seven chapters which follow? The mission began at Jerusalem (Acts 2-7); it went out to Samaria (Acts 8), and to the uttermost parts of the earth, in principle, as to the whole creation, with Paul, in the chapters which follow, to the end (compare Col. 1:23).

These were His last words on earth His farewell words. “When he had spoken these things while they beheld he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly (ἀτεινίξω) toward heaven, as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11). The special year of grace was to be ministered to the fig-tree: the Lord would not therefore yet take them definitely out of their Jewish hopes. These “men of Galilee” have their eyes diverted from the heavens towards which they were gazing. They were to keep their eyes downwards on the earth: Jesus would “so” come again to them; outside the cloud He would be seen; and His feet would stand upon the mount of Olives (Zech. 14:4), from which He had just ascended in their sight. This would be His coming to Israel, with the ensigns of the kingdom, and earthly glory.

They could not yet see (by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven) the inside of the cloud, which Stephen saw, when, filled with the Spirit, he saw the heavens opened, as he steadfastly gazed (w-__?!7) into it. All then was over finally, and instead of angels diverting his eyes from the heavens, as in Acts 1, the Holy Spirit directs his eyes to heaven, as the sphere to which he now belongs, and Jesus, first sustaining him in the hands of his murderers, receives his spirit, and all closes with man on that ground forever.

In Paul we will see further still, how he takes his origin from the glory of God, now seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit was sent down from heaven in Acts 2. The witnesses — in Acts 3 — Peter and John, go up to the temple “at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.” A certain man was daily carried, and laid at the “Beautiful” gate: a cripple from his birth; who begged his bread. This was the picture of Israel. “Beautiful” as was the spot where they were, they were like this lame beggar, and had never really walked; and were bereft too, of Israel’s blessings of “basket and store,” of “silver and gold.” Their history now, as under probation had closed, for the man was “above forty years old” (Acts 4:22). Once there lay a paralytic at the pool of Bethesda (John 5) for thirty and eight years (the time of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness, until the brazen serpent was uplifted for them, in Num. 21) — their history was not then fully told, as in John 5. But now all had closed (Acts 3) as far as they were concerned. Forty years spoke of their moral end as a people under the old state of things.

But that “ninth hour” had witnessed another prayer, from the heart of Jesus on the cross, and darkness had covered the whole land, from the sixth to the ninth hour (Luke 23:44) —the “hour of prayer” and of the “evening sacrifice” too (Dan. 9). At that hour Jesus had committed His spirit to His Father, and the veil was rent from the top to the bottom. Judaism was over; God was fully revealed; man’s sin had come to its fullest height, as he there stood face to face with God. But the sins of His people were borne at that moment, and the throne of righteousness eternally satisfied.

“Silver and gold have I none,” said Peter, “But such as I have I give thee; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And immediately the “lame man leaped as an hart,” and he entered the temple “walking and leaping and praising God.” God was ready, through Jesus, to do this for the whole nation of Israel, had they then received His Son, and bowed in faith to His name.

Peter now addresses Israel (Acts 3:12-26), offering them, on their repentance thus, that the Christ they had refused would return from the heavens, and that the times of restitution of all things of which the prophets had spoken, would come, and the nation would be fully blest. The answer to this is in the following chapters. In Acts 4, they put the two witnesses in prison — and in Acts 5, the whole twelve are also put there. Then in Acts 6;7, Stephen, the last great witness, summed up their history as the rejecters of every deliverer God had ever sent. Joseph, they had sold into Egypt: Moses, they had asked “Who made thee a ruler and a judge?” They had slain the Just One, as their prophets had foretold; and now they resisted the Spirit of God! A broken law; stoned prophets; a slain Christ; and a resisted Spirit closed the tale. As they “stopped their ears and ran upon him,” they were like the “deaf adder, that stoppeth her ear” at the voice of “charmers, charming never so wisely” (Psa. 58). Stephen’s spirit passes away to Christ; and Christ, standing and ready to return, now sits down at God’s right hand, waiting till His enemies are made His footstool (Heb. 10).

Saul of Tarsus, then a young man, was present at Stephen’s death, and “kept the raiment of them that slew him.”

The Sanhedrim was becoming effete and old. Its energy, hitherto fiercely waged in vain against the cross, was growing feeble, when this young man came upon the scene. One of great learning and unspotted life — and probably of the highest caste amongst the Jews, excelling all amongst his people in the religion of the Pharisee; with perhaps the finest energy given to man — he had been welcomed by the great Sanhedrim of Israel, and entrusted with authority to extirpate the religion of the Nazarene! With a zeal for the God of his fathers beyond all others at that day, he stood by when the final stroke was put to the rejection of Jesus, in the stoning of the proto-martyr Stephen. And lest the murderers should be impeded, by their long Eastern garments, he “kept the raiment of them that slew him,” and “consented unto his death.”

The whole Christian assembly was then broken up in Jerusalem, and scattered everywhere, “except the apostles.” Saul must now carry out his commission elsewhere, and Damascus was to have been the next scene of his zeal.

But before I refer to this, I would note the touching grace which shines out in the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

During the past history of Israel, God had sought to find a response in their heart, under the culture of His hand; whether, as under the law, or the prophets, the Baptist, or Christ. All had failed: there was no answer in their heart either to the thunderings of the law, or to the pleadings of the prophetic ministry; nor had the grace of Christ drawn forth other than the cry at the end, “Away with him; crucify him.” The final witness was seen in the church, formed at Pentecost, and the voice of the Holy Spirit proclaimed the “wonderful works of God.” This followed, as we have seen, till the seventh chapter of the Acts closed the trial that sought for good out of Israel’s heart, or for an answer there to perfect goodness in the heart of God. Now the turning-point had come; and it would be no more sought to produce good from man’s heart; but to put good into it by a new ministry inaugurated in the conversion of Saul. But there was still something to be met which God would not pass over, and this we find in chapter eight of the Acts of the Apostles.

A child of Ham had traveled a toilsome journey across the deserts of Africa, from the abodes of Cush, and with a burdened heart, to “Judah, where God was known” (Psa. 76:1,2). He had heard of the God of Israel, and of the Holy city where He might be found. Up to this the stream of mercy from God’s throne had been poured forth upon Jerusalem. But Jerusalem, refusing the “sure mercies of David,” had diverted the stream. Still, it had not ceased to flow, though its course was changed. It turns its course now to unclean Samaria, and onward still, till it reached the deserts beyond. There, this Ethiopian was seen, returning to his own land, with his soul unsatisfied, for Jerusalem’s day had passed; she “knew not the day of her visitation.” But God is “a rewarder of those that diligently seek him,” and this seeking heart shall not have sought in vain. Philip draws near at the Spirit’s bidding, and hears this man read the prophet Esaias. Neither wealth nor learning, nor worldly place, had given him the riches he was about to find-treasured in the book which he had brought away from Jerusalem. Philip began at the same scripture which he read, and “evangelized to him Jesus.” The Person who alone could satisfy his soul was found, and he goes “on his way rejoicing.” Ethiopia had not stretched out her hand in vain to God! (Psa. 68). God did not change His governmental ways in placing the race of Ham under degradation (Gen. 9), in the blackened skin of the negro race: but while leaving all questions of government as they were, He makes — not the face — but the heart and conscience of the negro as white as snow, by the blood of the Lamb!

I read this chapter, in this light, as a parenthesis: thrown in between the first notice of Saul at Stephen’s death, and his journey to Damascus (Acts 9). It is, beloved, as if God would say, even when this solemn scene of martyrdom had closed forever the ground on which He would have dealt with Israel; and when He was about to “cast them out of his lap,” and to inaugurate a new order of things — as if He would say, if there be a seeking soul in the wide earth, even the child of a cursed race, that soul shall not seek Me in vain. I am a rewarder of all that diligently seek Me.

But when I come to Saul I find the other side, illustrative of this new departure from the old ways; and in him is exemplified the word — afterward written by his own pen — “I am found of them that sought me not” (Rom. 10).

A Chosen Vessel: 3. The Vessel Called, the New Man

“He is a chosen vessel unto me” (Acts 9:15).

We thus see the moment in the history of the people and of the world at which we have now arrived. All had closed up forever in the way of grace presented to be received by Israel, and of Israel’s testing to prove what man is.

We must now see more than this in Saul, who comes in, not as a member of the chosen race, the seed of Abraham, but on the common ground of man, “dead in trespasses and sins.” Therefore in him we find embodied the sin of man as a race, in all its varied answers to the dealings of God.

We may possibly know that after God had tested man in paradise, and man had fallen, He tested him out of paradise as a sinner (whose back had been turned against God) for four thousand years. These trials, in broad lines, were first, by his conscience which he received when he fell, and he became lawless and unclean. Then under the Law — and he became a law-breaker; then by the ministry of Jesus in grace, whom he had crucified and slain; and lastly, by the Spirit of God sent down from heaven — whom he resisted. This was, with many details, the history of the probation of man.

If we now turn to a passage in 1 Timothy 1:15,16, we read, “This is a faithful [or trustworthy] saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth the whole τὴν πᾶσαν μακροθ υμίαν] long-suffering for a pattern [or delineation] of them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” Here he plainly occupies the first place, as “chief of sinners”; as the man, too, in whom the whole long-suffering of God was displayed; and as the pattern for all who should follow in the faith of Christ. This is worthy of our marked attention. Mark well the expression — “the whole long-suffering!” This embraces that great period between the fall of man-his departure from God at the first, when driven out of paradise — until that long-suffering absolutely closed in the rejected ministry of the Holy Spirit (Acts 7).

God’s long-suffering since then is on other grounds (2 Peter 3:9,15). He has not counseled (μὴ βουλόμενος) that any should perish; but that all should come (or be afforded a place) for repentance. And again, “The long-suffering of our Lord is salvation.”

But, in Saul, outwardly spotless in life, we behold the man who could say: 1st, “I have lived in all good conscience unto this day.” 2nd, “Touching the righteousness in the law [I am] blameless.” 3rd, “I verily thought I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” And, 4th, when the martyr Stephen charged the Jews, saying, “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do ye,” Saul was there, and Stephen’s murderers placed their clothes at his feet, while he, consenting unto Stephen’s death, kept the garments of them that slew him! Here then we see the embodiment of the whole long-suffering of God in a man, immaculate, outwardly, as he was. Yet, while, with conscience inviolate, and the law’s righteousness fulfilled, as far as he himself knew — he persecuted Christ, and with murderous zeal, resisted the Spirit of God: yea, more, a man who could claim, by the Spirit of God, to be, in a superlative manner, the chief of sinners. Because, in his mighty energy, he had undertaken a task, never surpassed in purpose by another, to wipe out the name of the Nazarene from the earth, as a man wipes a dish and turns it upside down!

Armed with the powers of the Sanhedrim, such as they were, and breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,” this “cumberer of the ground,” this fruitless Pharisee, doing evil on every hand, proceeds on his way to Damascus, and God’s hand laid hold of the ax, and with one stroke cut down the tree! It had cumbered the ground too long — doing mischief to all around.

But now, let us, with retracing steps, examine the grounds of the attitude of Christ to him as presented in this scene.

His cross was “the judgment of the world:” man had placed Jesus there with wicked hands. It was the reply of his heart to the perfection of goodness in God. It was that in which “the thoughts of many hearts were revealed.” The heart of man was there; and the heart of God. The heart of Christ was there; and that of the poor convicted sinner; as well, too, as were the hearts of those who truly loved their Master; but who, when Satan’s power — the power of darkness — was over the minds of men, forsook Him and fled away.

But the moment Christ expired, the veil of the temple was rent in twain, as if God was waiting until that moment arrived, to show that the judgment was so fully borne-that the distance between Him and a world of sinners was gone-that He could now come forth and kiss the prodigal in righteousness; and impart new life to the tree which He had cut down, while yet it cumbered the ground. Three days afterward the tomb where Jesus had lain was rent, to show that He who had removed this distance was also gone. But now (Acts 9), He rends the heavens and comes forth, proclaiming afresh His true and God-given name of “Jesus” — Jehovah the Savior: “I am Jesus,” the Nazarene, the Savior of My people from their sins.

Saul, and those that were with him, were journeying onwards to Damascus, with letters to the synagogues, that if he found any of “the way” (τῆς ὁδοῦ) he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. At this time Christianity had no name. It had come into the world, but was not of it, nor of its ways. It was not Judaism with its ceremonies, instituted of God, though now corrupted by man. It was not heathenism, with its orgies of uncleanness and abomination. It was a strange and heavenly thing, governed by no principle that governed the world. And it had no name; but was termed “the way.” Several times in the Acts do we find it so named.

Of one heart and one soul, and with great grace upon all, there was, in the hearts of those who had been cast out of all on earth, a heavenly purpose, a courage and joy which was not of man. The martyr Stephen, when being crushed to death by the stones of the multitude, could kneel down, and with yearning of soul for his slayers, and without one thought but for their blessing, pray for them, and looking up steadfastly to heaven, commit his spirit to Christ and pass away. Let its disciples be scourged by the rods, and with their feet fast in the stocks, and their bleeding backs on the cold ground of the innermost prison-they would sing praises to the Lord at midnight, instead of murmuring at their lot. Others could count it all joy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. What name then could be found for such a creed? There was none! And therefore it was called “the way.” And indeed, we may add that it never got its name, till the mocking and witty Antiochians named the disciples “Christians” first, in their city. Called such in sarcasm by man, it was accepted by the Spirit of God from that day. Still, as yet it had no name; and Saul, with his company, bent upon its extermination, turned towards Damascus to find out any there that were of “the way.”

In a moment all was changed. “At midday O King,” said the apostle, long afterward, “I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me, and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest” (Acts 26:13-15).

Here was the solemn end for his conscience, the terrible reply. Christ and Saul were face to face! Saul, in the full flush of energy, in enmity and violence against the Lord; and He, with the calm and touching reply of One whose very answer speaks of mercy. “I,” and “Thou!” Personally, individually, alone, and face to face, were Christ and this persecuting and injurious man: this “cumberer of the ground”; the dread devaster and waster of the church of God. “I am Jesus”: His mission fulfilled on earth; and in the brightness of the glory above, only seeking such objects as Saul, to display the virtues of salvation! Speak, Saul; let thy voice be heard; the day has not come, when those who refuse to answer now will be “speechless!”

“And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” It is not now the answer of another who knew not his own heart yet — “ Lord, I will go with thee,” &c. Nay, that was the will of man. It is rather, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” This soul was converted to Christ. Here was the will of man broken; the will of God alone allowed. This was the instinct and out-speaking of obedience-the first characteristic of the new man. The old tree was cut down to its roots; new life was implanted, through the quickening voice of the Son of God — and at once it struggles for action, even before his conscience was at rest: nay, even while his soul was in an agony.

Blind for days, with the glory of that light; blind to all around, that he may see only what was within his own heart, no food nor drink passed his lips for three days: his soul in anguish might say, “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.” All this was produced in one little moment, and now to be made good in his soul by a gospel, dating from the throne of God; a gospel by which is declared the Father’s estimate of what His Son has done, when He had died, and risen, and ascended on high: the gospel of the glory of Christ. This son of Benjamin — ravening “like a wolf,” at midday-soon shall “divide the spoil.”

“They led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.” There, in the isolation of repentance, in the house of Judas, in the street called “Straight,” upon his knees in prayer-so real, that the Lord calls attention to it in that touching interview with Ananias, in the words “Behold, he prayeth” — this was the second characteristic of the new man. Here was prayer — the expression of dependence, at once heard: this, too, as well as the desire of obedience, before his soul had found rest, or peace with God.

But Ananias — is he prepared for this full expression of mercy to such as Saul? Could he understand the new wine of this gospel of the glory, which could come forth and lay hold of such as he? Nay; he remonstrates, “Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints in Jerusalem, and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call upon thy name.” He cannot but suppose that all was a mistake. Impossible that one like this could be thus laid hold of, as a suited vessel to display the fullness of mercy. Saul himself is astonished. Even he would plead, “Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee and when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him” (Acts 22:19).

The Lord’s reply to Ananias was this: “Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me... for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house, and putting his hand~ upon him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord has sent me, (Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest) that thou mightest look up, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Here we have the gospel, carried by Ananias, from the Lord to Saul, removing the fear of God which had filled his soul; speaking peace to his troubled conscience; withdrawing with a tender hand the barbed arrow of conviction; and the Spirit of God is now received by Saul as a seal of this message of mercy. His eyes, which had hitherto been blinded to all but the darkness within, are now enabled to “look up” (ἀναβλέψης) to the source from which all had come — to the very face of Jesus Christ in glory.

Ananias then receives him by baptism: “And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.” This was a true conversion: the turning round of the whole man: the breaking of his will. The features, too, of the new life, the new man, are at once expressed: peace with God learned, and the Holy Spirit, sealing all home to his soul; and he could say, as more fully afterward, “I believed, and therefore have I spoken,” as his voice is heard preaching Christ in the synagogues of Damascus.

This was the call of this “chosen vessel unto me.” Separated from the people of Israel, as well as from the Gentiles (Acts 26:6), by his conversion from the glory of God on high, where Christ was; he is sent forth to be “a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee “to make known on earth, as sent from Christ in glory, all that he knew of Him who was there. Heavenly in his birth, and heavenly in his testimony, he is the pattern of all who should believe on Jesus afterward, even from that moment, to life everlasting. Every believer since that day, has taken his birthplace from that glory. The condition of Christ at any moment, determines that of all who belong to Him; whether as incarnate; or risen; or ascended to the glory of God. Such have to bear witness that they belong to that scene, and to Him who is there; they have to witness that they have been taken out from the people or from the Gentiles, as neither of one, nor of the other, but as heavenly men, who have, like him, to be shown what they must suffer for His name’s sake, while living in, and passing through a world which rejected Him.

What a wondrous thought, that it is no good that God is seeking from man! He seeks rather those, who may be the more fitted to display that mercy in which He delights. To “make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us whom he hath called, not out of the Jews only, but also out of the Gentiles.”

A Chosen Vessel: 4. The Vessel Set Free

“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus bath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2).

The guilt of a lifetime is often learned by the convicted soul, in an incredibly short space of time. Drowning men, who have been recovered, have said, that like a flash of light, their lives stood out before them; and the forgotten sins, which years before have been committed, seemed in one moment to rise before them, in their terrible category. As the language of “Moses, the man of God,” it would be: “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance” (Psa. 90). The dead conscience awakes, quickened under the convicting rays of God’s light, and in a moment we stand before One who told us all things that ever we did.

When this is so, excuses are of no avail: no palliation is offered now. A man finds his soul laid bare, in the presence of infinite holiness. Hitherto, the conscience may have been asleep, with no thought of guilt, unless the vague sense that all is not well. Or the conscience may hitherto have been uneasy, yet no defined sense of guilt be there. Doubtless, Saul of Tarsus quailed before the words, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” The natural conscience of man feels this pricking and goading at times: its zeal and ardor is forced and unreal. There are compunctions in that principle which sits in judgment upon men’s actions (which conscience does), and though it be sought to silence its voice with freshened zeal, it never rests.

Were there no prickings of the natural conscience in Saul of Tarsus, when with upturned face, shining like an angel, the martyr Stephen gazed into the heavens, his body shattered by the stones of the multitude, and commended his spirit to Jesus? Were there none, when those pale faces of some who loved their Lord and Master-to save themselves, and those they loved, from prison and from death —blasphemed His name, compelled to it by this violent man? (Acts 26:11). Ah, “the way of transgressors is hard,” and it was so with Saul. Yet, while natural conscience takes knowledge of these things., it does not follow that the soul is converted to God. Nay, rather, natural conscience drives a man away from Him. It drove Saul to greater excesses than before. It drove Adam away from God to hide under the trees of the garden; until his conscience felt the power of the word — “Adam, where art thou?” Then it was awakened, and he stood before God a convicted sinner. It drove Saul to seek to hide his real state under the religious zeal which hitherto filled his soul.

But when the voice of Jesus reached him in his mad career, his guilt stood forth in its terrible intensity, as he was brought to bay. And when he was allowed to read his own soul’s guilt in the presence of God, where no excuse could avail, then his conscience was purged and set at rest. But with him at this time, there may have been no question of his nature raised. This is not the question which comes foremost in the history of souls. The efforts to avoid the evil, and perform the good, to be well pleasing to the Lord, which follow true conversion, bring out this in its true and terrible depths. Saul has now to pass through this stage of the soul’s history, for his own deliverance, as a saint; I do not dwell here on the fact of its necessity afterward for helping others — but as a vessel of mercy, which, from such a state, must be set free.

Probably during the three years, in which he “went down into Arabia, and abode at Damascus,” it was, when this took place. On this I do not dogmatize: but it was a needful process, whenever it occurred; and the result of it we find in the experimental learning of his nature, through the bitter anguish and exercises detailed in Romans 7, much of which doubtless he had to learn experimentally for himself, as also the many lessons which he learned for the sake of other souls.

Here I would remark, that the experience of the closing verses of this well-known chapter (Rom. 7:14-26) have a wider and larger significance, than perhaps many may be aware of. It is so framed by the Spirit of God, that no exercised soul, however deep may be its experience, and under whatsoever dealings and dispensations it is found, but may find expression in some way for that which it is passing through. In some cry or other there recorded, it will find what answers to that which it endures; though doubtless its full pressure could not be known until the light of Christianity had shone. I do not enter upon its details. Many have done this: some with lasting profit for many more. But I judge that it reaches far behind the exercises of a soul under the law, as expressed in the “ten words.”

The natural man may have lived — “touching the righteous that is in the law, blameless,” yet with his soul still unawakened. In overt acts its prohibitions had never been broken. But they never touched the tree — the root of “sin” within! There was one of its commands which reached his inmost soul at last: the command which said, “Thou shalt not lust,” and when that commandment came, expressing the holiness of the law, “sin revived, and I died.” “Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of lust, for without law, sin was dead”; it lay dormant; or unprovoked within his soul; until its unholiness was thus revealed.

Human nature fallen, too plainly speaks on every hand, not to have discovered to us the fact, that the moment a prohibition comes home to us — from the earliest childhood to our latest breath — at once is kindled within us the desire for the very thing which it forbade. A thousand instances and examples might be presented to prove this.

But there was “Law” in Paradise — before man fell, and man was a responsible creature before he broke away from God: he was responsible to obey the law-prohibiting his eating the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — before he became a “transgressor.” God had revealed His ways to him, as a Giver, in the largest and widest munificence. Nothing was withheld from man. The ten thousand tributary streams which contributed to his happiness in Eden, spoke of a God who would withhold no good thing. “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat”; proclaimed the freeness and fullness of no niggard Hand. The man was to enjoy it all freely. One small interdict prohibited the eating of the fruit of one tree: a tree which marked a responsibility which, when accepted, would only entail evil: “In the day that thou eatest thereof, dying, thou shalt die.” It was that, in observing which, he expressed that his will was subject to God who had placed him there, and surrounded him with every creature blessing.

This is the principle of law. An interdict will always prove a will in the person addressed, either subject or insubject to another. The smallest interdict is sufficient for this. It is the way to discover whether another is subject to you or not. If insubject, the authority of that other is refused, and as a consequence two wills are opposed, the one to the other: while the man that is tested, owns in conscience, that God has a right to be obeyed.

Now Satan did not begin by calling attention to the blessedness with which the man had been surrounded: nor to the character of God as “giving all things richly to enjoy.” Rather does he seize upon the prohibition calling attention to the interdict alone — “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” whereas, God had said, “Ye shall eat of every tree.” The grand master-stroke of the serpent was, to instill lust into the soul, and distrust of God; to cast a suspicion on the fullness and freeness of His nature to bestow. This was the poison of the serpent, which has permeated humanity ever since that day. It was done before ever there was a sin committed. The devil had stepped in, and sown distrust in man’s heart; creating a suspicion in the soul; and separating man and his Creator by the loss of faith in Him.

This is what men do between each other now-a-days, to reach some end they have in view. I dare say they may not perhaps think so: but the largest portion of the sorrows between men, or even between brethren, are caused by some hint, behind backs; or some whispered story, to which the heart of others is ready to lend an ear; which causes distrust to spring up between souls. Distrust engendered, dislike follows, but more especially in the one who has wronged the other. It is exceedingly hard to trust a heart you have wronged. “A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it”; and “He that repeateth a matter, separateth very friends”; and “He that did his neighbor wrong, thrust him away,” &c. These passages (kindred in their character) are but the workings of this principle of evil. Hence the true saying, “The injured may forget; the injurer, never!”

To restore man to perfect confidence in God: and to meet the outrage on His nature, was the work of Christ at the “end of the world.”

Man, then, was a responsible creature before he fell. Distrust of God and lust were instilled into the soul of the woman. Will was put forth against: God — and in the case of Adam, high-handed will (for “he was not deceived” (1 Tim. 2:12); and man fell. A breach, as wide as the poles, came in at once between God and man; an abyss, impossible to repair, or to recross. Man became as “one of us,” said the Lord, “to know good and evil” (Gen. 3:22). This he never can unlearn. He never returns to innocence again.

What, then, is “to know good and evil”? It is something which is said of Godhead too; “as one of us,” we read “to know good and evil”! It is to sit in judgment, and pass sentence, on good or evil which we find in our own souls. Of David the king, it was said, by the wise woman of Tekoah, “as an angel of God, so is my Lord the king, to discern good and bad” (2 Sam. 14:17). This in reference to the decisions of judgment. So of Solomon in 1 Kings 3:9; so of Israel, Deut. 1:39; see also Hebrews 5:14.

This is the work of conscience: to take know-ledge of the evil practiced by a will opposed to God; to sit in judgment upon it, and to condemn: and, alas! to apprehend the good, while opposed to it; to approve of it, without the power to perform. This was fallen man with a conscience. Responsible before he fell; distrusting God; and transgressing in will His command. An ability, even when fallen, to pass sentence upon his own actions, by the knowledge of good and evil: good that he had not the power nor desire to practice, and evil that he was not able to avoid! Then, at last, he is driven out of the presence of God; for he had lost his place on such a ground forever. These three things marked his state. Distrust of God; sin committed in that distrust; and his place irrecoverably lost. These three things are reversed by the gospel. His confidence is restored by faith in Him as a Savior; his sins removed, which had been committed in distrust; and he is brought into a new place in Christ before Him.

The soul when thus awakened, finds these great primal enmities which separated between God and man, wrought upon, in deep and solemn exercises. The sense of responsibility as a sinner who had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, at enmity in his mind by wicked works; the knowledge of good unfulfilled, and of the evil of his nature exposed; powerless, too, for all but evil; the sense, in some measure, differing according to circumstances, of good in God Himself; and a responsibility to set itself, as it supposes, right with Him. These things are forced on the soul in terribly bitter lessons.

Nothing in man’s words can equal those of the soul’s anguish in Romans 7. “I am carnal, sold under sin; for that which I do, I allow not: for that I would, that do I not; but what I hate that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law, that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good which I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do, that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.” Mark, reader, this struggle between “good “ and “evil,” by a soul under the sense of responsibility, or, “in the flesh.” Yet it is not his guilt which troubles, but his state The deep anguish not only takes in all this, but goes back to the first spring of departure of man from God. All the roots of its being are laid naked, and open, before Him with whom it has to do. How varied are the ways of God to lead the soul into this struggle; that it may learn to struggle no more; that it may learn that every effort, every trial, every struggle, as long as they continue, are only the more distinct proofs that it is not yet arrived at that point where, when ceasing to struggle, it surrenders; and then only finds, that this surrender; is liberty. It is then set free.

I forbear here, to deduce examples of these exercises and their end, as found in the word. Many are to be found there; many, too, may be interpreted every day by scripture, as they are seen in the people of God.

The discovery of an evil nature, by a saint, suggests at once, that it should be subdued. The desires and longings of his renewed soul, when felt by him, suggest at once, that they should be gratified; and that God had implanted it there to that end. The sense, too, of responsibility, that both these suggestions should find their answer somehow, lays the ground of this painful struggle. It is not conflict, properly so called, at all. It is the effort which only ends in defeat, more painful still. It leads into captivity, but does not set free. But when deliverance comes —not victory (victory would be my own meritorious act, deliverance that of Another), it comes as a double deliverance — answering to the “good” which it found itself incapable of producing, and to the evil which it was impossible to avoid. The soul must be able to look up, rejoicing in liberty with God, and it must be able to look down into its own heart, and be able to produce the good which it longed to perform, and have power over the working of a sinful nature, the flesh,” within.

Here it is that we find a defect in our souls. Many have got that liberty which enables them to look up to God: they can say, “All there is well.” But are we all free from the power of the evil within, when we examine our own hearts? Nay; the very joy and thankfulness which the soul experiences in being free in looking up, makes too often careless, alas! about the other. This may be through ignorance; indeed, it may frequently be so. We need to be taught that there is a freedom of the soul, which is filled with the Spirit, in which it may walk each day absolutely apart from all the workings of the flesh, or the desires of the mind: such a liberty, indeed, as if there was no evil to combat there at all-a freedom which brings forth fruit to God.

It is not that there will not be conflict to the end of our pathway here; it is not that “the flesh” will cease to be an occasion of constant watchfulness. Nor is it that “sin in the flesh” can ever cease to exist, while we are here on earth, though “condemned” when Christ died. But let us remember Paul’s path as a saint, a vessel chosen to God; one who walked in such a way (and in this he would join others also), saying, “It is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do according to his good pleasure!” It is no more then, “the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.” Nay, the “willing” and the “doing” are accomplished by souls set free; vessels in whom God can work, and wield according to His good pleasure.

For what, beloved reader, is a vessel? Suppose you placed one on the table at your side, have you not two thoughts in your mind as to its use? You place it there to hold what you put in it; this is one thought. Then the other is, that it may be held by the hand of another. Had it a will or a motion, these uses would be hindered.

And so with God’s vessels of mercy; they must be will-less, and motionless too; they are to be filled with that which He puts in them, and to be held and used by His hand. It is only in the measure that our wills, our motions, our thoughts, are set aside, that we are really vessels; and, as such, fitted and meet for the Master’s use.

But this is not our present subject. Here we are discussing the deliverance of the vessel, so that it may be free in soul with God, and free, too, from the workings of the will of the flesh, and have power to bring forth fruit to God; that on the one hand it may realize its place “in Christ,” and on the other, that “Christ liveth in me.”

I remember, years since, visiting at the bedside of an aged saint. We spoke for some time on general things as Christians. I asked her if she had ever thought of Christ who was in glory, ‘living’ in her weak body, on its bed of suffering? I have not forgotten the strange look she gave, as the thought flashed upon her mind, for the first time, as it appeared to me. “Ah,” she said, “Christ living in me!” It seemed a wonderful revelation to her soul: the body, as the vessel — so much in the power of this, that Christ, not self, lived. “Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Is not this even a greater thought, though the converse of that word of Paul, “To me to live is Christ”? The latter was the motive of his life-the spring in his soul; the former, the result of this, “ Christ liveth in me.”

This is freedom indeed. “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free.” We speak of the law of gravitation, the law of nature. We mean the natural tendency of each which governs its actions; as the apple falls to the ground: it does not rise when disengaged from the tree. This thought in its own character, is here. That “law,” — the tendency in which it must move — “of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath made me free.” It lifts the soul out of that other law of sin, that which governs the nature of the flesh; and also, that law of death. It has become the law — the natural issue, of life, which He breathed on His own when He arose — a quickening Spirit — the second Man — the risen Lord.

Thus, may we not say, the soul finding its responsibility — “under law,” as having eaten of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” — passes through these deep lessons, that it may discover experimentally, the depths of a ruined nature — “the flesh” — which sprang up in man’s heart when he broke away from God. But now set free, it finds too, that it has reached in Christ, the “Tree of life”: the “law of the spirit of life” in Him, setting it wholly “free from the law of sin and death.” Free, too, in that two-fold way which we have in measure discussed. Namely, free in soul in looking upward at God; free to enjoy in the present, and in hope, all that He is. And free from the workings of “the flesh” within. Self is ignored, and the life lived in the flesh is lived by the faith of the Son of God: that is, faith in Him as object, and power, and all. The springs and motives of such a life do not spring from self, but from “Christ”; and thus only bring forth fruit to God: being filled with the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ, to His praise and glory.

A Chosen Vessel: 5. Why Did God Permit the Entrance of Evil?

“By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. 5:12).

Before examining God’s ways further with “a chosen vessel,” it will be profitable to examine the testimonies of the word as to the “new man, God’s “new creation,” in Christ Jesus, which is thus being developed in the vessel of mercy.

The terms “old man” and “new man” are very definitely used in scripture. I judge that neither term can be used of an individual as such. That is, an individual could not say, “I am the old man”; nor, “I am the new.” The terms are generic and comprehensive, embracing — the first — all that we were “in Adam”; and the second — all that believers are “in Christ.” Nor do I find that scripture will allow us to say that we have the “old man” in us — while it teaches most fully, that we have “the flesh” in us to the end; if it works, we read “with the flesh (we serve) the law of sin” (Rom. 7:25). These terms will come out more fully, as we proceed with the examination of the truths now before us.

One great and important question here arises, reverting to the condition of man as first created of God. That is, the solemn question of the entrance of moral evil into this world. How frequently is such mooted by the skeptic; and as frequently found without reply, in the mind even of the believer in Christ! The question is Why did God permit the entrance of sin? Why leave it a possibility? And in this is embraced the entrance of death by sin.

How immensely important to possess clearly an answer to this stupendous question; one that will leave the infidel without excuse, and, at the same time, settle firmly in divine truth the minds of those who believe. I do not here go further than its entrance into this present world on which we live. For we know from scripture that sin had already entered the universe, possibly through Satan’s rebellious fall, once an “anointed cherub” (Ezek. 28). Nor do I comprehend the fall of the angels that had sinned, and who are reserved in Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4), until the judgment of the great day. I confine the question to the entrance of sin into this world; and that of death — its consequence — having passed upon man — the race of Adam alone. Death may have been, and was possibly, there — even in this world, in its previous periods of change, during the ages and cycles which had passed prior to its having been shaped by God’s hand, in the six days’ work, into an abode for man.

I accept what is now pretty well known by the student of the word, that in the term which opens the book of Genesis — “In the beginning,” as well as in the next clause of the verse, God has left it open for the possibility of millions of years to have elapsed since that “beginning” was, when God created the heavens and the earth; and thus time sufficient was allowed, to form the strata of the earth, as it is now found, before the work of the six days was accomplished, in the varied ages which had passed, and through the many catastrophes which had probably taken place. For we read in the next clause of the verse, that the earth (not the heavens), was without form and waste (tohu), having probably fallen into chaos. God had not created it in this state, as Isaiah testifies (Isa. 45:18). “He created it not waste” — the same Hebrew word as used in Genesis 1.

We are aware that there are traces of death to be found in the fossils and petrifactions of extinct animals, of species now unknown, in the strata formed by the ages gone by. This is admitted most fully; but it does not interfere with our present question in any wise.

I take therefore, the statement of Romans 5:13, as the basis of the great question now before us: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” The first part of this important passage confines the entrance of sin to this world; and the second limits the passing of death, as a consequence of sin on man; without noticing, in the former case, the possible entrance of sin into other spheres; and, in the latter, the fact of death passing upon other than the human family.

Let us now turn to Genesis 1;2, where we have the account of the creation of man, “And Elohim saith, we will make man [Adam] in our image, after our likeness, and they shall have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every reptile that is creeping on the earth.” So Elohim created the man [Adam] in his own image, in the image of Elohim created he him; male and female, created he them.”

There are two distinct words used here by God, very different in their signification; they are “image” and “likeness.” Another has given valued thoughts on the use assigned to each, to which I would add some remarks. How accurately this usage is maintained throughout the word of God, is amongst the wonders of its perfections.

The word “image” is sometimes, in human language, used to signify the likeness in one for another; as one would say, ‘such an one is the very image of his father’ — meaning that he is an exact likeness; but this is not the way it is used in general, in scripture. There it is used, rather in speaking of that which is set to represent another, without having any reference to its being like or unlike, in features, or otherwise, to the person represented. As we read of Christ being “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). And man being “the image and glory of God” (1 Cor. 11:7), &c.; the word image being here used, as fully representing another, as the image of Jupiter, of Caesar, &c. Now “likeness” is different from this: its meaning is simple and readily understood, as describing a person being like another, that is, having the same traits of character and features, &c.

The man was created then in both these ways. He was set as the great center of an immense system, fully to represent God, as His image. The dominion of the vast system was his. All created things were under him. All intelligences, his wife included, were to look up to him as God’s representative in that sphere. God alone was over him; all else being subject to man. But he was also in the likeness of God. He was pure as his Creator made him, he was very good: he was sinless too, absolutely without evil: he was from God, to be for God, and thus like Him, and fit, therefore, to be His image — to represent Him; and to be the center to which all should look up; and with an intelligent will; his choice also was free.

But again we ask, Why did God leave moral evil a possibility? Or, in other words, why permit the entrance of sin? Could He not have created a being, which could not fall? One who could only do what was good and right?

The answer is plain. Because, if He would create a glorious creature — man, after His own image, and in His likeness, free to choose either good or evil, and not a creature governed by a mere chain of instinct, as the birds and beasts around him — He must leave the entrance to him of evil, a possibility, though not a necessity.

If man, as God created him, could not choose evil, then he had no choice at all: and he would be no more virtuous in doing good, than the mere animal which follows the instincts of its nature. And because, in such a case, he must do good, he would be no more virtuous in doing so than they.

Either God must refrain, — we write the words with reverence — from creating such a being, of this high and glorious order of existence, with a free choice and will; or He must leave the question of evil a possibility to him. Alas, for the result! of which a fallen race speaks with such terrible reality. He chose the evil and refused the good; and the moment he exercised his choice he became a sinner. Man, created in the image of God, fell from that pinnacle of eminence, never to be restored to it again. Fallen Adam begets a son in his own likeness after his image (Gen. 5:3), while unfallen Adam had been created “in the likeness of God” (Gen. 5:1).

Observe, in all this there was no thought of man being holy: nor could it have been said as afterward of the “new man,” that he of Him, was “created in righteousness and holiness of truth” (Eph. 4:24). God is holy — absolutely so. But holiness is relative, inasmuch as it supposes evil to exist, and implies absolute separation from it. This could not be said of man, as God created him. He was pure, and perfectly good, but evil was not for him in existence, until he chose evil, when presented in the form of a temptation, and thus he threw aside the authority and will of God, who had given it to him. So of righteousness, which also presupposes the existence of evil.

How everything in the sinner now depends on his will, in having to do with God; his salvation and all, depend upon the surrender of his will to Him. “Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40). And “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). Now Christ is said to be the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15); the “image of God” Himself. (2 Cor. 4:4). This is because he fully represents God; but He is never said to be in His “likeness”; simply because He is God Himself, therefore not merely like Him. But it is said that He came in the “likeness of sinful flesh,” and rightly so; because He was not sinful flesh at all. See Rom. 8:3.

He too, had His own perfect will; and while tested to the uttermost in life and in death, it was always subject to God’s. “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34).

This obedience and subjection found its perfection fully in death. He “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). Mark, He was not subject to death, as the first man, through his sin. With him it was the penalty of disobedience, and the ending, by God’s sentence, in death, of will in him to the uttermost. But it was there that the perfection of Christ’s surrender of a perfect will in obedience, shone out most fully. Or rather, may we not say? the perfect blending of a perfect will in Him with that of God, in obedience unto death itself.

A Chosen Vessel: 6. The New Man

“Created in righteousness and holiness of truth” (Eph. 4:24).

We now come to the New Testament, where we find a gradual unfolding of God’s ways as to the new man”; indeed, we may say a new kind of man altogether from the first man. I would just draw attention to some of the salient points which are found there in the three great epistles, which, taken together, would give us the completeness of God’s thoughts, and His purposes in the new creation in Christ. I refer to Romans, Colossians, and Ephesians.

The first of these epistles unfolds in detail, the moral closing up of the history of the first man, as fallen, under every advantage, and after every trial from God whether without law, as being proved lawless; or under law, as a law breaker, and this, subsequent to the possession of privileges and advantages, which were before the special dealings of God took place in a separate people. The end of the trial and time of testing was, when Christ came and was refused. “All (now) had sinned,” in looking back, and “come short of the glory of God”— the measure now, and standard by which all would be judged. Man had been set up in perfection as a creature, and had fallen; could he now meet the burning rays of God’s glory? On this, as on all other grounds, all was now over, with the old man forever. God must now either end that man, whose will was set up against Him, by judgment in righteousness: or reveal Himself in sovereign grace through righteousness, in virtue of the work of Christ. I do not here, of course, enter upon this work of the cross, and the death, and resurrection of Christ; only looking at it, as the means, whereby God would close morally for faith the history of man in righteousness, and begin His new creation in His Son — as head of a new race.

The section of the epistle in which God first shows how the race was all under judgment, and guilty before Him, ends in verse 19 of chapter 3. We then find, immediately following, in Romans 3:20, &c., how the righteousness of God is now manifested for the sinner, in God’s raising up His Son from death and setting Him on high; and not against him, as standing in his own responsibility. And this, too, “by faith in Jesus Christ,” personally; and “by faith in his blood,” as the means by which the righteousness of God was vindicated against sin. He thus stands in perfect justification from all his guilt.

But his state as a sinner in the first Adam is not thus ended. When we pass that section which deals in all details with his guilt, and which ends at Romans 5:11, we are introduced to the manner, in which our whole state is dealt with, and closed in the death of Christ. We read in Romans 6, “Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” There is nothing in the Romans about the “new man” in any wise. But there is the crucifixion of “our old man” fully set forth, in order that the body, or totality, of sin might be set aside. The nearest approach to anything positive on this head is found in the expression of Romans 7. “I delight in the law of God after the inner man,” but it goes no further. While fully closing up the questions of our guilt and state, it goes no further, but while showing Christ risen, the believer is not said to be risen with Him. For this, we must have the next step, in the Epistle to the Colossians.

There is in Romans a new will shown as either struggling against the old — the flesh, in Romans 7; or else, when the soul is set free, walking in “newness of spirit,” and “newness of life.” Romans gives us therefore, the crucifixion of “our old man” with Christ.

Now Colossians stands between Romans and Ephesians in doctrine. In the former, man is seen as alive in sins; the heart is going out after all its lusts unhinderedly. What then, must be done? He must be brought down into death — the death of Christ — to have his history closed: “Knowing this, that our old man is co-crucified with him.”

In Ephesians, we have man “dead in trespasses and sins,” and consequently another kind of dealing must come in. Unlike the Romans, where he must be brought down into death, because alive in sins, life must come in positively to quicken a dead soul in that condition, and to raise him up out of it; and all must be a new creation in Christ Jesus, who is in heavenly places.

Colossians, therefore, as we might suppose, would take in both sides-dead in sins, and alive in them. This it does, looking back on our Romans condition, and looking forward to our Ephesians condition in Christ Jesus. Therefore we read, “In the which (sins, &c.) ye walked when ye lived in them” (Col. 3:7). And we also read, “And you, being dead in your sins,” &c. (Col. 2:13). The saint therefore, is looked upon as “dead with Christ” from the elements of the world, as well as dead to sin, and dead to the law; and also risen with Christ, and though not sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, he is seeking those things “above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.” He is, therefore, down here on earth.

This being so, he has not reached his new place with God in Colossians, though he is suited to the place as in life, and as risen with Christ. He has a new status, but not a new place. We would not therefore find, here in the epistle, the “new man” spoken of as in Ephesians. Indeed it is remarkable, that when it is apparently spoken of in Ephesians 3, it falls far short of the full thoughts of Ephesians 4:24; different words being used in the Greek original; and the word man (ἄνθρωπος) being omitted altogether (Eph. 3:9).

We have, therefore, a different word for “new,” used in Colossians, as compared with Ephesians. In the former it is νέος; in the latter καινός: the latter signifying what I may term familiarly by the graphic expression ‘brand new!’ a kind of man never seen or heard of before; while the former would be entirely new, but does not imply a new kind or genus, as the latter would.

We find, however, that the knitting up of both scriptures, Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 is done by the Spirit of God in remarkable wisdom, by the use of these two words, being found in the construction of the verbs, “renewed “ in Ephesians 4:23, and Colossians 3:10; that in Ephesians being compounded with the “new” of Colossians; and that in Colossians with the new of Ephesians. Wondrously wise are the scriptures of our God!

We may also here notice what is still the more striking and instructive, namely, that the word “putting off” is quite different in each epistle; in fact, there is no affinity at all between the words in Greek. In Colossians we have a word which signifies “passing out from under,” or, “being divested of” something; as a garment. In Ephesians we have not this, but its being absolutely “laid aside,” or “laid down.” I might take off my garment in one action; and I may also, by another action, lay it aside when I have taken it off. We shall presently understand the reason why it should be thus in each epistle, coupled with what we have seen already.

There is an illustration of the use of these two words in the LXX of Lev. 16:23, where Aaron, having finished the work of the great day of atonement, clothed in the white linen garments, first “cuts off” those garments, and then leaves them in the tabernacle of the congregation. I would also refer the English reader to Acts 7:58, here the verb of Ephesians 4:24 and translated “putting off” — which should be, more correctly, “laying aside” — is used by Stephen’s murderers, who “laid down” their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul; and also to Hebrews 12:1, where the same word is translated “lay aside,” as to “every weight,” &c.

In fact, while Colossians gives us the subjective side of the “new man” (what is practical life in which the saint lives here while walking on earth), Ephesians gives us the objective side of the “new man,” as showing us what he is on high. Colossians being rather Christ in us.

In Romans, therefore, we find “our old man crucified”: in Colossians the “old man parted with,” and the subjective side of the “new man.” While in Ephesians we have the old man wholly “laid aside,” where we are seen as all that we are in Christ — the objective presentation of the full ‘brand-new’ man: an absolutely new creation in Christ.

We may read vv 21-23, thus: “If so be ye have heard him, and in him have been instructed, as is truth in Jesus (namely) your having laid aside, according to the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the lusts of deceit. But be made new [that is, absolutely new] in the spirit of your mind. And your having been invested with the new man [that is, the brand-new thing] which is after God, [or, according to God] having been created in righteousness [not innocence] and holiness of the truth.”

This “holiness of the truth,” stands in contrast with the “lusts of deceit” of verse 22. The deceit of the serpent having produced the lusts of the heart at the beginning; and righteousness being the basis of God’s new creation, he is formed — created — in it, and in holiness (absolute separation from evil) of the truth, which has begotten him.

As to the passage in Colossians corresponding and filling up on the practical side, we may read: “Your having been invested with the new” (νέος) he does not write “man” (ἂνθρωπος-this word only being used of the full absolute thing in Ephesians 4 — “which is continuously being made new toward perfect knowledge, according to the image of the Creator of him.”

Now remark again, that in Colossians we have “Christ” as the example of all for the new (man). Your life is hid with him in God (vs. 3). The characters of Christ as the elect of God, presented as forming and practiced (vss. 12 and 13). The word of Christ is to dwell in him richly (vs. 16). In fact, as verse 11 states, “Christ is all, and in all.” While in Ephesians it is “God,” and the nature of God is presented as the standard of all. The “new man” there is created after God (vs. 24). He is to be an imitator of God (Eph. 5:1). To walk in love (which Christ showed fully) and walk as children of light —God’s two essential characteristics, what He is (Eph. 5:2 and 8).

Again, we have more: we have in Colossians the “image of him that created him.” In Ephesians we have rather “likeness” to God Himself pressed (κατάθεόν).

Here, therefore, we come back to these words as at the first, “likeness” and “image”; the new man of Ephesians being morally like God — seen in his true place as in Christ in heaven and as objectively presented to us there in Him. Therefore, when we come into the practical life — the subjective side, in Colossians 3 we have “image,” because there he walks on earth at the present, but is morally to represent God, who was fully represented in Christ Himself, and who is “all.”

Then again, as to the exhortation of each epistle connected with the “new man.” We find in Colossians 3:9, “Lie not one to another.” There it is the practical life. But in Ephesians 4:25 we have, “Wherefore having laid aside lying, speak truth” to each other. Here, with the old man who has been laid aside, goes the thing itself-lying. Not merely is the exhortation, as in Colossians, to refuse the practice of it; but the thing is looked upon as gone here, and the exhortation takes the positive side, exhorting to speak the truth, &c., as in the other parts of the context in the epistle. There alone, too, have we the conflict of the saint in its true and only measure. Satan is again on the scene in a special way, to oppose this man of a new creation, as at the first he did in the old. On this I do not enter here.

A Chosen Vessel: 7. The Vessel Emptied of Human Strength

“Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12).

In another connection, which we may hope to refer to again, the apostle Paul writes thus: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not from us” (see Greek). I cite this now with reference to the end of the verse. God never gives intrinsic power to His saints. “God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God” (Psa. 62:11). If this is important in the lives of the saints, how much more, if I may draw a distinction, is it for those who are called upon to serve in the word. Yet in every service and in every action in the lives of God’s people, the power of God is needful, that they may walk and serve and work and toil in the energy of the Spirit, and in the expression of the life of Jesus in their mortal flesh.

For this end, another character of discipline takes place after deliverance is known. This may be more or less spread across their lives, but one absolutely needful to produce that condition in which the power of Christ works: which is, as we read, “made perfect in weakness.”

The object of this discipline is not easily distinguished at first by the majority of saints. It is more often divined and felt by those who serve outwardly in the word, than in the ordinary pathways of the people of God. It frequently happens, too, that it mixes itself up with exercises before deliverance is known, and is not easily separated from these, in the analysis of the soul’s history. However, although we may confound them experimentally in ourselves, scripture distinguishes them most clearly. It is only as we grow in the apprehension of the word, and of the mind of the Spirit there, that we are able to give to each its place and its true interpretation. We only know in part, at best, while here; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away; and then shall we know even as also we are known.

Saul had served amongst the saints for some years, before he was separated to the work to which he had been called. This took place formally and definitely at Antioch (Acts 13), where he was sent forth by the Holy Spirit on his first mission amongst the Gentiles; but going, as he always did, “to the Jew first.” We find this mission described at length in chapter 13 and 14 of the Acts of the Apostles. The vessel had been prepared in quiet, and now in going forth into that wider harvest field, he needed special dealings of the Lord to strip him finally and fully from every thought of quasi strength in man. The very success of the work, and the power of God manifested towards souls, needed corresponding dealings to countervail the tendencies of the flesh. It ever seeks to intrude, and hinder the work of God. Often, in apparently insignificant ways, its intrusion is felt by one’s self or by others: like the “dead flies” which “cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor.”

It is therefore to be expected that special dealings of God should be discerned distinctly at the opening of this great world-wide service of the apostle, commencing here. After the early part of the work is described, and that at Antioch in Pisidia took place (Acts 13:14, &c.); he now leads the band of servants, first to Iconium (Acts 14:1, &c.), and from thence to Derbe and to Lystra. Here he was stoned, and drawn out of the city, as they supposed him to be dead. I refer to this to connect this moment with what he reveals of his life in 2 Corinthians 12.

Having no visible proof of his being called to serve the Lord, like Peter and the rest, who were appointed by Him in life; he must prove, as all true ministry must from that day, its divine origin by the effect of it upon souls. Consequently his ministry was constantly called in question. The servant must expect this now-a-days also, as a consequence, when he seeks to serve according to God’s mind, and as following in the line of those gifted from Christ in glory.

This took place in a very painful manner at Corinth. The jealousies of others so wrought against him there, where the chiefest of his work had been accomplished, that he was forced to speak of himself very prominently (always a painful and trying subject), and to tell of services, of toils, and of sorrows, seldom (perhaps never) equaled by those of any other man. The folly of others gives us here a glimpse of an unparalleled life of devotedness to Christ and the church. “Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool, I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” &c. (2 Cor. 11:23-27).

This is what he had done for the Lord! But what had the Lord done for Paul? “It is not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory, for [γάρ] I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord” (2 Cor. 12:1). And here he discloses what had happened to him “above fourteen years ago.” The scene at Lystra, when he was left for dead, was more than probably the moment when what is recorded here took place.

If 2 Corinthians 11 gives a history which might clothe Paul with honors, and give grounds for him to boast: chapter 12 gives us a dealing of the Lord which reduced him to “nothing.” No doubt it was necessary that the leading man in the Christian course should be introduced into things which it was not lawful to reveal. It was needful, too, to strengthen him in a special way — giving him to realize, above others, what was the portion of all: the possible state for every saint to enjoy, though, in the state of things, unspeakable also. But to follow this, and consequent upon it, the discipline came which had the effect of emptying Paul of every vestige of human strength, reducing him to the condition of a will-less, powerless vessel, so that he might be fitted thus to be wielded and used by the hand of the Lord who did so.

“It is not,” said he, “expedient for me, doubt-less to glory, for I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew [οἶδα] a man in Christ, above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man... how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not possible for man to utter. Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in my weaknesses.”

Here was the realization given him of all that he was, both as a man in Christ, and of the sphere of blessing where his portion lay; and of those things which he heard there, which human language could not express. The measure of this common portion of all His saints, may be realized variously by each; but the portion is the same for all. Upon this I do not enter. Each, too, may minister in part of that which he consciously possesses. But if so, the special dealings of God ensue to check the evil of the flesh, which according to the measure of the revelation rises pari passu with its abundance.

This discipline is suited and adapted to each several soul. This is the reason why, I doubt not, that all speculations as to what was the nature of Paul’s thorn in the flesh, end in nothing. God has wisely seen fit to leave it untold. Were it made known, we would have perhaps settled that it was not ours, and then have left it there. To have left it untold, gives us to see that there was a great principle of God’s dealings, seen in this man’s case, but applicable to all. Each would have his suited “thorn”: the very thing that would counteract his natural tendency; and so act as to strip him of every pretension to power, and break any fancied strength of man.

We see this on every hand, we see it better in our own soul’s history. For it is not always that another is permitted to know the secret thorn which rankles in the breast, such as that we would give the world to remove, ere we know the “end of the Lord.” He presses home the “stake” (οκόλοψ) which pins us to the earth, as it were, in very powerlessness. You see this at times, for instance, in incongruous marriages. The soul is worn away, especially in a sensitive, spiritual mind; and there is no earthly power which can change the sorrow, and heavenly deliverance is withheld. Again, there is a child whose conduct breaks the heart of a parent: every measure fails to deal with him, and the “thorn” rankles deeply in the wounded heart. It may be that some disgrace is permitted, as to which the soul feels that death were easier to bear. It may be that slander has stung the soul with deeper pain. There may be, too, some human weakness, which renders the afflicted one an object of pain to those who love him, or of ridicule to others. Such as these, and the many sorrows of the way are used of God as the “thorn” to curb the energy, to break the strength of “man.” Circumstances, friends, relations, health, good name, all are touched by Wisdom in this holy discipline of the soul. These things in the hand of God are like the river banks which on either side guide the stream of waters which flow between them; rendering the waters useful and fructifying, which, if flowing onwards without these guides, would devastate all around, in-stead of bearing a blessing on their bosom. How often have we not thought what good Christians we might have been if circumstances were different; in short, if the banks which carry the river were broken down. Nay, these are the wise dealings of our God to keep us just in the channel and path where we are, to shine and glorify Him.

Like Paul of old, when the “stake” was driven home, we may cry to God, even thrice, as he: Take away this thorn, this terrible hindrance to the work of Christ, this feebleness of the vessel, this sapping of energy, this hindrance to service, this cruel “stake” from which the soul struggles in vain to be free. But no; there it remains, until we find, in the acceptance of its bitterness, the occasion of a strength which is not of man, but the emptying us of fancied human power. We learn our powerlessness, we feel that struggling is but in vain. Yet here the secret of strength is found: but not of man, not our own. The Lord comes in. He finds the vessel bereft of strength; prepared for that power with which He can wield it. He finds that condition which it is His to use. “ And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather boast in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest [“tabernacle over”] upon me:” “The surpassingness of the power is of God, and not from us.”

Those who serve the Lord outwardly in the word, know in measure these things. They know well, much as they may be blessed, and valued too; what bitter lessons they have to learn in secret with the Lord. Never could they be explained to another; yet they are but the emptying of fancied strength in man. No true servant but will find this out for himself; he will recall those moments, when death was working in the fragile vessel, that life might work in those to whom he ministered. Yea, he begins to find how good these lessons are, that made room for a power working which he is conscious is not himself, not of man; and that when, outwardly calm, he felt the abject weakness of his own heart, his Lord might step in and give him victory.

Thus, then, is the vessel brought by the hand of the potter, often through bruisings and breaking and crushings on the wheel, to its true and blessed form in which God can work Himself alone. When the vessel would say, “not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God”: and again, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not from us. Forcible and striking this is: he does not allow that the power would be ‘from’ God, as something apart from Him, and conferred or imparted to us. Nay, but it is divine, and yet inseparable from Him who works; it is “of God” — and yet not ‘of us,’ as not only negativing the thought that it might be so; but the word he uses still more strongly emphasizes this: that the power is of God and not from us.

There is a “threefold cord” which must be found in the saint if he would serve his Lord aright: the motive, the energy and the end.

At times the motive may be right and the end also, but the energy may be but the human vessel working out (as it supposes) the things of the Lord. All three must go together, and this is the object of this disciplinary process that all may be of God, and not of man.

A Chosen Vessel: 8. The Purpose of God in the Vessel

“For the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

Because [it is] God who spoke light to shine out of darkness who hath shined [or ‘lit a lamp’] in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us (2 Cor. 4:6, 7).

Marvelous purpose in God! To light a lamp within us, and so deal with us, that He may reduce the vessel to a transparency in His hands, in order that the glory of God shining in Jesus on high, should shine out so that His people may be God’s lanterns in a dark and Christ-rejecting world.

Some have referred to Gideon’s lamps and pitchers (Judg. 7), as if there was an analogy here to that scene; but there the lamps shone out only when the pitcher was broken: not so here. The vessel is rendered transparent, if I may so say; all the hindering element of flesh is so attenuated that the “treasure” possessed by the vessel may shine forth undimmed.

The circumstances through which the vessel was passing at this moment, all working to this end, are worthy of our deep consideration. They enter into all the texture of the teaching which flows from God to us in this epistle. Indeed this is ever so in the ministry of the New Testament times. The vessel is passed through the trial or exercise, whatever that may be, and the heart thus trained; the affections formed by these things; the man himself so sustained and supported of God in the sorrows of the way, that “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” He has drunk the living stream at the fountain head of all, in the eighth day of heavenly power and blessedness in Christ. His thirst has been quenched by Christ. And so his inner man — the mind, the heart, the soul, the whole vessel, becomes the medium of those streams of refreshment to others, which have consoled his own soul in its sorrow. The Father of mercies has filled it with all His consolation in Christ-so full, so blessedly full, that it overflows and the stream passes on in living power, fructifying those in the desert sands of the world where his path lies.

Fourteen years, after what we have already spoken of, had passed: scene after scene of his labors had been traversed; and during the successful work at Ephesus (Acts 19), news had come of the sorrows and sins of those in Corinth, who had been the objects of the labors of Paul. He had written to them a letter (1 Cor.), his heart full of anxiety, but teaching, largely too, what was needful there. The mighty energy of God’s Spirit had sustained the vessel for this service, and, then it was dispatched by the hand of Titus.

At this moment the enemy had come in, in terrible power at Ephesus (Acts 19), and the infuriated mob, moved by the spirit of idolatry, had made the insurrection which we learn of there. Paul, after the manner of men, might have said he had “fought with beasts” there. He had like to be torn limb from limb by those whom Satan led at that moment in terrible power. So terrible was the moment that hope was gone, the jaws of death were all but reached, and his spirit passed into the state of one who had “the sentence of death” in himself, and he “despaired even of life.” (2 Cor. 1:8).

Here was a moment for the soul! A living man, whose life was so real before God that God, as it were, might have said: Such a real man as Paul must learn all in power himself; his purpose is to bear about in his body the dying of Jesus; well, then, he shall be helped in this. He shall be delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus may be manifest in his mortal flesh. This is ever God’s reward to those who seek to live in the power of what they teach and know.

But at that same moment a deeper anguish filled his soul. The energy of the Spirit had waned, in which he had been sustained when he wrote to the Corinthians. A reaction came. Titus was gone. There was no recalling what was past. We love those to whom we have ministered in the church of God more deeply than others. There is a link formed between their souls and ours, which even the glory will not efface (compare 1 Thess. 2:19,20). What bitter pangs does the heart feel when, in any way, the enemy’s power comes in to sever this bond. We look upon them as lost to us; the joys of fellowship with them destroyed. He wrote in the greatness of his service, and with the truth of the Spirit from his pen. But now the reaction came. He feared he had lost the beloved Corinthians. How will they receive his letter? Was it too hard, too severe? In deep exercise he repented having written it. “I did repent,” said he, speaking of his tried heart’s exercise (2 Cor. 7:8). A greater death than that of the body, which seemed to have impended, was now felt; his soul died within him, as it were, in the bitterness of his sorrow. Some have passed through this kind of death: it must be known in measure to be understood. He could not rest in his spirit at a great and prosperous work at Troas, but went in search of Titus, that his soul might be relieved (2 Cor. 2:13).

Pressure after pressure at the hand of the potter, for he was but the clay upon the wheel; growing up under the skillful eye and hand of the Master. All these varied trials fell at one moment of crushing soul-death on this vessel. God was attenuating the opaqueness which still remained, that the light might shine forth with brighter power; that the Treasure of his heart might be more clearly seen, that His purpose in the vessel might be unhinderedly manifested.

At last — God which comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus” (2 Cor. 7:6). God “delivered us from as great a death” — as from the fury of man at Ephesus. What a moment of soul-comfort which now followed! “We were comforted in your comfort; yea, and exceedingly the more joyed we for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all” (2 Cor. 7:13). Well can he say, “O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.” He can pour forth his heart’s teaching. He is unhindered in his joy.

What a moment for the true servant! What a moment for the people of God! Little do they know how the servant’s heart is hindered in the ministry at times: how the springs of God are dry to them because of their state: then the servant has to learn fresh lessons of death working in himself; and his brightest words become dull, because the Spirit of God is grieved, and hearts are dull of hearing. He must be a rebuker to both servant and people, instead of rivers of refreshment in a thirsty land.

But what was this Treasure which he possessed? Strange casket was he for such, also one which would not conceal but permit its full display. The context will explain. It does so, first by recalling a moment in Israel’s history which laid the ground of it in the nature of God there first made known — in sovereignty, displayed in mercy.

Israel’s history had run on under pure and living grace, from the day when God called Moses to be a deliverer of His people, at the backside of the desert in Midian, until, as a delivered people purchased and redeemed, they drank the waters from the smitten rock at Rephidim. Many a time did they abuse this living stream of grace, and murmur against Him who poured it forth.

Then came the giving of the law to Israel, which was only accepted to be broken. Thus all relations, whether of grace or law, were destroyed, grace was abused, and the golden calf was the answer to their word, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Moses goes up from that scene saying, “Peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” He returns, and separates himself from the guilty camp of Israel. Then, in the touching interview which followed, and at his cry, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory,” the Lord retires into Himself — He stands upon a sovereignty which can do as it pleases. He alone can say, “I will,” and none can hinder. “I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy.” This is the manner in which His sovereignty will be displayed, “Because he delighteth in mercy.”

And Moses comes down from the mount, with the second table of the law in his hand, the skin of his face shining with the brightness of this fresh and suited name: “The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth.” Sovereign mercy was the foundation of this relationship of God with Israel. But now we come to Paul in 2 Corinthians, and there we find that sovereign mercy is the basis of the gospel of the glory, which in a special way he names as “Our Gospel.” (2 Cor. 5:3).

What, then, was the gospel? Was it different from that of the other apostles? For by it was communicated “this Treasure” to Paul, who stands here as the representative man — the pattern to all coming after. Mercy, sovereign and free, shines in this man’s case more fully than all, as we have already seen. He would tell us so, saying, “Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not.”

Christ had died: God had “made him sin for us, who knew no sin.” God had abandoned Him who had trusted in His God. He who had taught others to trust in Him was Himself forsaken, and the cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” attested this; and was the mocking taunt of His foes, “He trusted in God, let him deliver him now if he will have him” (Matt. 27:43). We see no righteousness in this. But we see that “The righteous Lord... hateth iniquity” — and His Son having taken that place must take all its consequences. It was God’s righteous judgment against sin which we see there.

He was taken from the cross and placed in the grave. The soldiers sleep as they guard the tomb: they became as dead when the angel of God descended to roll back the stone where the dead had been laid. But Christ had risen. He was not there. The tomb unsealed, the grave-clothes unmoved, pointed to the mighty fact that no grave could hold the Son of God.

Some days elapse, when we see another sight. On the Mount of Olives, perhaps some five hundred disciples stood, and from their midst a Man ascends to heaven, out of their sight. He is saluted there by God in righteousness as the Author of eternal salvation; the Establisher of righteousness against sin, for “the righteous Lord loveth righteousness.” The Father gives Him the Holy Spirit afresh for others-and out from the glory comes the message, which afterward arrested Saul of Tarsus, that this righteousness of God was so vindicated by the Son, that God set Him on His throne, and the news is sent forth from the heavens that God’s righteousness could now be displayed for man, a sinner, in salvation-and not against him in judgment: that all who submitted to Jesus, the Nazarene, should become God’s righteousness in Him.

“Our Gospel” dates from the glory of God. It comes forth as a ministration of righteousness, and of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:8, 9): no more the ministration of “condemnation” and “death.” It shines out from His face who accomplished the work, and whom God seated on His throne — the witness of His estimate of the work which He had accomplished. The “Treasure “was this. It was all that was thus brought forth from the glory of God, as found in Christ there; and as possessed by the vessel of clay.

Then came the attenuating process, by which the vessel would be made the medium through which it should shine. The light was taken in through exercises of conscience; and shone out through the exercises of his heart. The “life of Jesus” must be made manifest in the earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:10); out of it the faith of Jesus (2 Cor. 4:13 and compare Psalm 116:10) must be expressed; and the hope of Jesus (2 Cor. 4:14) must actuate the heart. And the momentary lightness of the affliction, through which it passed, only worked to enlarge the capacity and give in result a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. The eye was fixed on the unseen and the eternal: the seen and temporal was passing away; and even if the earthly tabernacle — suited to the present passing stage — were dissolved, a building of God, a house not made with hands, was sure; and if Jesus came — all that was mortal which remained would be swallowed up of life (compare 2 Cor. 4; 5).

This, then, was the purpose of God with the earthen vessel; this the process to reduce it to all that He desired. The light of the glory in the face of Jesus shone in the holiest on high, and on earth the light of the lamps shone over against the candlestick to cause its beauty to be seen.

A Chosen Vessel: 9. God in the Vessel

“The sentence of death” (1 Cor. 1:10). “The power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:10).

The passages at the head of this chapter present two principles which the vessel of God’s choice must practically learn. They are not confined to the Christian interval alone; but have been the lessons, variously taught, and more or less intelligently learned by the elect, at all times, and in all dispensations; though the clear, doctrinal meaning was not known until New Testament times.

They are, as we may speak, in a certain sense, correlative. The vessel is taught experimentally the first of these; and in the same way he finds the second working in him. What has “the power of his resurrection” to do with aught but a dead man? Surely nothing! Therefore if death works in him, life works also in him in the power of resurrection. This power is of God alone.

These are the great lessons set for every saint while here. The measure in which they are learned is quite another matter: as is also the soul’s apprehension of the lesson. But oh, what conscious power is found, as the soul learns to hold the cross, to every motion of human life which works in his body! to bear about in himself the sentence of death, morally or physically, that he should not trust in himself, but in God who raises the dead. Then death works in him, and life towards others.

The former principle — “we have the sentence of death in ourselves” — is preparatory to the desire “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection.” And this will be seen as we examine other cases in scripture, “written for our learning.”

The history of the “father of the faithful” will help to this end. In Abraham’s path we are introduced to one, and the dealings of God with him, in whom we see the gradual unfolding of God’s lessons for the soul, before the doctrine of these things is developed to us in the New Testament scripture.

Like ourselves in our measure, he had to pass through all in an experimental way, to reach the perfect end. With the saint in the New Testament, did he but accept what is there taught, it would be with him that the place where others ended he would begin. But the state of soul, and the power of the flesh, and the deceivableness of our own hearts, are such that we must, alas! learn, too, all the lessons in an experimental way.

In Paul we see one who learned these things practically, but with much difference from ourselves. Speaking for oneself, and perhaps for others, we learn them through failure, in which we experience (more like Peter) the extricating ministry of Christ. Paul’s case differed much, for in him we see rather the true heart taught, the singleness of eye met, so that he had more of the preventive or preserving ministry of Christ, rather than the restorative or extricating, while, at the same time, he was passed through circumstances of varied kinds that the lesson might be experienced in his own soul. We see failures in his life, but they were few.

We all experience, in a sense, the threefold way in which God revealed Himself to Abraham. He was called by the “God of glory” (Acts 7:2). He was sustained by the “Almighty God,” and all was provided by “Jehovah Jireh.” This was his history as a saint. But all was not revealed to him at first: the flesh had to be broken, fallen nature exposed, law had to be tried and found fruitless for faith, promise had to be rested upon, and then the fruit of accomplished promise had to be surrendered for the power of resurrection on Mount Moriah. Until this came he never was really and fully a worshiper, nor did he ever know God by that new name, “Jehovah-Jireh.” I do not dwell much upon his earlier history. He did what true children of God do also, until they learn otherwise. He saw, when called of God at first, that which it was God’s will should be done or possessed, and he assayed to realize and accomplish it in the strength of man. All fails, and then at last God does by him what he assayed to do himself. The end in view was right and the motive was right, but the energy put forth was of “man.” He had not yet taken “the sentence of death” to himself, nor had he learned “the power of his resurrection.”

Was not this so with Moses when he assayed to deliver Israel? With David at Ziklag? With Peter in the judgment hall? Each was tried, each sought to do that which was right and of God; but the energy was of man, and God did, at the end, by each one the same things which each had assayed to do themselves. We see this every day around in the history of saints. We know it in our own. Often, too, we have seen, in the first freshness of soul in a young saint apprehending the truth, a deeper and more spiritual recognition of the will of the Lord than at later times in his life. He may have turned aside from the performance of it, or he may have sought to do it in the power of man, thinking that because it was right and of God he should do so. Years after the thing is done (if there was no failure or turning aside) by God Himself in him. Or, if failure supervened and — turning aside, it was forced upon him through sorrows and trials and breakings of the flesh, and of the will of man which had come in to hinder.

You see it, too, in those that have assayed to serve in the gospel or in the church. The energy of the heart which pushed forth the young man as a servant, fails, he breaks down, he is coldly received, or the like. If there is gift from Christ, the thing was right and of God; but the energy was self — unbroken. Painful lessons followed (than which there are few more so), but if we watch that man’s after history, if he walk with God, he will come forth brightly in useful service to the Lord: God doing by him what he assayed to do himself in vain.

In Abraham’s case we will examine the moment when he was enabled to take home “the sentence of death” to himself in the “sign of circumcision” (Gen. 17), thus learning the fruitlessness of flesh, and to be cut off from himself in the things of God.

Nearly fourteen years had passed since the birth of Ishmael, this son of the bondwoman: this effort of the energy of man to accomplish the thoughts of God. He was born and was brought up in Abraham’s house for twice seven years. All seemed outwardly promising for the time; but Abraham had trodden for those fourteen years a path which was self-devised. These years are passed over as a blank in his history — utterly unrecognized. And oh, how many histories of God’s saints will be found a blank by-and-by! The power of man was seeking to further the things of God. But this he must discover, in one short interview, in which his whole path and his Ishmael are totally ignored; not by words, indeed, but by the simple revelation of God Himself — the almighty One who was all-powerful, in contrast with quasi-power in man.

Let me ask my reader has he ever known cases analogous to this? Has he not seen with an enlightened eye lives of apparent usefulness — and this, too, in ways supposed to be of God — blown upon in one moment by some truth flashing upon the soul, which judges all? How multitudinous are the paths that would fade into a mist as one flash of divine light is shed upon them! Yea, even those which are based upon the word of God and His known will in the truth, not to speak of the ten thousand paths and ways of supposed service, which have no warrant from it at all: the former done in the strength of man and worthless, the latter I care not to analyze, so worthless are they.

And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God [El-Shaddai] walk before me, and be thou perfect. And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him” (Gen. 17). What a moment was this! To discover in that interview that he had never yet touched the pathway of the Lord. He had walked by the light of his own eyes. All was worthless, all was ignored, he has but to listen as he lay on his face before God, until the whole unfolding of God’s mind, thus far known, is heard, and the previous fourteen years is treated as a blank in his history. One sentence alone passes his lips in this whole chapter, one cry from his heart is heard. It is the struggle of one who now feels that nothing of God was in those many years of hope, that he must now step off this self-devised pathway on to the path of God, leaving all behind as a mistake, as the effort of man to accomplish the things of God.

What a moment for the soul! Have there not been such-like soul-awakenings in God’s saints at times? Moments when all was fading away which had delighted the eye, and the heart’s cry was heard: “O that Ishmael may live before thee!” Must all then go? Is there not some remnant of former days which may be spared? Has all been a mistake? Is all to be thus ignored? God may pity the soul in this — though not His purpose. He may say, as it were: “And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee.” And the link may be spared and blessed in an earthly way, but it never enters the path which is divine: “But my covenant will I establish with Isaac.”

Seven times do we now hear the utterances of God in His unchallengeable “I will” (vss. 2-8). Those purposes are announced, into which man could never enter as co-worker with God. “I will make my covenant with thee”; and I “will multiply thee exceedingly”; “I will make thee exceeding fruitful”; “I will make nations of thee”; “I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and to thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee” (compare Gal. 3:29; Phil. 4:19). “I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land whereon thou art a stranger”; and “I will be their God.”

Abram has but to hearken, to receive, to hear, all that God Himself would do by him. Abram’s strength was but that of man, it could but mar the power of God in resurrection. He must accept the seal of this new creation, he must take “the sentence of death” home to his own soul in the “sign of circumcision” — the seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, being yet uncircumcised.

Mark the significance of all this, expressed in the changing of his name at this time. Rather, let us say, in God imparting to that name the breathings of His own. Instead of Abram he would now be Abraham. The breathings of the name of Jehovah, the self-existing God, are imparted to his; he is made, as it were, a “partaker of the divine nature” (Compare 2 Peter 1:2). He belongs to the new creation of God.

This was the sign of “the sentence of death” upon man, and the entrance into that where “all things are of God” — of which circumcision was the seal. The work of God would be done in the vessel by Himself alone. The human vessel must bow. It must take this sentence home to itself. In spirit it must enter into the new creation with a new and divinely-breathed name.

The vessel must be will-less and powerless in His hand.

But more: “The power of his resurrection” must be known, for it alone can avail in a dead man, to lift him out of the dead and into this new sphere. (“He considered his own body now dead.” “He hesitated not at the promise of God through unbelief.”) This power now comes in: “As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.” She, too, must be made partaker, as it were, of the divine nature; she must, like him, have the breathing of God’s name put to hers, that she may in figure be of the new creation also. “And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her and she shall be the mother of nations, kings and people shall be of her.” Again he falls on his face — now as Abraham. He “found strength in faith, giving glory to God.” Abram once had fallen on his face and listened; but now Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old: and shall Sarah that is ninety years old bear? ... And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.”

This was “the power of resurrection,” now the resource of God. Human strength and human hopes were dead in Abraham and Sarah, the “sentence of death” taken home to their souls, that they “should not trust in themselves, but in God that raiseth the dead.” “Against hope he believed with hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be” (Rom. 4:18).

But there was more taught here. God had said, at the moment when he first appeared to Abraham as the Almighty, “Walk before me, and be thou perfect.”

Hitherto the Lord had been his shield and his exceeding great reward. His guardian care had marked his path — his shelter from his foes. Now more was asked: God’s new name would bring fresh responsibility. El-Shaddai had been revealed Himself, who could do all things, who only needed an empty vessel under “the sentence of death,” to use. “Perfection” must now be found. This was the answer of the soul to the revelation of God, the soul responding, as face answers to face in the glass, to all that God is — as thus known.

We have then:

1. Circumcision first brought in, the sign of the sentence of death and the cutting off from ourselves;

2. the power of His resurrection follows, as that of God, who would work in a dead man;

3. we have perfection required in those in whom the other two are seen.

Thus were the roots of these things learned in practical power by the vessel of promise, afterward to be known in their spiritual significance in New Testament times.

When therefore we turn to Paul in Philippians we find all there. The vessel is there in its moral beauty and perfection, as far as this can be reached below. The workings of flesh are not there, nor sin, nor the weakness of man, as a vessel of mercy upon the potter’s wheel. No flaw is here. The vessel is not now marred in the hands of the potter. True, it is not yet transformed into the potter’s image in glory; but it is attenuated to its utmost on earth, rendered as transparent as it may yet be; and the “Treasure” shining out in every phase. Christ is motive, Christ is energy, Christ is end. The potter is now seen in the vessel.

We find those great principles which we saw in Genesis 17, in Phil. 3. Paul has gone through the prefatory work. Four years in prison, chained to a soldier, had wrought its work. The soul had been stripped of all its “desirable things.” The labor for Christ which was his life was now arrested, as to outward warfare in the work. Brighter lessons were in store: lessons for the church of God, in all ages of her sojourn here on earth, were to come forth from the Roman capitol, where he wore his chain.

He takes the conscious place — not now merely as learning the fact of death to all the energy of man, as Abraham — but of accepting it. “We are”; said he, “the circumcision.” The painful lesson is past. Christ had passed away from the earth: He had died to the scene, and died out of it, to rise into that new place, now fully taken, as “the beginning of the creation of God.” Head of that new order of things, associated with Him, “circumcised with the circumcision not made with hands,” we partake of all that into which He as Man had entered. We are circumcised in Him, as Sarah was in Abraham. “We are the circumcision, who worship God by the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh:” the “sentence of death” to all that savored of the energy of man, even at his best, and the flesh only to be ignored, even in its best phase.

There all that savored of this, all that of which man could boast, is cast aside. Of all men he had that of which he could boast as to the flesh. Not the “flesh of sin” here, but that which looked fair in man’s eyes, and was the best fruit that man could produce, as such, in divine things. By birth, by religious zeal, by righteousness of the law which applied to man in the flesh, all was surrendered in that moral death, of which circumcision was the seal.

But more: “ all things “ were counted loss, they but stood in the way of that which was “all his desire.” “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection.” Here was another of those striking points found in Genesis 17: the desire in gazing at Christ in glory, to know Him there — gone up to that scene where all His glory shone. And here on earth, as a vessel indeed, will-less, powerless, empty, finding that power which raised up the Son, out of every sorrow and grief by the way — and by which, at last, He rose from the grave — working in the vessel, wielding it and using it for the purposes which alone were His, to work, while here, for His glory.

How did this power work in Paul? Look at the man who above all on earth was filled with such mighty energy in the service of Christ in the gospel: shut up as a malefactor in prison, suspected by his brethren, shunned by all for a time, cut off from the work which was more than life to him. His great heart had swelled with the hope that, as he had evangelized the eastern world — “From Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum,” he had fully preached “the gospel of Christ” — he would now go forth to the western world, as far as Spain — carrying the word of life.

Caught in the toils of a prison, the great vessel learns, after four years of exercise, to say: “I would have you understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” God was doing greater things when the great vessel to whom the gospel of the glory of Christ was committed was set aside from its active work. Most of the brethren were waxing confident now (as in quietness of heart, his case in God’s hands, he waited on His vindicating love), his bonds were known to be for Christ; others were the more bold to speak the word without fear.

But God was making the vessel for His use. It was on the potter’s wheel. There were greater things to be done by him than his heart had devised. It was a light thing to evangelize the western world compared with the writing of those epistles which came from his prison in Rome, to instruct and comfort and rejoice the hearts of millions of His saints for well-nigh two thousand years. To this end “the power of his resurrection” alone could work. And if the fellowship of his sufferings” reached even to “conformity to his death,” it was but the path by which he would arrive at “the resurrection out from among the dead,” and thus be more like Christ.

There again we have “perfection” seen in the vessel, as far as such can be reached while here on earth. This “perfection “ is always dispensational in its character, and answering to the revelation of Himself which God has been pleased to make from time to time: as Almighty, or Jehovah, or the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is important for us that we understand the different ways that perfection is looked at in the word.

1. We have positional perfection, as we may term it, which every soul that belongs to Christ possesses in Him; the standing of the saint as set free under the gospel now set forth. This positional perfection is in contrast with what a Jew under the law could possess; because “the law made nothing perfect.” Under the gospel~the conscience of the believer is perfected by the precious blood of Christ. When “once purged,” no charge of sin can ever press itself on the worshiper. By one offering, Christ has perfected continuously the sanctified ones, that is, those separated to God by His blood.

But more: he has died with Christ out of the old status, which he possessed as a child of Adam. He is risen with Christ into a new sphere, too; he has been quickened together with Christ, and raised up together (Jew and Gentile) and seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Every soul who is in union with Christ stands in this “perfection” before God. I do not speak here of their realization of such. Paul labored that he might present every man perfect in Christ (Col. 1:28). In this there is no intrinsic perfection in the saint, it is his dispensational standing. He is complete in Him who is the Head of all principality and power. He is circumcised (positionally) in Him by the passing out, in the circumcision of Christ, into that new order of things, that eighth day, to which circumcision belonged. (It must be performed in the type on that eighth day.)

2. There is a moral perfection which is attainable here below on earth, to which Paul exhorts and in which he walked himself (Phil. 3:15). This is what the Spirit of God wrought in the vessel, in the condition found in Philippians producing in it a reflex and an answer here to all that Christ on high is with the hope filling the soul, to be conformed to Him in His path on earth, reaching even to the grave, and out of which the power of His resurrection would raise it if it reach “conformity unto his death.” “All things” were dross and dung in see king for such perfection; but it was attained by the setting aside of all that man could glory in, and it was wrought by the Holy Spirit in an empty, will-less vessel, hastening on to the goal. “Let as many as be perfect, be thus minded:” attainable, indeed, by all, though perhaps few really attain it, for want of a single eye.

3. But “perfection” itself could never be reached on earth. True, the positional perfection, all who are Christ’s possess in Him. Moral perfection would be attained by the true-hearted saint who yielded himself to the workings of the Spirit of God. But the end would not be reached while here. Nor until the mighty power of Christ would be put forth, and “mortality would be swallowed up of life,” and He would change our vile body that it might be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the power whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself. Of this Paul would say: “Not that I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am also apprehended of Christ.”

Thus the father of all that believe learned his threefold lesson experimentally in his path of old; and the leader of the people of God, in New Testament days, learned it in his. He was a man of like passions as ourselves, but a man with a single eye, a single motive, an undivided heart. He waits on high with Christ for the fruit of all that the potter’s hand had skillfully wrought, not a flaw remains, no more crushings are now required. He enjoys the “far better” thing meanwhile. By-and-by “This corruptible shall have put on incorruption; and this mortal shall have put on immortality,” and the Master’s handiwork will shine in him, as a “vessel of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.”

He will have then received the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge will give him at that day, and not to him only, but unto all those that love His appearing (2 Tim. 4:8).

Blackrock Lectures: Preface

The lectures in the reader’s hands were delivered in the course of ordinary service in the ministry of the word. Some who heard them thought that they might be useful to others, and the notes of them where given to the writer, and form the basis of these papers.

That they may be a blessing to His people, is the earnest desire of the writer, and if so, they will bring glory to the name of the Lord.

Blackrock, September, 1870.

Note: The name “Blackrock Lectures” was the suggestion of a brother in communion, for the sake of distinction from others.

Blackrock Lecture 1: 1. Christ, Head Over All the Assembly, Which Is His Body

This evening, in. the Lord’s mercy, I desire to bring before you, beloved friends, the great subject of the church of God, which, next to Christ Himself, is the center of all God’s counsels for His glory. It is very sweet, when we are in the consciousness of our relationship as sons — children of God our Father — to be assured of, and instructed in our relationship to Christ as “members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” He is never said to be “bone of our bone”; but we are said to be “of his flesh, and of his bones,” when He has gone on high, after His work on the cross by which we are saved.

The church is that wonderful structure in which God will display in all the ages, and throughout eternity, the “exceeding riches of his grace.” How rich He is and how far His grace could go, will be seen in “his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.”

The Bible is the history of two men — the “first Adam,” the responsible, or created man; and the “last Adam,” the man of God’s purpose and counsel. The responsible man’s history closed in the cross. The “second Man” — the “last Adam” — came in, and, in blessed and holy love,, took willingly the cup of wrath, and died, that God might be free, in righteousness, to let out the floodgates of His love. The stream took its rise in His heart, but needed a righteous channel in which to flow. It was pent up in the heart of Christ, little as we could have conceived it, when He said, “How am I straitened, till it be accomplished” (Luke 12). He poured out His soul unto death and the stream flowed on! God’s heart was thus set free to flow out to sinners — the vilest — the most abject; bearing them back by redemption on its mighty stream, to place them on high — “seated in heavenly places in Christ.”

You do not find God’s purposes and counsels unfolded in scripture till the cross is past. It stands morally at the end of the world’s history. In God’s dealings previous to the cross, you have the responsible man tested and exposed. The Lord Jesus came down and brought out the fact that man was irrecoverably lost. If the world had received Him, it would have proved that there was some latent good in man’s heart which only needed this fresh culture to unfold. But no! Man had no heart for Jesus then, as now. We know this when we think how we desire naturally to live without Jesus. Men will talk of anything but Him. In religion he can clothe himself, and pride himself, because it gives him some importance in his own eyes; but the presentation of the Lord Jesus tests the heart which can thus deceive itself, when He has no place there.

On this side of the cross, historically, you have the purposed Man in glory — the veil rent, and the grace of God preached “unto all,” and no further dealings of God, until His long-suffering is exhausted, when the judgment of the living closes the scene, and introduces the millennial age. We have to do with Him either in grace or in judgment. To know Him in grace, we have passed from death to life; to know Him in judgment is eternal woe!

When the cross is thus passed, all God’s counsels which were before the foundation of the world, unfold themselves to us in the word, and that for the first time. It is exceedingly interesting to trace from scripture what does come out then — when the Lord Jesus, the second Man, is in the glory of God.

I will draw your attention shortly to some of them. In Hebrews 9:26 you read, “Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” This was accomplished by the suffering and death of the cross. I am going to point out all the “nows” of scripture as to these things.

1. In Romans 3:21- 26. “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested”; again, “To declare at this time [now] his righteousness,” &c. The judgment that was needed to establish God’s righteousness against sin was poured out upon the head of Jesus; and God took Him up as Man, who had glorified Him by bearing all to His glory, and set Him on His own throne —thus displaying His righteousness, His consistency with Himself in doing so. Thus the gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness, because it is His own consistency with Himself in ministering His grace on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ. We are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” and God is just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” Instead of the demand for righteousness from man, there is the administration of it to him, and that of God’s righteousness instead of man’s, from the glory where Christ is. The saints of the Old Testament stood on the ground of the “forbearance” of God. We as Christians, stand on His righteousness, (compare Rom. 3:25 with verse 26). There was “the passing over,” [see margin — not “remission”] of sins that are past, that is, of past ages. Forgiveness was promised (Jer. 32), but not preached or proclaimed (Acts 13:38). Suppose the case of a man who owed a debt, and whose creditor forbore with him because some rich man had gone security for his liability. The debt was there, but the creditor forbore to press his claim. But if this rich man came in later and discharged the whole amount, the debtor was free! So with us, in contrast with the saints of old with whom God forbore — the cross now proves His righteousness in doing so — we stand on the ground of God’s righteousness being now gloriously manifested, because Christ is in heaven! (John 13:31, 32, 16:10, 17:4, 5). We who believe possess a purged conscience which no saint of OT times ever could, though he knew God in blessed confidence, and found Him a God of grace. The cross is now the proof of how righteous this forbearance of God was with them.

2. In 2 Timothy 1:9,10. “Who 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. But now is made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and incorruptibility (ἀφθαροία) to light through the gospel,” &c. (See also Titus 1:1-3.)

3. Then in Ephesians 3:10, “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by means of the church the manifold wisdom of God.” (See also Rom. 16:25,26, &c.)

Thus we find the closing up of the first man’s history in responsibility in the cross, which stood morally at “the end of the world.” In the cross man consummated his guilt, and there the blessed Son of God drank willingly the cup of wrath, and not only put away our sins, but the man that sinned by enduring the judgment of God that lay upon him. Then God took the man who so glorified Him, and put Him in glory in the display of righteousness. The promise of eternal life before the world was revealed, on the close of man’s history in the death of Christ, he who had the power of death being also annulled; and the eternal purpose of God in the church is made known.

Thus you get all these “nows” of scripture when the cross is past, and Christ is in the glory of God, having accomplished redemption. Sin is put away for the believer; righteousness manifested; eternal life bestowed. There was one more thing that God’s manifold wisdom might be known; namely, the church of God.

Let me remark as to the word “church.” It has done more mischief, and created more misapprehension as to the divine purposes, than almost any other expression. Let us be clear at once as to it, that the word is not in scripture! No doubt you have it in our excellent (for the most part) Authorized Version. But it is not a true representation of the original. In all cases it should be translated “assembly.” If we were to speak of the assembly of England, of Scotland, of Ireland, we would not understand what it meant. When we use the word church, it is a conventional word, conveying a human thought about a human institution.

For instance, take the well known passage in Matthew 18, “Tell it to the church”; read it, “Tell it to the assembly,” and the thought of many of its being the teaching or priestly body, or other organization, is gone.

Now, the interval during which Christ is hidden in the heavens, and the Holy Spirit is dwelling on earth, in contradistinction to His working in other ages, has no computation in scripture. “Times and seasons” belong to the Jew and the earth. The present interval is not “time,” properly speaking, at all. Time is counted when God has to do with earth and earthly things.

What then, is the “assembly of God,” looked upon in the truth of the expression? It is the body of a Head, who has gone on high; formed by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, to be the vessel for the expression of Christ, while He is hidden from the world, and before He is revealed in glory. As we have in Ephesians 1:22,23: “And gave him to be head over all things to the assembly which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”

In order to facilitate the unfolding of my subject, I have divided it into three heads.

Blackrock Lecture 1: 2. Christ, Head Over All Things

The universal dominion over all the works of God is bestowed upon the man of God’s counsel, as we find in Psalm 8. So the first Adam, the created man, was given a universal lordship over this scene, as it came from its Creator’s hands. This he forfeited when he fell by sin. We read, “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:26). Then, in Psalm 8, this is bestowed on the “Son of man” the man of God’s counsel: “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hand: thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea; and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.”

I come now to examine how He takes possession of it all. He does so under four titles; namely, as God, Creator of them; as Son, and appointed Heir of them; as Son of man, according to Psalm 8, the Man of God’s counsel; and as redeemer of His inheritance, which had fallen under Satan’s power through the lusts of man when he fell.

In Colossians 1:15,16. “Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature: for by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and for him.” This refers to all the works of His hands, for the creation of all things is always in scripture attributed to the Son of God. When the persons of the Godhead are distinguished as to creation, He is always the actor. If we look at John 1:3 we find the strongest expression of this. Nothing came into being which ever did come into being, except by Him. “All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” All things were made by Him and for Him, as we see by Colossians 1.

Strange that in the creed, called the “Apostles’,” creation is attributed to the Father. Scripture uniformly attributes it to the Son, when it distinguishes the Persons in the Godhead. “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son,” &c.)

Then He is called the firstborn or Chief of all, not as to the point of time of His taking a place in creation; but because of the dignity of His person. If the Creator stoops to take a place in that which displayed His handiwork, He must necessarily be first and chief in it, even if He appeared last of all on the scene.

Now, if you turn to the first chapter of Hebrews and second verse, you will find the same truth, with another added, “God hath in the last of these days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom he made the worlds.” Here again, creation is attributed to Him who is appointed Heir of all.

But there is a third point, which you will find in Psalm 8, “O Jehovah, our Adon, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who hast set thy glory above the heavens... What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or, the Son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feet,” &c.

Now, with regard to the question which you find in The fourth verse of this Psalm, “What is man?” You will find it asked three times in the Old Testament. In the seventh chapter of Job and seventeenth verse, “What is man that thou shouldest magnify him, and that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment.” The question in this chapter arises in this way. Job, like many, is struggling under the discipline of God’s hand. God is holding Job under His hand for it! And Job is writhing under His dealings, imploring God to let him alone “till he swallow down his spittle!” He speaks in the anguish of his spirit, and asks, in the bitterness of his soul, “What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? and that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?” He pours out his plaint to God, desiring to know how it was that the mighty God should set His heart on such a poor worm as man, “whose foundation is in the dust,” and “who is crushed before the moth.”

In Psalm 144 you have the same inquiry, “What is man?” Here it is the cry to Jehovah of the godly remnant of Israel in the last days, pleading the insignificance of man — their foes — as a ground for the speedy judgments of His hand and their deliverance from their oppressors, who are prospering around them. They cry to Him, “What is man?” Why spare them; why not execute judgment, and thus deliver the people of thy hand?

But when we come to Psalm 8, you find that it is the Spirit of Christ in the Psalmist, which asks the question “What is man?” &c. Put to shame and rejected of men —and of Israel — His plaint goes up to Jehovah, and He asks, from His lowly place of rejection, “What is man?” And we get grace’s answer to it all, in man in Christ, according to the counsels of God; and we therefore have what God is as well, because we have God in grace revealed in Him — going down into death, by the grace of God, to connect the creature with his Creator.

Christ was this Son of man — set over all the works of God’s hand — as Adam, the created man, had been at the first, in the dominion of this scene which he lost, when he was drawn aside of Satan, and fell. Thus we find in this question asked three times, though in very different connection, in the Old Testament; and the answer to the question in Psalm 8 is brought out in wonderful development, displacing the first man by the second, the first Adam by the last, three times in the New. (See Heb. 2; Eph. 1; 1 Cor. 15.)

In Hebrews 2:6 you find the words of the Psalm quoted, as far as they are fulfilled — the end of the Psalm has actually yet to come. It is touching, too, how the inspired writer of Hebrews will not say, David “in a certain place testified,” &c. How well he knew that a greater than David was there! He writes, “One in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him; or the Son of man, that thou visitest him. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hand: thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.” Then he explains, “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. But we see Jesus [this “Son of man”], who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for everything.” This is the word; not merely “every man.”

He has tasted death in all its bitterness, not only for the glory of God, which required it; and to destroy the power of Satan, who had gotten the power of death over man; and for the sins of His people, if He was to bring many souls to glory — but also for the whole inheritance as His title to bless it. Every blade of grass, every leaf of the trees, He has died for! He takes His inheritance, with all its load of guilt, and dies to redeem it all — tasting death for it, “by the grace of God.” This is a far wider thought than the saints merely, though they are included in it.

The beautiful world, beautiful wherever man’s hand has not marred it, or his foot has not trodden it down; that which came out of the hand of its Creator in all its variety of living beauty, displaying His handiwork in all its lights and shadows — it has been purchased by the blood of Christ. Already redeemed by blood from the hands of the enemy, it has yet to be redeemed by power. The eye of faith turns on high and sees Him on the throne of God, the title to all things in His hand, as God their Creator, as Son and Heir of them, and as Man! Yet more, as the One who has “tasted death” for it! He took the curse that was on the scene; and the day is coming when not a vestige of that curse will remain. The thorns and thistles of Adam (Gen. 3:18), and the want of fruitfulness of Cain (Gen. 4:12), will give place to the earth yielding her increase (Psa. 67:6), and the thorn and thistle giving place to the myrtle and the fir tree (Isa. 55:13). He will inherit it as its Redeemer-Heir. He tastes death and then goes on high, where God has “crowned him with glory and honor.”

Thus He is there, “Head over all things” in a fourfold title Creator, Son and Heir, Son of man, and Redeemer. There He awaits the joint-heirs (His bride for that day of glory), and when all are gathered, He will put forth His great power, and binding Satan, will possess all, and we shall be joint-heirs of it with Him. That interval is marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling here below.

Blackrock Lecture 1: 3. Head … to the Assembly

The second point I desire to bring before you is, that Christ, as man in glory, is thus “Head over all things”; is Head, not over, but “to the assembly.” You will mark strongly that He is never said to be Head over the church, but to it. We will look at it in its other aspect as “His body,” again.

Now I may surprise some (who have grasped the truth of the church being the body of Christ, formed by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven at Pentecost), by saying that the thought of the “assembly” was well known in the OT scriptures, and familiar to the order of things in Israel. Thus we find the word where it has perplexed some, in learning that the church, as we know it now from scripture, began its existence after the ascension of Christ and descent of the Holy Spirit. I refer to the passage in Acts 7, “The church [assembly] in the wilderness,” referring to Israel in their Journey from Egypt to Canaan. The whole congregation of Israel as they came out of Egypt, in its corporate unity, as well as its gathering together, is treated as the assembly. In Exodus 22 we read of “the whole assembly of the congregation.” In the expression “the tabernacle of the congregation,” it is another word in the original, and should be rendered “tabernacle [or “tent”] of meeting,” and signifies the place where they met Jehovah. I need hardly say that, comparatively, there were but few true saints of God amongst that great congregation.

But in its corporate unity as a nation come out of Egypt, and the assemblage of the people it was termed and treated as the “assembly” of Jehovah. You know how they defiled His dwelling-place; for He had brought them out of Egypt that He “might dwell among them” (Ex. 29:45, 46), so that finally He removed His glory or presence from their midst (Ezek. 8-11).

Let us carry the thought with us that Israel, as a nation, was the “assembly” of Jehovah. They corrupt themselves wholly in this position, and God has two great controversies with them in His dealings by-and-by, when He takes them up again.

Isaiah 40-48 gives His first great controversy with them (especially Israel) for idolatry, ending with the words, “There is no peace, saith Jehovah, unto the wicked.” The second is more specially with the Jews, than with Israel as a nation. It is from Isaiah 49 to 57, and ends with the somewhat similar words, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” This is for the yet deeper guilt of the rejection of Jehovah-Messiah, come into their midst in grace. The general testimony of Isaiah, as of the other prophets, is that a remnant only would be spared and saved, when God would turn His hand to deal with them once more.

I may here mention, what has been noted, that the book of Isaiah, exclusive of the historic interlude in chapters 35-38, is divided into two great portions, chaps. 1-34 giving their external history in the midst of, and with relation to, the nations with whom they have to do (outside of those embraced in the Gentile empires, to whom the throne of the world was given, when God removed the glory from the earth; these we find in the book of Daniel). Then, after their external history (Isa. 1-34), and the historic interlude of parabolic significance (Isa. 35-39), we get their internal or moral history discussed (Isa. 40-56).

If we examine Isaiah 8:12-18, we find only a remnant attached to Christ, who becomes a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel. In Isaiah 5 Jehovah looks back on the nation as to how they answered to the culture bestowed upon them; they “brought forth wild grapes.” In Isaiah 6 He looks forward, and they are proved to be unfit for the glory of the Lord of Hosts: they are “undone”; Isaiah here representing the people before Jehovah.

What is now to be the remedy? Jehovah of Hosts will become a man! This was now the resource. The virgin would bear a Son (Isa. 7:14) and Jehovah of Sabaoth becomes Emmanuel — God with us! In Isaiah 8:12-18, He becomes a stumbling-stone and rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, and historically He was in the Gospels, (compare Matt. 21:42-44, &c.), but a sanctuary to the remnant who attach themselves to Him. “He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offense, to both the houses of Israel: for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him” (vss. 14-17).

Thus, we find that Christ became a stumbling stone to Israel, but a small remnant of the people attached themselves to Him — who were “for signs and wonders “in Israel (compare Heb. 2:13).

I will now trace shortly the history of this remnant, while Jehovah hides His face from Israel. You find it distinctly in Matthew’s gospel. In Matthew 4 He goes out in Galilee, and calls around Him Peter and Andrew his brother; then James and John, and so the company of His disciples. Mark what Isaiah 8:16 says, “Bind up the testimony, and seal the law amongst my disciples.” He began to do that in the Sermon on the Mount; but when we go on to Matthew 16 Peter confesses Him “Son of the living God,” and Jesus says, “On this rock I will build my assembly.” Israel having nationally failed as the assembly of the Lord, He now unfolds that He would replace it by an assembly which He was about to build; which still was a future thing.

Now turn with me to Psalm 22 and you will find definitely the position in which this remnant is placed by redemption. You have there the great question of good and evil solved by Christ on the cross. All the evil that is in man’s heart brought out; all the cup of divine and righteous wrath against sin poured out upon the devoted head of Jesus! The cross of Christ surpasses in moral glory all that this universe will ever behold! It is a necessity, because of a holy and righteous God, that sin must be judged. But what necessity was there that the holy, spotless Son of God should be treated as sin, and left to endure the judgment of God due to it? None, but that of His own sovereign grace “He who knew no sin was made sin for us.” This the cross reveals. God whose holy nature cannot allow sin to remain unjudged, to spare the sinner, and give expression to all that was in His heart, did not spare His Son. He was left to be forsaken of God, as we learn from that solemn cry bursting forth from His heart at that surpassing “hour,” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” There the great question of good and evil has found its eternal solution. Where man was, in evil at its culminating point and sin receives its righteous judgment, there all that God was in goodness has found its infinite revelation in Him who devoted Himself for this to His glory at all cost to Himself. The turning point is reached in verse 21, “Yea, thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.” Then His first thought is, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the assembly [compare Heb. 2:12] will I praise thee.”

Israel, as we saw, was originally the assembly of Jehovah. The whole thing fails, on the one hand sinking back into idolatry; on the other, rejecting Jehovah-Messiah, come in lowly grace. The remnant, which was to form the nucleus of the new assembly, is delivered and attached to Christ, and instructed by Him. It did not get the name “assembly” until His resurrection, save in the announcement of His yet future purpose to Peter; but when the Lord had passed through the judgment of the cross, as described in Psalm 22. and He is heard from the horns of the unicorns — a figure of the transpiercing judgment of God — His first thought is to declare the name of His deliverer — God to His brethren, now owned thus for the first time; for divine love was free now, so to speak, to act according to its own dictates.

Historically this was fulfilled in John 20. The judgment of the cross was passed in John 19; and in chapter 20. He is standing forth in resurrection: the whole question of sin has been gone into and settled — not a shadow of it left on our souls, who believe. The first man’s history is closed under God’s judgment fully executed. I thank God, every Christian here can say, and should without hesitation be able to say, there is not the weight of the smallest cloud on my soul, that Christ has not removed. The second Man is able to associate us with Himself in all the place He enters into as risen from the dead.

He turns to Mary (John 20:17) saying, “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and unto my God, and your God.” That is, the Son of God places the disciples on the same platform as Himself by redemption: He is not ashamed to call them “brethren.” The finest message that ever passed through mortal lips is sent to them through a woman, who, ignorant if you please, could break her heart for Christ! The Son of God is not ashamed to call them “brethren” — now named such for the first time — because they stand in all His own acceptance before the Father! His Father is their Father; His God is their God! He thus declares His name, and pronounces “peace” twice; and breathes on them “life more abundantly,” as the last Adam — a “quickening spirit.” “The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” In life He had declared His Father to them: in resurrection He presents them to His Father as sons!

Thus, you have the “assembly,” now definitely in its place for the first time composed —of the same remnant of Israel, and Christ in their midst — proclaiming peace and declaring His Father’s name.

Now mark, all this is on earth, and Christ is still there. Psalm 22 goes no further than resurrection. So that as yet we have no Holy Spirit come down from heaven, and consequently the “body of Christ” not yet formed.

Now, if we turn to Acts 1, another truth comes out. They were to remain in Jerusalem until they should be baptized with the Holy Spirit, “not many days hence.” His earthly work of the cross was over; all its fruits will be accomplished in due time. His heavenly work of baptizing with the Holy Spirit — so frequently spoken of in the Gospels — was yet to come. He says, “For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence.” That of “fire” is omitted, because it is yet to come. The fire of judgment will yet cleanse His kingdom of every stumbling-block and them which do iniquity. It has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit’s appearance in tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost.

This baptism was to change the relationship of this “assembly” into one not yet revealed or accomplished. They are the “assembly,” but not yet “his body.” I wish to keep these two thoughts distinct in your mind, before they become interchangeable by the subsequent descent of the Holy Spirit, as in Ephesians 1:22, 23.

In verse 9 the Lord ascends to heaven, and a cloud receives Him out of their sight. In chapter 2 the Holy Spirit personally descends from heaven, and they were all baptized of Him. He sat upon each of them, and filled all the house — dwelling thus “in them,” personally, and “with them,” collectively. This assembly is now God’s habitation through the Spirit. The one hundred and twenty disciples — thus baptized — are technically named the “assembly” from that moment (Acts 2:47). The Holy Spirit now dwells on earth for the first time, and consequent on redemption. He had wrought before He came to dwell, as in OT days.

John 16 shows the Comforter’s presence on earth, and what He would be when Christ was gone. It was expedient that He should go (vs. 7); until then the Holy Spirit would not come; “If I depart I will send him unto you.” Verses. 8-15 show what He would be, and how He would act when come, with regard to the world and the disciples. He would glorify Jesus on earth (vs. 14), as Jesus had glorified the Father on earth (John 17:4).

It is the unfolding of the actions of a divine Person on earth in company with the disciples.

In 1 Peter 1:11-13 we find three steps of much moment, marking the presence of the Holy Spirit, sent down from heaven as the special truth of Christianity. The Spirit of Christ in the prophets, prophesied of things not yet come, but to be ministered to us (vs. 11). The glad tidings of the accomplishment of these things — Christ having suffered and gone on high — were preached to us by the Holy Spirit, sent down from heaven, a mediate thing between the sufferings and the glories that were to come (vs. 12); and then these things were to be brought in at the revelation of Jesus Christ, now hidden in the heavens.)

The “temple” in Jerusalem was an empty house, and Israel an “untoward generation.” The “assembly” was now the “city of refuge” for the “slayer of blood,” where those who bowed to the guilt of their Messiah’s blood could flee.

It was an analogous state of things, as in 2 Samuel 5;6, when the ark was in delivering grace on mount Zion with David; and the tabernacle at Gibeon, with no ark or presence of Jehovah. Analogous, too, to the pitching of the tent outside the camp by Moses, (Ex. 33) and every one that sought the Lord went out to it.

Now, to this “assembly” the Lord added such as were being saved from the destructions about to fall on the nation of Israel. This is the force of Acts 2:47. It does not raise the question of their ultimate salvation; nor is it a description of their state as “saved ones,” but is rather the characteristic or technical name for a class of persons (the three thousand, for instance, on that day) which were being saved from the judgments about to fall on the nation. They were all Jews. See also Luke 13:22-23.

In Acts 3 Peter proposes that Christ would return and bring in all the blessings of the kingdom, as spoken of by the prophets, and thus all the kindreds of the earth — the Gentiles — would be blessed.

In Acts 4 you get the answer of Israel to the proposal. It was wholly refused! They put the two apostles, Peter and John, in prison; and in Acts 5 the whole twelve: then Stephen (Acts 6;7) sums up their whole history in responsibility, from Abraham’s call till that moment. Despised promises; a broken law; slain prophets; a murdered Christ; and a resisted Spirit, is the terrible tale! (vss. 51-53). Stephen seals his testimony with his blood, and commits his spirit to the Lord, and all is over.

The “assembly” is scattered to the four winds; and Saul of Tarsus, the most determined of opponents, “made havoc of the assembly, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prison.” The whole external thing is dispersed, and Saul heads the persecution that brings it about.

The blessing goes down to Samaria in Acts 8. But in Acts 9 the man who was the most terrible opponent and leader in wasting the assembly, is converted. Called out by the mighty power of God — apart from all earthly intervention, apart from the twelve apostles — a heavenly light appears to him, “above the brightness of the sun”; and the first sentence spoken to him by the Lord of glory conveys the truth of the union of these scattered saints with Him in glory, as not now merely His “brethren,” but “me!” “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” They are united by one Spirit to Christ in glory, and He owns it!

This bitter foe is taken up of God, and made the minister of the gospel to every creature which is under heaven, and of the “assembly” which he had wasted — to fill up the word of God! (See, for the double character of Paul’s ministry, Eph. 3:8-9; and Col. 1:23-26.)

This leads us now to the third point which I desire to bring before you, that is, The body of Christ.

Blackrock Lecture 1: 4. Which Is His Body

We have seen that the “assembly” in its external manifestation in Jerusalem was scattered abroad at the death of Stephen. Then the blessing flowed down to Samaria, and Saul of Tarsus, in the midst of his terrible career of sin and rebellion against a glorified Christ is called out to be the minister of that grace which called him, and of the assembly which he had persecuted, and of the faith which once he had destroyed! He is converted to the recognition of the union of those scattered saints with an ascended Christ. “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” This wonderful truth he ministers in Ephesians 1;2:1-10, both as it was in the counsels of God, and action to make it good. Everything in this scripture is looked upon as from God’s side — even faith (Eph. 2:8) is the gift of God. He first shows the choice of the persons, before the foundation of the world; and as predestined to certain privileges. Individual relationship as men in Christ with God, and sons before the Father, first, fully settled. It is the highest of all our relationships; higher even than our being members of Christ’s body. To the praise of the glory of His grace they are accepted in the Beloved. Thus they have been brought by redemption, as we have seen, into the same place with Christ as man (Eph. 1:3-7). Then each has been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, having believed the Gospel of his salvation the seal of God marking us as His, as looking back at the perfection of the redemption which is past; as looking forward, an earnest of the inheritance that is before us, as joint-heirs with Christ in His headship over all things which is to come (Eph. 1:13-14). The inheritance we have not yet actually received, nor could we till He receives it; the earnest of it we have, in the dwelling of the Holy Spirit.

The salvation, the glad tidings of which we have heard, is the deliverance or transfer of the person out of the old state and place in which we were in Adam into an entirely new place and relationship with God in Christ.

Then Christ is seen raised up as Man and gone on high, set at God’s right hand, Head over all things to the church which is His body, which is formed of Jew and Gentile, dead in sins, children of wrath, quickened together with Christ, raised up together, and seated, [not yet with, but] “in” Him in the heavenlies. Such is the revealed place of the assembly, “His body,” according to the counsels of God, and the work of God by which He effectuates them, during the interval while Christ is hidden in the heavens, and rejected by the world; and before He is de facto “Head over all things.” When all things are put under His feet in the age to — come the “assembly,” in purpose and result is “his body,” the fullness of Him that dwelleth in all.”

Thus we have seen Christ — “Head over all things,” in three characters: God — Creator of them; Son — and appointed Heir of them; and as Man, according to Psalm 8, the Man of God’s counsel and purpose. He takes it all by redemption, as by personal right. But an interval comes, while He is hidden in the heavens, and the Holy Spirit dwells on earth; during which He is seated on His Father’s throne (Rev. 3:21), before He sits on His own — as Son of man. “We see not yet all things put under him.” Meanwhile, the “assembly” — “his body” — is formed; its members co-quickened with Him, co-raised, one with the other, and co-seated in the heavenlies in Christ.

Now if we had no more than this about the body of Christ, in scripture, we should have to accept what many, alas! have held from very early days in the history of the church, that this body is invisible, and only a thing of counsel and purpose in God’s mind. This thought came from confounding the visible, external body, or house, with the true body of Christ. The not seeing what the body of Christ was, and the distinction between it and the visible assembly around, forced those who could not accept the visible corrupt thing as His body, to invent the terms “visible” and “invisible church.”

But when we turn to the first epistle to the Corinthians, we find (1 Cor. 12:12-26) another thought than that in Ephesians 1. There we have the body of Christ seen in God’s purpose and counsel, as it will yet be manifested in glory, and those who compose it — seated in heavenly places in Christ; that, which, when He is in possession of all His glory, as Son of man, in the coming age, is “his body.” In 1 Corinthians 12 we see the body of Christ as actually existing upon earth, maintained in unity by the power of the Holy Spirit. So much is the truth of its being here on earth before the mind of the apostle, that he says, in verse 26, “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.” Here all its members are seen on earth; this is plain, for the saints who have fallen asleep do not “suffer.” It is those who are on earth at any given time, during the sojourn of the church on earth, who enter into the thought of this scripture; they are maintained in unity by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, who baptized them into “one body.”

Here let me say, that an individual is not said to be baptized with the Holy Spirit in scripture. Not even our Lord Himself. Of the descent of the Holy Spirit on Him, as Man, in bodily shape as a dove, when He was about to enter upon His public ministry, He says Himself, “For him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27).

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a corporate thing, forming the relationship of a body of people, as of the assembly on the day of Pentecost. The one hundred and twenty were corporately baptized of the Holy Spirit, and thus constituted “one body,” not at that time, of course, for the truth of it was not revealed, for the faith of its members, but truly so before God. Afterward, Gentiles were incorporated into this body, as in Acts 10;11 (see especially Acts 11:15-17). Now, this baptism of the Holy Spirit having formed all those in whom He dwelt into “one body” at Pentecost, there was no need to repeat it from that time. Individual saints, members of the body of Christ, have died, and their spirits are with the Lord; their bodies — the temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19) dissolved in dust, and perhaps scattered to the four winds. They are of that body, and will be found in its unity in eternity, but have ceased to enter into account as of it here, as at present seen on earth, where it is maintained in its unity by the Spirit of God. Those who have ever since believed the glad tidings of their salvation have come into this body by the individual sealing of the Spirit of God; and thus it is true of believers now on earth, that “by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body,” because we have, by the sealing of the Spirit of God, come into that which was then formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

How important, beloved friends, is it to see that this body of Christ is here upon earth now, as truly as on the day of Pentecost. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is here on earth, where, as to personal place, He maintains the body of Christ. All those who have died and passed away are of the body of Christ, as seen in Ephesians 1; but it is only those alive, at this, or any given moment, on earth, who are seen and treated as the body of Christ, according to this chapter before us. So that here, at the close of nineteen centuries, the body of Christ is maintained in its unity as truly and perfectly as when it was at first constituted at the day of Pentecost. The external manifestation, alas, is gone; but the Holy Spirit, who came down and constituted it first, is here still; and the body of Christ is maintained, as then, by His presence and power.

Now, when we come to 1 Corinthians 12:27, we find that Paul applies this truth to the assembly at Corinth: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” That is, in principle, as gathered together at Corinth, they were the body of Christ in Corinth: not, of course, separating them from the whole body here below, but as part of it, and according to the principle of their constitution; and so true of the whole complement of the saints in any other given place.

When we read the closing verses (1 Cor. 12:28-31), another and important thought comes in. He changes the language now from “body” to “assembly.” In Ephesians 1 we remember that “assembly” and “body” are used as interchangeable terms. Because the thing is there seen in its result, and according to the purpose of God. In 1 Corinthians he speaks of the “assembly,” and speaks of the “body”; treating one practically and in principle as the other, because the truth of the “body” was to be worked out and expressed in the “assembly,” but he does not use the words interchangeably. This is very striking, and shows the wisdom of God’s Spirit in the choice of His words.

It draws forth the adoration of the heart of the renewed man, those wondrous touches of wisdom in the word of God. In what is only a stumbling-block at times to unbelief, faith finds a mine of divine wisdom and beauty. The Lord be praised for the opened eye to behold and profit by His words!

It is in this epistle that we find the responsibility of man coming in, and warnings to those who have Christ’s name on them, as well as to those who were builders after the apostles (see 1 Cor. 3). Of this we shall speak in full on another occasion, as the Lord may direct. In these closing verses, then, of 1 Corinthians 12, we find, after He has unfolded the body, as seen on earth, and spoken of the assembly in Corinth as being in principle the body, he then shows various members of the body of Christ, gifts and the like, set in the assembly: members of the body, set in the assembly — of course, looking at the latter, as the whole corporate profession of Christianity on earth. But while the “body” is spoken of, and the “assembly” is spoken of, one is not said to be the other (Eph. 1:22-23), although treated as practically identified here below. It was the ruin of the assembly, when this ceased to be so.

This gives room for the working out in full result of the grace and work of God, in the truth and fact of the church as built by Him; while leaving room for man’s responsibility to come in, and warnings to be given as needed here below, as to the responsible church built by man.

In 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, we have the Lord’s table given us to be the symbol of the unity of this body of Christ upon earth, in partaking of the “one loaf.” “For we being many, are one loaf, one body; for we are all partakers of that one loaf.”

We have seen then, I trust, dear friends, the body of Christ in its two-fold presentation, that is, first, as formed of saints seated in the heavenlies in Christ according to the purpose of God in eternity and His work in time, which gives it a wholly heavenly character. Secondly, upon earth maintained in unity by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the present interval, the faith of which is expressed in partaking of the “one loaf” in the Lord’s supper. I turn now to another aspect of the church, as the “House or habitation of God” here below. This will come out as a separate subject.

Meanwhile, may the Lord bless His people fully. May each one’s eye be single, that the whole body may be full of light, and that the truths we have sought to bring before them in some little measure, may, with all their sanctifying power, form our souls that He may be glorified, and that we may grow up to Him in all things, for His name’s sake. Amen.

Note. It is of the deepest importance to apprehend that the body of Christ, as seen on earth, during the interval while Christ is hidden in the heavens, is only composed of those saints who at this moment are alive on earth. There is one scripture (Eph. 1:22) which looks at it in purpose and result as the entire gathering out of the saints from Pentecost till the Lord’s coming for the saints. The others treat it as the complement of saints here, where, as to personal place, the Holy Spirit is, who constitutes, by His presence in the members, “one body.”

In Romans 12 it is seen in the activities of its members on earth.

In 1 Corinthians 12 it is so fully seen on earth that “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.” Those here are only those who are in the place of suffering; and gifts are not in heaven.

In Ephesians 4 the ascended Christ has given gifts to His body, for the perfecting of the saints, and gathering and edification of the body as also seen on earth: for such ministry and edification is not in heaven but here; where it is said of it, “From which the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,” &c.

The apostles saw that before their eyes on earth which was the body. They never contemplated the church remaining here for long, but looked for the coming of the Lord. He did tarry, in long-suffering love. Still the thing which is here before our eyes is the body, as before theirs. Just as the British army is the British army now, that is, the effective fighting men; and it was the British army at Waterloo also; and probably not a soldier remains in it that was in it then. They have, like the saints who have died, passed out into the reserve, or freedom from service, as Paul and the saints since then; and while all of it, do not enter into the count of the body as seen of God on earth to-day. They will be eventually, according to Ephesians 1 the body when Christ is de facto Head over all things, and meanwhile, I am sure, suffer loss of no privileges whatever which they enjoyed when here.

Blackrock Lecture 2: The House of God, Which Is the Assembly of the Living God

I come now, dear friends, to another side of the subject altogether — that of the “house of God.” After we pass Ephesians 1, we leave that portion of the Epistle which is occupied strictly with the purposes and counsels of God. — “The purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” This sentence characterizes Ephesians 1. Ephesians 2 gives us generally His work in time to accomplish them; and from verse 11 we pass to the actually formed subsisting assembly on earth.

First he describes the condition of the Gentiles — “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now, in Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” Here Paul thinks of Gentiles and Jews — both brought nigh to God, “in Christ,” by His blood. This could not be even during His lifetime, for none could be “in Christ” then. He sheds His blood — lays down His life — rises, and ascends on high, “our peace,” having borne the wrath, and reconciled both to God in one body by His cross, having slain the enmity thereby: preaching peace to those “afar off” — the technical expression as to a Gentile — and to the Jew, who was dispensationally “nigh.” Thus “we have access through Jesus (not “in Christ” as before) by one Spirit to the Father.” You notice that the language here is essentially different to the early part of Ephesians Here are two sets of people brought in one body — on one platform — having access by one Spirit — through Jesus (δι’ὐτοῦ) to the Father (not ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰγσθῦ, for here comes in mediation). Then we come to verse 19; “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building, (πᾶσα ἡ οἰκοδομή) fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.

You will recall that in Matthew 16, the Lord said to Peter, when He had confessed Him to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” that the Father had revealed to Peter this truth as to the person of the Lord; and how the Lord tells Peter something about His assembly, and then about himself. “And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” He does not here tell what this assembly would be; but marks its still further construction and the foundation upon which it would stand. This foundation was the person of Christ as risen — Son of the living God as confessed by Peter’s faith, just what we have in Ephesians 2:20). The apostles and prophets doctrinally, were laid as the foundation and Jesus Christ personally, the chief corner stone. “The gates of hades” was the power of death wielded by Satan by the judgment of God; Christ had entered His dark domain, and broken asunder its bars, leading captivity captive, and had been proved Son of God in power, by resurrection of the dead (Rom. 1:4). Death had prevailed over man once innocent, now fallen. Christ had annulled its power, and risen above it, “Son of the living God.” This would be the foundation of the assembly which He was about to build.

This evening I wish to distinguish, in some measure, two things which are distinguished very clearly in scripture, that is, the “assembly” which Christ builds by the Holy Spirit come down, according to Matthew 16, and into which no false material can enter; and the assembly in which man has his responsible place as builder, into which “wood, hay, and stubble” enter — in other words, the house of God, where the Holy Spirit dwells. When Christ builds, He does not commit it to man at all, and no responsibility of man comes in. He dies and rises again, and that which He builds on the imperishable foundation of faith in His person in resurrection is secured forever! This building is brought before us in Ephesians 2:20-21 — that which Christ builds, and which “fitly framed together” — mark those words strongly — “groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” This temple was begun when the Holy Spirit descended from heaven, and “groweth” till all is in glory, to the very end of the church’s earthly sojourn, it is not yet complete. Now you will not find those words, “fitly framed together,” when that which man builds comes before us.

But mark the difference between the temple of verse 21, and what you find in the last verse; “In whom ye also are built together, for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” First he looks in verse 21, on the progressive work — the whole temple, according to the mind and purpose of God to be His sanctuary, the home of the brightest manifestation of His glory forever; and secondly (vs. 22), he looks at the present aspect of the assembly, at this moment, an habitation, or dwelling-place of God by the Spirit, on earth — in other words, the “house of God.”

Now in this last verse we see that while he gives us the normal thought of the house or habitation of God, on earth in its existence here during the present interval, he does not say who is the builder. So that while this last verse gives you the normal thought of the house of God, as at Pentecost, or ever since, at any given moment, he leaves room for the bringing in of man’s responsibility, and does not name the builder, as we shall see.

Let us now turn to the first epistle to the Corinthians, where we find that, speaking generally, the order of the house of God is the thought in the mind of the Spirit.

Let me say here, that God coming down and dwelling in something on earth is a very different thought from that which we saw in the early part of Ephesians. There it was God quickening members, and raising them up and uniting them to Christ in glory. In that thought we saw Christ, as Head of His body, seated in heavenly places, and His body united to Him in the same sphere. But in this truth of a “habitation of God,” there is no thought of head, or body, or union at all. Of your body you say, it is myself — as the Lord to Saul, “Why persecuted thou me?” Of my house I say, I dwell in it; but its walls are not united to me. This makes the two thoughts as distinct as possible; and you find in scripture the word “assembly” is sometimes used for the true body of Christ in purpose and result, as we have seen; and also, for the professing body, or house where the Holy Spirit dwells.

When the house or habitation of God was first constituted, at the day of Pentecost, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, all those of which it was composed were true believers. The Holy Spirit “sat upon each of them,” and “filled all the house,” thus fulfilling the Lord’s promise in John 14:17 (which read, “He shall dwell with you, and shall be in you”). The Holy Spirit was now in them, and with them; and collectively they were God’s house on earth.

Man then began to carry on this work, and Peter receives by baptism into this house the three thousand Jews, &c., and so the house of God went on. They came in to partake of the privileges of that sphere, to which God had now confined His ordinary operations on earth. Soon those came in who were merely taking up the profession of Christianity (Simon the sorcerer, and the like), and the house began to enlarge its proportions beyond the limits of those who were really Christ’s. Still the Holy Spirit was there, and He remains still, though the house has been so enlarged as to embrace a great baptized Christendom.

But to return to 1 Corinthians 1:1-2. In these verses you get the most comprehensive of all the addresses of the Epistles in the New Testament. No one can escape the breadth of the thought and persons embraced there. It addresses the assembly of God at Corinth, and is so framed that at no time can any one professing the Lord’s name evade its responsibility. There is this remarkable difference between it and that to the Ephesians. In the Ephesians he calls them “saints and faithful”; or, as the word would convey, “believers” (πιστοῖς): “To the saints which are in Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.” In Corinthians he says, “Unto the assembly of God which is at Corinth, to them which are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.” Nothing could be more comprehensive. But what says verse 9? “God is faithful!” that is the point here, for there are responsibility and warnings and the like. In Ephesians he calls them “saints” and “faithful”; in Corinthians he calls them “saints,” but does not add the word faithful, but says God is so.

We have, therefore, before us a most comprehensive thought; and let me remark that, in itself, “calling upon the name of the Lord” in scripture, is merely profession. To be valid, of course, there must be life in our souls; but it is no more than this. A man might call on the Lord’s name to dishonor it. See the people who did many wonderful works in Matthew 7:21-23, and said, “Lord, Lord”; He says of them, “I never knew you.” This is very solemn.

When we turn to the third chapter of this Epistle we find instruction before us, founded on the responsibility of those professing Christ’s name, and that of those who build the house ministerially, here below. “For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God, which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall he made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man a work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3:9-17). In this scripture, dear friends, we have the other thought of the “house,” or “temple of God.” In Ephesians it was that building which is “fitly framed together.” Here you will get no such words. You have Paul, the wise master builder, commencing the building — laying the foundation in his doctrines and ministry. Then others follow. It is the question of ministerial labor and its results; “work,” not works. Some have confounded this with the “works” of Christians; but it is “work,” that for which those who have carried it on will have to answer to God. The teaching brought in souls according to its character, into the responsible house “God’s building,” responsibly before the world. It has been remarked that here we find three characters of builders engaged in the work. The good builder, who himself is saved, and whose work will stand (vs. 14). Then the man who builds badly, himself saved, it is true, but his work burned up (vs. 15). Thirdly, a bad builder — a heretic — whose work is not only burnt up, but he himself is also lost. That is the house, or temple of God, carried on by man’s responsibility. Christ carries on His work all through, into which no responsibility of man enters, but there is that which is committed to the responsibility of man’s hands, and which is thus spoken of.

Like all that has ever been committed to man, alas what a ruin it has become. This pressed upon the spirit of Paul, as he tells us “the mystery of lawlessness” was already at work, and the man of sin would arise (2 Thess. 2). It raised the warning voice of John, that the Antichrist would come, and even then there were many antichrists, “whereby we know that it is the last time” (1 John 2:18). Jude, too, and Peter add their evidence of the state of things that would be developed till judgment cleared the scene.

I will turn now to a word in the ninth chapter of this same epistle for a moment, before passing on to the remarkable warnings of 1 Corinthians 10. I allude to that in the last verse — “castaway.” Many have shrunk from this word in its full force, as utterly “reprobate,” finding the apostle Paul using it of himself; and who so conscious of the fullness of redemption — who so certain that the Paradise he had tasted of (2 Cor. 12) was to be his home forever? He says, “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway (ἀδοκιμός)” (1 Cor. 9:27).

He looks at himself as running in a race, responsibly here below, and, although he runs in no uncertainty of the final issue, he feels conscious that it is no imaginary foe with which he has to contend. He did not fight as “one who beat the air,” that is, as if a fancied enemy was before him. But with all the energy of one who knew the terrible foe which he bore about in himself — the “flesh” for which the Son of God had to endure the judgment of God in infinite suffering — he kept under his body and led it captive, lest preaching to others, he himself might be a castaway. First a good Christian, then a good preacher! It does not suppose a child of God, yet to become a castaway. It does suppose the possibility, of a preacher being lost!

He is putting a case of the most solemn character, needed because of the prominence given at Corinth to gift in which power was displayed, and he transfers it to himself for the sake of others; as he had said in an earlier part of the epistle, “These things have I transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes” (1 Cor. 4).

We find the word here translated “castaway” used eight times in the New Testament, and each time in the fullest force of the word as lost! In the passage we have touched upon. In Romans 1:28, as to the heathen; “God gave them over to a reprobate (ἀδόκιμος) mind.” In 2 Corinthians 13:5, 6, 7; three times translated as “reprobates.” In Titus 1:16; the unbeliever is “unto every good work reprobate.” In 2 Timothy 3:8, the Jannes and Jambres resisters of the truth are “men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.” And in Hebrews 6:6, “that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.” No one could have a second thought as to these passages; and, besides, Paul never was disapproved or castaway in his ministry; never was his ministry so wondrously blessed, or used of God, as when from the prison in Rome came forth many of the scriptures of God.

Now when we come, to 1 Corinthians 10, we find he applies this principle of chapter 9 to others who might enjoy privileges such as those of the house of God, and rest in carnal security in its ordinances, without having part in the divine nature. Under the figure of “the things which happened” to Israel in the desert, using those incidents as types, and as “written for our admonition, upon whom the end of the ages are come,” he warns against resting in a mere outward profession such as was to be found in the responsible house as the result of man’s failure in building.

Persons might enjoy an ordinancial relationship with Christ (that is, by baptism and the Lord’s supper) as constituting the external church built by man, and after all be lost! They were to be warned by what happened to Israel, with many of whom God was not well pleased, and who were overthrown in the wilderness. The order in which he puts together these incidents in their wilderness history is truly worthy of our notice. How often it may have appeared to us as a number of incidents strung together, without apparent connection or order, except the fact of their being striking moments in the wanderings of this stiff-necked people. “For (γάρ) brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were; under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our ensamples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted (1 Cor. 10:1-6).” Here, we are shown that, although they all partook in common of these privileges as associated under the leadership of Moses, their privileged position did not secure them. In the passage the historical incidents are given us symbolically, and put together in a moral order, quite away from the historic order, in which they occurred; and in them we find set forth in principle what the history of the professing church has been, and will be until her end.

In 1 Corinthians 10:6 he begins by what happened some two years after they left Egypt. If we examine Num. 11 we find that at that solemn juncture in their history, they loathed the pure manna with which the Lord had fed them from day to day; “There is nothing but this manna before our eyes”: and lusted for the flesh-pots of Egypt again. This was, in the antitype, the first sign of departure of the church from Christ. And, oh, what a solemn moment it is for the soul when Christ is not found to be enough for it when the heart cries out for something more than His blessed person! How it turns to some vanity, or some folly or sin, some idol of its own device, to fill up the void in the heart that desires something more; something to satisfy the cravings of the flesh! What was this but the history of the, departure of the church from her first love to Christ! “Thou hast left thy first love,” is the sad and solemn plaint of His heart (Rev. 2:4), and no activity could make up for this.

Now the apostle turns to another marked occasion (1 Cor. 10:7) which happened before they left Mount Sinai. When Moses was in the mount, receiving the law from Jehovah, Aaron and the children of Israel made the golden calf, and danced round the idol. Their forefather Abraham, as they themselves also, had been called out of a world of idolatry to be the witness of the one true God against all the God’s of the nations. The first thing they do is to fall back into that out of which they had been called. They must have something for the eye to rest upon; for Moses had gone up the mountain of Sinai, they had lost sight of him; and Aaron made them this golden calf, and coupled the name of Jehovah with “a calf that eateth hay.” “These be thy God’s, O Israel”: “To-morrow is a feast to Jehovah.”

So with the church. She was called out of the world to walk in the Spirit, and the first thing she does is to sink back to walk in the flesh once more. Instead of walking by faith, and waiting for an absent Lord, she desires something her eye can rest upon, something more tangible than a glorified but unseen Christ, known by the Holy Spirit come down from heaven; and, the moment she does so, fornication with the world follows.

This comes out in the next verse (1 Cor. 10:8). There we get an incident which happened about the close of the fortieth year (Num. 25). “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them also committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.” Illicit intercourse with the world follows. This is what is so strikingly mentioned in the message to Pergamos in Revelation 2:13, when the church had shaken hands with the world, so to speak. “I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s throne is.” The church “espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2), had given herself to another. The result is, Christ is tempted. “Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents” (1 Cor. 10:9). This is told of Israel in Num. 21.

Then comes the final one, “Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer” (1 Cor. 10:10). This we find in Num. 14. The solemn moment came when “All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron.” “And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.” Here was the complete giving up of the Lord and His servants, and that at the moment when those faithful men “men of another spirit” were exhorting them to go up and possess the land. They despised the pleasant land, and propose to make a captain and return into the land of slavery once more; and they “were destroyed of the destroyer.”

Thus, from what seems merely a number of incidents in their history, put together without any apparent (chronological) order, we find the most comprehensive moral picture of the history of the professing church. It begins with finding an unseen Christ insufficient, and the craving for something which would satisfy sight and sense (1 Cor. 10:6). Then idolatry follows, with what is set up to fill the eye of those who could not walk by faith, and wait for this absent one (1 Cor. 10:7). The world can now walk with the church, for she has left the ground of faith, and has gone back to that which the eye can see, and fornication between the world and the church is the result (1 Cor. 10:8). This is “provoking the Lord to jealousy”-”tempting Christ” (1 Cor. 10:9). And it ends in the giving up of the heavenly hope, and proposing to make a captain, and return to man and man’s estate once more!

In other words, it began with a calf — that is, something, no matter what, set up, which the senses can rest upon, when Christ is not enough; and ends with a captain, that is, man is put in the place of Christ. The departure from first love gave place to the working of the “mystery of iniquity”; that is, flesh in man getting a place in the things of God. The story ends with an Antichrist, when the profession of Christianity is abandoned, and thus the “falling away” or apostasy comes, (2 Thess. 2) and the Antichrist or man of sin!

How solemn is this history, beloved friends! How wise, how merciful is our God, to warn us and tell us what is coming, we know not how soon! How needful to see to it that we are not resting in privileges merely, but that our souls have had to do with the living God, who of His own will has begotten us by the word of truth!

Now, all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will, with. the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:11-13.)

Now I turn to a few other passages of the New Testament, still to bring before you this thought of the house of God.

In Philippians you will find that Paul recognizes how things had gone astray. At the first moment of the church’s history, the body of Christ and the house of God were co-extensive, that is, they were composed of the same individuals (Acts 2). But when men began to build, the house enlarged its proportions disproportionately to the body. There was a mass of material not introduced by the Lord; but the Holy Spirit did not leave the house. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit constituted and maintained in its true unity the body of Christ; uniting the members to Christ in glory. The two thoughts are quite distinct: the house, and the body. In the thought of the house you lose individuality, but you do not get either head, body, or union. The body is united to its head in glory. It is the double relationship of the church; to God as His dwelling place, to Christ as His body.

In Philippians 2:21 we find how things were failing, and those who professed Christianity were “carnal,” and walking “as men.” “For all seek their own, and not the things of Jesus Christ.” Again, look at the third chapter. “Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule; let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark then. which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things (Phil. 3:15-19).” You will note here how the apostle’s wisdom detects three distinct states of soul in the professing church:

1. Those “perfect,” or full grown, that is, having the full sense of a Christian’s place as dead and risen with Christ, and running on like Paul, towards the glory, and likeness to a glorified Christ.

2. Those who had not fully attained in the soul’s consciousness to this true normal condition of the Christian, as apprehended for the glory by Christ; but who were to walk up to what they had, and God would give them more; and,

3. Those who, under the name of Christ, were glorying in their shame, in that flesh for which Christ had been put to shame on the cross (the cross on earth answering to heavenly glory on high). These were mere professors, whose end would be utter destruction.

And here I would draw attention to the strikingly analogous state of things, in this threefold state, to that of Israel when we come to the close of the Book of Joshua. There Joshua dies; and in Philippians Paul is in prison at Rome, and the church of God has lost the devoted services of the great apostle. Joshua had put two and a half tribes in possession of their portion in the land of promise, namely, Judah (Josh. 15:1, &c.), Ephraim (Josh. 16:5, &c.), and half Manasseh (Josh. 17:1, &c.). Two and a half tribes would not go in and possess the land that he divided. They did not go back to Egypt, nor would they go into the land, but took an intermediate place outside the borders of the Lord’s possession (namely, Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh; see Josh. 1:12, &c.; 13:15, &c.). And lastly, seven tribes were in the land, but were not put in possession of their inheritance. (See Josh. 18:2,3.) Thus the land was conquered, but not possessed. They were thus left to “work out their own salvation,” so to say, from the enemy; but, alas! “all sought their own, and they sank to the condition seen in the book of Judges after Joshua’s death.

Those “perfect,” answer in the analogy to the two and a half tribes in possession.

Those who had “not attained,” to the seven tribes in the land who had not yet possessed; and,

The, two and a half tribes to those who, under the profession of Christianity, were enemies to the cross of Christ. They did not abandon Christianity, as those did not give up their title to be termed “of Israel”; but refused their true, calling, gloried in their shame, minding earthly things, and so were the first to fall into the hands of the enemy, and give him an entrance to the professing church.

I have no doubt that these three states are thus found till the end in the professing church.

If we pass on now to 1 Timothy, Paul writes to Timothy as to how one ought to behave oneself “in the house of God, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

The church is looked upon as the despository of the truth; and so responsible to hold it up as the pillar and support of it. “The truth” is Christ Himself. If He were here He would not want a pillar and ground of the truth. But He is absent and “the mystery of godliness” is committed to her. “The mystery of iniquity” is in contrast to this, and is Satan’s effort through the flesh in man to frustrate the testimony of Christianity, which is founded on the end of the first man, and a last Adam, before God. Then you have (1 Tim. 3:16) the whole course of Christ from the glory; God come down and “manifested in flesh”; presenting all He ever did as man, in the power of the Holy Spirit, even as He was declared Son of God in power by resurrection according to the Spirit of holiness, thus “justified by the Spirit.” “Seen of angels,” most blessed of creatures, sustained of God unfallen, they beheld their God for the first time when He became a babe, and they burst open the heavens, and in unselfish praises sang of God’s good pleasure in men (Luke 2). “Preached unto the Gentiles”; this was the new thing in Christianity, there was no preaching in the Old Testament: Judaism was not characterized by preaching. “Believed on in the world”; an object of faith in it and not merely among Jews: and then “received up in glory.” Thus you get the whole testimony of Christ which was committed to the church; God come down in love, passing through His course here; and finally, man received up in glory.

Hence, in 1 Timothy, we get external order before men, as the great subject in hand, in the house of God here below.

So in 2 Timothy, things had got into deeper disorder than ever; and, once ruined, there was no repairing the ruin. It is not God’s way to restore a fallen state, but to bring in a better when His purposes allow of it; and meanwhile, the faithful have their path clearly defined through a ruined state of things. “Nevertheless [that is, although evil had come in as a flood] the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, let every one that nameth the name of the, Lord depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work (2 Tim. 2:19-21).” Here we discover what things had come to in man’s hands. He does not call it The great house, but “A great house.” It is an analogous thought; for responsibly it is still the house of God, where the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Cor. 3). God’s foundation had not changed, and there was a seal, having on one side an inscription, which showed the privileges of all who were His — the Lord knew them; and on the other, that which marked their responsibility — “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” One cannot leave the house while God lingers in it in long-suffering grace, but let him clear himself from all that was false and untrue. There were in it vessels to dishonor, as well as of honor.

Now, if we compare the opening verses of 2 Timothy 3 with the closing verses of Romans 1, we find how that, under the name of Christ, all the horrible wickedness of the heathen world has been revived. The words used by Paul to describe the heathen are almost word for word the same as those used to describe the professors of Christianity in this chapter. How deeply solemn; and worse too, because done under the name of Christ (compare Rom. 1:29-32 with 2 Tim. 3:2-5).

Now we come to the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is very true that in it we do not find that the writer is teaching or treating of the church of God, as such. He has another subject in hand. Still, underlying his teaching is the thought of the house of God, where the Holy Spirit dwells. Those who have professed Christianity, and have taken on them the name of Christ, are seen in their responsible place, traveling through the wilderness. I am about to examine two passages, both of which have troubled godly souls, who have not yet enjoyed thorough, perfect peace with God. One can speak for another in this. I allude to the sixth and tenth chapters.

In the former we read, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put him to an open shame (Heb. 6:4-6).” I will examine each sentence in these verses separately; and I may remark, in passing, that the essential difference between these verses and those in Hebrews 10 is, that in chapter 6 we have at length, the privileges to be enjoyed by all who profess Christianity consequent on the exaltation of Messiah to the right hand of God, after having accomplished the work of redemption, and the consequent presence of the Holy Spirit on earth; while in Hebrews 10 we find rather the excellency of a sacrifice, so perfect that it left nothing to be added to it. It was so absolute in its value that it left no room for another. In chapter 6, the Holy Spirit is prominent; in chapter 10, the sacrifice of Christ.

“It is impossible for those who were once enlightened.” If we turn to John 1:9 we find the words, “That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Christ was this true light. Just as the sun shining at noon-day; if a man does not open his eyes to see the sun, it is of very little use to him as light. Now you find that the same word is in each sentence. In Hebrews 6, “enlightened” is rendered “lighteth” in John 1 (φωτίξω). It means the external enlightenment of the truth of Christianity shining on the heart and conscience. Souls might thus be “shined upon,” or enlightened, without having life at all. Far different is the thought of Paul when he speaks of God having shined into his heart, “for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). That was a real work in his soul. “Enlightened” means, then, the external presentation of the truths of revelation to the soul, with the light they bring. John 1:9 makes this clear from the use of the same word. For although Christ came into the world shining as a light for every man, every man did not use the light. To use it were to be saved.

Again, “And have tasted of the heavenly gift.” Here we have what was in contrast to the law and even that spoken by the Messiah on earth. He now spoke from heaven (Heb. 12:24); and the gift (for it was a gift that was now presented to men, instead of a demand being made upon them as under the law) was now fully from that source, even as announced here below. How many, during the ministry of the Lord on earth, had tasted of the blessedness of His gracious words, and with hearts moved to say, as they heard Him, “Never man spake like this man!” and who turned back and walked no more with Him, as the character of the path in which He has to be followed began to dawn upon them. Tasting of the heavenly gift (it now came from heaven) is not eating His flesh, and drinking His blood, and so vitally receiving it in the heart.

“And were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.” All who profess the name of Christ partake of the Holy Spirit in the sense spoken here. The word is used for external participation in privilege, without necessarily the possession of it. The Holy Spirit having come down from heaven, charged with this heavenly gift, to dwell in the house of God, all who have been received into that house have a common interest in His presence; quite another thing if they used the blessing. It is not at all the same thought as being born of the Spirit of God, or being possessors of the Holy Spirit, who has been given us as a seal, and who dwells in our bodies as believers.

Simon had launched his ship out into the deep at the Lord’s command. The Lord had wrought the miracle, and they had enclosed the great multitude of fishes; and beckoning to (τοῖς μέτοχοις) their partners,... which were in the other ship; they came and filled both the ships, so that they “began to sink.” The fishermen in the other ship had a common right and privilege with Peter and the others, as fishers in the lake of Gennesaret. “Partners” is here expressed by μέτοκοι. But when we come to verse 10, we find, “So was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon” in the same ship. Here we find a different word used (κοινωνοί) to express real partnership in the same boat, in contrast to common rights with all the other fishermen in the lake.

To put a case. Suppose a guild of merchants, all of whom have a common interest in the privileges of the guild. Some two or three are partners in, and own, a flourishing concern. All who are of the guild have these common interests, and would be μέτοκοι but the partners in the special concern would be κοιωνωοί.)

Thus all who are in the house of God, confessing and hearing the name of Christ, are partakers (μέτοχοι) of the Holy Spirit, who dwells there. All have an opportunity of participating in the blessing which He imparts, and may even have been made vessels of His power — a totally different thing from communion in the divine nature and His indwelling as the power of the realization of it.

Perhaps, too, they have “tasted the good word of God” thus, and remained the same people, unchanged. How often do we see this! Souls to all appearance seeming to receive the glad tidings with joy and brightness, and have no root in themselves, and (en)duer for a time, but when temptation arises, because of the word they are offended. Now, I believe that when a soul does really receive the word in his conscience, he never does receive it with joy at the first. It makes a soul serious rather than joyful, though it leads to everlasting joy.

And the powers of the “world to come,” or “coming age.” This will be the millennial age, which is characterized by Satan being bound, and men’s diseases cured. The testimony to that age were the miracles which the Lord Himself performed, as well as His bestowing power on His disciples to perform them. How many — nay, how few of those thus wrought upon had real life in their souls? We learn from 1 Corinthians 13 the vast difference between any amount of power, and the possession of the divine nature which is love.

Thus you see, dear friends, that heaven had expended all its treasures of grace and blessing, consequent on the exaltation of Christ after His atoning work; giving the presence of the Holy Spirit, and all these privileges, as characteristic of the new position as we have seen. If souls turned away thus from the Holy Spirit, as some have, done, and the whole profession of Christianity is rapidly doing the same, what could be done? They endorsed the sin of their nation (those Hebrews) and crucified for themselves the Son of God. The nation had done so, and said, “His blood be on us.” Some had escaped to the city of refuge — the church was such to the blood-guilty Jew — but there was the danger of abandoning it, and thus the avenger of blood would overtake them, and they would not escape. While in one closing verse as he turns to the reality that was manifested to be among them (vs. 9) we learn that all these things of verses 4, 5, might be there, without the possession of salvation.

I see a striking parallel between the law of the cities of refuge (Num. 35) and this, chapter (Heb. 6) which I do not think had been before noticed. Like the church, the city of refuge was for the Israelite, and the stranger and sojourner amongst them. There were two characters of guilt mentioned and dealt with; namely, that of the premeditated murderer, and that of him who slew another suddenly without enmity in time past. These two were differently dealt with. The murderer was to be given up — his sin would find him out, even in the city of refuge. The unpremeditated slayer of blood was safe. He was to flee there, and remain there, till the death of the high priest who had been anointed with the holy oil: then he might return to the land of his inheritance.

Now, when we examine Hebrews 6, we find a solemn and beautiful analogy. The church had become the city of refuge for the poor blood-guilty Jew. Peter invites them, at Pentecost, to judge themselves for the deed, and flee; saving themselves from the “untoward generation” (Acts 2). All would go on thus till scrutiny took place according to God (compare Matt. 22:1-14). Then, no amount of privileges would avail where there was no life in the soul, and at the same time the strongest “consolation” to those who had “fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before” them (Heb. 6:18), confirmed by the promise, and the oath of God!

This little sentence, “fled for refuge,” so links the thought of the type with the antitype, as now known to faith — this, too, in an epistle where the High Priesthood of Christ is so much the subject, and in its present exercise, within the holiest. As Christians, we have to do with Him as a priest gone in! — “the forerunner for us,” making the sanctuary of God the present refuge of our hearts; the Jew will have to do with Him as a priest come out! This He never does in Hebrews; there is only a hope that He will do so (Heb. 9:28, &c.). Accordingly, when He leaves the present exercise of His priesthood as intercessional, and comes forth to exercise it after its true order — royal, or Melchisedechial — the history of the church as in her sojourn here will be past; and Israel as a nation (that is, the true remnant of them in that day) will return to the land of their possession. In the type, it was at the death of the High Priest; in the antitype, it is Christ ceasing to carry on His priesthood after the present character of its exercise on high, and entering upon its character as Melchisedec.

You find in this chapter, as has been remarked, the highest character of Christian privilege short of life, and, what is so touching, in the close of it, — the feeblest expression of true faith found in the New Testament — that of a man pressed for his life, and “fleeing for refuge to lay hold!” God thus acknowledges the faintest expression of faith, and encourages it with the “strong consolation” of the word and oath of God, at the same time giving the most solemn warnings as to profession and participation in privileges, where there was no life. Life, where it existed, was expressing itself by works and labor of love — could be known by its fruit as ever.

Now, I turn, beloved friends, in the close of this subject, to the 2 Thess. 2, where you find, in verse 3, the apostasy, or giving up of the profession of Christianity in toto, and the revelation of the “man of sin.”

He shows that while the mystery of lawlessness works, God was still restraining the manifestation of the “lawless one.” The apostasy, or “falling away,” will not be, as long as true Christians are in the scene, and as long as the Holy Spirit dwells here to maintain the body of Christ. Then, when the hindrance is removed, the abandonment of Christianity comes. An Antichrist, or man of sin, is then revealed, who would sit in the temple of God. Antichrist “denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22), that is, the revelation of the Father by the Son, known to our souls by the Holy Spirit; or, in other words, the revelation of Christianity. This is at the time of the apostasy. I could not say there is the apostasy now, (or as long as true saints are in the scene, and the Holy Spirit here, although the principle’s of it may be at work, and many may be apostates. But the whole professing church has not yet reached the apostasy.

I have endeavored to lay before you seven points in these two lectures.

1. First of all, the assembly, which is the body of Christ, as seen in heavenly places, in the counsels of God, and in result, when Christ is de facto “Head over all things,” according to Ephesians 1:18-22; and composed of all saints from the day of Pentecost until the taking of it to glory.

2. The body of Christ as maintained in unity on earth by the power of the Holy Spirit, and composed only of those who are alive upon earth at any given moment where as to personal place, the Holy Spirit is, and having for the symbol of its external unity the partaking of “one loaf,” as in 1 Corinthians 10-12, by the members set in the assembly.

3. A holy temple in the Lord, growing under His hand — “fitly framed together” — silently and without flaw, until the last stone is placed on it in the glory (Matt. 16; Eph. 2:21). No responsibility of man enters here.

4. The house as a habitation of God by the Spirit on earth, in its normal condition (Eph. 2:22). Here it does not state who builds it. But it connects with —

5. The house or temple, that is, all who profess His name on earth, where the responsibility of men enters as of builders, and those built; wood, hay, and stubble, may he found there (1 Cor. 3;10; 2 Cor. 6) — what is commonly called “Christ- endom.”

6. What it comes to in such a case, having in it vessels to honor and to dishonor: this Paul likens to “a great house” (2 Tim. 2). And, lastly,

7. The apostasy, and the man of sin. But this is the abandonment of the profession of Christianity (2 Thess. 2), the true saints having been removed from the scene at the Lord’s coming.

On another occasion I hope to present, in some measure, a sketch of the aspect Christ assumes towards the external church, as given by John in the first three chapters of the Apocalypse; and, ultimately, the path of an “overcomer” in the midst of it all.

Meanwhile, may He keep the feet of His saints, and bless the truths of His own word. As the darkness of the scene deepens, may the light shine more brightly from Him, lighting up the pathway to those who seek to do His blessed will, and walk to His glory. Amen.

Blackrock Lecture 3: Christ Among the Candlesticks

On previous occasions, beloved brethren, I have sought to bring before you the two great aspects of the church of God as presented in scripture.

First of all, the true thing in its relation to Christ as His body — that which is united to Christ by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven; “the assembly which is his body” — and, on the other hand, in its relation to God as His dwelling place on earth, the assembly, or house of God. Of this last, two aspects come out very distinctly in scripture: that which Christ builds, and that which man builds.

They word “church,” or properly “assembly” is used of both the body of Christ and the house of God. That is, if you look into heaven you find Christ gone up there, and the assembly is His body, as seen in Ephesians 1. If you look below here on earth, the house, that is, those who profess Christianity, is “the assembly of the living God” (2 Tim. 3). They are two distinct thoughts, and never confused.

Most of the confusion of Christendom at the present time has come in by the mixing up of these two things. There is also, as we saw, the body of Christ as in 1 Corinthians 12; seen on earth, composed of those who are here, and these only, maintained in power and unity by the Holy Spirit on earth. And Christians on earth were treated practically, as gathered together in any place, as “the body of Christ” in that place: as Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 12:27), “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”

We saw too, how man’s responsibility was owned in. carrying out God’s work here below, tracing the house or temple in which man might build and fail in the character of his work, until the complete abandonment of Christianity and the Antichrist.

Now to-night I am about to trace some thoughts from a scripture which is happily more or less familiar to many of us; I mean the first three chapters of Revelation.

I am about to examine it in three ways:

First of all, the attitude in which Christ is seen in the midst of the churches in Revelation, as presented by John.

Then, secondly, what His testimony is to these assemblies: His thoughts as revealed as to the “things that are.”

And lastly, I hope to unfold in some measure what it is to be an “overcomer” in the midst of such a solemn scene.

You will easily accept what I am about to say to you, namely, that Paul could not be the vessel to reveal this aspect of Christ amongst those assemblies. Paul unfolds the Son of God a heavenly Christ, gone up on high, whether as head of His body the assembly, or High Priest. John, on the contrary, speaks of God come down; a Christ walking upon earth, whether manifested there in grace, as in his Gospel; or His judicial dealings as in the Revelation, by which He substantiates His claims here on earth. Paul is “heavenly” in his testimony; with him it is man gone up on high; John is “divine,” and with him it is more God come down, manifestation on earth. This thought is familiar to many.

Hence, in consonance with his other testimony, John is the instrument taken up to show us Christ in this intensely judicial attitude towards the external body which bears His name. We must carefully distinguish Him as Head of His body, ministering nourishment by joints and bands to His “own flesh;” and His judging and scrutinizing, and threatening the external church with excision in result, in her place as a corporate witness on earth.

John is here watching over the fortunes, as it were, of that which Paul had set up; and telling us what Christ will do with it: He is “about to spue” it out of his mouth (Rev. 3:16).

He is in the Island of Patmos for the word of God and testimony of Jesus. Sent there into exile by the Roman Emperor, he was, nevertheless, in the full enjoyment of his Christian privilege, “in the Spirit, on the Lord’s day.” From this and other passages of the word, I gather that there is a special action of the Holy Spirit on that day (see John 20:1, 19, 26; Acts 20:7; l Cor. 16:1, &c.).

You will bear in mind the book of the Revelation has specially Christ’s claims upon the earth in view, to be made good when God will bring the First-begotten into the world. But before the visions which point to this end, John is recalled by a voice behind him (his face is with the mind of the Spirit towards the introduction of the kingdom), and he turns about to see the vision; and sees the Lord in this character, and learns what He was about to do with the responsible body here below, which was not emitting the light, to be the responsible vessel of which He had set it up.

“I turned to see the voice that spake with me; and being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks.” They are described as of gold, because set up from a divine source at the first. “And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first, and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and having the keys of death and of hades” (Rev. 1:12-18).

Here you find Christ’s aspect toward the assemblies as John presents Him. His personal and judicial character, as Son of man, and yet Ancient of Days; judging and discriminating amongst the candlesticks. You do not find His relative characters, such as High Priest, or head of His body the assembly; that is more the Pauline way of presenting Him.

As “Son of man,” He is judge of all — and as such you find Him here. “He hath given him authority to execute judgment also; because he is the Son of man” (John 5:21). He is “clothed with a garment down to the foot”; not “laid aside” as for His gracious service of love and washing His people’s feet (John 13); and “girt about the paps with a golden girdle.” His heart and affections are not seen flowing out to His church — His bride, but girded up with a zone of righteousness — not grace.

In Dan. 7, the “Ancient of days” is described as Christ is here; so the Son of man is the Ancient of days as we know even from that prophecy (compare Dan. 7:9, 13, 14, and 22). “His eyes as a flame of fire”; this intense personal scrutiny which reached the soul. I dare say some of us may remember (and some may feel it now), when they were uneasy, and conscience was not at rest in the midst of ecclesiastical things around. The effort to explain and excuse matters, under plea that they could not get perfection here, failed to reassure the conscience. They were unable perhaps to account for the sense of disquiet they felt; practices in religious things irreconcilable with scripture, troubled their souls: efforts to be happy and mend matters, and seek personal freedom when in the midst of corporate corruption, were unsuccessful.

What was it that caused this exercise of conscience? Simply this — Christ’s eye was turned upon them; and though they might not have known it, they felt it, and felt too they could not be happy in such connection any more; they could not stand His gaze. How solemn and sad, when you know of those who were once exercised about the evil in which they walked, settling down into it, and the exercises of soul passing away, and conscience acting no more! Christ’s eye has been removed from them, as it were. They did not accept the light, and bowed not when the heart was sensitive to the evil, and now they are left where they desired! How solemn.

He holds all subordinate power — the stars, in His right hand of power; His voice is heard in majesty, and He judges by the word of God the sharp two-edged sword; while His countenance was as the sun shineth in its strength, the symbol of supreme authority.

I pass over the details, desiring only to present the general thought as to the aspect in which He is here seen.

When John saw Him he “fell at his feet as dead.” It was the same disciple whom Jesus loved, and who leaned on His breast at supper in his own familiar place, accepted in the grace of the Lord. Converted by the apprehension of the person of the Lamb of God, and attracted to Him from that moment; here all is changed. This terrible aspect of Jesus as judge, causes him to fall at His feet as dead. He is reassured by “Fear not” — He was the living One who had died, and held in His own hand the keys of death and of hades; He had never given them up. “Hades gates” could not prevail against the Son of the living God; Christ had the keys of all! He had never given them to Peter, nor to any. He gave “the keys of the kingdom of the heavens” to Peter — never the keys of death and hades.

Now He sends seven messages to seven assemblies in Asia through John. There were many others in those provinces, but these are chosen as presenting, in their then state, what will serve the Spirit of God to give us, as in a lengthened out picture, the history of the profession of Christ s name on earth and its responsibility, with His thoughts and judgment of it from the start to the finish.

They may be looked upon in three distinct ways:

1st. As seven existing assemblies whose condition needed the words spoken to each, at the moment.

2nd. As messages containing words to him that hath an ear to hear what the Spirit saith, at all times: and,

3rd. As affording in completeness a prophetic delineation of the history of the whole church in responsibility from immediately after the apostolic times, until its final excision, as a false witness for Christ: “I am about to spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:16).

Seven (churches) are chosen as the number of spiritual completeness, here conveying the completeness of God’s thoughts as to the subject of which He is treating.

This manner of presentation of what has become history is wise and beautiful, as everything of God must be. For if so many successive and varied phases of the church’s history on earth had been presented as such prophetically foretold, what would have become of the hope of the Lord s coming, given to the saints to be their constant expectation from the time He went away? How be looking for Him if there had been the express revelation that all these things had to take place in the church’s state before He came? The answer is, that in the wisdom of the Spirit of God, the moment they were uttered, all the features were there, and no delay was needed to unfold and develop them; so that He might have come at the moment the messages were penned. And at the same time they would afford a word of encouragement and warning to him that had an ear to hear at all periods; while they would convey, as the “long-suffering of our God waited,” to those who were called, near the close of the period, the most important instruction as to what had passed in successive phases of the church s history, accounting for its state at the end and marking out the path of God in it for any who had an opened ear.

We will take a rapid glance at them, as I do not mean to go into details; this has been ably done by others.

Ephesus presents the state of the church immediately after the first planting of it in apostolic days. Active enough, but her first love for Christ had waned. No activity could compensate for this. He seeks to recall her; “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent.” She had allowed the light to flicker and grow dim, and there is no more said as to a candlestick in the messages; for from the moment of failure of heart for Christ it was treated as such a departure of the general body, that it ceased to be a true collective and corporate testimony to Christ on earth, though having the place of the candlestick in responsibility till the close.

In the second assembly, “Smyrna,” which answers to the early persecutions of the church which followed, from Nero to Diocletian, you find the Lord turning to account times of tribulation to restore if possible the church’s heart to its normal condition; and Satan the instrument of it. How often it is thus with individual souls. When there is a decline of soul and the danger is of its slipping away from Christ in practice, then comes trial in mercy; the sorrow and tribulation are for good, even to drive back the soul to Christ, from whom it had departed. So with the saints here; though there was poverty in the eyes of the world, Christ could say “Thou art rich”; far different from Laodicea in the end, boasting of herself that she is rich; to her the Lord shows she is poor and miserable and blind and naked.

Now mark in Pergamos how Satan changes his tactics. If he cannot succeed by persecution (which only made Smyrna brighter in testimony, as nearer to Christ), he will try seduction. If he cannot be a lion, he will be a serpent. Here she has settled down to dwell where Satan has his “throne.” It answers to the time of Constantine, when the empire took up the profession of Christianity and patronized the church. Thus, instead of being a thing persecuted and despised by the world, the friendship and patronage of the world became hers and her ruin. In the midst of all an “Antipas” (which means “against everyone”), can be recalled, a faithful witness for Christ, who had suffered death in the place where an unfaithful church was content to dwell. The world which her Lord and Master had refused from Satan’s hands had attracted and overcome her (Matt. 4). She should have trodden in His lowly footsteps. More difficult, therefore, for the faithful ones to stem the torrent of corruption now setting in; yet those that did would be fed by the hidden manna — a humbled Christ — in their lowly path. The doctrine of Balaam was tolerated, and that of the Nicolaitanes — the abuse of grace once hated (vs. 6). Grace was so full that they said in principle, you may live as you like, it will only enhance the grace.

In Ephesus you find they hated the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes; in Pergamos “Thou hast them that hold” it. Alas, how the atmosphere into which the church had slipped had darkened her perception of what was due and suited to Christ! We feel the slightest soil when the heart is with Him. Let the heart start aside like the bow that is broken, and things we would have shuddered at are allowed, and conscience grows dull. Balaam’s seductions were getting a place; indeed they had one already; and yet in the midst of all, “Antipas” — strangely significant his name! — was slain for his faithful testimony of Christ. It was a great thing to be an “overcomer” in such a state of things. An overcomer was one who was stemming the tide and swimming against the stream. Such an one would know what it was to feed upon the “hidden manna,” and to have the “white stone” from Christ. He could understand the path of a humbled Christ, who had refused the seductions of the, world, as the church should have done. None knew the value of the secret approval of Christ, but the one who deserved it and got it.

When Thyatira comes you get another thing. It is the complete corruption of the Popery of the middle ages. You find that instead of being seduced into corruption as Pergamos, the church was now the originatress and propagatress of it. It took its origin in her. Children were born of the corruption (Rev. 2:23). Still Christ owns even increasing devotedness of faithful ones in the midst of such a scene, but evil was allowed. “I know thy works, and love, and faith, and service, and thy patience, and thy last works to be more than the first. Notwithstanding, I have against thee, that thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess; and she teaches and seduces my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not” [as the passage must be read] (Rev. 2:19-21). Up to this message we find the Lord seeking to recall the church to her original condition; now, there was no hope of this, “She repented not,” or more correctly “her will was not to repent.” The corruption had come in and finding a lodgment there, fresh corruption took its rise in that which bore His name on earth: hope, therefore, of recovery is past.

Now, we find two things for the first time mentioned.

First, a remnant in the. midst of the scene of corruption, owned of the Lord; and

Secondly, the Lord s coming as the only resource for the faithful, and instead of any recovery of the church, the kingdom, and the morning star, are presented in hope.

Here I would venture to use a figure, to illustrate the varied states of the professing church. A rainbow is seen to present a number of colors, of which one special color is prominent at a given moment. If you watch it, you will remark that the prominent color softens, and another stands out, and so on. So with these churches: some characteristic which stands out prominently at a given moment is before us, then comes another. All the colors are there at the same time, but a prominent one stands in relief amongst the rest. So all these various features may be found at one and the same moment in the professing church; but at certain moments one stands out markedly from the whole.

Thyatira here is complete corruption and the authoress of it, and no hope of return. The faithful have to hold fast till the Lord comes again. She, was assuming “power over the nations” — the Papacy in the middle ages did this; the faithful would have this, when He came back to whom of right it belongs, but not as in the scene of His rejection, where the corrupt church was usurping it. The “morning star” given them meanwhile would speak of Christ known in heavenly glory, and of the heavenly side of His coming before He appears to take the kingdom, the harbinger of that bright day of earthly glory in which they would be associated with Him in all that He received from His Father.

Read Revelation 2:24 thus, “But to you I say, the rest [or remnant] who are in Thyatira.” “That which ye have hold fast till I come,” is the word that would test them. It would be time enough to have the kingdom when Christ gets it instead of “reigning as kings” with the church unfaithful to its absent Lord.

When we come to Sardis, which gives us Protestantism since the Reformation, we find that they had “received and heard” much. What use did they make of it? God had wrought, and out of the effect produced in man’s hand came this Sardis state, of which death was the chief feature. Sardis had a name to live, and was really dead before God. The church in Protestantism had not assumed power like Thyatira, but had appealed to the world, and was of the world, and would be treated as the world when He came upon it as a thief.” Their works might look well before men, but they were not perfect before God. If of Thyatira He says, “I will put her into great tribulation”; of Sardis He says, I will treat her as the world, because she is the world and nothing else. This is what is before Protestantism, with a decent outward profession, but wanting in all that would give it reality before God. The Lord’s coming, you will note, is mentioned here, as to the character in which He would come on Sardis. “Till” that event was the thought prominent in Thyatira: “As a thief” in Sardis. See 1 Thess. 5:2-5 for the solemn force of it.

To Philadelphia it is more the Person who comes that is before the soul; and He comes quickly. This is the calling of God in the closing scenes of the church’s sad history; the prominent color, so to speak: the power of Christ resting upon them in weakness. “A little strength,” is her character, but she uses it, and keeps His “word,” and does not deny His “name.” Beautiful and blessed testimony of His heart to the feeble ones! Philadelphia (“brotherly love”) is not a perfect state of things, but it is God’s state of things; and this is what we want.

Silently and quietly she walked in what was suited to His name — the Holy and the True. She could not say, Jehu-like, “Come and see my zeal for the Lord:” which, after all, was characterized at bottom by ambition and cruelty. Nor could she, like Laodicea, boast that she was rich and increased with goods, and had need of nothing.

Thyatira may go into great tribulation — Sardis be found as the world, and treated as the world — Laodicea be ready to be spued out of His mouth: in the midst of all, Philadelphia waits for the Lord, she observes His word and walks in what is suited to His name, and He will keep her out of the hour of temptation (Isa. 24), which comes upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth (Rev. 3:10).

Christ presents Himself to her as one outside the whole scene — not in an ecclesiastical way as walking amid the candlesticks, but morally according to that which He is in Himself, and as one who disposes of all. Both positively and negatively she is faithful to Christ; yet to others has no apparent strength. She had but little, and she used it for Christ! This was power. People are attracted by power. But how do they look for it? In some great display with brilliant effects, and manifestations of it. Did they ever think of power being manifested in patience? Patience is a sign of power when the church is in ruins. It is to produce this in His people that God puts forth all the resources of His power. “Strengthened with all might according to the power of his glory” (Col. 1:11). To what end? you say; “to patience and long-suffering with joy.” What a descent in man s estimation, expecting some brilliant result to draw the attention of all! But patience was the first sign of apostolic power even (2 Cor. 6:4), and is of more account with God than the most striking manifestation of power.

In Laodicea you find what Satan can do with flesh in man in a religious way. Of her He says, “Thou art neither cold nor hot” and He is about to spue her out of His mouth! The church was called to walk in the Spirit, outside of man and his sphere of things. Here she has completely gone back to walk in the flesh, and is a false witness for Christ. He stands at the door and knocks; He is outside the whole scene, shut out by what bears His name. When this phase of evil is fully manifested, He can bear with the profession no longer. And the judgment threatened in Ephesus is executed with every mark of His disgust. The corruption of the best good is the worst evil, and He treats it as such.

To return to the attitude of Christ among these candlesticks. It will be seen that He calls upon the individual who has an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the church as a whole: not the church, at least from Thyatira down, she is corrupt; the overcomer would have his reward. The rewards are suited to the peculiar difficulties each has passed through in faithfulness to Him.

But it will be noted that in all this scripture there is not one single instruction to the individual but to “hear”! Some have found it a matter of much difficulty, why, in the midst of so much that is evil, no directions should be given to clean oneself from it, and to depart from such a state of things. While other scriptures, are clear enough as to the principle, here where such flagrant evil is disclosed, why are there no directions how to act?

The answer is simple. John is watching over the fortunes of that which Paul had been used administratively to set up, and we learn from these addresses what Christ will do with it. He does not unfold what I am to do, but tells me what He will do, and calls upon me to hearken and overcome. If I want to see my own pathway, and what I am to do, I must seek it elsewhere when I have heard what the Spirit says to the churches. I should more likely find my path from Paul, through whom, if he had laid the foundation of the church which had now fallen into decay, we also learn that this would be its history and have inspired directions to meet the changed state of things. To him then, I must turn; as also to other scriptures, to see what the path of an overcomer should be in an evil day. This I hope to enter upon at another occasion.

Blackrock Lecture 4: Him That Overcometh

Heretofore I have endeavored to bring before you, first of all, what the church is in the truth and actuality of it, as the body of Christ in purpose and result, according to the counsels of God. That which it will be when Christ — the second Man — the last Adam — possesses manifestly all His glories; the church then “his body, the fullness of him who filleth all in all.” We also looked upon the other aspect of the church as Christ’s body on earth, constituted and maintained in its unity as “one body,” by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Then we traced from scripture the house of God as the professing body here below; and lastly, we saw the judicial attitude in which John presents Christ as to it, “with eyes like unto a flame of fire”; an aspect in which Paul could not, I think, present Him. It is more His province to present a heavenly Christ gone up as man into the glory of God; and he does not bring Him down again. Of course, that He will be manifested in judgment, is in Paul’s writings too; quite true and needful in filling up the word of God.

It is very blessed, beloved friends, to know that we are united to Him, who is the Judge of quick and dead, by the Holy Spirit sent down. We have eternal life in Him, and we stand in complete redemption. There is not a single shadow judicially, between our souls and Christ.

But still He is going to spue the professing body that bears His name here out of His mouth, and I do not want to be identified with the state for which He will thus reject it; I want to be an overcomer. I do not say it is possible for a true Christian to be spued out of Christ s mouth; but he may, alas! be found at this moment identified with that state that is utterly nauseous to Christ.

There is much said of the blessings to the overcomer in these scriptures (Rev. 2; 3). What is the meaning of an overcomer? He is not a person who is standing fast when things are all in order. Take Adam in the Garden; had he to overcome in anything? No. Then, when overcoming becomes necessary, what is the fact? Things have got into disorder; the mass have gone right away. A flood tide brought them in; the ebb came and swept them right away. Now when things were so, the overcomer has to stand fast for Christ in the scene; and he is the very one to whom Christ’s heart is drawn out in a way that could not have been when the whole body was going on well.

It was in the dark day of Israel’s ruin that Elijah and Elisha were sustained; there were none such men in the palmy days of Solomon. The faith that carried Elijah through such days of ruin for God, was answered by his being taken to heaven in a chariot of fire!

The overcomer was one who when he found that the people of God were drifting away from a state suited to him, was stemming the stream. If you ever swam against a stream, you know what would come of your missing a single stroke and where it might land you: and it is one thing, beloved friends, to have gained a firm foothold, and another to keep it — one thing to have the intelligence of a divine place, and another altogether to maintain it in power.

On the last occasion on which I addressed you, I noticed that in the messages to the Seven Churches you get no individual directions as to what to do. You get rewards promised the overcomer, but you are not told how to overcome. Many say, Look at all the evil that is in the seven churches and the like, and the Lord does not direct His people to leave them! Shall I tell you why? For this reason: you never have in them a single direction as to what you are to do, but one. That is, you are to “hear,” the church? no; it is a judged thing but “what the Spirit says” to her; then you find the blessing promised “to him that overcometh.”

Turn with me to a few scriptures in the Old Testament, that we may see how others overcame in an evil day.

In Exodus 32 we find a fine case of this character. Israel had been called out of idolatry; Abraham first, and then the whole nation, to be the witness of the one true God. But the moment poor man gets anything committed to him he fails. Moses had gone up to receive the law from Jehovah, and the people of Israel and Aaron were below. As soon as they lost sight of Moses, they made a golden calf; they went back into idolatry; into the very thing they had been called out of.

So with the church of God. She was called to walk outside of man and flesh altogether; the first thing she does is to fall into walking in the flesh. You find murmuring over a question of the funds in Acts 6. In Acts 2 they were “all filled with the Holy Ghost”; when we come to Acts 6 they were to “choose men full of the Holy Ghost.” You see they were not all full then.

Well, here in Exodus 32 Moses had gone up into the mountain, and Aaron had made the calf of gold; coupling the name of Jehovah with the similitude of a calf that eateth hay! And they said “These be thy God’s, O Israel,” &c. Now I only recall this well-known history to show how Moses and Levi overcame. God sends Moses down, and he saw the calf and the dancing. He took the tables of the law which God has given, him, and brake them beneath the mount. Why does he act thus? Through entering into God’s mind, from being with God. He does exactly the right thing at the right moment. It was the instinct of divine communion. Beautiful action of Moses! The glory of Jehovah was cared for, and the safety of the people too. The breaking of the tables met both; for if the law had come into the camp it could only have been their destruction, and where then would have been the witness of what He was in His own nature?

Mark verse 25. Moses had been given Aaron through his unbelief at the first, and of all he led him into the deepest trouble. So it is always. We bring a thorn on ourselves by our unbelief, and then the time comes when it rankles and gives us many a bitter moment. See Abraham, too, he goes down to Egypt and gets the Egyptian maid. She was a thorn gotten in that land of darkness. See how he reaped what he had sown through her.

It is always so. God says, as it were, Well, you cannot rise to me, I will come down to you. Then we find how much better had we risen up to Him, surmounting all the mountains of difficulty unbelief had conjured up.

Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said — and oh, let it be a word for every conscience I address, may each one be bent on standing for God down here — he said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me; And all the tribe of Levi gathered themselves together unto him.” Splendid action in faith in overcoming. They stood in faithfulness for God before men, and they earned the glorious privilege of being the priestly tribe! And this is the true character and basis of all priesthood It is one thing to be by grace a priest of God, as all Christians are, but quite another to earn our priesthood by consecration to God. It is just in the measure we have been faithful before men for God, that we can stand before God for men!

Moses says, “Who is on the Lord’s side,” and the tribe of Levi respond to the call. They separated themselves in faithfulness from their brethren who were unfaithful to God, and consecrated themselves for their priestly place to be the priestly tribe; for they had not hesitated when the moment came to choose between God and man. The Lord, so to say, never forgot it to Levi.

If I turn to Deut. 33, and examine the blessings of the tribes, I find Moses takes up two especially, Joseph and Levi. “And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah; who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor know his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant. They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.” The lights and perfections (Thummim and Urim) of the relationships of Jehovah with His people, and of His people with Jehovah, would be his. There was intercession too with the Lord; “They shall put incense before thee,” and teach Jacob His judgments and Israel His law. This was overcoming in Levi.

In the next chapter of Exodus (33), Moses took the tent and pitched it outside the camp. There was no command from God to do this, but he acted in the intelligence he had gained from being with Him. All who sought the Lord from that guilty camp came outside to this separated spot. And the cloud or presence of Jehovah came down and talked with Moses as a man talks with his friend. Here you find another action in overcoming. The camp had utterly failed. Well, says Moses, I will not go with the evil. He sees that if the Lord was to go on with the people there must be separation from the evil to Him.

It was, the most glorious moment of that blessed servant’s career. If you turn to Num. 12 you will see how the Lord appreciated the action. “My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house,” “With him will I speak face to face.”

Now I turn to another “overcomer” in Num. 25. A moment of deep corruption (had arrived, and the Levite Phinehas, with his javelin, acquired an “everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God” when corruption was spreading its foul stain on His people. It mattered not if in former days Levi and Simeon were the closest allies in wickedness (Gen. 49:5-7), now came the moment: when God was everything, and Zimri the Simeonite falls by the javelin of Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest! This was overcoming; this was the son of a priestly tribe qualifying himself under testing for his priesthood a priest amongst the priests!

If we now turn to Judg. 7, we shall find overcoming, when it was a case of natural blessing which drew others off the path. I read of Gideon’s little band who overcame. First, we find that in this day of battle with the Midianites, the army of Israel went out thirty-two thousand strong. And the Lord said, “The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, My own hand hath saved me.” It is God’s way to work in the weakness of man, “that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.” Twenty-two thousand who were “fearful and afraid” returned from the host. “And there remained ten thousand. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there: and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I shall say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go.”

Fear and difficulty were the tests for the first time, and those who had stood these tests, and were neither fearful nor afraid are now tested with a natural blessing, and nine thousand seven hundred fail! Only three hundred now stood the test. How many souls have received vigor and strength by passing through a strait with Christ; but when a moment of ease comes, when nature can let itself out, and the loins are ungirded, failure and disqualification ensue. See David in the days of his rejection, what a noble path of faith was his! Yet when at ease and at home, with ungirded loins, he drops into the path of gratification of self. How deep was his fall in the matter of the wife of Urias! “The time when kings go forth to battle” had arrived; “but David tarried still.” Oh what failure; what bitterness ensued!

So here with Gideon’s army. Only three hundred stood the test. Their hearts were in God’s battles of that day. They did not in the ascetic zeal of flesh refuse the blessing as it came in their way, but they were not entangled by it. That was the point. Like Jonathan dipping his staff in the honeycomb and passing on, he was refreshed. Other interests pressed on his heart, and he passed on with enlightened eye.

The test was, “Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise everyone that boweth down upon his knees to drink.” The one snatched the blessing hastily and passed on: the other partook of it at ease. Israel wanted the first, and so did God. And God delivered Israel by the three hundred self-denying men. The victory was won. And God is delivering the many at the present hour, by means of the faithful, prayerful earnest, self-denying few; while thousands are sunk in the ease of things around, in carnal enjoyment and rest.

I turn to another “overcomer” in Jeremiah. His pathway is a very striking one. Cradled, as we may say, in the lap of the finest revival that ever took place in Judah — the bright day of Josiah, which followed the drear and evil day of Manasseh.

I may remark that there were two great revivals in the history of Judah’s kings. That under Hezekiah, and that of Josiah. The first was characterized by faith. You will remember how Hezekiah prayed and spread the letter before the Lord, and the Lord came in and destroyed the army of Sennacherib. But Josiah’s revival had another characteristic, which was attention to the Word of God. The roll of the book was found, and then came the wondrous revolution effected by this judging of all things by that perfect standard.

In analogy you have these two revivals in the history of the church. That of the Reformation was characterized by bold faith, breaking up existing things; and although the word of God was in measure. the basis of appeal, things were not judged according to its standard. Rather was it a reformation of that which seemed to be the church around. In the present day, another action has come, and God is leading souls back to scripture; and close attention to the word of God gives a character to the action of His Spirit in souls at the present time. Everything is judged to which the veneration of centuries and the antiquity of ages lent a charm, and led souls away from scripture; and God has taken care, in His infinite, boundless mercy, that when He has commended us to scripture in these last days, we should find in it everything needed for the exigencies of every hour.

Press the word of God on people and they give you up. They say the times are changed. It might do then, but it will not do now. It needs courage to obey it, no doubt: courage with oneself, courage with others. But he that obeys God in a world like this, is owning God in a world that disowns Him. People may say they have it. But do they keep — observe His word, and not deny His name. “Be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law,” &c. It is true Christian obedience, the obedience of Christ, to have no will of our own, the new man living by, and guided by every word of God.

God is recalling His saints now to — not primitive, but original Christianity. This tells us, too, how near is the coming of the Lord.

Well, Jeremiah’s history commenced in the days of Josiah’s passover. He sang the Lamentations when that faithful king was slain. There have been men whose ministry has left a big mark, so to say, behind them; it was not so with him (unless what he has written). He was the voice of God to His poor people as long as they had an ear to hear. Look at chapter 13. What does he say? If you do not hearken to His words, I will go and weep for you before the Lord (Jer. 13:15-17).

It was a day too when they could boast, “The temple of the Lord are these” (Jer. 7:1-11); and yet add, “We are delivered to do all these abominations.” How like the cry of some: We cannot help the evil, and it is the best thing we can find, and the like. It was a day like the present in more ways than this. The ecclesiastical party boasted that the law should not perish from the priest, nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet: “Come and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words” (Jer. 18:18, 19). The testimony of God was refused and the plea of antiquity and succession set up.

Oh how like the present hour! When there is a stand made for the testimony of God’s truth by a few simple souls, who are they who are the most hitter opponents? Those who claim to be the conservators of what is divine! Yet they alike oppose the testimony God gives, and the evidences of God’s work in others, and sink down into more complete darkness and hostility to God than before.

In Jer. 15 we find Jeremiah’s path; “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by thine name, O Lord God of hosts.” He eats the word, digesting it and making it his own. Now, what was the effect? “I sat alone!” It separates him from all, to God. Then the answer of God comes; God owns the position. Mark, too, how his own faithfulness was the ground of his being used to others; he earned the place; not of course that it was not grace that bestowed it upon him, and used him too, I grant it was, fully. Now, says the Lord, “If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth. Let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them. And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall; and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee to save thee, and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.” This position of separation to the Lord, was a tower — a citadel of strength in an evil day; a position where all who loved His name could come.

If I turn to Paul in the New Testament (Eph. 4), I find that it is no vague separation to some indefinite object. I find what we have in the midst of the scene. I “beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit” &c.” There is a difference between the calling (vocation) here named, and that of Hebrews (3:1). In the latter it is individual; in the former, connected with the corporate calling of the church — “one body “ — a “habitation of God through the Spirit.” Now he says, Do you walk worthy of it. Still I must know my calling, before I can do so. Here it is plain enough. I might as well say my salvation is of no consequence, as say that my pathway is of no consequences as a member of Christ. Both rest simply and immutably on the word of God. If I accept one I am bound to accept the other. I dare not say, Christians have failed to follow what has been given, and this exonerates me. Such reasoning would not stand before the Lord for a moment. If I say, Things are in hopeless confusion. So they are, but will this state of things, will putting the blame on others, exonerate you?

Has the Holy Spirit left the church? Has the divine fact that “ There is one body and one Spirit” changed? No. He is here, and maintains the unity of Christ’s body on earth as truly as ever. The simple question is, Has He failed? But you say, It is all scattered. I am told there are thirteen hundred sects in Christendom! How can I set things to rights? Well, supposing you cannot (and it is true), you must begin with yourself, and set yourself to rights! This is the first thing. Just as Jeremiah did in his day; the word of God digested in his soul isolated him but not for long, for he was to be God’s mouth to separate the precious from the vile.

There is the intrinsic, real thing, “one body, and one Spirit” with “one hope.” Then cones the unity of profession, “One Lord, one faith (that is, one common creed, not Jew, or Pagan) and one baptism”; of course the baptism of water, which introduces into the sphere of profession. Then you get the third circle, the widest of all, and yet coming down to what is most intimate of all; “One God and Father of all; who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” He is “above all”; that is His supremacy. “Through all”; He permeates everything. Then He returns to the saints, He is “in you all”; He is in relationship with them according to the character of the name of God and Father. Just as one owns a great estate, but he dwells in the house on it, and so possesses it; so will God do in the church by-and-by. He will take possession of “His inheritance,” in and by the saints, with Christ, as He did the land of promise of old, in His people Israel.

There are thus three great circles of unity. They bear a certain analogy to those you find in John 17.

There is first, the apostolic, essential unity; they were of one mind and purpose, as the Father and the Son, by the Holy Spirit (John 17:11).

Secondly, you find the unity of divine fellowship and consequent testimony to the world around in grace (John 17:21) this was seen at the first moments of the history of the church at Pentecost.

Thirdly, the perfected unity of glory, which will be by-and-by, when the world will “know” what it might have “believed” through the second if we had been faithful (John 17:23); this will be the displayed unity of glory in the millennial day when there can be no possible failure.

To return; we find that the Holy Spirit has maintained intact this unity, no matter how men have externally broken up the church of God. Thus we find something definite to guide us; we can come together to the name of the Lord, when we have cleared ourselves from the evil and falseness and profession around us; even the feeblest few, and we find “One body and one Spirit” abides.

This “unity of ‘the Spirit” embraces all members of Christ who are not under discipline, and even Christ Himself as chief of it. It is a basis which embraces and contemplates the whole church of God, and yet in its character it must be suited to Christ. It is not merely the unity of Christians, it is comparatively easy to have this. Easy to say, Let us sink differences and be together, and then attach Christ’s name to it, and call it unity. The fashion of the day is to make a union and attach Christ to it nominally. The Spirit of God, on the contrary, attaches unity to Christ.

People reason, Are not all believers, however they walk, members of the body of Christ? I admit it most fully nay, you may say, I cannot deny it! Abstractly they are members of “one body,” and the Spirit of God maintains its unity. But when I come to practice I cannot own that all are “endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit.” I speak of practice, diligently seeking to realize by the power of the Spirit that unity in which we have been formed.

What God commends us to is that unity, which embraces all members of Christ, and yet allows of nothing that is unsuited to the Chief of this unity, who is Christ Himself!

There is a marked difference between being in the abstract “one body,” and the observance of this practically.

Let us examine what Paul says in 2 Timothy 2. He sees the house of God in ruin when he writes this letter to his beloved son in the faith. In his first epistle we find the orderings of things when things were in order; in the second, the path of the saint when things were in disorder.

In 2 Timothy 2:19, he says, “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his; and, Let everyone that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” We cannot say, The whole thing is in ruin; we are delivered to this corruption. No. Fundamental truth has not changed, and although the ruin cannot be remedied, we are responsible for this. The Lord sees a great mass of profession and says, I know them that are mine in it. Then we have the responsibility of those who name His name, they are to “depart from iniquity.” This we have touched upon before. I need not say another word if souls have not gone this far. Then He takes up the analogy of a great house, with vessels to honor and dishonor; the man of God has to purge himself from these, that he may be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, like Jeremiah, and meet for his Master’s use. He cannot go on with what is untrue nor can he set things to rights; this then must be his path, to be an “overcomer” in the scene around. If you find what is right and what the Lord would have you do, “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

Now he goes on to say, “Flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” Nothing can be clearer to any heart subject to the word of God. I have to watch my own heart, lest the enemy find an open door, to ruin a path of outward separation from evil by inward unholiness. Then I find those in verse 22 with whom I can — nay, I am bound to walk. It is not a lonely pathway, for thank God there are those “that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” to be found.

This is the action of the Spirit of God amongst the saints at the present moment, separating “the precious from the vile.” The Lord has it in His heart to awaken His sleeping saints, that they may not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

Then a person may say, Why these people are open to the same difficulties as at the first when the evil came in. How will they deal with them? Well, I find in the next chapter (2 Tim. 3), “Thou hast fully known [had perfect understanding of] my doctrine, manner life,” &c. “Continue thou in the things thou hast heard of me,” &c. Paul’s “doctrine” is the resource, and never to be surrendered; and we can endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and such action will have all His members in view, though they may have no intelligence of their privilege and responsibility. If walking in the truth together, the action is not merely towards each other; our action radiates towards, and has reference to every member of Christ, no matter in what association he may be found.

But it will be easily seen, that this is not standing fast as when things were in order, but overcoming and getting back to divine principles when things are in disorder.

All our path God makes so plain for us, that we need have no difficulty in an evil day. It is an evil day, but the very evil makes the path the more plain for the single eye.

The Lord gives us in full measure, then, to know what it is to overcome. We each and all have something to do; and the great thing for each is to do that for which we have been left here by Christ. We may do much and largely, and not do our first works, or that to which God has called us. See Saul; he was raised up to de liver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines (1 Sam. 9:16). He slaughtered Ammon, “so that two of them were not left together” (1 Sam. 11:11); yet failed in what God had set him to do. We have to seek His mind, and not argue for expediency, and what we think is right. Nothing God meets so blessedly as the single eye. When our eye is single, the whole body is full of light, having no part dark; and the heart walks peacefully with God. It is due to Christ that so it should be. Do I love Him? Than let me keep His commandments. We need personal devotedness to Him, and it is humbling that we find so little of it, in days when He is imparting such light to our souls. We need the alacrity of heart that bows to His will in the most trivial thing, and it brings its own joy from Him who has said to us, “If ye love me keep my commandments.”

Blackrock Lecture 5: Our Present Condition and Our Hope

Acts 17:1-7

“Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.

“But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.”

It may seem strange that I have read this account of the historic narratives of the Acts with the Epistles afterward ministry of the apostle Paul, during the three sabbath days in written to the saints in the same places. Thessalonica. But it is extremely instructive to compare the historic narratives of the Acts with the Epistles afterward written to the saints in the same places.

I have read these verses for the sake of two special thoughts contained in them: lst, that there was a crucified, dead, and risen Christ preached by the apostle to them; and, 2nd, that there was to be a reigning Christ by-and-by; “another king, one Jesus.” This we may gather from verse 7. Its suitability too, is apparent when we think of those whom he addressed; namely, Jews who were familiar with the hopes of a glorious reigning Messiah, and who were instructed in the scriptures which so spake.

The basis then, of the thoughts I desire to present this evening is, as to the past a suffering, dead and risen Christ; as to the present, the association of the people of God with Him in a pathway of suffering and rejection; and as to the future, His Coming again in glory, and taking to Him His great power to reign, and our association with Him in His glory.

Now there is an immense reach between the first and the last of these thoughts; He has suffered, died and risen again, and gone on high, “to receive for himself a kingdom,” and He will return to take it in power and great glory; you will find that the two Epistles to the Thessalonians fill up the great gap, if we may so term it, between the past sufferings of Christ and His future glory.

You will anticipate from this, that I am about to speak a little this evening about the coming of the Lord, as the great event which will bring about all this glory for which He waits and we wait. It is near, beloved brethren; the heart feels conscious that it is so; and the present action of the Holy Spirit marks it as very close at hand.

You will find that when redemption is accomplished, and the Holy Spirit is dwelling here, there are two thoughts brought before us very prominently in the New Testament; both very different in character, yet very closely allied; that is, the “coming” and the “appearing” of the Lord Jesus.

I may remark as to the expression, the “coming” of the Lord, that it means His presence in contrast with His absence; and it is a large and comprehensive word as so used, reaching from what is known to many of us as the “rapture” of the saints, to be “forever with the Lord,” and continuing through the interval which follows, till His appearing with His saints in glory. The word “coming” (παρουσία) embraces both thoughts; while the “appearing” (ἐπιφανεία) is the shining forth of His coming when He will be displayed in glory to the world. That word “coming” is often used for this event, the “appearing”; but this last word is never used for the “coming: His “coming” or presence in contrast to His absence, embraces many details which He will accomplish in the interval, till His open manifestation to the world, when “every eye shall see him,” coming with “ten thousands of his saints.”

Many of my brethren whom I address know, that Christ is presented in the gospel narratives in four distinct ways. In Matthew He is seen as Jehovah-Messiah, son of David, son of Abraham, presented to His people and rejected, and in consequence passing to His higher glory as “Son of man,” over all the works of God’s hands (Psa. 8), through death and resurrection; then coming back as Son of man, in judgment, with the ensigns of Jehovah power and great glory.

If you examine Matthew 24, you find the Messiah rejected by His people and cast out, then returning as Son of man in judgment, and delivering His people Israel. First dealing with Jews, in the land of Judea (Matt. 24:15-31), and appearing for their deliverance. Then gathering the “elect” of Israel from the four winds, from amongst the nations of the earth (compare Isa. 27:12, 13; Zech. 2:6).

Before that day comes, there is an immense heavenly interval, during which Christians are in relationship with Christ. We have this presented under three parables: The good and the evil servant; the wise and foolish virgins; and the faithful and the unfaithful use of the spiritual gifts (perhaps, rather, responsibilities) of Christ, as ascended and gone away for the time from Israel, until He comes and reckons judicially with His servants. And then, when the time we are passing through is past and gone, you find that after having come and delivered Israel (Matt. 24:15-31), and dealt in the true appraisal of the work and watchfulness of His servants (Matt. 24:44-51; 25:1-30), He sits upon the throne of His glory, and before Him are gathered the Gentiles or nations, and His “brethren” after the flesh, the Jewish remnant of that day; and the former are judged, as to how they had received the message of His coming kingdom and glory through the latter. Believing and bowing to it, constituted them the “sheep,” as the rejection of it, the “goats.” It is the judgment of the “quick,” which introduces the millennial kingdom, the thousand years of earthly blessing. It will be seen that there are three classes of persons in this scene; the sheep, the goats, and His “brethren.”

You must quite set aside the human thought of this scene being a “general judgment” — there is nothing so foreign to scripture. God does not confound together the saved and lost in “that world,” when by the truth He has wrought to separate them here, much as man has blotted out the distinction. In the judgment of the great white throne of Revelation 20, after a thousand years there is not a living man seen; in that of this chapter not a dead man is seen! Besides all this, the ground of judgment in this solemn scene would embrace but a small proportion of the population of the world. Comparatively few will have had the testimony addressed to them, which forms the ground of judgment here, or any testimony from God: they will be judged according to their works — a totally different ground of judgment. This precludes the thought of its being a general judgment. Nothing but most careless reading, or the bias of human thought, could have so interpreted the passage. With this judgment of the living nations, the Jewish mind was most familiar; with a judgment of the dead but little. To us as Christians, the judgment of the dead is a familiar thought and the judgment of the “quick” (living) very little known.

In the Gospel of Mark, the Lord Jesus is presented as God’s servant in testimony, in His holy mission of service of love; at the close of it when ascended and in glory, it is said, even then, the Lord working with His servants whom He had left to carry on His heavenly mission here below. He is still the worker as gone up. In Mark 13 you find Him as one who has gone away, and set “every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch”: then He comes back to see if each is at His post of service and watching; whether at even, or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning. Thus, is the Lord’s coming presented in keeping with the gospel of His service — His own work, or that of His servants. He comes back to see if each servant is at his post.

Beloved friends, here let me say to you that it is a very solemn thing for every soul to inquire, Am I filling up the little niche of service that He has given me? There are not only great gifts, but joints and bands; and the body of Christ is said to increase by the joints and bands; every joint supplying that which belongs to itself in the mutual and effectual working of the measure of each one part. It is a great thing if each has found out his own path of service for the Lord.

It may be by earnest prayer in one; by the use of his temporal means in another; of the spiritual gifts in a third. In one way or another, He has given us something to do for Him, and He is coming back to ascertain how each is discharging the duty given him, and “at an hour ye think not.” Therefore, after giving to each his work, and commanding the porter to watch, He says, “What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.”

Now in Luke, who is the great moralizer, presenting things morally to men’s souls, and looking for a moral state in them, we find another thing. If Matthew gives us the official glory of the Messiah, and Mark the mission of service of One who “went about doing good”; Luke gives us Himself — Jesus, the Son of man — dealing morally with man. What then, will he look for, as he presents to us the Lord’s coming? A moral state of soul in those whose is such a hope. In Luke 12, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning” — that is not resting here; “Arise, depart, for this is not your rest, it is polluted.” If you compare every place in scripture where you find girded loins spoken of, you will find the characteristic of the place is toiling and journeying on in a scene where your heart and affections must be braced up, they must not flow out here; it is a place of conflict and toil of some sort or other.

He speaks here of a “little flock.” He says, I have charged myself with your circumstances, you need not be of a “doubtful mind.” Let your loins be girded, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves “like unto men that wait for their Lord.” Notice the word “like”; that the world might take knowledge of them. Nothing tests the heart like it. I say there is nothing in scripture that has such testing power with souls. If the Lord’s coming be the horizon of the soul, see how little you will care for this scene. How little laying up for the future. The world would say, Well, it is plain what the man is doing. His hope is imprinting itself on his life, and acting itself out in all his ways. Of what value is this blessed hope if it be only held as a doctrine?

What is so blessed is, that it brings a divine person before the soul, and the heart is drawn out after Christ: it cultivates intimacy with Christ as we pass through this scene. Your heart is in the very condition that will welcome His return; it enjoys and cultivates a deepening intimacy with the one for whom it waits. Nothing brings Christ so personally before the soul as the hope of His coming.

Now John presents to us the divine Word manifest in flesh; the only begotten Son of the Father, the Son of God. And instead of a coming in power and glory, or in scrutiny of service, or as expecting a moral state of soul and heart to answer His own, He says, “I go”! (John 14). I must take your heart and affections out of this place and all earthly hopes. I must lead them into the Father’s house, where there are many mansions. David’s kingdom and Messiah’s glory must now fade away in your hopes and hearts. The day will come when all that earthly glory will be consummated. But your hopes are in another sphere. I am about to enter the Father’s house as man. I have wrought out your title to be there, on the cross. I enter it myself in the title by which you will enter into it. Then “I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Thus His instruction deals with and supersedes the hopes of the Jewish hearts around Him, and, as a consequence, suits our hearts, which have had no such hopes at all.

How blessed, beloved friends, to find, the moment I am free in heart and conscience before the Father, in the knowledge of His grace, that there was an abode in His house on high for me before ever the world was! Why is it that we never find any description of the Father’s house in scripture? You have the heavenly Jerusalem described in her wondrous glory and displayed as His bride — but never the Father’s house. Because you are supposed to be familiar with the Father’s Son, the Father is revealed in Him; and then it is sufficient to know that He is there, and the heart rests content in peaceful joy in the sense that where Jesus is, it is enough! “That where I am, there ye may be also!”

There is but one other passage in John that brings you thus into heaven and the Father’s house. This is suited to him because he is occupied in unfolding God on earth in Christ — not as Paul, who rather shows us Christ as man gone on high, and our place in Him in glory. The other passage I allude to is John 17:24.

So far as to the general truth of the Lord’s coming in the gospel narratives. He had come and presented Himself to bring in, in grace all the glories that the prophets had spoken of, but was rejected. When He comes again He will bring in, in glory, what was refused in grace. We will turn now to the two epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians. In them we shall find that the pathway entailed on the saints, and the circumstances which occur between the two great points I have before named, all come out. These epistles fill up, as it were, the gap between. So needed and suited too, to perfect that which was lacking in the faith of those saints at Thessalonica.

I might remark in passing, as to this chapter (Acts 17) that it illustrates the word of Paul, so frequently misapplied to cover worldliness, and mingling in the world. I allude to, “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). Acts 17 explains or illustrates his statements. If he goes into a synagogue in Thessalonica to speak to instructed Jews, he takes up the scriptures they knew and profess to believe: if to Athens, amongst the wits and philosophers of that city, noted for learning and human wisdom, he takes his text from one of their altars, on which was the inscription, “To the unknown God,” and quotes from one of their own poets a sentence which judged all their idolatry, “For we are also his [God’s] offspring” (Acts 17:28). Then, again, when He passed into the cities of Derbe and Lystra, where the grosser and more superstitious forms of idolatry prevailed, he preaches that they should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:15-17).

He adapted himself to the turn of mind and religious thoughts of men — keeping his own liberty with and in Christ all through, and thus becoming all things to all that he might win the more.

Now in Thessalonica he took up in the synagogue their own scriptures, and unfolded what had happened to their Messiah as foretold there — “Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ (Acts 17:3).” Then, when we examine what he wrote to them afterward, he alludes to the fact that this rejected Jesus, who was their Deliverer from the wrath to come, had not saved them from a path of suffering, but that His path was theirs. “Wherefore, when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone; and sent Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our fellow-laborer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith; that no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we were appointed there unto. For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know (1 Thess. 2:1-4).” Thus the path of this suffering, dead, and risen Christ was shared with those whom His love had called to inherit with Him His future glory! How sad the mistake the Corinthians made in this. They had “reigned as kings” without Paul. “Would to God,” he says, “ye did reign”; for Christ would be reigning too (now He is “expecting”); and Paul then would “reign with you” (see 1 Cor. 4:8).

You will remark too, how bright and beautiful was the state of these freshly converted saints. “Ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves [the heathen] show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his son from heaven, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:7-10).” Why was it that their Christianity was so bright? Because, whenever you find Christianity so, depend upon it, it is very objective. That is, Christ, as a living person, is so thoroughly before the heart, that the saints are lifted out of themselves, and every eye and heart is filled with Him.

In the first chapter (ver. 10) we find how this suffering, dead and risen Jesus had gone on high to His Father’s house; and how these beloved saints were waiting for God’s Son from heaven. It is not as “Son of man” we have thus to do with Him, but as “Son of God.” Paul was the first who preached Jesus, “the Son of God” (Acts 9:20). The Father had raised up His Son from the dead; and He is our deliverer from the wrath to come.” “To serve” and “to wait”: “to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven,” was their blessed occupation here.

Now, while they were thus serving and waiting, some had fallen asleep. You do not find in the doctrinal parts of the New Testament that a saint is said to die. No; he has been laid to sleep. “Death is ours,” and Jesus had taken it out of the hands of Satan; it was no more wielded by him who had the power of death, as the “wages of sin,” over the saints of God. Some amongst them had “fallen asleep,” and those who remained were troubled. They thought those who had thus gone would lose the blessing for which they waited, and they sorrowed for their loved ones who had gone. It was needful, then, to come in and reassure their hearts, and Paul is given an express revelation to do so. Suppose one whom we loved had fallen asleep, what comfort would be given to us now-a-days? Would it be, Be comforted, God will bring them back? Rather would it not be, Ah, you will go to him? Would it not be something like that by which David comforted his soul when the child died: “But now he is dead wherefore should I fast. Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me” (2 Sam. 12:23).

Nay; the hope is for Jesus to come for us, and bring with Him those who have gone before. Now Paul says, at the close of 1 Thess. 4, “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which are laid asleep through Jesus will God bring with him.” It is not “them which sleep in Jesus.” Jesus, the true David has taken Goliath’s sword. He has disarmed Satan, who wielded the power of death, by going down into his domain of death. Therefore says Paul, “Death is ours.” It is not now the wages of sin to the believer: that which leads sinful man to the judgment which lies beyond. The Lord has taken it into His hand, and if a saint who has waited for Him here below, has rather to wait with Him on high, he is “laid to sleep through Jesus and God will bring them with him” (when He appears in glory).

The terms of the last clause of 1 Thess. 4:14 would apply, I apprehend, to the saints who have slept from Stephen and onward. Only such are before the apostle’s mind, though not of course excluding any: Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” Because the Son of God had first to take a personal name — “Jesus.” He did so when He became a man. “Jesus” is His personal name. Then He had to die and rise again, and disarm the enemy, taking death into His own hands. It does not say, Laid to sleep by Christ, but “through Jesus.” It is His action now. He has hushed the saint to sleep, as the mother has hushed her child! The spirit of the departed one is with Him; his body in the dust. When Jesus comes they will be re-united. The power God in resurrection will glorify the saint who has been fitted for the glory by His blood.

“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord.” (Paul is about to give a special revelation. When he does this, he marks it strongly, as, “Behold I show you a mystery,” and the like). “That we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent [that is, anticipate, or, go before] them which are asleep.” If there is any advantage as to time they have it. “For the Lord himself”; it is not merely “The Lord,” but “Himself shall descend”; as He had said, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself” (John 14:3). He will leave His Father’s throne and descend from heaven “with a shout.” The shout is one of relationship with His own. His voice once called us out of darkness to Himself. The same voice gave forth the bitter cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” when under the hand of God as made sin for us. It is the same voice which now speaks in the accents of divine grace from heaven in the gospel (Heb. 12:25). This voice of the Good Shepherd which we have known in our inmost souls, but which the world discerns not, will speak once more to those who are His, by this shout of relationship. Then the “voice of the archangel” carries it on, and the “trump of God” gives its sanction to all. Then the “dead in Christ shall rise first.” If there be a moment of precedence they have the advantage of those who are “alive and remain.” You will mark that it is the “dead in Christ” for it embraces all the saints of God. When this wondrous rapture takes place there is no distinction between the OT and the Church of God. “In Christ” marks a state or condition; they have not died “in Adam,” but in Christ.” Just as you cannot speak of a person being in Jesus — that is a personal name but “in Christ.” “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up,” [or snatched up] “together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” This is only one stage. The Father’s house is more than meeting Him “in the air.” “In my Father’s house are many mansions (abodes)... that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2). That is, the Father’s house. It is there He presents His saints as the fruit of the travail of His soul. This is ever the order, “First children, then heirs.” As in Ephesians 1, “Predestinated to sonship through Jesus” (vs. 5): then “ In whom we have obtained an inheritance.” The highest relationship we have is sonship to the Father.

Thus we have (Eph. 3:18) “To the end that he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” Now you find that time apostle will unfold the evil that is to be manifested, while the saints are on high, before their shining forth in glory with Christ; before the “Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints.”

This rapture of the saints of God is a positive necessity in the completion of the grace which has taken up our cause. One feels that scripture would be incomplete without it. It is the consummation — the finish of the grace. It is power putting them into the glorious place for which His precious blood has fitted them the positive result of the meetness in which they now stand.

It has been said, but mistakenly, that it is only those who are actually waiting for Christ who will be caught up when He comes (partial rapture notion). But scripture never supposes that a saint is not waiting for Him. It always gives us the normal condition of Christians; our common level as to standing and hopes; though degrees of apprehension and joy are no doubt fully recognized. Consequently you never find in scripture that a saint is not waiting for Christ. Many, alas! have sunk into the abnormal state; many have never had the hope — never have had bridal affections awakened. Does this set aside this blessed hope? Does it change His sovereign grace? No! blessed be God, and the rapture of His saints is the fruit of sovereign grace; and waiting or not, all will be included in that wondrous army — for He must see the fruit of the travail of His soul.

Now the word for “coming” is a large and comprehensive term in scripture as we have seen. It embraces in its scope the interval from the catching up of the saints (the rapture), till their shining forth in glory (the appearing) — their manifestation with their Lord to every eye. The Lord will do many things during that interval. His first action will be to move from His present seat on His Father’s throne to meet them in the air. His voice is heard, “And the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive [the remaining ones] shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:16, 17).” We gather another step from 1 Thess. 3:13. He presents them to His Father, in His Father’s house on high. “First children, then heirs,” is the divine order. We shall then taste the joys of the Father’s house, already become the home of our hearts, amid its many mansions (abodes). In this passage we find the “coming” looks on to a moment beyond their presentation in the Father house; and this because he had introduced the thought of responsibility and holiness. Hence it runs on to the moment when they appear with Him; and all responsibility as to their path and ways of holiness has passed under the scrutiny of His eye.

When the saints are thus safely housed on high, the complete unfolding of the evil on earth takes place. These epistles go on to develop that; so you see, we are finding in these scriptures the steps between our two points in Acts 17. The world goes on saving “Peace and safety” on the eve of her “sudden destruction” out of which “they shall not escape.”

Nothing can be more solemn than the state of things at the present hour. The cry from the infidel heart of many is, The world awaits a man. You, beloved brethren, are informed of what is coming. Like “the prudent man” who “foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself,” while “ the simple” — the foolish — “pass on and are punished” (Prov. 22:3). You are trimming your lamps, and going forth to meet your Lord. People tell you that the coming of the Lord is death. What folly! Who ever heard of death being our Lord? And His own lips have told us to be “Like men that wait for their Lord.” Jesus is this. He is our Lord and Savior, and He looks that our hearts may indeed, with unworldly joy, wait for Him.

In 2 Thess. 2 he recalls their hearts, and exhorts them by their proper hope, “The coming of the Lord, and our gathering together unto him,” not to be shaken by the false letter, “as from us” (vs. 2), that the “day of the Lord had come.” The open manifestation, or “day” of the Lord, would not come while they were here, and before that day, the lawless one the man of sin — would be revealed. The mystery of iniquity was then at work; the apostasy would come, and then he who would sit in God’s temple as God, would be there. The Lord would then appear in glory with those heavenly saints, who come with Him from the Father’s house on high. The day that would “burn as an oven,” when the brightness of the glory of the Sun of Righteousness would consume the wicked to ashes, and bring in healing and refreshment to the now cleansed and prepared millennial earth! This willful king — this lawless man would meet his doom, as those too who were deceived and who willfully followed him, not receiving the love of the truth that they might be saved.

You have often noticed the “wings” of “the Sun of Righteousness,” when reading Mal. 3. I believe they allude to the saints previously caught up, who wait for Jesus, the morning star, before the dawn; before He appears as the “Sun” of that day of glory. This is hinted too in Matthew 13:41-43. “The Son of man” cleanses His “world kingdom” from all things that offend and them which do iniquity; and then the glorified saints shine forth as the sun — His wings — in their Father’s kingdom on high. When He does arise, to bring in that glorious day, it is with burning as an oven, which consumes to ashes the wicked, and with “healing in his wings” for others. If He consumes the lawless one with the Spirit of His mouth and destroys him with the shining forth of His coming (2 Thess. 2), the glorified church becomes then the channel of grace to the renewed earth. Through her, and out of the throne of God and the Lamb in her midst, comes the living stream of the water of life, to a world where healing of nations is yet the service of His redeemed. (See Mal. 3 and Rev. 22:1, 2.)

So here in Thessalonians, He comes to consume some in judgment and to be admired in those that believe in that day (2 Thess. 1), when the Lord will make good all that has been ruined by the first or responsible man. He takes His great power, and reigns for the thousand years.

Now, beloved brethren, what has been the great sin of the professing church? It has been the giving up of the constant, immediate hope of the Lord’s coming. I would beseech you, whenever you find the faintest thought introduced of something yet to be accomplished between this moment and the Lord’s coming for His people, treat it as it deserves — as the voice of the evil servant who said in his heart “My Lord delayeth his coming”! You may not be able to interpret scripture to any great extent; you may be a plain man, but one whose heart is true to Christ. I pray you hold fast what you do know — that His coming for His saints is your hope; and do not let what you do not know disturb your hope — do not allow the evil servant’s voice to find an entrance into your soul. Treat it as His voice, even if it come clothed with all the veneration of antiquity, with the opinions of centuries, the learning of divines the piety even of men who have lived and died for Christ. Treat it I say, as the evil servant’s teaching, and refuse it if you would be faithful to an absent Lord.

See what the evil servant’s teaching (Matt. 24:45-51) produced in the ten virgins who had gone forth at the first to meet the Bridegroom (Matt. 25:1, &c.). “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins,” &c. At a certain moment then before the eye of Jesus when He uttered the parable, the profession of Christianity about to be set up, would assume a certain character; all who had gone forth would give up the hope, and would go in again to rest; “they all slumbered and slept.” The hope of His coming was soon treated as heresy. Then the midnight hour came, and at that solemn moment the cry was revived. His heart desires not to find His people sleeping amongst the dead. He has revived the hope which lay dormant for centuries. He has given His one awakening cry! He never repeats it! It may wax louder and louder — God grant it while He tarries. It may find a response in many a heart sunk down in dead formalism: but remember, He never repeats it. Where do we now stand in this time of the breaking up of everything? In the little interval between the midnight cry and the, dawning of the day. The exercised eye sees in the confusion of the present moment the action after the midnight hour. But mark the calm and peaceful attitude of those five wise ones. They are beautifully conscious that they have their title to go in. There is no hurry — no hesitancy as to this. Mark, too, their active state. They are trimming their lamps, and there is oil (the Holy Spirit) in their vessels. The foolish, poor things! are on the search for it. See the crowds around you at present. Some deluded into Ritualism; some into Popery, with her pretentious claims; some turning to one thing; some to another. All seeking for the oil which the wise possess. They know not where to procure it. And in their search — in the active state, too, of the wise — they are sundered. God is separating “the precious from the vile”! They had started together some time before, awakened by a cry they may not have understood. But in their search they are parted from the wise. The wise do not follow them; but the foolish have to come and seek counsel from the wise. Mark, too, when the door was shut, the despairing clamor for admittance. But the day of grace was past, and hope was gone forever! I can conceive nothing more deeply solemn than the cry, “Lord, Lord, open unto us.” And the calm righteous answer of One whose heart is still open to welcome the lost ones in the day of grace, “ Verily, I say unto you, I know you not.” Does not this convey to us the thought that a day is coming, when the careless, the procrastinator, and the professor, will awaken to the awful reality that the door is shut, never more to be open to them; and that a cry of despair and conscious ruin will echo through the length and breadth of these lands, so long favored with the light of Christianity? Oh that sinners would be wise — would consider the solemnity of the moment we occupy in the history of things around us. How soon that door may be shut, and hope a thing of the past. How little response too, has the cry found in the hearts of His own; still, before the judgment of the professing body comes, He would warn His people, and awaken them, that their well-trimmed lamp may light Him in, and throw back the darkness which grows more dense, as the moments, precursor of the dawn, speed on their way!

May our hearts watch and wait for Him the bright and morning star. To be found watching and waiting when He comes, will repay the heart that mourns His absence, and lives here, by, with, and for, an absent Lord!

Blackrock Lecture 6: The Church in the Glory, and the Father's House

I have sought hitherto to present to you some of the great salient features of the church of God. What she is in His counsels and purposes; what she is as now maintained on earth by the presence and power of the holy Spirit; what man has made of it all here below, and the aspect in which Christ is seen with reference to the great profession of Christianity on earth; and lastly, what the path of the Lord’s people is, amidst the havoc and ruin around them at the present hour.

God is recovering His saints by the truth, to walk in the truth of the church of God, as gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ before He comes. There can be no ecclesiastical recovery of the whole church; to attempt it is only failure, and only makes confusion more confounded. But God never compels His children to sin. He never leaves them without a path in which they may walk worthy of Him, and where the heart and conscience may be at rest.

It is a cheer to one’s heart, too, to think that He will maintain to the end a faithful few, whose path and ways will answer to His mind and will. The last prophet of the Old Testament recognized and addressed a remnant in the midst of what was so evil at that day, and such a remnant was found when the Lord first came (see Luke 1; 2). The later epistles of the New Testament take account of a godly few, building themselves up in their most holy faith; and the heart looks that by grace there will be found those in that faithful condition, when He comes again.

On a previous occasion I spoke to you of our blessed hope as connected with our present condition that of the coming of the Lord Jesus for His own. How far, shall we ask ourselves, have we been living in that hope during the past week — the past day? How far has it been the expectation of our souls from hour to hour? Has the person of the Lord Jesus Christ been livingly before our hearts? There are two reasons why we should wish for His return: first because there is so much here below contrary to His glory; and secondly, because we love Him and long to be in His own immediate presence. And this will be enhanced as the heart seeks intimacy and deepening acquaintance with Christ who has given Himself for us.

On this occasion I wish to speak to you a little about “the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” as displayed in the millennial glory. God acts upon our souls by His truth thus: He brings the future glory before us as a present practical reality in its sanctifying power. He unfolds to us the glory prepared for us from everlasting, a boundless field of endless joy; points us to One who has gone on high, the center of it all, One who can absorb our heart’s affections as the alone worthy object of them — Christ, whom we have known below in weakness and sorrow, the center of that scene of light and blessedness. He has given us the Spirit to dwell in us, and to make heavenly things known to us now; to unfold those things that “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:9-10).” He takes of the things of Christ’s glory, and puts them before us now, that we may live in them — live in the Father’s love, and in the love of Christ which passeth knowledge — that while here we may be the reflection of Christ. Thus He unfolds the glory, that our hearts may he carried into it, and that it may have its own sanctifying effect upon us.

It is interesting to trace how much, and in what different lines, the practical power of the glory of God is brought before us in the Epistles. The glory is the consummation of His grace to us.

Take up the Romans, where it enters into our hope (Rom. 5:2), we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” We cannot be more meet (fit) for heaven, because our meetness depends on what Christ has done; but our capacity to enjoy that glory may, nay it ought to grow. As has been beautifully said, The present sanctification has all the elements of the future glory; and the future glory contains all the qualities of the present sanctification. So it is. We are formed by what we make our object. So Paul who gives us the result of his experience of Christ: what he had “learned.” “Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” It was the spring of his devoted path of service and self-surrendering toil! “To me to live, is Christ”: his chief and only aim, “That Christ may be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death.” Yet the morel he knew Him, he longed to know Him: “that I may know him.”

Take the 2 Corinthians (2 Cor. 3:18), “We all beholding the glory of the Lord with open [unveiled] face, are changed [transformed] into the same image from glory to glory.” “We all,” he says, it is the common joy of every Christian to gaze upon that glory shining in the face of Jesus, and thus be transformed. The first look was on a lifted-up Son of man dying on the cross for our sins. But He is not now there: He has left the cross, passed down to death and the grave, risen, and gone on high, witness that the righteousness of God has been vindicated against sin, and is now displayed. Do I seek to be like Him? What heart that knows Him does not long to be transformed into the same image? How then shall it be? By studying a humbled Christ, and seeking to walk as He walked? Nay; the power is not found there. Shall I seek conformity and likeness to Him, by occupation with myself, looking into my own heart to produce what is of Him there? No: that will never do it! How then shall I become like Him? By occupation of heart with Christ in glory: by gazing and feeding upon, and engrossing my heart with Him in the sphere of God’s unsullied light where He fills all things, and flesh and self can never come. There I find that a thousand things grow dim, which are not suited to that scene, nor to the heart of Him who is there. Flesh and self wither down to their true place of death: the beauteous lines of Christ are written upon the fleshy tables of the heart, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the moral traits of His glory are reproduced in the deepening conformity of our ways to Him.

Stephen, gazing upon his Lord in glory, meets the stormy waves of a world that hated his Lord before it hated him; and their vessel, broken by the stones of the multitude, only emits the beauteous light of his glorified Lord as he tastes the fellowship of His sufferings. He is delivered to death for Jesus sake, and the life of Jesus is manifested in his mortal flesh. Here I cannot pass on without remarking one feature in which Christ excels — for in all things He must have the pre-eminence. Stephen first says, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”: and then kneels down and prays for Saul and those who were stoning him, thus setting his spirit free. Not so Jesus. First He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), and at the close of the cross He commits His spirit to His Father. The order is reversed; Stephen was but man — though blessed martyr indeed; Jesus was the manifestation of divine goodness: Man perfect in dependence before God, He was also God perfectly revealed to man.

In Colossians too, where we are; seen passing through the deep, heart-searching circumstances of the wilderness way, the glory of God is again brought to bear on us. “Strengthened with all might,” for a scene where all is against us. What is the measure of the strength?

“According to the power of his glory” (not “glorious power”). What wonderful results will be produced with such strength, you say. But, to what are we strengthened? “To all patience!” Is not that a new way of making me patient in this scene? Patient amidst its sorrows, trials, temptations, and heart-rendings. And “strengthened... to all long-suffering”; the long-suffering that bears without a murmur every evil work, as it can perform every good work through Christ that gives it strength. But this we have already had before us: only “with joyfulness” crowns the verse. It is not the heart assuming an attitude of submission with sorrow at the core, what is called resignation (a word unknown in scripture). But heart’s joy springing up to Him in glory, in answer to the resources of His glory that strengthen for the same path of peaceful rest in a Father’s love and will that characterized Him.

Turn to James, and again you find the glory and its principles presented as a motive and power for conduct here. “My brethren, have not the faith of glory, with respect of persons” (James 2:1). If you have faith — the faith of glory, to which your steps are wending, do not go on with the spirit of the world, which puts the poor man in the low plane, and a rich man in the seat of honor! Let the principles of the glory form your ways, so that the spirit of the world may be broken in you.

Again; look at 1 Peter 4:14: “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.” When I feel that I have been reproached for the name of the Lord, it is as if the skirts of the glory had touched me! The spirit of the glory where Christ is has, so to speak, touched him who has been slighted for His name. Take it where you will, beloved brethren, the power of the glory of God is brought to bear for present sanctifying on our hearts and ways. So that whether for hope. or conformity to Christ; for patience by the way, or to deal with the spirit of the world; or with regard to the reproach of Christ, the glory of God as revealed in Christ is pressed upon the soul as the power for the production of what is of Him in the Christian. See John 17:19.

But to turn to my subject. I just name at once in passing, that the verses we have read (Rev. 21:9-27; 22:1-5), give us the description of the millennial display of the bride to the world. The saints have been taken up, and from chapter 4 are seen in heaven during the judgments which follow, preparatory to the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Revelation 2, 3 the church is in its present condition; in Revelation 4 the saints are seen in the glory, where they remain until they appear as the armies of heaven with Christ in judgment, in Revelation 19:14. Then Satan is bound, and in Revelation 20:4-6 the fact of the thousand years of the kingdom is stated; then you find the short season after the thousand years when Satan is loosed once more (Rev. 20:7-10). The judgment of the great white throne ends the sad history of this earth, and the new heavens and new earth follow (Rev. 20:1-8), which closes all. One thing remained to be told, and we find it then follows, and forms my subject for this evening.

The bride, the Lamb’s wife, is seen in her personal and her relative glory. And what is of such real moment and blessing to our souls is, that all the sanctifying work which Christ is now accomplishing in His saints will come out, and the result will be seen in the glory as here displayed. We read that He “loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” What a motive, then, to yield ourselves to Him that His grace may be not hindered! He sanctifies by the action of the word; He discloses all that hinders fellowship with Himself in that bright scene; He reveals and unfolds Himself to the hearts of His saints — to wean them away from this scene, and fill their hearts with Himself. Then, He will present His church to Himself glorious, without a spot of defilement or wrinkle of old age — not a trace of the scene through which she has passed; the heavenly Eve of the last Adam for the Paradise of God!

This wonderful scene is too often looked upon as something of the future; a description, no doubt with real points of interest, yet presenting but little in present formative power to our souls. When the display of that day of glory comes, it will be too late to use the scripture in this manner.

I think it will be seem that in this display of glory, what Christ was personally, what the saint — the church was left here to be — relatively, by His grace, and what the glorified church will be absolutely, as displaying the glories of the Lamb — all these come out in this scene.

“Having the glory of God” (Rev. 21:11). One thing must strike us forcibly; it is, how much the glory of God is interwoven with the description of the heavenly city. You have it both in literal words and in figures. You find it in the foundations of the city; in its walls; in its light within and appearance without; all is glory! It underlies, surrounds, enfolds and lights up the whole scene. The glory of God has enwrapped the saints, and they dwell in the glory of God. No doubt, it is her millennial display; still it gives character to the church, that even now is set in this world to display the moral traits of that glory to it. “The glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light [or light bearer] thereof.”

Here it is seen, in the perfection of the given glory of Christ, as answering to its full character. He, not to say we, could not be satisfied if it were not so. She is the display of the glory to the millennial earth. She does not come down to earth herself, but sheds the light of that glory upon Jerusalem below. As the heavenly Jerusalem the church still keeps her character as the display of grace; as Jerusalem below will be the center of earthly government in that day. How sad to see a Christian who is heavenly even now (1 Cor. 15:48) try to mingle these two principles; as for instance, a Christian acting as a magistrate, or taking part in the politics of the world. What is he doing? Seeking to mingle the government of the earth with the grace revealed from heaven. It is impossible now, but both will have their place in the millennial display of the glory of Christ. If from the heavenly Jerusalem — the vessel of grace — the leaves of the Tree of life are ministered for the healing of the nations; in the earthly Jerusalem is seen judgment returned to righteousness: “The nation and kingdom that will not serve her shall perish” (Isa. 60:12).

In this chapter one of the seven angels comes, which had the seven vials full of the last seven plagues, and carries John in the Spirit to a great and high mountain. It is not a wilderness from which he sees her (compare Rev. 17:3). It is striking the different stand-points from which the seer views each vision as it passes before him in this book; each place suited to that which he beholds. Upon the “sand of the sea” (Rev. 13:1), he stands to see the beast arise “out of the sea,” which typifies the renewed Latin Empire arising from the seething mass of the nations. The “wilderness” is a fitting place from whence to see the mystic Babylon, drunken with the blood of saints and martyrs of Jesus. A “mountain,” “great and high,” is the platform from which to behold this heavenly Jerusalem — the bride, “descending out of heaven from God”; she does not come to the earth, but is let down that the earth may see her glory, the glory of God displayed in her.

It is remarkable that what we know as members of Christ now, by the Spirit of God sent down, others will behold in that day. We read in John 14:20, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” Mark the order here; the Son is gone on high, having accomplished redemption, He is in the Father; the Holy Spirit has been sent down and gives the consciousness of being one in nature and life with Him who is there: we are in Him there, and if so, He is in us here. This is the consciousness which the Spirit of God gives us now.

Now if we turn to a verse in John 17, we find that the order of John 14:20 is reversed. He says there, “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me”; — here it is not Christ in the Father and we in Him; but the order is exactly reversed. It is Christ in them as perfectly displayed, as the Father was in Him.

The Lord Jesus turns to the day of glory that is before us. Thus He can speak of our being “made perfect in one,” and “that the world may know.” Now, we should have walked so that the world might have believed: but, alas, we have failed to display Christ to the world. In what infinite grace He carries us in to the day when there will be no more failure, but He will be perfectly displayed in us, “that the world may know that thou hast sent me when it sees you, my brethren, and all His saints, in the same glory as the Son of God — “and has loved them as thou hast loved me.”

This city is that display. She has the glory of God — “Having the glory of God, and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.” This is a symbol used for the glory of God (Rev. 4:3). She has the glory “of God”; and yet it is called “her light” (Rev. 21:11). Why is this? Suppose God has produced the graces of Christ in the saints here. Well, pure grace has done so; yet He has counted it to them. So here; if the church has the glory of God, yet it is her light, by His grace. What was Christ Himself? God manifested upon earth in that lowly Man. You long to be like Him; you long that the graces and mind of Christ may be reproduced in you; well those that are, are counted as yours, though His grace has wrought them. As when in Revelation 19:8, to His wife “was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen white and clean,” and this linen said to be “the righteousnesses of the saints” though all absolutely the production of His own grace in her. What He was upon earth, what He produces in His people, and what He displays in glory, are all seen.

“And it had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels.” Here you find the human side, as well as the divine. Twelve gates and twelve angels. If you look at Christ Himself on earth, you find the human side and also the divine. If He takes a little babe in His arms, it is a beautiful act of humanity; but when He pressed it to His heart He pressed it to the heart of God! A human act, yet divine. To the widow of Nain: “Weep not,” came from the pitying human heart. “Young man, I say unto thee arise,” was the voice of God that quickeneth the dead. “And he delivered him to his mother,” again the tender heart of man! You do not know which moment it is man, and which it is God, in those scintillations of His moral glory. So in the heavenly city; if you find the “glory of God,” you find the “twelve gates” as well.

The thought of the “wall” is security, as that of the “foundations” is stability. The angels are willing doorkeepers; they have been the instruments of the carrying out of the providence of God. Here they are outside. Unjealous angels, who desire to look into the tale of grace to man. The church now is “a spectacle to angels” and to men; so she will be then. The woman ought “to have power (authority) on her head, because of the angels.” Then the bride has glory as well, and the angels stand as porters at the gates, thus beholding “the manifold wisdom of God.”

Let me remark that the twelve apostles have a double place: in relation to the kingdom below, as in the church on high. The Lord promised them, “When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (see Matt. 19:28). They have the chief place in the administration of the kingdom, and are in the foundations of the city on high. The names of the tribes are written on the gates: the gate was the place of judicial authority and administration, of which the tribal order of Israel was the center. “Lot sat in the gate,” &c. This is now transferred to the church; hence the names of Israel’s tribes written on her gates —the symbol of such administrative order — so transferred. “On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

“And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the walls thereof.” If you look at the earthly Jerusalem in Ezekiel, He measures it with a line of flax (Ezek. 40:3) as His possession. But this will not suffice to measure that which is the fruit of the travail of Christ’s soul. You may remember that in Ephesians 2:7, it is said that by the church God will display, “in the ages to come, the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.” You cannot measure by human admeasurement that by which God unfolds and displays to eternity the full extent of His riches of grace, in His kindness towards us.

God is the symbol of divine righteousness. The estimate of the full result, now come in glory that can be displayed, of His counsels of eternity, can only be according to His own nature. God alone can justly value the travail of the soul of Jesus, when He made His soul an offering for sin: when He presented to His Father a fresh motive for His Father’s love. “Herein doth my Father love, me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again” (John 10:17). “The city lieth four square... the length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal.” It was a cube, the symbol of divinely given perfection.

“The building of the wall was of jasper”; that is the symbol of the glory of God. “He that sat [upon the throne] was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone” (Rev. 4:3). So was the “first foundation” of the wall. The glory of God is thus the foundation, the security, the stability, and the light of the heavenly city. Oh, how the heart worships as it contemplates such a scene! His glory enfolds His people on every side.

“And the city was of pure gold, like unto clear glass.” Gold is divine, righteousness and clear glass represents the fixed transparent purity of truth. Thus, the city itself presents in this wondrous symbol what Christ was Himself, and what the “new man” is, “which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth.” It is not Adam in innocence, when he knew not good or evil; nor Adam fallen, and righteous by the law, if that could have been to fallen man. But created in all the beauty of God’s righteousness by grace, and the transparent truthfulness of Christ — as transparent as the day! If we look at our own hearts, what poor, treacherous, double-minded things they are; but it is but so with God. Thus set in divine righteousness before God, in Christ, with truth in the inward parts; in the measure in which the new man is in action, it is like Him who could answer, when asked of the Jews “ Who art thou?” “I am absolutely what I speak unto you”: His words expressed Himself (John 8:25).

As to the foundations, they are garnished with all manner of precious stones. When God displays Himself He does it under the figure of those colored precious stones, as has often been remarked. Catch the ray of bright colorless light from the sun and separate it in a prism, and you find the colorless ray broken up, and resolved into the varied colors of the rainbow. “God is light” — and dwells in the inaccessible light unto which no one can approach, or can see. When He displays Himself in any way, these beautiful colors symbolize this display.

Take the rainbow; it is the pure light of the sun shining through the tears of the rain-cloud, but when broken up through those tears, exhibiting in those heavenly lights and shades of color the virtue of the colorless ray. When the high priest of old, with the breastplate of many colored stones, entered the holiest, the pure light from the mercy-seat was reflected in each color on his heart. Thus Christ is now sustaining His people here in their weakness, and carrying them through this scene according to the light of the heavenly sanctuary. By-and by, instead of sustaining them in their weakness as now, He will place them in power on high.

If you look at Christ on earth, you see the “Son of man, which is in heaven,” displaying God on earth before our eyes. “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily.” See Him weeping over Jerusalem: the Messiah’s heart wrenched in mourning over His people’s sin. It was the tender heart of man, but sprang from that deep and wondrous fountain — “The tears they fell from human eyes, but they came from the heart of God.” Thus was God displayed. The heart adores when one thinks we have to do with a God who has stooped down to human tears, in a world of tears.

Thus God takes up our trials, and sorrows and tears; and by them He displays in His people the heavenly lines of that nature which suits His heart, because it is His own.

“The twelve gates were twelve pearls.” Here a lovely thought finds its expression. In it is seen that moral beauty and comeliness which attracted the heart of Christ in the church, and for which He “sold all that he had.” Internally we find the city is “pure gold like unto clear glass”; externally the moral beauty of the pearl. Each gate showed out this. So with the Lord Himself personally; so with the Christian relatively, who has “put on the new man” where “Christ is all”; and outwardly, the effect is that the lowly traits of His grace are produced, and thus with the church collectively, if it needed the whole that Christ might be fully displayed according to God’s thought. Here we are carried on to the glory when it will be perfectly so. Thus we see how the thought flows through the wonderful description as to what Christ was personally, what His saints are relatively, in the measure in which what His grace has wrought is seen in them, and what will be seen in full display, when He “comes to be glorified in his saints and admired in all that believe.”

“The street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.” The figure was before used, verse 18. Here we find that not only the city, but the streets are so. It is the reverse of what we pass through now, in a defiled world. In that city of glory the feet will only come in contact with that which answers to the new man within. Oh! if the heart does not “watch and pray” now, how the soil is contracted, and the heart defiled! The heart rests in the thought of a scene where it may let itself go; when watching and praying will be things of the past — never to be relaxed for an instant now, because the flesh is in us and the world around us so suited to it.

There Christ alone will fill the soul. What joy without alloy! And it is sweet to think that all the dissatisfaction one feels with one’s own heart now, is but a note of sympathy with that scene on high where all things are of God! There the very streets we shall walk on suit the nature of God, already become ours in righteousness and holiness of truth. There we may ungird our loins, for all only reflects His glory, and the more the heart goes out freely the more worship is the effect produced.

So the description goes on, “I saw no temple therein.” In the earthly restored Jerusalem the marked feature of the scene in the temple once more (Ezek. 40-48). Here there is none. Why is this? Because worship is all that is here: it characterizes the scene; “They shall be still praising thee.” A Jew could hardly understand how there could be no temple. The temple gave a character to his relationships with God. There God dwelt, shut up from every gaze, to be reverenced. But if He shut Himself up within the veil, He shut man out! He could not be there. How different this wonderful scene of glory. There is no concealment of it. The unveiled mystery of God is there, and the heart has naught to do but adore.

It is humbling to discover how little concentration of heart there is with us now for worship. How little there is of that “looking up steadfastly” — that fixedness of soul. Worship is the character of the place to which we are going; there it goes on forever. Even here the little tributes of praise our hearts can bring are sweet to Him; “the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

“I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.” The whole city is the sanctuary of His presence. “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it,” no need of borrowed light “for the glory of God did lighten it.” We had the glory encircling and entering into the whole structure of the city. Here it is the light of it. Even now if there is light in our hearts it is the light of that glory shining on the face of Jesus. All the glory of God shines concentrated on that face, and we gaze on it without a veil and at peace; nay, the fact that it shines on the face of Him who gave Himself for me, engages me to be occupied with the glory thus revealed. So it will be forever. He bears the glory. Would that like the Queen of Sheba, we knew even now what it was to be so taken up with Him, in whom all the glory of God shines before the opened eye of faith, that self might be entirely displaced. There was no more spirit in her, and she pours out her treasures at His feet. Then it will be perfectly so. The heart that has learned to know His love, will be at home with Him in that scene of light and untold joy.

“And the nations shall walk in the light of it.” Here there enters another thought. Worship if I look within, testimony if I look below. “I in them and thou in me,” is fulfilled. “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them.” There Christ is seen in the saints, who are the radiance of His glory to the nations below.

Worship and testimony are true now too in their measure in the saints. As a holy priesthood you go in to worship Him, as a royal priesthood you come out to show forth the virtues of Jesus (1 Peter 2:5-9). So if there is worship filling the scene, there is testimony, for the spared nations walk in the light of that heavenly city. The worship is feeble now; so is the testimony a poor gleam of light in a dark world. Still the gleam is there, in Christianity, poor though it may be. And in that measure the nations of the earth walk; other light there is none.

“The kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor to (not ‘into’) it.” They own that the heavens do rule. “And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.” Perfect security — no need to shut those gates; and there is no darkness there. Darkness is ignorance of God, with John. Where does doubting come from — where uncertainty? From ignorance of God. All is gone now, and “there is no night there.”

“They shall bring the glory and honor of the nations to it, and there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth.” Let me ask, Did anything enter into your heart that defiled to-day? Were you living so with Christ, that defilement was kept outside? How one trembles at seeing a bright young soul filled with that early joy in Christ: one who has trodden the path longer knows well that that fresh joy will subside if Christ does not become all as its object, and that some wretched idolatry of the heart will enter in and defile, and turn it aside. How wisely did Barnabas exhort those babes in Christ that with purpose of heart they should cleave to the Lord (Acts 9).

But here the heart can rest. Nothing that defiles can enter the heavenly city — neither the flesh of man nor the lie of Satan. All is excluded here. There is the other side too — “But they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” They only for whom He died, as the objects of His love may enter in.

In Revelation 22 you find the city in her relative, if in the previous chapter you had her personal character.

“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” The river is the symbol of blessing flowing out. The Lord Himself is its source. “If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink.”

The one who drank would be the channel for the river to flow into others, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters.” He drinks, and slakes his thirst at the fountain source, and from the fullness of the satisfaction there are rivers to flow out to the desert world around. Even now the bride, conscious of her relationship to Christ (Rev. 22:17) before the day of her espousals in heavenly glory (Rev. 19), and having Him as the center of her heart, has the whole circle of His present interests before her, and can say, “Let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). Still we find the thought we have noticed all through; that what Christ was personally, and the Christian or the church is relatively, characterizes it in the glory, when the time for display has fully come.

It is the character of Christianity to go out with what you have. Preaching gives it its tone. Under Judaism it was, Keep to yourself: there was no preaching, as a rule. Christianity is thus characterized — rendering what you have received. The woman of Samaria could not help telling of what Jesus had made known to her soul. He loved her, He knew her, and He saved! “She went and told the men” — in the boldness of grace.

See Saul of Tarsus. His eyes are opened. “And straightway he preached Jesus that he is the Son of God.” Do you, beloved, go out with what you know? Or is it with you, like the lepers of Samaria, “A day of glad tidings, and we hold our peace?” (2 Kings 7:9). Has God satisfied the need of your heart? Well, there is a soul who wants it, will you not tell it to him?

Here, too, you find “the tree of life,” — not two trees but one. The old story of the two trees of Eden is ever. In Paradise there was responsible innocent Adam. He eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in disobedience, and is shut out from the tree of life, never to regain a lost Paradise of innocency. Outside the garden came the law to fallen man to raise the question, if life could be connected with responsibility; the two trees again in principle. But he needed life to fulfill responsibility, and he had none, and was lost. If I say, This do, and ye shall have a fortune; clearly it proves that you have not got one. It is quite another thing to bestow the fortune, and then to tell you how to use it. Thus have we found Christ to be the tree of life, when first He had met the whole question of responsibility under the judgment of God for us. There is no tree of responsibility. Is there no remaining responsibility, then, as children of Adam? None! Christ has taken it up, and forever closed the history of the responsible man for God and for faith. Now your responsibility is to be true to what you are: a child of God. Children first — then the duties of children follow.

The tree of life bears twelve manner of fruits for the heavenly redeemed. How the heart rejoices now to sit under His shadow with great delight, and to find His fruit sweet to our taste. What will it be to hearts capable of enjoying Him in glory, to sit under His shadow there and eat those heavenly ever-changing fruits, while the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations in the earth below.

“And there shall he no more curse.” Adam’s transgression brought the curse in its train; Cain’s fratricide entailed another. Sin’s curse has lain everywhere in this scene, but there will be no trace of it there “but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve him.” Oh what hindrances to this there are now. Service will be the joyous liberty of the heavenly glory. It is the happy rest of active joy; but richer still and more intimate in blessing “They shall see his face,” — not now as in a glass darkly but face to face — oh what divine and endless satisfaction And his name shall be in their foreheads.” They bear the proof before all, that they are His, the imprint of what He is manifestly on their brow.

And there shall be no night there.” No darkness, nor ignorance of God. “They need no candle, neither light of the sun,” no borrowed or created light. “The Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign forever and ever.” Serving and waiting occupy them now (1 Thess. 1:9-10); then they serve and see His face, and reign forever.

God reveals to us this scene where, the Lamb’s glories dwell, to cheer and fill our hearts with its present sanctifying power, and to give us a truer estimate of what the height of our calling is, as we see all that it now made good to faith, and in the power of the Holy Spirit carried out to its full result in glory then.

A little word more and I close. There is another aspect of what is before us which needs but few words to describe: few are the words of scripture concerning it. That which is here so elaborately portrayed is the glory in which we shall be displayed. The world will see and know the tale of grace, in (the new) Jerusalem on high. But there is a secret pavilion of the soul’s holiest joy — His Father’s house with its many mansions (abodes), and more than all, the Son Himself to take the servant’s place still in infinite grace and minister the richest joys of it to us forever! There is nothing of this here. In John 17 you have the secret but no description; it is enough to say He is there. He says (John 17:24), “Father, I will.” Heretofore in the chapter He had prayed; now He demands, “Father I will, that they also whom, thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” Shall we not be happy in seeing Him in His own peculiar glory — a glory we may never share. He speaks of it, too, as having been bestowed, as He takes everything that was His own in John. This is His grace. If He emptied Himself of all His glory He had with the Father before the world was, He receives it back as Man (John 17:5). He receives it from His Father’s hand, because He had become Man, to be a Man forever! He has taken manhood into the glory of God, never again to lay it down. Shall we not behold Him with rapture then? Then we shall know the heights from which His love had stooped, which the heart can but little know. Yet what little we do know makes the longing more deep to know Him fully, and to be with Him forever in that bright scene of glory, of which He is the center and sun. He who possesses it is ours, though that peculiar range of glory may never be: but He will bring us in to gaze upon it.

The Lord give us to live in the consciousness of heavenly things as fully revealed, and of our association with Him in them, to form our souls more and more as a people that belong there. Soon we shall be actually there. May He who is the center and brightness of all that scene of glory fill our hearts, conducting the light of it into them and displacing all that is unsuited to it more and more; till the moment fixed in the Father’s counsels when He can take us there, and present us before the Father, who gave us to Him, perfectly suitable to Him. Amen.

Baptism

“Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 1:17).

Not Published Printed For Private Use Only

The testimony in which Christians are called to walk in these days is of deep importance. It has two great features:

1st, the unity of the Church — the Body of Christ, formed by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.

2nd, a remnant character, separated from the evils of the professing body around, in witnessing to this truth.

There never can be a restoration to original state. Still, the Word of the Lord abides forever, and there is no deprivation of power which can hinder obedience to it. It is always incumbent on the saints to bow to it, and everyone who names the name of the Lord is to depart from iniquity (2 Tim. 2:19).

We are called to follow Paul in the truth given us through him. His ministry takes a twofold character. He is the minister of the Gospel to every creature under heaven, and of the Church to fulfill or complete the Word of God. The revelation of the mystery of Christ and the Church completed all the circle of revelation (see Eph. 3:6-9; Col. 1:23-25).

Creation, Providence, the Law, Incarnation, etc., all had been revealed. One subject remained to complete the circle of revelation; this was the Church — the body of Christ, constituted and formed on earth by the baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), while Christ as Man having ascended up on high remains there, and till He comes again with its collateral truths.

As following Paul, and as baptized into one body by one Spirit — the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, the Church has no commission to baptize, like that of the Twelve to the nations in Matthew 28. Our business, as serving the Lord and His people, is to seek to bring Christians into the consciousness of their position, as members of Christ, in the midst of a great baptized house.

Paul was converted to testify of the union of Christ and the Church — His body, subsequently to this House or habitation of God having been formed at Pentecost. He was received into it by baptism himself, and found baptism there; not abrogated by his subsequent commission, but was not sent to baptize (1 Cor. 1:17). Still, finding it there, and not set aside by his commission, which was subsequent to that of the Twelve, he did baptize when needful. He took it up and used it, and left it down again, making no more of it than was necessary. He owned its importance in the place God had given it — used it — but was not sent to baptize. It formed no part of his commission and I believe it is in such a Spirit we should view it now. It was unquestionably an initiatory ordinance, yet was not set aside, as we shall see.

John's Baptism

It need hardly be said that the baptism of John was not Christian baptism in any wise. It was unto repentance for remission of sins”— those who were baptized looked for a living Messiah to come, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Christian baptism is “unto death.” Baptism is always “unto” (εις) something — see Romans 6 and for “into” read “unto” or “to.” Christian baptism and John’s baptism are put in contrast in Acts 19:1-5 as totally distinct.

Those who were baptized of John were professedly coming in under the dealings of God in sovereign mercy, and where grace called them. It was no use now, as he told them, to say that they had Abraham to their father; this did not entitle them to the promises. They knew what it involved — that is, the meaning of accepting the baptism of John. It was the renunciation of everything to which they clung as men after the flesh. Hence the Pharisees sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who art thou?” “Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ nor Elias, neither that prophet?” Sensible of what baptism involved, as throwing them out of everything they prized after the flesh or entitled to as children of Abraham, they would not accept what was to them so intolerable, unless from someone such as Christ, Elias, or that prophet, who would be entitled to change the whole constitution. The people and the publicans who accepted it, “justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John” (Luke 7:29, etc.). They recognized His justice in condemning them, and His grace in calling to repentance such as they, while “the Pharisees and Lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, not being baptized of Him.” They refused to surrender what they prized after the flesh, and come in under God’s dealings in grace on the level of those they despised. If Johns baptism had been received by the nations, Christ would not (to speak as a man) have been rejected and put to death, and consequently there would have been no Christian baptism at all.

Christian Baptism

It is very important to see that Christian baptism is founded only on the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus and His claims over man on earth by death and resurrection, not on His Ascension to the right hand of God from which, as Head of the Church, He sent down the Holy Spirit to form the Church (Acts 2:32,33). This puts it properly in its own place, as connected with Resurrection and the Twelve, and not with Ascension and Paul.

Christ had died, and had ended the history of the first man (1 Cor. 15:47) on the ground of his responsibility before God. His death proved the condition in which all men lay. “If one died for all then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). His responsibility now is on another ground, not only for his sins personally, but that of rejecting sovereign grace when totally and irrecoverably lost.

The commission was given by the Lord to the twelve on this ground before He had ascended to the right hand of God. It was “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things which I have enjoined you (Matt. 28:19).” Here I may remark that the command was “Go and... baptize.” It was the act of the baptizer not of the baptized. This precludes the thought of obedience altogether. There is no command in Scripture to be baptized. The words, doubtless, are used as in the case of the Jews at Pentecost by Peter (Acts 2) and in the case of Paul by Ananias (Acts 22:16). It was the act of Ananias and of Peter. The persons who were baptized bowed to the act of the baptizer as acting administratively under the Lord in the way He had appointed that they should be received. Were I to desire (person) A to do a certain thing to (person) B (say to admit him into my house), this is not telling B to do it. B bows to As act, as having my authority to do it: but the act is that of A, and never can be that of B. Of course grace is needed to make B willing to bow, but he accepts it as the way I had ordered that A should receive him. To introduce obedience into it is to make a Christian subject to ordinances, and so far deny the character of Christianity.

The meaning of Christian baptism is that it is to “death.” So many of you as were baptized to (εις) Christ, were baptized to (εις) His death (Rom. 6). We are buried with Him by baptism to death. Then also it is an outward change of state, as of the old world when it passed through the waters of the deluge (flood of Noah’s day) into a new order of things. Thus the person was held to be on the professed ground of Christ’s death and resurrection. The baptized person has put on Christ (Gal. 3:27) as the profession of His name. There is no thought of it being a witness of his having already put on Christ. If not true and real, by an inward change of heart, it was but entrance to external privilege; it was merely putting on the profession of His name. If this passage meant a real putting on of Christ-that is, getting life, — popery would be right which attaches the communication of life to baptism. And more — Simon Magus would have been a true Christian, which he was not, if baptism meant a real putting Him on, for he was baptized. The passage at length is, “As many of you as have been baptized to, or unto (εις) Christ, have put on Christ.” It does not say “as many,” &c., have witnessed that you have already “put on Christ,” but simply that you have put Him on in the act.

The baptized person is “Regenerate” by it. That is, he has passed out of an old state and into a new order of things. The word “Regeneration” in Scripture, as has been remarked, is never used for “new birth,” nor for being “born again,” the modern meaning which has, through custom, been attached to it. The word is only found twice in Scripture — in Matthew 19:28, with reference to the Millennium, and in Titus 3:5, as to Baptism. In the former, the world will have passed out of its present state under Satan’s rule to another condition under the Lord, and Satan bound. (This is) An outward change — a new order of things. In the latter, the person has passed out of one state into another, through water, on to the ostensible and professed ground of Christ’s death and resurrection.

The words of Scripture for “born anew” or “born again” (γεννηθν ανῶεν, John 3:3; and αναγενναῶ, 1 Peter 1:23) are quite different to that of “regeneration” (παλιγγενεσια) which is never used for “new birth” in the language of Scripture.

Baptism Admission to Privilege, Not a Witness to the State of the Baptized

The idea of baptism being the confession of, or witness to a state in which the baptized is already, never enters the thought of Scripture (although the state may be there in the baptized all the while through real faith). The thought of those who hold the baptism of believers as such, is — that because the person possesses a certain condition of soul he is to be baptized as witnessing to that state. Now with reference to these or like views it will be found that Scripture will not support them. I admit fully that the state of soul may be, and doubtless was there, in many cases of those baptized, in the cases of Scripture. Still, it never enters into the thought of Scripture that baptism is the witness to or confession of this state. That is, because he is a believer, therefore he is to be baptized. For instance, when Peter preaches to the Jews at Pentecost, he says, “Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins.” It plainly was not because they had been already forgiven, but “for” or “unto (εις) remission of sins.” Again, “and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”; not because ye have received the Holy Spirit already. It was the administration of the House of God carried out by the Apostle and those with him.

The cases of the Samaritans and the Ethiopian in Acts 8 come next. Philip announces the glad tidings in Samaria, and receives all who come by baptism. In the case of the Ethiopian, it is now pretty widely known that verse 37 is not authentic Scripture: verses 36 and 38 read consecutively. All well in its place; but here it is perhaps a well-meant but human addition to the Word of God.

As to Cornelius and his house (Acts 10), there is no controversy. God had so plainly marked His call of the Gentiles into the Church by giving them the Holy Spirit that Peter appeals to the brethren who came with him, “can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” (Acts 10:47). Even a Jew could not forbid their reception by baptism. God had so plainly set His mark on the Gentiles. “And he commanded them to be baptized.” Now this was not commanding them to go and have themselves baptized, but that those who were with him should receive them through baptism. To cite a case: suppose a king commanded a traitor to be beheaded. This is not telling him to behead himself, for no one could do this — no more could any one baptize himself; it must be the act of another. Those present with Peter received them through baptism.

In Paul’s case in Acts 22:16, Ananias says, “arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins,” etc. This plainly was not a witness that they had been already washed away. Ananias was about to receive Paul into the House of God (of which more again (see below)), and baptism signified what he was administratively receiving. It was not a witness to that which he had already, although such blessing might be there all the while. In Romans 6:3, “so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto His death.” “We are buried with Him by baptism to death,” not because you were dead already. Every true Christian is dead— dead with Christ. If a person was “baptized unto death,” it could not be said of him that he was “dead” already, and that baptism only witnessed it was so; if so, it would have said, “so many of you as were baptized unto Christ were baptized because you were dead already,” as Christians. This also shows that it was administratively a sign of that into which the person was entering, not a witness of a state in which he was already. Again in Galatians 3:27, “as many of you as have been baptized to Christ have put on Christ.” It was the sign of what they were putting on. It says in 1 Peter 3:21, “In like figure whereunto baptism doth now save us,” not “is a witness that you are saved already.”

Then as to its being an act of obedience in the baptized, it never enters the thought as to baptism in Scripture. When the Ethiopian says, “see here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?” it was plainly not an act of obedience in his mind, but a sign of some privilege he was about to receive, for you cannot say what doth hinder, in a case of obedience. The same way in Acts 10 when Peter says, “can any man forbid water?” You could not forbid obedience, if it were such. Those present could not deny admission to those whom God had so plainly marked by His reception, admission into the privileged place where the Holy Spirit dwells.

Here I would note the different manner of Peter with the Jews (Acts 2) and the Gentiles (Acts 10). In the case of the Jew, he insists on baptism, which in its evident meaning was to a Jew an intolerable thing; because it threw him completely out of all he valued as one of the elect nation of God. Hence, at Pentecost Peters word was, after charging them with crucifying their Messiah, “Repent and be baptized every one of you,” etc. He insists on it with them. Yet, when we come to the case of the Gentiles, they were losing nothing, surrendering nothing, but receiving a favor from God. So it was not insisting, as in the case of the Jew, on that which threw him out of everything he prized; but “can any man forbid,” etc., as if to say “we cannot refuse to admit them to the place of privilege which we occupy ourselves.”

I now come to look at its import as being an administrative act of reception to privilege by those inside, acting under the Lord.

The Holy Spirit had descended at Pentecost to dwell in the Church, taking up His abode in and with the disciples who were gathered together on that day (Acts 1:2); thus constituting them collectively “the House of God,” a “Habitation of God through the Ghost.”

There was no revelation at this time of the unity of the body of Christ. Paul was not converted yet and the first intimation we receive of it was at his conversion (Acts 9:4), though it was formed at the day of Pentecost. The disciples collectively were thus “the house of God,” built in the name of the Lord Jesus who had gone up on high.

Now none of these, including the twelve apostles, were ever baptized with Christian baptism. Having been already constituted this House by the descent of the Holy Spirit, they could not be received into it by baptism; because first, there were none to receive them; and, 2nd, they were “the house of God” already. Peter addresses the Jew in Acts 2 from the platform of God’s house, so to say. Judaism was now a judged thing. He tells them that they had slain their Messiah, but God had raised Him up again and exalted Him, and “made Him Lord and Christ.” He calls on them to repent of this sin, and be baptized every one of them, for the remission of sins, and they would receive the Holy Spirit now dwelling in the House of God, built in the name of Him they had slain. They were thus to be received by baptism —the door of entrance into this house of God.

Those who composed this house not having been baptized, and those who were received into it having to be baptized, as admitting them, shows that the act, whatever other meaning it had, was that of administrative reception to privilege, and was the act of those who received them, and not the witness of the condition of those received.

I need not repeat the cases of the Gentiles (Acts 10), Paul (Acts 22), as also receiving Lydia and her house (Acts 16), and the Gaoler (jailor) and his house (Acts 16), Crispus and Gaius, and the house of Stephanas (Acts 18; and 1 Cor. 1).

Remark here Paul’s question to the disciples of John whom he found at Ephesus (Acts 19). They were believers as far as they knew (that is, John’s baptism) who had not yet received the Holy Spirit, nor had they been yet received into the house formed by the descent of the Holy Spirit. They were received into it by Paul through baptism, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Besides all this, there is no command to baptize believers ascertained to be such, and as such. The only command was to “go and disciple the nations, baptizing them,” etc. It is not the thought of Scripture. Baptizing believers as such attaches baptism imperceptibly to the doctrine of Paul, and the body of Christ which is only composed of believers, rather than to the House of God, into which Paul was himself received by baptism, and outside of which you could not be recognized as a Christian, all in it being professedly such. Consequently, it narrows down the thought of the house and makes it and the body co-extensive terms, which was only the case at the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, after which no one could say that they were so. This idea would consequently remove, as far as the thought goes, all responsibility from the House of God as that at which judgment must begin (1 Peter 4:17). It would make the house and the body conterminable, and therefore judgment should begin at the true thing, instead of that which outwardly bears the name of Christ, constituted of those who profess His name. The idea of re-baptizing (?) has no possible meaning whatever — that is, baptizing believers who had been received into the House of God previously by baptism.

Supposing the person had been received by baptism at any time of his life, whether as an infant or as an adult, it was a bona fide act done under the profession of Christianity and in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; and, unless that act can be blotted out of the category of things past, it is quite impossible that a second baptism can have any meaning and it goes for nothing. I question even the very term “second baptism” — it is not a baptism. The act was done and could not be repeated. No one could say a re-baptized person had become a Christian then; and, as Scripture plainly shows, it is not the witness of the state one is in already, although the state might still be there. The person had been admitted through the act, however informally done, and by whomsoever performed, and he cannot get outside of God’s house in order to be again received.

To put a case used by others: suppose a person had come into this room through the window, you may say he came into the room in an improper manner. True, I reply, but he did come in and the proof is that he is here; and he could not by any possibility be received now at the door, which no doubt would have been the correct way of entering. So once the act has been done it cannot be undone or re-done, there it stands. The person had been received into God’s house, and there the matter ends. It is an administrative and external reception, not a witness of a previous one. Besides this, re-baptizing persons (again I question the term, once done it could not be re-done), really calls in question the baptism of the whole house of God, as a responsible thing here on earth. It narrows up the house to those who have been baptized as believers, or gives no definite thought at all to it. Hence, if the House of God (1 Peter 4:17) is only believers, the judgment which must begin at the House of God must have to do with them only and the whole professing body goes free!

Before leaving this section I would remark that the only formulary ever given as to baptism was “unto (εις) the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19). Some have thought that the formulary was changed in the Acts of the Apostles. (We do not have doctrines, but history in the Acts); but when the commission was given, in Matthew 28, the Lord was present, and baptism is founded on resurrection — not on ascension. But in Acts He was absent and the point was the owning of one who was not there in person (in the period of the Acts). Hence the recognition of His name. Yet we find in nearly every case the term is changed, carefully guarding the thought of its being a formulary. In Acts 2, it is “in (ἐπι) the name of Jesus Christ.” Acts 8, “in (εισ) the name of the Lord Jesus.” Acts 10, “in (._) the name of the Lord.” Acts 19, “in (ἐν) the name of the Lord Jesus.” Certainly the formulary in Matthew 28 is the correct form to be employed while the recognition of the name of the Lord is added as presenting the person to Him.

Baptism of the Houses of Those Received

There is another thing now to be considered. The testimony of Scripture as to the baptism of the houses of those who were received.

Here we find that God has graciously observed a principle in His ways since the Deluge, which was not discontinued when Christianity came in. This was enunciated to Noah in the words, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation.” And his house is brought into the sphere of privilege with its head who had found grace with God.

This was what Satan’s power in Pharaoh tried to hinder in the case of the “little ones” of Israel. The proposition was, “Go ye that are men” (Ex. 10:11), thus seeking to hinder them taking their houses out of Egypt to the same ground with the heads of the families of Israel. This Moses refused — God would not separate the head of the house and those attached to him thus. In result we have — “They were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2).

Alas! how frequently do we find the sad results of the departure from this divine principle. Parents allowing in their children what they must refuse for themselves, looking on them as on a different ground before the Lord.

When the House of God was first constituted by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven (Acts 2), Peter announces to the Jew, when telling them to repent and be baptized, that “the promise is unto you and to your children.” The Holy Spirit had come and had manifested His power and presence amongst the disciples on that day. Peter had quoted the prophet Joel (Acts 2:28-32) and said — “This is that which was spoken of” him. It was not, I need hardly remark, the accomplishment of the prophecy, but that character of thing of which he spake: the fulfillment of the prophecy is yet to come. Still, the Holy Spirit had come and was amongst those who spoke. The remnant of Israel were called on to repent of their rejection of their Messiah that they might receive the Holy Spirit and the remission of their sins.

Baptism of water was the mode of entrance administered by the apostles and those with them. But a blessed word was added then which next to their own personal blessing nothing could be a greater mercy. They were told that the promise is unto you and to your children (Acts 2:39). It was a true mercy which I do not think any Jew would have refused that day. He was being received by baptism into God’s House where the Holy Spirit dwelt, built in the name of the Lord Jesus whom they had rejected and crucified. It was a true mercy that his children were not to be left outside in the world that Satan governed. To leave them there would be to leave them in a sphere in which God was not working, instead of bringing them in to be participators of the operations of the Holy Spirit who dwelt there.

It may be said that this was for Jews only and their children after them as such. Granted, but when we come to the Gentiles we find the same principle carried out with them. Of the house of Cornelius there is no question. God was marking His reception of the Gentiles so plainly that no Jew could deny their right of reception to the place of blessing in which he was Himself. The Holy Spirit fell on all them who heard the Word (Acts 10:44). So also was the house of Crispus (Acts 18) who believed on the Lord with all his house.

We are, however, on strictly Gentile ground with Paul — the Apostle of the Gentiles — in Acts 16. In this chapter we read of two “houses” being baptized: Lydia’s —whose heart the Lord opened, and she attended to the things spoken of Paul, and when she was baptized, and her house (ό οἴχος αὐτῆς). There is not a word said as to their believing, or of hearing the Word, or of having their hearts opened. It is said distinctly of her. I cannot state that they did or not; the Word goes no further.

When we find cases where a house is all said to have believed with its head, as in the case of Crispus, &c., Scripture is careful to state it so particularly, and “Scripture is more accurate than we are generally aware of.” Here Lydia is called into blessing and we read of her house all having been received with her —all were baptized. When we turn to the case of the gaoler (jailer) at Philippi, we find that the man came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas crying out, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul enunciated to him these words — “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” Then he was baptized, he and all his straightway. In Acts 16:34 we read literally “and rejoiced with all his house [or householdly] having believed in God.” The verbs are all singular, agreeing with the man who did so. Now here it is plainly stated that the man rejoiced, believing in God, and there is no statement as to the house believing at all. I have (said) before that when a house did believe, with the head, it is so stated. I do not say that they did not — that would be drawing a negative conclusion from a positive statement of Scripture, that is, that in houses where all believed it is so stated, and in Lydia’s and the Gaoler’s, when the head of the house believed, or attended to the things spoken, such (belief) is distinctly stated of them only, and nothing is said about the others, yet all were, in each case, baptized. More still — when it might have been left an open question, the writer precludes the thought by using a singular verb when he speaks of the Gaoler “believing” and “rejoicing” — of Lydia, there can be no question. Now these two houses plainly show the principle of the admission of houses was not confined to the Jews.

Then we find in 1 Corinthians 7:14 that if but one parent was a Christian, the children were holy (ἄγιά). Some have tried to interpret this as “legitimate”, but the word would not admit of this in anywise. They had a relative holiness with respect to others, as the Jew of old had with respect to the Gentiles — “afar off” from God in a dispensational way. It has been observed that in Nehemiah, the Jew under the law who had married a Gentile wife, had to put her away and her children. But the grace of Christianity changed all, and they were to abide with each other, if one only had believed in the Lord; Christians having been called to peace, the unbelieving husband being sanctified (ἡγίασται) by the wife and the wife by the husband, the children of such a marriage were not merely sanctified, but holy (ἄγιά); as having this character of relative holiness, it makes the case still more plain why God, in His grace, should accord them a place in His House where the Holy Spirit dwells — where their parents are, if even one of them was a believer: making them also subjects of the exhortations of the Holy Spirit, which belong to those who are “within” where He dwells; to be brought up there meanwhile in the discipline and admonition of the Lord, and the precepts of His House addressed to them. In due time they would have a place at the Lord’s table — this latter, of course, only belonging to those who are truly members of the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 teaches us that the Lord’s Supper has now the significance (as well as other features) of being the symbol of the unity of the body of Christ.

In bringing up his child in the discipline and admonition of the Lord, the Christian parent refuses for his child what he cannot allow for himself. Baptized unto death — the death of Christ — which proved the condition in which all lay (“if one died for all then were all dead,” 2 Cor. 5:14), he refuses to reinstate him in “the world,” in the status of the first man. He does not put him in the world of which Satan is the prince. He has to work and pass through it and he must do so in such a sphere in which he may “abide with God.” He refuses and disallows for his child all that as “dead with Christ” himself, he cannot allow for himself. He looks upon his child as in God’s house with himself, and there under the acknowledgment and recognition of the Lord, he brings him up under the yoke of Christ.

It is said that there is no command to baptize the children of Christians. To this I reply that there is no command to baptize believers as such either. The only command given was to baptize nations, having discipled them and I may safely say that there were children in them.

It is simply a question, are the houses of believers to be received “within” in Christ’s name, unto (into?) the House where the Holy Spirit dwells, or to be left “without” in a world where Satan governs? The parents had received them on the ground of nature, and they cannot present them to God on that ground —the death of Christ ends that. God can have nothing to do with man now, apart from the death and resurrection of Christ, except judicially, even in an outward way — all providential dealings of course excepted. They are received in Christ’s name into God’s House through baptism, and the parents accept the charge of them, as it were, from the Lord on totally new ground; to be brought up in God’s house under the yoke of Christ, in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. Then it is said — “Can we not do this without baptism?” I reply — “It is inconsistent to seek to do this with one hand while you have left them still on the ground of paganism with the other”. No doubt the children with or without it are relatively holy, but they are not Christians — nor are they formally in God’s House where the Holy Spirit dwells, until they are baptized.

Three points will now have been established, I trust, in the mind of the reader from the direct teaching of Scripture.

First: Baptism, as Scripture views it, is never the confession of, or witness to a state in which the baptized is already — the state may be there by real faith, but it never enters the thought of Scripture that baptism is the confession of it.

Second: It is the act of the baptizer, and one of administrative reception to privilege of the baptized, by those who are within.

Third: The houses of those who were received were also baptized, and the children of believers being holy, makes it still more plain why they should have a place in God’s House with their parents.

Difference of House and Body

In concluding my remarks I would add a little as to the difference and yet connection between the House of God and the Body of Christ.

At the first moment — that is, when the Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost, the house of God was constituted of those disciples who were together on that day, amongst whom collectively and in whom individually the Holy Spirit dwelt. Although the doctrine of the Body of Christ was not yet revealed, we know that at that moment the House and the Body were co-extensive. The revelation of the Body of Christ was kept in abeyance until after the Jews had refused the offer of the Holy Spirit by Peter that Jesus would return (Acts 3), and until they had sent the messenger — Stephen — after Him saying — “We will not have this man to reign over us” (Acts 7).

The first intimation of the truth of the Body of Christ we have in Saul’s conversion in the words, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4). In the opening of Acts 8, we read of the whole assembly at Jerusalem being scattered abroad everywhere except the apostles. Saul is converted to the truth of the union of the scattered ones with Christ. He calls them “Me,” — as when you tread on my foot I say “you have trodden on me.”

Now in the truth of the House, or Habitation of God, there is no thought of head, body, or union at all — but a place in which one dwells. One dwells in his house, but its walls are not united to him; whereas of his body he says, it is myself.

At the beginning all were, doubtless, members of Christ, but for one moment (a short time) only could this be said. All who came then were received by baptism into this House of God, and although wood, hay, and stubble might have come in afterward, it did not cease to be God’s House for the Holy Spirit did not leave it; and, in responsibility it remains the House upon earth where the Holy Spirit dwells. Of course, neither wood, hay, nor stubble enters into that which Christ builds. You get an analogous thought in John 2 when the Lord finds the temple a “house of merchandise,” or as in another place, “a den of thieves”; still He calls it His Father’s House. The House is still the House of God, although materials have entered in when man has built which Christ had not introduced.

The want of distinguishing between the House and the Body has brought in the confusion. Baptism of water was the mode of reception into the former, while the baptism of the Holy Spirit constituted the latter. Man soon began to attribute to the House the privileges of the Body of Christ. Hence in the professing Church they pronounced the child “incorporated into the mystical body of Christ” by baptism of water, and giving the Lord’s supper to all the House (or parish in a smaller sense), and to children as in the infant communion of the early Church, which only belongs to the members of Christ as the symbol of the unity of one Body (1 Cor. 10). In both cases the distinction was lost and confusion came in.

The word “assembly” is used in two ways in Scripture — the word “Church” is not to be found there. Substitute for “church” the true word “assembly,” and the meaning of much of what men say is gone. For instance, say instead of “Church of England” or “Church of Ireland”— “Assembly of England,” “Assembly of Ireland.” You may ask what is that? The meaning is gone at once. The word “assembly” is used in two ways: when we look at Christ on high, the assembly is His Body (Eph. 1); when we look below it is the professing body — the House or Temple (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Cor. 3, etc.).

If we look at what He forms, all is perfect and nothing can enter into it but what Christ builds, and what is united to Him.

If we look at the House that man builds (1 Cor. 3), there are many who have, so to speak, a sacramental relationship with Christ who, after all, will be lost — ordinances being no security for life.

In 1 Corinthians 10 the Apostle refers to the history of Israel who stood in an ordinancial relationship with Jehovah, partaking of initiatory and other privileges. Baptized to Moses in the cloud and sea — ate the same spiritual meat — drank the same spiritual drink — and yet many of them were overthrown. He deduces from their history lessons of warning to those who profess the name of Christ. He writes the epistle “To the Assembly of God at Corinth,” and embraces all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. Calling on the Lord in Scripture signifies profession. Of course, to be valid there must be life and faith. Many call Him Lord, Lord, whom He never knew (Matt. 7:21-23). He presses the necessity of there being reality as well as privileges, as the latter are no security of life.

It is within the House of God that Christians have to walk, apart from the iniquity and falsehood which abounds there “with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). There was no such distinction made at the first. Now the faithful are bound to do so, obedient to the Word of God and to the never-changing principle of the Church’s existence as one Body and one Spirit.

As to baptism, they should follow Paul in his use of it. He noted its importance in the place God had given it and used it, but was not sent to baptize (1 Cor. 1:17). His doctrine changed nothing as to it, though subsequent to Peter, and that of the twelve.

Appendix

1. As to Mark 16:16 being adduced to prove believers baptism, if the whole passage be read it refutes the thought. A believer, as we think and speak, is a saved person. Here it is the case of one who professes to have received the doctrines of Christianity. It says, “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” This shows he is not looked upon as saved already. It is here a question of a person refusing or not to become a Christian out of heathenism or Judaism.

2. After Paul has introduced the thought of the “habitation of God” in Ephesians 2:22, he at once runs on to responsibility — “endeavoring to keep,”&c., and you soon find (Eph. 6:1) children made the subject of the exhortations of the Holy Spirit — the precepts of the House being addressed to them. None can say these children are, or are not believing children without adding to Scripture. They have a place in His thoughts in the House where the Holy Spirit dwells.

3. If Scripture be studied it will be seen the remarkable way οικος and οικια are used. The former has a wider thought in it than the latter, though at times used interchangeably. In Attic law the οικος embraced all the man’s property and belongings — the οικια was what he dwelt in, and was specially connected with him. It is significant that the temple was called the οικος “My Father’s house” (John 2:16,20); but when the Lord speaks in John 14 of His dwelling on high, He uses the smaller thought — My Father’s οικια. Like the Holy of Holies in contradistinction to the temple itself.

In Acts 16 Paul baptized the οικος of Lydia; told the jailer his οικος would be saved, Acts 16:31, &c.; yet went in and spoke to the οικια Acts 16:32, and baptized (what in Attic law would be, I suppose, designated his οικος) — that is, “all his” straightway.

He says in 1 Corinthians 1:16 that he baptized the οικος of Stephanas, and yet we find in 1 Corinthians 16:15 it was the οικια of Stephanas that addicted itself to the ministry of the saints.

4. Some have a difficulty as to accepting the baptism, say of the various sects, by sprinkling, etc., and other informalities. We cannot but receive it or any baptism done under the bona fide profession of Christianity, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Suppose a person in all godly sincerity had been eating the Lord’s supper all his life with the bread cut up into morsels, and from the hands of a clergyman. We could not say he had never eaten the Lord’s supper. It was so to him. If he knew better as taught from Scripture and did not follow it, it ceased to be so to him. So with baptism — it was done however informally, but after all it was done, and we cannot undo the act now, so as to do it more correctly as better instructed from Scripture. There it stands, and the responsibility rests on those who did it.

The Ways of God: 2. the General Scope of the Dealings of God

With respect to this subject we will refer to three Scriptures:

1st, “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Gal. 4:4).

2nd, “In the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him; in whom also we have obtained an inheritance” (Eph. 1:10,11).

3rd, “And the angel... sware by him that liveth forever and ever... that there should be time (delay) no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished” (Rev. 10:6, &c.).

These three portions of Scripture mark out the great leading events or epochs of God’s dealings towards the world. The first of them is past; and the two others manifestly future. We shall now endeavor to ascertain from Scripture to what past dealings and ways of God the expression in Galatians refers — “When the fullness of the time was come.” We must, consequently, take a general glance at the past history of man, as revealed to us, from the beginning until that moment.

We turn to Genesis 1; 2, and there we find that God, having created the man and the woman in innocence, bestowed upon them the

Dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth — a joint universal dominion over all that God had created in this world. We pass on to Genesis 3, and there we find that Satan had come in and succeeded in overthrowing him from this universal Lordship, and that man had fallen under his power and become estranged from God. God had given to Adam in his state of innocency a law, upon the observance of which he was to retain the blessings and dominion he had received, in the condition in which he had been placed. The observance of this command of God — to avoid the eating of one tree in the garden — would have kept him as a creature in his proper place of subjection to God. It marked his responsibility as an intelligent creature to his Creation.

Adam, thus fallen, hears a promise that in due time the woman’s seed (which he was not) should bruise the head of Satan, who had thus brought man under judgment before God, and had thus overthrown man from this place of dominion through his subtlety. Adam, hearing of this promise made to the woman’s seed, passes out from the presence of God, and from a state into which he could never return. God “drove out the man,” and placed a barrier to prevent his access to the Tree of Life, and his return to the condition of innocence in which he had been placed at the beginning. Then begins the trial of man in this condition, which lasts about four thousand years, till the “fullness of the time was come.”

For about sixteen or seventeen hundred years of this time of testing, men are left to themselves (God always preserving a witness in the world for Himself) till the flood; when the earth was “corrupt before God, and... was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (Gen. 6:11, 12). The knowledge of God which men had, and the testimonies of creation, proving His eternal power and Godhead. Paul says, writing of this, “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse (Rom. 1:20).” So He said, “The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold I will destroy them with the earth (Gen. 6:13).” God brought in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, saving Noah, the eighth person, who had found grace in His sight. And the world that then was, being overflowed with water perished; and this ended the trial of man left to himself without law.

Noah and his family are saved through the judgment of the world; and we find him on the earth thus cleansed. Into his hand God places the sword of government — (Adam had lordship — Noah, government).

Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man” (Gen. 9:6). Noah, thus entrusted, began to be an husbandman, and planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was drunken. His younger son, Ham, came into his tent, and beheld the degradation of his father, who thus lost morally the place which God had given him. “The world had begun again on a new principle; which goes on until its judgment by fire. Peter writes, The world that then was, (that is before the flood,) being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens, and the earth which are now, by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:6,7).” A new principle now finds a place in the hearts of men. The worship of Demons began. When men knew God, “they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things (Rom. 1:21, &c.)”. Wherefore God gave them up to what they desired; and as man cannot do without something to rule his conscience and heart; if he has not God as above him, he will have something else. Satan gets this place, and man turns to the worship of devils. We learn this in Josh. 24:2. “Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood (properly “river”) in old time, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other God’s.” These gods were demons, as we read, “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God” (Deut. 32:17; 1 Cor. 10:20).

In such a state of things man’s heart became filled with self-will. Self-will which shows itself in independence of God, and would prove a center in itself, having lost that which linked it with Him as the only center of good. Men unite to make a common center of unity apart from God. “Let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth (Gen. 11).” This was expressed in the building of Babel. This meets its judgment from God; who goes down and scatters men abroad upon the face of the earth, giving restraint of the confusion of different tongues or languages, which has ever since proved a hindrance to this common purpose of man’s heart, preventing the intelligent interchange of his thoughts.

When the world had thus gone into idolatry, “and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever,” God separated to Himself one man — Abraham — and in him a family, a nation, — that is, Israel — that He might (amongst other governmental ways) place man under another test on new ground. In the course of time He separates, by a typical redemption, this nation from the world (Egypt,) to Himself: giving them, thus separated His Law; and eventually taking up His dwelling amongst them between the cherubim, on the ark of the covenant.

The law represented to man the test of his responsibility as a fallen child of Adam, and the authority of God. Ignorant of themselves, they accept it as the condition of their relationship with God — the lawgiver, Moses, goes up to mount Sinai to receive it, and before he returns to name the conditions, those who accepted them set up a golden calf and worshiped it as their God, and fail! (See Ex. 32.) God then puts the tables of the law into the hands of the mediator a second time, and adds to the conditions of pure law, the character of long-suffering and mercy, saying, “Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation (Ex. 34:6,7).” The history of Israel thus set on new ground, gives us the result of this fresh trial. It lasted till the captivity of Babylon. During that time of trial we hearken to the pleading voice of the prophets and messengers of God, striving to win back the rebellious people to the observance of the conditions of their relations with Him, and to keep the law that defined those conditions: but we hearken in vain to a national response from the people. This long-suffering and mercy goes on till they had exhausted it — till to allow it to go further would but show that God was careless as they about His name. At last it runs out; and we read in Hos. 1:6, as to Israel (the ten tribes) “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.” And again as to Judah, to whom was granted a further respite, “Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God” (Hos. 1:9). Man now gets a trial in another form. That of Israel had been at the beginning of their history, a pure theocracy, until they desired a king. After the history of the royalty of Israel and its failure, God removed the seat of His government from the center from which He had governed the world, while He owned Israel as His nation — He took away the glory or Shekinah, where He manifested His presence from their midst, and gave them up to captivity in Babylon. He then transferred the supreme power of the world into the hands of the Gentiles, beginning with Babylon. Universal despotic dominion is given unto the hands of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon::Thou, O King, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory; and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beast of the field, and the fowls of the heaven hath He given into thy hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all” (Dan. 2:37,38).

How then will he use it? Will it be to the glory and honor of Him from whom he had received it? The result is known. Lifted up in pride of heart, as soon as he had received the power, he makes of himself a center; and endeavors to make a religious and idolatrous center of unity apart from God; (see the golden image of Dan. 3) and casts the saints of God who witnessed for Him, into the burning fiery furnace. Lifted up in pride, he says, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?” (Dan. 4:30). He loses his moral reason and becomes a beast; thus typifying as their head, the power of the Gentiles in the whole period of their existence, till the “times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled.”

And now into this wilderness of the world, into the spot where God had fenced in His vineyard and planted His vine — “a wholly right seed” — that it might bring forth fruit. The vineyard of which He says, “What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?” (Isa. 5); and when He looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes, after all His care and culture, and became “the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me.” Into the moral wilderness of this world, and into that little spot on which He had bestowed such care, came His last trial for man. “Then said the lord of the vineyard, what shall I do? I will send my beloved Son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him (Luke 20:13-15).” The tale was soon told. They gave Him a cross, when He came to seek His crown. They gave Him spitting, when He came to seek for fruit! And thus ended the probation of man for four thousand years, under every form of trial. The fullness of the time was come (Gal. 4:4,5).

Man cannot now say that one single way was left untried of God — He is left without excuse. The fullness of the time was come, and God had sent forth His Son, who was so received. The Son had come to seek and to save that which was lost! He took the two-fold position: “made of a woman,” through whom sin had entered — “made under the law,” through which the Jew was under condemnation. His purpose was to redeem, by His death, them that were under the law, that those who believe, of both Jew and Gentile, might receive the adoption of sons — that God might display the exceeding riches of His grace towards those who were under sin and condemnation. He bore in Himself on the cross the judgment of God against and concerning sin, making good the righteous demands of the moral nature of God as to sin. Rising from the dead He becomes the Head of the new creation, and the One in whom all who believe, live; and “have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7).

To those who believe, God reveals His purpose; “that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him; in whom also we have obtained an inheritance (Eph. 1:10,11).” And when that time shall have come, the strong angel swears by Him that liveth forever and ever, that there should be time (delay) no longer, and that when the seventh angel should sound, the “mystery of God” should be finished (Rev. 10). When that sounding comes, we find the time has arrived to gather together in one all things in heaven and on earth, in Christ; and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of the Lord and His Christ in the days of the millennium. This glory, or kingdom is, as we shall see, the making good of all that has been ruined by the first Adam, in and by the second (last) Adam — the Lord Jesus; and will comprise the restored nation of Israel, again God’s earthly center; the Gentiles rejoicing with His people. And in the heavenly sphere of its glory, the saints will have their inheritance or joint-heirship with Christ, in His glorious reign over the world for the thousand years. “The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.”

During the interval between the “fullness of the time,” and the “dispensation of the fullness of times,” the mystery of God,” of Revelation 10, goes on. This is His non-intervention in open power) to set things in the world to rights; while He watches over all in secret —the time when He bears with long-suffering the evil, without judging it — when wickedness is in high places, and goodness trampled under foot — when falsehood triumphs, and truth is fallen in the streets. The Son, too, sits upon the Father’s throne, having overcome the world, in this anomalous state of things (Rev. 3:21). The testimony of the cross and rejection of Jesus, and His resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God — the gathering together, while He is hidden, of the joint-heirs — God’s secret work progressing, fitting the spiritual stones to His spiritual house. The Church of God suffers through this interval in outward brokenness and weakness in the “kingdom and patience of Jesus” — the “kingdom and power” will come. Judgment and government placed in the hands of the Gentiles is so far separated from righteousness, that when the only righteous Man stood before the judgment-seat of Pilate, owning that the power which was there was given of God, (“Thou couldest have no power at all, except it were given thee from above,” John 19), it condemned the guiltless. The time, too, of blindness for a season of the beloved people of Israel — a vail is over their face. Gentile domination goes on in the world. The great image of Dan. 2 has not yet received the blow upon its feet by the stone cut out without hands. The whole creation groans and travails in pain, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19-22). Satan goes about unrestrained, as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Jesus, rejected by the world, sits at God’s right hand, waiting till His enemies are made His footstool (Psa. 110; Heb. 10).

We must now retrace our steps for a little. We saw that man lost the headship and dominion given to him in Genesis 1;2. If we turn to Psalm 8, we shall find that there is a “Son of Man” on whom this dominion is bestowed. “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.” Who is this “Son of Man”? And where is this dominion to be exercised and enjoyed? Hebrews 2 answers us, “Unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the habitable earth to come (οικουμενη) whereof we speak; but one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownedst him with glory and honor; and didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou has put all things in subjection under his feet... We see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus... crowned with glory and honor.” It is the second (last) Adam — the Son of Man — to whom this headship is given. It is in an age to come this dominion is to be exercised and enjoyed. Meanwhile, when waiting for the assumption of this headship, He is “crowned with glory and honor.” We will now turn to Ephesians 1:19-23, to discover what work progresses while He is there. We find the apostle again quoting the same Psalm in verse 22. He speaks of the exceeding greatness of God’s power, which He wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body; the fullness of him that filleth all in all. We learn from this and other scriptures that while He is thus exalted and hidden from the world, a Church or Bride is being formed for Him out of Jew and Gentile; that God puts forth the same power that He used to raise Christ, as Man, from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand; (He was always the eternal Son, the word that was with God, and was God). That the same power is put forth to quicken with, raise up together, and seat together in Christ, in the heavenly places, the joint heirs, by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.

We find this Psalm (83) again used by the apostle in 1 Corinthians 15:27. There we learn that this dominion is taken by Christ at the resurrection of the saints from among the dead of which the chapter treats. Christ has been the “first fruits” of this “first resurrection”; they that are Christ’s (and they only) at His coming. When that day comes some shall not have been laid to sleep by Jesus; but all — living or dead — shall be raised or changed. The dead raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. It is then that God will gather together all things, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, in Christ; and when the saying shall be brought to pass, “death is swallowed up hi victory” (1 Cor. 15:54; Isa. 25:8). God then brings in the blessing of the habitable earth, in the judgment of the world or the quick (the living), as we find largely brought before us in this and its kindred passages or content of the prophets. And the kingdoms of this world shall then become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ. “When the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.”

We find this, to speak for a moment in general terms, in Isaiah 24-27. The world and its systems brought under judgment, and reeling to and fro like a drunkard under the judgment of God (Isa. 24: 20). The hosts of the high ones on high (Isa. 24:21) are cast out and restrained. Satan and his hosts cast out of the heavenlies (Rev. 12), having so long deceived and hindered the earth’s blessing from God. The kings of the earth (Isa. 24:21) shall be punished on the earth when they are gathered together against the King of kings and Lord of Lord’s (Rev. 19). This universal judgment makes way for the establishment of His throne in Zion. “In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined” (Isa. 25). He will remove the vail of idolatry that is spread over all nations; He will take away the rebuke of the remnant of His people Israel who have waited for his intervention. During this judgment “He is a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.” The Lord subdues the pride of the terrible enemies of His people, and gives them songs of deliverance in the land of Judah. “We have a strong city, salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks” (Isa. 26). These three chapters are of exceeding beauty, showing what the Lord will do at that day, when the saying is brought to pass — “Death is swallowed up in victory” — or in other words, the time of the first resurrection. All things that had been marred and destroyed in the hands of the first Adam, shall be more than made good in the last Adam — the Son of God. He takes the headship of Psalm 8 not only by right, but by redemption, as the inheritance had fallen under the power of the enemy through man’s sin. The joint-heirs will then enjoy unitedly with Him this headship in the heavenly glory, and the name of the Lord shall he excellent in all the earth: not only as King in Zion, at “the times of the restitution of all things, which God bath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world begun.”

To conclude, we see that man has destroyed himself; every fresh trial and deeper privilege only proving how complete has been his ruin and failure. He has sinned away every blessing as soon as he had received it; but God will make good in a far higher sense, and to His own glory, everything that man has ruined, and under which he has failed, in the last Adam — in Christ! The period which we have considered as to man’s trial embraces the time from the garden of Eden to the cross — the rejection of God himself in the person of Christ. We shall see, in considering the other subjects, this humiliating, yet necessary discovery, more clearly brought out in detail.

True, that man was as really lost and ruined at the day of Genesis 3, as when he rejected and crucified Christ Himself, but it was the cross which brought nut definitely the enmity of his heart to God and good. Before the cross there was no distinct demonstration of this. He had failed in many a patient trial from God; but his ruined state was fully proved, when God, gentle, human, loving, full of grace and truth, came into his midst, and was rejected in the person of Jesus Christ!

Lessons for the Wilderness: Preface

The thoughts in these papers were written during a long sea voyage from Great Britain to Melbourne, in 1882. The writer trusts that the Lord may use them for edification and blessing, and for His own glory. Wellington, N.Z. April, 1883.

Lessons for the Wilderness: 1. Initiatory Lessons

In the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (ch. 10; 11), we are told that the incidents which happened to God’s earthly people, Israel, contain special lessons for our own souls. “They were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.” “The things which happened to them, happened for types,” and are used for us to that end. As Christians, therefore, we come in under the final dealings of God before the Lord comes; and judgment will then take its course. The Lord stays that solemn day of reckoning with the world, whilst gathering out of it a people for His name. When that action of His Grace closes, the day of the judgment of the Quick has arrived, by which He will cleanse His kingdom from all things that offend and from them that do iniquity, and will bring in that day of blessing, long looked for in the Millennial earth.

Before touching upon the Lessons for the Wilderness presented in these “things which happened to them,” I desire to say a little on the preparation of the People and their deliverance, which placed them in the Wilderness as a place of trial and exercise of heart, for Forty Years. I desire to do so, because there are so many of God’s people who do not stand in the consciousness of His full salvation. There is a feeling at times in their souls, which they would hardly like to admit or to analyze, that all is not well. It may be an undefined sense of hesitancy when they challenge their own hearts, or are challenged by others; a feeling which they cannot well account for nor define, but still there it is. The truth is, they have never reached the fact of their own hopeless ruin and guilt in the sight of God. Were this so, we would not find such thoughts intruding at all. The heart turns back upon its experiences, which haunt it even in its brightest moments, and they feel that all is not as it should be.

I am sure there is in such a state of soul, the want of being candid and open with God (at the bottom). There is an effort to conceal or to gloss over these moments; to forget them, until they make their unpleasant companionship painfully felt. What I mean by being candid and open with God is this: that we have never fallen down before Him and poured into His ear the truth of these unhappy experiences which are shut up in our hearts, and sought His grace to remove them forever.

Have you, my reader, ever gone, in the secret solemn moments of intercourse with God, and told out to Him this marring hindrance to your full peace and joy? Possibly you may never have done so — and yet perhaps you hope it will come right some day, and thus the harassing thought has never been brought out between your soul and God. No wonder, then, you are not free.

Do not expect, with such fancied concealment on your part, that God will pass such over, and give you to enjoy His grace all the same. Of course I am well aware He knows all about it. So does the parent who is aware that his child carries an unhappy secret in his heart. But he longs, too, that the child should open his heart and bring forth the secret (which the parent knows), and talk to him about it in the confidence which love inspires, for love truly known always inspires confidence. It is impossible to love a person truly without confiding in him.

But to return. What a wonderful thing it is to have self, with its sins and backslidings, its fear of death as its wages, and of God’s judgment at its end, all cleared away; and God, in His perfect love, taking possession of the whole vision of the soul! How free then is the spirit of the child of God. What rest then does he enjoy. How the Spirit of God witnesses with his spirit that he is a child. There is no painful questioning whether or not such is the case; but there is the freely flowing testimony of God’s Spirit with his that this is a clearly-settled thing. All is free and bright between him and God. His will is broken: he submits himself; he drops into the arms of love, and rests in the grace that saves. He worships and adores without effort and without check; and his heart goes out freely without a thought to God of self. The Lord is before his soul; both in what He has done, and what He is.

Let us now look back somewhat on the things which happened to Israel.

They were slaves in Egypt. Here was both their condition and position before Him — in bondage as to the one, and on the other in the territory where Satan ruled. We may ask the question here, What does Egypt signify? Just as Syria, and the Wilderness, and Canaan, have their spiritual and typical meaning, so has Egypt. It is not man in nature as God made him; nor is it man in nature fallen (that is Syria). Egypt is man in nature, fallen, and captive under the power of the enemy. Hence an Israelite redeemed and in the possession of the land, coming to worship the Lord with his basket of firstfruits, should own this as his former state and say, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: and when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression: and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut. 26:5-7). Man in nature had fallen, and he was under the enemy’s power; God alone could now deliver.

But first He must show that He had interposed. Israel groaned by reason of her taskmasters; but Israel’s groans were groans of misery, not cries to Him who alone could help. For when his Deliverer came, Israel would have none of Him: Moses must be refused. Israel must reject her Savior, as well as Egypt refuse his claim. When this was so, and that “boasting could be excluded” in all — then and then only will He interfere. We never really know the Gospel, until we see that we have rejected Christ!

This is the state of things in Exodus 2. God’s Deliverer appears now for the first time. Affection for His people was the spring that moved his soul! “It came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel” (Acts 7:23). “He spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren,” and he “slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.” Again he went out the second day, and seeing two men of the Hebrews striving together, he said unto him that did the wrong, “Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?” “But he that did his neighbor wrong, thrust him away, saying, ‘who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?’ For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not.” Then Moses fled away: the figure of a rejected Christ.

There is now another thing which must be established ere we learn fully the Gospel. We have had in chapter 2 a rejected Christ in figure, now in Exodus 3 we have the “strange sight” which Moses turned aside to see, at the back-side of the desert, after his forty years. “The Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush; and he looked and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt!

Let us repeat this expression of wonder — “Why the bush is not burnt!” Let us put it in another form, if we may; and say, “How can God, who is a ‘consuming fire,’ burning up all that is contrary to His Holy Being, reveal Himself without consuming?” Here was the grand question, Can He “who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,” have to do with man otherwise than by judgment in righteousness? Yes; most surely He can and has done so; He has revealed Himself in Christ! And Grace now reigns, through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord! Such is the gospel. The very foundation of all is this imperishable basis. And mark well, beloved reader, it is as the God of resurrection, He thus interferes (Luke 20:37). This great fact comes out plainly in the Lord’s reply to the Sadducees. He says, “Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Here, then, we find a marvelous group of divine principles clustering together, for the spiritual mind. A rejected Christ, and the God of Resurrection, revealing Himself through Grace in righteousness, as the foundation of the Gospel! Who could have conceived such a group of truths, here in type presented to us, but One who is divine and whose Book is divine?

But when we turn to the New Testament — to the Antitype, what wonders there await us! In the Epistle to the Romans — where the soul’s great questions are settled for each one individually, we find the deep foundations laid in these very truths. That Epistle begins with a rejected Christ. We read of “The gospel of God... concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, (which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh); and declared the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead” (Rom. 1:1-4). Here we have the Heir of David according to the flesh, cast out and slain; but raised from the dead by the God of resurrection. And when the apostle would tell us of the great work which flows from this, he adds, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is God’s righteousness revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:16,17). Here then we have the group of divine reality — which we meet in type in the book which first unfolds redemption.

Surely this must be so: God’s principles, whether taught us by types or facts, are always the same. How much more precious, of course, are the facts — it is on these we rest. The types edify and confirm the soul which is settled on the never-changing facts. It is there our souls may rest assuredly. We are not called to rest on promises as to these things. The truths of the Gospel are facts — divinely attested and satisfying to God and to him who rests there.

Lessons for the Wilderness: 2. Initiatory Lessons

When we come, further on in this book, to examine the details from the night of the Passover until the morning of praise (Ex. 12-15), we find that all are based upon these opening thoughts of Exodus. The details give us the varied features of the great facts of redemption, as learned by each soul and entered upon by faith. They are faith’s lessons, laying hold of what the Gospel is. The former great truths are really the work for us; and the learning of such is the work in us, by which we enter on and realize all that God has done in Christ.

Next comes the first great initiatory lesson for the soul, with whom God is about to deal. (Ex. 3:14) When Moses would come to Israel, and they would say to him, “What is his name?” “What (said he) shall I say unto them?” “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” Now, here is the first thing for the soul’s acceptance — God is! He is not afar off, but near. One out of whose presence we cannot escape. One in whose presence we ever are. Do we act on this as if we believed it, my friends? Does the poor fool who says in his heart, “There is no God,” believe this? How do his actions speak in reply? Just in this solemn way — that they are performed without reference to God at all! Who could sin with impunity, consciously in the presence of God? Not even the most depraved. He dare not commit his iniquity there. But his life is formed upon the principle that there is no God. He does not say this with his lips; but his heart says it. He would love to think that his desire is true, and that when he died he would be as the beasts that perish and cease to be.

Here I would pause on that solemn thought — the heart of man! “The Law” says of it, “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, is only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). The “Prophets” testify, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). The “Psalms” bear witness that “The fool saith in his heart, there is no God” (Psa. 14:1). The “Gospels” —in the words of Jesus, record that “Out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21,22). And the “Epistles” tell us the same, in words of even deeper import. “The Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts” (Eph. 4:17,18). It is the one universal testimony of every section of the Word of God.

But as the “heart” of man is the spring of evil, so it is the channel for good; and when cleansed of God it is where “Christ may dwell.” “Out of its abundance,” for good or evil, it “speaks.” “With the heart man believes unto righteousness;” it is “purified by faith”; the “pure in heart see God.” It “cleaves with purpose of heart to the Lord.” God’s love is shed abroad in it. It is a good thing that it be established in grace. When God said, “Seek ye my face,” my heart said, “Thy face Lord will I seek.” God would say too, “My son give me thine heart.”

But we must return to this initial lesson of the soul. God reveals Himself as the great “I AM,” the self-existing God, beside whom there is none. Let us act according to this revelation, and act always so as to prove that we believe it. There is none who can say, “I am that I am” but He. Where is the man who is not double-minded at times? Does he tell me all that is in his heart? Nay; not even to his best beloved on earth! Paul as a saved one can say “by the grace of God I am what I am.” I am what grace has made me. But even he cannot say “I am that I am.”

Blessed be God there is a Man of whom God hath said this, even when under the very wrath of the Cross. But He stands in this alone, as in all else beside. When He cried, out of those mighty depths, “He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days; I said, O God, take me not away in the midst of my days,” what was the reply? It was then the glory of the self-existing One is expressed; “Thy years are throughout all generations. Of old thou hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art [see Hebrew and Greek] and thy years shall have no end” (Psa. 102:23-27 and Heb. 1:10-12 and 13).

What then must be the first expression of the soul which has to do with God? It exclaims “God is!” “He that cometh unto God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6). God says of Himself, “I am.” He says to Jesus, as Man in weakness, “Thou Art”; and the believing soul bows in faith saying, “He is!” This is the grammar of divine realities!

We see the result of this in Exodus 4:29-31. We find in those verses a lovely expression of the sinner’s true attitude when first he has to do with God as a Savior; when he has been seized with the reality of God before his conscience. He has not yet learned His work of Grace, nor has he experienced aught but the great fact that God has interfered. “God has visited the children of Israel.” “He has heard them; He has looked on their affliction.” What deep soul trouble might be saved were those two points grasped with a firm and mighty tenacity! “God is”; and “God has visited us, and looked upon our affliction!”

What now is the soul’s true response to these things? “Then they bowed their heads and worshipped!” This was faith’s obedience. It was not obedience to a claim from Him. It was not obedience to the law. It was not the obedience of love. Obedience to the law owns God’s authority. The obedience of love is the soul’s service of gratitude to Him who loves us. The former may honor His authority; the obedience of love may express the devotedness of a heart to Him. But nothing can honor God like the “obedience of faith.” It accepts the fact that He has revealed Himself as a Savior.

What a pity that this lovely expression should be obscured by a weak rendering in that most excellent of all translations, our honored and beloved English Bible. If we refer to the two passages where only it is found (namely Rom. 1:5 and 16:26), we see how much we lose in not having the true thought given us. After unfolding the substance of the Gospel, as in the person of Christ, the apostle turns (Rom. 1:5) to his own connection with it: “By whom (he says) we have received grace and apostleship for obedience of faith among all nations, for his name.” The Gospel is thus presented for obedience of faith. The other passage represents the Church — the mystery as revealed also for obedience of faith. Paul’s two-fold ministry, as many are aware, is thus presented.

Now this was faith’s obedience in Israel. God had revealed the fact that He had interfered, and faith accepted this without a “but” or a doubt! This is refreshing to the soul. Would that we saw such now-a-days.

But mark, now, that if in Israel we see that blessed effect of the news through Aaron, we see the opposite effect in Pharaoh — this man who solemnly witnesses to the terrible fact that God hardens those who harden themselves against Him. He shuts them up to that which they desire. “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness” (ch. 5:1). Be (as it were) a fellow-worker with God to that blessed end. What then was the reply of Pharaoh? What the reply of many who hear the testimony of grace, day after day? “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?” Terrible reply of a soul who has never stood in aught but unbelief and defiance before Him. “I know not the Lord.” Thus speaks the pride of man, who hardens his neck against the Blessed God — “I know Him not.” For these two things God will take vengeance when Christ returns. He will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels — taking vengeance on them that know not God; and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ”; and “who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day” (2 Thess. 1:9, 10).

Lessons for the Wilderness: 3. Preparation for the Journey

I pass over the “signs and wonders, in the land of Ham” and the varied compromises of the enemy. I come now to the moment when all was approaching that solemn night of judgment: that crisis when all was brought to the final test; and every pleading voice was hushed in the dark and terrible night of judgment.

Yet God would not strike, without a warning word, even those who had hardened their necks against Him. Moses conveys this last and final testimony to Pharaoh in these words — “Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maid servant that is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more” &c. (Ex. 11:4-6). The voice was heard for the last time, but never to be repeated.

O the solemnity of those “last words” of God at times to souls! The like perhaps had often been spoken in the ears of those who have refused them; but they little calculated that they never more should be heard. “The day of visitation” was past, and Egypt knew it not. This was her condemnation. The helm of the ship was put “up” or “down”; her course was changed, the voice was unheeded, and then she rushed on to her final doom! In the midst of judgment Pharaoh sought to flee from the Lord (Ex. 14:25). It was now too late to flee to Him. And the day is fast approaching when the great men, and the mighty men of the earth will call upon the rocks to fall upon them and mountains to cover them, as they seek to flee, with souls guilt-stained forever, from the face of Him that sits upon the throne, and from the Lamb; because the great day of His wrath was come, and none would be able to stand (Rev. 6:15-17).

I must not dwell on the chapters which follow. Suffice it that a few words may be said to lead us to the moment when Israel sang the song of Moses and of victory!

At midnight God would pass through the land in judgment; in the evening Israel were to slay the Lamb. There are two striking points before us as to the people here. First: their history would now begin with God; as He said, “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months.” And next: the blood of the Lamb, and it alone, could answer His claim. Here we learn in type two things — so frequently presented to us in the New Testament Scriptures. We find them in the Lord’s discourse to Nicodemus in the third chapter of the Gospel of John.

(1) “Ye must be born again,” said the Lord to this man of the Pharisees; and

(2) “The Son of man must be lifted up.” This new birth would be to him, as to Israel, “The beginning of months.” All before this was ignored; God would have none of it. And then again, “Take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood,... and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood”; “And when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” “And the people bowed the head and worshiped.” This was not the grand and solemn rite of the Day of Atonement, when blood was placed on the Throne of God. It was not a scene where the High Priest alone —standing for God, wrought that great work for Him, as for the people. Not so; every individual soul whose house was in that land was active ere this solemn moment of judgment arrived. Each should slay the Lamb himself; each should personally and individually appropriate the blood as his only shelter from the sword of the destroyer. Here it was that each one entered upon and learned and appropriated that precious work of Christ. The moment the eye of each saw that blood flowing from the slain Lamb, and his hand grasped the bunch of hyssop — emblem of his soul’s humiliation — and the truth of his repentance, and sprinkled the blood, he re-entered his house, sure and certain that he was sheltered with what God had accepted and that which alone would meet the destroying angel’s sword. God’s provision and God’s own acceptance of it were the ground of his unchanging peace. This was faith: faith in God’s provision to meet His own demands: faith in His certain promise that all was well — all depended on this. Impossible that God could look on him other than white as snow. Why was this? Because He would never despise the value of the blood of Christ.

The night of terror came, and there was heard in Egypt “A great cry”; “for there was not an house where there was not one dead.” The firstborn was dead in every unsheltered house: the Lamb in every house which was sheltered by its blood! Judgment had been passed on all; the Lamb had borne it for the people of God. Egypt had borne it for themselves. Each was irrevocable, and its issues never changed.

I desire my reader’s reply to a question. Do you believe that that precious blood has been shed; has been presented to God by Jesus? Do you believe it has met His claims? Is this enough for you? Has it met your need? I ask you to answer this question in conscience before God; and when it is answered, I ask you to rest on that blessed and eternal fact. Never more can your sins be imputed to you. Never more can that blood be shed; never more can it be presented to God. All has been done, once and forever. Its efficacy remains eternally the same; you are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot — foreordained indeed before the foundation of the world, but manifest in these last times for you. By Him we believe in God Himself: who not only gave His Son for us, but when His Son had died, He raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God (compare 1 Peter 1:18-21).

What part had they in all that had gone before? Just but one small link which was only to their shame. “The bunch of hyssop,” — the humiliation of their soul— bringing each down to the very spot to which all that work applied, the link which appropriated all that was provided; the touch of faith of the hem of the garment of Christ!

Here I would remark, that there may be no misapprehension as to the import of the type, that in no way does hyssop point to Christ. It is remarkable that whenever the Lord is presented in Himself alone in type in Scripture, we never find this symbol mentioned. See the early chapters of Leviticus, where all those varied offerings of sweet savor, and for sin and trespass, are passed in review; no mention of hyssop is found there. But the moment we find an offering where the sinner is seen appropriating it, or being placed under its value, to cleanse or to restore — there we find the hyssop. We have noted this when Israel appropriated the Paschal blood. We see it when the leper is cleansed, (Lev. 14) when the unclean is restored (Num. 19). We learn it in the words of a soul in the depths of humiliation about its sin in Psalm 51, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean,” but never when Christ in His perfect blessedness appears.

Lessons for the Wilderness: 4. Preparation for the Journey

However, Israel must not only be sheltered in the place of judgment; but he must be redeemed out of the place of death. Without this last all was incomplete; until this was done they still stood in the old place of bondage, and there was no song of praise. All was silence on the Paschal night; “every mouth was stopped and all the world guilty before God.” There was no communion with the Judge. They were delivered from His claims on that solemn night. They must now be delivered from the claims of the Enemy; they must therefore be removed from the place of death where Satan’s power held sway. They must be delivered from the fear of death, through which they had been all their lifetime held in bondage (Heb. 2). The “midnight” of judgment had now passed, but another “night” of anguish must be endured; and the “morning watch” must come, when the Lord would look out unto the host of the Egyptians to trouble them; and the sea must return to his strength, as the “morning” itself appeared. Israel could then sing songs of deliverance because they were saved that day out of the hand of their enemies! (Compare Ex. 14:20, 24, 27, 30.)

How many souls (and thank God that there are so many), who know this shelter from judgment to come, but have never realized, nor even heard of, the full results of redemption. They have never in conscience left the old status in which they stood as sinners. How many there are who could say, “I am a poor sinner, and the blood of the cross is my only hope”; who could not say, “I am a poor saint, but the judgment seat of Christ is the resting place of my soul.”

Now here it is where souls are often feeble indeed. They have no soul deliverance at all. Israel has started with their kneading troughs on their shoulders, and their unleavened dough; but they have not left the land of slavery. They come to Pi-Hahiroth (“the gate of liberty”) only to find it a place of anguish and fear.

Oh, my beloved reader, hearken to one who knows it well, in my dwelling somewhat on that most common state of soul amongst the children of God. I refer to that want of liberty to avoid the evil and do the good; that want of freedom from self, which so mars the service, and worship, and joy of souls. How often have we come together to read Scripture, and we have drifted from some bright and blessed theme, to what we so well know as the sate of soul in Romans 7. Why is this? Alas, because souls are not free! I remember once at a reading, one being asked, in a reply to a question on that chapter, “If he was ever dissatisfied with himself. “ How quickly was the reply given affirmatively to the question. “What (said the speaker) does that prove?” “Simply that you are not free — not yet done with self at all.” he had never fully exchanged self for Christ before God, both to break the bonds of evil under which they writhed; and to bring forth the fruits of good which they longed to perform.

God would have us find Him both the Deliverer from the thralldom of the one, as well as the Strength by which alone, as working in our weakness, we can do the other. God has accepted Christ, both as to what He has done, and what He is, for what flesh in us has done, and what self is. Here faith rests. But faith is not always simple; we hearken to the suggestions of our own hearts, and faith gets clouded and dim. The fact is we have not yet bowed to the great truth that we are dead unto sin in Christ! Here then, is the difficulty.

There are two great parts in learning the salvation of God. First: that “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures,” and second: that we have died to sin in Him. We must learn both in order to be free. A soul exercised and convicted of its sins and guilt, on hearing the first of these great truths rejoices in the news and is sensible of forgiveness through His blood. Yet after a time when it begins to learn the evil of its nature, which is unchanged, it passes through far deeper exercises in another way, and the struggle begins — a struggle lasting often for years of bitter anguish; yet never at the same time losing what it had first learned of the work of Christ. Taught of God in this, He does not ignore what the soul has received, while leading on to further light. It was a question of faith in His precious blood which brought forgiveness for its sins. Now it comes to a question of experience, which always contradicts in us what God testifies. This is a striking and marked effect of the Spirit of God working in a soul. The testimony of the Spirit for us, as in Christ, contradicts that of His testimony in us, as of ourselves. How then are both testimonies to be reconciled? The soul must be passed through experiences of the most bitter kind, so as to have its confidence in self broken. It must be reduced experimentally to that sense of powerless inability to deal with what it finds within, or to do that which is well pleasing in the sight of God, and to learn to look to Christ alone and at self no more forever. All this is not learned in a moment, though Christ’s work is known in bearing our sins.

In short, beloved reader; it is the effort of the soul, which having begun with Christ for forgiveness of its sins; now seeks to carry on the work, of which it still finds the need, in its own supposed strength. It would now quell this evil working of flesh, curb that propensity, reduce into order an evil nature, which may not show itself outwardly in the form of sins, yet works inwardly to the deep anguish of the soul, and with all this, it desires and tries to do what pleases Him.

Have we never experienced this? Have we never found this “law of sin in our members, warring against the law of our mind,” and instead of giving us liberty, bringing us into captivity to its power? Take an evil temper for instance. One finds it part of our very being and so wound round our heart that although it may not show itself to others, it embitters the soul to its possessor — than which there is hardly any experience less easy to endure. We think we have power to deal with its workings; we strive, we pray about it, we cry to God; yet no answer comes. We see that it is not a Christian state that it should be unconquered there. We are at our wits’ end, and find no issue. What would not the soul give at such a moment, to break its bonds and be free? Trial after trial is put forth to snap the cords that bind us; they chafe our souls and remain unbroken. Effort after effort fails, as each is put forth to produce the good we long to do, yet we find it not. Service, if we are called upon to serve, is labor and sorrow. Perhaps we may have to conceal this bitterness in our own bosom rather than stumble others whom we would serve. Perhaps too our pride sustains us, and we bear our anguish alone. We put on a fair face to those around with this canker in our heart untold. The Enemy presses upon us; we find no escape. What more fitting cry can burst forth from the inmost experience of our soul than that furnished us by God’s Spirit — “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24).

Alas, having begun with Christ, we then thought to carry on the rest ourselves — we supposed we had strength — have we not? At last we have come to the point, when we cease to struggle. Surrender becomes victory, and we are free! We may not at the moment be able to define how the soul has emerged into this liberty, but there is holy calm. We have learned one salutary lesson: we never got out of our bitter anguish, until we found we could not; that Christ would not help us, but that He can deliver. We ceased to struggle, we dropped our efforts, we turned away hopelessly from self; our eye was turned to Him Who died and rose; we learned that we too had died in Him, and we are free! Simple faith could never have brought us to that condition. Self must be, in experience, broken in all its pretentiousness; whether as to freeing itself from the bondage of evil, or as to the strength to work that which is good. It is a saint who learns “that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing.” Surely, one might suppose that although as sinners there was no good thing, or acceptable, performed by us — still that as saints there would now be some good found. Perhaps we unconsciously acted as if this were so. We supposed we now had power. But the lesson had been forced home by humiliating experience and failure on our souls, that even as saints no good thing can be found in us, nor ever can be; and that our efforts to bring forth good are but the denial that this is so.

“Ye are dead,” the Spirit says of us; but Experience says “impossible”; until forced to learn it thus; and faith bows in liberty to this great deliverance and reckons itself dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11, with Col. 3:3).

In our typical chapters in Exodus, we see all this in some measure (12-15), but there is one point which deserves special notice here. You will remark that before this night of anguish was pressed upon Israel’s soul in Exodus 14, “The Pillar of Cloud” came down to be with them and to lead and guide. This points in type to a most important element in the history of the soul. It is this — that in the state of soul which we have just commented upon — the Spirit of God, as a seal, may be there, all the time. Nay, I would press the fact that it is so. Some would seek to have it that the Spirit could not be there until deliverance was known; to such I would reply, you are making the slate of soul of the person — that which God seals with His Spirit, and not the value of the precious blood of Christ in which it stands. A person passes at times through much of the very experiences we have touched upon, and yet has never lost the sense of what he possessed, before he entered upon them. He knew his sins were forgiven through the precious blood shedding of Christ, and it was this — the value of the blood — which God sealed. The oil, or Spirit, was always put first on the blood, not on the man, when the leper was cleansed (Lev. 14:17). To this agrees all the teaching of the Word of God, whether of the types in the OT or the examples or doctrines in the New.

The Paschal blood having been shed in Egypt, and before the people stood on the sands of the wilderness — God had come down to be with them. This was in type the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the blood of Christ having prepared the way, a witness to and seal of its value in which they stood.

I do not further dwell on the experience of Israel in what followed. We have touched on that of souls in the antitype already. I would only add that Israel too must taste the bitter waters of death to every hope from themselves. They too must “stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” The Lord must fight — not they! The Lord must speak — they must hold their peace! They must cease to struggle, and the Lord must think for them.

How strikingly the contrast is seen between Exodus 14:10 and Psalm 78:53! In the former we read, “the Egyptians marched after them, and they were sore afraid”! In the latter — “And he led them on safely, so that they feared not; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.” In the former we see the weakness of man exposed, but in the latter the thoughts of God as to the new man revealed!

Does not this lead us to a happy conclusion so often taught us in the word; that God looks at the soul in whom He is working by His Spirit, as marked out for acceptance in Christ even at the very moment when He is forced to pass it through the deepest pressure, that the evil of the flesh may be known? And its powerlessness to cope with it experimentally learned? How dearly did Joseph love his brethren! How earnestly did he prepare their hearts to learn this, at the very moment when he was speaking roughly to them, and putting them in ward! Believe it, my brethren, there is no exercise of soul through which we pass, but which has its bright and glorious end, when we shall learn if we do not even now, what God’s end is.

Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and ye have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy (James 5:11).

The Red Sea does not in type go further than their death to all their foes. I look at these chapters, as before noticed, rather as the people learning experimentally and in detail the value of the work of Christ. Just as in the New Testament Christ’s work was done in the Gospels on the cross; while in the Epistles, the details of its value are taught us. Naught but death in them could deliver from him that had the power of death, nor lead them out of the place of judgment and this too by leading them into it! They pass down into death (in figure); and once there the enemy’s power is stayed. They are not said to “come up” out of the Red Sea; for this we must have the Jordan. “Going down” and “coming up” are terms in Scripture, which each apply only to Egypt and Canaan; not to the Wilderness, nor to the Red Sea..

Lessons for the Wilderness: 5. The Threefold Chord of Praise

Exodus 15 is the first song ever sung — which we hear of in the Word of God! Never had souls stood in the consciousness of God’s salvation before this time. We search in vain in the Book of Genesis for a record of redemption. We know, of course, how trustfully the patriarchs walked with God and rested in His promises; but we do not read of their songs of praise. They walked with Him as an accepted people walk; and no question was raised of a condition from which it needed the power of redemption to deliver. The first song bursts forth from the heart of Israel, with its threefold note of praise. We may expect to find therefore in this song, which inaugurated these dealings of the Lord in salvation, God’s true thoughts of the order of praise.

Exodus 19:4, gives us the comment of God on this chapter and on the great work celebrated there. We read, “I bare you on eagles’ wings and brought you unto myself.” This is the foremost thought in the salvation of God. It was not that eventually they might not learn that that same work had brought them to their longed-for Land. Nay: it was the basis of every blessing onward to the end.

But we would not for a moment admit that a soul who had realized its being in “heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” was more fully brought to God than at the shores of the Red Sea. Of course it is quite true that there was much to learn and to realize, and there might not be that full sense of a heavenly portion in one who had sung this song, as in one who had traversed the Land and had taken possession of all upon which the sole of his foot had trodden. But I would have my reader be careful not to weaken the grand fact that in what is typified by the Red Sea for us, we are brought to God Himself!

This is seen most clearly in the book of the wilderness, which is so sweetly full of grace — the First Epistle of Peter.

There we are in the wilderness most distinctly, for he does not lead us to our “heavenly places in Christ.” In 1 Peter 3:18, we read, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” Not, remark, to Canaan, or heavenly places, but “to God.” This exactly fits the expression in tile antitype, “I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.” This is just as it should be. We may and doubtless shall, get all that follows, but the first great thing is this”: we are brought to God.” Nothing can add to this for us.

There is a lovely allusion to this in Deut. 32:11; and to the figures of what the “eagles’ wings” signify. Indeed the gospel of the glory speaks in this figure with great significance. In this grand and touching passage we read, “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him (Israel), and there was no strange God with him!” The Lord asked Job (39:27-29),

Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off.

On the crag of rock, inaccessible to man, she builds her nest, and rears her young. The time arrives when she would teach her young ones to gaze upon the sun, and soar from the rock themselves. Then she “stirreth up her nest and fluttereth over her young.” The young ones must dare the space mid-air below, and she flings them off the rock! They flutter and sink down toward the abodes of man. They near the fowler’s arrow. She swoops in her might of wing from the height above, she “spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings.” The fluttering eaglet rests its pinions on the tried strength of the parent wing; the fowler’s dart can reach the eaglet’s life only through her own. Thus she teaches them to soar, and rise and gaze, as none other can but she, on the bright and glorious sun. Thus we are taught as “the way of an eagle in the air” (Prov. 30:19) to walk above the world and to gaze on Christ on high, sure that as He lives we live also. We learn too that “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint (Isa. 40:31).” But in this first song of praise; we find three distinct notes of harmony. How frequently these are reversed. Yea, even the last note taken up, and the rest forgotten! This should not be. When at the first, certain things come before us in Scripture, such initiatory references give us the roots of those varied branches and developments that follow. Some would suppose that the first thing for which we should praise is our own blessing. Gratitude for the love that has so fully saved — should cause the saved one’s heart to praise.

Let us rather see in what order these notes of thanksgiving flow from Israel’s heart that day.

(1) The first is — “the Lord”! So much is self forgotten that the Deliverer alone is seen! This is as it should be. “Sing ye unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea! The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name! (Ex. 15:1, 2, 3).” How blessed, yet how simple. How profound, and yet how suited was the first note from the redeemed! How glorious would be the gatherings of His people, were their souls so free that He were the burden of their song! Not the mere effort that such should be, but the full heart telling out His blessedness! Out of its abundance pouring forth its praise!

(2) Next we have the Enemy! Those forces of might whom He had subdued! (Ex. 15:4-12). “Pharaoh and his hosts hath he cast into the sea... the depths have covered them; they sank into the bottom as a stone. Thy right hand hath dashed in pieces the enemy... Thou didst blow with the wind, the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters.”

(3) And last of all they turn to their own portion — the blessedness and inheritance of the people whom the Lord had redeemed (Ex. 15:13-17). “Thou hast led forth the people whom thou hast redeemed; thou hast guided them in thy strength into thy holy habitation.”

These are the three notes of praise. Here is the divine order, the manner in which the Spirit of God would lead the full rich song. But this needs that full salvation should be known. Not merely known as a fact; but that the soul had entered upon its joyful possession. What else could suit the heart of God? What else could be the outflow of a heart that had read His? When John at Patmos heard Jesus named, his heart burst forth in such notes as these. God gave a voice, by His Spirit, to the hearts of those who knew His Son. When those words (Rev. 1:4, 5), were written in the “Isle called Patmos,” on that Lord’s day — “Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of kings of the earth,”-a person was before the disciple whom Jesus loved. All was forgotten but One! The heart burst forth with joyful exultation, “Unto him that loveth us”! Here was the first note of this song. The Lord was there.

The second, like that in Exodus 15, was His victory over our Enemies. He “washed us from our sins in His own blood.” The last note in true divine order was the result for us: He “hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father”: just the order of Israel’s song. How could it be otherwise? If Israel’s threefold note of praise was dictated by the Spirit in Exodus 15; their divine order marked out in true and heavenly harmony; surely His Spirit, in dictating a song for God’s heavenly ones, must ever lead them in like and kindred notes of praise!

Lessons for the Wilderness: 6. The First Three Days in the Wilderness

So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; and they went out into the Wilderness of Shur: and they went three days in the Wilderness, and found no water. And when they came to Marah they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.

And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet (Ex. 15:22-25).

This passage presents to us a very distinct and striking moment in the history of the people of Israel. We have — The First Three Days in the Wilderness, which lead to the trials of faith.

In this we learn what the world is now to us, as a place of trial and exercise of heart. Let us examine them in detail.

“They went three days in the wilderness and found no water.” One would suppose that all would now be well. God has wrought for us such a complete and glorious salvation, that we never should hear of sorrow more: He is about to bless us now all the way through. O, my reader, how many there are who are disappointed in this; who have started with the thought that all would now be well. Again we read, “And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter” (Ex. 15:22, 23). The song of praise is changed into the murmurings of Israel!

Now, like other things in Scripture, the first moment, when anything is presented to us, gives to it its character onwards to the end. This is seen in these “first three days.” Was the wilderness to be like this all the way? Yes, reader, never to change! The only question is, “What the bitter waters are for each day?” not, “Shall they cease in the step which follows, or in days which come after, to the end?” Nay; they never cease here below! If the cross has redeemed our souls, we must take up our own cross, daily, and follow Christ to the end.

Alas, how many of us rejoice in that which the cross has wrought; rejoice too in hope of the glory: while we have not yet learned to glory in tribulations also by the way! How often, instead of tribulation working patience, it works impatience by our restless wills!

Here then is the picture of our circumstances — we can neither find the water; (or) not drink it when it is found. A Christian learns the joy of God’s salvation, and with bright and fervent step he starts on his journey; and trouble comes. Bad times set in; losses in business supervene; former friends become cold; employment is not to be had: his children have no bread. Something seeming to answer is found. It turns out “bitter water.” Deeper losses follow: or his employer takes advantage of his dependence to oppress; to use words to him which would not be permitted, were he not in his power. Perhaps the voice of slander is spoken in secret. His heart is crushed, yet his bread depended upon his work: his children and wife need daily food. It is Marah for that soul.

But the Lord showed Moses a tree and he looked upon it, and then He showed him how to use that tree, to make the waters sweet. How was this? We gaze upon the cross — the tree: we learn a new use for it now. It had cleansed us from our sins; and even our sinful selves had there disappeared, in redeeming love. God saw us by it “dead with Christ.”

But now we place that cross by faith in the bitter waters, and what ensues? We ourselves are gone! The old man that would resent the bitter circumstance, was crucified there; and we learn to accept our own death to all. We suppress the resentful reply to the bitter word. We “keep silence when the wicked is before us,” even though our “sorrow is stirred,” and our heart is “hot within us.” We bow to the lesson as the training of our God. We look up: we rejoice; we glory in the sorrow. The tribulation works patience; impatience vanishes; the waters are made sweet: we learn to hold ourselves as dead; our evil nature is suppressed, leaving room for the new man alone to act. We had learned the meaning of “Peace I leave with you”; that peace which Christ had made; we now learn “My peace I give unto you” — that rest of spirit when drinking the bitter waters made sweet, and we find rest under the yoke of Christ: we submit; nay, we glory in those very things — finding our joy in God alone; the waters become sweet by such divine alchemy.

These are the “trials of faith.” These are the lessons that teach us what the “world” is. And here I may say that the exercises of soul, which led to the discovery of our own helplessness, are not confined to those which preceded deliverance. I believe we have them, in other ways, all through our path. Where is the exercised soul who has not gone through such experiences as to all through which we pass? The gaining of our daily bread: the affairs of life: everything in fact, bears that in it in which we learn our own powerless condition. Then comes in another power, which is not of man, but which works in his conscious strengthlessness the “power of his resurrection.” And it is God who works in us by this, both to will, and to do of His good pleasure.

Lessons for the Wilderness: 7. By-Paths and Straight Paths

We come now to the “First three days of the journey” (Num. 10:29-33). But we must turn aside for a moment to look at Israel’s by-paths — and the Straight Paths by which God would lead.

The entire journey in the Wilderness is comprised in twelve chapters which are found in the middle of the book of Numbers (10-21). The previous chapters give us a prefatory unfolding of certain things, connected with the arrangement of the camps of Israel, around God Himself, in their midst, in His Sanctuary. The remainder of the book giving other instructions, some of which look onwards to their dwelling in the land.

The first step onwards, gave a character to their whole path. We see in it the effort of flesh to find a path for itself in the Wilderness apart from that marked out of God. Flesh cannot walk in His paths; but seeks a bye-path — an easier way, which seems right, and seems to lead in flesh’s vision, to the same end. It proves but a snare, which must be retraced to the very spot where it turned aside, there to re-enter God’s true path, which alone is sure to reach the goal.

Let us examine this carefully. If we remark the order in which the Camp set out on its onward progress, it was unlike that prescribed in the earlier chapters of the Book of Numbers, where the Sanctuary was in their midst. Here the Ark went in advance of the whole, followed by the tribes of “Ephraim,” “Manasseh,” and “Benjamin.” (Num. 10:21-24). But immediately the conduct of the people is described: chapter after chapter of failure is presented to us. They turned aside quickly out of the way; yet God forsook them not.

Since then nearly three thousand five hundred years have passed away, and the failure of that moment has never yet been recovered. Still — that is morally the very spot to which God will eventually lead back their erring hearts before they are restored in the end. Great and marvelous are Thy ways, O Lord!

When we turn to the eightieth Psalm — one of those heart breathings of His people in the last days which are hastening on; there we see — in those pleadings of His Spirit in their exercised souls — that He has that moment of Numbers still before Him. He ever remembers that scene, for He knows all and never forgets. We read “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock: thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Before Ephraim, and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength, and come and save us. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine: and we shall be saved... Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine and vineyard which thy right hand hath planted... Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the Son of man, whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from this: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.”

The awakened soul of Israel returns in spirit to that first step of departure from the Lord. Their hope is alone in Him, and “the Son of man” — the man of God’s right hand becomes their resource and confidence, in the day when the Lord of Sabaoth turns their hearts to Himself, and causes His face again to shine upon them, and they are saved!

O what lessons for the redeemed soul! What warnings are here for us! What faithfulness to Himself and to us, do we find in all God’s ways! How small a beginning it was, which led to such mighty results, such mighty unfoldings of God! Let the way be long or short, the bye-path must be re-traced: the soul must be brought back in spirit: the first buddings of evil must be laid bare to their roots, that the soul may judge with God’s vision and wisdom, its path and ways to their spring. Such is the nature of the “Beema (or Judgment seat) of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10) when this is not done in this life here. But O, how blessed, that the deepest recesses of our hearts, will all be then laid bare; our motives and springs will then be known; and these very things that were so humbling to us while here, will be found, as under the hand of God, to have been made to work together for good for them who love God, who are the called according to His purpose. O God, there is none like Thee; and there is no people like thine, O Lord!

When the Camp set forward on its journey, the Ark of God went before, leaving its ordinary place in their midst. God departs from the ordered way, in sovereign grace; and instead of being surrounded to be cared for and guarded by the People, He goes before to care for them. “When he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow, for they know his voice.”

“And they departed from the mount of the Lord, three days journey; and the Ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days journey, to search out a resting place for them” (Num. 10:33). And this is His care for us in our wilderness path. He gathers us around Him, going before us by the way, in the varied expressions of His love for us. At times to “Remember Him” in the sign of His death; at times for the ministry of His word; at others to wait on Him in prayer. These are the oases in the wilderness — the green spots of refreshment where He would dispense His care, and give us to realize His Father’s love.

How often are our eyes turned upon some human prop at such moments as these. How little do our hearts look up to Him and to His stores of goodness; we would rest upon other broken reeds rather than on Him. It is not that we should refuse, by this, the instruments and channels of His grace. How often does the heart in seeking to keep from human props, run into the other extreme, and ignore the very channels by which He would refresh our souls. But such is man, ever seeking a way of his own devising, rather than the blessed Lord’s ordered way. We see here how even His servant Moses is at fault, just when His love was being so brightly expressed in the Ark advancing before the hosts of Israel. It was then that Moses leaned upon an arm of flesh, a natural help, in seeking to have a child of the desert — his “father-in-law,” to be for them “instead of eyes.” But God must now be all for them.

The Priests went forward bearing the Ark of God; wrapped in its coverings. First the Vail, then the Badger Skins, and then the heavenly blue. They went the three days journey — the Ark going before: the feet of the priests left their momentary mark in the sand of the desert, and Israel followed where these footfalls fell; thus were they strangers and pilgrims in the earth. Many had traversed these paths before; many have done so since that day; many a child of the desert had trodden the same solitudes; but they were not strangers and pilgrims there. What constituted the others such, and only this, was the presence of the Ark of the Lord — the Christ of God. We are only strangers and pilgrims where we are His, and He is our guide, and we follow Him. We may fail and stumble by the way, but this is what singles His own out from the common herd of men, and gives them that character of strangers here, and pilgrims journeying to a better land!

Lessons for the Wilderness: 8. The First Three Days on the Journey

Now come the First three days of the journey, which lead to the testings of faith; will Christ, the heavenly manna be enough; will He be all-satisfying to their heart? Let the reader and the writer of these lines answer the question for themselves! Do you ever wish for aught that God has not bestowed? Is the Christ of God all your desire? Alas, alas; how many a heart afar off now from God, has begun by desiring something which God had not given! People will reply, if you ask, What is the subject of Num. 11? “‘Tis the story of Israel loathing the manna.” Nay, my friend, there is no word about “loathing” here. God’s Spirit will give us the true reply — “we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted” (1 Cor. 10:6).

This was the first departure of the Church of God from Christ.

In this we learn something of what the “flesh” is. It never can be satisfied with Christ, our only portion here. “Our soul is dried away” is the language of flesh. “There is nothing at all but this manna, before our eyes.”

When first the manna was given “It was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Ex. 16:31). But its ‘virgin’ whiteness is now changed: its color is not the same to their eyes: its taste was now “the taste of fresh oil.” All was changed. The footsteps of Christ marked the way; the Lord (rising up early) spread abroad the dew around the camp before it stirred — on the dew He spread the manna — the food of God — Christ incarnate. That was all! They had to gather it carefully before the sun was up. They might search in vain for a large piece: it could not be found. Seeking for signal interventions of God often show where we are. Have we gathered up all the smaller (but there is nothing small with God) interventions of his hand all the day long? We would then find the immensity of His supply.

Forced to be content, (alas that we should say so) with God’s provision, flesh again resents; and “the people... ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it.” Would angels have done so, my brethren? (For “man did eat angel’s food.”) I answer, No! But this tells its own terrible tale. Some have sought to evade the solemn lesson here recorded, by referring to Exodus 16:23 — seeking thereby to prove that this was right in Israel and of God. Alas, how it betrays our unspiritual state! Things were allowed and passed over too of the Lord, while Israel was still “under grace,” which brought down the heavy hand of God in judgment afterward, when they were “under law.” Witness even this passage; as well as the giving of the quails in Exodus 16 in grace, and in Num. 11 when there fell thousands of the people for asking and receiving them. It speaks to our souls of the present hour with trumpet tongue. It is the character of the day especially, in which we live. Christ can never be palatable to flesh, and then man must seek to suit Him to the flesh in man, by some other mode. Is this never done, reader? What are all the efforts put forth to make Christ suit the natural mind of man, in the preaching, and teaching, and books, and efforts of the present day? If some of us have not got that which appeals to the senses in a religious way, by architecture, and music, and painting, and the arts of man; there are other ways. A book must have a choice cover: it must have pictures, and narratives to thrill the senses, or the like. There must be “services of song,” to entertain the “camp followers”— the “mixed multitude” which mingle with the host of the Lord. There must be revival preachings; flags, and music, diagrams and models, and the manna must be mixed carefully withal, so as to make it palatable to the flesh! Alas, alas, what a picture surrounds us! What a moment is before us when they grew weary of God’s bread, and sought to make it palatable to hearts whose cry was — “we remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely: the cucumbers and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all, beside this manna before our eyes.”

Look around us on every hand. Look in our midst from gathering to gathering of God’s saints. Look, each one — into his own heart, and say, is not this the picture of what we see, and what we know? The Church of God; the saint of God does not say deliberately — ‘He is not enough.’ But her actions, our own individual actions, tell the tale. We are like Israel, seduced by our own flesh and enticed; or by those who have no portion with us; and having hearts ready to be drawn away. We mingle Christ with the devices of the flesh, so as to make Him the common food of man. We thus dishonor Him; and unspiritualize our own souls.

Do I speak too strongly in one word which I have written? My brethren, I would that I were able to portray the scene with the vivid colors of marked reality, which lies around on every hand to-day. A scene so strikingly pictured in the type before us. It is for us, on whom the ends of the ages are met, that such have been written in the Word of God. O, let those who are true to Him set their whole being against such things. Do we not know that when a truth of divine revelation is brought down to the intellect of man, that it is absolutely lost? It is no more now of God. Often have our hearts been pained to think that some chapter, some divine truth which it has taken us years to learn from God; and some one comes, presents it to unspiritual souls, who had never given it a thought hitherto, by a diagram or a model, or the like, and in half-an-hour it is picked up in the intellect: the edge of the truth is destroyed; its interest is gone. It is reduced to the human mind and lost!

Now let us remark the apparently broken manner in which verse 9 is thrown into the narrative of Num. 11. The infidel would say, Ah, yes; it was a scrap of some other writing then extant, which the collater of these books put in, mistakenly, here. Thus the most touching beauties of Scripture are lost on such minds. The very things which cause the soul of the renewed man to bow down with praise but serve to draw out the evil folly of the infidel heart — so blind in its enmity, to that priceless gift — the Word of God!

“And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.” Wondrously lovely are these words. They fall like dew upon the soul, in the midst of such a scene as the former part of the chapter describes. Man’s heart is exposed here; but that of the Lord (is) disclosed. Did He withhold His open hand? Did the six hundred thousand men, besides women and children, hunger next day? Did the manna cease that night? Has God Himself now changed? This little verse of two lines is the touching and lovely answer. How blessed to read in it the character in which He spake of Himself after their wayward hearts had been exposed. How still more wondrous the word He speaks through the last prophet of Judah, whose utterance closed the Word of God till Jesus came — “For I am Jehovah, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” (Mal. 3:6). He waited for three thousand five hundred years ere He would say these words: till man, till Israel, till Judah, till the Remnant brought back from Babylon, till all, had corrupted their way. Then He tells forth what He ever is — the resource of faith — the unchanging God! If God would change, nothing would be secure: there was nothing left on which to rest. It is joy to the soul to know this: that with Him there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning.

Reader, does your soul delight in this, that God never changes? If you know Him, you will find it the rest of your spirit forever. Did He change toward us through the cross? Nay, I say; in Him there is none! Jesus offered to Him that which met His holy being without changing it, and thus let His changeless nature free! Free too, to bless according to the dictates of a heart evermore the same. Surely we too can say, “Because He changes not, therefore we are not consumed.” It reminds us of Him who revealed Him — even Jesus: Who when the Spirit of God shows us every previous ordinance and covenant and sacrifice set aside in the Epistle to the Hebrews, He brings in Christ to replace them all, and when He has brought Him in He keeps Him in forever! He would not close the book without this word, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Jehovah was that great and fearful, that unutterable name, of old; Jesus (Jehovah the Savior) the imperishable name — taken in time, to be borne for eternity!

But at the closing moments of their journey we find another scene, when the manna is again refused. The true scene when they “loathed” the light bread from heaven. Some might suppose that this was but a repetition of the former test, now at the end of the journey; as that had been at the beginning. To the infidel it is but food for his mocking heart, in his brief hour, at the expense of the Word of God. To the believer in Christ, it again tells forth another of those signal lessons of Scripture, at which his heart bows down with praise to Him, who has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes. O let us ever be but babes, so that we may be divinely wise.

How many souls, do you suppose, of manhood’s age were here in this scene, who had come out of Egypt with Moses? Without taking account of Moses himself who never entered the land, there were but two! These were “Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun!” Of the others we read — “Their carcasses had fallen in the wilderness”; all had died. They had had their test and had been found wanting: they had said, “would God, we had died in this wilderness,” and God gave them their desire. They could say (in Num. 11) we remember the flesh-pots of Egypt. Here (in Num. 21) there is no trace of such a word. Then it was the testing of the fathers; here it was that of the children; such could not say “we remember”; alas they say — “we loathe”!

Are there not those amongst us who had come forth to Christ in these last days, through many exercises, and with the loss of all things, with earnest hearts refusing the allurements of the world? We have found somewhat of the desert’s toil; but have not our hearts often returned to Egypt and longed for those things behind us, which fed ours nature there? Let my reader answer if this be so. But there has grown up (as with Israel) a generation among us who had not been then alive to those things which feed the flesh; many too have been born in the wilderness, to speak as men; they have been brought up from the first on the manna, the pure bread of God. They have not purchased the truth with the wrenchings of heart with which their fathers had. It has cost them nothing, but tacit assent, often without an exercise of soul.

These are here before us, in Num. 21.

They had come to the borders of the sunny land: a few steps more, and they were in possession of all. They might have gone in with the idea that they were of a different race with their fathers, who had died: they might have taken credit for this. Surely, they might have exclaimed, ‘we never loathed the manna,’ ‘we never longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt.’ ‘We were brought up on manna, on Christ and His truth alone!’

They had just come up to Kadesh, on the very borders of the Land; but between them and it, was a small strip which belonged to Edom, through which was “the Kings highway” (Num. 20:17, &c.). Edom refused to let them pass that way; and God ordered that it should be so; for it was not the way for the redeemed to enter into Canaan. They were then turned back for two years to have their testing, and to disclose what was concealed within till now. “They journeyed from Mount Hor, by the way of the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom”; they had to pass down south around Mount Seir — Edom’s possessions; and turn them northward by the eastern side of Jordan, and pass into the Land through its dried up waters, after the Ark of God. Death and resurrection is the only pathway thither.

And now the latent truth comes out; now the springs within are reached: now the children’s hearts have had their test. At once we read of those who might have thought truly that Christ was enough till now; “our soul loatheth this light bread.” “Where is boasting now?” “It is excluded.” “Every mouth is stopped,” my reader. We learn to judge our own hearts and not those of others. Our spirits are humbled: we become slow to speak; slow to wrath. We distrust ourselves; we cling the more to Christ. We are dumb; we have to leave it all with God, and Christ is all to us now and forever. These “First three days on the journey,” lead, then, to the testings of faith: they disclose to us what the “flesh” is in ourselves, as in those also in whom there is nothing else but “flesh” in the sight of God.

Lessons for the Wilderness: 9. The Two Trumpets of Silver

Redemption being complete, the Christian is looked upon in three distinct conditions, which are never confounded, in the Word of God.

First: he is seen as possessor of eternal life in Christ; “God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” This gift of God is founded on the fact, that all his guilt is put away; his sins and iniquities are remembered no more. Death is no more for him the wages of sin, but the entrance upon his eternal rest. But with all this he is down here on earth; he has no new place with God; he has received a nature suited to that new place; but not that place itself.

Second: he is also brought into heavenly places in the Person of Christ: He hath “quickened us together with Christ; and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). In this he has a new place with God.

Third: there is a journey between these two points. A race to be run: a goal to be reached; though reached already if he looks at himself as in Christ. He has so to run meanwhile, that he may attain; to run with patience the race set before him, looking unto Jesus. He must press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. To labor to enter into God’s rest. To hold fast the beginning of his confidence steadfast unto the end (compare Phil. 3; Heb. 3; 4; 12.; &c.). He has no present but what is future, in looking at this triplex condition in which he is seen.

To understand this triplex view of the christian state, is of great importance in the understanding the Scriptures, and rightly profiting by their teachings. There are warnings, and exhortations addressed to him while in the race, which would not apply to his standing before God. These warnings and “ifs” of Scripture try his heart if unsettled in redemption, as they would seem to him to make the end far from sure.

Israel had this triplex condition too. But they did not begin as we, with a new place with God; they had to reach it at the close. We have already begun with this new place, in Christ in heavenly places: yet we run to reach the goal, and the fruition of all. We are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; yet we are running the race to win Christ, and be found in Him! This is our heavenly calling of which we are partakers, as holy brethren in the Lord.

Israel was brought by redemption, out of Egypt; and he was brought into Canaan. But he had also to pass through the Wilderness to his rest. The book of the Wilderness (Numbers) unfolds this journey as many are aware. The New Testament, speaking generally, is for the most part occupied with that journey, onwards to the end: the Epistle to the Ephesians only, leading into the having Canaan as a present thing in Christ. This is assumed however, in all the Epistles, as true of every true Christian. The Epistles to the Hebrews, and those of Peter are occupied with the pilgrimage, and the journeyings of the people of God, in a special manner.

Before the journey commenced (compare Num. 10:11), Moses was commanded to make Two Trumpets of Silver: “Make thee two Trumpets of Silver: of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps” (Num. 10:2). The visible and open guidance of God by the Pillar of the cloud and of fire, was there by day and by night continually. This all could behold. Even the most unspiritual in the Camp beheld the constant unvarying presence of the God of Israel. Then came the testimony of His word in this type before us, rendered as occasion needed, by those who received the communications and were near enough to be in the secret of His mind, as then revealed. This was given through those Silver Trumpets, by the varied notes which were sounded. Then again, the Ark of the Covenant went before the camp, to seek a resting place for them in the Wilderness.

Those three things expressed the guidance of God to Israel — “At the commandment of the Lord they journeyed” as directed by the movements of the Pillar of the Cloud. His “Word” sounded on more special occasions, by means of the Trumpets of Silver. There Himself, as the true Ark of the Covenant; and he that followed would “not walk in darkness but have the light of life.” These are seen in the antitype in 1 John 2:4-6. First we have His commandments; then His Word; and then Himself.

But there was more in the Silver Trumpets than all this. In this book of Numbers, we find that they are the only Instruments which the Lord directed to be made in this Book, in the Wilderness journey. They were made of Silver; while in Exodus, the things which were made there were all of Gold or of Brass. The former presenting God’s essential righteousness; the latter, that righteousness when it dealt with man in responsibility. The sockets of the boards of the Tabernacle, with some fillets and hooks, were made of silver, and they only. I believe we must always interpret by the context, in seeking to know the meaning of these typical things. It will not do to lay down one hard line in such cases, and insist that each must mean, in all places, and books of Scripture, the same. To do so we would suffer much loss in the lessons of the Word. The silver may point, as some say, to redemption, when the book in question treats of such. But in Numbers where it is the journey that is before us, and these Trumpets the means by which the God of Israel communicated with His people; the Silver Trumpets present to us — first, the “Trumpet” is the testimony of His Word: while the “Silver” is the immutability of His ways. This is echoed in the Wilderness book of Hebrews. 1st. The word of God, confirmed by His oath; and 2nd. The immutability of His ways. “Wherein God, willing (counseling) more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath,” &c. (Heb. 6:17). The Silver here then has this meaning — the immutability, or unchangeableness of His ways; so abundantly proved during their eventful journey. This was the basis of His actings, and His command, testified by Aaron and his sons, by means of those Silver Trumpets.

We read of four distinct blasts or notes of these Trumpets in Num. 10; and we find these notes echoed by the Spirit in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Here, the people were under the leadership of Moses and Aaron, the Apostle and High Priest of Israel, in their earthly calling. There, the Christian assuredly is under the leadership of Christ — the Apostle and High Priest of the holy brethren — Partakers of the heavenly calling.

The first note of the Trumpets in Numbers was “For the calling of the Assembly” of Israel; when they were to be gathered together for the varied exigencies of that day. In Hebrews this finds its antitype in the words, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Heb. 10:23).

The second blast was “For the journeyings of the camp.” “At the commandment, of the Lord they rested in their tents, and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed.” How blessed to know that no movement was undertaken; or no halting place was chosen in the desert, but “At the commandment of the Lord,” clearly and distinctly announced in their ears. How few of His people can clearly say, “I am as certain of my path here, or there; or I am as sure I have halted in the very spot indicated, ‘by the commandment of the Lord,’ and not by the desire of my eyes, or the longing for change, or the slothfulness of nature, emanating from my own deceitful heart.” No matter where the direction of the journey pointed, “at the commandment of the Lord,” or how much delay there seemed to be, till another order for the march was sounded from the resting place; Canaan alone was the goal! “For the journeying of the camps” the note was sounded, and it had this end alone in view; just as those antitypical blasts of the Trumpets are re-echoed in Hebrews: “Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest”; “Let us run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith.”

The third occasion on which we read of the sound of the Trumpets is “an alarm” — They have translated this word in Psalm 89:15, as “The joyful sound.” But it was both. For it was heard both when the enemy was astir, and to the accustomed ear it was a “joyful sound”: the Lord of Hosts was with His people: no enemy could take them unawares. But it was “an alarm” too, for it stirred up the faithful to the need of vigilance against a watchful foe: and to the enemy it was the “alarm” of impending defeat and ruin.

Who of the saints has not quailed before the warning of Hebrews? How often have we seen the exercised soul trembling and uneasy as the “alarm” sounded in those solemn verses in Hebrews 6 and 10. The sound of the Silver Trumpet was echoed in the conscience of the questioner; and yet the “alarm” when explained and interpreted by the mind of the Spirit, proved to be but a “joyful sound” to the weakest faith: though fatal to unbelief.

“Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the Trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifice of your peace offerings, that they may be to you for a memorial: I am the Lord your God” (Num. 10:10). This was the fourth “blowing of Trumpets” in the desert — the “days of gladness” were there marked; and over the “Burnt-offerings” and “peace-offerings” the sound was heard. How full is the end of Hebrews (ch. 9 — 12) of the worth of Him in whom all the offerings found their answer “once” and “forever”! It is a day of gladness we are called to there, to “Eat the fat, and drink the sweet; to send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for the day is holy unto our Lord; neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). Or as the Epistle to the Hebrews would put it — “To do good and to communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased (Heb. 13).

Thus we find the Numbers with its types, and the Hebrews with its interpretations, fitting themselves together with the perfection of God’s communications to our souls. “The things which happened to them happened for types, and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are met” (1 Cor. 10:11).

The Trumpet then, characterized the starting point of the journey of the people of God. O, if they had hearkened to its joyful sound they would have known the “Blessedness of the people that knew” this; “They shall walk,” says the Psalmist, “O Lord, in the light of thy countenance” (Psa. 89:15).

Lessons for the Wilderness: 10. The Trumpet and the Rod

Then came the journey. Alas, each step was but failure and turning aside “as a deceitful bow.” In the chapters which follow we do not find even one that is free from sorrow and ruin. What a witness are they not against us! What a testimony too, to the faithful unchangeableness of God! And God permitted them to advance, step by step, in this downward path; He never left nor forsook them all the while. At last when the deepest spring in their hearts was reached, in Num. 16, in the rebellion against the Royalty of Christ, as seen in Moses (“King in Jeshurun”), and against His Priesthood, as seen in Aaron, by Korah and his company, God’s hand must now strike, and strike it will.

Hereby shall ye know (said the Lawgiver), the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of my own mind. If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up with all that appertaineth unto them, and they go down quick into the pit: then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord (Num. 16:28-30).

This was complete apostasy. This was the last and final sin: “the great transgression.” This is what Christendom has for her doom: she will “perish in the gainsaying of Core” (“Korah” Jude 11).

Now comes the never-failing resources of God. How truly these things speak to us; how they recall to us that nothing happens, absolutely nothing, which has risen so high or gone so deeply down as to find His resources fail. How then is it that He, who cannot brook sin, will bring in to the Land a people, who have thus gone to these lengths in ruin? How can the plague be stayed that had begun? Who could stand between the living and the dead? None but our Great High Priest — not one! Priesthood alone can bring a failing people in, consistently with Him who will not sanction their failure and who never fails Himself. This was His resource: the Rod of Priestly grace (Num. 17), triumphant over death, which laid its deep and broad foundations by resurrection, in a sphere where its buds and blossoms and fruit — the fruit of the almond tree could flourish; apart from the storms of sin, and murmuring, and judgment. Where it could be “shown” to the Lord as that which He had chosen to lead an unfaithful, and a failing people into the Land.

Yes, my reader; we have been redeemed from the deep ruin in which we lay: when our guilt cried out for its due — the vengeance of God. We have set out in the desert with a nature which hates sin and loves and enjoys all that is in God Himself. We have another nature which takes advantage of the very fullness of the grace in which we stand, and makes it but the occasion for outraging the grace, and living in the sin it loves, if allowed. But God has His way of dealing with us, who still have the tendency to return to the hole out of which we have been digged. He has His way of holding us up in the joy and blessedness of all that our better self delights in. This is by the Priesthood of Christ — who “ever lives to make intercession for us.” Never, for one moment, are we from under that. Rod of Grace. Never will His purpose for Christ’s glory change, and this is the manner in which He works, day by day, to bring us into that good land, where sin, sorrow, and sighing are things of the past forever.

The Trumpet and the Rod then were the extremes of the path in the Wilderness. The one was the testimony — the commandment of the Lord, which began the journey, and was to have guided them all through the way. The people hearkened not to it, but turned aside.

They tempted and provoked the Most High God, and kept not his testimonies; but turned back and dealt deceitfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images (Psa. 78:56, &c.).

Then it was, when they had gone to destruction (Hormah), that His own unfailing resource was brought forth. His soul turned to the Man of His right hand at the end of their path of shame. The Rod that budded and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds was brought forth from the Sanctuary, to lead and guide; to take away the murmurings of the people that He might not take away themselves. The Rod came forth last when destruction was pending over them. The Trumpet was first heard, then at last the Rod, and it never failed.

But let us examine more closely this “thing which happened unto them.”

We will turn to the Hebrews — our wilderness book. Let me call it the “Book of the Trumpet and the Rod.” There the Christian is viewed as in the desert — where he follows his “heavenly calling” out of this scene, and after Christ — the Forerunner who has “entered within the vail”; “into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.” In the first chapter we find the Lord Jesus coming forth from God, at the close of all His testimonies, as the Messenger or Apostle; God spoke in the person of His Son. Then His glories pass before us; He is the effulgence of His glory; the express image of His subsistence. The upholder of all things by the Word of His power; the appointed Heir of all things; the maker of the worlds; the purger of sins: better than the Angels, because He is who He is; He is the object of their adoration; God speaks to Him as God (Heb. 1:8-9). Jehovah addresses Him as Jehovah, in the day of His affliction (Psa. 102)

In Hebrews 2 we find Him as Man; fitted to be the High Priest because of this; going back to God, and crowned with glory and honor when He sat down on high. As Apostle He had come from God to us (Heb. 1); as High Priest He had gone back from us to God, when He had passed through his pathway of suffering, and made at its close propitiation for our sins (Heb. 2).

Then in Hebrews 3 we are to “consider Him” in these characters, as leading His people through the Wilderness, as Moses the Apostle from God, and Aaron the Priest, had done at another day.

The whole profession of Christianity is looked upon then as professedly in the journey from the Cross to the glory, and in the wilderness where thousands would fall and never reach the goal; as Israel’s carcases fell in the wilderness. Being thus looked at as in the way, we find the “If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.” “To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” “We are made partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” Here the “if” and the warning comes in most suitably as on the journey to the rest of God.

Now you will always find, I think, that an “if” is used in false Christianity to disturb true souls, who are not thoroughly settled in grace, instead of in the way that God uses it, against the flesh. They will say, ‘O don’t be too sure; salvation is not such a certain matter as you think; a great deal depends on oneself; there are conditions. Don’t you see how many times an “if” is used, and a condition pressed upon us, &c., &c. Now I think God uses an “if” to make us dependent and trustful in Him, and His faithful love, and never uses it to disturb the faith of the simplest child of God.

Suppose I was walking on the parapet of a great high building with my little child by the hand. I felt the awful danger of the place for him, and said, as he looked down and shivered with fear, “My little son, if you fell down there you would be smashed to pieces: don’t pull away your little hand from mine.” The child looks up into my face and says, “Father, you will hold me fast, you have no trace of a thought in your heart of letting me go, though you warn me.” “No, my child,” I say, “not a trace: but I want to keep you alive to the danger, and keep up the sense of dependence on me, in your heart.”

This is the way God uses an “if.” He keeps the soul alive to the sense of the danger of the place we are in; the power of the enemy; the treacherousness of our own hearts; the faithfulness of His; our constant need of dependence on Him. Surely all this is right and well: and this dealing meets the case, and the present need of the true heart, on the journey: while it vindicates the care of God, under whose conduct all profess to be, but who alas are often only the mixed multitude — the “camp followers,” of the true people of God.

Now when we come to Hebrews 4 He applies all these preceding chapters to us. The Apostle had come to us from God (Heb. 1). The Priest had gone back from us to God (Heb. 2). The people were under His conduct in the way, in these two characters (Heb. 3). The Spirit would then exhort, “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it (Heb. 4:1).” Suppose I meet my reader, and find that although he has professed to be journeying to God’s rest, and that all his aims and hopes were there; yet his daily life and ways do not answer practically to the ways of a stranger in this scene; and a pilgrim to that other. Suppose I find him going on with the world and its spirit, and settling down on his lees; bringing up his family for the earth; placing them in it; allowing ways that were unsuited to his heavenly calling: Well, I say, you may be all you profess, but, if I were you, I would “fear.” You most assuredly “seem to come short” of it. Take care: many profess, and many fall by the way and never get in at all. Israel all came out of Egypt, but they fell in the Wilderness, and never reached the goal. There is no question raised here about a true soul going in. “We which have believed do enter”; no doubt about that; but you should remember Israel. They heard the report from the spies: the gospel of the rest of Canaan — in their day, and never got in. The word preached by the spies did not profit them, because it lacked the divine mixture of faith: “it was not mixed with faith in them that heard it.” “They could not enter in because of unbelief.”

Now here we break off suddenly in the chapter to meet the difficulty which a godly Jew would experience about this “rest of God” being still a future thing. He would naturally say, “Well: I thought God had rested when He created the world. Does it not say that in the seventh day God rested from all His works which He had created to make?” Oh yes, says the writer, “God rested from all his works.” And surely He did; but sin broke through His rest. He only rested from creating, but never rested in the works of His hands. Sin came in immediately, and disturbed His rest, and left Him with these alternatives

(1) to destroy all by judgment; or,

(2) to let all remain in its ruined state, as fallen with man, whom He had placed over all; or

(3) to begin to work again. He refuses to destroy them by judgment, and will not allow it to remain so; and so we find Him again a Worker, making coats of skins for Adam and his wife, and He has never rested since that day. Men seek religiously to keep a sabbath as a day of rest. Well, I say, you have not God with you in that fancied rest. He is a worker since the third of Genesis; and never has been a rester, and never will, till the new Heavens and new Earth come, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The Lord Himself when here, was accused of breaking the Sabbath, when He had cured the paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda; and His reply to the accusers was this “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” Now the Spirit works; and by-and-by the rest of God — Father, Son, and Spirit will come, and then only will God rest. There was one other difficulty to be met for the convert from Judaism. They read in Josh. 12 that the Land had rest from war. This the writer meets by telling them how their prophet King sang, hundreds of years afterward, the words of the 95th Psalm, “Again he determined a certain day, saying in David, ‘To-day’ (after so long a time) as it is said, ‘To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.” Adam had broken up the rest of Creation by his sin; Israel had broken up the rest of Canaan by theirs, and so God wrought, in His infinite patience and grace, and will to the end, until the time foreseen in verse 9. “There remaineth therefore a keeping of a sabbath” — a rest of God — for His people.

This break therefore disposes of the difficulties. Now the exhortation — the blast of the Silver Trumpet — is heard, “Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” God has retreated into Christ, and there His rest is now; and will be displayed for all His own at that day.

How abruptly we again break off at verse 12 of our chapter. But no: it is the word — the blast of the Trumpet of Silver that is heard — the Word of God: quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces the joints and marrow: it discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. It deals with every movement of the will of the flesh. All is laid bare under that which is His “eye,” looking down and discovering thoughts in your heart, my reader, that did not emanate from Him: intentions for to-day — for to-morrow — that have not Christ before them, and the goal — the rest of God. The Word comes in and stops them all.

Do you welcome that as a “joyful sound”? If you are an honest pilgrim you say, ‘Yes; it is a joyful thing to me to have my soul searched out; every corner of my heart laid bare: every secret corner exposed and brought into the light of God’s presence by His living Word.’ Still, you add, it is disheartening, to have that detector of my thoughts and intentions ever pressing down its searching and breaking power into my soul. Yes, but had Israel rejoiced in the blast of the Silver Trumpet they had never fallen, so to say, in the Wilderness, and God has this in His mind for you.

But you will remember that the Trumpet began the journey with Israel; and when all had gone to ruin, then God’s resource of the Rod was brought forth at the end. But how is it for you? The Trumpet sounds — the Word of God speaks with its searching notes to the soul, and lays all bare: then at once, the Rod of Priesthood, is introduced. He puts the Trumpet and the Rod together at the beginning of the journey, that the one may deal with the will of the flesh that would break away from Christ; and that the other may uphold the weakness of the renewed soul, prostrate under the searching power of the Word. How blessed! He does not look for the failure to become apparent before He interferes. No. He would carry His people through without the failure, and bring them in safety to that Land of rest.

But one might say, as he reads Hebrews 4:14 “Seeing then that we have a great high Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession;” he might say ‘That great person cannot know what a poor weak thing like me has to pass through. I have a wicked heart: He had not: He could resist the temptations of the enemy: He was pure and perfect: He was the Son of God.’ How touchingly the next reassuring verse reads, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses: but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace for timely help (see Greek).” Much better indeed than “help in time of need.” Better to be sustained in answer to our cry of weakness before we fail, than even to find a strong arm reached forth to raise us up again when we have turned aside from Him. The cry goes forth from the sense of need; the strong right arm is around us in that strength which is made perfect in our weakness; and we can say, “Thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me”; and “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.”

Lessons for the Wilderness: 11. The Water of Purification

When the Lord introduced the Rod of Priesthood as His unfailing way of bringing in a failing people home to glory, all hung from that moment on it, whether to sustain, to restore, or to meet their need. The details of its establishment in the Type, and its varied provisions and exercises are found in Num. 17-20.

In Num. 17 we find Priestly authority established in Aaron and his sons: and in Num. 18 Priestly service to maintain the people in communion; they should bear the iniquity of the Sanctuary, and of their priesthood before the Lord. With them rested the charge of the Sanctuary — God’s dwelling — and of the altar — the place of intercession for the people. There are things which those in this place of nearness to God — His priesthood, now have to sustain; which others — who keep the more distant place, and enter not upon its exercise (though all His people are Priests) — have not to bear. We see this amongst the people of God even now. Those who have never entered on their Priestly place in practical power, do not sustain the reproach of Christ as those who have done so; although the former enjoy the result of this nearness of the latter; and partake of the spiritual communications vouchsafed to those who are in the secret of the Lord. Still, the most holy things of the offerings of the Lord —the varied details of the sacrifice of Christ (Num. 17:9); as well as the best of oil and wine (Num. 17:12, 13), first ripe fruits of the Land, are their portion. That is, they feed on Christ s work, and Christ s person in a manner, and in the midst of the Holy things; which those who keep in the greater distance lose. You see this illustrated constantly in the spiritual saint; as also in the unspiritual, who holds truth in a carnal way. And, it is grief to say, there is much truth held carnally by the people of God. You will see those who do not doubt their salvation, and yet who plainly are unspiritual saints. Then when trial comes; or some intervention of God s hand to break up the fallow ground of their hearts; they have to go through much deep exercises and fears — finding they have to do with God in a way that their lives had never experienced. Yet all the while faith is not lost: Christ has sustained it in their souls by His unceasing Priestly grace. “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not:” yet they have to be sifted like wheat. Well, if the sifting out of the chaff leaves the pure grain behind; and well, if when converted they may strengthen their brethren. In Num. 19 we find another feature which flows from Priestly service; that is, in a certain sense, advocacy to restore and purify when defiled. And I may here remark that in Num. 20, we find the exercise of Priesthood with regard to the needs and murmurings of the people; and at its close, the perpetuity

of it touched upon in the stripping of Aaron and the clothing of Eleazar; a living Priest goes up to Mount Hor, from the presence of the people; and a living Priest comes down — re-appearing without a break, in their sight.

Num. 19 is the only reference to the work of Christ we find in the journey of the people through the desert. This is most significant and instructive. In fact it is the key of the book. The Redemption of Israel out of Egypt gives character to the book of Exodus. The propitiatory work of the great day of atonement (Lev. 16) characterizes the Book of Leviticus after Priesthood failed. And the maintenance, or restoration of the unclean to communion, is peculiar to the Book of Numbers. Each are suited to the books in which they are found, as well as to the state of the people; and the aspects in which the Lord is seen.

I do not purpose dwelling too largely on the details of Num. 19; which are full of interest. Rather do I desire grace for a practical application of the truths there presented us.

One thing strikes us; there never was a return to the blood sprinkling of redemption on the night of the Passover in Egypt. The blood once appropriated by our souls, and satisfying to God, never needed to be applied again. Its efficacy was abiding and eternal. Just as we never find a recurrence of the application of the precious blood of Christ to our souls, in the teaching of the New Testament.

It is here then the great significance of this “water of purification” — mingled with the “ashes of the Heifer,” is presented to us. We will remark too that it was what we may term “Eleazar” work that we find here. It is not “Aaronic” service — pure and simple. The reason is this — that it is not the highest aspect of our Lord s blessed work; but very necessary yet humbling (may we not say?) to Him; because connected with the failures of His people. Blessed service of love surely in its perfectness, for “his own.” Nor is it the greatness of His work, which the “bullock” would present; the perfection of His patient toil. Nor yet the passive, unmurmuring submission, as a “lamb without blemish or spot”; or as a “sheep before her shearers is dumb.” Here it is a lower aspect than all these: a “Red Heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish; and upon which never came yoke.” The female of the herd, yet inwardly and outwardly clean.

Remark too, the place where her blood was presented. It was not where the God and the High Priest meet, at the Brazen altar without, or at the golden Mercy-seat within; but where God and His people came together for communion, “before the tabernacle of the congregation.” The blood was sprinkled seven times there, just as a memorial of the basis of all.

The Heifer was then consumed. Ashes was all that remained: the irrefragable proof that our sins could never be imputed again. They had been — once, to Christ: He was consumed by the judgment which fell on Him; and blood could not again blot out, what already blood had obliterated. Every portion of this sacrifice was burned outside the camp. There was not the smallest portion kept to be consumed before the Lord. It was more completely in every part consumed, outside the camp, than even the sin-offering in Lev. 4. The very blood was burned there also. The only thing reserved was as much of the blood as the Priest could take on his finger for a memorial and sprinkle seven times “before the tabernacle of the congregation.” She was slain too “outside the Camp.” How completely does this exclude the thought that aught of this sacrifice was atoning; or offered as a propitiatory offering to God. No: all was for the “unclean.” Every one too, in the chapter, who had to do with the ashes was defiled. The Priest who carried out the ceremony; the person who burned the heifer; the man who gathered the ashes; he who sprinkled the water of separation; or who touched the ashes; and whatsoever he touched who had thus touched them: all were unclean! There was but one thing undefilable, and that was the “Ashes of the Heifer.” Yes, reader; what a lesson is here. No one can have to do with sin, even in another, and be undefiled, but God, alone! When He touches sin He withers it; when man does so he either sympathizes with it, or is defiled!

But I must pass on. The ceremony of restoring the defiled or unclean, needs but few words But let us see for a. moment what made it needful. With us it is sin; or the flesh revived in ourselves, or in another. The carnal mind; the unclean lust; the selfish covetousness of the soul; the angry word; the foolish thought. The opened ear which hears the sinful word, or slander. The slanderer himself; the liar; the profane. Are these things possible in the saint of God? Read Colossians 3:5,8; or Eph. 4:28-32; 5:3-5, and say if God proclaims this; or read your own heart, reader, if you know it somewhat, and tell me what you think. One moment’s working of sin, in whatever shape it may be found, secretly or openly, and you are an unclean man; “cut off” from the fellowship of God s Spirit, and of the Father and the Son; from the saints too, who are maintained in the communion which you have lost.

Of course you must be a saint to have lost it; and you must be a saint to be restored; both are true. If not a saint you never had it; nor could you be restored to what you never had. So that this does not interfere with your salvation. But I need not press this, in a day when salvation is somewhat truly known.

The sin committed suddenly in your presence, which you were not party to, has made you an unclean man, as well as him who committed it! This is solemn. If a man died suddenly in a tent (Num. 19:14), all those present, or who came in, were unclean. How could they avoid this? you say. I reply — Will God lower His standard of holiness because man would excuse himself under the plea that he could not avoid it? Never, my friend. He provides the way in which you shall be restored; but He will not declare you clean when it is not so. An “open vessel” too; your opened ear for instance, “which hath no covering bound on it” (Num. 19:16), when your ear is not closed to all else but Christ; is defiled. But we must proceed.

“The grace of God in a man’s heart, is a tender plant in an unkindly soil.” It is like the “Sensitive Plant,” which when it grows naturally abroad, droops and closes its leaves even at the approach of the footstep of man, or the brushing of the dewdrops off the grass-plat near where it grows. The Spirit is grieved within us, and we need a “clean person” now to act.

Where will such be found? He speaks Himself — our true “Clean One” — “ If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me” (John 13:8).

Here too we find the “Bunch of Hyssop” in the hand of this “Clean Person”; not in our own. Each man s hand grasped this in Exodus 12 for himself; each dipped it in the blood in the basin; each went forth and struck the lintel and two side posts of the door of his house — and each appropriated this as his only shelter from the destroyer. The poor thief on the cross did so in the depths of his humiliation when he bowed in faith and justified God for his righteous sentence and suffering. There God met him, and Christ took the lost sheep to His home rejoicing! But here all is changed. The Hyssop is in the hands of another. It is not man now appropriating Christ; but the Advocate about to bring the soul of the defiled to its true and real state of humiliation and judgment of self for its sin.

Does my reader ever suppose that when his soul has turned aside and been defiled, he would have turned back again, but for the advocacy of the Lord? When the sin has been committed, and its pleasure has gone; whose hand has grasped the Bunch of Hyssop, and has applied the remembrance of His anguish in bearing that sin away? Then again, with the water of His word mingled therewith, sprinkled it on that man whose back is turned on his Master, and sent him away to “weep bitterly”?

When David’s murder and adultery were accomplished, and he strove to hold his head high; and forget his crime, who sent Nathan the prophet, with the word of God to open David’s eyes, which lust had closed? Was it to restore David to His favor for which Nathan was sent? Nay, but to do a “third day” work (Num. 19:12), and to bow his soul down in the agony in which we behold him prostrate on the earth, with the cry, “I have sinned against the Lord.” “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow (Psa. 51:7).” This was true “third day” conviction. It was the deep sense in the soul of self loathing; and self judgment, in the sight of God, who had not imputed, but had put away his sin. There was no restored communion here: there was anguish and sorrow. But on the “seventh day” the child of adultery died. And again the Hyssop is dipped in ashes and running water, and sprinkled upon the soul — prostrate man. Can he not now feel his hopes revive in God? His real state (not merely his felt state) has been reached. He can say, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit” (Psa. 51:12). Now he can wash his face and anoint himself, and enter into the house of the Lord and worship. A man now who knows his own heart better, and has learned a deeper lesson of the heart of God! This was the “seventh day.”

Look at Peter. In high handed self confidence he denied his Lord, and when the cock crew — the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. He had not felt his sin, nor his departure from Christ ere this; but the look of Christ entered his soul — the “third day” had arrived for him; and bitter tears, which could never blot out his sin, disclosed to him the depths of his departure from the Lord, and the sense of being unclean and defiled. But for him there was a seventh day too. The joyous heart which girt his fisher’s coat unto him, and leaped into the sea to greet his Master, proves a heart restored; a “seventh day” reached; even before the springs of departure were fathomed in his soul in the interview which followed. Sin in him had triumphed for the moment over the grace of Christ; but grace in Christ had finally triumphed over his sin!

Well; “there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared.” But when we have tasted the bitterness of thus sinning against our God; and some taste this more than others: we learn to walk more softly and distrustfully of ourselves. But let me beseech of you my reader — Do not trespass upon the grace which restores thus. The conscience becomes blunted; the soul grows deadened, under the power of this sinning and repenting; the joy of the heart in Him is sapped and eaten away. He is surely faithful and just to forgive us our sins, yea, moreover, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness; but if so, the aged Apostle adds; “my little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” Yet “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for (the sins of) the whole world” (1 John 2:1, 2).”

Lessons for the Wilderness: 12. Nazariteship Amongst the Uncircumcised

Read Judges 13

The ordinance of the Nazarite Vow is found in its true and suited place, in the journeyings through the Wilderness; and is introduced in that book which treats of the itinerary of the people of God (Num. 6). Certain directions of a (to us) typical character, are unfolded there, to be observed by those who separated themselves unto the Lord by this Vow.

I judge that it follows in marked order, after the subjects of the previous chapter, in which we find the cleansing of the camp where Jehovah dwelt, and more specially, later on, with the law of the bitter water of jealousy; which applies in principle both to Israel, and to the Church, in her responsible place: as also to the individual saint. The Church has given herself to another, when she had been espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ; and the Lord exposes the pollution of the flesh in her; and the man — Christ Himself, is thus guiltless of her iniquity, which she bears, in the Government of God.

Then, in chapter 6, we have special devotedness, in separation to God, by individuals, when the Church figuratively, as a whole, had gone aside. Just as in 1 Timothy we have the external Church in order as God’s habitation, and in 2 Timothy the separation to God of individuals, when she had fallen without possibility of return as a whole.

However I only refer to this fact — not with any thought of entering upon details of the Nazarite Vow in Num. 6, but as noticing its place in the Wilderness, and the fact of Nazariteship then coming in, for the first time. We may remark that Nazariteship was a vow entered upon by individuals — voluntarily on their part; and not inherent, or characteristic of the person: and we may also add that in Scripture — with the exception of Christ — the true Nazarite — there were but three born Nazarites in the actual sense, known in the Word of God: namely, Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist. As Christians we are looked upon as born into this condition as being in Christ.

I now turn in the first place, after these preliminary remarks, to the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Judges.

This Book comes after Joshua, where we have the people introduced into their earthly inheritance by Joshua; type of Christ in the power of the Spirit of God, leading His people into the realization of their heavenly inheritance in practical power. The Book of Joshua shows this energy in taking possession thereof; and also the decay of that energy in maintaining the same in the power of God.

Now Judges is the result of this; and gives us the history of the failure of Israel (or the Church in the antitype), in not putting out evil from their midst, and possessing the Land. The death of Joshua is the key note which begins the book. They were then left to work out their own salvation from the enemy. Analogous to this is the departure of apostolic power from the Church, which is left to work out her own salvation from the enemy, with fear and trembling, in the absence of Paul; while God was there with them both — willing and working according to His good pleasure (Phil. 2).

The Church of God was set up on earth in heavenly blessing, and she failed from the beginning in realizing this; she went downwards in her course, till she has become what we see around us. Hardly a trace now remains of even the apprehension of what the Church of God is. The “World” has become the “Church” and as a consequence under God’s government, the responsible Church will be treated as the world; while God will remove His own before her judgment comes.

Now Judges is the history of this in Israel; and unfolds in type for us, God’s great principles to the end. From time to time, and at the cry of the people when oppressed under their enemies — God raised up Judges and Deliverers, which answered to the varied revivals in the Church of God by His suited instruments; and He wrought great deliverances for His people. They too, went on well for a time, during the life of the Judge, and then relapsed into their old ways. We find in this book exactly Twelve Judges — showing how completely God had wrought for their blessing. Twelve being the number of complete earthly ministration. The history closes with the sixteenth chapter: those which follow showing a state of things which had come in somewhere about the second chapter of the book. I judge that this portion of the book is placed last of all, for the special purpose of showing when the book closed its history in Judg. 16 the character of things in which God was thus working all through for His people, in mercy. I notice this specially, as some would perhaps think that these closing chapters, owing to their place in the book, were the state which supervened after all the work of the Judges was done. A reference to the chronology of the English Bible will help to show the time when the circumstances occurred.

In examining the histories of these revivals we will see that the deliverers were, generally speaking, raised up at the cry to the Lord of the people. He heard their cry and sent His instruments to deliver them. This character of things closes in Judg. 12. Up to this, the enemies were found amongst the Cannanitish Nations within; or some other adjacent tribes — scourges from without which had entered the Land: Midian, Moab, Ammon, and others, were in general their foes. They variously typify Satan’s power and the instruments he uses.

But when we come to Judg. 13 we find other enemies — not of Canaan — under whom they groaned in complete bondage for “forty years.” These people were the Philistines. This moment of their history marks the commencement of Israel’s relations with these bitterest of foes. They had settled within their borders, but were neither of the land itself within; nor were they scourges from without. This is to be noted well. The relations of Israel with these “uncircumcised” never ceased until David came: when he had taken the stronghold of Zion, the Philistines were finally subdued. Then was heard the sound of a going in the tops of the Mulberry Trees: the Lord went forth before His armies and discomfitted them (2 Sam. 5). Similarly the enemy which answers to them in the midst of the Church of God, looked at responsibly on earth, will never be finally subdued until Christ — the true David comes; and then all will be complete victory.

What then was the principle and resource of God, after eleven Judges had been raised up, to meet this character of enemy, and deliver His own? It is seen in the twelfth of the Judges in Samson; in whom we see Nazariteship, or separation to the Lord: “He shall be a Nazarite to God from his mother’s womb!”

We will here remark too, that this Deliverer was not raised up at the cry of the people to the Lord: there was no cry then heard from them. Unlike the former answers to their cry, He interferes in this case unsought.

In the barren wife too, we see the constant sign in Scripture of the powerlessness of man, and the need of the power of resurrection; and God interferes in Sovereign mercy, Himself. He reveals a new principle to meet the state of things onwards, till David came. He does not raise up a Deliverer to lead the people themselves to victory over their enemies. They had sunk too low for this. There was now no restoration to a formal state proposed; no recovery was suggested in this new departure in the ways of the Lord. This Nazariteship therefore was complete separation, even from the people of God; while working out great deliverances for them the while, from their internal foes: and this in the midst of the people still, who were not separate themselves.

But I must look a little more closely at the character of this enemy, and who they were.

Like most principles, and facts unfolded in Scripture: we find that the first intimation of such, generally gives us a key to what afterward grows from this root into the texture of the Word.

If we turn to Genesis 10, where the dividing of the nations of the world is before us — the peopling of the earth by the sons of Noah; we find (Gen. 10:6-20) the descendants of Ham were Cush (the Ethiopian) and Mizraim (Egypt of which this is the Hebrew name), &c. Then in vss.13, 14, “Out of Mizraim... came Philistim.” Here then is the root, and there, the branch — plainly before us. They were not merely man fallen and under Satan’s power, as Egypt represents: but they wandered away from that ground, and had crossed the Desert by what is termed “the way of the land of the Philistines.” This “way” God would not allow Israel to traverse when leaving Egypt (Ex. 13:17), “because that was near.” It was in fact a “short cut,” if we may so speak, across the Desert, and into the land of Canaan. It was not the true path for the redeemed — through the Red Sea and Jordan; through death and resurrection; by which alone the Land could be entered after a divine way, and possessed.

These “uncircumcised” (for this they are always termed); passed into the Land of Promise — wandering away from their own country, and entering into the place of blessing, without the title to possess it. They were not now of Egypt; nor were they of Canaan. They had left their own country, and were no more Egyptians: they had reached that other without the right to be there. They were not Israel; nor even were they those who were attached to Israel for blessing; but had “intruded into those things” which they had no title to possess. They were the bitterest enemies to the truth in that day —these “uncircumcised.”

They were the seed of the natural world fallen, under Satan’s power, and unredeemed; which stretched out into the place of promise, and laid hold on it without title; but they never absolutely possessed the promised Land. They may have “giants,” and great ones of the earth, and by knowledge may seem to possess; but they never can.

They were thus the greatest enemies to the people of God. It may not be too much to say, that there is much to do with the natural senses in this class of enemy; for they have their “Five Lord’s” and “Five cities” too; but after all it is knowledge alone, without faith, or life, and there it perishes. It had intruded into those things it had not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of flesh. (Col. 2:18).

Can we not apply this solemn type to what is around us on every hand: yea, within us also? Can we not apprehend how, as truth is known, it may be received by the natural senses of man? The flesh — uncircumcised and unrenewed, may lay hold of divine things, yea of heavenly truth; and yet have no part or lot therein. The mind may work with divine revelation, and take it up in clearness; with precision and accuracy of expression; but there it ends. What greater enemy can there be, to the true work of the Spirit of God in the Church!

These were the foes which overflowed like a flood, and engulfed the people of God, in Judg. 13. “The Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty years.” Flesh — unredeemed, had taken possession of the divine place, and faith was silent, and cried not to the Lord. All was death around at that day. Then God moves after a new fashion; and inaugurates a new thing — unknown before.

Indeed I may go further, and say, that all His vessels from that hour, until David came upon the scene, were raised against these hitherto triumphant foes.

(1) Samson — in whom was the Spirit of Nazariteship, or separation to the Lord, was raised up — (note it well, my reader) to “begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” He would only inaugurate the work — for he was not Christ! He might “begin” the work: the True David alone could finish it. It is to be noted here, in connection with this, that his name of Samson, means “Sunlike” — from Shemesh, the “Sun” of Righteousness Himself. The principle which he represents would be the nearest thing to Christ, in its verity and truth; and seen in His people, in Separation to God.

(2) Then came Samuel — in whom was the Spirit of prayer, or dependence on the Lord; and in whom we see that great and mighty power first definitely established. His work was always against the Philistines, and prayer was the mighty lever wielded under God by him. His very name signifies “Heard of God,” as he himself was the child of his mother’s — Hannah — the barren woman’s prayer (compare 1 Sam. 1-7).

(3) Then came Jonathan in the days of Saul, and in him we see the Spirit of faith in service. His hand wrought great victories over the uncircumcised (compare 1 Samuel 13; 14).

I pass over poor Saul, who was anointed “Captain over my people Israel, that he may save my people out of the hand of the Philistines.” His was the trial of flesh — set in the fullest advantages; a gift without life, in an unsanctified vessel. Alas, poor Saul! He never went against them, and at last he fell by their hand.

These three instruments taken together, give us the three-fold cord of true power in these days. Separation to God; Dependence on Him; and the Energy of Faith in service! Al these must go together for a “Threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Poor Jonathan tried to serve without the other two: he never separated from Saul’s house, and after his lovely, fresh and successful service, he too fell by these very foes, and his body was nailed by the Philistines to the wall of Bethshan! (1 Sam. 28).

Lessons for the Wilderness: 13. Nazariteship Amongst the Uncircumcised

In the case of Samson we see how everything betokens God’s hand working in sovereignty. He chooses the already dishonored tribe of Dan; first among Israel which lapsed into idolatry (Judg. 18). He can do as it pleases Him. Unasked, the Lord appeared to Manoah’s wife and announces the birth — to her who had been hitherto barren — of this child. The details of the chapter are very lovely, in many ways, and especially bright in the fresh deductions of faith, of the wife of Manoah. I would but notice in passing, three strong features which present themselves to us here.

First, we have the Nazarite — the separated one, to the Lord.

Next — after the offering of the Burnt-offering and Peace-offering — how the angel, whose name was “Wonderful” (compare Judg. 13:18 with Isa. 9:6), ascends up to heaven in the flame of the altar.

And lastly, “These things” showed to Manoah and his wife.

Now here I would refer to the New Testament for a moment, with respect to the Nazariteship of Christ. In the earlier Gospels the Lord is seen in the power of the Kingdom — eating and drinking with the children thereof, if they would hear. In the Gospel of St. John this is all changed. He is an alien to His mother and her children; a lonely Man, from the very beginning of that Gospel; and “His own,” are set aside (John 1:11,12). He is a Nazarite all the way through: gathering and leading a heavenly company of Nazarited ones to the Father’s House on high. In John 17, where the acme of this is seen, we find in broad lines, these three things of Judg. 13 come out afresh in all their intensity and reality. His people are separate: “They are not of the world, even as He is not of the world.” He says to the Father, “And now come I to thee”: He ascends on high, in the value of the Burnt-offering and the Meat-offering, in which they were accepted before the Lord. And “These things speak I in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”

The Church of God was a Nazarited one. Instead of retaining this place, she “ate and drank with the drunken.” But Christ was ever so (spiritually, not literally); and when the Church has fallen as a whole, the only resource is individual Nazariteship — special devotedness to the Lord. The Church of God ever is united to Christ in glory; but to be owned in such a state, it requires that those who would be recognized must be separate to Him. There is no other way. They must be Nazarites; and they must keep the secret too of this, with the Lord. To be outwardly so, without inward separation; to pretend to Nazariteship externally, when not so before God, is terribly solemn. To have an outward character to maintain, while inwardly the conscience is not pure, is but to find, when the moment of testing comes, that we have lost our strength, and wist not that it was departed from us.

Samson’s history — all the details of which I do not enter upon — suffice it for my present object, to notice its broad features, is divided into two distinct parts; each ending with the sentence “and he judged Israel... twenty years” (see the end of Judg. 15 and that of 16).

The first division of his history is embraced in Judg. 13:15 of the book of Judges. In it we will notice how full of power is this Deliverer of his people. How complete is his victory over the Philistines. In all this portion we note too, that “The Spirit of the Lord” came upon him, in his mighty acts (Judg. 13:25;14:6,19;15:14). And also we will notice that he is not accompanied by Israel in these acts. Nay, even the men of Judah come down to bind him and to deliver him into the Philistines’ hand!

How striking is all this to our souls; let the saints of God accept the path of Nazariteship in these days: it is true that God may be, and will be with them in power and blessing. That blessing may extend largely, and with deepest profit even to those too who have not separated themselves to the Lord; bringing deliverance also to them. But they are opposed to those who have taken this separate path. When the people of God are not separate to Him — they will not have those who seek His face, to act in faith and Nazariteship, because to do so is but to judge their own path as unsanctified to God. They would not refuse coalition, nor acts of outward power; but to separate from them and for their blessing too, only meets with their enmity and condemnation.

In the second division of his history all is changed! There is no trace there of the power of “The Spirit of the Lord.” Samson has lost the Nazarite place: the very common sense of man has departed from him, to his betrayal and defeat. He falls — never to rise again, into the hands of the Philistines. He is blinded by his foes; a proof to them at least, that Dagon is stronger than God! Have not God’s people done this? Have they not fallen into the hands of the uncircumcised? Have. they not lost their Nazariteship — being mixed up with the worldly? And thus accepting the evil, they witness, alas, without the words, that evil is greater than good, that the world under which they are captive is stronger than God: saying — that there is nothing perfect here, “We are delivered to these abominations.” They are blinded and captive — and, unable to break their bonds. Only fit for the world to make mock at, and rejoice that their Nazariteship is defiled and destroyed. How well may the Scriptures say to such, “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from among the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee (Eph. 5:14).” But when the world — and “woe unto it”! has drawn away that which God had separated to Himself, by its allurements, it only brings upon itself the dire judgments of God, and its total ruin: and this too at the moment of its greatest triumph. When bind Samson is called to make sport before the Philistine Lord’s at Gaza, and when he leaned upon the pillars of the house on which they stood, filled with these thousands of the foe, God heard his cry. And when he bowed himself with all his might — the house fell upon himself and on all that were therein; “So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life”: but he falls himself in their destruction.

Thus it will be with the world when God removes the Church from this scene, as when Samson himself was removed; more of her foes will be destroyed in her death, than she had done in her life; for her removal will be the sign for the crushing judgments of God on the professing Church, which alas is but the world!

Now analogous to these two sections of Samson’s history: the one, of Nazariteship in power and victory: the other, of Nazariteship lost, and of blindness and defeat: we find these two features plainly, in the two last messages to the Seven Churches in Asia, in the Revelation of Jesus Christ by John: namely, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

I do not enter upon the interpretation of the Seven Messages, which is familiar to many amongst the Lord’s people in these days. But only notice that these messages are divided into two great parts. Those two parts unfold the universal principle of God’s judicial dealings with man; with Israel; and with the Church, as a responsible body set up on the earth. He looks back at the primal order, or state, in which anything was first set up, and from which it had fallen. He gives space to recover this state if such may be. But failing this He looks forward — and revealing Himself in judicial power and glory, presents this as the measure and standard. As if to say, “Can you meet and answer me?” The state in which that which the subject of judgment was set up by His hand in perfection, is the one standard of judgment: and then the nature of God Himself being the other.

The first four messages to the Churches are founded on the former standard. He charges the Church that she had left her first love she had fallen from that state in which she had been established. Then comes the exhortation — “Repent, and do thy first works, or I will remove thy candlestick out of her place.” No response to this being made; we go further and hear the solemn words, “I gave her space to repent and she repented not”: therefore judgment must supervene.

The standard of judgment then changes. The Lord Himself was coming in. Can she meet the burning beams of His glory? Can she stand when He appears? Nay, all was now over, and the only thing that faith could do was this, “hold fast until I come.” This is the ground in the last three.

Then all is changed. The messages are now founded on this — that recovery can never be. Judgment must clear the scene, ere the glory appear, when Christ comes.

I would here remark what is of great importance to note well. That there is no “Church ground” (to speak in a Pauline aspect), in these messages. John is always individual, and never corporate in the divine teaching through him. They present moral states, or great moral features reviewed by the Lord; with His varied exhortations and ways of dealing with such; and the rewards to the faithful “who have an ear to hear.”

I do not think that such an expression as “Philadelphian ground” is therefore a true thought. Rather the reverse. It gives the impression at once of a corporate thing; and loses therefore the great value, in its true and moral aspect, as a moral state expressed by, and suited to the Lord.

There may be what we may term a ‘Philadelphian state’ seen, individually in souls, in the dark ages; or even now in the professing Church. Souls that are true; and walking in devotedness of heart — wherever found; and when walking up to the light and every gleam of it possessed, are truly “Philadelphian.” Knowledge is not Philadelphian in any wise; unless knowledge is found producing that truly blessed moral state, of which Christ can approve.

Are there none, my brethren, who would perhaps assume “Philadelphian ground,” who are anything but Philadelphian? Are there none, on the other hand, who know but little indeed of the light and truth which has been shed about our path in these days, and yet who walk unseen, with every gleam of light they possess shining out in devoted hearts and ways? At the same time they are mixed up with what others, with greater light, know is not the truth?

I do not say that such would continue to be so, did they refuse fresh gleams of light, shed upon their path. Nay; this would at once deprive them of the character of Philadelphia. They would be Laodicea in a moment then.

Philadelphia is indeed the Nazarite path: that moral Nazariteship which meets with the approval of Christ. All is victory with such a state. Yet it is a path in which the secret must be kept, between Christ and the soul. He knows and He alone: “I know thy works” — this must suffice the true heart. Such may be asked, “Tell me wherein thy great strength lieth!” but it is a secret not to be betrayed. This answers to the first part of Samson’s history.

But Laodicea follows. Alas, she is blind, as Samson, now. Her Nazariteship is lost. She still thinks herself “rich, and increased with goods, having need of nothing”; yet her strength is gone; she is blind and naked. She is counseled to anoint her eyes with eyesalve, that she may see. She is lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, but nauseous to Christ: He will spue such a state of things out of His mouth.

My brethren, there are lessons here for our souls! We may have to begin de novo; the days of our former separation may have been lost. But we can begin again! We have a God of mercy to deal with, who has unfolded what is well-pleasing to Him. The moment is coming when the Church of God will be removed, in her last stage here; then the judgment of the Philistines will take place. Then the “sound of a going” will be heard “in the tops of the mulberry trees,” once more; and the Lord will go forth to battle with His foes, and “The saints will be joyful in glory”: “The high praises of God will be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hands!”

Let Philadelphia then remember that He has said, “Hold fast till I come,” and, “Let no man take thy crown.” The day is coming when Christ the heavenly Nazarite, will say, “Eat, my friends, drink, my beloved.” When we shall know the meaning of the words, “Then shall the Nazarite drink wine” (Num. 6). The blessing of Joseph which ran thus, will then be Christ’s: “... The God of thy father who shall help thee; and by the Almighty who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under,...the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be upon the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was Nazarited [see Hebrew] from his brethren!” The Crown is shorn (as it were) of the only True Nazarite, when the days of His separation shall be at an end! (Compare Gen. 49:25, 26; Deut. 33:13-17).

The days of the Kingdom will then have come, and those who have stood fast, and walked as Nazarites here, will then be owned. Those who separated themselves to David of old, in his days of rejection, gathering to him in the Cave of Adullam, and in the days of the Kingdom, they received their reward. But the brightest gems of his glory were those specially named, who had met these special enemies — “the uncircumcised.” If we consult 2 Samuel 23, when the Sweet Psalmist of Israel sung his lovely “Last words,” it was of those who had conquered the Philistines its substance most expressed.

Lessons for the Wilderness: 14. Greater Works

“Let your light so shine” (Matt. 5:16). “Greater works that these” (John 14:12).

“The Candlestick” was one of those ordinances which stood alone, giving a character to the Wilderness Journey, in the Book of Numbers. We have already noticed several of these special things, some of them not even mentioned elsewhere, which are peculiar to this Book. Before the journey commenced, and the Levites were set apart to serve, the “Candlestick” was the first thing spoken of.

When the Lord addressed Moses, from off the Mercy Seat that was upon the Ark; “And when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation to speak with him (God), then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy seat, that was upon the ark of testimony, from between the two cherubims: and he spake unto him: And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou unto Aaron, and say unto him, When thou lightest the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick (Num. 7:89;8:1,2).” Here only, of all the furniture of the Sanctuary is the Candlestick found. Just as the Trumpets alone belong to this book; and the Rod of Priesthood; and the Ashes of the Heifer; and the Ribband of Blue; — The Candlestick — though heretofore directed to be made, stands alone. This is full of instruction for our souls. How blessed it is to find some grand apparent difficulty in the Word of God! Be assured that when something comes across our path there which seems irrational, and out of context; in fact something that we are afraid to entertain — tempted to fear some mistake; it is in such a place that the richest ore crops out from the Word; yielding to us its sweetest lessons!

But the mistake we sometimes fall into is, making efforts to master the difficulty at once, never giving a thought to the great fact that we may not yet be ready for the truths which are there. Our souls are not fit for the lesson, and we must wait; we must grow in fitness; we must not give the matter up as hopeless, nor as not being for us at all. But we must wait for God’s time, and look for light to Him. Jesus spake to His disciples, as they were able to bear it.

Have I not at times feared to make my difficulties known to another? Has not my soul trembled — tempted to think I had placed my confidence in some statement of the Word in vain? Yet I have waited on my God, and not in vain; ‘and, it may have been in years after, the truth was made clear in the Word, and my soul was filled with praise! The great thing is never to lose confidence in it: God will sometime make it plain to the exercised heart.

I do not say that there is such a difficulty here, in the ordinance of the Candlestick. There may be absurdity in the matter, to the soul of the infidel. He may sneer at the hopeless jumble which the word of God here, as elsewhere, presents, to him. He may found theories about disjointed narratives and of collected manuscripts, and other wise deductions while the beauties of Scripture, like the starry skies to the blind man, are lost upon him. Alas — he wants eyes to see!

How suitably then is the Candlestick here introduced. The people of God are about to start on their Wilderness journey (Num. 10); in their Levite character they are about to be set apart to serve the Lord (Num. 8), and ere they start on their pilgrimage all must partake of the Paschal Feast — the symbol of the unity of a redeemed people (Num. 9). The first thing therefore is this, that they are to shine as the “Epistle of Christ — known and read of all men”! They are to “Let their light so shine among men, that they may see their good works, and glorify their Father, which is in heaven.” “Christ” is to be made known through them on earth, He is to shine out in all their ways: this on the one hand; but on the other, it is their works which are seen; but they are to shine so that men may trace them to the source of all — their Father in heaven revealed by Jesus; the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning! Here then most suitably is the Candlestick found.

Remark too in this ordinance of the Candlestick — the seven lamps, lit up by the oil of the Spirit, are to shine where no light was, within the holy place, but “over against the Candlestick — the shaft of which was of beaten gold. The lamps were to shine so that its beauty should be seen.

In the inner Sanctuary, or “Holiest of all” there was no light needful: the God of Israel was the Light thereof: the glory “Shekinah-ed” there; and in that glorious light none could dwell. What a wondrous “shadow” was this of Him, who “dwelleth in the light to which no one can approach, whom no one hath seen nor can see,” to whom be glory forever and ever ascribed! (1 Tim. 6).

But in the outer Sanctuary, or “Holy Place,” this light was there. “The candlestick shone over against the shaft thereof.” God would have a light to display His Son. And here it is of profound interest and instruction to us, to note that when the vail was rent which divided the Holy place from the most Holy, the now blended light still shined on — when both were but one “Holy”! The light of Him who sits upon the Throne or Mercy Seat; and that from the seven branched Candlestick, both combined; the light from the glory in the face of Jesus, and the light of the Spirit lit up in the Church of God on earth, formed one bright and glorious effulgence. The day will come when in the glorified Church on high (Rev. 21), we read, that “the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof”; and yet “Her light was like a stone most precious; like a jasper and a sardine stone.” This effulgence all combined will shine forth —

I in them, and thou in me: that they may be made perfect in one; that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me (John 17:21).

If we turn to the Gospel of John (ch. 12 — 14) we have a lovely hint at this “Candlestick” — where the Lord unfolds the gift of the coming Comforter to His People, when He was going away.

He had entered Jerusalem as her King. “Hosannah! Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord,” resounded from the voices of “much people,” “which had gone forth to meet him” (John 12). They waved the branches of palm trees, and spread their garments in the way. The Romans looked on and were silent. The Greeks came up and laid hold on His followers, saying, “Sirs, we would see Jesus.” All seemed lifelike, and promised great things.

But the Lord was not deceived. He could not yet “silence the enemy and the avenger”; nor “rise to reign over the Gentiles”; nor bless His people as their King. Nay. “The corn of wheat must die or abide alone” (John 12:24); but if it die, it would bring forth much fruit. Another scene must darken the world. The cross must ensue, and the judgment of the world must come (John 12:31). But the end would be — “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” No more an earthly Messiah seeking in vain to draw the Jew — “His own”; but a wider glory would shine from the cross: Christ must leave the earth: He “must be lifted up” from it — not yet to heavenly glory; but between the heavens and the earth — upon the cross, He would be no more merely the object to the Jew as walking here; but to draw all men unto Himself! He would thus — as the crucified, be the object for the world. The “Brazen Altar” must be satisfied; its claims must be set at rest forever, ere He could pass into the holiest in virtue of the work there done.

When the camp stood at rest in the Desert, surrounded by the Tribes of Israel, it figured the dwelling place of God. When one approached God’s dwelling place, he left the world outside. Inside the curtains which surrounded the Court of the Sanctuary, he met the Altar of Brass. It did not stand in the world outside, nor did it reach the dwelling place of God. Like the cross, it stood between them both — for the Mediator between God and man; the “Daysman,” to stand between. But the sinner had left the world, and all hope from man behind, when he lifted his eyes to the meeting place between God and man. The cross where Jesus was lifted up, was this Brazen Altar. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me!” He would thus be the “Zaphnath-Paaneah”; the true Joseph — the “Savior of the world” (Gen. 41:45).

When the “Brazen Altar” was thus passed by, ere the saved one reached the presence of God, the “Brazen Laver” met him by the way. He must not only be cleansed according to the need of man; but fitted for communion according to the thoughts of God! The Laver met his daily need, and the defilements contracted by his feet were removed — that no soil might hinder his fellowship with the Father and Son. Jesus becomes the true Laver (John 13) to wash their feet, that they might have “part with me.” “If I wash thee not thou hast no part with me.”

When the Brazen Layer was now passed, the “Holiest” the “Father’s House” — was entered (John 14) to prepare a place for those who had been cleansed. The vail was yet unrent till Jesus died; He enters it, as yet, alone. He would come again and receive them there Himself. But Jesus — “The way the truth, the life,” must prove in death, by being rent in twain as it were, that “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” This was the vail — His flesh.

In the “Holy” place “the Candlestick” was set to shine meanwhile. The oil was about to be given; the Spirit of God, the other Comforter should be bestowed. Then the lights of the lamps would shine over against the Candlestick. Jesus had declared the Father; “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also.” This was natural in Him and true. None but He — the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, had declared Him.

But a new thing would come. One which would be supernatural indeed. “The believing one on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to my Father.” This was the ‘Candlestick.” The sevenfold light would shine from the believer, in the power of the Spirit, “over against the Candlestick.” Believers would show forth the Son of God, as he had shown the Father!

These were not Apostles: doubtless they too were amongst those who would so shine; but we do not find Apostles named in John. It is “believers” of which He speaks here. Were this not so, they would lose the joy and blessedness of these Scriptures in John.

The “great work” of Jesus — so natural to Him; would be replaced by “greater works” in them. It was the Father known in the Son was His great work here. But when poor lost ones, now saved, would show forth Him, by the power of the Spirit given them: these things were beyond what man could do. The seven lamps would show their light, but they would shine when no light was seen, revealing the beauty of the shaft and knops and flowers of the Candlestick.

Look at Stephen —”Full of the Holy Ghost,” gazing steadfastly into heaven. The glory from the Holiest shone out upon him. The Lamp of the Candlestick was lit up on earth, and no power of Satan could quench the light. It was “ Christ” that shone in him. It shone over against the Candlestick. He beholds his Master in the heavens, and he is like his Master in the darkness outside. His face shines, as a child of the resurrection, like the face of an angel. His words are like his Master’s prayer. He was telling forth, without the words, the virtues of Him who had called him out of darkness into His marvelous fight.

Surely this was a “greater work” than Christ had done. With Him all was perfect; all shone out because it was within. But not so with us. If the God who caused light to shine of old out of darkness had lit a Lamp in our hearts, it is tor the shining forth of the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).

But all this is “Because I go unto my Father.” All rests on Him. He alone can order the lights “without the vail of the testimony, in the Tabernacle of the Congregation... from evening until the morning before the Lord continually... He shall order the Lamps upon the pure Candlestick, before the Lord continually” (Lev. 24:1-4).

May His own “Shine, as lights in the world, holding forth (exhibiting) the Word of Life!”

Lessons for the Wilderness: 15. The Ribband of Blue

“... Upon the fringe... a ribband of blue” (Num. 15:37-41).

The ordinance which now comes before us, in this remarkable book, is found in a parenthetic chapter, lying in the midst of the history of Israel’s conduct in the Wilderness; and is peculiar to the Book of Numbers alone (chapter 15). This chapter contains certain directions to Moses relating to things to be observed when they be come into the Land, which the Lord had given them. (We may of course except the verses from 32 to 36, where an instance had occurred of presumptuous sin in the Wilderness; and yet this incident was connected with the directions about sins of ignorance, and sins of presumption there given.)

The very position of the chapter has marvelous beauty for our souls. Israel had been sentenced to wander for forty years in the desert, until the carcasses had fallen there of those who had “despised the pleasant land,” and who said, “Would God we had died in this wilderness.” Some amongst them had sought to go up against the Amalekites and the Canaanites without the Ark, and were discomfited unto Hormah. This was told us in Num. 14. The rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, which was in reality apostasy, was then about to manifest itself. Just before this took place, this lovely chapter drops in, with its streams of refreshment for our souls — detailing the unchanging faithfulness of the Lord! He speaks to Moses in all the calm dignity of one who could not change, though Israel might destroy himself. God was faithful, and He had given them the Land. Nothing then could alter His purposes and promises to Abraham’s seed.

Moses was to speak unto the Children of Israel, and say unto them, “When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you!” (Num. 15:2). Just as if nothing had occurred, and Israel was as faithful as He, those words are uttered; irrespective of all that had passed!

But it is always thus. Man may fail: the saints too may turn aside. The servant’s heart may be wrenched as he beholds their ways; but God is the refuge of their heart and their portion forever! It reminds us of the Corinthians, when in such a state that Paul had to turn aside on his way there, having heard of their sins. But before he ever touches upon this, his heart turns to God. He thinks of Him. Of his abiding faithfulness, spite of all; and he says, “... Who shall confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son (1 Cor. 1:8, 9).”

Thus it is here (Num. 15): He would bring His people in; and would teach them in the Wilderness their practice for the Land! This is striking and remarkable indeed. It is something at which we may challenge our hearts and ask — Are we too sensible of the fact that we are taught in the Wilderness our practice for the glory? I have no doubt that our walk here determines our place in that glory. Yet on the other hand — I am sure “it will be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father”— as the Lord has said. But this does not alter the other fact in any wise. If we recall the scene of the Supper which they made for Jesus in Bethany, before He entered upon His passion in Jerusalem (John 12), we see three souls there — the dead man, Lazarus raised from the dead, seated with Him at the feast: the Martha who had served Him at her own board, and loved her Savior, still serving there: and the Mary who sat at His feet and heard His word; who fell at His feet in her sorrow now worshiping at His feet, in this typical scene of glory. We are taught by this that as each one had learned of Him and walked with Him in the sorrows of the eleventh of John, each took their place at the feast in Bethany with Him: Lazarus sat; and Martha served; and Mary, with her spikenard poured forth, worshiped!

So with His people now: they are being fitted here, slowly but surely, by His hand, for the place and service they shall occupy in His glory. What an incentive is this for diligence of soul!

How this reminds us of David’s men of old, who came to him, a sorry lot indeed; but served and abode with him till his kingdom came, and then what glorious men surrounded, and ministered to his glory! What characters were theirs: what deeds had they wrought long perhaps forgotten; but remembered, and recalled and detailed in their value to him, in the day when he “wrote up the people” (2 Sam. 23).

There is a touching significance too in this “Fringe” which was to be placed on the bottom of their garments; and the “Ribband of blue,” coming in here, in the midst of instructions, which have to do with Canaan, and their practice there. Nothing could be plainer than the fact that this “Ribband of blue” was an ordinance for the Wilderness path; though not for it alone. It was that which was abstract and general, without having reference to place or circumstances. Yet here it is, in the midst of instructions for the Land. Why was this?

It is plain (and the more so when we apprehend its import), that this heavenly border, was to serve, to connect their earthly path with things of another scene! That while here below the heavenly blue was to link their practice with things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God!

Thus is the unchanging faithfulness of the Lord, linked with the heavenly walk of His own, as they are instructed in “things above,” where their hearts, and their affections are also.

Let us remark too, that this fringe, with its border of blue, was not placed on those parts of their garments, which were conspicuous to the eye. They were placed on the border of the robe: “the hem” which came nearest to the ground. They were to “look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart, and your own eyes.”

The smallest detail of life: that which was connected with the pathway, and came down to the common things of every day, were to be heavenly in their character. It was to call to their mind each day and hour, by its heavenly blue — that they belonged to Him who is heavenly “as is the heavenly, so are they” (1 Cor. 15:48). They were to “remember,” and to “do” — to be obedient in all details.

It was not enough that they should themselves decide what was heavenly, and follow the dictates of their own heart. All was faulty unless done in obedience too: obedience to the commandments of the Lord. But there was more than this. Its result was seen in a holy and separate walk; “and be holy unto your God.”

And here it is when the New Testament in its antitypes reflects the types of the Old with such marvelous beauty. When we come to look at the practical directions which are found there, how the details enter on the smallest things of life, and are founded on the fact that the saints are connected with heaven and Christ.

Time would fail us to recount the thousand precepts which fill its pages: the commandments addressed to direct the life possessed. The directions given to the life bestowed upon the children of God. How different is this from the commandments of the Law. They were prohibitions to the flesh, out of which nothing but evil could come. They forbid its actions and its lusts. They required righteousness from an unrighteous man, and visited their curse upon all who did not answer to them. But the commandments of the New, are addressed to a new life given, which needs to be directed through an evil world. They are called commandments, because if we did everything right without obedience, it was worthless. This was the path of Christ.

This heavenly character comes out very strikingly in the Colossians: as in other places in the Word. But there, where the saints are not themselves (looked at as) seated in heavenly places in Christ, it is largely seen; though not less seen in the other epistles. The saint in Colossians, “risen with Christ,” is practically walking in a character suited to heaven where Christ sits at God’s right hand.

Remark, beloved reader, how all those relations of life which Christianity owns, are here addressed. Wives and husbands; children and parents; servants and masters; ministers and those ministered to, in their heavenly paths: the subject one always coming first.

We do not find in the New Testament, directions for kings, or rulers; statesmen or soldiers; or the great ones of the earth. There may be, and there have been saints in these relations, but God does not recognize them as such there. To be so but falsifies what Christianity is. It instructs the lowly, the subject ones of the earth, in their heavenly path; but great in the sight of God. Some of the relations it exhorts came in through sin (as servants and masters, &c.). It does not disturb them. It does not undertake to set the world to rights. It leaves all things as it found them for the present time; but it comes from heaven to sanctify the heart in these relations, that it may be “heavenly” and “obedient” and “holy” to the Lord. The servant to his master, though an unbeliever. The master to his servant though a slave. And this while gathering out of the world a people for the Lord.

How sad and solemn it is, when heavenly truth has but little power with the saints, when clearness of doctrine, held in the mind, has never sanctified the heart; when worldliness marks those who hold the highest truths which God has been pleased to reveal. When the conscience alas, is deadened by the very truths which should produce a separate, holy, obedient, heavenly path.

But I speak of nothing new in this. It brought forth those terrible “woes” from the lips of Christ. Those warnings which came forth with scathing distinctness against those who taught the precepts of scripture, and pretended to walk therein, but whose desire was to be “seen of men,” and not of God. Hearken to those denunciations of Christ in Matthew 23 against the formalists and religionists of that day. Woe after woe is heard; and this touching rite of the “Ribband of Blue” is referred to with those words:

But all their works they do to be seen of men, they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments; they love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.

Is there not the spirit of this around us now, rather than the lowly heavenly grace of our Lord? Had they not changed by their formalism, that which was the expression of this — in the “border” of blue, into an emblem for self-exaltation and spiritual pride? That which God had given to produce a lowly walk, was used only to gain place and honor from man.

But Jesus is the same. And virtue comes out of Him now as then, when a lowly soul would touch the border of His garment by faith, whether for healing, or for fresh supplies of grace.

May the Lord apply these several Wilderness lessons on which we have meditated, to our souls; binding them all together, as one said to me once, with a true “Ribband of Blue,” that His name — the name of our heavenly Savior and Lord, may be glorified in His people, while they are waiting for Him here below.

Collected Writings

Table of Contents

Introductory Notes

Forty Days

Forty Days: 1. The Forty Days of the Flood

Forty Days: 2. The Forty Days of Moses on Mount Sinai

Forty Days: 3. The Forthy Days' Searching of Canaan

Forty Days: 4. Human Weakness and Divine Strength

Forty Days: 5. Repentance and Forgiveness

Forty Days: 6. Conflict and Victory

Forty Days: 7. Redemption and Glory

Is the Christian in Adam or in Christ? and What Is the Result of This as Regards His Standing and Walk?

He Will Swallow Up Death in Victory

The Lord's Supper

The Water of Purification

The Red Sea and Jordan

The Personal and Corporate Actions of the Holy Spirit: 1. The Holy Spirit as a Quickener and a Witness

The Personal and Corporate Actions of the Holy Spirit: 2. The Spirit as a Seal

The Personal and Corporate Actions of the Holy Spirit: 3. The Body of Christ Formed by the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

The Personal and Corporate Actions of the Holy Spirit: 4. The Walk of Saints According to the Spirit

The Vine

His Will - His Work

Zaphnath-Paaneah: Genesis 41 & John 4

Manna

O Wretched Man That I Am! Who Shall Deliver Me?

The Jews

Noah Building the Ark, and Noah in the Ark: The Two-Fold Christian Testimony

Correspondence on the Training of the Children of Believers

Correspondence on Singing at the Graves of Our Brethren

Correspondence on the State of the Saints Under Promise, Law, and Grace

Dead to Sin: Dead to the Law

Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy

Aaron and His Sons

A Brief Word on Matthew 12:5

The Bunch of Hyssop

The New Birth: 1. What Is It?

The New Birth: 2. Repentance

The New Birth: 3. Two Natures - the Old Not Changed or Set Aside

The New Birth: 4. The New Man - Eternal Life

The New Birth: 5. Walking in the Spirit

The New Birth: 6. in the Light - Confession

God's Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 1. Preface to the Third Edition

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 1. There Is One Body and One Spirit

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 2. Distinctive Positions of a Jew and a Gentile in the Old Testament

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 3. The Wall of Partition Removed

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 4. Christ - the Head of the Body, in Heaven

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 5. What Is Union With Christ?

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 6. The Formation of One Body by the Baptism of the Holy Ghost

There Is One Body and One Spirit: 7. The Lord's Supper

The Unity of the Spirit: Preface

Scripture Queries and Answers: From Words of Truth Vol. 1

Perseverance of the Saints

Proverbs 1:26

Does the Holy Ghost Dwell in Christendom?

Galatians 3:10 and Philippians 3:18, 19

The Cross

How Does God Create Evil?

Leaven

Entering Into Temptation

John 1:51

Zacchaeus

Christ Learned Obedience

Quickening - Sealing

The Olive Tree

1 Peter 1:1-2

Hebrews 13:13

Luke 16

Prayer to the Holy Ghost

The Judgment Seat of Christ

Keeping the Unity of the Spirit

Indwelling of the Spirit

Saints and Faithful

Ephesians 1:18

Peter's Fishing After the Resurrection

Simon, Son of Jonas

Baptism of the Holy Ghost

What Is the Perfect Man?

Lord's Supper: Eating and Drinking Unworthily

Judas and the Lord's Supper