Ascension
YEARS passed on. E. D. had never for a moment lost the blessed assurance that all her sins had been forever put away by the blood of Christ. She had never doubted that she was safe forever. She knew that the life she now had was the life of Christ Himself, and that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him. Therefore she knew that she had passed beyond death into that resurrection standing which must be eternal, because Christ lives forever, and His life was now her life.
All this was so far the truth. But she had forgotten that it had ever dawned upon her that there was something beyond this; yes, beyond the knowledge and possession of the glorious resurrection life of Christ. Not that she was satisfied, but she did not know why she was not. She was very happy in thinking of the future to be spent in unmingled joy, after the present life is over; but the present was not bright to her. Not bright, though she knew she was saved! She scarcely knew it was not bright, for she had never imagined any happiness beyond that of knowing sin forgiven, and no doubt in that respect she was far happier than many around her. I would ask, Do you know what it is that lies beyond? in plain words, what God has saved you for? “In order that I may tell others the way to be saved,” was the answer I once had to this question. “And what, then, is the last believer saved for? For God will one day accomplish the number of His elect. There will be no gospel work for that last saved one to do. And yet God saves that one for the same purpose as He has saved those before who have believed through the word of His apostles. What is that purpose?” No answer was given. E. D. would have found it hard to answer either. She did clearly see that, as she had opportunity, it was a right and blessed thing to tell sinners of the way to be saved, and she often did so. But it sometimes came into her mind “God has the gospel for sinners, is then nothing for the saints?”
Strange that will so large a part of the bible in our hands, addressed to “the saints and to the faithful in Christ Jesus,” any should be in ignorance of what Gee has for such. But the same power which opens the eyes of the blind sinner is needed to enlighten the eyes of the understanding in the case of the saint, as we see it Ephesians 1:1818The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, (Ephesians 1:18). No doubt most believers see and admit that there are directions given in the New Testament for the conduct of Christian people, and that these directions are for them, and not for unsaved sinners, but such passages as Ephesians 1:17-23, 2:6, 3:16-19, Colossians 1:25-29, 2:2, do not bring any distinct thought before their minds, except that they perhaps look at such expressions as a way of speaking of the future glory which is, after all, they think so difficult to imagine or understand. To know we are saved, to tell the gospel to others, to endeavor to live blamelessly, and to a certain extent to keep out of the world, is their thought of what Christian life is. It was E. D.’s thought. And with regard to the last “duty,” that of keeping out of the world, she agreed with others to whom she spoke on the matter “that it is very difficult to draw a line.” No doubt it is, and into this difficulty God has never put us. He has never told us to draw a line whereby to cut off even the smallest portion of the world for our gratification. He has said “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
Yet God in His great mercy did, from time to time give some fresh light to E. D., slow to learn as she was. “What is it to be a Christian?” she asked herself. “Do I know?” And then in searching the scriptures, the truth forced itself upon her mind, “If I would know that, I must first know what Christ is, for He is the pattern of it. What is true of Him as the risen man, that, and that only, can be the truth as to what the Christian is.” By degrees this thought unfolded itself in many ways, and it became at last the one absorbing desire in the mine of E. D. to be taught something more of Christ. It was true more light came through the Word, but it only sheaved how much more there was to learn.
It was on a winter’s evening that she was unexpectedly called for by some friends, who were going to some preaching in a little mission room in a small village some miles off. A dark, ignorant place she knew it to be, and went, prepared to hear the message given to half heathen people as to the way by which sinners might be saved. But if was a message she had never heard before. The work of Christ in saving the lost she had long known, that which is past and finished; the future, coming to take His saints, she also knew; but for the present she knew but by hearsay, as it were, of His intercession in heaven, and His advocacy with the Father. Now it was to her, as it is said in Acts 7, “Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.” For the first time she was, as it were, brought face to face with Christ in glory, had seen Him where He is. For to be really with Him in spirit, and to behold Him, we must behold Him where He is. To remember Him where He was, to look forward to His coming again, blessed as both must be, still these thoughts of Him are not the same as the actual sight of Him as He now is, given by the power of the Holy Ghost, not to Stephen only, but to all who have eyes to see. It is thus, that whilst the body is still down here, God brings us up in spirit to those heavenly places, where we find Christ in glory―not only find Him, but find ourselves one with Him there―already given a place far above the wilderness world, brought to the Father as dear children who have the nearest and the dearest place, because it is Christ’s place, knowing Christ as the living One in the glory, and, having seen Him, becoming blind to all besides. “I could not see for the glory of that light.”
E. D. had known something before of present intercourse with Christ, but it was then Christ as coming down to sympathize and interest Himself in her circumstances―lighting up the dark days, encouraging in trials and difficulties. But the new thing was, to be taken up into His circumstances, to be able to enter into His joy, to share the blessedness of the Father’s love, to lose sight, in how great a measure! of the things belonging to the earth below; and to find a new, boundless scene of glory filled with Christ, Christ only, as manifesting the Father, and as the object of the Father’s delight.
This, then, is the present possession, or rather, some faint attempt to describe the present possession which our God would have us to find in the ascended Christ. And till it is thus with us, till we know Christ as He is, and where He is, and learn to find the joy of our souls in His joy, we have but touched the outside rim of salvation. Saved we may be. We may be rejoicing in the complete knowledge of our safety and our forgiveness. We may remember Christ, we may look forward to seeing Him, we may find Him helping and cheering us in the wilderness path, but we do not know that bright scene of glory in which self can be forgotten, and Christ is the present, living, glorious One, in whom (not only in our own safety and blessing) we find unspeakable delight. We share the delight of God in the Son of His love, and the delight of the Son in the Father’s presence. And not only so, but we find ourselves in a new relation to the saints, and in a new position as regards the world. We find but one Christ in the glory, and we can thenceforward see but One Body here below, united to that one glorified Head by the Holy Ghost, sent down from the glorified Christ to form the One Body of that Head in heaven. We see, then, the meaning of those words in John 7, “The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.” And how wonderful is this first sight Df the Church of God, all believers, as the One Body of the Christ who is in the glory!
E. D. had known and believed in a certain way before that all believers were one company, and therefore bound to love one another, as all belonging to Christ. But union is a closer thing than even love. We may love and “agree to differ,” as the world says: we own our place as those who are all one with Christ, and we are “perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment,” as the Holy Ghost says, and where difference arises we grieve, not agree to differ. For as there is one Body, there is but on Spirit who lives and moves therein―all else is the acting and moving of the flesh and of the mind. Therefore it is by knowing Christ in glory, and ourselves as one with Him there that we first see clearly what the Church of God is here below; and we see ourselves as taken out of the world altogether, because we are united to Him who is in heaven, whom the world has rejected. Taken out of the world, and yet―wonderful thought! ―sent into the world, “as He was sent into the world.” And here we find ourselves, therefore, as before said, in a new position with regard to the world. Sent into it from Christ in heaven to tell lost sinners of “the things which we have seen and heard.” These words were said to Paul. What was it he had seen and heard? It was Christ in the glory. He could not only say, as the twelve apostles did, that he had seen Christ risen, but he had seen what they had not seen, Christ in heaven, and from thence therefore is the message come to us sinners of the Gentiles―come from that bright glory where Christ is.
Do you think it makes no difference in giving the message? We see one Christian who has a real concern for lost souls, who is touched with the thought of the eternal misery lying before them, who knows the blessed truth that Christ has borne the punishment due to sin, and thus, roused by the sense of the sinner’s need, he tells him of the remedy, and rejoices for the sake of that sinner when he sees him turn to God. Does it offend you to hear that this is falling far short of the fullness of the gospel of Christ?
We find another Christian who has himself, by the power of the Spirit, been brought to know Christ as He is, and therefore where He is. And he goes forth as sent by Christ into the world, his heart filled with the sense, not of the sinner’s need of Christ, but of Christ’s need of the sinner. He can tell, as Paul did, of the things he has seen and heard, how Christ needs the sinner to share with Him the Father’s love and the glory of Heaven. He can preach that gospel which is called in 2 Corinthians 4:4,4In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4:4) “the gospel of the glory of Christ,” the good tidings that Christ is in the glory. “Why is that good tidings to me?” the sinner may say. “Because Christ calls to you to share that glory, and till you know what that means you do not see what the good tidings are—something far, far beyond your thoughts and hopes, not according to your desires for yourself, but according to Christ’s desire for Himself. That is to say, it is not your need Christ is thinking of, but His need of you. To think of your need would be kindness, to think of His need of you is love.”
How often, alas, is the gospel of kindness the message given, instead of the gospel of love! And yet we have the wonderful histories in the 15th chapter of Luke, the gospel preached by Christ Himself, and what do we find there? We find the shepherd’s joy, and the joy of the angels that he had found his heart’s desire: we have the same thing in the third parable, we have the father’s joy, because, though his son would have been satisfied without him, had he had enough to eat, he could not be satisfied without his son. And it is from the brightness of the Father’s glory that this message comes, only delivered faithfully by those who know what it is to have seen there, by the power of the Holy Ghost, the ascended Christ. F. B.