Beloved brother, -I am glad, at least, that you are encouraged. To judge oneself is often necessary and useful, but if that produces distrust, it is evil; the spirit of legalism is there; the heart of God is judged according to what we find in our own—a sad way, if we desire to know Him. The law says, Love; it is a righteous demand. But the gospel, Christ Himself, says, "God so loved," from this the new nature, and power to conquer sin, flow. The demand to love does not produce love, and the demand for holiness does not make holy. But also the fact that we have a new nature, does not give liberty—desire for holiness, no doubt, but not strength nor liberty. Redemption gives us first of all liberty, placing us before God, justified and accepted in the Beloved; the conscience is purified, and we recognize the love that is in God. Then comes up the question of the dominion of sin, and if we are not clear as to redemption, liberty in the soul is lost. This is what remains still to be settled, in part, in your soul.
You speak of having practically done with self, and of holding it for dead. But it is with this latter truth that you must begin, and that as crucified with Christ. "Ye are dead," says God. (Col. 3) Faith recognizes this truth, and the experience which precedes is but the means of bringing us to discover that we do not succeed in delivering ourselves, nor in dying. We must reckon ourselves to be dead. Experience is useful to make us feel the need of a deliverer—our own weakness. When we have made the discovery of it, we come to know that God in sending His Son, has condemned sin in the flesh. There is no acceptance of sin in the flesh. We learn that it has been condemned, but in the cross of Christ, the matter being settled by that sovereign grace; sin which tormented us has been judged: then having been judged in the cross of Christ, we have the right to hold ourselves for dead; the practical carrying out of it comes afterward. God says, "Ye are dead"—"crucified with Christ." I accept it, quite convinced that good does not exist in me, and I reckon it of myself that I am dead. Then, after that I bear, more or less faithfully, in my body, the dying of the Lord Jesus; but it is a consequence—an important consequence, for our communion depends on it. But it is also important to look constantly to Jesus, and to the love of the Father, because that encourages the soul. There is positive goodness in Him, strength also that He exercises on our behalf, but by looking to Him we are enlightened. It is not only that our state is ameliorated, but the grace that is in Him above all that we are, is revealed to the heart, and we know where strength is, and what the grace is on which we can count. If you are tempted, tried, look straight to Him; little by little you will become accustomed to believe in His goodness, though it be necessary to recur to it constantly; but the eye directed to Him makes Him known to the heart. Looking to Him who delivers us from ourselves, is what excludes the thought of self, and sanctifies us much more in a practical way....
Salute the brethren warmly. May God keep our dear Swiss brethren, cause them always to make progress, and detach them ever more and more from this poor world.
1874.