DEATH.—Death for the utter setting aside of man (as well as atonement in Christ) has a far more important character than we are apt to think. It judges of course the flesh as hopelessly bad, but it ends it. As Christ's death it declares that no link could be formed with the first man. Divine infinite love came down, and, while divine, suited itself to every want and sorrow of man, to his whole condition. “Because the children were in flesh and blood, he partook of the same,” but remained alone till death. Thus His death was the solemn declaration that there could be no link between grace and flesh. Hence as His disciples we must hate our father, mother, wife, life, all that is a link here, to follow Him, forsaking all we have—it may be outwardly but always as regards the new life. It is not in the old relationships, though it respects them as formed of God and all His ordinances; but in it we reckon ourselves dead, crucified with Christ. Our life is only a life which is of Him as risen, He as risen is our life. Then if we are dead with Him, we have not the nature as in Him, which has to do with sin, the world, the law. I am not alive in it at all; I am in Christ, alive by Him as a quickening Spirit. I eat His flesh and drink His blood. I realize His death, and so abide in Him, living δἰ αὐτὸν as He lived διὰ τὸν πατέρα.
How completely this sets aside the whole thing! I am dead and gone as to flesh, and all to which it had to say, and yet because of Him I am alive; and this only is Christianity. I have to seek its realization, and may at first see only forgiveness by it. But except I eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, I have no life in me; if I do, I am alive in and by reason of and for Him. But it is death to all connected with nature because of nature. No doubt it will contend against us; but we are not in it now at all. How immense and total a change is Christ's death to us! Then we have to seek, always bearing the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal body.
PSALMS 50, 51—Remark the difference and connection. Psa. 1 is God's judgment of the earth. It takes up those who have made a covenant with sacrifice. God is judge Himself, and judges His people in order to shine out of Zion and call all the heathen thither. But while He gathers His saints by sacrifice, in judging Israel He owns nothing of theirs. He rejects all ceremonial service and requires real righteousness, setting before them what they have done.
In Psa. 51 is the people's (the remnant's) confession after all this. Here we find sin in the heart fully judged. The Psalmist owns indeed the sins, and then, when reconciled, will teach others. Bloodguiltiness in respect of Christ is owned. No outward legal sacrifices are here offered (they would have been if acceptable), but a broken heart. That is, though Israel be guilty of Christ's death, they are taken in God's judgment on their own ground. They are judged for ungodliness, practical ungodliness, in their pretended boasting in law. In the saints' confession inward sin is owned, and inward divine teaching and grace looked for, and Christ's death confessed—indeed all the blood shed, but especially Christ's death. God's mind is understood.
In the former psalm plain conscience is looked for in a people pretending to be religious; previous legal relationship only in moral reality in Psa. 1, and heart-felt need of God and of Christ's death, in the divinely touched remnant, in Psa. 51 What God does not require, the divinely taught mind does not offer. What must be in true relationship with God it looks for from grace. The ungodly offer what God does not want, and do not heed facts in what conscience ought to know, and as to Christ's death, they are never aware of their guilt under it, through hardness of heart. The contrast is very distinct.