If the church is only a delivered body it is weak; it must be a delivering one to be a preserved one, because that is the power of God’s presence in Christ. Mark the humblest assembly of saints, or an individual Christian; if there is not energy of positive testimony, which acts on others, there is decline.
Adam’s sin was in trying to be like God (Gen. 3:55For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)); our goodness as Christians is in desiring to be like Him. (Eph. 4:32; 5:1,232And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32)
1Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor. (Ephesians 5:1‑2); Phil. 1:21;2:521For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)
5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (Philippians 2:5), &c.)
Unbelief can always find excuses, and excuses too that are apparently well founded; they have only this capital defect, that they leave God out.
In the translation of Elijah the lineaments of the ascension of Christ appear. The ascension of Him who, not rapt in a chariot of fire, nor needing a cleansing of that fiery rapture, nor requiring a commissioned chariot to bear Him up, did, in the far sublimer calmness of His own indwelling power, rise from the earth, and with His human body pass into the heavenly places.