THE childhood state of Christian experience is one that is guarded and cherished most tenderly by God, and, in the simplicity of its devotion and confidence is, perhaps, the most delightful of any through which we pass.
The young believer, but recently brought to know God as Father and the joy of His salvation, is constantly and rapidly meeting with new discoveries in the Word of God, which arrest his renewed mind and fill with deepest joy his purified heart Difficulties which cross the path of those further on in the way are but little known, and temptations that assail more advanced believers are but little felt. He is a newborn babe in Christ, and he has divine life, which has its consciousness in knowing the Father, and its exercise in loving the Father.
Helplessness, dependence, simplicity, and humility mark the child life, and what believer of mature years and experience but contemplates with deepest interest and admiration the artless affection and habit of a babe in Christ? As recently born into the kingdom and family of God, he is the object of God’s special care and love, and woe be unto him who would offend or cause one of these little ones to fall!
The deliverance and exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt answers to the time of this child state, and in figure speaks of the quickening, forgiveness, and deliverance from the world, now to be known and enjoyed by the youngest believer in Christ.
“When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt... I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by the arms... I drew them with the cords of a man, with the bands of love... and I laid meat unto them” (Hos. 11:1-4).
It is not that God as Jehovah did not always love Israel, for even in the last and most trying days of their past history, when the returned remnant had again lapsed into a state of disobedience and indifference to Jehovah and His service, did He assure them of His eternal and unquenchable love in these words:
“I have loved you, saith the Lord” (Mal. 1:2).
And in a similar but more striking way can it be said today that the Father’s deepest and most constant love goes out after the least of these little ones, who believe in Jesus and who therefore love Him. But let us observe the beauty and attractiveness of God’s grace shining out through these endearing words just referred to, applicable as they are, and beginning with the child or babe in Christ.
He loves, and in that love we have bound up, as it were, all that God can be to us, and all that He can do for us, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He calls, and this call is from out of Egypt, or the world, not now unto the land of Canaan, which in type speaks of heaven, but He calls us unto heaven itself, even unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus (2 Pet. 5:10); this call is attended by the quickening by the Spirit of the one who believes God’s Word, whereby he obtains the life that is in Christ Jesus, which life becomes his own. But how, may we ask, shall this call become effectual in separating us from this present world, that we may be practically holy, as set apart unto and for Himself? For this, God Himself must teach us.
And so we observe here, He teaches, not at first the way in which we should go, but He teaches us at the beginning how to go, taking us, as a fond and loving parent would, by the arms.
And when we have learned how to walk for Him we find how He conducts us on in the path He chooses for us.
He draws us with the cords of a man, with the bands of love. He does not compel or coerce us to walk in His chosen path for us.
When once we are able to walk, He leaves it with us, to choose His path to walk in it. He draws us, and we respond to this drawing, and thus only is there progress in learning of Him and becoming morally like Him.
“Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord” (Hos. 6:3).
But there is one thing still which must claim our attention, and God is very careful not to forget it or omit it. His love provides for our daily food. He lays meat before us, He feeds us with the finest of the wheat, and thus He makes us to lie down in green pastures. And if we “will to do His will,” if we yield ourselves to Him and His loving drawing, we shall indeed have a continual desire or hunger for this living bread of God, the meat that endures until life eternal, which, by partaking of, we not only have eternal life, but by feeding on it we grow up unto perfect manhood in Christ (John 6:51-57).
The next stage in this wondrous divine experience is that of young manhood. And the apostle John, in addressing the family of God, takes special notice of these young men ―
“I write unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one” (1 John 2:13, 14).
This is a condition of development in the child of God, characterized by strength or vigor, and one that is especially needful in meeting and turning away from the attractions of this Egyptian world, and also in overcoming the enemy in this wilderness world. It was this strength or valor displayed in a carnal or natural way which Israel needed in the wilderness. Therefore it says,
“Choose us out men, and go out, fight against Amalek” (Exod. 17:9).
The young man does not lose those attractions or graces which properly belong to the infantile state, such as helplessness, dependence, simplicity, and humility. But he has now grown out of that state, and has become strong in the Lord, strong in His grace, and stands ready, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, to resist and overcome the enemy. But his strength comes by the Word of God abiding in him, and it is this word which, as a sword to be wielded by the power and direction of the Spirit, is his fighting weapon against the enemy.
Of the greatest dangers perhaps that beset the young man, pride is the one most to be avoided―the pride that leads on to self-sufficiency and independence of God. The danger would be lest, being lifted up in the very consciousness of our strength, we should forget the secret of it by ceasing to depend absolutely upon God. For one step in pride away from God leads to utter weakness, for we are where He can no longer succor and support us, but where He must resist us (1 Pet. 5:5).
Again, the world in which Satan hides himself to deceive men glitters with attractiveness before the young man, and therefore he is even more than the child warned against loving it. The freshness and fervency of first love having waned in some measure, the enemy finds his coveted opportunity of insinuating into his heart the love of the world in exchange for the love of the Father so well known and enjoyed in the simplicity and devotedness of the child life.
And some have fallen by the way who were in the very strength and vigor of their spiritual manhood, being removed by the Father’s hand because the Father’s heart was no longer confided in. To meet these dangers and temptations peculiar to the young man, it appears quite clearly to be the love of the Father, as the writings of John fully attest. This love would preserve from the love of the world, while love to the children of God would preserve from self-love, and prove at the same time the reality of God’s love dwelling in us.
And again, 1Corinthians 13. may teach us of the wondrous practical workings of this love among the children of God, commended, as it is, to us as the only cure for a state which, alas, is only too common today, where the soul’s inward growth or enlargement has not maintained a proper balance, or corresponded with its outward adornments or induements, which God in His gifts, and according to His grace, may have bestowed. And yet with this love, what soberness of judgment, according to the truth, is enjoined by the apostle in contemplating the very scene of this love’s activities, a world that lies in the wicked one.
“For all that is of the world... passeth away, and the lust thereof.”
But this love maintains one in God’s will, which, if done, brings the obedient one to an eternal and blessed issue.
“But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (1 John 2:16, 17).
The man of full growth, the man of God perfected, is the one who has “known Him that is from the beginning” ― “the Man, Christ Jesus.”
And he who has so known Christ is a father.
“I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning” (1 John 2:13).
To know Christ, this is the acme of all moral perfection. Than this there is no higher or more advanced spiritual state to be attained on earth. And this is the attainment of the father― to have known Christ long and well, to have comprehended enough of the infinite fullness and moral glory that is in Him, so that the expression of what He is shines out more perfectly than in either the child or young man. And with this expression we should expect to find a rare softness and beauty of spirit peculiar to one who was more intimately acquainted with His mind and heart than any other.
To know the Father is characteristic of the child or babe in Christ.
To be strong and valiant, as abiding in the will and word of God, belongs to the young man.
But to know Christ in His wondrous person as revealed on earth, and, at the same time, to possess the littleness, the gentleness, and the sweetness of the child, the subdued yet firm strength of the young man, forms the rounded outline and the mature stature of the father.
And, beloved, whatever our attainments may be, by His grace at the present time let us still go on unto the perfection of knowing Him that was from the beginning! Let our one desire be to know and to learn Him, counting increasingly as loss everything which, when compared to the excellency of His knowledge, would appear as nothing and be counted as refuse! May He lead us on, and may we abide in the freshness of childhood while we go on to learn the experience of manhood!
And some day, when we awake in His likeness, and He comes to take us to be with Himself at home, we shall know that richer and fuller experience, that perfected state of “knowing even as we are known,” which belongs to manhood’s full estate in the glory of God, where His abiding love shall be the better known by us in its own happy abode (1 Cor. 13:8-13).
G. B. E.