It is very blessed, beloved friends, to understand and enjoy the place we have in the thoughts of God. This I now desire to trace through Scripture for a little.
In that Scripture where the apostle is using the history of Israel—the things which happened to them—as types and warnings, he says, “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” (1 Cor. 10:1111Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. (1 Corinthians 10:11)). This is an important word-” the ends of the world,”—it means that where we are, as Christians, is consequent upon the close of all the ways and dealings of God— with man, as to testing and trying him. It is important that our souls should get hold of this; that man, as man, has been fully-tried, and that God has set up another man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that He cannot own both. All the efforts made to set up man now, is but to deny the truth that God has set up another; that the first man has been tried from innocence to the Cross, and found wanting; and now grace has set up another, that we might have life, and grace, and blessing Him in God’s presence-a better Paradise than that that was lost. God sends out now the testimony of His grace, and the Lord Jesus has said, “Now is the judgment of this world” —not yet executed, but sure. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; tried and tested in every way—without law—under law—warned by the prophets— as last, God sending His own Son, brings the trial to a close. Whether grace or law, the result was the same— “We have piped unto you and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you and ye have not lamented.” Man’s state is that of total ruin. He may be decently alienated, but the fact is, he is away from God. God has not set up the second man while He could recognize the first, and this it is that the heart of man is unwilling to own: He to set up the religious heart of man. What we have then to learn is the character of the deliverance that we have; not only pardon, of our sins through the Lord Jesus Christ, but full deliverance from the state in which we were as of Adam, though we wait for the adoption, the redemption of the body. We are now brought into full, true and blessed liberty, in association with Christ, to God in righteousness.
In the Old Testament Scriptures we find figures of the ways and dealings of God, seen especially in the history of the children of Israel. You may remember that Jordan is often looked at as death, and Canaan as a figure of heavenly places; and very justly so. But then there is something very peculiar in this, that what characterizes Canaan when the Israelites got into it was conflict. When Joshua had crossed Jordan, the first person he meets is a man with a drawn sword in his hand. Canaan then is evidently not heaven and rest. It must be something other than going to heaven to be at rest. Now, at the end of Ephesians, in which Epistle the Church is seen as set in the heavenly places, we have to take the whole armor of God, “for we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” as they did under Joshua. It answers as a figure to our wrestling with spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies
But if we are thus having our conflict in the heavenlies, we must first be there, Christ Himself is there, and I wish to bring out how we are associated with Him there—who is waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. I would then trace a little, the history of Israel, to show how we are delivered from this present evil world, for the reproach of Egypt was rolled away from them only when they got into Canaan; not in the wilderness: and they kept the passover, which no uncircumcised person could keep. If we turn to the history we shall find the way in which a soul makes its progress to this place of blessing.
The children of Israel were in Egypt, and slaves there-just a picture of the slavery of the people of God in this world of sin under Satan. God comes down to deliver them, and the first thing is, that God would pass through the land in judgment. By His direction, blood was sprinkled upon the lintel and two door-posts of the houses of the children of Israel. When this was done the Lord said He would pass over the house. God had the character of a Judge, and the blood met His eye as such, and the blood kept him out of the house. They were as guilty as the Egyptians, but if they had obeyed the voice of the Lord, when He came to that house, He passed over it. They were secure through the blood. So it is now with him who believes; God passes over him, and he cannot come into judgment—the blood of Christ shelters him—God would deny the efficacy of that blood if He did not pass such an one over; or if He imputed guilt to one trusting it. What secured them was that God saw it, not they. How many a soul is in distress, saying: “I see—I am clear if I have accepted it,” but that is for God to see. I am not clear if I have accepted it, (with a simple heart that may be so,) I do not doubt the effect of it, but what gives peace is knowing that God has accepted it. Very true it is that every earnest soul desires to find that blood every day more precious to it, and that gives right affections but not peace. What gives peace is that the offended person is satisfied. When the blood is brought under God’s eye, and I find that what He gave in love, He has accepted in righteousness—Ah! then, I say it is all settled!
But mark this still, it was the offended and righteous God who gave it; as a Judge His band is stayed. Most blessed this; but now, it is not only my sins have been borne, but God has been glorified, and it is that which gives its full value to the blood. Suppose that all were sinners, and that all were cut off; that, I say, is righteousness; but there is no love. Or suppose all sinners, and all forgiven. That, I say, may be love, but not righteousness. Now I get both love and righteousness brought out in the cross, and both according to the majesty of God “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” The Son of Man has glorified God specially in that place where He was made sin, as well as elsewhere; “wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name,” so that in virtue of the cross, man is now exalted to the right hand of God in the person of Christ. Stephen witnesses, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.” He does not merely say, “I see the glory of God,” but “the Son of Man standing on the right hand of the glory of God;” and that was what the Jews could not bear. A wonderful thing this is, He has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. Man is set at the right hand of God. Now that is the new basis of everything: man gets his place in the glory of God, and it is that that makes the new basis of the whole hope and condition of the believer, because he is in Christ there; and of the judgment of the world, because they rejected Him. When the Spirit of Truth is come He shall convince the world—not believers—of sin—the world, all in the lump. Why? “Because they believe not on me.” If man rejects the Son, the Father will take Him up, and glorify Him. (John 17:55And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. (John 17:5).) “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was;” the glory of His person, now taken as man. He has glorified God—all God’s moral attributes glorified, as He has revealed Himself—and for us. What a wonderful place is ours in connection with all this. The cross is the foundation of it all; and when I have peace, I still come to the cross and get all blessed affections flowing out. We come to the cross as sinners, but through the veil we now contemplate all the glories of it. There is no growth in my accepting it. God’s accepting it gives me peace; for I find that God gave it in love, and in righteousness has accepted it.
Then they come to the Red Sea: they are going right, but they are stopped! So souls often find, when saved from judgment by the cross of Christ; then in the path, death, and judgment, and Satan stare them in the face, and they cannot go any farther. Many a one can say, “I am a poor sinner and the cross just suits me;” but can you say “I am a poor sinner and the judgment-seat just suits me?” No, you cannot say that. Now it is well for us, beloved friends, just to look at this. At the Red Sea, God was not acting as a Judge, but as a Saviour. “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” God here is a deliverer, and the very Red Sea is their protection; they pass through it, and it is a wall on their right band and on their left. Now they have got out of Egypt-they are redeemed out of the condition they were in, and brought into another. This we have in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ-I have passed out of the place where I was as a sinner—the world—and am “brought to God,” (Ex. 15; 1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)). I do not talk of “heavenly places” yet, but “to God.” I am “reconciled to God”— “you path he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.” The effect of the Red Sea was not simply what blood had clone to screen them from judgment, but what redemption did to deliver them from the condition they were in, and to bring them into another. Christ went down into death, and has risen right out of it all. Now we have a part in that. If I say, “Well, but I am guilty.” — “Yes, you were, but you are justified.” “But I am defiled.” “Yes, but you are cleansed.” “But I have offended.” “True, but you are forgiven.” God has met every shape in which a soul may be distressed before Him, and He has revealed the new place of man—redeemed out of Egypt and brought into the wilderness. “I have seen the affliction of my people”; “I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Ex. 3) “He gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world.” (Gal. 1:44Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: (Galatians 1:4).)