From Helps in Things Concerning Himself: Volume 1 (1891)

It would be impossible in words to express sufficiently the momentous and solemn nature of the subject, conveyed by the above words of scripture. As the Lord may help, I would set before my readers a little of what they bring before the heart, as to the great fact announced in them, as well as the corresponding effect intended to be produced in practice; it were an evil day when doctrine and practice are divorced; and there are not wanting at the present moment signs of deep- seated danger in that very direction. How solemn a triumph of the enemy in this would be! How easily he will succeed if the truth be received only in terms, heard only in the utterance of the loftiest and highest expressions, without any corresponding effect in manner of life. Let us not forget that the characteristic mark of the last days is the having a form of piety, but denying the power of it. See 2 Tim. 3:5, 6. It is our wisdom to watch jealously all the inroads of the enemy in this direction. First, then, let us seek to enter into the meaning of the words, “dead with Christ.” What do they imply? Surely there is a far deeper thought in them than that which occupies the first part of Romans, namely, the bearing our sins. Have we not in the words “dead with Christ” such an association with Christ in His death, as closes forever before God our previous history and condition, as that of fallen, sinful Adam? I could not better express the truth which by God’s grace my soul has bowed to, than in the following beautiful words of another: “When He died, He, who knew no sin, came out of that condition of life in flesh and blood, to which in us sin attached, in which we were sinners, and in which He, the sinless One, in the likeness of sinful flesh and a sacrifice for sin, was made sin for us” . . . “Christ, the sinless One, came and stood for us and God’s glory substitutively; that is, as a sacrifice in that place, He was made sin, underwent the forsaking of God, and, glorifying God, died in and to the place, to the whole condition of being, in which we were, and in which, as made sin. He stood for us before God.” “Christ took human life in grace and sinless; and as alive in this life, He took sin upon Him. Sin belongs, so to speak, to this life in which Christ knew no sin, but was made sin for us. But He dies—He quits this life. He is dead to sin; He has done with sin in having done with the life to which sin belonged, not in him indeed but in us, and alive in which He was made sin for us. Raised up again by the power of God, He lives in a new condition, into which sin cannot enter, being left behind with the life that He left. Faith brings us into it by grace.”

This I believe with all my heart to be the truth, of deepest moment just now, and shortness as to it, not only leaves us outside the mind of God as thus set forth, but correspondingly leaves us in our soul’s apprehension, in the condition of being in which we were as in Adam fallen, and out of which Christ’s precious death alone could extricate us. It is thus there can be no recognition whatever of man in the flesh, either as to allowance or acceptance of it.

There is also another point now to which I desire to call special attention. I will do so by italicizing the word association, when I use the expression “with Christ in death,” I mean by it, the association of the believer with Him in His death. I do this to distinguish it from union. Union with Christ was impossible until He had risen out of death and ascended into glory. Union with Christ in incarnation is a solemn denial of His own words (see John 12:24), and is the root of popery and its adjuncts. Association or identification are not the same as union. A Christian is indeed united to Christ by the Holy Ghost, but it is to Christ who has died, is risen again, and gone into glory.

Nothing can be more important in its place than a distinct and definite apprehension of this great reality. Not only has Christ died for us, but we have died with Him, believers can say. Oh that we might see, that the saints of God might see, how this cuts at the root of everything. What can a dead man seek down here in this world? This question is suggested by the great fact that I am seeking to press; everything that man in the flesh had to reckon with God about, but which he never could have settled, has all been disposed of between God and Christ. To nature and to common sense, the thing is impossible, unreasonable, absurd. But to faith, not only is it most blessedly true, but the believer can also say that he has died with Christ, is past the judgment, and out of the condition on which in relation to us judgment rested, so that there is naught against him, but he is alive for evermore in a life which death cannot touch, which knows no grave, is beyond judgment and the judgment land, yea, even in which judgment is turned into victory.

Further, as regards this life, nothing can be more blessed than to see how it has objects and motives entirely its own. This is what may be called the Positive side of the question, and on which I do not now dwell. But I do press Christ’s death in the special aspect of it already before us, and the association of the believer with Him, in death, and the value of that association, not only to get judicially clear from the penalties resting upon man as a fallen creature, a descendant of Adam, though without all question, in that light, all judgment is past and that for ever: but that which is beyond all doubt most blessed, is, the value of that association as setting the believer free from self and the world, so that he can brightly and happily say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.” This it is that a man must be fully assured of through faith and by the Holy Ghost, even that in the sight of God, he has died with Christ, that he is regarded by God in that sense, as dead, and that he so regards himself; this it is that enables him, as is well said, “to reckon himself as dead, for him to be able to use that death against Satan, the world, and the flesh: to give, if I may be allowed the expression, by it, the slip to himself, and all that self furnishes as a handle to Satan, the world, or lust to lay hold of.” How true it is that “Christ’s death is made of little effect by most Christians; that they have Judaized it out of its eternal value and the estimate heaven forms of it, and reduced it down to be a part of a human system of their own, borrowed from the law of fallen humanity, and the elements of the world, both of which marked Judaism, and that this is a most solemn sin. The Colossians who had been dead in their sins, and in the uncircumcision of the flesh, that is morally dead, are thus charged: “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” They would sanction worldliness, and accredit their own flesh if they did so. And he adds, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” He has so appropriated all that I was, as to bear the record of it in His own body. My soul knows those hands, those feet, that side, that forehead; but, blessed be God, I know them in Him who was dead, but is alive again. I know them in Him who shall reign for ever as the Lamb who was dead, but is alive again for evermore.”

Beloved reader, has God in His infinite grace brought these things before our hearts? If indeed it be so, may this further grace be given us, that they act in power upon us, and that we may find grace and power to act on them.

The Vessel of the Ministry

2 Cor. 4

As we turn to this chapter, there are three things I will refer to in connection with this ministry. They are in the seventh verse. He says, “we have this treasure,” and it is “in earthen vessels,” and there is what is called “the excellency of the power,” or, as I believe it should be, “the surpassingness of the power.” These are three wonderful things to get before our thoughts.

“This treasure,” what is it? I do not think the treasure is so much the estimate that my heart forms of Christ, as the value that God has found in Him. That is the reason, I believe, why it is called a “treasure.” I do not deny the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is to be a treasure to His people, because you get the scripture elsewhere, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”; but here the treasure, which is, of course, Christ, is presented more as it is looked at from God’s side. It is the treasure in God’s estimation. It is what the thought of God is as to this blessed One. Christ is His treasure. How did that treasure come into the vessel? Look at the sixth verse for a moment. He says: “For God, who commanded that but of darkness light should shine, hath shined in our hearts, for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” That is the way the treasure comes in. It is not that I have possessed myself of the treasure. It is a wonderful thing—it sustains one’s heart—to think of the sovereignty of the grace of God; to think of that sovereign grace in its actings, as well as its purposes. How, then, did this treasure find its way into our hearts? Let me ask, how did light come into this dark world? Remember this, the sun was not the creature of the first day; it was created afterwards. How then did light come? What was the light of the first three days in the old creation? This: “God said, Let there be light; and light was.” Just so spiritually in our hearts: God, in His wonderful, blessed, sovereign way of dealing, God Himself, who commanded that out of darkness light should shine, is the God who has shone in our hearts. It is not merely a ray from Him, or some emanation from Him, but God Himself shining; that is a very different thing; God Himself shining in a man’s heart, in all His blessed illuminating power, for, or in order to, “the shining forth of the radiancy of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Take an instance of it. This very Saul of Tarsus himself, on the road to Damascus, a persecutor, who had never had a good thought of Christ, nothing but hatred, a man who thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, suddenly, in a moment, without the slightest warning, saw “a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun,” a light that eclipsed the sun, shining in his noonday splendor, and the Savior in glory was revealed in his soul. He is thus the living instance of the way this blessed treasure is deposited in a man’s soul. Paul himself, who was writing this, is the living instance of the way in which God would command the light to shine out of darkness in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The whole glory of God is thus expressed.

And you cannot understand anything about the glory of God, except as you understand how it is seen in the face of Jesus Christ, and it is in the presence of that glory that conscience is dealt with; and if you think you can learn God in any other way, you are seriously mistaken, because the moment you bring your understanding or your mind to bear upon the things of God, apart from your conscience, there is the greatest danger of shipwreck as to faith. If I really see the whole glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ, I cannot help being challenged in the depths of my conscience, and that is the blessedness of it. There are royal roads to learning in other things, but not in this. The moment you have to do with God and Christ, you are convicted, and the earliest expression of your heart in the presence of that glory must be, “I abhor myself.” And yet, as I said, this leads to confidence, and is the only thing that is formative in our hearts.

That is the first thing. Next observe where this treasure is placed; that is the second point in the verse: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.” You may have often observed that when man has anything valuable, he generally encases it in something that is at least in appearance far more valuable. The outside coverings of man’s valuable things are generally to sight a great deal more brilliant and valuable than the thing that is inside. The casket eclipses the jewel. Not so with God. He takes His treasure, the costliest thing, the most valuable and precious to Him, and puts it in the most contemptible vessel that you could conceive, that is, a poor, fragile vessel of clay. This is what he calls an earthen vessel; a poor, perishing, fragile vessel of clay.

But then He has a purpose in this; it gives Him the opportunity of doing two things. First His delight is to make everything of the treasure, and second, He is pleased to bring out the surpassingness of the power. There is not only the surpassing glory of the treasure, but the surpassing power with which He works in the vessel—the vessel broken to atoms; indeed, not worth anything until it is broken to pieces; but behind this poor vessel there is surpassing power. This, indeed, is a wonderful sight to look at. The whole power of God goes along with the poor vessel, into which He puts this treasure. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power should be of God and not of us.” But we have not only to accept the breakings that God brings upon us; but beside that, and in addition to that, we must keep the sentence of the cross, the death of Christ, which has given us liberty from the condemnation to which we were exposed—must keep that death upon ourselves. God breaks the vessel; but we must keep the sentence of death upon it as well, in order “that the may be of God and not of us.”

I do not pursue this further, but would ask to think of these three things which are connected with this ministry: first, the vessel of clay, just what you and I are; secondly, a treasure placed in it of surpassing glory; and thirdly, a power that is surpassing in its efficiency behind it; and that power ever working in company with nothingness and weakness and self-abnegation, as well as a complete, utter, thorough denial of the flesh and the world. You cannot have power otherwise; and there is no manifestation of Christ, no shining forth of Christ, except as this vessel is entirely as clay in the hands of the potter. There is no shining in, or shining out either. It must be clay for Christ, the treasure, to shine into, and clay for the Holy Ghost to bring the features of Christ out of, so that others may see them.

The picture alluded to here is no doubt Gideon’s army. They put the light into the pitcher, but the light never shone out until the pitcher was broken. They had to break the pitchers, and then the light shone. And no doubt the Spirit of God alludes to that fact here. You have the shining in of the glory, and you have the surpassing power working that it may shine out. These two things go together, namely, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ shining into our poor earthen vessels, or pitchers, and the surpassing power of God that works through these vessels for the display of the glory of Christ.

How little our hearts are really up to God’s wonderful purpose in giving such a ministry as this from those opened heavens! How little of affection there is in our hearts to enter into the purpose of God and into His thought, that, in a world which rejected His Son, cast Him out, despised Him, nailed Him to the cross, there should be those who should be the expression, the manifestation of that blessed, wonderful One whom the world rejected, but whom God glorified. Do our hearts desire that? Is that what we long for? Is that our purpose and object? Is that what we propose to ourselves? God will help us if we have such purpose of heart. Can we say to Him, I have only one desire, that I should be upon this earth a vessel in whom the display of the glory of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, should be found in every circumstance here? God delights to help us, and we shall have the comfort, the sustainment, of being in communion with His thought. I do not know any greater comfort in the whole word of God. Oh, the blessedness and rest of having, through grace, common mind with the Lord in any little measure! God and His people of one mind about those things that relate to the glory of His Son. It is most wonderful grace on His part to bring us into such a place that we can have like mind with Him, and to enable us by such surpassing power.

Suppose I see one turning his back upon everything in this world, who looks for nothing in it, who has no interests here, who does not expect anything, and would not take anything from the world. I say, What surpassing power is displayed in that man! If I see a poor, feeble creature lying on a bed of sickness, racked with pain, the poor body pressed down with disease, morn, noon, and night, and one who might be tempted to say, What good am I, a trial to every one about me, and a burden to myself?—Yet if I see, amid all the weariness and pain, instead of complaint, satisfaction instead of querulousness, rest and quietness instead of quickness of temper, the blessed manifestation of Christ in meekness and endurance, I say, What a surpassing power there is there!

That is what this ministry is able to do, beloved reader, and that is God’s thought about us in relation to it. There is not a circumstance in life, or a detail in our history, or a position that we can be called into—whether sickness or health, pain or its absence, prosperity or loss, trial or ease—there is not a single thing too many for the one who is satisfied to be clay in the hands of surpassing power. And more than that, it is in these very circumstances that Christ is endeared to us, for He alone is our sufficiency for all. Also, it is where we are, not where we would be, that the blessed God desires to have His Son seen in us.

This is the testimony that is really lacking at this moment. Every one is heard speaking of doctrines, and is supposed to be clear about them; but people are amazed to see so little of the doctrines practiced, and they fail to see the corresponding grace in the propounders of them. Oh, for the manifestation of the truth in love, that exhibition of Christ which would stop the mouth of the rejecter, and commend itself to the consciences of men! And hence, says the Holy Ghost, “by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (v. 2). Men would be forced to say, Though I hate those people because they are so narrow, yet at the same time my conscience is bound to give this testimony, that they seek to please God. Herein is the efficiency of the power manifested, that in every circumstance, every service, everything I have to do, I am to be an expression of the skill of His hand.

The Lord, by His Spirit, give our hearts to desire to be His handiwork, to say in reality, and to act it as well, Lord Jesus, take me, and form me after the fashion of Thine own heart, place me where Thou wilt, only grant me this desire. that Thou mayest be magnified in my body, whether I live or die! Oh, may our hearts prize more than ever this blessed ministry, characterized as it is by such glories as we have had before us!

“the Gospel of the Glory of Christ”

2 Cor. 4:4

Such is the way in which the great apostle, once Saul of Tarsus, expresses by the Holy Ghost the testimony committed to him, and which he elsewhere calls “My Gospel” (2 Tim. 2:8).

The meaning of the expression, gospel or good news of the glory of Christ, is of the deepest moment for every soul, and I am assured before the Lord that if the truth as to the Second Man being now in glory, is either denied or unperceived, there will be a corresponding defect as to peace with God in the scriptural sense of the term, as well as in the power and object which is given in this good news, for heavenly walk and witness here.

I would seek to trace a little, by God’s help, the good news which the glory of Christ sets before us.

1.What blessed cheer and comfort are carried to us in the fact that Himself, God over all, blessed evermore, who was pleased to become man (“the Word became flesh”) is now as man in His own place in heaven, the Second Man and last Adam in the glory of God; further, that in glory in heaven He cares, and shows He cares, that poor rebel sinners who care not about Him or His glory should not perish through the blinding power of the god of this age. How blessedly does He not thus in glory stand out in striking contrast with all that is seen of man and his ways in this poor scene?

2. The good news of the glory of Christ brings before us in very blessed reality the great fact that all the work of redemption had been fully and entirely finished, for He who had come as the sent One of the Father, as well as in His great love given by God, having now accomplished all, has been (as man) received up in glory. It is not only that the sins of which we were guilty as sinners have been forgiven, but in the cross we see the end of man, as man was; the old man has been crucified with Christ. How blessed to see in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ the end of man driven out of Paradise, His resurrection the beginning of the new state of man according to the counsels of God, and His place as man in glory, the new place of man.

3. What good news is conveyed to us in the glory of Christ, of the fact that judgment has been inflicted by the death of Christ upon the first man, and that He who in His blessed love to His Father and the objects of His donation to Him, having passed through death and judgement when He was made sin for us, has begun again His life of man in an entirely new state beyond death and judgment.

4. We have said that the gospel of the glory of Christ brings to us the proof of the sin Christ had borne being utterly put away. But it also tells us of victory over death, and the introduction of man into the presence of God in glory, according to the eternal counsels of God’s love.

Further, to use the beautiful words of another: “It was withal the full display of divine glory in man according to grace, which the Holy Ghost takes to show us, in order to form us after the same likeness. It was the glorious ministration of righteousness and the Spirit which opened the free way for man to God even into the holiest in entire liberty.”

Now it is important to see that what the apostle terms, “the gospel of the glory of Christ,” and elsewhere “my gospel,” had reached him when a blasphemer, persecutor and injurious; on the road to Damascus, armed with full credentials to express his hatred and violence toward Jesus of Nazareth, the light of the glory of Christ had been kindled in his soul, in order that it might shine before men. How truly it was the power of God which had wrought in Saul of Tarsus, in the same way as when of old God had said, “Let light be, and light was.”

Let it be borne in mind that Paul was to be both a minister and witness of the things which he had been. What had he seen? Had he not seen Christ in glory? And did not that light eclipse for him all else beside? How did man, and earth and all in it, look as seen in the “light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven”? What, I ask, could be more beautiful or wonderful than this blessed good news, beginning and consummated in the bright and beautiful circle of God’s presence in glory?

Further observe how much is conveyed to us in the announcement of the Spirit, that the subject of Paul’s first preaching was that—“Jesus was the Son of God.”

How blessed to know that the Savior, who is in glory, is the Son of God. It is this which conducts the soul outside all that belongs to man and earth. Alas, how few there are who in soul and heart have been laid hold of by that which shone in the apostle’s heart! Beloved reader permit me to ask, have you?

It is the gospel of the glory of Christ alone that can assure the heart of how entirely the first man has come to an end judicially before God. I desire with all my soul to emphasize judicially as it is now denied and refused. The second man, risen out of the death and judgment, which He voluntarily underwent for God’s glory, is now a man in the glory of God; as seen there by faith, all of man and earth is distanced. It is this and this alone which conducts the soul into what I may call the heavenly eclipse, and leads to such an expression as is thus set forth, admired by all, but made good alas, in so few of us—

“Marvel not that Christ in glory
All my inmost heart hath won;
Not a star to cheer my darkness,
But a light beyond the sun.”
“All below is dark and shadowed,
Nothing there to claim my heart,
Save the lonely track of sorrow,
Where of old He walked apart.”

Yes beloved reader, the Savior in the glory of God, seen by faith, is the true heavenly starting point; but He is also, as seen in glory, the true gauge of all else beside, and He is as well the center for the soul to rest in. It is this heavenly object which turns this world into an inn with its “guest chamber” for those whose eyes have rested upon it; the tendency of our poor hearts is to make a nest in this world, but the gospel of the glory of Christ takes us into the scene where the Savior is in glory, and then it is not a sad thing, but a happy thing to be a heavenly stranger where Christ is not.

“the Root of the Matter”

The veil is rent, Satan’s power is broken, the sting is taken from death, and the victory from the grave—moreover He who in His love has accomplished all this in His death, is risen and in glory.

Now this makes the gospel of Christ so precious for every soul. Do you, my reader, believe there is a man at the right hand of God, because He died for our sins?

Will you come to Him now? There is an open way. Jesus never said “Come” until He Himself came first. When He came, and was here in the midst of sin and sorrow, His blessed voice said “Come,” and further—“him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” Now that He is in glory, having finished all the work, He says, “Let him that is athirst come.”

I think I hear you speak somewhat like this—“Well, I trust I have come and cast myself on Christ alone, I believe He is the only Savior, I believe nothing else can avail for me but His death; but yet somehow I am not at rest, and am often full of doubts and anxieties.”

Now hearken to me for a moment. I was in conversation not long since with one who expressed herself much as you have done; after a little, I said to her, “What are your doubts about? Have you any doubts about the fact of the cross and death of the Lord Jesus Christ?”

She replied—“None.”

You are quite sure that all the work that Jesus came to do was finished on the cross?

She replied—“Yes, quite sure.”

Do you believe that the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses from all sin?

She replied—“Yes, I do believe it, but I am not sure if the root of the matter is in me.”

Is that your trouble? Let me assure you as to that. Thank God, the root of the matter is in Christ; if it were in you, you would not need Him.

“But,” she replied, “I have other doubts. I am not sure whether I have the right kind of faith.”

Have you faith at all, I said; that is the point. And I sought to illustrate it in the following way—

“Suppose a very startling piece of news were brought to you by some person, how would you feel with regard to it?”

She replied—“If the person were a competent and reliable witness, I should of course believe it.”

Just so. And you would not think of your belief in the matter at all; the only question you would have, would be as to the reliability of the witness—if it were a truthful witness that cannot lie, all questions would be at an end.

Now, my reader, so it is with respect to the certainty of salvation: the unerring, unfailing testimony of God’s own word ends all doubt and uncertainty for whosoever believes. Scripture declares that Christ died for our sins, was raised from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is in the glory of God; and scripture also declares that by Him all who believe are justified from all things. How blessed to rest on the

WORK OF CHRIST and the

WORD OF GOD.

“I Cried . . . He Heard”

Troublers are multiplied, but the first thought of faith is “Lord.” There the spirit is at home and looks at troublers from thence. Jehovah is thus trusted. When Lord comes in the heart before those that trouble me, all is well. Our spirit sees Him concerned in matters, and is at peace. He is a glory, shield, and lifter up. Another point is, it is not a lazy, listless view of evil and good, nor listless confidence. Desire and dependence are active, the links of the soul with Jehovah—I cried and He heard. That is certain. That is the confidence that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears, and if He hears, we have the petition. We do not desire, if sincere, to have anything not according to His will; but it is an immense thing, in the midst of trial and difficulty, to be sure of God’s hearing and God’s arm, in what is according to His will. Hence peace and rest, “I laid me down and slept; I awaked: for Jehovah sustained me.” How emphatic and simple! Is it so with you, reader? Does all trouble find your heart so resting on God as your Father, that, when it is multiplied, it leaves your spirit at rest, your sleep sweet, lying down, sleeping and rising, as if all was peace around you because you know God is and disposes of all things? Is He thus between you and your troubles and troublers? And if He is, what can reach you? The thousands of enemies make no difference if God is there. The Assyrian is gone before he can arise to trouble or execute the threats which after all betray his conscious fear. We are foolish as to difficulties and trials, measuring them by our strength instead of God’s, who is for us if we are His. What matter that the cities of Canaan were walled up to heaven, if the walls fell at the blast of a ram’s horn? Could Peter have walked on a smooth sea better than on a rough one? Our wisdom is to know that we can do nothing without Jesus—with Him everything that is according to His will. The secret of peace is to be occupied with Him for His own sake, and we shall find peace in Him and through Him, and be more than conquerors when trouble comes; not that we shall be insensible to trial, but find Him and His tender care with us when trouble comes.

This testimony is so blessedly true, so comforting and yet so soul-searching that I have transcribed it in full. There can be but little doubt that the Psalm was the experience of David, and the bitterest and most painful kind of attack is thus expressed, “There is no help for him in God.” It was to this part the great Reformer alludes when he says:—“They not merely speak as if I were abandoned and trodden upon by all creatures, but as if God also would no longer help me, who, while He assists all things, sustains all, cares for all, for me alone of all things has no care, and ministers to me no support. Though every possible assault, the assaults of a whole world, and of all hell to boot, were concentrated on one head, it were still nothing to the thought that God is thrusting at a man—for preservation from which Jeremiah tremblingly begs and prays (ch. 17:17), ‘Be not a terror unto me, O thou my hope in the day of evil.’”

There is one other point here full of very real comfort in the midst of trouble and troublers: it is that the taunt of “no help for him in God” is blessedly met and answered by the words “salvation belongeth unto the Lord.” May every tried and sorrowing heart in this day of distress and rebuke enter into the precious comfort of these words, “I cried . . . and he heard,” “I laid me down, and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me,” “I will not be afraid.” Thus there will be both heavenly vigor and courage imparted, which these words so aptly express:

“The best return for one like me,
So wretched and so poor,
Is from His gifts to draw a plea,
And ask Him still for more.”

The Power of the Ministry

2 Cor. 4

I trust it has been clearly set forth that there has been a ministry on this earth, which had its day and purport in the mind of God, introduced at Mount Sinai by Moses, which carried the law, which claimed righteousness from man, and was in form written on stone; that thereby the knowledge of sin came in, and thus consequently it became a ministration of condemnation and death. It is to this ministry these words refer, namely, “If the ministration of death, written and engraven on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious.”

It is of the deepest importance to remember that this ministry was suited to bring out the unwelcome but, solemn truth, that the trial of man in the flesh only displayed his entire and complete ruin; not only had man come short of The glory of God, but the reflection of that glory in the face of the mediator, carrying with it, as it did, the claim for righteousness from man, repelled him instead of attracting; the glory of God In the face of Moses, had the same effect as “the sound of the trumpet and the voice of words” at Mount Sinai. With regard to the first, Israel demanded that Moses should hide his face with respect to the other, they entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more.

Moreover, this ministry being, as has been said, one of claims and demands from man in the flesh, it could never be formative in character or power; indeed, it would cease to be of its own nature were it to produce in man that which it claimed from him under the sanction of condemnation and the curse. To sum up, then, respecting this ministry, its sphere was the earth, its character, a principle of claim and demand, and its issues, bondage and death.

Now the contrast to all this is, what is entitled in chapter 3 the ministry of the Spirit, as well as the ministration of righteousness, and the great point in the contrast is that what the first claimed, the second carried with it. The source of this ministry too, was very different from the former, as was also its basis. Its basis was the accomplished victories of the Son of God, who as Son of Man, glorified God on the earth, and finished the work which was given Him to do. It is to this blessed culmination of all His obedience, He Himself refers as follows, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him” (John 13:31, 32).

We know that this was spoken in anticipation of the sufferings and judgment of the cross, as well as the blessed proclamation, in resurrection and ascension, of how completely and fully He had glorified His God and Father. The basis then of this ministry from the heavens was the perfected atonement of the Lamb of God; therein was demonstrated the truth and love of God, as never before; therein was established a righteousness before God for man, in- perfect accordance with the claims of His throne; and therein was judged sin, the world, and Satan. True it is, that He, in whose precious death all this was made good, died to establish it before God in consistency with His nature, yet He was raised from the dead on the third day by the glory of the Father, afterwards ascended into heaven, and is not only the one Man now before God—“the last Adam”—but the One in and from whose face the whole glory of God now shines.

But there is even more contrast in the consequence of these two ministries, for the effect of the first was bondage and condemnation, as well as the entire absence of anything approaching to likeness to the mind and thoughts of God; it were impossible for the law from Sinai to be in any sense formative in its nature or effects; in truth we may say plainly, that if it in any sense imparted to man, it would cease to be what it was in principle, a demand upon man; but not so this ministry from the heavens, the very nature of which is to impart and thus to be formative. In this respect its contrast with the law is its glory. By what it ministers, namely, righteousness, and the Spirit, the believer is competent both as to title and power to gaze at the full and undimmed glory of God, as seen in the face of Jesus Christ, and thus the formative power of this ministry is maintained. Righteousness and the Spirit are the basis, transformation into the same image from one degree of glory to another is the result. What a blessed, wonderful ministry! Well may our hearts exclaim—Surpassing glory! excelling glory!

Now it is perfectly clear that, as another has truly expressed it—“A man of like passions with us, he (Paul) was one who in a wonderful manner lived with God so as to carry out this ministry; he (Paul) labored more abundantly than they all: Still what he ministered we receive; only he was a vessel filled in more than ordinary degree. But this same blessed truth, as it especially regards the testimony, is committed to us, whatever the sphere, whether the greatest as an instrument, or the least, and therefore the thing that he ministered is ours, so that we are vessels, each one in his own little measure, of that with which he was filled.”

It is very instructive to see in the case of Paul the double character of testimony, if I may so say, which he was called to bear. We read in Acts 26:16, “But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee.” We learn from this he was to be a minister and a witness, if I rightly apprehend the mind of the Spirit of God; the expression “witness” meaning that he was to exemplify practically what he ministered. What a wondrous calling, beloved reader, poor, feeble, failing man on this earth, now the vessel, and the “chosen vessel” of heavenly glory, was to be in his own person the expression, as a witness, of that ministry to which he was called by the Son of God; whom he had seen in the way. I cannot conceive anything more wonderful than the testimony of a witness; all are not called to be ministers, but I submit that every saint is called to be a witness, and I am bold to say the most telling and weighty ministry at this present time, is the silent, noiseless, but explicit unfolding in one’s own person of this heavenly testimony. Oh, to be more like clay in the hands of the potter; shaped and fashioned by His blessed hand as He Himself pleases. The purpose of God as to His people being His witnesses here on the earth, is their being so controlled and held by Himself, that He can point to them as the living testimony to what His own Son from glory can effect for His people on this very earth. Now in this chapter where the subject of the ministry is pursued practically in every detail, we find in v. 7, three distinct subjects, namely, “this treasure,” “earthen vessels,” surpassingness [excellency] of the power” It is on my heart to write a little on each of these.

“We have this treasure.” This is described in vv. 4 and 6; it is according to v. 4, “the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, as well as in v. 6, “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” What a treasure to enrich us, as well as for us to be enriched by! Nor is it less wonderful and blessed the way in which we are taken possession of by it, hence we read, “The God who spake that, out of darkness light should shine, has shown in our hearts.” The possession of this treasure is nothing less than a revelation of the Savior in glory in us; producing as illustrated in the history of the apostle himself, a moral revolution in the subject of it: this and this alone, takes the brilliancy out of the best here. I ask can you say, as the apostle did “We have this treasure”?

Second: The next subject is the vessel, and contrast is sharply marked between the treasure and the vessel in which it is lodged; nothing could be more significant than the expression, “earthen vessels,” that is, perishing vessels of clay; it is not the vessel holding the treasure, but the treasure governing the vessel, and displaying itself through the vessel. Could anything be more blessed? In vv. 8 and 9, are set forth the inward and outward exercises to which the vessel is subjected, with a view to the display of the treasure. Then in v. 10, we have the only power in our hands by which we can have common thought with God in His purpose for displaying this treasure through us; hence we read, “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,” Observe it is not our dying, but the dying of Jesus, the practical application of the cross to every part of us; the death which alone could set us free from all that was against us being now used by us to silence all that would interfere with the display of the life of Jesus in our mortal flesh. Wonderful object, wonderful power for accomplishing it; glory the starting point, but death the only road back to glory, and Christ the goal! And as we travel that road back to the heaven we have come from, His blessed purpose about us on the way is, to display His own Son in each one of His people this costly, valuable treasure, placed designedly in these poor earthen vessels of ours.

Thirdly, we have a power working as well as a treasure shining, hence we have the word “that the surpassingness of the power may be of God and not of us.” What wonderful contrasts are thus grouped together by the Holy Ghost; the costliest conceivable treasure to shine out through an earthen vessel, by the surpassingness of Almighty power!

This power, too, is displayed, at this present time, so two scriptures which speak of it in the manner of its energy, namely; Col. 1:11 “Strengthened with all might according to the power of his glory unto all patience (endurance), and longsuffering with Joyfulness.” These are the elements in which surpassing power declares itself in earthen vessels at this present time. The other scripture is, 2 Corinthians 12:9: “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me”—that is, “may pitch its tent over me.” What a calling, beloved reader, vessels in whom such a treasure shines, weak and feeble in ourselves, but so held by the treasure, and so wrought in and upon by surpassing power, Almighty energy, that Christ and Christ alone is seen and heard; and each circumstance on the road to the Father’s house, used up by Himself, and wonderful to say, by us too, in fellowship with Him, that He may be magnified in our bodies whether by life or by death. The Lord awaken our hearts to the dignity and glory of such power.

I need not say, I trust, that this power is that of the Holy Ghost; the very power “from on high,” which was waited for until He came, the very promise of the Father, which, says our blessed Lord “ye have heard of me”; He, and He alone is the power of the ministry. Oh may He be known and owned as such by His servants and witnesses. Of Him truly we can say in adoring faith,

“Thy blessed unction from above
Is comfort, life, and fire of love.”

The Perfect Servant

Psalm 40:6-10; Isaiah 50:4-5; Exodus 21:26

Both the latter scriptures are connected with the first. That which makes the Psalm so wonderful and so blessed is that in the 7th verse we are taken into the secrets of eternity. Is it not wonderful grace in our Father and God to permit us to stand as it were in His council chamber of eternity, and to listen to the communications which passed between Himself and the eternal Word?

This is what we find in the opening verses of this Psalm.

In the 6th verse the blessed One says, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire . . . then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart”: that is, He proposes Himself in eternity, to do what the sacrifices and offerings which would be instituted in time could never do. How blessed to sit before Him, the glorious One who could discourse with Jehovah in eternity! God had no pleasure in the blood of bullocks and goats, they could not satisfy His holy, righteous claims, they could not discharge the conscience of a sinner. It has been truly and blessedly said as to this, that “The Son and Word (who was with God and was God and in the beginning with God), according to what was written in the roll of the book, has the place of obedience prepared for Him, ears dug, a body prepared, and according to the divine counsels (and love for us) freely and willingly undertakes the same place, the place of obedience; His delight (when He has taken it, and is man—has taken the form of a servant) is to do God’s will. God’s law is written within His heart. Such is Christ as man, obedient, who in free-will had come, taking the body prepared for Him, and entered into the willing servant’s place, the place of willing and glad obedience.”

The grace of God, beloved reader, stands out strikingly before the heart, when we think that creatures like ourselves, poor worms of the earth, should be brought into such blessed nearness and relationship to the Father in the Son, and then graced to listen in adoring wonder to such communications as these.

Now in the 6th and 7th verses we are in eternity; in the first we have the thought, and counsels of God, in the other the voluntary mission of the Son, to give accomplishment to the will of God in accordance with those counsels. In v. 8 the blessed One speaks as being actually in the place of dependence and obedience as man. His words, “I delight to do thy will, O God: thy law is in my heart”; express in all their preciousness His own perfection as a man; but not only have we this, but elsewhere He is set before us as the poor and needy one on the earth, waiting patiently for Jehovah, and making Him His trust and hope; oh that the hearts of His own might by His grace discern this place that He was pleased to be in, and thus enjoy the blessedness of the next Psalm, even that of “he that considereth the poor.”

The place of perfect dependence as man which the Lord Jesus was pleased to take is a blessed theme for holy contemplation. Observe well how the will of God was the spring and motive of all that was in His heart: this was the character and nature of His obedience, “the obedience of Christ.” Man as such is characterized by his will, and this is in its essence sin, but “in him was no sin.” I would here for a little refer to Luke 23:44. As to the “ninth hour” there spoken of, I believe it was the hour of prayer; if this be so, does it not point, to the fact that now in the Savior’s death an acceptable evening sacrifice was offered to God, the savor of which had reached the very presence of God? How blessed to dwell upon it Further, in the gospel of Luke, we find the blessed One as man, superior to death, while submitting to it; full of strength, the Savior commits and commends His spirit to His Father, and expires; in the presence of such moral glory how the heart thus expresses itself—

“We adore thee evermore; Hallelujah!
Savior for thy boundless grace; Hallelujah!
For the cross whereby to us; Hallelujah!
Sure is made eternal bliss; Hallelujah!”

It is specially interesting to the heart to observe the words which the Holy Ghost uses in the gospels in recording this transcendent moment.

In Matthew’s gospel, where He is set forth in an especial way as the victim, the words used for “yielded up the ghost” are ×N−6,< JÎ B<,Ø:".

In Mark’s gospel, where He is seen throughout as the servant prophet, the word used is ¦>XB<,LF,, His service is closed as it were in its greatest act. In Luke’s gospel, where He is seen as man all through it is ¦>XB<,LF,<. This along with the blessed words “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit,” gives us the truth so preciously set before us here in these words, viz.; It was death in absolute faith which trusted in the Father, death with God in faith.

In John’s gospel, where a divine person is presented to us throughout, the words are B"DX’T6,< JÎ B<,Ø:" these set forth His divine competency, He Himself delivered up His Spirit.

Let us in conclusion look at the other two scriptures for a little in Isa. 50:4. His life service is set before us in its own perfect, patient, dependent nature, He ever waited for and on the word of Jehovah. Let us not be wanting in true adoration as we hear Him say—“He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.” Yes, truly such was His grace that He stooped to become a man, and as such had given Him a disciple’s tongue and a disciple’s ear.

Lastly, in Ex. 21:6, the ears bored, point to His being a servant for ever. Oh how plainly He said “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free.”

May our hearts adore Him as we dwell upon all His perfections, in the place He was pleased to take becoming a man, “the Word became flesh”—as in all His lowly and lonely path of suffering and service here below.

Have You Understanding?

“Death proves the folly of all human wisdom and foresight, of all human grandeur”—a common observation, little-acted on, but always true. As it is said of wisdom, “death and destruction have heard the fame thereof with their ears.” They cannot give positive wisdom, but they can negatively show that only what does not belong to mortal man has any value.

Man establishes his family, perpetuates his name, but he is gone: nothing stays the hand of death. Ransom from that is out of man’s power. There is a morning coming when the righteous will have the upper hand of those who seem wise as regards this world. Death feeds on these, or as neglectors of God, they are subjected to the righteous when His judgment comes. But the power of God in whom the righteous trust is above the power of death. But further, Christ having died, the Christian’s connection with this world has ceased, save as a pilgrim through it. He has the sentence of death in himself. He knows no man after the flesh, no, not even Christ. His associations with the world are closed, save as Christ’s servant in it. He reckons himself dead. He is crucified with Christ, yet lives; but it is Christ lives in Him, and he lives the life he lives in the flesh by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him, so that he is delivered from this present world.

Oh, the folly of laying up and making oneself great and counting on a future in a world where death reigns and in the things to which its power applies.

Man being in honor abides not. How difficult, even if happy and heavenly minded in Christ as to one’s own joys, not to look upon the things that are seen, to think that the wisdom and talents and success and approval of men is simply nothing, the food of death; and that all the moral question lies behind, save so far as these may have deceived men! The saint has to watch still, not to be afraid when success accompanies those who do not accept the cross.

We await God’s judgment of things in power; we exercise it in conscience. There is no divine understanding in the man whose heart is in the glory of the world. Men will praise him. How well he has got on, settled his children, raised himself in his position. The fairest names will be given to it. He has no understanding. His heart is in what feeds death, and that death weighs it.

All the motives of the world are weighed by death. After all, in them man is only as the beasts that perish, with more care. I feel what a solemn witness and word this is for every class. Is it possible, reader, to call it in question? Is it not true? Suffer a fellow passenger on life’s great highway to ask you with real concern and affection and earnest desire for your everlasting interest, what are you living for? Whither are you hastening? Is your heart in the glory of the world? If so, there is no divine understanding in you. Have you never read the scripture which saith, “The world passeth away and the lust thereof” (See 1 John 2:17)? Oh that your eyes might be opened as to this now; a man who had fuller and more extensive means of proving what all under the sun was worth, thus expressed himself:

“I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits; I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees; I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me; I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me; and whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy: for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun” (Eccl. 2:4-11).

What a record! and remember well, that it was while Solomon was in possession of all that he pronounced it vanity and vexation of spirit. You will often hear those who have lost it all say so, but Solomon the king said it, when he had it all in his possession! Ah yes, it could not satisfy, there is the secret of the whole matter, the heart is too large and the passing world too small. But, reader, there is One who can satisfy and fill your heart, even Him whose precious blood cleanseth from all sin; only trust in Him and His atoning work and all will be well. Are you, my reader, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the once crucified, but now risen and glorified Lord and Savior? If this is happily the case, allow me to ask you, are your associations with the world closed by Christ’s death, save as His servant in it? Have you learned that as a Christian, you are thus described in the words of scripture: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (see Gal. 2:20)? How blessed to have great in our eyes Himself who hung on that cross: and to see the world that crucified Him in its true character in that cross; to glory in His cross, happy by its means to be dead to the world, to have it ended, crucified, put to shame for the heart—

“His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spread o’er His body on the tree;
Then am I dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.”

Charity - Love

1 Cor. 13

I feel greatly pressed to bring this subject before the prayerful consideration of my readers; the importance of it none, I suppose, will dispute; the urgency of it, few perhaps will enter into. May the ever blessed Spirit, God the Holy Ghost the Comforter, suggest and control my thoughts, as well as guide me in the current of the scriptures of truth, while I write.

First as to the word “love,” translated in the authorized version “charity.”

It is not necessary to point out that the popular application of the word to the distribution of money, or the giving of alms, is an entire mistake; the chapter itself will prove this, for the Apostle says it were possible to bestow all his goods to feed the poor and not to have charity.

It has been very beautifully pointed out that our word “love” combines two notions which are expressed in Greek by two different words •(VB0 (agape) and §DTH (eros). Now this latter word for love denotes “the love of desire,”

which seeks its satisfaction in being loved. But the Greek language knows another love, the love of complacency, which is much more disinterested, which contemplates, approves and yields itself; this is •(VB0, (agape), a word, it is said, certainly related to the verb •(V:"4 (agamai) to admire.

Now to this term, it is thought, the word charity better corresponds; and it does seem reasonable and true as so presented. So much for the terms charity and love. But let us now see what our God says to us in His word as to charity. Even this, that we might speak with the tongues of men or of angels, have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries and all knowledge, have all faith so as to remove mountains, and yet not have charity! How solemn, how searching!

But it may be said, is it not merely a supposed case which is here presented? Let not such a thought for a moment rest in the mind of my reader. Alas! experience, both ancient and modern, only too clearly establishes the absolute truth of what is here set forth, and that the shrinking from self-surrender will accompany progress in this kind of endowment, leading to spiritual pride and self-sufficiency. It is very solemn to dwell upon what the Apostle compares this state with, namely—“Sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.” These terms denote, the one a piece of unwrought metal struck to produce sound, the other the concave plate, used in the East as a musical instrument; and they describe in a most marked and arresting manner “the inflation of an exalted imagination, and an overexcited sensibility,” and of these it is well said that “Religious language is then no longer the natural over-flowing of a heart filled with love—it resembles the resonant sound of a dead and hollow instrument.” Further, it is said that the expression is very nearly allied to one which was a proverbial name for those who speak much and do nothing.

What a solemn message all this has for professing Christians at the present day; for who is so barefaced and bold as to deny that just now the children of God, at least professedly, are the standing reproach of an unbelieving, agnostic age. If I must needs supply proof for what I conceive is only too self-evident, I appeal to the hatred, variance, strife, party spirit, venom, spite, and bitterness which characterize a certain class of religious controversy at the present moment. I grieve to say I see it on all sides. It is a solemn sin which lies at the door of professing Christians, and, what is worse than all, it is practiced by almost all under the devil’s delusion of zeal for Christ’s glory. This is to me saddest of all, even that His blessed name who is Love, should be made a cloak wherein to wrap a mind the very opposite to Himself. How truly it is said that—“In our day, too, one may be a celebrated theologian, the instrument of powerful revivals, the author of beautiful works in the kingdom of God, a missionary with a name filling the world; if in all these things the man is self-seeking, and if it is not the divine breath of charity which animates him, in God’s eyes this is only seeming not being”

“Behold the fruit of all these magnificent gifts: all speech, all knowledge, all power, and yet nothing! Love alone is anything in the eyes of love.” It is well we should see who it is the apostle has in view here, even “a Christian carrying to this degree the appearance of love to Christ while seeking at bottom only his own fame or self merit in the eyes of God.” The trickeries of self-love are unfathomable, and to deceive the very man who is their instrument.” “Love accepts only what is inspired by love.”

But, now, dear readers, how solemn is all this for us at this moment; are we not met every day with the awful denial of it by those who call themselves Christians? Brethren, who assume the very highest position, they would tell you they alone care for the glory of the Son of God, they alone are Philadelphia, they alone are “the people,” and so forth, but in vain will you look for a manifestation of that love which is of God, in which being rooted and founded, there is full ability “to apprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge.” In vain will you look for a manifestation of that love, which is developed in reference to others, who are not the motive, although they are the object. How blessedly descriptive of this love are the following words—“it has its source within; its strength is independent of the objects with which it is occupied. Thus it can act where circumstances might produce irritation or jealousy in the human heart. It acts according to its own nature in the circumstances; and by judging them according to that nature, they do not act upon the man who is full of love, except so far as they supply occasion for its activity, and direct its form. Love is its own motive. In us, participation in the divine nature is its only source. Communion with God Himself alone sustains it through all the difficulties it has to surmount in its path.”

It is the absence of this with which we are now confronted, and that in a most gross and unblushing form; faithfulness, trueness to Christ, close adherence to His word, and the danger of laxity, are no plea for the absence of that love which is of God, and a justification in some sort of that spirit which bites and devours one another. Further, the possibility of a spurious charity is fully admitted, but that does not justify on the other hand a caricature of Christian faithfulness and loyalty, which is nothing better than “a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal”; – by this system, for such it has become, the worst evils of the flesh and its works are condoned, and being dressed up in the external garb of a pretentious piety, claims the allegiance of reality. How solemn!

But let us turn for a moment to a far happier theme, and let us note well, how it is said that of faith, hope, and charity, the greatest is love; why is it the greatest? I will give two quotations which express the answer far better than I could –

Now love subsists already; there are faith and hope also. Not only shall these pass away, but even now, here below, that which is of the nature of God is more excellent than that which is connected with the capacity of human nature, even though enlightened by God, and having for its object the revealed glory of God.

We have just seen that faith and hope abide continually, but undergoing incessant transformation, the one into sight, the other into possession. It is not so with charity. Love does not see, does not acquire, it is the divine. God does not believe nor hope, but He loves. Love belongs to His essence.

The all importance of this love receives further confirmation from the exhortation, “Follow after charity”—the word follow after ‘4T6,4< (diokein) shows the indispensable nature of what is thus pursued, in contrast with the next word desire .08@L< (zeeloun), which expresses a faculty, simply desirable. May the hearts of the children of God be aroused to “follow after charity.” Assuredly it is high time to awake out of sleep as to this great reality, have we not got down among the dead as to it? How true were the words penned in 1879 by one gone to his rest, when he wrote—

Did we walk even as once we walked? Was there devoted service among the poor and needy, visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keeping ourselves unspotted from the world . . . I have long said brethren began by practical separation from the world. Though certain great truths for the last days were there, still what the world saw was that they were not of it . . . It was not a discussion whether they were Philadelphia or not.

What a voice those solemn words of twelve years ago have now. May hearts be opened in His grace to listen to the truth they convey, may we remember that “when God is at work, it is love for the truth, grief at the condition of the church of God, and separation of heart and ways to the truth, while waiting for Christ—not thinking of ourselves as vessels of it.”

"What Is Man?"

This striking question is three times asked in the Old Testament scriptures. It is asked by Job (chap. 7:17), in the moment of his boundless grief, consumed by suffering.

In the accumulation of his sorrows, and struggling under the hand of God, Job exclaims, “What is man?” asking to be let alone till he had swallowed down his spittle. The meaning of man here is, frail mortal man; in this connection it suggests the sense he had, more or less, of what a poor worm he was, and how strange that the mighty God should set His heart upon him, visit him every morning and try him every moment, even such an one as he whose foundation is in the dust, and who is crushed before the moth. It is well we should enter into the real secret of all Job’s trials; it was the discipline of God’s hand on His servant to lead him to the blessed consummation described in the words, “I abhor myself.” It was for this God had at the first proposed Job as the subject of Satan’s sifting. “Hast thou considered my servant Job?”—is met by the insolent question of the devil, “Doth Job fear God for nought?” This was a vile insinuation as to the purity of his secret motives; and suggests the thought that if needs be, Satan would do as much himself.

It has been very beautifully observed that this was in reality an attack upon God Himself: “For if the most pure of mankind is incapable of loving God gratuitously—that is, really—it follows that God has not the power to make Himself loved. Now, as it is the perfection of a being to love, so it is His glory to be loved” . . . “The most telling blow, therefore, which can be inflicted upon the divine honor is to assert that even the most devout worshiper of God upon earth only serves Him with this arrière-pensée: What shall I gain by it?”

But we have the same question asked in other circumstances and connections in Psa. 144. Here we have the godly remnant in Israel crying to God in the last days; they are passing through the bitterest trials, and plead with Jehovah the entire insignificance of their oppressors, “Man (i.e. frail, mortal man) is like to vanity, his days are as a shadow that passeth away.” This is set forth as a reason why the speedy judgments of God’s hand should work deliverance for them, from their oppressors, who are in prosperity all around them. When man is thus seen, there is a knowledge acquired both of the scene and of the great patience of God. But yet is it in striking contrast with the knowledge of the Christian, for him the cross has settled all and for ever, and he reckons himself to have died, yet alive unto God through Him who died and rose again; further, he knows himself of a new creation, and a child with the Father. How blessed is this, and how sad to see the desire to be earthly people, living only to die at the close of human life!

But now let us turn to the third mention of this question in scripture; it is as we have said in Psa. 8:4, quoted in Heb. 2:6. There we find the spirit of Christ in the Psalmist asking the question, “What is man?” How blessed to see that He does so as the rejected One, put to shame by His own people and by men, His heart feeling a sorrow thus peculiarly His own, pours itself out to Jehovah, and from this His humbled place, taken and accepted by Himself He asks, “What is man?” Jehovah’s answer is, Christ!

He was this Son of man, set over all the works of God’s hand. It is most touching and beautiful to see the way this Psalm is quoted in Heb. 2 already alluded to; “One in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him; or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.”

Observe how this and the explanation following is introduced; the inspired writer does not say, David in a certain place testified, for he knew well that a greater than David was there! How blessed to ponder all this and treasure it in our hearts. In the days of the sorrow and humiliation of this blessed man, babes and sucklings uttered His praise, and thus the enemy and avenger was stilled; now He is crowned with honour and glory, though as yet all things are not put under Him. But there is a day at hand when His name shall be excellent in all the earth.

Thus, then, what is set before our adoring faith and praise here is, man in the counsels of God, the second Man, the last Adam, Christ the glory of Jehovah, as well as His delight, the wisdom of God and the power of God.

And as in that day that is at hand, when, as we have said, His name shall be excellent in all the earth, so the whole inheritance of this blessed man, the Redeemer-Heir, taken by Him under that title, shall reflect His praise and glory, dis- playing the power of His redemption, as at the first the material creation displayed the handiwork of the Creator, in all its variety of living beauty. This being closely connected with His glory in part, must ever have an affectionate interest for His own, while at the same time faith now turns on high, sees Him and knows Him there, knows too its own associations with the second Man in glory, leaves in spirit the earth and the earthly scene, to dwell with Him in the delights and joys of the Father’s house on high, and to journey here where He is not, as a pilgrim of faith, whose “commonwealth has its existence in the heavens, from which also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory, according to the working of the power which he has even to subdue all things to himself.” (Phil. 3:21) Lord, hasten it in Thy time!

“a Stranger Here”

Exodus 2:22

While the wilderness we travel,
Nought save dreariness around,
Not a gleam of earthly sunshine,
Only storm and tempest found.
Rich the joy of surely knowing
Home and rest are all above!
Won by Him on earth a Stranger,—
Proving timeless, changeless love!

See Him stooping down from glory,
Lowly, humbled, sorrowing here;
Scorned of earth, by man rejected,
No bright spot His heart to cheer.
See Him all along His journey,
From the mountain to the cross,
Save His Fathers love – how lonely
Meeting shame, contempt, and loss.

Want and woe in man’s sad story
Never wearied His blest ear;
Widowed hearts and orphans sorrows
Found in Him relief and cheer.
See Him in His hour of travail,
Contrast to our path below;
We have Him for every sorrow,
He had nought save deepest woe.

Wrath of God in fiercest judgment,
Borne alone upon the tree;
Love that passeth every knowledge,
Now flows forth unstraitened, free.
Raised from death, His Father’s glory
Claims Him Victor for His throne
There alone His ransomed know Him,
There alone their joys and home.
Here they wander through death’s valley,
He beside them, yet on high;
They like Him on earth but strangers,
He with them for ever nigh.

Soon His shout will greet His pilgrims –
Welcome long-loved home and rest;
Now by faith enjoyed and entered,
Then with Him for ever blest.

Resource and Strength

Phil. 4

What a blessed reality to know that which the apostle speaks of in v. 7 of this chapter, namely, to have the peace of God which passeth every understanding keeping the heart and mind through Christ Jesus.

Now observe how we must be in spirit in the sphere of the peace, in order to have the heart and mind kept. Our poor hearts and minds could never keep the peace of God. The best illustration I know of the peace of God, is that magnificent declaration of Psa. 29:10: “The Lord sitteth upon the flood, yea the Lord sitteth king for ever.” It is striking too, that the word rendered “flood” is elsewhere applied only to the deluge of Noah. Thus above all the desolations of earth, in the serenity of His own majesty the Lord sits as King; and observe the verse that follows this, namely, “The Lord will bless His people with peace.” In a higher and fuller way the apostle tells us that the peace of God which passeth every understanding shall keep, as in a garrison, your hearts and minds, that is, the affections which the word heart refers to, and minds, the motive power of the man as we speak.

There is nothing so often disturbed as our minds, especially if activity characterize them, but if our God puts His own peace as a garrison to guard the heart and mind, all of quiet and rest is secured in the stronghold of that divine fortification. Thus alone can we enter into the deep meaning of how our strength is to sit still.

When we stood as it were on the shores of the Red Sea, with its waters as yet unopened before us, and dreaded the descent of the overflowing enemy behind us, the word was, “stand still and see.” Then we beheld as it were a divine transaction, for us no doubt, but in accomplishing which we had no part; now, as garrisoned by the peace of God we learn the blessedness of the word, “be still and know that I am God.”

Now in v. 12, the apostle gives himself as an example, “I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound: everywhere, and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” Thus he tells us how he had passed through all the circumstances: how often have I heard the remark: “You know nothing about it, for you are not in it.” Now it is well to remember, that one needs to be out of trial, as having passed through it, in order to sympathize with one in it, then it is that we can be witnesses to the grace, peace, and power which sustained us, and we can say, in some sense, poor though it be, I have found Him all I needed, far more, thank God, but this most blessedly. It is very interesting to see how the apostle was passed through all the exigencies of human life, so as to be in his own person the witness to the truth we have before us. One of the distinctive marks of Christianity is, the resource and power which belong to it, and these are brought to light by the straits and difficulties through which the people of God pass in the wilderness way. In another day when a sight of the land tested Israel, Joshua and Caleb could say, “The people of the land are bread for us.” Israel were in dread at the moment of being devoured by giants!

In v. 19 the apostle says, “My God.” Why does he not say, “Your God?” Was He not the God of the Philippians as much as of Paul? Assuredly He was. But he was speaking of God as he himself knew Him, or, as we might say, experimentally. the apostle had proved Him as His God. He says as it were, “I have been all the world over and He has never failed me.” “My God shall supply all your need.” I can not only count on Him for myself, but also for you. Neither your need nor mine can measure what is in Him. What is the measure?

“According to His riches in glory.” How blessed, how infinite! May our hearts and minds be thus kept in this divine fortification continuously.

The Popular Gospel

My attention was directed a few days past to some words on this subject which I venture here to transcribe, as a solemn and timely warning at this moment.

A carnal evangelism produces a scoffing worldliness, which refuses henceforth to listen to the solid gospel of the grace of God. To popularize the gospel is to take away from it every element of divine power which it possesses. Allow of human methods or ingredients, and immediately the flesh breathes freely and listens pleasantly, but bring in Christ crucified as doing away with man in the flesh altogether, and going on with the second Man, who is risen and gone into heaven, and the flesh is choked by the heaviness of the atmosphere, and makes its escape.

This modern popularizing of the gospel has given even evangelical society its itching ears, and has turned away the thoughtful from listening to the word as a divine thing. Thus the evangelical conspired with the rationalistic to ruin the whole crop and reduce the field to barrenness. ‘The land was as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.’ A rationalized college, and a popularized gospel, have made the name of Christ odious, and the holy scriptures a suspected and distrusted book.

What is here set forth very forcibly and aptly, is assuredly worthy of solemn consideration at this moment when the tide is rapidly flowing in the direction indicated, and when there seems spread abroad on every hand, as the morning upon the mountains, a mist of earth and deep delusion of the devil, so insidious and ensnaring, that but few have the power to discern the counterfeit coin, which a deeply designed imitation hides from them; and when the great mass of people are carried away by the blasphemous buffoonery and burlesque of modern evangelism. May the Lord open the eyes of His saints to the workings of the enemy in this “last hour” of His great patience and forbearance.

The Mystery of Godliness

1 Tim. 3:16; 4:1-8; 6:3-9

This mystery of godliness, while on the one hand it lies at the very center of the truth maintained by the assembly before the world, on the other, is the only power that can sanctify and separate the saint to God.

It is striking the way in which it is brought in here. In chapter 3:16 we find what the testimony was, committed to responsibility and to be maintained by the assembly before the world. The assembly, let us remember, is the pillar and support of the truth. This is a truth of the first moment; it is well said, “that on earth Christ was the Truth. He is so always, but He was so on the earth. The assembly is not the truth: the word of God is the truth. His word is truth. Truth exists before the assembly; it is faith in the truth which gathers the assembly together. But the assembly is that which maintains the truth on earth. But the assembly does not teach. Teachers teach the assembly; but by faithfulness in holding fast the truth taught, it sustains it in the world.”

Now, in connection with all this we are warned by the Holy Ghost, through the apostle, as to that which Satan would introduce and set up in opposition to it, and we find one part of this scheme in chapter 4 and another character of it in ch. 6. The enemy seeks to set aside the testimony by what we find in both these chapters.

Next, in order that we may see clearly what the great mystery of piety is, let us state it as given by God here. “And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” Here, then, we have set before us both God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we have Satan’s counterfeit in vv. 1-3 of ch. 4—there would be those who would depart from the knowledge of the one Creator and Savior-God, He who had not only created the world, but who also had revealed Himself in Christ. The first great element in this counterfeit is a denial of the end of the first man’s history at the cross. The great object of the devil is in every way to deny this in fact, or set it aside in practice. It is one of the solemn realities of this present time that the judicial end of man’s history in the cross is not accepted, but denied; and hence there is no divine conception of what the new man is—“the new man, which, according to God, is created in righteousness and holiness of truth.” Alas with many their conception of the new man is little better than changed conduct. The new man is a new creation, and the moral characteristic of this new creation is that which is according to God, created in truthful righteousness and holiness.

Now observe in the scripture before us the revival of the first man, in the denial of its judicial end in the cross; the exactions spoken of here are the proof of this revival by the enemy: “forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.” These are the exactions which the devil would put upon man; these impositions recognize the existence of man in the flesh before God, and the wile is to produce a sanctity pretending to superior holiness, but in reality a false sanctity which denied the authority of God, in forbidding that which He had ordained from the beginning, as well as reviving the history of man in the flesh, which had been judicially condemned and put out of God’s sight in the cross.

Now in 1 Tim. 6 we find the further work of Satan; here it is an attempt in the direction of the elevation of man as he is, taking the favors, the mercies surrounding him in this world, as indicative of the goodness of God to man as allowed in his standing in the flesh before Him, “supposing that gain is godliness.” How specious these various attempts of Satan to set aside the truth; we see the first in full bloom in popery, and the second in human philanthropy. The truth thus attempted to be set aside is itself our great security. What a marvelous truth in fact that God had been manifested in the flesh! How blessed to think that God Himself was manifested in the center of weakness and evil, that where sin was, there was love above the sin; yet in Him, who became flesh, the absence of all sin was made evident by the power of the Holy Ghost during His whole life: He was seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world: it was not the display or manifestation of visible power demanding His rights and glory, but the tender grace that sought the weary and the undone for their perfect, richest blessing.

Lastly, we read, “received up into glory”—thus He takes His place on high as Man, in that glory whence He had descended.

This, then, is the great truth to be maintained before the world by the assembly, the vessel for testimony; but there is another aspect in which we may look at it, namely, this mystery of piety is the true and only producing power of all true godliness in the saints, as well as the ability to fill their varied relationships according to the mind of God. God has, in His own blessed grace, come down, and has cleared, as it were, the scene for Himself that He may now occupy it; it is as we are engrossed with Him who is received up into glory, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. I do not deny there are claims, but how earnestly do I desire to press the charms of the heavenly Man now in glory on the affections and hearts of His own!

“No More”

This is a sad expression by itself. It speaks of the end of life down here, as in Psa. 39:13; or it sets forth the termination of things in this world, as for instance when we say we have no more means, or no more opportunity, or no more strength; but it is a very blessed expression when used in connection with three great realities set forth in the blessed word of God.

Now in Heb. 10:2, 17, 18, we read of three wonderful and blessed no mores, namely:—

1. No more offering for sin.

2. No more remembrance of sins.

3. No more conscience of sins.

Let us observe in the first place how it is said that the remission of sins proves that there is no more offering for sin.

That is, the full and blessed efficacy of the one offering of our Lord Jesus Christ is clearly set forth and manifested in its not being repeated, it was once, because all was accomplished by it. Now under the law the sacrifices were many and often. Why? Because they were not effectual for the taking away of sins. Each fresh sacrifice proved that those which had been previously offered, were ineffectual. The truth is that in those sacrifices and under the law, sins were brought to remem- brance, not put away. By Christ’s one offering there is full remission and forgiveness of sins. Is not this abundant comfort to all who simply trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice it was? Reader, are you trusting in Him? Have you any other hope? May God open the eyes of all who read this paper, to see what sure and perfect ground the atoning death of God’s dear Son supplies to every sinner who simply trusts in Him.

Second. But next it is said in virtue of this sacrifice God will remember the sins and iniquities of His people no more. He did remember all their sins and iniquities to Jesus on the cross, where He, the spotless One, was their Substitute. It was not they who laid their sins on Jesus; it was God—that God who knew them all, against whom, too, they had been committed; He it was who laid them all on His spotless Lamb, the Substitute of His people.

Hence it is that in righteousness God can now say, He will no more remember His people’s sins. Christ on the cross “made sin,” and bearing God’s righteous judgment due to sin and against sin, has so perfectly glorified God about sin, and so entirely and fully exhausted all the holy judgment of God due to sin, and so fully borne His people’s sins in His own body on the tree, that God can say as in this precious verse: “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”

Third. Now the word of God declares that for those who have their sins forgiven there is “no more conscience of sins”—observe well, the scripture does not say, “no more consciousness of sin,” but no more conscience of sins; and the difference is solemn and very important; if it had been no more consciousness of sin, the scripture would have then stated that the Christian is to be without the consciousness of indwelling sin, which it never does state, but the opposite; thus there is no ground whatever for the many delusions abroad on this subject. What God does say in His word is, that the purged worshiper has “no more conscience of sins”; that is, the conscience of such an one is uncondemning in the presence of God, in virtue of the eternal value of Christ’s precious blood shed.

How blessed, then, to be rejoicing in no more offering for sin—no more remembrance of sins—no more conscience of sins.

The Close of the Year

Heb. 1, 2

The close of another year reminds us of the rapid flight of time and brings before the heart in various ways its changing scenes; all, even the best here, fades as a leaf and vanishes away. How blessed to have found a new home in a new scene, outside and beyond; and to have found it in connection with Him who is there, thus the Person and the place where He is become everything to us, and we only await His return who shall change our body of humiliation and fashion it like unto His body of glory: until then we move on with Him; how different that is from being borne along in the throng of the passing panorama around us. The scripture at the head of the page is suggested by the dying year—all here on earth is under death and dying; thank God, the Christian has passed out of death into life. What a rest and solace to have to do with Him, of whom it is said: “Thou remainest,” “Thou art the same.”

The reflection is valuable to us in a two-fold way, namely: First, it is well to see things as they are; the tendency is in an entirely opposite direction, as a rule, among men down here in this world, things are not what they seem.

It is well for us to remember that God did once invest a man with the ability and resources necessary to test the value of all here in itself. Solomon had everything that the heart of man could desire, and, moreover, his wisdom remained with him. What is his testimony when in possession of all? “All is vanity and vexation of spirit.” Solomon found that nothing here could fill and satisfy the heart, and that death lay as a cankerworm at the root of all under the sun. Do we not find it so in changing years and times? If Solomon the king found it so in his affluent circumstances, how much more those whose lot is of a very different kind?

But the reflection is also valuable in bringing out the contrast set before us in those precious words spoken of the Savior, “Thou remainest,” “Thou art the same.” How blessed for the heart that has found its all in such an One as that! Beloved reader, have you? And as the passing year and fleeting seasons are but part of what other words found here describe, namely, “They shall perish . . . and they shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed,” can you, in the rest of possession in and with Him where He is, say—

“The Savior lives and cannot die,
And with Him lives our joy”

May God in His great grace and mercy grant that as years fail and pass, our hearts may be found to have already left the scene, to have, as it were, ascended with Him to where He is, and there continually to dwell.