How safe and calm one may be amidst the rough tossing of this world! How blessedly one can ride over its angry billows, sustained through every storm by the anchor which has been cast “within the veil,” and “Hope” which has entered there. Do storms or tempests ever sweep over that scene—the unclouded presence of God? NEVER! And our hope—the sure and steadfast anchor of the soul—has entered there.
Reader, have you fled for refuge to that hope set before you? Mark, this is not the fleeing of the sinner to Christ, but of the saint. He it is who has fled from his corrupt nature, from self, from the world, and “laid hold upon the hope set before him.” Are you seeking to better your condition in the world—to establish your name and family in the scene of the Saviour’s dishonor? Do not His position and aspect towards the world determine yours? Accept, then, “His Cross” as your portion here. All your blessings are spiritual, and are in Christ in heavenly-places (Eph. 1:3).
To “lay hold upon the hope” supposes energy of faith. The joy set before the Lord sustained Him; for it He endured the cross, and is now set down at the tight hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:1, 2). If His path is set before us; so also His joy—the hope of glory—the being with Him and like Him is set before us.
But as if it were not enough for God to come into the midst of our sorrows and trials, and sustain our hearts with promises of rest and glory and blessing, He would establish our souls in divine certainty by His promise and oath. His unchangeable purpose to bless us with Christ has been confirmed by His oath.
The worldly Lot knew nothing of all this. If we would enjoy the blessed communing’s of His heart—if we would have the knowledge of His eternal counsels establishing our souls, we must be found in the path of practical discipleship:
Thus, then, the ground of “full assurance of hope is the word and oath of God. In other words, it is not the poor, tried, perplexed heart casting his eye within or around to discover if he has this assurance; but God has written it down plainly, so that faith may take it up, and the man go on his way a rejoicing saint.
3. Full assurance of understanding (Col. 2:2). Our only safeguard against Ritualism and Rationalism is realized union with Christ. I do not mean the doctrine of union to Christ by the Holy Ghost. I do not believe that the Colossians “gave up” the truth that they had been united to Christ by the Holy Ghost; but practically they were not in the power of it; they had allowed Jewish ordinances which the Apostle styles “elements of the world,” better known by us as Ritualism; and the philosophical theories of the Gentile mind, known to us as Rationalism, to come between them and Christ. The sense of their union with Christ was thus enfeebled in the soul. This condition is met by a display of the glories of Christ. There is not a more magnificent unfolding or elevated character of truth throughout the range of Scripture than is found in the first chapter. Who is HE with whom the saints are associated? He is the image of the invisible God; First-born of creation as to rank and dignity; Creator of the visible and invisible; all created for Him for His glory; before all things as Creator and Son—not Son, from eternity, but in eternity. Created “by him” displays His power; created “for him” displays His glory.
“By him all things consist.” What we term “Providence” is simply Christ’s power in sustaining the universe; creation in its vast extent subsists through Him. Thus He heads creation, glory, and providence. But this is not all; not only have we His personal glories, but we have His relative dignities also. His death has opened up other fields, that “in all things he might have the pre-eminence.” “He is the head of the body,” as also head of creation; and “firstborn from the dead.” Now in faith I can look up to the right hand of God, and see there, by faith, what none ever saw before Stephen—a Man glorified in the place of highest exaltation.
In this wondrous catalog of the Blessed One’s glories we have, as has been taught elsewhere, two headships— “creation” and “the body;” two reconciliations—things and persons, the former to come, the latter accomplished; two ministries—the gospel and the church.
The substantial truth of Christianity is the presence of the Holy Ghost on earth. He is here in a way altogether new from anything which has gone before. He always quickened; was the spirit of testimony and prophecy; but as soon as redemption was an accomplished fact, and Christ glorified on high, the Holy Ghost came down, the day of Pentecost was fully come, long since prefigured by the “feast of first-fruits” (Lev. 23:15-17). His action was a twofold one, uniting the saints to Christ exalted as Man, thus forming them “His body” and “one body,” and dwelling with them forever. The Spirit thus gives us the consciousness that we are in Christ up there, as also that He is in us down here— “the hope of glory.” A more exalted privilege could not be ours; but be it remembered that it involves serious and weighty responsibility.
Now the Apostle is in an agony before God that the saints unknown to him might have full understanding of the mystery of God, in order to its practical acknowledgment. But how acknowledge the mystery if I do not know it? Are you indifferent to God’s counsels and thoughts about Christ? Do you say, ‘It is enough for one to know I am saved?’ Consummate selfishness! What are you saved for? Is it not to reflect the glory of Christ, and shine in His likeness forever? You cannot walk as a “member of the body of Christ” if you know not what that body is. You cannot answer to the responsibilities of your position if you know not what that position is. No wonder that Ritualism, which feeds the imagination with empty shadows and takes away my Lord; and Rationalism, the spinning of the human brain, lands the soul in the dark regions of practical skepticism. But if philosophy and traditional religion are thrown aside as worthless, the Holy Ghost would have you use the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in the mystery of God. Full assurance of understanding in the mystery of God is the sure antidote to the speculative mind of the Greek, and the pious flesh of the Jew or so-called Christian.
4. Full assurance of the Gospel (1 Thess. 1:5). The word here is the same as in the cases we have been looking at.
The responsibility of the Evangelist in making known the full-orbed gospel of the grace of God is very great. It is a solemn consideration that the state of soul, the walk, and place in the glory are very much determined by the Gospel and the mariner of its presentation, and the life of the Evangelist: “For our Gospel,” says the Apostle, “came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance (lit. ‘much full assurance’), as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sakes.” Paul, in addressing his son Timothy, said: “Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee” (1 Tim. 4:16).
If we would produce conviction of the truth in the minds of our readers or hearers, our testimony must be clothed in the power of the Holy Ghost. We cannot lead on souls further than we are ourselves, and if we are not filled ourselves with the unspeakable importance of the divine truths we are communicating—if these truths have not formed our lives so that we are living witnesses of the testimony we proclaim, we shall only damage souls and produce weakness and uncertainty in the minds of others, instead of “full assurance.” We have a fine instance of the spirit in which we ought to preach in the case of the little captive maid in the land of Syria: “Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy” (2 Kings 5:3). “Would God!” She was in earnest, and so she communicated her “full assurance” to her mistress and household, and to the king and court of Syria.
The power of God, communion in the Holy Ghost, and full assurance should always be the certain accompaniments of the Gospel. It was so with those to whom Paul wrote. They received the Gospel, in which is revealed the “righteousness of God,” freely owning the judgment of God upon the flesh. Accepting that judgment upon their state and Adam-standing, they could rejoice in the perfect deliverance wrought for them by Christ. They had full assurance of all this, in that they had a dead, risen, and glorified Christ preached to them. Let the reader distinctly understand that life is not peace; and that until the full work of Christ in condemning sin, root and branch, be known, there cannot be assurance or peace in the soul. The learning of this is the useful lesson of Rom. 7.
We have thus presented to us the truth of “full assurance” of faith, Heb. 10:22; of hope, Heb. 6:2; of “understanding in the mystery of God,” Col. 2:2; and of heart and mind in the Gospel, 1 Thess. 1:5. May the Lord bless these thoughts for His name’s sake!
(Concluded from page 16.)