THE expression, "the beginning of the creation of God," as used by the Lord in addressing Laodicea, is very significant. Everything had failed on earth, and, so to speak, everything had ceased to be regarded by God as a testimony for Him in its actual state. All was a moral chaos in His sight. Christ alone remained; and, therefore, the Spirit falls back on Him as the "beginning of the creation of God ": the faithful and true witness, the only real and permanent one, the head of the new creation; and, therefore, the one in whom alone there was deliverance from chaos. In Col. 1 He is called " the first born of every creature," which expresses His title and pre-eminence. To Laodicea a like expression is made use of, but it, is more a presentation of Himself as the last reserve, as men say. His own people had failed to witness for God on the earth, though thereby the Father would have been glorified, and now things on earth were about to be judged, and there still remained the true Noah-" the beginning of the creation of God." And though there had been loss all the way down, there was recovery in Him. All now reverts to Him; and anyone who would escape the evil influences in Laodicea must know themselves in spirit connected with Him in this peculiar aspect; nowhere else was there recovery. Still further,-His counsel to these overcomers is to buy of Him " gold tried in the fire," white raiment, eye-salve. I think "gold tried in the fire" is walking with Christ -to me to live is Christ-through the difficulties, association with Him in the trial; the felt expression of of His grace in the soul assured to it while breasting against the evil influences at work around. No one who is acquiring " gold tried in the fire," who is really spiritually exercised in the difficulties of the day, can have sympathy with the religious exultation of Laodicea. He finds his path daily more difficult and narrow; but, reverting to the faithful and true witness, he obtains succor from Him, and the empty profession of the day has no interest or attraction for him. Gold tried in fire,-grace known in trial, is the internal strength and power to rise above the evil influences; while the white raiment is the manifested power and walk of victory, and the eye-salve the word of God. No one would anoint his eye with eye-salve, unless he felt that he needed to improve his sight; and this is what souls most require, viz., the sense of how much they need the., counsel and succor of the word to enable them to see their way through the present confusion. It is the only thing for faith to cling to, and it is in dependance on God's word because it. is. God's word, that the soul is Strengthened in God, and not merely from the blessings which flow from keeping His word. The more the soul feels its journey to be a journey of faith, the more unceasingly will it seek the word as the trellis-work on which its faith may climb.
The faithful adherence to God's revelation is the great necessity and the only bulwark in the now existing state of things, when all is verging on the Laodicean state. The influences which, without let or hindrance will, when the Church is taken away, conform. nominal Christianity into Babylon, are now in their elements working and seducing, the unstable and the willful into the circling power of that vortex. In proportion as man attempts, through progress in science or discovery, either to contravene or dispense with the revelation, he is deluded by a false light; but in proportion as I am guided by the true light held in faith, shall I be in the intelligence and power of that which will openly certify God's wisdom by-and-bye.
If I read Jude's epistle and the address to the church of Laodicea together, I see two evil influences at work, which must inevitably ensnare any soul not elevated to a sphere above them. The one is the improvement of the world materially, the other the extension of religion. Jude gives us the former, the address to Laodicea the latter. Under the head of material improvement I class all advancement of man in any form of development. The strides which this advancement has taken and is taking in the present day are almost fabulous. An artisan now is more advanced in comfort and information than was the highest peer two centuries ago. Is it any wonder that a man who has no region for practical citizenship, beyond the present, should be allured by an improvement so flattering to himself? Could Cain have believed in a curse while he sedulously gathered the fruits of the earth? And he gathered them for God too. Now this last, gathering the fruits of the earth for God, reaches out into the other evil influence set forth in Laodicea, by the extension of religion. Who by merely looking at the world in its present state, with all its advancement and religious extension, its prodigious circulation of Bibles, etc., could believe that it had suffered anything by the rejection of its true Lord? Let my eye, even as a Christian, have no range but earth, and I know not where my soul may be carried. I see rationalists giving importance to man's mind above the word of God, at least regarding the latter as only a by-way help and not as a guide; and this contributes to swell the sense of self-importance, which the education of the present day likes to produce, while the Popish element affords to man the feeling of being religious, which supplies all that is wanting for self-satisfaction. believe that nothing but the' heavenly portion of the Church, and practical association with her rejected Lord,. now the only " faithful and true witness " for God, can possibly preserve the saints of God from these evil influences. It is true a godly soul, who feels the entire corruption of human. nature, may be preserved in a measure; but it is wonderful how little the completeness of this corruption is believed in, in practice or sentiment, when the soul becomes occupied with its religiousness; and if with the`' religiousness, it sees how 'much man' can effect,-there' will be no check to its going in the way of Cain, Balaam, and Core. If I have a heavenly place, and find my existence above, I must necessarily be looking for the Lord. to come and emancipate me bodily: from the scene here. I cannot be practically heavenly without looking for the coming of the Lord; for, as heavenly I feel myself a stranger here, and there is no hope of full release for me until He comes.
It is a solemn and humbling thought that we have been entrusted with the truth which is alone effectual in delivering souls from the " hour of temptation," which is to come on all the " habitable world," and the elements of which are evidently now at work. I believe that all, whether young or old, who have drawn back from the responsibility which such truth claims from us, and have allowed their eyes to rest on earth, have been ensnared, possibly unknown to themselves, by these evil influences. In such cases there is, no doubt, where there is life, a relief for the conscience in the Laodicean prosperity, in which, while there is no testimony for God, salvation is, through mercy, granted to some, though the whole system is to be broken up and spued out of Christ's mouth as a worthless and evil thing. It is most important for us to understand our responsibility as to our testimony for God; but to retrograde is to take the direction of all this vortex of evil and delusion.
Paul was a model man: a model-man-not of human perfectness, but of what divine grace and goodness could now make of a man who was led by the Spirit and walked with Christ.
The word of God carries divine certainty inseparable from it. And yet there is uncertainty, divinely appointed to us, as to many things in it. The reality, which is certain, is ours; but our apprehensions are imperfect: we see through a glass darkly and not as yet face to face; we have not yet apprehended that for which we are apprehended.
There is a difference between "law," the principle of law as a condition of blessing, and "the law," viz., that of Moses; the distinction often escapes us.