The question asked has awakened a real desire to be, if possible, some comfort as to it. I think I know where many are as to this and such like subjects. Alas! we are all but poor ones as to deep and real heart exercise before the Lord concerning these things that trouble many. Let me first endeavor to emphasize the fact that what so many are longing after, as feeling they have not got, is the consequence of something else.
What is longed for, and rightly too, “affections satisfied,” “tastes imbibed,” “Christ living in us,” “eternal life working”—all this, and much more akin to it, results from, flows out of, something else. I will try and show what I mean by that something else, presently. Now observe that produced effects or consequences cannot create themselves, and if our mind or thoughts dwell much on their absence or possession, we are correspondingly depressed or elated; it is good to be convicted, but it does not help us to dwell much on our shortness of stature in divine fellowship or realization; and it does not comfort us to see certain qualities and joys which we know ought to be there, but which we are sure we have not. I think I hear the words, “Tell us what is that something which begets all this in the saint.” Well, I will try.
1st. The Christian is of a new order, and united to the Man at God’s right hand; the Christian is one with Christ in heaven. Wonderful, blessed fact that! Faith accepts it in all simplicity, and in the measure of faith, and in the power of the Spirit, is realization, communion, and joy.
2ndly. He to whom the Christian is united is a Man in glory, and the whole glory of God shines from Him; there he knows Him, there he sees Him, there he has intercourse with Him; it must be so, because if we have to do with Christ it must be where He is, then as it is so, that is, as He Himself in glory occupies the whole soul, we are changed into His image. Diligence and purpose of heart on our part there must be most surely, not in the direction of what is produced in us, as if we could secure these, but in being absorbed with Him, who by His Spirit forms in us, as we are engrossed with Himself, all those fruits which are seen and noticed by men. Again I repeat it, nothing can produce results corresponding to heaven but occupation with Christ, who is there; that we while here are changed into His image as we are impressed by Christ there; that the beloved Son filling the entire vision of our soul, shapes and forms us in moral likeness to Him as He was here. This is all blessedly true, yet I feel that there is a danger of the heart valuing this rather for the effects and consequences which are produced by it, and flow from it, than because of His own inherent and captivating blessedness. I do not of course mean to say that one would say so, or even allow oneself to think so; yet there can be no doubt that if effects or consequences are prominent in the soul, what produces them is valued rather in reference to them, than absolutely in itself.
With us it ought to be Canaan first and then the lessons of the wilderness. These have a very different character when this is the order, yet I am assured it is the divine order for us; working to heaven, and living from it, are two very different things; starting from heaven would not make the wilderness of this world less the wilderness than it is, but all about it would be gilded, the clear, soft, blessed light of heaven would gild the dreariness of earth’s wilds.
We get an illustration of all this in Ex. 34. Moses’ face shone after he had been in the mount with God, and the effects were seen and felt after he came down among the people; the object in heaven forms in those whose object He is all those holy affections and tastes suited to itself. Stephen in Acts 7 is the New Testament instance of this truth: “full of the Holy Ghost,” he looked up, not within or around, but up into heaven, and Jesus in the glory of God met, and filled, his vision; in the power of that sight he bears his testimony, and acts like Christ Himself.
Paul, in Phil. 3, tells us the same story, the Man in glory as seen and engrossing the soul, formed in the vessel the affections and tastes suited to Himself. The power of an object is wonderful even in earthly things; if our object be superior to us we derive from it, it imparts to us; if inferior, we drop to it.
Oh, to dwell much on the fact that we are one with Him! Oh, to be much in His company where He is, and thus to exhibit Christ subjectively! Remember the words, “looked up steadfastly unto heaven.” There cannot be too much purpose of heart and anxiety to look up steadfastly into heaven, but no purpose of heart or diligence can secure to us the effects of looking up: there will be the bringing the air and the rest and the power of Christ in glory to bear upon every step of the way; but we must not forget that for this two things are needed:
1st. The power of faith that looks up and takes possession above.
2nd. The power of death that displaces all that would dispute His right below. I would add, that in Phil. 4 we see the heavenly Man’s superiority to all around Him: he can “stand fast in the Lord,” when general weakness and declension abound; he can “rejoice in the Lord” in a scene and circumstances full of sorrow and grief: he can be without a care in a world full of cares, because he casts them on One who can carry them and not feel their weight, and thus he has “the peace of God” where all is unrest and disquiet around him: he can let things go here, because he has an eternal certainty in that place where Christ is, and who is “at hand”; he can occupy his heart with what is good amid abounding evil, and so find the God whose peace keeps his heart, walking beside him; he can be abased, and not be disheartened; he can abound, and not be elated, because Christ is his sufficiency in the dark day, and better than the best in the bright day; nothing stands in his way, he balks at nothing, he is seated on the power of Christ, and “can do all things”; though he has nothing, yet he possesses all, though empty, yet he is full: he has a source, and a supply, a measure, and a channel equal to the heart of God. “My God shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory, through Christ Jesus.”