Mary Magdalene was watching at the sepulcher. She was so near to the heart of Christ that all the world to her was but an empty tomb when Christ was not there. Her heart was right, though her intelligence and her place were wrong. She was seeking the living among the dead! The disciples went to their own home—sad work! So Mary gets the message, "Go to My brethren." He calls His own sheep by name—"Mary." Then she thought she had Him back again; but He says to her, "Touch Me not"—You cannot have Me back for the kingdom yet. He lets Thomas touch Him, but He was telling far more to her. Now the moment that the redemption is accomplished, that the work is done, He can say, according to Psalm 22, "I will declare Thy name unto My brethren." Having been heard from "the horns of the unicorns" (a figure of speech of course of impalement, of intense suffering), His first thought is, I must have My brethren in the same place. He was alone till He died; now He was risen into the new place, and He can say, My Father and your Father, My God and your God. "In the midst of the congregation will I sing praise unto Thee." It is the song of perfect redemption, and
He Leads the Praises.
He puts them into the relationship, and when thus brought and gathered together, He sings in their midst. All this is fulfilled in John 20. Now if Christ is leading our praises, is redemption uncertain? I should be out of tune if I were not joining. Is He to sing one song of praise and I another? That would be discord, not harmony. He has brought us into the same place as Himself, and triumphantly He leads our hearts to join in the song He sings.
Let us see the full and blessed perfection of that work. We were under the power of sin and Satan, and God's wrath had come in. What do I see this blessed One doing? Displaying God. He puts Himself alone in our place, to finish and complete that work where God must be glorified on account of sin, and man brought to be saved. If God had passed over the sin of
Adam and Eve in the garden, I should have been able to say sin does not matter; but when I look at the cross I cannot. There I see God perfectly glorified in every respect by a Man, and so much the more because sin was there. If God had cut off Adam and Eve, it would have been righteous, but no declaration of His love. So it was not possible for the cup to pass from Him; and at the cross I get God's full dealing with sin in righteousness, but with infinite love. It is beyond our need. God's majesty was maintained where all had been trampled in the dust; and now the Son of man is gone into the glory of God, and is sitting on the Father's throne, the witness that love has had its way, that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
I have the pattern then, when the Lord was upon earth, of my place with Him. I see the work done on the cross that was needed to put me into it, and then I learn what the work is worth. It is worth the glory of God in heaven. And now I have the place before God, which is the consequence of that. I can rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and I have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby I cry, "Abba, Father." He has brought us into the place that the counsels of God required. We are in relationship
To God As a Father,
and Christ is the first-born among many brethren. He brings us into this in John 17: "The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them;... that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me." Then speaking of the present state, He says, "I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them." The Holy Ghost thus conducts down the fullness of the Father's love to the Son into our hearts. It is perfect.
It is all unutterable grace, and therefore humbles us to the dust. But, has not God a right to have thoughts for Himself? Surely He has. He is going to show "the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus," and is, so nothing is too good for me. Can you think that this is so? What else can I think? Shall I think my own thoughts when
He has sent His Son to die for me? The poor prodigal thought, "Make me as one of thy hired servants," but never says it when he comes to his father. He confesses his sins of course; but when he has had the kiss and has been clothed, there are no more thoughts of the son. All is the effect of the thoughts of the father, so that even the servants are rejoicing that the son is brought back. What the father thinks has come out. I can now say, with a purged conscience, I am nothing; but I am loved as Jesus is loved—not only saved by Him, but blest by Him. "Thou hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me." Is this where our thoughts are? He passes on everything that was His to us, though it may be we are toiling along down here. If I walk in the Spirit, if my mind is full of Christ, I have no occasion to think of myself at all. If I have not to judge myself, I can think of Him; but if I fail, then I have to humble and judge myself. And the normal state of a Christian is to do all "in the name of the Lord Jesus." It may be the commonest affairs of daily life, buying and selling, furnishing my house, or dressing my body; but it is a very simple rule and cuts away a great deal.
We are sanctified to
The Obedience of Christ.
Let me say one word on this obedience. I say of my child, who wants to go another way, but who yields to me, it is very pleasant to see such obedience; but it was not so with Christ. He never had a will to wish to go the other way. When the tempter came to Him, he said, "If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." What was His answer? It was as though He said, Nay, I am a servant; I
cannot command, I obey; "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word... of God." That is the obedience of Christ. The Father's will was His motive for everything. There are thousands of things we do from habit, and we say we must do them; there is no "must" for me, but Christ's will. I have to learn what His will is; for we are made epistles of Christ, and the path we are to walk in is to manifest
the life of Jesus in our bodies. Everything I do should be the expression of the allegiance of my heart to Christ, and the manifestation of Him to others. The standard of walk is, what is "worthy of the Lord," not of man. Sometimes it is very difficult to be peaceful, patient, gentle, when a man wrongs and insults me; but were you not the enemy of God, and did not God forgive you when you were His enemy? Well, you forgive your enemy. I quite understand the difficulties, but we have the blessed privilege of walking as He walked. If you want to do this, go and study Christ, learn what His path was down here, after you have learned your place in Him on high. It is a great comfort that, in looking at Christ, I not only see the thing I ought to be, but I get the thing I ought to be, "grace for grace." "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." There is real growth there, but in likeness to Christ; and it ought to be growth every instant.
We are in this place of Christ then before God; and what I should press upon you is to
Study Christ,
so that we may be like Him here. There is nothing that so fills the soul with blessing and encouragement, or that so sanctifies- nothing which so gives the living sense of divine love, that gives us courage. The Lord give us this courage, and enable us to study Him. "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me."