THERE is a deeper purpose and nobler work in God than creation. Creation occupied His hand, and displayed His power and Godhead, and was then, in some sense, left at man’s disposal, so that its condition was to be determined by the allegiance or rebellion of man. But there was another work ordered in the counsels of God before the world, to be accomplished in due time, with which God joined Himself, and thus never suffered it to fail. This purpose and work are laid in and effectuated by the Word, who is with God, and is God. The opening of Genesis shows us the work of creation, and creation entrusted to man; the opening of St. John shows us the Word, who was before creation, and the Work accomplished by Him. Blessed joy to look at either Himself or His work! May our souls now taste this while doing so. It is grateful to the heart to turn that way when wearied with self―with man and his doings―with the world and its vanities. The living waters then, as it were, recede to their native bed, for such indeed is the action of the Spirit in the saint when he retires to God and his Word. The new mind finds its home there.
I would follow this work of redemption or New Creation by the Word through a few meditations which lead the thoughts of the soul that way. But it is not the effort of mind even on Scripture which I desire to trust, but the more artless confidence that can follow where His Word and Spirit lead, remembering the while assuredly that the diligent soul shall be made fat, and that Paul has counselled Timothy to meditate on these things.
The Subject of Sin.
Our meditations, then, on New Creation may lead us, in the first place, to the subject of sin. St. Paul treats it in a very lively and energetic style in Romans 5, 6. He gives it a kind of life and office, as it were; treating it as a person and as a king. He shows us that it entered this world through man’s disobedience; and, having entered it, at once took the seat of government, and death became both the power and character of its kingdom.
And this is the aspect of “this present evil world.” It is the place or scene of the reign of sin and death, and nothing is left untouched by its influence. Such has been the entrance, and such is the present power of sin in this world. But there is another action in this same world, as our Apostle further shows us-of which the grace of God is the source, as the disobedience of man has been the source of the presence and reign of sin. And this grace through Christ has brought in righteousness and life; as disobedience in Adam opened the door to sin and death. And having entered, the Apostle shows us still further that righteousness does more than merely measure the power of sin, for sin came in upon one offense; but righteousness comes in, and sweeps away from the scene thousands of offenses which followed in the train of that one, and accordingly it has its kingdom now also. Life has its action here as well as death, but it is not visible like the other. The reign of sin is felt, and the power of death is seen all abroad―the reign of righteousness which brings life with it, is as yet only known to faith. But grace is triumphant―it has brought in a gift, a righteousness which asserts, through Jesus, its supremacy over all the aggravated power of sin and death. And how was this? How could grace thus take its way? How could righteousness and life enter a scene where sin was reigning unto death, and had title so to reign? Our Apostle shows us that a victim has been provided by grace, and rendered up to the claims of sin. Sin reigned unto death. Death may bound his empire, but up to death he has title to exercise his power. And Jesus, the Son of God, has owned his title― “He died unto sin;” He took the penalty―He received the wages of man’s departure from God. “In the day thou eatest thou shalt die.” Man did eat, but Jesus also died. And thus Jesus owned the rights, and yielded to the exactions of sin. He had to do with it in His death. He was then dealing with it―righteously bowing under its dominion. But all the while He was the Son of the living God. He had life in Himself, life untouched by Adam’s disobedience; and thus He outlived the stroke of sin, and destroyed him that had the power of death; and asserted a kingdom of righteousness and life, in which not only He reigns, but all those reign with Him who by faith rejoice in His victory.
Thus sin and death in their dominion are overthrown. The Son of the living God has asserted Hi, supremacy in the very region of the power of sin. Sin has reigned unto death―even to the death of Christ on the cross: but there sin was met by righteousness―there death was abolished by life. All that sin could command, and that was death, it got there―there it exacted death of Jesus; but Jesus carried a life in Him which remained untouched by all this, and in that life, and the righteousness from whence it flowed, He and His saints reign forever together.
Thus has sin been disposed of. It entered and reigned, but has now been set aside; and we have not to own it in any wise, but to be dead to it. For we are in union with the Son of God, and as His death was “unto sin,” His resurrection was “unto God.” As it is written, “In that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God;” and our union with Him being in resurrection as well as in death, we are thus “alive unto God,” and should so account ourselves. We should assert our places in the risen Son of God, and know that we are dead to sin, our old man being crucified, and that we have nothing more to do with it. Sin may seek to have to do with us, but we are to reckon ourselves as dead to it―to see it as sunk in the flesh―as deposited in that pit out of which we have risen in Christ, separated from it, leaving it to perish in its own corruption; and, in the faith of our place in Christ, to say of it and all its workings in the flesh― “Yet not I, but sin that dwelleth in me.” Sin was once a king, as we have seen, reigning unto death, and using the members of man as the instruments of its power, but now faith apprehends it as imprisoned in the flesh, sunk in that pit where all shall perish.
Thoughts On The Flesh.
We are thus introduced to thoughts on the flesh thus in close connection with sin. And the Scripture teaches much upon it, sheaving us clearly, as indeed our last meditation might lead us to anticipate, that the saint has entirely renounced it. May it be so more and more in our conduct, beloved, as it is thus fully in our calling.
The flesh of Jesus, I judge, carried in it the real enmity between Jew and Gentile, inasmuch as it was the only flesh that was ever really circumcised; or inasmuch as Jesus was the only real Jew who ever lived―the only child of man that ever really separated or consecrated the human nature to God, keeping in Himself the “law of commandments contained in ordinances.” And thus in Himself He separated flesh from all beside, and that was the true “partition wall,” the true witness against all else that was of man as uncircumcised. (Eph. 2)
But His flesh―or flesh in such a One—is now gone. We do not know Him after the flesh. All His perfectness in it led Him to the cross, contributing with other personal worthiness to His fitness to die there for us. But having now died there, His cross is the end of all flesh. That cross was endured for us. It was the wages of sin that was in our flesh, and slew the enmity that was between God and men accordingly.
But something beside or beyond flesh is therefore to be looked for now, and so we find it; for now Christ is found in resurrection, and Jew and Gentile are equally and together presented to God as spirit, or as New Creation― “a new man in Christ Jesus”― “one body”―the body of their risen Christ. The law had previously come to seek something good in the flesh―to get out of it fruit unto God. But it found none. The Son came, on the other hand, not looking for good in it, but to make atonement for it―to hang on the cursed tree as the representative of it. (Rom. 8) Paul had in his doctrine accordingly done with it altogether. Could he return to it when he saw it thus disposed of by the Son of God? He could not.
He saw it to be a mighty wreck―it may be as yet not entirely buried out of sight, or gone to the bottom―but He was no longer in it, but in the risen Son of God. He had been cast on a new world, where God’s eye rests with delight forever―he was in a new creation with the risen Son of God.
And if he had done with the flesh, he had done also with the law; for they were one, as being bound together―the old husband and wife, as he speaks in Romans 7. The law—with its strictures, and forbidding’s and demands—was as the ropes and tackling’s, and the rudder-bands of that which, as I have said, he had now left as a wreck, and if the vessel be behind him, so is all the provision.
And as he would not glory in his own flesh, neither would he in that of another. If he were crucified to the world, so was the world to him. And it is, indeed, edifying to observe the strength with which he renounces the flesh. There is nothing which the flesh has incurred, or is exposed to―nothing that it possesses―nothing that it can do―that he does not declare his escape from or renunciation of in fullest strength and confidence of faith in Jesus. Thus, is the flesh subject to condemnation? Yes, but Jesus has borne the judgment of it, and the believer, through grace, is not regarded as in the flesh but in the spirit― it is not he who does the deeds of his own condemned flesh, which is thus exposed to judgment, but it is “sin” that dwells in him (Rom. 7, 8) Has the flesh its religion? He counts it all as loss and dung―its ordinances and observances, and legal circumcision; its bonds and fears he renounces, and is found only in the righteousness of God by faith. (Gal., Phil., Col.) Has the flesh its wisdom; Yes, the world has its princes―the wise, the scribe, and the disputer―but Paul insists that God has made it all foolishness, and desires only that wisdom which the Spirit alone could search out and real, and which no eye, nor ear, nor heart of mere man could converse with (1 Cor. 1, 2.). Has the flesh its excellency of speech and other advantages which ministry of the Word might use? Yes, but he would use none of them; but as he was a minister of the Spirit, so would he be a minister in the Spirit only (2 Cor.) Thus he escapes from it, or renounces it in all its pretensions and in all its exposure. It was an attempt to revive the wisdom of the flesh, or the power of the flesh in ministry, with which he had to contend at Corinth; and it was an attempt to revive the religion of the flesh, which he withstood in Galatia and at Colosse. But he put no confidence in anything that was of it. He was not in it, but in One who was raised from the dead. He was in Christ, in New Creation or the Spirit. He had his justification in the blood of the Son of God, and his personal graces and ministerial powers in the Holy Ghost, and there only. And this glorious act of faith, which thus leaves the flesh―in its condemnation, its religion, its endowments, its everything—behind us, is our strength against its lusts and its tempers; for when such arise to tempt the soul, the soul should gird itself with this remembrance, that we have done with it altogether. And the same thing is our strength in walking in the charities of the gospel, for it accustoms us to look at that which is of the flesh in our brethren (and which is the trial of our Christian charities) as not being properly themselves, but something which they have in real principle renounced.
And it has struck me from Gal. 1:1313For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: (Galatians 1:13) to 16, that St. Paul tells us that God’s great purpose by him was to give proof of the profitlessness of the flesh in its best estate, and of the entire renunciation, accordingly, by the divinely taught soul. For after there showing his advantages in fleshly religion (as he does also in Phil. 3), he tells us God had “separated him from his mother’s womb,”―then “called him”―then “revealed His Son in him”―by which separation I judge that he means his election to be the minister and representative of a Gospel that was not to allow any conference with or confidence in the flesh at all; and accordingly all his previous life―before he was actually called to such ministry―had been a gathering together and exhibiting of advantages in the flesh, that now he might make a more glorious renunciation of them. Hence he was born a “Hebrew of the Hebrews.” Hence he was “circumcised the eighth day.” Hence he “profited in the Jews’ religion,” and persecuted the church though fleshly zeal. Hence he was “touching the law” blameless. All this had marked the man who had been separated from his mother’s womb, and thus fitted him for showing out afterward the vanity of all that was fleshly; so that when he was actually called into ministry to do so, he might be able to tell us how much in it, and of it, he had had―that his renunciation of it might be the more marked. It was like the fitting of the vessel for the glory it was destined to carry, or the instrument for the work it was ordained to execute, so that we might be able to see that if flesh in Paul was nothing, flesh in any other must surely be nothing. Paul was apprehended to make the greatest attainments in it, that he might renounce it altogether, and thus expose its utter and certain vanity. And I would here notice two instances in our Lord’s ministry, in which He, in like manner, strikingly denounces the flesh.
John 3―He sets the flesh aside in the words, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” because He connects with this the need of man being born again of water and the Spirit. John 6—He again sets the flesh aside in the words, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” And from His conversations on these two occasions with Nicodemus and with the multitude, we learn how we are to renounce the flesh, and that is, by learning God or Christ as sinners. Neither Nicodemus nor the multitude came to Jesus as sinners, and therefore He had to tell both of them of the worthlessness of the flesh.
And this leads us to this most needed and precious lesson very simply and very surely. It is the sinner who comes to Jesus as such, under conviction of sin, that renounces the flesh. Happy, simple, and precious result for our souls of all this needed primary truth―the worthlessness of the flesh and its consequent renunciation―that the way to attain this truth is to learn God as sinners.
Our death is the judgment or end of the flesh― “the body is dead because of sin.” There is judgment afterward, but that belongs to God, and is the trial and condemnation of the secrets of the hearts, or according to man’s works, as written in the Books; but of flesh or fallen nature of man, as injured and tainted by disobedience, death is the judgment: the flesh perisheth in its own corruption.
The Law And The Flesh.
As connected with this which we have just meditated on, I would now for a little consider the law.
The law addresses itself only to the flesh, for it has dominion over a man only so long as he liveth. But as in the flesh dwelleth no good thing, all the application of the law to it only serves to bring out increased evil. This is the 7th of Romans. It is like cultivating a piece of ground which has only noxious seed in it; the more you manure it, the more abundant harvest of thorns and thistles you get from it. So the more exact we are under the law, the more actually are we cast at a distance from God. St. Paul seems to have this thought in Philippians 3. All the features of his former condition, or when he was under the law, or in the flesh, were in his favor, or to his praise. He speaks of them as being so― and among these was his zeal―a right zeal under the law, but directly contrary to God, for it exercised itself in persecution of the church.
For zeal under the law must exercise itself against the church―for the church lives in grace. Zeal in the flesh must exercise itself against the church, for the church walks in the Spirit. And thus the more praise Paul had from the law or the flesh, the more was he in collision with God. It is quite true that there is a certain using of the law which is, on the other hand, according to God. Thus Zecharias and Elisabeth walked in all its ordinances and commandments blameless. But that was owning of it simply as God’s dispensation for the time, as the school-master, till faith came. That was according to God. But taking up the law as the thing threw Paul (and must so throw all who do it) into direct enmity with God and His purposes, and into a denial of His truth; for it denies the corruption of the flesh, the grace of God, and God’s purpose from the beginning to act on promise. It exalts man it nourishes that nature of which the truth says, “In it there dwells no good thing.” And all this did Paul when under the law, so that when he was enlightened and came under grace, his estimate of himself was altogether changed; then he says of himself that he had been a blasphemer, a persecutor, the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1). Then he learns the value of his former gains―that they were all loss (Phil. 3) They had been advantages in the flesh, but the flesh being evil, the more it is advantaged and nourished, the further are we from the good. And this good thing he now learns is only in Christ, in the Spirit, or the new life; to nourish and exercise which became from that moment his one great care and business (Phil. 3)
In the 7th chapter of Romans, to which I already referred, the apostle; as it were, entertains the claims of the law upon the believer, and he shows that they have been already answered and disposed of. And he does this very simply. He says that the authority of the law addresses itself only to a living man―that is, a man in the flesh. It is the flesh or man as born of Adam, that the law was given to. But the believer has ceased, in this sense, to be a living man, has ceased to be of Adam, inasmuch as he has died and riser again; and consequently, being a dead and risen man, and not a living man, the law does not address its claims to him―he is not the object of the law.
But in this the law is not spoken of in the same relation to us as sin had been. Sin had been spoken of as a master or a king, but the law is here spoken of as a husband. And in the close of this chapter, having thus shown how that both sin and the law have been disposed of or set aside―the one as a master, the other as a husband―the apostle tells us they have been discharged with very different characters indeed. Sin has been discharged with as bad―the law with as good a character as ever the inspired pen of an apostle could write for them. All evil in us is declared to have come from the one, while from the other nothing flowed but that which was holy, just, and good. And the moment the real character of the law was understood by the quickened soul, a grievous state of things arose: the commandment came―sin revived ―and the man died. The law was felt to urge one thing upon the conscience―sin was felt to exact another thing in the old man or the members―and this state of things drew forth the sense of death in the soul and cry for deliverance; and the answer came in Jesus, revealed in the power of His death and resurrection.
Thus the law, coming to act on flesh or man in moral corruption, was found altogether unequal, through the inbred, essential evil that was there; and rather aggravating the mischief by showing sin also as transgression. It has been disclaimed. The Lord has disclaimed it as His instrument; and the believer, who stands in the mind of the Lord, has disclaimed it as his confidence, and Christ has come, the instrument in God’s hand instead of the law, and the object of the believer’s confidence instead of it also.
Man, and the law that acted or him, being thus put aside, God is introduced into the scene, and His instruments and ordinances. And as thus introduced, I desire to look a God for Himself a little moment, as Scripture may blessedly show Him thus in the gracious service of poor ruined man.
God is that glorious One (not to speak of Him merely in Himself, or in creation and providence, or amid the powers and thrones of angels; who has resources for our need, and remedy for our mischief, though we be those helpless sinners which the law has proved us to be. To carry such in Himself is His prerogative and our owning it by faith is at once His praise and our blessing. It is as such He is proposed to faith. It was “God Almighty,” that is, God the all-sufficient One, that was revealed to the Patriarchs. Abraham and Sarah were dead as to their bodies; but I am the “Almighty God,” says the Lord, and their faith owned it. “I have resources to meet the dead state of your bodies,” was the language of God, and His servant bowed his head (Gen. 17.)
This was claiming divine glory or the one hand, and giving it on the other. And as the reverse of this the apostle charges some with not having “the knowledge of God,” because they questioned the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:3434Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. (1 Corinthians 15:34)), For such questioning chewed that they had not apprehended God as God―that they had not given Hire due divine glory―otherwise they would have believed that He had resources even for a state of death, as Abraham did. As the Lord before condemns the Sadducees on the very same point, as not knowing the power of God (Matt. 22:2929Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. (Matthew 22:29)).
We are thus to give God His honor; we are not only to refuse our confidence to any beside, but we are to give it Him. Just as in Israel. It was not only that the land was to be cleansed of idols and groves, but a house or tabernacle was to be raised to God. Idol deities were to be removed, but the one true God Almighty was also to be brought in. It would not have done simply to clear the land of abominations without also bringing in the true glory, and so exactly with us now. We are not only to flee idolatry, but to become true worshippers: we are not only to refuse our confidence as sinners to all beside, whether to our works, or our penances, or the church, or righteousness of man of any kind, but we are to give our confidence, as sinners, to God. We do not know Him or worship Him as God, if we do not apprehend Him as worthy of that confidence, as One who has resources in Himself for our condition, though it be like Abraham’s, a condition of death, even of death in trespasses and sins. For God is One who can meet all necessities. That is His divine glory. A mere convicted sinner may have cleared the land of idols―the thought of saving himself by the law may be hateful to him―he may renounce it with all zeal. Like the sword of Joshua, he may go from city to city, and from king to king, and demolish and kill all that he finds in the land. But it is only the believing sinner that finishes Joshua’s work, by putting the tabernacle of the Lord at Shiloh; and thus while, Ashtoreth and Baalim are removed, Jehovah is brought in―the full and worthy honors which are God’s are given Him.
To come short of this is really to come short of knowledge of God. It is for God the Apostle pleads in 1 Corinthians 15. It is not for the Father, nor for the Son, nor for the Holy Ghost. The rights and honors of each of the Blessed Persons in the Godhead, the Apostle, as instructed, knew how to maintain in their due place. But there it is God he pleads for―and that is the highest thought in some sense: and accordingly he touches, in the holy argument, on the closing dispensation of “God all in all.” The glory that first broke out is seen at the last. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” “When he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all.” But with this ineffably, inconceivably excellent advantage, that in the march of this glory, from the beginning to the end, it has unfolded and displayed itself in such ways as are never to be forgotten; but which the rather have left their traces, their indelible traces, behind them forever.
The glory has passed before us, sheaving itself to us increasingly in its progress and when at the end we see it, the glory still, it is as having thoroughly opened itself, so that we may enjoy it in all its fulness, in its inner parts and secrets, through the eternity of the new heaven and the new earth.
And I might refer to Galatians 4:88Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. (Galatians 4:8) as giving this view of God, that the disciples there, by returning to observances, and in that way sustaining their confidence as sinners, were showing that they were leaving God and the knowledge of Him, because, if known duly, they would have seen that He had all that was needed by them even as sinners, and that days and months and year would therefore add nothing to them.
We all come short, sadly so, fin our own soul’s joy, in this knowledge of God according to Revelation of Himself―which is the only true oi divine knowledge. He is of unspeakably blessed perfections, and most glorious is His goodness. HE is love, as we read; and, therefore, every defect or mistake in the understanding of Him must reduce our joy and blessing, for love secures them to perfection.
The glory and delight of God in the works of His hands do not result so much from their own propel excellence, or because they display His handiwork. But His glory and delight are rather in them, because of their either imparting or receiving blessing; for such are the delights of love.
Thus the heavens, with the sun running its course through them, glorifies and delights Him, chiefly because they set themselves forth in blessings to the earth. And they are called His “witnesses,” because they give the fruitful seasons which fill the heart with gladness.
So the church. It is not the gifts of His Spirit as displays of His power, but as serving His saints and edifying them in light and comfort, that forms His value of them and delight in them. Accordingly St. Paul, carrying the mind of God with Him, says, “I would rather speak five words with my understanding―that I might teach others also―than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” Tongues were more the exhibition of power―prophesying for the edification of the saints―and the Apostle, having the mind of God, did therefore value the latter. And the nearer we are in spirit to God, the more we shall find our delight thus in blessing. Look at Gabriel. He stood “in the presence of God.” In what character then did he come forth from that presence? As the messenger of glad tidings to the earth (Luke 1:1919And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. (Luke 1:19)).
So the Beloved. He dwelt in the bosom of the Father. In what character and for what end did He come forth from that bosom? To give Himself up to the death of the cross for the rescue and life of sinners.
The nearer the Son the Beloved lay, the brighter was the expression of love or of God. The bosom was a place more intimate than the presence: and so was the death a richer expression of God than the message. But all this, and the like to it, abounding in Scripture, shews us God. God is love―and His glory, or the ways of His showing Himself, are accordingly. They are ways of blessing. All that properly came from Him―he it from the outer courts of His presence where servants wait, or the sanctuary of His bosom, where the Beloved lay, the divine, the eternal Son; be it in the gifts of His spirit in the Church, or in the works of His hands in creation—all in their divers measures and glories come forth to tell of Him in blessing, to reflect His person in diffusing fruits of liberty and gladness around.
Thus we reach our God in divine understanding. And it is very blessed thus to see that the knowledge of God once associated itself with the certainty of our own blessing, so that to be without “hope” is to be without “God” (Eph. 2,) And to refuse salvation, that is, not to obey the gospel, is the same, and will be judged the same as not knowing God (2 Thess. 1) GOD IS NOT KNOWN when the gospel is preached, if that gospel be not received by faith or obeyed. But all this is blessed. It casts the soul, as it were, on the necessity of blessing. God must be given up otherwise, for to know Him is to know blessing from Him. If I refuse the salvation of the gospel, I refuse God. I am without God in the world. If the soul has apprehended Him, it has apprehended One who blesses. And thus, as Scripture teaches, to know Him is life eternal (John 17:22As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. (John 17:2)). To know Him more and more is only the increasing communication of grace and peace (2 Peter 1:22Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, (2 Peter 1:2)). Sad it is, that He, being such a One, our souls have such short, and cold, and weak tales to tell of Him.
(To be continued.)