Ques. What was the conflict spoken of?
Ans. Conflict in prayer, that their hearts might be knit together in love. The full assurance of understanding is getting God's thought, and when men speak of their opinion and your opinion, it shows they have not faith in the word. The first man was not in the counsels of God. The promise in the garden of Eden was not given to man at all. It was in the judgment of Satan, and the promise was the seed of the woman, (which Adam was not) and no other man. None but Christ is the seed of the woman.
This mystery of the church has been lost, and is denied altogether. There is not a word of truth in the statement that Christianity is an enlargement and development of Judaism. In Ephesians we get the old man dead and a new creation. There was no prophecy of a new creation.
Ques. Is being born again the new creation?
Ans. It brings you into it, and the prophecy applied to the Jews, which was why Christ said it was earthly things. Then we have the wind blowing where it listeth; so it goes to the Gentiles.
Verses 9 and 10. Completeness. Verse 11. They were looking for Jewish things, and He showed them they had now the real things of which the others were shadows.
Verse 11 should read, "putting off the flesh." The body is a dead thing.
Ques. Is it used by the Holy Ghost?
Ans. Yes.
The Red Sea is a broad fact-Jordan entering into it; so I go into it and pass over dry. The effect is circumcision-I am dead to all the flesh. "Mortify therefore " is carrying it out. " Always bearing about the dying " is more. I then reckon myself dead. If I can reckon myself dead, and then jump into perfection, why do I need to carry about the dying of the Lord? The dying must constantly be applied to the flesh.
Ques. What is " always delivered unto death? "4
Ans. The Lord always applying the test. We are never told to try to die to sin. That is what the monk tries. If you are not in God's presence, flesh springs up. If you are not bearing about the dying, then flesh life is there. Verse 12. Now I get, I am risen. Here you get Romans with the addition of being raised, and we get Ephesians without being seated in heavenly places. I never get Christ in Ephesians till He is dead and God raises Him. Christ appears in the presence of God for us, and we appear in the world for Him.
You get in the Colossians the risen life as you get it nowhere else developed in the Scriptures.
Power is not responsibility. It is claimed that there is something good in them. The reason Christ came was that man was utterly bad. I tell the sinner what He has done. Man is bound to acknowledge his state, but he cannot beget himself.
Num. 19-THE RED HEIFER.
Ques. Why was a man who touched the water of separation unclean?
Ans. God's holiness.
Ques. Why was Lev. 16 in Leviticus, and Num. 19 in Numbers?
Ans. Lev. 16 is representation; Num. 19 in application. The blood of the red heifer was not carried in, but sprinkled when the people met God. The priests had to be consecrated before they could wash at the laver.
Ques. Why was the blood of the red heifer burned?
Ans. Because the aspect is Christ bearing sin entirely. The thing is treated completely as sin; so every one who touched it was unclean. Sin was stamped upon it. He was unclean individually, and could not' go in, but the great day of atonement remained for him. A man must be sealed to be a priest. Christianity has been lowered to conversion. Regeneration in Scripture is never used for being born again. There are only two places where it is named. Regeneration in Matthew is the millennium. In Titus it is washing.
Ques. Why is the revelation to Moses and Aaron? Ans. Moses is authority, Aaron access.
Ques. In Num. 19 do we get a sense of what sin is in the presence of God?
Ans. Yes. God will have His house clean, and will not allow anything unclean to come in. 1 Cor. 3 is God's house on man's responsibility; so God takes care to cleanse it. The completeness of the burning shows the completeness with which sin is put away. My sins made Christ's agony; so they can never be imputed to me. Man was separated from God till he was separated from his sins. That was the water of separation.
Ques. Why was it not the blood of separation?
Ans. Because it was not to meet responsibility, but to restore communion. The doctrine of Hebrews is that I am uninterruptedly perfect. Then the burnt offering on the day of atonement meets my responsibility. The red heifer restores my communion. The three days I am finding my state. In seven days I have complete restoration. The third day, sense of horror at having sinned; the seventh day, restoration. You must not jump into communion as if nothing had happened.... A man talking about merit in receiving Christ is not feeling sin, but feeling merit. A sense of grace always produces the deepest sense of sin.
Ques. Will you say a word about hyssop?
Ans. The grandeur and vanity of the world, and all burnt up. The hyssop is the lowest thing, the cedar the highest.
Ques. Is advocacy connected with what suits the holiness of the Father?
Ans. In John activity of grace is always the Father and the Son. When it is His nature and our responsibility, then it is God. God is light. A Christian who looks upon his sins as imputed is not a Christian—is not on Christian ground at all. " Perfected forever " is continuously perfected. He is always sitting there, and I am always perfected.
We have three things: Divine will, divine work, divine testimony; so all is perfect' in God. I was once asked by a Christian how about my sins since I believed? Did Christ bear my sins up to the 17th of May? My answer was, How many sins had you committed before Christ bore them?