ALL the heavenly truth that you find in Col., Eph., Heb., and the rest of the epistles, is found in this chapter. You see Christ stating the character of the work He performed. It is not your estimate; it is not man's expression of what it is; it is not God telling us, exactly, but it is between the Father and the Son. The Son is down here telling the Father what He has done. It is His expression of what the work is, that makes it all the more marvelous. It is Christ's own measure of what He Himself has done. Now, you see in the sixth chapter that He says, " I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him, that sent me." Here He is telling it out, not to you and me who do not understand it, but to the One who sent Him. All that you and I ever will learn will be the work that Christ did, and Himself; the person and the value of His work. I am what I am by that work. We are before God in Christ on the ground of that work of Christ, and in the Person.
What would you say if I should ask you to-night what did Christ do down here? You would say, " He died for my sins," and you would, in that, be telling a fact. But see, there is not a word about death in this chapter. Now when He tells what He has done He does not tell about death, but all the infinite results of death. What is the first thing? The thing man never thinks of. It is perfection itself, and never entered man's thoughts yet-glorifying God. This is the second Man, and the first thing He talks about is glory. We are indebted to that man, Christ Jesus, for an infinite word, and that is "glory." I think we might well say, " The gospel of the glory," the good news of the glory. People are thinking of the glory of man down here, but that is a poor miserable thing. Jesus came down here to glorify His Father, not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him.
Now He lifts up His eyes to heaven; everything is heaven hereafter. From that moment onward it is all heaven. God has ceased on the earth by the cross. Not that you and I are not taken up and dealt with on the earth, but we are a new creation. Christ lifts up His eyes to heaven, it is henceforth the scene and center of all God is at, heaven aria heavenly things. The truth of God is then heavenly truth and not earthly truth. It is not how you can become more wise and honored on earth, but all above. Faith is the thing which brings us into contact with the unseen. You remember how it is in the 14th chapter, " Ye believe in God, believe also in me." He is going up where God is. Our eyes are directed to heaven because He is there. He says in the 16th chapter, the prince of this world is judged, and the 12Th chapter, now is the judgment of this world. What are you going to do with a thing that is dead and buried? Will you elevate or improve it? The cross has become the judgment.
Brethren, you are heavenly or nothing. If you are a believer you are heavenly; if you do not know it, it is time you did; and the place you belong is in heaven and not earth, and the standing and calling that you have is a heavenly calling, and your standing a heavenly man or else nothing. You have not a thing or a place in Christ if it is not that. See Eph. 1:33Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: (Ephesians 1:3), "Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." This does not say a word about earthly, and mark, it says " all spiritual blessings."
He gives me, first, the assurance of salvation, the fact that I am saved, and that involves that I died and am risen. I am not saved to the world; the world is not saved to me. I am not saved to be a better man in the world or help the world along, but I am saved clear out, by death and in His resurrection. I stand in Christ a new man-" If any man be in Christ he is a new creation." I am as distinct from what I was as He is now. Now, is not that a spiritual blessing? It belongs to heaven.
Then there is the next thing, Christ coming to take us up to Himself. He has come to take you out of the world unto Himself. I do not wonder if a child of God is really simple and spiritual, that he gets along hardly here, and that there is only one of a hundred things that he can do. If he is really spiritual he will have a hard time of it. I have gone into a city, and it seemed the most homeless place to me; everybody had some place and I had none. So this world is filled up completely. Satan has it, and it is only once in a while that a child of God can get anything even in matters of work. Now, I do not wonder at it. He is a stranger, because He belongs in heaven. The whole matter is heavenly. You are a member of Christ; you are the arm, finger, or whatever else of the body, but He is up there. It is in heavenly places, the heavenly One.
Christ lifting us up in His eyes to heaven, is emphatic here. Do you apprehend that, the heavenly character distinct from the earth? The mistake of Christendom to-day is that it is making itself a name in the earth. That is done with; we have no business to do so. We are vastly interested in this prayer. From chapter xiii. Christ was alone with His own. Now He is done talking with them; and He is talking to the Father about them. He says, " I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do." In Phil. 2 He is looking down from heaven, like in Prov. 8 He is is looking down to the earth. Then He emptied Himself, and took upon Himself the form of a servant. He became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. One step after another, the death of the cross was the lowest. You cannot think of anything lower than that; He took the criminal's place, doom and judgment. He had to come that far to get to us. We were slaves of sin and doomed as criminals, and He had to come to that. Now He is looking upwards. He has gone through and done the work. John 6 tells me what He came for, to do the will of His Father. John 17 tells us after it is done what He says about it. If you want to go further back than that take the 40th Psalm quoted in Heb. 10 You get His whole journey from heaven to earth, His heart on the sons of men. In the 40th Psalm we find, " Lo! I come to do Thy will." Phil. 2 tells us the journey He took, and the 6th of John tells us that He has the same thought when He is down here, He is to do the will of Him that sent Him. He loses none that are given Him. He raises them up at the last day, and brings them up into heaven-this is the will of Him that sent Him. He started out before the ages with the thought of doing all this work, and He keeps it up in His thought.
In 1 John 4 we find also, " In this is manifested the love of God because He sent His Son," etc. All this is telling the journey He took, and the origin of it, and why He did it, and so on. He did that to raise us up there to where He is. It is to abandon the earth. In John 16 the Prince of this world is judged. It is this that I want to speak of for a few moments, now that the new truth has come in. It is not new since you were born, but people have got into a kind of profession of religion, and have tried to make men better for the earth and fit them for the world;—but God comes and tells you everything is ruined here and takes you up to heaven. I am as heavenly in my standing here as I will be in future ages. I insist by the word of God, that every believer now is as heavenly as he will be millions of ages hereafter. We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. If you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ forty years ago you received all these. All that was a fact ten, or twenty, or forty years ago, the moment you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. You have not added a particle since. " All things are yours," was said to the saints in Corinth, in a very poor state spiritually. All was yours the first minute or else you had nothing. Christ's work is once done. By one offering He hath forever perfected.
We were speaking lately about the Holy Ghost. Now, the Holy Ghost did not come to give me one thing of this, it is given to me in Christ. As being in in Christ I have all these things. The Holy Ghost did not die for me, or make me a son, or save me; but being saved He makes it true to my heart. The love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us. The Holy Ghost did not give you one thing, as far as the making any of these facts true, but He brings them. Those facts are all heavenly, every one of them.
Christ lifts up His eyes to heaven. The world crucified Him and rejected Him completely. How is it in heaven? He says, I came down here to do the work, and I have done it, and it is expedient for you that L
go away, that the Comforter may come, and He will take of these things and show them unto you. He will not make them they are made by Christ. He comes and brings Christ's things with Him. They belong to you in virtue of your being a believer in Christ. There is no attainment of these things by growth. You do not get into heavenly places at' the end by getting to this and that attainment; there is no such thing in the Scripture. The moment you are saved you are heavenly. Then, of course, you are ready for the next world-glory.
It says, a little further along, in the fourth verse, " I have glorified Thee on the earth." How did He do it? He came down to do a certain thing. He glorified the Father and brought out His name. Now He says, " Glorify Thy Son," lift Him up into the glory. In ver. 5 there is another kind of glory mentioned, "Now, Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." I have spoken about His journey. He laid that glory aside; He came down here and took the servant's place in life and the felon's place in death. Where was His glory? Men did not see it. Now He says, " Restore me all that." You and I can never share that. He was God the Son, truly God. Here He is asking it as God. Now in ver. 1 He says, " Glorify Thy Son." Lift me up into the glory there that I may glorify Thee there. He is now bringing out the glory of the Father while He is up there. The Holy Ghost is down here telling of Him up there. Thus we get into the truth of the epistles, Paul's especially. He tells us all about Christ up there. He is up there glorifying the Father. In Eph. you get, " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." How do we get that? Because Christ is up there. This glory of His as a man, we shall share.
Ques. Was Christ a partaker of our nature?
Ans. No. He was not a partaker of ours, but we are partakers of His. He had a body like our own, but not a nature like our own. Our nature is bad and enmity against God. If He had been a partaker of our nature He would have been lost.
Ques. By saving does He not make the world better?
Ans. No; you are taken out of the world. When a man is executed He is taken out of the world altogether. If you take that place, the death penalty has been passed upon you as a sinner. God now takes you and gives you life in the new man and not in the old. You have been taken out of the world instead of remaining in it to make it better. It is true you are here, you live here, but the more you walk like Christ and the more you walk like a heavenly man, the more people will say you are foolish. They ask, where is the man gone to? He was such a valuable member of society, he was in every company and forward of everything, and where is he? The more you apprehend your heavenly calling the more you are out of those things. This is a wonderfully unworldly chapter, it is heavenly. Was Christ of the world when He was sent here? This is my position as to the world. I have died out of it, I have risen into heaven. I am here as a man taken into heaven, and then sent back again.
Oh! if we were to apprehend that, and absolutely see that when you are converted you are taken out of this world; you are taken and put to death, and raised up in Christ and only fit for heaven! But God wanted you here for a little while. He wanted you here to pass through the sufferings of Christ and through that fellowship. How is that making the world better? All that there is about it is that I am passing through the afflictions and sufferings of Christ. Of' course, every Christian is acting for Christ instead of Satan, and such are better than Satan's men. But they are not making the world better, but condemning it. I am sorry to say they are not all doing it.
Ques. The gift of God which we are told is eternal life, is that the same as the gift of the Holy Ghost?
Ans. Well, in the fifth chapter of John we get, " He quickens whom He will." Christ quickens there. The Father quickens, and He gives to the Son to quicken. Now, then, the gift of God is eternal life.
Ques. Every quickened soul has eternal life?
Ans. Yes, he is quickened by the word, born of the. Spirit. "Ye were quickened together with Christ." What is eternal life? You are brought into the same life with Christ. It is knowing God as Father and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. No man has eternal life who leaves Christ out of His place, it is to know the Father and the Son. I must know both.
Ques. Are the heathen as responsible as those living in Christendom?
Ans. In Rom. 1 we are told they are responsible. They are guilty before God; the whole world is righteously guilty.
Ques. Paul asked, How shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard?
Ans. Have not they heard? " The lines have gone out into all the earth." Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Faith never has anything but the word of God. Man is responsible to believe according to what God gives him. If man will take the first step with God, God will tell him more. If a heathen would say, " I know God who made the heaven and the earth, and I am responsible to Him," let him proceed on what he does know, and God will come with more. " To him that hath shall be given," there is no question about that. People are sometimes converted thus: They sit down in their room alone, and what converts them after all is the word of God. It comes to them, God has now come out in grace. God has been trying the world all through the ages, and now in these last days He has done testing the world. He now comes out and pronounces judgment on the world and says, " It is lost." Man never will give up himself. He will hold on to himself as long as there is life in him. Man says, " Hold on to yourself, be yourself all the time."
Ques. What was the position of the Pharisee and the publican?
Ans. They were both Jews, and both on the ground of being God's people. Now it is the question, Which one is accepted? Here it is the one who takes the ground and reality of being a sinner. It is not the difference there between the saint and the sinner exactly. A sinner in the Scripture would be a Gentile, but the publican was a Jew and the Pharisee also. Among people he was called a good Jew, and the other a bad Jew. But God says, that the man who abaseth himself shall be exalted, and he that exalteth himself shall be abased. I do not think they were either of them God's children at the time, but taken dispensationally they were God's children. God requires us to take the ground of truth. It is like the beggar; why should he take the ground of being full and plenty when he is starving?
Ques. Give us the difference between pardon and forgiveness?
Ans. I do not know of any. A criminal is pardoned by the governor, but his moral character is not changed. He is pardoned, consequently the government will not proceed against him. God goes farther with me than that. He puts me to death, and He has nothing to proceed against. There is no distinction in the words. They are from different languages. There is a distinction between God forgiving your sins and not forgiving your sin, by putting you to death. Pardon and forgiveness I apprehend are the same thing. You pick my pocket; now I can forgive you. I will not deliver you up or anything else, but you are a pickpocket notwithstanding; but if I could put you to death, there would be a dead pickpocket. Now, if I could get some one else in your place there would be no pickpocket. You get forgiveness of sins, but you are left a sinner. I cannot stand before God when I am a sinner; I am the same old man. What is to be done with me? Crucify me. That is the thought that comes in; we are crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed.
T.