There is one thing very evident, beloved friends, if we do not know our standing, we cannot know the state that belongs to it. Many a person is looking for state who does not know his standing. The standing produces the state; therefore, if one has not apprehended his standing before God, he cannot have the state which answers to it, and the real defect in him is, that he has not found out where God has placed him. It is useless to talk of the defect in his state, if he has not got hold of the standing. When did the prodigal son get the standing? When the clothes were put upon him. He says, before this, I am not fit, “I am not worthy to be called thy son.” He did not feel happy; how could he, when he was not fit for the father’s house? It is not that he is not kissed, but his standing is not complete. Hence, until the robe was on him, the shoes on his feet, and the ring on his hand, he was not able to enjoy the father’s house. He could not enjoy it until he had the standing. The standing is what God gives me; the state is the effect of it. For instance, if a clock is perfect, it will keep perfect time. The clock illustrates the standing, the time it keeps the state.
Now, our standing—what God has done—comes out in Romans, hence it is called the gospel of God. It is the gospel, in this sense, not only to unbelievers, but to believers. In the passage I have read (chap. 3:20) you get the effect of the law; it could not justify me, for “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” It exposed the sin within; and now we get what God does (ver. 21, &c), therefore it is the gospel of God, for it comes from God Himself. The epistle opens with this: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,” &c.; and in chapter 1:16 he says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.”
Now, what I desire is, to explain what the standing is; and first, let us see what man’s state in nature is, as brought out in Romans. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Well, how is this state to be met? We must bear in mind that man has committed offense against God, and is under His judgment; but he has neither the ability, nor the inclination (and this last is a very important point), to meet the claim. Man has sinned, and has become alienated from God by wicked works. If I look at the beginning—and there is nothing like going back to the beginning—I find that when Adam had sinned, and when the voice of the Lord was heard, he hid himself from God behind the trees of the garden. Supposing God bad left him alone, what then? But He does not leave him alone; He calls to him and says, “Adam, where art thou?” The blessed God follows man, and is the One to originate the reparation.
Now what must be done to put man in a standing with God? It must be all God’s doing; man will not, and cannot, do it himself, for it is not only that he has sinned against God, but he is at enmity with Him, and has no desire to return to Him; so that it is not want of ability only, he has neither the ability nor the inclination to remove the cause of the distance. The natural man is enmity against God. Well, what is to be done? That is the great point. God calls to him, and elicits from him the fact that he had eaten of the tree God had told him not to eat of; his conscience is convicted that, in consequence of having done so, he is a dead man. God had said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die!” But then it is that God announces the mode by which He will affect the reparation, and the next thing He does is to clothe him with the skins of slain beasts. God first softens Adam by calling to him, and then clothes him. He, as it were, says, You have, by your own act, placed yourself in the position of being naked, the judgment being on the body; but in this very spot where it has happened, I will clothe you, and I will show you that I mean to repair the distance and restore you. Hence, when God comes to Cain, He says, If you would offer the right offering, you would be on terms with me. Get hold of this simple thing. The distance is not on God’s side, but it is on yours, because of sin. But it is not distance only on your side, you have reluctance also—you do not want to come back. Thus it is written of man: he “will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts.”
I say, then, that there are two things to be done: God has to provide the sacrifice to relieve man of judgment; and He has to produce in him faith in God, instead of enmity to Him. If you do not get hold of these two things distinctly, you will never know the standing. I believe there is great lack in this respect.
Let me show you these two things from the parables in Luke 15. There the shepherd goes after the lost sheep, to open the way for the father to come out to the prodigal; and the parable of the woman with the lighted candle is the Spirit shining in to the lost one, to enable him to see God’s grace. These parables illustrate what I am trying to set forth. The one is, that God, because of the vicarious work of the Shepherd—He who suffered, the Just for the unjust—can come out to receive the sinner; and the other is, that He can so work in the sinner’s heart, as to turn him to Himself. The silver piece would never have been found, had not the light brought it out. Thus, when Paul is sent forth, it is “to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light.” Man would never come of his own accord—never! God compels him to come to Him. It is not only, “all things are ready;” there was another thing to be done. The Queen might say, I will open my palace to everybody; but what, if people did not care to come to it? Man does not care, does not wish, to come to God’s feast; but the grace of God is, that He has not only prepared it, but that He has sent forth His power to compel men to come to it. That is what the parable of the woman with the lighted candle sets forth. The light is to open their eyes, turn them from darkness to light. Not to turn God to them, but to turn them to God, “from the power of Satan unto God.” Mark this, because, if you get hold of this, you will find it an immense help to seeing your standing. If you see what a work He has undertaken—how He can justify you, who lay under the judgment of death—you see that you, the offender, cannot provide the means for this—you cannot give the fruit of your body for the sin of your soul. The judgment of death is upon you, therefore you cannot render it; and if you attempted it, you would never get from under it, for after death is the judgment. The grace of God is, that He will repair the distance on His own side, but, in order to do so, He has to remove the sin—all that in you which would hinder Him from coming to you, and He must remove it in judgment; but if He does remove it from you, it is, “to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.”
Now let me give you an example from the thief on the cross; but first turn to Exod. 20 The chief part of this chapter is taken up with the law. In the closing part we read, “An altar of. earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.” The law is given, and no one can meet it, because “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” That is the importance of the law. Bat as the law cannot be met, the altar is provided. If a man has no inclination to turn to the altar, thinks himself all right, like Cain, and does not want to offer the right offering, very well. The Lord says, There is the law—keep it; it will find you out, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. It will prove you to be a sinner. Can you keep the law? No. If you offend in one point, you are guilty of all. Thus all are brought in guilty, “that he might have mercy upon all.”
Now, in the end of this chapter we find an altar, and where He says, I will come unto you, and bless you. But you must do nothing! Not a hand must be lifted on it, not a step must be made to it. You must not lift up your hand, you must not come with works to it, nor by a step, that is, your own efforts. Now, for an example, look at the thief on the cross. There the law was superseded by grace, and he was the actual trophy of grace. The law had consigned him to judgment; he was impaled on a cross, bound hand and foot, and he could not move. The law put him where works and efforts were of no use; then grace opened his eyes, and he has light: in his conscience he sees the terrible doom he is under before God; he fears God, but he also sees the Savior in the Man hanging by his side! There was the sin offering and the burnt offering.
I want you to understand what God had to do, for if you do not, you do not know what He has done. He had to turn your heart to Himself; but that was not all. You had sinned and you had incurred the judgment of death, and God, in order to reach you, must not only have your judgment laid on another not chargeable with it;—that is the sin-offering; but the victim must at the time have a personal excellency. He must be one in whom God can delight;—that is the burnt offering. Thus Abel comes to God; lie, “brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.” That was as much as to say, I have faith, I apprehend God in His nature—I come with a victim, not chargeable with my offense, bearing the judgment of my offense, and at the same time having a personal excellency. That in figure set forth that Christ not only bore the judgment, but that He had at the very time of bearing it a personal excellency. You must see this, or you do not understand how God can justify the sinner.
Now as it is God who has done this work, it is not only that you are not guilty—out of judgment, that is true, but it is not all. You are brought to God in all the acceptability of Christ. He died, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring you to God. It is not only that the judgment was borne, but in the Person who bore the judgment there was such an excellency that God can delight in you through that Person, even the Lord Jesus Christ. This is an exaltation that no one can comprehend save by the Spirit of God. Thus we see Christ is both the sin offering and the burnt offering.
We will look first at the sin offering and then at the burnt offering. Turn to Lev. 6:3030And no sin offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten: it shall be burnt in the fire. (Leviticus 6:30): “And no sin-offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation, to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten: it shall be burnt in the fire.” Read now Rom. 3:2525Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (Romans 3:25): “Whom God hath set forth a mercy seat through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness,” &c. Here the blood of the sin offering was brought in. The peculiar mark of the sin offering was that the carcass was carried without the camp and burnt, and the blood brought in and put upon the mercy seat. In Heb. 13 we have the sin-offering. I think souls have very feebly entered into what the judgment bearing really was. Many make the death of Christ as simply the judgment on sin. I ask you for a moment to look at the type. The carcass of the sin offering was burnt outside the camp as an execrable thing. Thus Christ suffered “without the gate” The Holy One of God cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” “He died unto sin.” He gave up the life in which He had borne sin. It is gone in judgment. The blood is brought in, to the holiest, in order that the blessed God may come out. Was the veil rent on man’s side? No, it was rent on God’s side for Him to come out. What a difference it makes to see that it is God who is the One moving in the whole thing. He says, as it were, I do not like the distance to continue. You have committed a tremendous offense, and the judgment of death must fall on it in order that it may be abolished—destroyed. Ii cannot measure my offense, but if I were to die under it, I should forever remain under the judgment of God. Can we ever comprehend what Christ bore when He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He had taken the sinner’s place, the place of judgment—not only the penalties of man, such as “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat.” He took that in grace during His life, but bore also the judgment of death. It was the anticipation of judgment that made Him sweat “as it were great drops of blood.” Oh! do not think lightly of what Christ has suffered for your sin and distance from God! A lamb’s death did not set forth judgment. It sets forth death, but that in itself is not judgment. Judgment is, you are to die on account of sin. There was one perfect One—One entitled to glory, divinely beautiful in everything; and He charged Himself with the judgment upon man, and “suffered without the gate.” That is Christ as the sin offering. The carcass was burnt outside the camp, and the blood brought in according to Lev. 6, into the sanctuary. That is what we have in Rom. 3. “Whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in his blood.” So in the great day of atonement you get the sin offering, and the carcass is burnt outside the camp—the thing on which the judgment of God rested, cleared away—condemned. That is how sin was cleared away from the eye of God. To us practically, it is that our old man was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed. Not forgiven, not a bit of it, but destroyed. Where is it gone?
Gone in the death of the perfect One. “He died unto sin once.” but it is not what people call the mere article of death, it is judgment. He charges Himself with the judgment that lay on us. And He says, when about to enter on it, “This is your hour and the power of darkness.” All the penalties upon man came upon Him: every curse upon man came upon Him when He took the place of man, as under the judgment of God. The penalties attached to our life fell upon Him. But besides there was the penalty of death—judgment, the sinner’s death. “ The wages of sin is death.” If you do not see this, you will have a very feeble idea of what the blessed Lord went through. Therefore, “though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.”
Now this is what God had to do and what Christ had to suffer, in order to remove judicially the terrible thing that caused the distance between Him and man. And this was for the man who had done all the mischief and who did not cane to turn to Him, but hated Him. God says, I will remove the mischievous thing, and repair the distance on My own side, and I will move his heart to Me, and compel him to come unto Me. I will bring light to bear on his heart and conscience, as upon Saul of Tarsus who was opposing Me to the utmost. First, I shall be able to rend the veil and come to him, and I will bring him down and move his heart to come to Me. Can we comprehend how the blessed God can do such a thing as that, and the motive in His heart for doing it? For this Christ bore the judgment, “suffered without the gate,” to remove the sin from the eye of God.
John the Baptist says to his disciples, looking upon Jesus as He walked, Do you see that Man? That is “the lamb of God.” Not the lamb of Israel, nor the lamb of the sinner, but the Lamb of God. It is God who is coming to repair the distance from His own side, and if He repairs the distance it is because He does not like the distance to continue. Thus it shows us the motive, the love that led Him so to act. “God commendeth his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” He died for the man who not only did not care for God, but was at enmity with Him. Well, God loves, though the sinner does not. A father has a heart even if a son has not. But a father could not turn the heart of his son to himself, and could not repair the sinner’s distance, it is a work beyond man. It was because man sinned and so brought death upon himself, that a person must be found to bear that judgment;—not mere death, but judgment, and that was set forth in the sin-offering.
Now we will turn to the burnt offering. Look at Heb. 10: “Lo, I come to do thy will, Ο God.” In the burnt offering, the offerer was to offer it “of his own voluntary will.”
The sin offering was not a constant thing, the burnt offering was a constant thing, because God delights in that sweet-smelling savor, and He had Israel as a redeemed people. In this offering, instead of the carcass being burnt outside the gate, it was burnt on the altar; all went up to God. What a difference! Christ going to death as the sin offering, most acceptable at that very time that He was made sin for us, and Christ raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. So that I see in the same Person, not only the sin offering, bearing all judgment, but I see the perfect One as the burnt offering raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. I see my Savior in the glory of God, the very One who bore the judgment for me, and I am in Him a sweet-smelling savor to God, the delight of the heart of God. I see God’s heart working all through, therefore the gospel is called “the gospel of God:” it is according to His own good pleasure.
Now mark another thing. I do not know the measure of the offense I have committed. The Son is the only Man who ever knew the measure or nature of sin, and He removed it. He too was the only Man who ever knew the love of God to a poor sinner, and He declared it. That is the most wonderful combination. Our blessed Lord comes not only to bear the judgment that was upon us, but to reveal to us the love in the heart of God who sent Him.
Now turn to Rom. 4:24, 2524But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. (Romans 4:24‑25). It is believing on Him who raised up Christ from the dead; not Christ’s death, or God could not justify you, but Christ’s resurrection. It is not simply that you are clear, it is more. “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all, and upon all them that believe.” Therefore it is called “the gift of righteousness.” It is now said, “through faith in his blood,” but it is imputed to us. We are accounted righteous. I am placed on a new footing altogether. And that is, I suit Him. Get hold of that one idea;—through grace I suit Him. It is not that you feel you are safe, but you are brought to God. You suit Him. It is His own righteousness that you are set in, and it suits Him. It is not only that my conscience is at ease and I am clear of guilt, but I suit God. We are accounted righteous—we “who believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom we have access into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” You are now in righteousness, and you can get no higher justification than God’s righteousness. You suit God. Christ has achieved the delight of God’s own heart. “ Himself has done it,” and He can say, I have you suited to Myself in My own righteousness. Therefore it is called “the justification of life,” or life’s justification. Thus the apostle says, that I may be “found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” “It is God that justifieth.” He has done it all. He laid help upon One that was mighty, because it was His good pleasure to do so.
Think of the eternal God; how He can say, Here is a man who does not care for Me, a man offensive to Me, a man pursuing his wicked course (like Saul of Tarsus), but I will turn his heart to Myself—I will find a way to do so; My own Son will go forth and bear that unspeakable, inconceivable judgment, and remove the offense from My sight! (Oh! if one’s soul had the sense of it, how one would loathe the flesh.) He will bear the judgment, and He will get rid of it forever: and that is not all, but I am thus able to put the believer in Him in all His beauty; that I may be able to look at him in the same light as I look at My Son: the full purpose of My heart being to conform him to the image of My Son. What a wonderful thing it is!
Now I will turn briefly to another subject, namely deliverance, which is included in being justified, but has also to be experimentally learned. If you die the moment you are converted you are justified? and would go to heaven; but if you live upon the earth, what are you to do with the “body of sin”—the old man? You get the answer to that in Rom. 6 It has been said that Rom. 6 and 7 are distinct treatises. They treat of two things: the body of sin and the body of death. You get the former in chapter 6, and the latter in chapter 7. In chapter 8:2: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” You are made perfectly free now in the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is deliverance. You have not full apprehension of your standing if you have not deliverance as well as righteousness; but deliverance is an experience consequent on being justified.
I ask a person, When you feel sin working in you, what do you do? He replies, I am so distressed about it that sometimes I do not know what to do. That man does not understand justification thoroughly. Well, now I put to such a one a very simple question. Do you believe God got rid judicially of every atom of the old man before He justified you? How could God count you righteous if He had not removed judicially in the cross forever that which offended against Him? If the old man remained in His sight, He could not justify you. He could not justify the old man. It was judicially terminated in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ—judicially removed from the eye of God; every atom gone. As God said at the deluge, “the end of all flesh is come before me.” You are not enjoying divine righteousness if you do not see that God has got rid judicially of every atom of the old man in the cross. And I believe there is many a soul who does not like to see this, and hence deliverance is not known. A man may have a clear idea of what justification is; that it is God who justifies, but in his heart he may not be in liberty, and he is without deliverance, because he does not see the old man gone judicially. If gone judicially, God could not bring it back. Thank God He could not, for He has done it Himself, and as He has removed it from His eye, surely we should not go back to it. You say, I do go back to it. Well, God does not go back to it, and if you do, He will deal with you until you judge it.
He has judged sin, can He then impute sin to me? Never! He could not impute righteousness to me if He did. He chastens, but He does not impute sin; and why? Because Christ has borne the judgment for it: but He glorified God under it; and so glorified Him, that God glorified Him in Himself; and He is gone up into glory as the burnt offering, as a sweet-smelling savor unto God. Well, where are you? In Christ, a sweet-smelling savor to God! That is what Noah found. First there is judgment, and then the sweet-smelling savor in the very same spot where the judgment was.
Well then, how shall I get deliverance? You must find yourself in another life. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Just as a butterfly rises out of its former caterpillar state, I am out of the old life and state that I belonged to, and have got another life. He bore the judgment I was under, and I am free in new life—the Spirit of life, for “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty;” and therefore it is, “be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
A man says, But I have sin in me, what am I to do? Beckon yourself dead to it. Do not minister to it; walk in newness of life. If ye live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. Rise out of it, just as a butterfly rises out from a caterpillar. Do not own it, reckon yourself dead to sin. “Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind, for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.” If you do not gratify it, you suffer in the flesh and you cease from sin. That is Marah, but is it a bitter life? No; when you find Christ was in it, it is sweet. The cross is the wood put into the bitter waters of Marah. You have in the Spirit of God the joys of God, and you have not lost anything, you have gained. That is what deliverance is as to the body of sin in chapter 6.
Deliverance is not explained before we come to verse 12 of chapter 5 on to verse 12 of chapter 8. It is included in justification doctrinally. Hence when the course of the grace is recounted in chapter 8, there is no mention of deliverance; but “whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Deliverance is there, but you have to experience it.
In chapter 7 we see a person with grace working in the soul trying to keep the law, and finding he cannot, and that, as he fails, death comes in him. Then he cries out, “Ο wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Not sin now, but death. There is no power in the old man to answer to the dictates of the converted soul. I find that in me, that is, in my flesh, there is no good thing. I thank God, through Jesus Christ. I escape, and in Him I am out of the old, and “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Already in righteousness, I am now at liberty, free to be holy.
Another time I hope to set forth what the state is. It is the standing we are looking at now, and that is, I am in God’s righteousness, and in full deliverance to walk down here in righteousness. The very fact of being in righteousness includes deliverance. I repeat, I could not be in deliverance, unless God had removed from His own eye everything in me that offended against His holiness. But for this, He could not have placed me in His own righteousness. But He has, and here I am now, in this new position. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Walk, then, in this new life, walk in the Spirit.
I think, beloved friends, I need not say more than ask you to look to the Lord to lead you into what we have been looking at tonight. You can make but little out of a lecture. A lecture is like a skeleton map, a tracing and you have to fill in, and the better you fill it in, the more your heart will rejoice. I conclude by asking you to dwell on it before the Lord, and ask Him to deepen it in your soul. The more I look at the gospel, the more my heart is amazed and delighted with the grandeur and magnitude of God’s thought and purposes about me. And as I look at His Son, I can understand what a love His was, how He delighted to execute such a work. He says, u therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.” He, who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He went down to the lowest, where we were, that He might bring us up to the highest, where He is. These two—the depth and the height—go together. He takes us from the lowest to the highest.
May your hearts be exercised to dwell upon what God has done. You will find that the more you dwell upon it, the more you will realize the deep blessedness to you, arising out of it. You can never know fully what sin is—the terrible thing it was to God. To put it away, God’s Son bore the judgment of it, went down into death, gave up His life, made His soul an offering for sin. There you learn what a terrible thing sin, was in the eyes of God.
But, on the other hand, the love was greater still, the love that brings in blessing to us was greater than the many waters could quench.