I PROPOSE that we should look through two or three of the Epistles; for so many read detached portions of Scripture without getting at the scope of it. It has been asked, " What is a Roman? What stature would a man, who only studied Romans come to?
In Romans we have " the gospel of God." To see this, we must begin at the third chapter. In the previous ones we get man ruined; here we see how that ruin is met. But I would notice, in passing on to it, the very important statement in chapter 1., that this gospel is " concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." It is the gospel of the seed of David risen; and that leaves he hope for the Jew on natural grounds.
But to see the stature to which you come in the Romans, we pass on to chapter 3., where we find the value of the blood, and, because of it, find that we get shelter:-that " God is just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." I want an ark first to save me from judgment; but I do not get to Rom. 5 until I am in the sweet savor of Gen. 8:2020And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. (Genesis 8:20); until I know that as He is, so an I in this world..Noah could say, Though I am not a better. man than I was before the flood, yet I am now in sweet savor before God; in the place where I was in fear of judgment, I am now in favor. " Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." I am in favor on earth; and then I rise to "joy in God."
'But then someone says, " I am very unhappy." What! after being so happy? After knowing peace with God, and joy in Him? Yes. Oh, then you have found out there is sin in you. But there is a release from -Chat: Our old man is crucified with Christ; " 'there is an end of it before 'God. Romans takes you thug far, but it does not take you on to crucified to the world. And the consequence is, that Romans are very nice people; they are just like Frenchmen in England. They say: We are strangers here; we do not speak the language, no do we follow the manners; but we get all the good things We can, out of the country we are in. And, moreover, they are always ready to learn Ephesian truth too.
You are not dead in Romans, but in chapter 6- you are dead to sin; and in chapter vii., dead to the law. God has " condemned sin in the flesh " for you; but you are not rid of it in yourself, though you are to reckon yourself dead to it.
It is " through" Christ all along till you get to chapter 11-23.; it is not " in " till then. Then it comes in, because, if you move away Adam, which has been done in chapter 6:6., you must put the believer in somewhere. 'Now no longer in Adam, he is in Christ. It is an important thing for the believer to know that he is in Christ; because, if he sees himself there, he knows that he 'is riot in Adam's state any longer before God.
So a good Roman has "joy in God" in chapter. 5. and how, in chapter 8. 'Christ is the spring of all to him, and the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in him as he walks not after the flesh but 'after the Spirit; and he has not only resurrection with Christ through the Spirit, but through Him he also "mortifies the deeds of the body." In this he comes very near Colossians, but not quite to it. He has come to' " Abba Father," and he is an "'heir of 'God," but there is not a Word of being in heaven as in Ephesians, though he is looking forward to it, " waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body."
" If ye live after the flesh ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live," is an abstract statement. There are only the two standings before God; if you are in the standing of the flesh, you will die; if you are in the standing of the Spirit You will live.
The Roman is not only then blear of everything that stood between him and God, but he is a son. And I hold it impossible for a man to have 'a cloud when he has the sense that he is a son of God. Talk of a cloud! Impossible! But there is great vagueness in the state 'of souls as to their relationship. They speak of God truly as a Father, but in doing so they are not really beyond the Lord's prayer, "Our Father which art in heaven." They just know that He is like a Father to them, but they do not know sonship. There is no question as to their being converted, but they do not know that they are His sons. A Roman is a son and heir; but it does not say what he is heir to. I do not think he has got so far as what Paul is told is the gospel: " To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me."
He sees that creation is vanity, and that all here is to be removed; but that is not sitting in heavenly places in Christ, nor anything like it.
Thus in chapter 3. we get shelter; chapter 4. forgiveness of sins, and sin not imputed; chapter 5. peace and joy; chapter 6. dead to sin; chapter 7. dead to the law, but with sin in you; chapter 8. life in Christ in resurrection. It is not the man's death; it is Christ's death. I am a live man going through the darkness, not out of it yet. It is Christ who has risen; I am not risen. In Romans it is a question of sin, and I want death to get out of that. Chapter 7 is the most painful experience that a believer can pass through; I find that I am not in keeping with the life that is in me. The real Roman would be very glad to find that this world was a grave; but it is not. He knows that God is for him. And at the end of chapter 8., we find priesthood. And thus we are even "more than conquerors through him that loved us; " we get a touch of the power that is in us; and nothing is able to separate us "from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Many souls fancy that they are in a state in which they are not; because they have great aspirations they suppose themselves in some higher place spiritually than a Roman, whilst they have really never yet known what it is to be one: Souls that have got into Ephesians and Colossians without going through Romans, are not established.
And then we get chapter 12 the presenting of the body "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God "; a being " not conformed to this world." For this I do not want peculiarity in dress or other things. I am not nonconformed, but I am transformed.
In Galatians the first verse gives the Character of the Epistle, and has been often commented on. " Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man." There is no antecedent to it on earth. It is a thing that conies out de nouo, and, in which man is totally ignored. Paul Was a Man himself who had thought much of man, Who had 'so kept the law that he could say, " touching the righteousness which is in the law; blameless;" but, When he dame to see Christ in glory, he never spoke to Him of man at all; he never alluded to Adam, as we see where he recites his conversion a little lower down in 'the chapter. It is just opposite to what we get in Hebrews, where everything is traced right" down from "the fathers."
This ignoring of man helps the Galatians,. for they had gone back to Adam. A Galatian is really a Roman who has gone back from 'Rom. 8 It is no longer true of him that " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has -made him free;" he "desires again to be in bondage." It is really the new school of holiness by faith " that has come up. In that, law is the standard, and perfection in the flesh the aim. Doing good things merely is not Christianity; Christ working in me is.
The law was given to suit a servant, and therefore cannot suit a son, but he is a very bad Christian who does not go higher than the law. Here Paul is " dead to the law." His great point is', I do not recognize myself; it is His Son in 'me; "the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." As Soon as he was converted, he preached that Jesus was the Soli of God; and now, he says, that He is revealed in me, I go into the background. In speaking of his conversion here, it is not simply the mode of salvation that is brought forward; it is that Paul had now to do with this blessed One, whom he had this in glory, and that he had to learn how this could be effected. It was through 'God revealing His Son in me, So that Paul had the same life as He; it was " not I, but Christ liveth in me."
Every believer has the same title, though every believer does not enjoy it. There are three witnesses to the fact that all possess it, as John tells us: " The Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree " in one testimony: that God " hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." It is wonderful the way in which John and Paul thus help one another. John brings God's Son down to earth, and Paul takes us up to Christ; therefore a man who teaches Paul's doctrine, dwells much on John's. `'And, what is very interesting in Paul and John, is that, in speaking of the same truth, they reverse -the way of stating it. If John says "Father and God," Paul says " God and Father." If John says "peace and life," Paul will say " life and peace." Talking of washing and of sanctification, Paul will put the sanctification before the washing, and John the washing before the sanctification. Just as you constantly find help in different brothers' teaching: one will take one side of the truth, and another the other.
However, to return to our Epistle. In chap. 2 he says,. I will not give up this truth, neither for the youngest saint nor the oldest; neither for a young disciple like Titus, nor for an old apostle like Peter, " I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," is what he holds to. This the Galatians had given up; they had gone back to the flesh; they were not seeking to be justified before God " by the faith of Jesus Christ." It is strange how perfectionist people are by nature. I I mean they will put themselves under Aw as to a certain point, and then take liberty on every other. There is a difference in the apostle's. manner with a Corinthian., to what there is with a Galatian; he is hopeful of a Corinthian, of a Galatian he says, " I am afraid of you." I have more chance of getting at a man who is Out-and-out enjoying the world, than I have at one who is legally trying to make a fair show in the flesh.
In chap. 3. he brings in Christ crucified to meet their state. It is not Christ's death as such; it is the ignominious putting of His person out of the world. He says, Jesus Christ is set forth crucified before your very. eyes. And, besides this, how did you get the Spirit? Was that by the law and flesh? It is just the new school: made perfect in the flesh after beginning in the Spirit.
Then he brings them back to Abraham, who got the promise of the Seed four hundred years before the law, and we date from that Seed. We are not tenants as we should have been under the law, when we never could have paid the rent; but we date four hundred-and-thirty years before it, because we belong to the heir. The law was just a master, a pedagogue. The thought is that of a master walking on, and all the scholars following after. So the law led on until it brought to Christ. It is a wonderful argument; no jury could refuse the title. I belong to the promised Seed; faith comes in in connection with the Spirit of promise, and links me on to the new line, and that line is the Spirit line; it is not the flesh; -I inherit wider another line altogether. All this is to prove to them that they cannot go back to the old line without losing the inheritance.
As to those who would like to be under lair, he says, chap. 4. Let us look at these law keepers; what happened in that case? As soon as the one after the Spirit was grown up; the one born after the- flesh had to go' out. I ask, Have you put him out? You say, Yes; but he comes in again. Never mind that; the great thing is, whether you have come to the point that you do not tolerate him." The thought of the new school is that Isaac is to come in and make Ishmael a good bog. Ishmael mocked, we are told; and Paul calls that persecution.
In chap. 5. We get a very interesting thing that the Spirit is stronger than the flesh.. The words in verse 17 ought to be, that ye may not do the things that ye would." It is a wonderful thing to find out that, if we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh; it is an immense comfort to the heart. If I were talking to the new school, I would say I have no right to do a wrong thing, but you want me, not to be a new man, but an improved one.
Chapter 6;14, is the grand finale of the Epistle: `f God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." To " is the point; it is not that God is left out, but that the point is where I am placed with regard to the -world, and the world to me, by the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. As to what the world is, there is no harm in anything in itself, if it does not influence you: it is the power that it exerts over you that is the evil.
Ephesians takes Us up in exactly the opposite way to Romans: There man is seen as alive in sin; here as dead in it. It is all downwards from God to man. It is the "water of the rain of heaven."
It is in this Epistle where we are set "in heavenly places in Christ," that we find the gifts to the church; chap. 3, I do not believe a man really understands gifts at all until he has got on to heavenly ground. It is in the place of death in trespasses and sins, in the place where our weakness is brought out to the utmost, that we know the power of " the living God." This is Josh. 3 This power, which has first worked out from God to me, chap. 1, now works out of me, as I am " strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man;" beginning with the church, in the first part of chap. 4; then in my social surroundings-in connection with my neighbor. Many a one gets on with those at a distance, who cannot get on with people close to. So it is " truth with your neighbor," not with some one far away. And lastly this power comes out in the domestic circle. If a man has not power at home, he has no power anywhere.
We find three forms of the power which thus comes down into all the difficulties of this scene. First it comes down from God- Him. self, it is " the -working of his mighty power." Second it is in me: " strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man." And when I talk of power in me, I never get the Holy Ghost dissociating me from Christ in any action that He energizes. As we have seen, it is not a question of my doing a nice thing, but of 'Christ coming out in me. I am a dead man, but I am made to act in the power of God.
And third, it acts out in chap. 6 against Satan.
Thus, the true answer to an Ephesian is a Philippian. And it is very difficult to be a Philippian, though every believer has title to be an Ephesian. I find my heart is a long way ahead of my feet; and it must be so; just as in a man climbing up a ladder. If you are satisfied with having your head only in advance, you will become enthusiastic; whereas if you are set upon climbing up, you will become laborious. I have a residence in heaven, and I ought to occupy it. There are the three steps in Joshua: there is the entering, the possessing, and the dwelling. A good many of us have entered, a good many have possessed, but dwelling is the grand thing.
And lastly, I am so to walk that I may be approved of Him, as I stand here against all the wiles of the devil, "strong in the Lord, and the power of His might."
In Philippians we find Paul in prison telling out the path of a heavenly man upon earth. In the hands of the Gentile power; shut out from the people of the Lord on earth, he is able to set before them in himself the type and example of a heavenly man upon earth; so that the things that fall out to him are only " to the furtherance of the gospel." He can look upon the earth in a new way; all his expectations from it are closed; and now heaven opens to him. It is not that it was not opened before, but that he was not in a position equally to enjoy it.
Saints have to be thrown into circumstances where the things of God can be made good to them, for the circumstances we are in conduce largely to the carrying out in us of-the truth God has committed to us. John had to go to Patmos to get his line of things, and Paul to a prison to be able to teach his fully.
We see the apostle, then, deprived of everything; and we find him in it the very opposite of Hezekiah, who, when all his links to earth were about to be broken, still could not die. Fourteen years a most perfect servant of God on the earth, still he says, What shall I do if I die? In the grave no one praises. But here is Paul, everything gone from him, he only longs to depart and be with Christ. He has the blessed sense in his soul that he would like to die, that he might know what it would be to be in that solitude with Him. In ch. i. he seeks to die himself in order to be with Christ; in ch. 2. he dies as a servant; in ch. 3. he dies as a martyr; and in ch. 4. he dies to circumstances. This does not put death in opposition to the coming of the Lord. If I long to be with Him I long for Him to come. Our side is in the first chapter; His in the third. Anyone who is really longing to be with the Lord is longing for Him to come; and anyone who is really longing for Him to come is longing to be with Him. But you will not be in the moral power of the coming of the Lord if you are not in a state of heart to Meet Him. The mere historical event is often associated with sentiment. Nothing so answers the question: Am I in a state to see Him? as another question: Would you like to see Him?
Men are forming for things, fitting for them, all through their lives. The first circle of a man's life is the expression of what the whole of it will be. Paul was always a leader, both before conversion and after; but the thing he was most for in nature, he is most against in grace. The greatest Pharisee becomes the greatest anti-Pharisee.
Our circumstances then conduce to our power. If you were in prison you would be much more able to talk of heaven than I. Our prison very often is sickness. There are two great lessens we have to learn; and in this school Paul is a graduate here, as Jonah was a learner in the Old Testament. First, I myself am dead, and I am saved from death; but then I have to learn that everything is dead to me. The gourd is dead; I have not a single thing to shelter me from the east wind; I have not 'a single thing left to lose. I have to learn these two deaths, for through sin I have brought myself into these two conditions. When people are first converted, though they see themselves saved out of their own death, they have not the sense that death is on everything around them. Many have to learn this by going through loss; happier to learn it like Abraham going up Mount Moriah, by surrender. Abraham was going on to the resurrection morning as he journeyed to Mount Moriah: Paul had reached it.
The spring of devotedness is being completely done with myself, so that I can be completely for God. Nothing does so much damage to souls as walking before others in. an appearance that is not true. Then there is guile. It is sanctimoniousness. As Paul says, " That no man should think of me above that which he 'seeth me to be." A verse that humbles one immensely, and comforts one too, is: " Thy Father, which seeth in secret, himself shall reward the openly."
The Lord allowed him to get into prison. Paul took a great interest in the Jews: he was greatly occupied with his earthly nation; now he has a trial in connection with them; he suffers from their hands, and ends with a prison in Rome. The Lord says, You have borne witness of me in Jerusalem, and you shall in a Gentile city also.
Many brethren are in the place that Luke and Acts educate them to, without knowing how they got there. They have got to a place outside Jerusalem on earth without knowing how. Luke shows Christ going up from Bethany; and, in the Acts, I soon lose the twelve apostles, to follow the course of one who was not of them at all. After the offer of the kingdom had been made to the Jews by the twelve, I find one " born-but of due time," who offers " all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus " to the Gentiles. Thus earth is over. And the apostle longs to leave it; he desires to depart and be with Christ; but one thing keeps him; he stays for the church. So it is only with or for.
Two objects ought to mark our life: I am wishing to be the first, but I stay for the second. Then how are you going to stay? I am going to stay like Christ. There is a greater thing than serving Christ: He can be expressed. Christ has left the world, but He has not left it without some one to represent Him in it. And if anyone be representing, he will certainly serve when the time comes. One who represents is sure to serve, and to serve well.
If I had asked Paul what he was going on to, he would have answered, I am going on to be poured out; and as I do so, " I joy and rejoice with you all." I do not mind dying 'for you. There is no dying for himself here; it is for others. He looks forward to martyrdom; he will do anything to get into fellowship with Christ. " That -I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." This is a martyr, not a servant now.
And then he says, " Rejoice in the Lord!" I do not tell you to rejoice in anything else, but I do say, let nothing hinder you in that; do not two women lose it by quarreling. And lastly, Paul, dead practically, the things that affect a man do not affect him. How do you get on in bad circumstances? They do not move me. How do you get on in good ones? They do not move me. Of those two circles into which the world is divided-attractions and afflictions-neither move me. I am content in the one, I have power over the other. I know how to abase and how to abound.
In Colossians, the first thing we have is the two headships of Christ: He has the headship of creation, and the headship of the church.
We ought not to forget that Christ has the headship of creation: it tells in all directions. We also get two reconciliations and two ministries. One we are in, the other is Coming. The one is of the gospel, the other of the church; and you will not be very effective in the first, unless you hale the second; for, as has been said, if a person is really earnestly preaching, he will bring souls where he is himself; he will bring them up to the headship of Christ. As soon. as the apostle has made -as complete in Christ, he turns about and, like the old emigrants, burns the ship. He says, Complete in Christ, then man 'is gone. The body of the flesh is gone in the circumcision. of Christ. The words " of the sins " are not there. It is- to be no more, " Touch not, taste not, handle not;" I am to hold the Head, and that alone. If I tell you not-to do this thing and that, then you must be alive; but you are to die all round.
We have, in Colossians, the religious man on the earth, which is formed of two things: Judaism and spiritualism. This makes religious men in the flesh. Galatians was more subtle in its character: they wanted to make man perfect in the flesh. But take the whole 'character of things that men are running after here, I have something infinitely superior to it all in Christ. The two lines run side by side in society now: the characteristic of the upper classes is ritualistic, whilst the lower is rationalistic. They combine arid work together.
But the believer is " risen with Christ," and is therefore to " set la's affection on things above, not on things on the earth." The life of Christ is to come out of, and infuse, every member of His body on the earth; everything is to be done in connection with the Head; man has become a beautiful musical- instrument, answering to the leading voice; but the saints often go before the voice. Thus I, who am in myself but a Poor failing thing, am made the living expression of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Habits are things that I have to " put off." Nothing but death will do for members on the earth; no education in the world will get rid of them.
The difference between Ephesians and Colossians is this: that in Eph. 1 am coming down, in Col. 1 am looking up to heaven.
A person in Ephesians may rejoice in knowing that he is set in Christ; but to get to Philippians, you must go through Col. 1 have the Spirit of God now to put all the members in their right place-a divine person here on the earth; and I am not in heaven. In Romans the believer is in the Spirit of sonship and heirship, and delights to find that place; but in Colossians he is quickened together with Christ, and he gets the taste and the power that fits him for being there with Him, though he has not dwelt there yet. Gilgal is his residence in heaven: he is " circumcised with the circumcision made without hands." It is after the thing is done the place is called Gilgal. He has got into the moral condition to enjoy it. He knows something that is up there which he did not know in Romans. He is risen, but he has not yet got the place: The Roman is one who is ready for it; he has got the Spirit, but he is not yet risen. The Colossian is risen, but he is not yet in the place. Now it is an immense thing to get a place, because then I can give up the old place. A Colossian is risen With Christ, quickened together with Him, and what then? I am looking up for a new place; I seek the things that are above; I follow out all the character of thing which fits me for being in heaven, where I am not as yet, but where I am going.
(J. B. S.)