That there is a wholly new creation of which the blessed Lord is Head; that there all is new; that in the moral sense the cross closed the history of the first man, and that all is new, the Second Man not mingled with the first; that we now reckon ourselves dead, and alive to God in Him, not in Adam; that forgiveness is not all; that justification in this character is not all, it applies to our responsibilities as belonging to the former estate, while there is a wholly new position of acceptance ending in glory, in our present estate in Christ—is not what is in question. How far it is realized is a question with individual souls. That everything may be turned into mere doctrine, is alas! true; and I may add, that the cross and the glory answer to one another.
But there is more than this in your teaching: not mere careless expressions, or mistaken ones, to which we are all liable, but a formal systematic doctrine, not so clearly brought out in your printed papers, but which has taken possession of those taught by you, and is insisted on as something new and transcendently precious and beautiful—and is something new, and wholly and mischievously false—and runs through all your papers, though not so broadly stated as by those who are adepts in it, still quite clearly to one who can judge in such a case; not union with Christ, not being in Him, and He in us, but, He being in God, such an identification with Christ as makes us to be actual divine righteousness, as so identified with Him; He in God in the glory, but we partakers actually ourselves of divine righteousness and incorruptibility, which sustains us wholly above nature.
'He is in the region of life hid with Christ in God; he enjoys the state and breathes the breath of the new creation.' (Voice, vol. 11, p. 218.) 'We behold the righteousness of God subsist in a living Person for our hearts; He is there—He in whom we have become God's righteousness.... Righteousness is dwelling in life of new creation.' (P. 221.) See also pages 224, 163. 'Not only life, which might be said of the Old Testament saints, but incorruptibility—the power of divine righteousness which sustains in the new creation place.' (P. 73.) ' We, having become God's righteousness in Christ, can bring forth fruit unto God, fruit unto holiness.' (P. 74.) 'As truly and really as we were constituted sinners, so are we truly and really constituted righteous as in Him who has become, in resurrection, the power of God to us. Christ Himself, risen in victor-strength, is to be known in the saint as really as he felt the terrible power of evil in his Adam-state. There is actual positive righteousness, not only justification by faith. It is established in the cross, and in virtue of the work done there it flows down with glory in its train, and lifts Man out of death, and sets Him to be its own channel from and in glory. That Man, crucified in weakness, is exhibited as God's Son in power, according to the Spirit of holiness.' (P. 313.) Then in page 314: Having received 'the gift of righteousness,'... the believer 'enjoys life in righteousness.' All this is error. Resurrection is not looked at in scripture as victor-strength in man, but as a divine act towards man; though Christ, as being God, could do it. You make it a new kind of power in man: that we are partakers of this power, the source being in Christ on high, and that this being in us in life is righteousness. This is the system which, starting from the truth that Christ is our life, has falsified the whole position of the Christian and of Christ.
But I continue (p. 361), ' The new man is in Him (Jesus) created after God in righteousness and true holiness, righteousness as in power and place in God, to sustain us in light and glory where He is.' Thus we see our side of the new man as a throne of grace; and God's side the fountain of life and righteousness.' What follows I do not receive. How is the new man a "throne of grace"? That—"throne of grace"—is Hebrews' doctrine, but I do not enter on it here. But by this system what Christ is, is falsified: He is a man in God. Righteousness, divine righteousness, is falsified: it is an actual thing in us, not Christ made it to us, or we in Him, but we made it through His being livingly in us: our place is falsified too; as He is, so are we, in present moral elevation: resurrection is falsified, as an intrinsic power in Christ as Man—life out of death consequent on death to sin, and so reproduced in us in conscious power through Him—not the act of God; and made life out of death to sin and self, not out of death in sins, or with Him as risen consequent on His death, as scripture does; so that the new creation is falsified too. All this exalts man in himself, while professing to do the contrary; but I continue (p. 332): 'We are seen in Him in heaven... consequently we are in conflict with the devil and his host there.' This is all a mistake: He, Christ, at the right hand of God, is not the place of conflict. 'Co-quickened with Him in the same righteousness (2 Cor. 5:2121For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)).' (P. 333.) There is no such statement or thought in scripture; it is the system of divine righteousness in actuality in us. 2 Cor. 5:2121For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21) says nothing about quickening or co-quickening with Him. So in page 332, 'justified by faith' is accompanied by no hint of Christ's work. Scripture says, "delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification; therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God." This you leave out and add, `enjoying the justification of life—the power of righteousness actually known in the vessel on earth.' Nor is 'the power of righteousness,' that I can think of, a scriptural expression or thought, and at any rate not as the ground of peace before God. It makes our state the ground, not the work of Christ, nor His acceptance before God. Press our realizing life and divine things in power—excellent—but this alters the basis of our relationship with God. The expression even of "justification of life" is quite in connection with another thought, and spoken of where all is made carefully to depend on one Man's obedience; so that the apostle has to guard against misuse of it in what follows by unfolding the new life; and in the passage itself the present effect of life is left out. In page 335 there is the same neglect of attention to scripture through following our own ideas: we get 'the living power of Him who subsists in divine righteousness.' To find Him, know Him,' etc. Now it is the power of God, and Christ is looked at exclusively as a raised man by God, and we with Him, and set in Him in heavenly places. There is no power spoken of in Christ, or in us. The whole of what is said on Eph. 1:1313In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, (Ephesians 1:13) is a falsification of the sense of the passage; as on chapter 2. (p. 337): of all you find in it, there is not a trace, not even as an object sought; it is by grace we have been saved, for God's glory in the ages to come: nor is even the second prayer truly stated. (P. 338.)
In page 361 the connection of the thought is false. In Colossians we have not the new creation (though one verse runs close to it), but that which you always confound with it, that is, death and resurrection: death, on which you make the new creation depend, referring wholly to the old (the new creation being, as said, on the ground of death in sins, not to sin). Hence in Colossians we have only "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." But again we have definitely as to us, not merely Christ even, this falsifying the whole state and condition: 'The new man is in Him created after God in righteousness and true holiness, righteousness as in power and place in God to sustain us in light and glory where He is.' Is the new man created in Christ in God to sustain us in light and glory where He is? Such a wilderness of error (forgive me what may seem a hard word, but such is the effect of leaving scripture, and following one's thoughts) it would be hard to find, but it is the very essence and summing up of all your system. Thus (p. 362) `we come like the day spring from on high... and hear the message to us, Give, etc.'
I reject entirely your interpretation of Laodicea, but do not enter but on the main point. The truth is, I find passage after passage applied by mere imagination, which, when scripture is compared, is a rope of sand. But it is no object with me to criticize the articles but the system, which puts conscious power in me as divine righteousness, in the place of Christ sitting at the right hand of God and God's own act in putting Him there.
A few more quotations to show that it is a settled system. (P. 162) 'I find the Living One there in all the intrinsic power of divine righteousness,' etc., and the grace and blessing is made to depend on the soul's having found nature's wine exhausted: that is, we must be perfectly emptied of self before we receive the life and grace. How? This is constantly and systematically found. It is 'life out of death,' but how first dead? So (p. 166) in John 6 'it is through death this life is reached.' Whose? It is said there, "ye have no life in you": it is said then again of the burnt-offering that no part was eaten; it was all burnt to God: this was characteristic of it. Christ's death is confounded with ours under the plea of Lev. 1:5, 7, 85And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. (Leviticus 1:5)
7And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire: 8And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar: (Leviticus 1:7‑8). All through I find the efficacy of Christ's death lost in our dying. In Romans (p. 312) 'the opening verses of chapter 1 give us the key to the character of -the epistle': there is not a word in them of Christ's work or sacrifice, with which the whole doctrinal part of the epistle is occupied: page 313 I have already quoted.
What follows (p. 167-8) there is no sort of ground for, but I leave it; nor for all this comment on Lazarus. It is again life out of death. But Christ Himself was not yet that, nor had Lazarus anything to do with incorruptibility. It is again attributing to a moral process in man what was personal power in Christ, before or after His death, and here only marked by its not being to incorruptibility, as Lazarus brought back to this mortal sphere. It is (p. 170) 'life in power (Col. 3:11If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. (Colossians 3:1)) as knowing our place in Christ in God; ' again connecting Christ and ourselves, not in place by grace, but in life in power. It is (p. 171) 'in the power of resurrection and incorruptibility... Lazarus must be sitting at table with the life.' (P. 173.) I only ask whose death—what is the 'life out of death' they receive? In page 177 ‘God's righteousness revealed in heaven for us, and in us below.' How is righteousness 'established in the cross'? In John 16 it is by His going to His Father, and the world seeing Him no more.
I know not that I need add any more. I have gone through a year's articles which were under my hand out here. I add one or two from Colossians. (Vol. 12:9.) 'The new man put on as the life in actual fact, we are co-quickened with Him now.... The whole energy of hidden life in God-is now acting in the power of righteousness in glory. And because it is the condition of soul,' etc. (P. 10.) 'That is, all is put off that hinders us from rising up in the firmament of His power.' (P. 11.) 'He who is the channel of love is God, and Man in God. This is the first-born out of death;' and what follows. (P. 12.) 'Hidden life—the risen and exalted One who breathed a new atmosphere in John 20:2222And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: (John 20:22) sustains the inner man in incorruption."Life hid in God' (p. 14), 'a sphere of profession where we receive the power of glory' (p. 15); so page 16. I have quoted so many passages to show that it is not rash expressions but a regular system, in which the man in God as risen, life out of death, is divine righteousness according to glory and incorruptibility. All gives way to this; redemption and Christ's work are really lost in the work in us. Now it will be said, One ought not to oppose the power of a new life in us. I quite agree. It is greatly needed. But it is just what I feel sorrowful in these papers that a handle is given to refuse deeply needed truths, because they are identified with fatal errors and notions which scripture does not support, and which totally displace grave and important truths, a teaching which, as I said to -, puts Christ in Himself out, that we may have a fancied power of Christ in us. I recognize fully man's history is morally ended on the cross, that Christ risen from the dead is the beginning and head of a new position of man in which Adam innocent was not; but I cannot substitute this for redemption, nor give up Christ my righteousness before God for a fancied divine righteousness in me. I have lost Christ in Himself in your teaching. Your remarks, I think, are constantly fancies; what you say of the end of Rom. 5 seems to me all wrong; what you say of priesthood is quite out of the way; but all this I leave save as bearing on the principle that runs through all. I admit forgiveness is not all; we are also in a new position, Christ being our life, and we, for faith, dead and risen. I sec some allusions to wild German theories, perhaps English ones, but that I leave too. The quotations which I have made characterize the principle I object to; but it runs all through the articles, and, I judge, takes a ground scripture carefully guards against. Christ in His own perfectness objectively is gone, and thereby what judges self. I may add, I have a whole collection of poems and I know not what, but I have preferred using what is printed and published, which may deceive a young mind but not, I think, one experimentally versed in the word, and his own heart, and to whom Christ is all. I recognize fully the necessity of pressing life and the new creation; but it is looking at Christ Himself objectively, which subjectively changes us into His image. We, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.
It seems to me, dear brother, that for the moment it would be happier for you not to teach at all. You will forgive me for saying that your own case is a proof how little this extraordinary elevation gives real knowledge of self. The effect of your teaching, as I have seen it, is three-fold. Where a person did not know what freedom (Rom. 8) was, nor belonging to the new creation, it has been used to set them free, only imbibing mischief with it: with wild, specially female imaginations, it has puffed them up with mystic imaginations: with sober, God-fearing consciences it threw them back under law, because they had not `the gold,' and would labor to buy it. I have seen all such, but all with self instead of Christ in some shape: in some, Col. 2:9, 109For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 10And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: (Colossians 2:9‑10) used to prove that as the fullness of God was in Christ, and we complete in Him, we were livingly in that fullness; and this confirmed by Eph. 3:1919And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:19), corrected from the Greek, and by 1 John 4:1717Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4:17)—all as the present fact of our state. All this showed that your articles showed the root, not the fruit of the system. I have only sought to show what that root is, and sufficiently to show it is a regular system which dims an objective Christ, and, as I said, a mediatorial one—not merely careless expressions. I have only to beg you to believe that all I have written is in sincere christian affection, not weakened but strengthened by having to look into it. May I add, that you have to learn to have less confidence in yourself, and to be less occupied with yourself, and what passes in your own mind; more with Christ Himself in Himself. He reads scripture, it has been said, well, qui non affert sed refert sensum. Our part now is to separate the precious from the vile. I have no doubt that your sincere desire is that you and others should walk in that `higher life' which knows Christ only as its object: but, not knowing yourself, it became what you warn others against—a doctrine; and, not being dead, Satan found opportunity to mix your own imaginations with it, and introduce what tended to sap the reality of truth.
Ever your affectionate brother in Christ.
Pau, 1879.