We have had the two subjective elements (that is, the state I am in) consisting of the new man, and the old man put off, and the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. Now follow as a measure the two essential names of God—love and light. That is what Christ was in this world. “While I am in the world,” He says, “I am the light of the world,” and He was the expression of divine love. You are to be an imitator of God, and if you ask, How can that be carried out in man you get Christ, that is, God manifested in a man. How clearly the thing is entirely above law. If law was carried out in the world, we would have the world all happy and righteous and peaceful, but that supposes the world to be all right. I am to care for another as much as for myself, but that will not do in this world, and therefore I get this, “He gave himself.” It is not taking love to self as the measure of love to my neighbor, but going beyond the law, and giving oneself up for others. If all went on rightly, the law would be your rule now, but it is, otherwise. As Christians, when you come to a world of wickedness, you have to follow God.
Let us look at the double character of this love, which is entirely practical. There are two kinds, what I may call love up and love down; and they are entirely different in kind. The care of a father and his child will illustrate the difference. The father loves down and the child loves up—the one is to something above it, whereas the other is in condescending goodness. If you take a case of loving up, the more excellent the object the more excellent the affection. If I love a base thing, it is a base affection. If I love a man of noble character, it is a noble affection. If I love God, of course it is the highest of all. Then on the other hand, if you take love down, the baser the object the greater the love. That is die character of God's love to us. I get both in Christ. He loved His Father perfectly as man (that was loving up), and He loved us when vile sinners (that was loving clown). And we are to go and do likewise. Therefore I read here “as Christ hath loved us and given himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.” He gave Himself for us and to God. That is perfection. He had an infinitely high object, and an infinitely low one, and He was perfect both ways. We have to seek to walk as He walked. There is fellowship also one with another. Of course when we can see, the thing to imitate is Christ walking in love— “as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.”
That is the side of love that you are imitators of God. Then you get the other essential name of God, and that is, light; and he says we are it. We are partakers of the divine nature— “ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.” God is love, and God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. We were darkness, but now in Christ we are light in the Lord. “Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” I get the full light in Christ, as I get the full love. Thus are the two essential names of God brought out. I am a partaker of the divine nature, and the Spirit of God dwells in me, and I am to act as God acted, and that acting in Christ. “Awake, thou that sleepest,” that is, looking at Christians, not committing sins but gone to sleep in the world. In the world the people are all dead; but if a man goes to sleep, he is just as much alive as when awake, but he is as much as dead; he does not hear, nor speak, nor think; he is like a dead man. There is a Christian that is going on with the world—he is with the dead. What am I to do, then? Christ is the light of the world, and “ye are the light of the world” He says to His disciples. It is a wonderful exhibition.
In 1 John it is said, “If we walk in the light,” that is, absolutely; but, realizing position, we walk in it. It is position we are actually there. It is not like standing in righteousness. Here he is looking at practice. Walking is a real thing. It is not as if I say, Christ is my righteousness. It is a real living place we are walking in. Of course he judges in detail all sins. All the Gentiles are walking in darkness—I refer to the passage in Ephesians. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools but wise.” Uprightness is not sufficient. If I have got a bog to go through, I may be perfectly sincere in seeking a house on the other side, but if I do not look about me I may sink in the bog. I must look about me. It requires wisdom to go through this world, I mean as a Christian.
The expression “redeeming the time” is apt to be always misapplied. It means seizing opportunities. You get it in Dan. 2, where the king speaks to the Magi, “I know ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me.” They wanted to redeem the time. Here I am to walk in such a way, so full of Christ, that, when an opportunity offers, I can bring Him out. The days are evil. You cannot always have an opportunity; you might be casting pearls before swine; but you must be in a condition to embrace every opportunity. In Daniel it is “gain the time,” or buy the time; as it is in the margin. A thousand more opportunities would present themselves of bringing Christ before people if we were living in the power of the Spirit of God. The days are evil, we are told. The power of evil is there. You must not complain because the days are evil. The Lord can guide us through one day as well as another.
“Instant in season” is to the saint. The time will come when they will not receive sound doctrine. This applies to the dealing with the saints. It is often applied to the gospel; but the mischief is, that people take passages without reading the context. I am sure we could find a great many more seasons if we were faithful to Christ. “Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all, long-suffering and doctrine, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” He is evidently looking to Christians. Timothy was to go on earnestly pressing because soon they would not listen to him. Whether it was seasonable or not, he was to go on with it, because very soon there would be no season at all.
I do not think the apostle here means the gospel. The previous chapter speaks of the departure. He is speaking of the evil days. It is not that we are not to be preaching everywhere we can to sinners, but the special thing he has in his mind is that the church would get into such a state that they would not listen to truth. When we preach the gospel now, we preach to people that call themselves Christians. You may meet infidels, it is true. It is of the last days he is speaking. In John's time they were come in. It was the last time then, though morally developed since. Peter says, “The time is come that judgment will begin at the house of God;” and Jude says, that these men “have crept in unawares,” and also that these are they that the Lord comes to judge.
The latter times bring it up to the last days, being the more general term “In the latter days some shall depart from the faith,” and in Clio last days they shall have a form of godliness. It is rather more distinctly characteristic; because in John you get the last days marked by antichrists being there. He does not use them to say they are the last of the latter. In the latter days you get celibacy and asceticism, as it is called: so the apostle shows in Colossians. He speaks of that system which was already dawning. God allowed it all to begin before the apostle went, that we might get scripture upon it. It ripened afterward. Therefore he speaks of the latter days as those coming in after he was gone. They are used in the Old Testament pretty much in the same sense. Still the last days are more definite: “You have heard that Antichrist shall come, and now there are many antichrists.”
We had before the oppositions of science, falsely so called, and the forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, and we all know it is going on since. In England you can hardly go into a cathedral without finding the monument of a bishop who lived forty days without eating anything. I have seen them when I used to go into such places. A. man may fast very profitably if he has occasion to do it. I recognize it; but to set about making a virtue of it, in the way usually done, is wrong, because it went upon the principle that matter was an evil thing, and denied the atonement entirely, for they said that Christ could not have a body. This is the reason the apostle John insists he is come in flesh, and that His disciples had handled Him. It was denied that He was really a man in that way, because they thought all matter was a bad thing; and therefore the great thing to be done was to get the Spirit, which was good in everybody away from matter. Therefore they fasted to keep the matter down. That was a torment to the church. Though some of them were very strict, a great many were grossly immoral. It spread everywhere and affected even the orthodox. The Gnostics died out, but they left their taint in the church, and the whole system of celibacy and monasticism continued. I used once to fast in that way myself. On Wednesdays and Fridays and Saturdays I did not eat anything at all, but on the other days I did eat a little bread. I said, If I fast three days, I can fast four, and if four five, and if five better six, and if six better seven; and what then? I had better die. I felt there was something that made it impossible to go through with the thing. I went on with it, but God delivered me.
The Spirit of God had them in view. They were dawning then, because it says, “The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter days some shall depart,” &c. You see that evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, and that, when once the evil was introduced, it could not be put out.
It had been among the heathen before. The system of monasteries, and celibacy, and begging friars, was all in existence 540 years before Christ, and many think it was actually borrowed from the East. Certainly it is the same thing morally, but, as I said, many think it was actually borrowed from the East; as a great many of their doctrines were, I have no doubt. A Roman Catholic priest when visiting the East was perfectly astounded, and did not know what to think when he found among the Buddhists exactly the same things as Roman Catholics had at home. He told them he was a Lama from the west, and he was received in all their monasteries and everywhere.
Well, to go on with our epistle—another element comes in. When we have them all in, order, he says, “Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Such is the joy they were to have, “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” There are two things—my own will gone, and the perfect certainty of God's love. “Giving thanks always for all things:” take away my fortune and I say, “Thank God.” It is not easy, but of course the will must be broken; and on the other hand God makes everything to work together for good to those that love Him. Then you get a spirit of grace, “submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” It is not submitting to do evil if you want me to do it, but that in faith there is no will. If you want me to do wrong, I cannot do it because it is not God's will, but in everything in which my will is concerned I give way to you. We are to submit to one another in the fear of God. It is what sitting in heavenly places produces upon earth. Christ when here could say He was in heaven, and He is given as our pattern, though to us it is purely by grace.
Then there are two other main subjects that follow—the love of Christ to His church, and the conflict of the saints with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. We have passed away from what we are with God, and now we come to the special relationship of Christ with the church. The main thing in His mind is the church. “The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the Savior of the body.” This I believe to be our body.
I get two things He does in consequence of His love to the church. He gave. Himself for it out and out. That is the first thing He does in consequence of His love to it. Then, having taken it to be His own, He sets about to make it what He likes. He does not make what He likes to be His own, but takes it to be His own to make it what He likes. Next I got present sanctifying and washing by the word, and afterward His presenting it to Himself as a glorious church. This is special. It is not God loving poor sinners, but the special love of Christ to the church. The purification that we get here Is that which we have in heaven; as far as it goes, it is the same nature, and quality, and standard, and measure, and everything, as will be in heaven. He washes it here that it may have no spot there. “Beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image [now] from glory to glory.” Looking at Christ in glory our heart gets filled with the motives that are there, and this effect is produced upon earth. The effect is produced here, but the motives are all above. He “loved the church and gave himself for it.” This is the starting-point— “that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” It is a great thing for us to see that the condition we are to be presented in to Christ is the power and measure of our sanctification here.
It is manifest that we find the same thing all through the epistles. For instance, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” I know I shall be perfectly like Christ in glory, and I purify myself according to that standard. It is not that I am pure according to it. I take that measure and apply it now. Every step I take I see it clearer, and I may apply it to something else; but this is the only thing I am looking at to judge by.
In 1 Thess. 3 the same truth comes out in a striking way. “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” This is a passage that looks perfectly unintelligible until you get hold of what I have been saying. Instead of saying unblameable in holiness before God at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we should have said, “unblameable in your walk down here.” He looks at their realizing their Christian position— “to the end he may establish your hearts,” and draws the veil and there they are unblameable when Christ comes. That is where it is all measured.
This is evidently a very important principle for this day and every other. All the perfection which is spoken of, Wesleyan or whatever it may be called, is all gone. It does not come into the question, good or bad, because what I am shown is the perfection of Christ in glory. I do not get it till I am in glory, and there is no other object presented to a Christian as the standard but Christ in glory. We are to be “conformed to the image of God's Son that be might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Again, “As is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly: and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” Therefore the apostle said, he had not yet attained, but there was no other thing before him. He was always running on to it. We retain in heaven the impress got here; but, this is Christ. There may be degrees of realization. We shall be perfectly like Christ when we get there; all of us will be perfectly like Him. We are predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall bear the image of the heavenly. I am like a person in a straight passage with a light at the end. I have more of the light every step I take, but I do not get the light till I come to the end. When He shall appear, we shall be like Him. I get sight of this, and say, This is what I am going to be. It sounds strange to say that we cannot be as Christ was here, because He was absolutely sinless, and if I say I have no sin, I deceive myself. But I shall be like Him there, and that is brought to bear upon me now that I should have no motive working in my soul but Him there. This is what the apostle means when he says, “not looking at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen.”
It has been said indeed that God would not give a measure that we could not attain to; but I take the bull by the horns and assert that He never gave one that a man could attain to. He made man innocent, and there was no demand necessary; but the moment man becomes a sinner, God put something beyond him, which he is to run after. God gives him a law when he is in the flesh, and he is not subject to the law of God. It is an unattainable measure. “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This is our measure. Are you as perfect as this? When I get things fully developed I get Christ in glory. This is perfectly unattainable here, because God wants me to be always running on and having the one thing always before me. “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
The meaning of John 17:1919And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. (John 17:19) (“For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth") is, that for their sakes Christ sets Himself apart as a model man (though I do not like the expression), that we might be made into His likeness.
The passage in Heb. 13 (“Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus"), is more the difficulties we have to encounter he is looking at there. He says Christ has got there: you take courage and run on. It is just the same race exactly. It is wonderful that we shall really be conformed to the image of God's Son, when we think of what we are. But it has nothing to do with our responsibility as to salvation. You are not set in this path until you are saved. Our responsibility as men, God's creatures, is not affected: as responsible men we are lost. It is over in that sense. Take, by way of illustration, a man in business who has contracted debts; suppose I go to him and tell him how he is to manage not to get into debt, he would tell me I was only mocking his misery, for he had got nothing to manage. Responsibility is over in that sense; not that a man is not responsible for all he has done, but that he is ruined already, and of that the cross is the proof, because the highest act of grace is that He came to seek and save the lost. As to the history in scripture, the whole system of probation concluded at the cross.
“Now,” said Christ, “is the judgment of this world,” as it is also said in Hebrews, “now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” When it is all over with man, sovereign grace steps in, and saves people out of their ruined condition. A person may get all his debts paid but be left without a penny to begin the world again. God has not dealt with us in that way. He has paid our debts, and has given us the same glory as His own Son. This was a matter of His counsels before the foundation of the world. That belongs to all Christians. There is labor which God rewards, for every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor; but in the likeness of Christ every saint will then be.
We shall all be conformed to the image of God's Son in glory. It was God's counsel before the foundation of the world, but never brought out till the cross. “Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works [that is responsibility], but according to his own purpose and grace which was given as in Christ Jesus before the world began, but now is made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ.” It was before the world in God's purpose about His people, but it was never brought out till Christ had laid the foundation for it in the cross. In the first of Titus there is a similar statement, “In hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began; but hath in due times manifested his word through preaching.” All this glorious purpose, glorious for us and for God, never was brought out—never hinted at—until Christ laid a righteous ground for it in the cross. Then God brought it out and said, “That is what I am going to do.” This with much more is what we find here in Ephesians.