BUT now we have to look at another part of the subject. May we not sin, although we are a holy people? And when “we” is thus used, the family of God is meant—none less or more; that is, all saints are those who now bear the name of the Lord Jesus, and love Him in incorruption; all that call out of a pure heart. And may not such fail? May they not slip through unwatchfulness in such a way as to grieve the Holy Spirit of God? Most assuredly. “In many things we all stumble” This is sin. Call it not infirmity but rather sin. Do not use “failure” in such a way as to imply something between infirmity and sin for what is really sinful. Call things by their true names. Grace emboldens us to be thoroughly truthful and upright, to be honest with God and man, and above all to hold the right and title of God against that nature which (whilst ourselves are held for dead to it), not being treated as utterly evil, has been allowed to work out to God's dishonor.
Should one sin, what is the resource according to scripture? The advocacy of Christ. Therein is just the importance of these two dealings of divine mercy and living grace in our Lord Jesus, now at the right hand of God; for they belong to Him there, and they are both viewed as reaching us here. But they are not the same office; and to confound them is to lose the characteristic power of each of them; and as is always the case when you muddle together truths which are distinct, both are enfeebled if not lost. You may have perhaps a general vague sense of them both, but you have not the precision and full comfort of either. Yet the Lord freely gives us both, as we need both.
In 1 John 2 we find to what the advocacy of the Lord applies, and what it assumes. We are not merely brought into the presence of God, but have communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. We have a new life or divine nature, and along with the profession of this previously unknown spiritual being, given us by divine love in and through the Lord Jesus, there is the enjoyed fellowship with the Father and the Son. Evidently when we speak of communion, we have before us that which is very delicate and sensitive exceedingly. For we have only to reflect a moment, and we must see that God the Father could have no communion with sin, or with us in it.
We who understand the gospel know that our being the most wretched of sinners did not hinder God from applying the blood of Christ in all its efficacious power to us. It was for such that His Son shed His blood; nor would there have been sufficient ground for it except for such. The sin-offering of the Lord Jesus supposes our utter vileness and distance from God. But now we are through that one offering not only sanctified but perfected forever. This has been done by His death; and once done, the work forever stands. But it is quite another thing when you speak of communion in the practical sense. Confound these, and you destroy either confidence as to your soul, or enjoyment of God, if not both.
What then is the basis of our communion? It is Christ; but this being so, whatever is not of Him, whatever is of self, whatever is of sin, interrupts the enjoyment of communion. And what restores it when broken? The advocacy of Christ. It is not therefore, observe, the ministration of that which strengthens, consoles, or gives courage to a holy people who are brought into absolute nearness to God, while walking in a world where all is counted to Him and to them, because they are His; for it is not yet in fact under His sway, but rather under that of His enemy. Here it is a question of the practical state of our souls. And this is just as true in its place, and of the greatest possible moment for the saint. For you will find that the persons who merely dwell on such truth as is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or rather on that part of it which discusses the effect of atonement (as the early part of Romans does our justification), and make this, momentous as it is, to be the sum and substance of Christianity, are apt to be indeed a cold set of people, in danger of becoming formal and dry doctrinally, as well as deficient in sensitiveness of heart and conscience for the glory of God.
The work of Christ is not all. When we rest on it, the priesthood of the Lord Jesus applies to our need day by day. If I am brought into holy nearness with God, Christ's ministration of grace does not fail to act, so as to conciliate my practical condition with my standing by grace in Christ before God, to maintain me here according to such a title of holy access to Him there. But may I not sink to, or even allow, what is positively evil—be betrayed into bad feelings, bad thoughts, bad words, bad ways? It is too true. And what then? Am I to despair because I have sinned after baptism, as a child and saint of God delivered from the guilt and power of sin? Am I to quiet my conscience with the plea that I must sin, as being still in the body and the world? Neither the one nor the other would be according to God.
This let me add, dear brethren: knowledge in itself does not preserve, but rather when alone, it endangers; and the Christian who is most liable yea sure to slip, is he who knows most, but least seeks to walk in dependence on God. No position is more critical. Indeed we may say he who ceases to walk dependently is morally ruined already. What worse therefore than when a vast deal of truth is taken in without the continued exercise of conscience before God? We need that self-judgment continually go on, and this too in the sense of weakness and waiting on God. For as the essence of sin is the desire to be independent, so also that on which godliness turns, and of which it practically consists, is the spirit of constant reference and subjection to God in things small or great. Without waiting on Him, acceptable obedience cannot be; and when that is found, obedience surely follows; and obedience is of the very essence of the walk to which we are called and sanctified. So the apostle Peter says, “Elect, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” That is, we are the chosen of the Father as well as sanctified by the Spirit for the purpose of obeying as Christ obeyed. We have all the comfort of His blood-sprinkling and washing us clean from every spot; and we are sanctified to obey, not slaves like Israel under law, but sons under grace as He obeyed.
( To be continued, D. V.)