For that which the Lord then and there re-presented is exactly what the Holy Ghost is carrying on here below in answer to Christ's advocacy on high. For evidently another truth is intimately connected with it, the action of the Holy Ghost now sent down from heaven, and this, we know, grounded upon Christ's ascension. For having accomplished redemption, He went on high, and is glorified at God's right hand, whence He sent down the Holy Ghost here, Who, in answer to His advocacy with the Father, works in us by the word. Hence therefore is readily seen how it applies to the soul. “If any one sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” Carrying out the purposes of that advocacy, as far as concerns the saints in their need, the Spirit of God brings home the word in power to the conscience and in every detail of our practice day by day.
Let us just refer to a clear instance in another Gospel, which may show that the principles run through scripture. We have seen that the doctrine and the application are particularly found in John, as bound up with divine life and communion. But now take an instance from the great moralist among the four Evangelists, who was inspired to give us his account how Peter fell into a public and scandalous offense, calculated to shake the confidence of all weak believers. For, as he was a weighty man, and a well-known leader, the public fall of such a one denying his own Master in the hour of His greatest need, and this with oaths so solemnly and repeatedly and openly as in Peter's case, could not but necessarily be a tremendous shock to the infant company of the disciples who were then gathering to the name of the Lord Jesus. This being so flagrant a case, and recorded for our admonition, the Spirit of God shows us how it was dealt with by the Lord. First, he had been solemnly warned. When boasting of his love, he was told of the fall that was at hand—told of it in the presence of his fellows undisguisedly, but also with the most tender desire, if peradventure he might only be wise enough to profit by it. Alas! it is part of the state of him who is about to fall that he does not realize his danger.
Here it was Peter's own Master Who told him what impended; and he had confessed before that Jesus was a divine person, for he had owned Him to be the Son of the living God. Nevertheless, our ears are but heavy when we like not to hear, and we do not understand what we do not at the present time feel to be our own need. Unpalatable truths pass over us: what is then said is “a parable,” as we find with the disciples on a previous occasion. Peter therefore had no deep impression left on his soul, no vivid sense of need produced. Indeed such a fall, an aggravated outward evil, is always the effect of inward or secret failure before God. It neither comes alone nor all at once. Before this, Peter's case, though a man singularly fervent and of earnest purpose, had not wanted certain traces of unjudged forwardness and self-confidence. And this it was that furnished the occasion; for the apostle was so sure of himself and of his own courage that, if every-body else denied the Master, it was impossible to his own mind that Peter could. Yet this was the man that denied the Christ of God through fear of a mere servant-girl. So it is: if unbelieving and unwatchful, we fall into the very thing in which we are proudest, and in the way that is most humbling to us.
But look at the merciful ways of the Lord Jesus: for this it is of all things we want most to see not Peter's fall, but Christ's fullness of grace. Before it He had said (Luke 22:3131And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: (Luke 22:31)), “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” Satan demanded to have the disciples to sift them in general as wheat; and the Lord said to Simon individually, “But I (emphatically) have prayed for thee,” not merely “for you.” Ah! did not Peter need it? How sweet soon would be the proof of such interest and deep concern on the Lord's part about himself under such circumstances, as if there had not been another to care for, and all His love were concentrated on the one on the point of such grievous dishonor of His name. “I have entreated for thee, that thy faith fail not quite. And thou, when thou hast turned again, strengthen thy brethren.” The word rendered “converted” means the turning to God, whether it be conversion originally, or the turning back when one has departed from Him. The latter is of course what is meant here. It is what we commonly call “restoration” of soul rather than what people in general understand by “conversion.” The word is suitable to either. “Thou, when once thou hast turned again, strengthen thy brethren.”
But the point I would now press and clear is the grace of the Lord that could so provide for a wanderer, and that would give the certainty of it to the soul in such an hour of distress and humiliation. That flesh and hypocrisy might take advantage is true; but such grace is needed and shown. How comforting is the truth of God! Observe that this rich grace does not appear in answer to a penitent cry. Not for a moment does one doubt that the Lord hears and answers such; but there was in the case before us a reason for speaking otherwise, and, to my mind, of no small importance. If one had only the consolation of the word of the Lord, and of His appearing on our behalf when we begin to repent of any sins and judge ourselves before God, one might perhaps think it was one's own repentance, or prayers, that drew out His grace and awakened His care. And such is the thought of many a soul around us. It is exactly where people ordinarily find themselves in Christendom. That is, they make out that a man's conversion, as well as his restoration, is in answer to his prayer, a substitution throughout of human merit for grace. Where is Christ in such a scheme? It is semi-Pelagianism.
It is not so scripture speaks. There God ever takes the first place. It was God that began the good work when the soul sought Him not; as here it is the Lord evidently that entreated even before Peter fell, not the failing man after it, though of course he did pray and weep bitterly. But the stress is thrown on the prayer of Christ, not of Peter, however men may reason. “If any one sin,” we have—not shall have when he repents— “If any one sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” It is the settled possession that Christians always have. Sin is inexcusable always in a saint; but if one should be guilty, “we have an advocate with the Father.” His advocacy brings us to repentance. It is not our repentance that makes Him our advocate—but His grace which puts all in effectual activity.
Have you seized the truth? Thus, as grace it is at the beginning, so is it throughout every step of the way. The spring is mercy all through. Far I am from implying there is no righteousness; for indeed without it not anything else were good. Without the full maintenance of God's character and ways, all must be wrong; but this we have in Christ Himself, Who is our life, “Jesus Christ the righteous.” And besides, as we know, the fullest account has been taken of all that we were. “And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.” It may not be in precisely the same way as for the believer; but still He died for all. The blood is on the mercy-seat, and this is not limited to the people of God merely, but embraces the largest outlook over God's creation, so that the gospel can go out righteously in His grace to all, commanding “all everywhere to repent” no doubt, but appealing in love, persuading and warning souls far and wide that they may be saved.
It appears to me then, that we have the subject distinct thus far in God's word. We are born of water and of the Spirit. It is that action of the Holy Ghost by the word of God, carrying out the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which first of all the soul is set apart to God. Hence we read that He saved us “by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” There we find what is clearly from the starting-point of the Christian's career. For “God chose us from the beginning to salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” So also Christ “loved the church, and gave himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it with the washing of water by the word.” The disciples were clean through the word Jesus spoke to them; certainly not in baptism, a heathen idea, leading to antinomianism and self-deception, and bound up with sacerdotalism, but by the Spirit through the word of God.
The truth too is often taught without the figure, as where we read in James 1, that we are “begotten by the word of truth.” It is the same principle in I Peter 1: “We are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,” which is true from the very first.
The same distinction is maintained in the symbolic action of John 13, to which I have already referred. “He that is washed” (or bathed) “needeth not save to wash his feet.” “Bathed also is in the water of the word. It is not in blood, but in water still. Only this is when a man is first converted, or set apart unto God. He is bathed, as it were all over. Afterward, when there is a particular case of failure, the word is applied by the Spirit to convict us of that failure, and to humble us for it in self-judgment. So we see in Luke 22:6161And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. (Luke 22:61), that the Lord turned and looked upon Peter when he fell. “And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.” It was the washing of water by the word. The words of Jesus were recalled in all their life and power to his soul. “And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.”
There is another remark, too, that I have to add as to this. We come to further details in the practical application to this particular instance. The work was not completely done when Peter went out and wept bitterly. This was right and seasonable; it was of God; but it was not complete. And therefore we find that the Lord Jesus afterward deals with the inmost soul of this very Peter. As far as the apostles were concerned, His first interview was with Peter, with him alone. But even after this we learn what must be to make the work complete, and this not judicially, but in the perfection of His love. “Simon, son of Jonas,” said He, “lovest thou me more than these?” Simon protests He knew that he dearly loved Him. The Lord repeats the question of his love, and the third time takes up his claim of special attachment; on which Peter was grieved that He said the third time, Dost thou love me dearly? Well he might feel; for it became evident that his threefold denial was before the Lord's eye, and its root also. And now Peter gets to see how it came to pass. Not but that he had wept over it, and felt already his great sin and the Lord's great grace; but had he thoroughly judged himself?
It is not a question therefore of merely judging the particular offense. Never do we reach the bottom of that which has misled us if we but look at the outward act. What exposed one to it? And what was it that exposed Peter? He thought he loved the Lord better than anybody; he could go where the others could not; he could trust himself who loved Him so truly: never should he deny the Messiah. Peter was satisfied that he loved Jesus more than all, and could face prison, death, anything for His sake. The Lord thus brought to light the root of his failure. There, without one harsh word, without even an ostensible reference to the threefold denial, without the smallest needless exposure to others, the root was laid bare and dealt with; and Simon Peter was perfectly restored, and the Lord now could commit His sheep and His lambs to his tending and feeding. “When thou art restored, strengthen thy brethren.” He was converted (restored) now, and had the promise in the end, when nature's strength should wither, that he should follow
Himself even to the death of the cross. Nor is it only in the New Testament that we find this truth. We have there, of course, the doctrine and the application, and such a special instance as I have just cited; but now I go farther, and affirm that it is a principle which is no less true of the Old Testament, though it is only the New Testament which gives us to understand it clearly. The water of separation which the law enjoined on the children of Israel—what did it mean? Water was mingled with the ashes of an heifer that was wholly burned, skin and all, even what was most offensive. The whole was reduced to ashes, being one of the few sacrifices where this was done completely; and why? For the very important reason of vividly expressing in a figure the consuming judgment of God. In no sacrifice was this more fully carried out than in the burning of the red heifer. The ashes (for that was the point) were kept mixed with running water, and the Israelite, if defiled, was ordered to be sprinkled with this as a water of separation. There were two sprinklings; the first on the third day, and the second on the seventh day if the defiled one had been sprinkled on the third. The meaning I take to be that he was sprinkled on the third day, not the first, because one does not show a due sense of sin by being over quick to get through it. You have seen a child who, directly she has been guilty of a fault, readily tells you how sorry she is. But the same child will fall into the fault again no less quickly. Would you not rather see a child that showed more shame, and remained for a while under the feeling of it, than one so very hasty to ask pardon, and then forgetting the sin the very next moment? Alas! we are but naughty children ourselves, and sometimes we have behaved as ill to God our Father.
The only wise God provided this institute for the people passing through the wilderness; for, remark, it appears only in Numbers, the book of the wilderness journey. And there it was, and is, wanted. It contemplates the people, not in Egypt, nor in Canaan, but on their march through the wilderness. Accordingly the Israelite was called to abide under the sense of his uncleanness; he must bear the feeling of defilement till the third day. There must be no haste. The man who was unclean must abandon life to the pain of it for two days, and only on the third day, when there was a full witness ("in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established") is he sprinkled. Such I believe to be the force of the third day here. It has nothing to do with resurrection. It signifies, it would seem, an adequate testimony to his having been unclean; and it is when he feels it before God, and abides under it thus, that the seventh day sprinkling takes effect and the man is clean. Thus it is the reverse of trying to escape and have done with it, as a man would like to do; just as Saul, when he said, “I have sinned,” and then forgot all. Here the unclean was not sprinkled till the third day, and then afterward on the seventh. This one case gives us sin in the presence of grace, as the other grace in the presence of sin. Thus all defilement was now judged and gone. The once defiled Israelite is now fully cleansed. Grace triumphs.
How great, then, the grace of our Lord! Who, while making the fullest provision in case of sin nevertheless in no case makes light of it; even in the very provision for restoring, grace turns all to holy account. Thus is the soul made to feel its sin as it never did before, not the particular act simply, but that which exposed to it, so that one may be profited and strengthened as well as humbled, in a way and degree which had not been the previous experience. Thus, too, where sin abounded, grace yet more, giving a better state to the Lord's praise alone, which could not be if there were no more than the open evil act seen; for we may be as liable to fall again, if not more so. What riches of grace thus meets us! Assuredly it does meet us in the particular act that disgraces and pains us: only according to both Old and New Testament it does not stop there, but would go to the root of the matter, that the defiled might judge self in its roots, and the soul gather strength for itself, minister grace to others, and God be glorified in all things by Jesus Christ our Lord.
May we, then, rejoice in the Lord, and rejoice always. May we know how to hold every particle of His truth, in the confidence of His grace. May we look to it, that all the grace and truth we know in Him be used to maintain and vindicate the revealed will and word of God, that it may deal with our own souls as with others, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
W. K.
(Concluded from page 365)
“Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”