We may observe that this feast differs from others in that in it we have not only our individual responsibility brought before us, as in the passover for instance, but also our privilege. In the passover we have the solemn responsibility of practical holiness being maintained, also of our life being holy—all grounded upon Christ, the Lamb slain.
But here we have another thing, not our responsibility but our privilege. Now we have this new privilege that could not be in the least degree entered into by a Jew at that time. Now we can read, and are bound to read, these Jewish forms in a light that they did not possess or enjoy. The heavenly light shines upon us because Christ is in heaven. He is that light. That is the meaning of the day dawning and day star arising in the heart, of which Peter speaks in his Second Epistle (chap. i.). “And we have the prophetic word confirmed, to which we do well to take heed (as to a lamp shining in a. dark place);” it is more than dark, it is squalid as well as dark. Look at all the prophecies, the terrible state of man which they show; for prophecy came in when things were in a state of ruin. That however is not. Christianity. The blessedness of Christianity came when Christ came, when Christ died, when Christ arose and went up to heaven still more. This is the day dawn.
Now then here we have the rising to a height that cannot be exceeded, and it is all in Christ. How precious! Not only that we have all the blessedness of judgment stayed, of sins gone, and sin itself judged in that same death of Christ—all His mighty work in our favor to draw out the sense of God's love and to produce love to God as well, as nothing else could, but now it is the enjoyment of this wondrous place of Christ, a new place even for Him. Great is the mystery of godliness “God has been” or “He who has been manifested in flesh... received up in glory.” What is the mystery of godliness? People might have thought that it is something we can do, something the Holy Spirit would work in us, but no, the mystery of godliness is Christ Himself, it is bound up with Christ.
This is what we find in these three Feasts, Christ in the Passover—Christ in the Feast of Weeks—the Spirit of God come down; but He was not the new corn of the land—the corn of wheat that had fallen into the ground and died, but is now risen. No, Christ is that, and we are part of the same stock. We have the same nature—made “partakers of a divine nature.” Christ is risen and He is our life, we have not only the life but we have also the Holy Ghost to give divine power of enjoyment of the life, which can never be unless the heart surrenders itself to the death of Christ. People stop short of that, they don't know the power of His resurrection till the power of His death is known. And that is what makes a full gospel of such grand importance for the saint. There is a great difference between a free and a full gospel. A free gospel is the finest thing possible for the sinner. A full gospel is not for the sinner but rather for the saint. I might say Peter preached a free gospel, and three thousand were converted on the first occasion. Paul preached a full gospel. There is this difference that the preaching of Paul was most rich and profound and of the greatest possible blessing where it was entered into. It is all there for us and we ought not to come short of it, and if it is for us to know it is for us to preach. But the grand point for us is to take it into our souls. When that is done there is full blessing now. It is the for evermore, where death can never enter, where sin never did enter. Yow there is delivering power and that is the power that works in us. That is our portion by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, for that blessed. Person is always at any rate faithful to Christ, and to Christ not merely dead, but risen from the dead. He never stops short at the death of Christ—He would have that death entered into in all its sweetness—and in many respects there is nothing like it, but still there is this power in resurrection that we do well not to lose, and the Holy Ghost would have us follow Christ in faith where He is, and to know that our portion is in Himself there.
His death! It was for us, but now in His resurrection and. His present place in heaven we are there in Him. As Christ is, so are we in this world. Connected with this I would just add one word. It is remarkable that the day of Pentecost was...the day when the law was given. The law was given on the first Pentecost—not yet called Pentecost in the same way as now, but still it was fifty days after the wave sheaf and there was the law, and oh! what weakness, what death, and what misery, just because the law was good and we bad, because Christ was not there. But now that Christ has come, everything is turned into blessing. The judgment of God! Yes, because it fell on Him, it was due to us but it fell on Him, and surely it is an immense thing to know that; and can anything show more clearly where these dear evangelical people are than the fact that this great truth of the gospel is not believed. The wonderful thing is that they are so good practically with so little truth to be their foundation. It is a vital truth of the gospel that the believer shall not come into judgment.
I lost a most valued friend years ago by insisting upon that great truth—a lady of remarkable spiritual power, more so than most women I have ever met. She never came into communion. There were great difficulties. Her family dependent upon her being faithful to what they called their own mother the church, and there she was—much to be felt for. She had been a Roman Catholic and had married a High Churchman who died and whose children were bound very strictly indeed. She however could not get over that difficulty in her mind. I have found few persons that more appreciated the truth as far as she knew. But when she heard this wondrous truth of the gospel, she thought it peculiar and something out of the common rut—this rich wondrous truth which has been so fully brought out of late years. But no, my dear friends, this truth is bound up with the gospel. It is a full gospel.
There is nothing more wonderful than a full gospel—the gospel as Paul preached it. As the Lord said in John 5 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word,” not the word of Moses or the prophets now, “and believes him,” not believes on Him, that is, about it, but “believes him that sent me.” The essence of faith is that I believe God, that I believe what God says. He that, through hearing Christ's word, believes God that sent Him “hath life eternal, and cometh not into judgment,” not merely “condemnation.” Our translators of 1611 changed it to that, and I have never met with one of these evangelical, pious, people—even the most intelligent, that believed that he should not come into judgment. They think that the believer will come into it, but be kept and brought through it. But, let me tell you, if the believer goes into the judgment he would not, could not, get through it because he is not guiltless. Even David felt this when he said “Enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psa. 143:22And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. (Psalm 143:2)). And the judgment is a real thing. It is a foolish thing to go into a judgment that is unreal, and the idea of God s sparing anyone is an impossibility. This idea of the believer going into judgment undoes the effect of Christ's redemption. It is true that they think that the blood of Christ will speak in the day of judgment. But no, no one will speak in the day of judgment but the Judge. There are the books, and they are opened, and the books speak of the guilt of the man and the guilt is undeniable, and so there can be no issue from judgment but to be cast into the lake of fire. There is no soul but a sinful soul that passes through the judgment. The believer's judgment is past, that has been borne by Christ for all who believe. We shall not stand before the great white throne. We shall tell all out, or, “be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ;” we shall confess everything there, but that is a totally different thing to being “judged.” Being judged means that I suffer for what I have done, and if that is so what could it be but everlasting ruin! But it is not so. It would be a total denial of, a total inconsistency with, life eternal. Impossible that a person who has life eternal could be judged! A man who has life eternal, judged! such a judgment would be a mockery. The whole thing is a jumble of mistake. However, this dear friend presented my letter setting out the truth on the subject to the then Bishop of Carlisle, and he was horrified.
I mention this to show that nothing startles these people more than a full gospel. A free gospel presents rather what we are delivered from. It is a mercy to have got thus far, but I do believe that those I am addressing to-night are peculiarly responsible to God, that if they have got the truth fully for themselves, and I don't deny that they have, they are responsible to make it known to those who may not have had such opportunities. I don't deny that they ought to break it up into the smallest pieces to suit palates and the weakest stomachs. It is right to think of the state of souls, but we should seek to lead them on, little by little, and not to leave them where they are.
That is the danger of too great quickness in receiving into fellow ship. Souls should be led on to know the gospel—a full gospel, otherwise they remain where they are in their souls. We are all to blame. Instead of teaching them about the antichrist and Babylon and the woman of the seven hills (all very interesting and profitable, in its proper place), let us seek that souls should hear and believe the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. For what are all these things compared with a sound and full gospel as a foundation for the soul—to know that all the evil is cleared away in the death of Christ now, that we are in the unclouded favor of God, and that Christ's place is ours? No doubt, it is entirely through Him and His death. It is not merely that we look back but we look up to where He is now, we know that we are one with Him who is there. That is the grand truth of this Feast of Weeks.
“Thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a free will offering of thine hand.” Well, undoubtedly, this free will offering of the hand is a bright testimony in its own way. The free will offering of the hand is supposed to represent the heart, and so it does. It is one who is delighting in Christ, for we are delivered from all unreality, from all appearances, and it is the saddest disgrace for a Christian if the heart is not behind all that the hand does. “Which thou shalt give unto Jehovah according as Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee.” The essence of Christianity is our personal blessedness now. We are not only a forgiven people, but a people blessed; and how far? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.” Well, that is just the Feast of Weeks, and as there is this blessing—the richest possible for God even for us now on the earth—mark the effect (ver. 11), “Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter,” but it does not end there, “and thy manservant, and thy maidservant.” The blessing is to be felt by those that serve in the humblest position. Is it for those in the houses only? No, “and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you” —the specimens of the various classes of sorrow and need that are in this poor world. There we have the opening of the heart to all. Truly this is divine love, that if we are thus blessed the heart opens in love both Godward and man ward too, and wherever there is most distress, there it goes out the most actively.
“And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt” (ver. 12). This is not a man tied and bound with the chain of his sins. No, he remembers that he Was a bondman. It is the denial of that. It is not that you get the denial of it simply in the eighth of Romans, but, here you have it in the type of Deut. 16. The apostle presents it thus— “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1212Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. (Romans 8:12)). So, manifestly, I am no longer in bondage, but delivered. It is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Had it been the law of Moses, I would be under bondage, and that is the reason really why these pious people are tied and bound with the chain of their sins. The law is continually before their eyes. When we are looking at Christ, we do fulfill what is according to the law; Christ in that case fills the heart. “Thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt; and thou shalt observe, and do these statutes.” That is, the spirit of obedience is strengthened in the soul in the highest degree by, the sense of this complete deliverance and this blessed union with Christ.
(Continued from page 100.)
(To be continued).