The power of intelligent devotedness is the understanding of the perfect purging of our consciences. Many do not understand this; they are aiming at getting it, and that is a complete reversing of God’s order. We have a purged conscience, not by anything that we have done, but by the blood of Jesus. He has set us down within the veil. We are within the holiest with a perfectly-purged conscience, with “no more conscience of sins.” More than this, the priesthood of Christ comes in to maintain me practically where the blood of Christ has set me, and the advocacy of Christ restores me if I sin. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:11And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: (John 2:1)). “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:99That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. (John 1:9)). The moment I have judged myself about the sin, I am entitled to know that it is gone.
What a wondrous place to set the believer in at the very outset of his course — in the unclouded light of God’s own countenance! But what are we to do? to rest there? No, but that is the foundation on which the superstructure of practical devotedness is based. Legalism says that you must work yourself up into this place of acceptance. The gospel says, Christ has put me there. Antinomianism says, “I have it, I possess it all in Christ,” and there it ends. But no! the gospel puts me there to run the blessed race that is set before me, to become like Christ.
Christ Outside the Camp
Hebrews 10 sets me down within the holiest, and Hebrews 13 leads me without the camp. I find Christ, as it regards my conscience, “within the veil.” I find Christ, as it regards my heart, “without the camp.”
If I know the comfort which flows from being within the veil, I must seek practical identification with Christ outside the camp. Christ within the veil tranquilizes my conscience; Christ outside the camp energizes my soul to run more devotedly the race set before me. “The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:11-1311For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. 12Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. (Hebrews 13:11‑13)). No two points are morally more remote than inside the veil and outside the camp, and yet they are brought together here. Inside the veil was the place where God’s glory dwelt; outside the camp, the place where the sin offering was burned. It is blessed to see Jesus filling up all that is between these two points. The camp was the place of ostensible profession (in type, the camp of Israel; in antitype, the city of Jerusalem). Why did Christ suffer without the gate? In order to show the setting aside of the mere machinery of Israel’s outward profession.
We may be clear as to the work of Christ being done for us, but is tranquility of conscience all I want? It will be found that the joy, peace and liberty flowing from our hearing Christ’s voice inside the veil are very much dependent on our listening to His voice outside the camp. Those who know most of suffering with Him and bearing His reproach will know most of the joy with Him within the veil. Our conduct must be tested by Christ. The Holy Spirit will be grieved if the saint pursues a course contrary to that which Christ would have pursued, and then the soul must be lean. How can I be enjoying Christ if I am not walking in company with Him? Where then is Christ? “Outside the camp.” “Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” Because Christ is not of the world, the measure of our separation from the world is the measure of Christ’s separation. When the heart is filled with Christ, it can give up the world; there is no difficulty in doing it then. The mere saying, “Give up this” or “give up that” to one loving the world will be of no avail; what I have to do is to seek to minister more of Christ to that soul.
C. H. Mackintosh, adapted