Everything we find in the good tidings, or gospel, makes God's side prominent. We like to make the sinner prominent because we are thinking of ourselves; but in the gospel we ever find God's side prominent—God's manner to the sinner. It is the extent of His blessings in Christ for the lost one! The prodigal not only got a new mind, but a new appearance, and a new place; so it will not do to limit the gospel to the sinner's need. It is not enough to see the judgment removed; but you must see that all the thing which was under judgment, is also removed—the sinful nature that earned the judgment of God. Paul says, "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Rom. 8:1010And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10).
If I have learned, ever so feebly, the scope and purpose of the gospel, I am anxious not only to keep clear of sins, but to keep clear of the flesh itself, the nature which produced the sins, and all that to which the flesh would respond.
Look at the story of the prodigal son, and see what it discloses. It gives us a simple tale of endless blessing—the father's feelings about the prodigal. It is he who runs in the story. The prodigal wakes up in the distant scene of his disgrace and ruin, but he only learned the father's heart from the father himself. We lose sight of the motive which actuated the father's heart, and consequently we are weak in learning what it effects. In these two points we are defective—the motive on the father's side—the effect of the motive on the prodigal's sine. The father says to the servants, "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him." His investiture is entirely new. He is not only new in heart and mind, but new in appearance too. It was not putting a new robe on over the old rags. This is what is effected by an imperfect gospel; and therefore imperfect practice comes from imperfect doctrine. He must go into the father's house, new in heart and mind as well as in appearance. He must go in a manner suited to the father's heart and house. Everything had come forth new from it to fit him for his place; it was not restoring anything to him of that which he had squandered and lost. A wretched prodigal transferred to the highest place, as well as the highest condition—this tells out its own tale of the heart of God to a poor, ruined sinner.
Look at the case of the thief. A man brings himself to an ignominious death—he has not one word to say for himself—and there you see God's Son beside him, revealing the depth of the Father's love to that poor prodigal! That is what the living God has done to tell out His heart for a poor prodigal. Yet the prodigal's blessing does not stop even there. No; he is to come into the father's house, to eat the fatted calf with the father! How sad to find souls stopping half way. They are content to know their sins forgiven, and to go on without the sense of the investiture suited to the Father's house. Yet it is in this sense, I find, while I journey here, that God is made known to my soul, as a poor prodigal, so that I may joy in Him! Even here I get the consciousness of being a new creature in Christ—one who is to be conformed fully to the image of His Son—one who is created in Christ Jesus for a new order of existence altogether. Therefore Paul says, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our
Souls sometimes exclaim, Oh, but how about my business? Well, you have got the grace of Christ for it too; even a slave is to adorn the doctrine of God his Savior in all things. You are to carry about the dying of Jesus here, that the life of Jesus may be manifest in your body—an earthen vessel carrying about a treasure—a lamp within a pitcher. You are to go through the ordinary transactions of life in the grace of Christ.
Now do you believe that if you had tasted the joys of the Father's house, anything in the world would have power to detain you here? The brightest thing would pale before them—all your projects and prospects would go.
Poor and feeble as we are, some have tasted of these satisfying springs. But then, are we living on the earth to manifest down here that we are saved from it, from the flesh, from all our ruin? that we are saved to walk as Christ, in the power and character of His life?—in joy of heart because in spirit in all that is suited to the Father's house, as having tasted of its joys, and eaten them? Are we marked as a singular and peculiar people as we pass through the world?
We ought to be a peculiar people, the exhibition of the divine colors—the life of Jesus manifested in our bodies. Souls sink to a low place when they know not fellowship with the Father and the Son. They lose the sense of having life and incorruptibility for their portion, when they have to do in practice and will with the world and the flesh which is judged. Do you wonder then that they are not happy? They have no sense of present deliverance in Christ—of a place in Christ. Interest yourself for a moment in the grandeur of what God offers you; get a glimpse of that which "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:9, 10); and then tell me, "I will go and look for other things to fill my heart." You could not. Will you turn away your eye to a poor fleeting world, soon to be submerged in judgment? We know not how soon the trumpet may sound—very soon it may be!