THE place we are brought into should be the expression of our acceptance of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. “Eye hath not seen nor ear heard,” &c. The Christ of God is the only channel, the only source by which we are blessed, and the Holy Ghost the only power by which our blessing is reached. To recover truth is a blessed thing, but the acknowledgment of truth does not give the power of walking in the truth. Far better to acknowledge the weakness in which we are found, for when truth is accredited that weakness constitutes our power, “when weak then strong,” gathered together in the name of Jesus, the power that united will lead us on.
The Corinthians had manifest gifts, but the apostle came in on their weakness, in on their anxiety to appear something when they were nothing. When we feel we are really nothing we become something the Spirit can use. If guided by the reality of the Spirit of God in our midst, by the reality of God’s presence here, we can go out filled without the need of anything else. The Corinthians were intoxicated by their gifts, led away by them into division and diversity of judgment, so that they needed rebuke. Paul judges everything in the light of the cross.
We who were linked with eternal life in Christ before the world was, ofttimes lightly esteem the things of God; we judge things in our own light. If we looked at everything in the light of eternity, we should say with Paul, our light afflictions are not for a moment to be balanced against the eternal weight of glory. Are we sensible of the blessed distinctness of our position? Do we take this position by faith, not looking for any display of gift, but the realization of God’s presence forming all our joy and blessing as we gather around this table in the name of Jesus?
Some call those happy meetings where there are some to teach, but have you entered into the thought that we are here, in such a wonderful place that our weakness is strength, a place that shuts out man, in the presence of God? Are we honoring God’s presence? Do we bring expecting hearts quietly resting before Him in the sense of His goodness as empty vessels expecting to be filled? This is to honor God in worship. If we let it down to the mere gathering, no wonder it is nothing but weakness. He invites us to a feast today. We gather around the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to show forth the death through which the power of Satan was destroyed.
We have our feast because of having been sprinkled by the blood and delivered from Egypt. If low enough, there is no end to our blessing. Alas! how often it is that the pride of having and of knowing something better than others comes in, but it ought rather to be a source of humiliation to think how little we know in comparison with what we might know. We have our full joy in redemption, but it is the question whether we can testify to the full stream of what the Spirit shows us afterward, that is what we should covet after. Is there any state of ruin or weakness where God cannot come in to bless? We may be talking of the altered times and evil days we are cast in, but is not the God of Elijah our God? Is He ever taken by surprise? Ours is the God whose thought is to take us up and bless us out of the fullness of His heart of infinite love in Christ Jesus.
Ah! who shall tell us save the Spirit the deep things of that God, and what He has prepared for those that love Him? Oh! if His people did but come together simply in the name of Jesus, bowing down, saying, Lord, we bring nothing, but wait on Thee to be sent away filled, blessing He would bless. Is He ever weary of blessing the people He has given to His Son? He acts toward them according to His estimate of that Christ. Ah! as if any partakers of the life of that Christ, and united to Him, could ever know what it is to lose the favor of that God towards the people accepted in the Son of His love.
First, the large thought of redemption, and next the Spirit freely given to lead on and to reveal the depths of love that it could never enter the heart of man to conceive of. Have you the Lord’s appreciation of this first day of the week? Do you come round this table as saints realizing your entire weakness in self, but gathered according to the power of Christ that no flesh should glory before God?
Whence comes the lack of divine unction? Is it not because saints look for something in one another instead of looking above for blessing and waiting on the Spirit for it? Paul could say, “We have the mind of Christ.” Shall we be straitened when we think what a large place we are set in? — a fountain forever flowing to which we may go and get refreshing, knowing that in the flesh there is no good thing, living and walking in the Spirit.
J. WILLANS.