CO 5:1-10{ONE of the remarkable things about the truth of God is- that it lays hold of the conscience, and acts on it far beyond the intelligence of the person. In this way a statement, in itself inaccurate and incomplete, in the mind even of the person who makes it, is directed to the very point needed to touch the conscience.
This is the case with what is often said about this chapter. It is a solemn thing to have everything thus turned out before God and man. There is a time coming when language will no longer be able to disguise what we really feet; all will be brought into the light-will stand in the presence of it; everything will be made manifest, not only to the person's own conscience, but in the presence of other men, too. There is this in the passage, but there is a great deal more.
" We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; " that word implies our personal presence-the judgment-seat and every one there; but besides this all is "made manifest " there now. It is " knowing the terror of the Lord " that " we persuade men." "We are made manifest to God, and I trust also to your consciences." There was a light which had shined into Paul's heart, and there was no terror to him.
To a sinner it is an awful thought that all must be opened up. before God, but it was not to Paul, because he was made manifest to God. He had been before God-he had been read by Him. And not only this, but there was a something-a certain life of God—which these Corinthians might see whether they did or not. There was not only light in his heart, but there was treasure in an earthen vessel, and Paul showed how God works death in us in order that the life may be free.
This is God's way with us, but it is' not what man likes. If man could have heaven in his own way, he would be 'ready to go there; but when it comes to the living God having His way with us, man's will broken and death working, it becomes a painful thing. " Though our outward man perish " is the way Paul had to go, and the Corinthians, and we, too, whether sensible of it or no; and it is a very blessed thing when, while &luscious of the outer man thus perishing, the child of God can say, " The inward man is renewed day by day." Life is working on through all the death.
Paul could say it was in the midst of all circumstances. " For which cause we faint not; for our light affliction, which is but for a moments worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at-the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." What is the secret from lack of which many finding death working in them have no power to say, ",for which cause we faint not "? Why not now as then?. It is because we are not realizing that " our light affliction, which is but. for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Do you wonder that if Christ is preparing d place for us there, and sees us meanwhile here carrying about as much of the sand of the desert as we can, that He, by letting death and disappointment roll in on all we seek, should bring home to us the fact that it will not do? There is not one of us really able to say, I see what He is doing, who is not also able to add, I faint not, though all be against me. In contrast to present things, for every touch that death gives you should be able to point to some circumstance in: glory that answers to it.—God has taken us potsherds of the earth up for His glory, and the great thing for us to do is to sit down and see which way God is going, for we shall find His way is to make all give way before that I should be-sorry if any one knowing me could not say, Your walk says that you have everything inside Christ and nothing outside I would look upon my body as an earthen pitcher in which to carry about the dying of Jesus, as it shall carry one day the glory of Christ; and, as to circumstances here, they are smashed.
This is no matter of attainment; -it is the simple path of the Christian. If God has, by the hand of His Son, labeled a place for me in the glory, what do I want here? when I get up to where He is I shall see that, though I was a poor broken thing here, " in deaths oft," yet it was my pathway. And where does that pathway lead up to? To the judgment-seat of Christ. He is only a Savior to some. But He would not apply His work to your soul and leave Himself out of the question. The point is how the saved ones should walk. He cares about your walk though you do not gain life by it. I should not like to be one who so little appreciated the love and grace of Christ as to be dragged up there just because He must have me, and it to be manifested there what an unworthy life mine has been!
Do you know what it is to have your motives detected? to have a friend come and say that which makes your heart ready to burst because he has touched the right point-the one you thought concealed? -What agony you felt at the first sound of it? What is that to what it will be before that judgment-seat?
But everything is " made manifest " now. What is there in me that is not made manifest All is. You may, like Job, be in the furnace, but God comes in and says: He is a dear child of mine; the dross is purged away, and there remains that which I put in. What would a place on the throne be without the heart being brought into subjection to His present work? What is all the eternal glory compared to the thought that Christ is the object for which I have to live now He has made me a vessel to show forth His glory now, and what sort of fruit does He look for from me?
(G. V. W.)
The Samaritans would not receive Him, and He turns aside into another village. Oh what a lesson that is! Because He had " steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." The half-hearted would not receive Him because He was doing the very thing that marked His blessedness. And so it will be with you; if you set your face to go to Jerusalem you will not be received by those who are half-hearted. (J. N. D.)