Words of Truth: Volume 5

The inspired histories become typical, or parabolical, by the simplest necessity. Because, God acting in them, He must act according to His own counsels. And then, the fragments of history which we get, (introducing God as they do,) necessarily become so many revelations, more or less full, more or less distinct, of God’s way, of the purposes of His grace, of the operations of His Spirit, of the doings of His hand, and of the mode of bringing His purposes to pass.

Man being in action also, exposes Himself in various ways, as God being in action, reveals Himself.

This may prepare us to find parables in histories; and in other words, parts of the divine way in the pieces of history which we get in the inspired Book.

Now, I have thought this, in connection with 1 Sam. 1-7, which form the first part of 1 Samuel; and it is a very complete piece in itself.

Man is here exposed; but God in the ways and counsels of His grace, and in the operations of His Spirit, is also revealed.

Man is exposed, first, in Peninnah—confidence or pride in fleshly advantages, (a common principle of corrupt nature); betrays itself in her. She provokes Hannah weak in the flesh—in the spirit of Hagar and Ishmael. Man is exposed next in the camp of Israel. Confidence in fleshly or carnal ordinances in spite of a bad conscience and evil practices (another common principle of corrupt nature), betrays itself there. They bring the Ark into the battle. (Chapter 4.) I say not how man betrays himself in the sons of Eli; that is evident enough. But even in the saint, in Eli, the easiness that conferred with flesh and blood, and did not take counsel with the will of God only, (common enough with us all) betrays itself in him.

In these ways man is here exposing himself. But God is revealed. He enters this scene of action, and He cannot but enter it consistently with Himself, and this of necessity reveals Him.

He takes up the weak thing-He visits Hannah. This is a great principle with Him. To be sure it is in a world that has departed from Him in pride-for while He blesses us, He must humble us, leaving us no room or occasion to boast.

His Spirit in Hannah celebrates this; as His Spirit afterward in Samuel forms a vessel or quickens a vessel, the very opposite of the proud and confident Peninnah. Samuel is all meekness in the presence of Eli—Peninnah had been, all haughtiness in the presence of Hannah (chap. 3.)—different ways in which they used their several advantages.

Then, His Anointed one, the true Ark, has some of the deepest mysteries in His history, brought out in type here. The Ark which symbolizes Him is a captive, but a conqueror also in the place of its captivity (c. v. 6.) This is Christ dead and risen.

Then, in the last place, the divine way of blessing is traced in chap. 7; Samuel the vessel and witness of the Spirit, instructs the people in this way. It is the very contradiction of the human way. We saw that in chap. 4, there man will trust in an ordinance, a carnal piece of religiousness, a rudiment of the world; and that, too, in the midst of his practical uncleanness. Man will be religious and worldly, religious and polluted, at the same time. But God’s way, witnessed and taught by Samuel, is the way of faith and righteousness. Samuel requires of them to be honest with the Lord, by putting away the strange gods. He then will have them in the place of good-for-nothing ones, like water spilled on the ground—then on their cry he pleads the bloody sacrifice, and then God, answering the sacrifice with deliverance, he raises the pillar that tells how the Lord Himself had done it all for His people.

Here the witness for God instructs the camp in God’s way, which leads them to blessing—for they take that way in the obedience of faith.

A Door Opened in Heaven

The connection of the first verse of chapter 4 with the addresses to the Seven Churches is most significant.

A door is opened in heaven to John, and he sees the throne of God in government, when everything is according to God’s mind. John’s spirit had been troubled by the display of the utter failure in testimony just witnessed in the churches. He had seen the Lord walking amidst the golden candlesticks, investigating their condition, and all is entire failure; so that their end is such that Christ will spew them out of His mouth. What grace, at a moment like this, to open to the tried heart of the prophet a door into heaven, and to show the poor saint of God-tempest-tossed amid the rack and ruin of all which God has set up in the hands of man—a scene prefatory to the coming day of glory, where no failure can come.

And such is the comfort of the child of God who walks in communion with God. He is shown the purpose of God in heaven, and though he may scarcely know how to steer his course amid the waves and storms as they grow more and more tempestuous around, him, the Spirit of God carries his heart into a scene where no evil or failure can come. Whatever the church may be now, God will set a throne in heaven, and one will sit thereon, displaying the glory of God’s government, where not even the spray of the storm can be dashed! This is the stay of the heart, If the Church is all in confusion and disorder, God shows His saints, for their comfort, that even now the government is in the hands of One who sits upon the throne. The display of glory here is dispensational and governmental—Jehovah—Elohim—Shaddai—in connection with creation, as the One for whose pleasure all things are and were created.

Yet I am sure that a heart touched by sovereign grace will not fail to discern Jesus in the scene as the One by whom all things are upheld; and though the eleventh verse is still unfulfilled, for creation is anything but an answer to God’s pleasure, being under the permitted rule of Satan except as by Providence, all things are overruled; yet Jesus is the sustainer of what was created for the Divine pleasure. And He will, in a new heavens and a new earth, bring all things into subjection to Him who sits upon the throne.

There is wonderful grace in not only comforting the poor saint of God, by His own individual portion. But in revealing to such, God’s mind and purpose about everything in heaven and earth.

The fifth chapter unfolds redemption. It is not the question then who Jesus is, but what He is! and for the comfort of the saints, the heavenly drama is shown. John in a mortal body is a picture of the weakness of the present condition of the saints in communion with God. Though in heaven, John displays his foolishness, and weeps much. The saint carrying about with him a body of sin and death, always displays his foolishness in God’s presence; but be it so! all the grace of God is shown forth in this scene, for the comfort of John’s heart. Why should John weep at what man is? Had he forgotten there was a Man who was worthy? He shows his bewilderment in God’s presence, and weeps much; because he had forgotten the Lamb who was worthy to take the book and to open the seven seals thereof. And mark, it is not only His personal worthiness, but the redeemed worship Him in new song, and declare His worthiness because He was slain, and had redeemed them to God by His blood. This is His worthiness. He has glorified God in shedding His blood for us. He has not been contented to abide alone. He has redeemed us unto God by his blood, and we shall reign with Him.

Lower down in the chapter, the countless multitude of angels celebrate His praise, but they are lower down in another sense too. An angel cannot speak of Him as the One “who loved me, and gave himself for me.” They praise Him for what fie is to the saints. As the servants at the welcome of the prodigal son, they praise the master for what they learn him to be as a father, in his welcome of his long lost son; but this does not change their position, they are still the servants.

Then John hears every creature in heaven and in earth, and under the earth, taking up the praise. This is anticipative, but it was given to John to know it beforehand for the comfort of our hearts. As Peter could say, who had been with the Lord in the holy mountain; he had seen the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; but in point of fact that day is future, though for his especial comfort he had a vision thereof. And so it is with John. It is the grand result before his eye, as sample and pledge of what it will be when the blessed One shall have risen up from His Father’s throne to banish from the wide universe the adversary, and no place will be left for Satan in the scene. God had created for His glory.

What grace of our God to show us this glorious future, when all the mind in heaven and earth shall be one in worshipping Him who sits upon the throne, and in adoring the Lamb.

And now for a practical word. Do you know this mind of heaven, the mind of God? Yes, for as Christians you have the mind of Christ; (1 Cor. 2:16) but whether you are displaying it in your everyday life is quite another thing.

If I look around upon professing Christians, and ask whether they are displaying the mind of heaven, alas, I must answer, Anything but that. I see professing. Christians seeking their own good things down here; laying up for themselves treasures upon earth, and in no sense waiting for God’s Son from heaven.

Let me then ask you. Is the Lamb the center of your heart? This is the mind of heaven. If so, you will not seek your joys now. You will say, I wait for the Son of God from heaven for my portion; and as for trouble, you will not be striving to get out of it. You will take it as a pilgrim does the rough roads on his journey home.

Neither joy nor trouble will engage the heart that is centered upon Christ. Such in spirit wait for the scene of this chapter to end their sorrows and bring in their joy.

Aphorisms

No simile, or parable, runs on four legs!

The key of a parable lies at the door!

Baptism and the Lord's Supper

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are for the wilderness. One introduces into the wilderness, but it is Christ’s death, not mine only. I thereon reckon myself dead as a consequence; planted in baptism in the likeness of His. But we have not in Romans resurrection with Him; and even when we have, as I think we must say in Colossians no ascension, no Canaan.

As the one brings into, the other sustains in the wilderness. So we show forth Christ’s death till He come. I am on the earth, but in the consciousness of being a member of, the one body, which implies union with Christ; but it is on earth ‘I celebrate it, not in heaven; i.e., not as being there myself. I look at the humiliation as over with Him, but remember Him in it. Our service in it is simply owning the preciousness of His death till He come. Our state is in resurrection, but we are occupied, and celebrate’ His having been once down here, and show forth His death. The question is, “Where are we when we celebrate it?’ In the wilderness.

Christ's Absence and Return; the Holy Ghost's Presence

There are three things that seem to me chiefly to give character to the Christian’s path on earth, and to form him in it:—The Lord Jesus is not here; the Holy Ghost is here; and, lastly, the Lord Jesus is coming again.

Now before ever the presence or absence of anyone can be anything to me, I must first have learned to know them; and if I have learned to know one that has drawn out my heart to himself and become. everything to me, his presence or absence is of the greatest possible moment to me, and gives its whole complexion to my life, Now I ask my own heart, and yours, beloved, How far has the Lord Jesus become known to us, so as that His absence tells upon us, and affects the whole scene of our path through the world? Have we learned to know Him well enough to miss Him It is a solemn question involving so much for the heart of Christ in us; and I feel must deeply humble each one of us before Him. At times, perhaps, some of us may have known what it is to feel His absence as that of the one we love; but, oh, how quickly He is forgotten again, and the blank scarcely felt at all. Is this, beloved, as it should be? Why is it thus with any who know Him?

But I fear that the truth is, that few of us have the person of the Lord Jesus Himself sufficiently before our hearts. I am not now raising the question whether you and I know His work, or rather the benefits resulting to us from it. You know your sins are forgiven. You know that your peace is made. But do you know the One that has accomplished all for you? Has His love—displayed in what He has done for you—led you on to such a knowledge of Himself, as has made Him everything to you? “Unto you therefore which believe he is the preciousness.” (1 Peter 2:7.)

It may well humble us in reading the Gospels, to find how hearts there were attracted to Christ for what they found in Him, when they could have known so little of Him or of His work, compared with what we might know.

Look at the two disciples in John 1 —John the Baptist’s eye marked Jesus as He walked—he is filled with the sight, and cries as though involuntarily, “Behold the Lamb of God!” The Spirit of God hears home to the hearts of two of his disciples these precious words. It bursts in upon them what Christ was, and at once detaches them from all else, even from their religious teacher, (often the hardest link to break,) by attaching them to Him. “And they followed Jesus!”

But the Son of Man had not where to lay His head in the world that was all His own. It had rejected Him; will it make any difference to them? “They abode with him that day,” casting in their lot with the One that had now become their all. Precious unison with the heart of God that found all its delight in that lowly One. Well does the Holy Ghost take care to record the very hour of the day on which, in the midst of the heartless rejection of the world, two hearts, found that in Jesus which attracted them away from every other object.

Look again at Mary at the sepulcher in John 20 “The disciples went away again to their own home,” but Mary had no home for her heart where Jesus was not. “She stood without at the sepulcher weeping.” She wept because she could not find the dead body of her Lord. Your internal gene might readily rebuke her tears: but there is something more precious to Christ than intelligence, and that is a heart that loves Him. The tears told Him of one that loved Him on earth, and missed Him now that He was dead, or that she knew not where to find Him. All her affections were about that spot where they had laid Him. Bright heavenly visions are seen; angels are at the tomb; but what are they to one who has known Christ—they can but say, “Woman, why weepest thou?”

Beloved, what place has oar risen Lord revealed to us now from the glory where He is, with its light, shed back on all that He has done, in our hearts He is gone—from the earth, where we are still. Do we miss Him? Not that I would undervalue intelligence. Only intelligence of Christ risen could have dried Mary’s tears. But do our hearts and consciences keep pace with our intelligence? Yet there is a necessary condition of being able to love Christ, and, therefore, miss Him here; and that connected with intelligence of what He has done for us. It is that we should be free to be occupied with Him. Now, this would be impossible if there was still a question as to our interests for eternity to be settled with God. But even when Christ is known as the one that has borne our sins and put them away, there is still a deeper need, in order that the heart should be set fully free for Christ; namely, that we should know how God has dealt with the nature of sin within.

Christ has not only “loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood;” “God hath made him sin for, us, who knew no sin;” so that He has there executed judgment on all that I am, as well as upon all that I have done. He has judged me, condemned and crucified me. Thus, in the cross of Christ a full end has been made before God for the believer. of “sin in the flesh.” He can say, “I am crucified with Christ.” (Gal. 2:20) Until he sees this there will be inevitably the attempt to improve and make something of the flesh; but this is impossible, and the result is, that the more sincere the effort the more intense the wretchedness. “Oh, wretched man that I am,” may then lead on, through the Lord’s mercy, to the cry of “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? But until I see that the first man is gone from before God in the judgment of the cross, and that I am now in the second Man—Christ risen out from that judgment—the flesh still in me, but I am no longer in the flesh—self is still the object, and not Christ.

So blessed and perfect is the way that God delivers us from all that would otherwise come in between us and Christ, that the affections may be free to go out after Him. All my need being more than met by Christ, I may now be occupied in learning of the One that has met it. He has loved and given Himself for us, and now, counts upon our hearts for Himself.

Hear Him in John 14, “Yet a little while I am with you..... Let not your hearts be troubled.” Oh, beloved, has His absence ever caused us a tear? It is in the measure we have known the sorrow of His absence that we can enter into the provisions He has made for our comfort while He is away—opening the Father’s house to us; with the promise of His coming, and of the Holy Ghost being given to throw us into that wondrous circle of Divine intimacy, that we may know Him as we never could have known Him on earth.

And this is just the significance He gives His Supper in 1 Cor. 11:23,26. Listen to the voice that, speaking to Paul from the glory, tells us what we are to Him even there, “This do in remembrance of me,” He cannot bear to be forgotten by those He loves on earth to the end. Worthless hearts, we may say truly. Yes; but Jesus cares for them—He has died to make them His, and counts on our remembrance of Him—giving us only that that may be the sweet expression of it. If the Supper of the Lord means anything, then, as we partake of it, it means this—that we love Him, and miss Him in the world that has cast Him out. He invests it with just this character Himself: “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord’s death till he come.”

It is the weeds of the Church’s mourning in a scene that has been desolated for her by the death of Christ, and in which she finds no rest for her heart, only lingering round the spot where His cross and grave expresses its heart towards Him. We know Him by faith in the glory, and have rest in communion with Him there: but this only makes the earth’s rejection of Him more keenly felt, and the cross, that by which the world is crucified to us, and we unto the world, as we turn to our path through it. “Away with him, away with him; crucify him, crucify him,” rings in our ears. It is the judgment of the world; and the links that connected us with it are broken. The cross, the death of Christ, henceforth characterizes the one that loves Him. We call in our hearts from the blighted scene, and get away in spirit as far as possible from it, only seeking more complete identification with Him in His rejection, as the best and brightest portion He could give us in such a world. It is not the attainment of an advanced Christian, but what Christ looks for from every heart that knows Him.

Well he is gone; and the opened heavens show Him to us, to whom the earth refused a place, raised as Man to the highest point of heavenly glory. And this in consequence of having; glorified God on earth as to every question of sin, so that He is able to give us a place with Himself there. But for a little while we tread the scene of His rejection; yet not to be left comfortless in the desolation of it.

This brings us to the second thing that forms the Christian’s path. God the Holy Ghost is here. And if we have challenged our hearts as to the effect of the absence of Christ upon them, it becomes us now I solemnly to ask. What sense have we of the presence of the Holy Ghost, that other Comforter? I am not now speaking of the work of the Holy Ghost in quickening souls, but of the presence of a Divine Person here, of whom Jesus said, “The world cannot receive him, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.” (John 14:17.) This is consequent upon the glory of the Son of Man at the right hand of God; for before His ascension it could only be said— “the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified:” (John 7:35) and the Holy Ghost’s presence in the world ever, since has been the witness of that glory.

What an important bearing this truth must have upon our path, beloved. The Lord has even said, “It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart I will send him unto you.” (John 16:7)

But, oh, how sad it is to find that for the most part Christians scarcely know whether there be any Holy Ghost, as for any practical recognition of His being here. Thousands of sincere people pray for Him to come, as though the Lord had forgotten His promise these eighteen hundred years—or else that He be not taken from them, as if He had been unfaithful to it, now that He has sent Him— “He shall abide with you forever.”

Beloved, what sense have we in our souls of the presence of God, the Holy Ghost—of One that links us with Christ where He is? “At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you”—making the scene of the glory our familiar dwelling-place, if the cross has desolated the earth for us. Of One who at the same time binds Himself up with our every interest here, making our joys and sorrows His own—Himself the power of the voice of praise or sweet melody of the heart; or, on the other hand, of the scarce uttered sigh of infirmity and need, which is nevertheless His intercession for us.

Of One who, uniting us to the Lord in glory, makes our very bodies on earth His temple, the seal of God marking us already in Him—the earnest of all that is yet before us; of One who is the first fruits of that glory, that makes the desert more real as we pass along to it, groaning within ourselves as we wait the adoption, the redemption of our body.

Of One who nevertheless is the power of the life we have from God, rising up to its source and level in Him, so as even now to be within us the well of living, water, springing up to everlasting life, of which, as we drink, we never thirst again.

The power, too, of the overflow of the joy that goes up to the Father in the worship that He seeks; while there are yet out of the abundance of it “rivers” flowing out in the desert.

Oh, beloved, is it a reality with us that the Holy Spirit has come down to this earth, and dwells within us? He brought us the sweet tidings of the One that is gone, that has won our hearts for Him. He now takes of the things of Christ, and shows them to us, that He may engage us more deeply with Him every moment. He has not come to supplant Christ in our hearts, to present another object to them, but to absorb them with the One we have.

Could you tarry “ten days” in the scene from which He calls you away to such a One? Oh, beloved, had we even the decision of Rebecca for Isaac, not a moment longer could we consent to a tie holding its power to connect us with a place where He is not. We will go to the One whom, having not seen, we love; albeit the desert lies between. But the Holy Ghost will keep us sweet company by the way, be it short or long—never ceasing, if we only let Him, to occupy us with Christ.

Thus it is that the Lord has shut us up to Him for comfort. How far is this practically so with us—all comfort in Jesus’ absence flowing from the Holy Ghost’s presence with us? How sad when we think how often we grieve Him, and thus hinder all enjoyment of this rich provision of our Lord’s love. Too often all positive testimony of Christ to us is hindered by our allowance of the flesh; and the Holy Ghost has to turn to negative this, and thus days and weeks are lost never to be recalled.

Oh, beloved! let us keep watch that our eye may be fixed on Christ, that our ear be only open to His voice, that our outward ways may manifest Him; the inward movements of the heart that they be formed by His word, lest we lightly grieve the blessed Spirit that dwells within us, and so hinder the whole power of our present blessing.

Then, again, if we pass from individual blessing—flowing from the presence and action of the Holy Ghost—there is “The house of God,” “In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:22.) Committed to man to build (1 Corinthians he has terribly failed in it, and admitted all kinds of corruption; but God, in long-suffering, lingers in it still by His Spirit on earth, although a man must purge himself from all that is unsuited to His presence to enjoy it. But, looking deeper with God, in the midst of the outward profession, there is that which is still more precious, and which is out of man’s reach to man there is the body of Christ constituted by the Holy Ghost. “For by one Spirit have we all been baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” (1 Cor. 12:13.) Such is the bond that unites all saints upon earth with their Head in heaven and one with another, in spite of all that by which Satan has for a little time apparently divided them. But is it only given us to know this for privilege and joy? Surely, beloved I such a truth has its practical responsibilities, and to these we are summoned in Eph. 4:1-3. How far have we owned them, and thrown all that we have, and are, by His grace, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Few may be found with heart and courage for such a path, apart from all that disowns it, in the varied unities of man; but the Lord Himself will be there, with the two or three that are gathered to His name. What more could we need for joy to the full till we see Him face to face’

Nor has He left us without the ministry needed by us till then. Tongues and miracles, manifestations of the Spirit’s presence to them that believe not, may be gone; but all that is most precious and requisite for the saints remains, for the Holy Ghost is still here “dividing to every man severally as he will.”

Again, I ask, do we own Him in all this, or are we still consenting to what man has substituted in room of the Holy Ghost?

But I pass on from a subject of wide bearing and range on our walk as Christians, to speak of that which is given us to fix our hearts in hope and expectation—the coming of our Lord Jesus. It is linked with all that we have seen as to the effect upon us of His absence, and the presence of the Holy Ghost. In the measure in which we min Him we shall long for Him to come again: and the Holy Ghost revealing Him to us from where He is, only makes Him more necessary to us, and therefore more missed in the place of His rejection. Besides, He dwells in us to bring us into the consciousness of present relationship with Him as His body, His bride, and to form our affections according to it. Has Christ loved her, and given Himself for her? Is she the all-absorbing interest of His, heart even though He must be away? Has He put off the kingdom and possession of all things in heaven and earth that He may possess her heart—now calling her into His own path of rejection, but by-and-bye to share His throne, and crown, and kingdom! Does the Holy Ghost dwell in our hearts to be the power of our consciousness that we are all this and more than words can tell to Him? And is His absence nothing to us? Is His long tarrying nothing to us? Oh, beloved, “the Spirit and the bride say, come.” If He waits, He prays that our hearts may be directed into His patience. But He closes the Book of God with the promise—the last words that were meant to ring in our ears, and have such sweetness to our hearts, and sustain us while we wait for Him. “Surely I come quickly.” It was not for us to say “quickly,” though we felt it; but He knew it and said, “quickly.” Oh, has He had the deep longing response from us that He puts upon our lips” Even so come, Lord Jesus!”

Do we miss Him on the earth? He counts on it. Listen “I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” He misses us in the heavens. But it shall not be always so— “Father I will,” and it is the word of one whose will none dare gainsay, “that those also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.” Ah it was not in mercy only that He saved us, it was in love, that must have us now for Himself, and with Him forever! He cares to have us with Himself! Who could have conceived such a thing—after all our faithlessness and treachery of heart, and constant backsliding and denial of Him! Oh, if we only believed His love and the place He has given us in it, there must be a response in us: and this is the spring and power of the hope of His coming.

See, too, how blessedly it takes us out of the earth and its objects, interests, and hopes keeps us, as waiting, loose to all that out of which the One for whom we wait comes to take us.

The object of our hope, too, has an immensely formative power over us, even if it be in earthly things. How important, then, that He should be ever brightly before our eyes, as the one only hope we have. Then shall we not only hold the doctrine of it, but be “Like unto men that wait for their Lord.”

Nor will it be to fold our hands in sloth and indolence; but, as really waiting for Him, we shall be alive to all His interests here, finding it our solace in His absence, that we have something to be doing Him —something in which we can express our love. And it will not be anything we take into our heads to do, but we shall be seeking out the thing that suits His heart, to spend, and be spent in it.

How precious to the Lord to find one thus employed on earth. He looks from the glory for such as love Him, and comes and manifests Himself to them. Do we not hear Him say, “This do in remembrance of me,” and again, “Ye do shew forth the Lord’s death till he come.” “Is it not as though He said, “Do they miss me,” “Do they long for me to come again.” Oh, beloved, what answer do our hearts give to the challenges of His love?

J. A. T.

The Coming Glory

Higher than the highest heaven

High! high up above!

Jesus crown’d with glory sitteth

The God of truth and love.

Still though the wilderness we tread,

“A little while” we wait,

Jesus, our loving Lord will come

To ope the prison gate.

Then, while He tarries, may we walk

With thoughts fixed on our home;

Remember His kind gracious word,

“Occupy till I come:”—

That glorious home where we shall soon

Be gathered safely all;

Not one be wanting in that day,

When trumpet-tongued He’ll call.

Who can the wondrous glories trace,

Of that bright promised home?

Where we shall then with Jesus sit

The partners of His throne.

The Comforter still with us there,

The Father’s gracious smile,

And the “Lamb slain” for sinners saved,

Lighting the scene divine.

A. M. H.

The Counsels of God and the Responsibility of Man

We have in these verses what we had in Luke 9:28,36; our calling and our inheritance, or rather God’s calling, and God’s inheritance in the saints. We cannot too earnestly apply it to the heart and conscience, bringing the soul directly before God; but for this we need the direct action of the Spirit of God. I desire to say a little as to the counsels and purposes of God as here given to us (Eph. 1:1-14); but I must be brief, because it is so very full.

In the first verses we have the calling (vv. 3-6), and then the inheritance (vv. 11, etc). There is a great difference between the counsels of God, and His dealing with our souls as sinners before Him. Here it is entirely the counsels of God. Redemption is given as the way in (v. 7), but there is nothing here about justification. When we are justified, He shows us His plans and thoughts for us. The passage begins at once with this; and it is exceedingly blessed to get this side of the truth—that sovereign grace has had its own thoughts, and has accomplished them. But before He gives these counsels as a whole, He brings the heart into tone-abounding toward us in wisdom and prudence, thus setting us in the consciousness of our own present place before God, according to His counsels for us, the objects of His entire delight (through righteousness doubtless); these are His thoughts of grace towards us. Then He goes on to unfold the whole plan concerning Christ. His thought as regards us is to give us everything in the best possible way. He will make known “The exceeding riches of his grace;” howl “in his kindness towards us.” In ages to come angels will learn it in us; but His mind is that we should learn it now. He sets us thus in perfect favor in the Son, to let angels know the full extent of it. We should have this kind of thought of God, that He is taking us up to show in us “the exceeding riches of his grace.”

It is not in contrasts only that our souls learn grace. That is not all. I feel uneasy about souls when I find them learning grace, only by contrasting their state now with what it was. Even in worship I dread to find them living entirely in contrasts. It proves that the mind is too near the old thing; if living habitually in God’s presence, the thought of Him would be enough to fill the heart without a thought about ourselves. If near enough to Him we shall drop the other. To enjoy the light of God’s favor and the shining of His love, I do not need a contrast. If I have been exposed to a storm it is true I shall be glad of the shelter of a house, and I may contrast the comfort of it with the storm out of which I have just come; but, is there nothing in the house? The storm is never to be forgotten; but I should desire to be occupied with what I am come into, at rest and contented.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” All blessings are drawn from Him as such. They are titles of the positions in which Christ is as Man, and as Son. You get the God of our Lord Jesus Christ in chap. 1, and the Father in chap. 3. We have the best kind of blessings of the best place, in the best way—in Christ, “chosen in him.” The thought and counsel of God about us was, that we should be “holy and without blame before him in love;” this is our calling in God. It is not a question of the election of persons, but what we are chosen to. If you take “holy,” “without blame,” and “love,” it is God’s own nature, of which Christ was the expression when here. He was the Holy One, and always before God His Father in love. We are set in Him, and are called to be what He was in the presence of God. It does not say whether on earth or in heaven, because it is our calling and is always true, though not yet fully developed. We are now before Him in love, we dwell in the love; are holy and without blame, having a nature capable of knowing and enjoying God, and are also before Him to enjoy. We need not think of ourselves, for we are this before Him.

First, we have a nature fit for God (v. 4); and secondly, we are the objects of His delight (v. 5). He would have sons, Christ was a Son, and so are we. His nature flows out and finds nothing to hinder His delight in me, and I find nothing to hinder my delight in Him; and then as His own sons in the Father’s house, with the nature and character of Christ before God, we are fully capable of enjoying Him. This is what we are called to; therefore He is not contemplating our weakness and failure, so that you do not find justification for the sinner here, but that we are accepted in the Beloved. Instead of thinking of the ‘sinner, it is to the praise of the glory of His grace.

“In the beloved,” the expression is remarkable, it shows the delight of God in Christ, because He desires to make me know the place Christ has in His heart. Thus I find my place before Him; not according to the necessity of my soul as a sinner, but according to all that is in. God’s heart. This is what they went into in the cloud, in Luke 9, having thus brought us fully into our place, He can now unfold to us the counsels of wisdom and prudence, His thoughts about. Christ for Christ’s glory. There He brings us into all His counsels. When He has set us entirely at ease in His presence, we can rest our thoughts on the glory of Christ,—the kingdom as it were, of Luke 9.

Thus we come to the second part, our inheritance. Here we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. There are three titles of Christ in connection with the inheritance. As Son, necessarily heir; as Son of Man, the appointed heir, and as Creator of all things. We must add redemption, that He may not be alone in it when it comes, for He will have us. with Him as joint-heirs. Thus, there is the calling and the inheritance, the two parts of the glory-scene in Luke 9.

The cloud is the Father’s house into which we are first brought; then there is the earthly part, the kingdom of which we are made heirs,—God’s calling, and God’s inheritance in the saints. We have got the calling, but not an inch of the inheritance yet. Yet the perfect work of Christ having been wrought, we are cleansed, we are justified, and the Holy Ghost is given to us as an earnest of it all. We shall be like Him, and with Him, and meanwhile between His work and the actual accomplishment of all in the glory, the Holy Ghost dwells in us, shedding abroad in our hearts the spring of it all—the Father’s love and giving us the full consciousness of our part in the inheritance before it comes in power.

There are two characters of Christian walk as the result of all this. I am not in possession of the inheritance and am running towards it (Phil. 3:11); living by the faith of the Son of God, looking at Christ in the glory, and counting everything else but dross and dung. He has laid hold of me that they lay hold of Him, may win Christ in glory.

Then, on the other side, I am set in Christ in heavenly places. That is not running to obtain the prize, it is what I have come to already, and this gives a different character to the walk. Sitting in God’s presence to go out into the world, and to manifest what I am sitting in,—to be imitators of God. This comes out in Eph. 5 as light and love. We are called upon to exhibit the character of God Himself as it has been manifested in Christ. We go out to manifest in the world what we are, and where we are, as set in Him. “Ye are”—not, ye ought to be,—the “epistle of Christ”; though, alas, the engraving of Christ is sadly filled up with rubbish, and the characters thus marred and blotted. Yet, like Christ in God’s presence now, we shall be actually like Him in glory, for “He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.”

I would now go back a little to look into the way in which our responsibility comes in, and how God has met it—His ways for the accomplishment of His counsels. Here (Eph. 1) we are called, but we, are not yet in the glory.

Romans shows us how as poor sinners we can be brought in. in righteousness. God had these counsels before the foundation of the world. It is not the sovereignty of His grace choosing a people out of the world. His counsels have nothing to do with the world at all. God had these plans into which He was going to bring us before there were sinners, and before the world began for them to sin in.

They were thoughts for Christ as Man thoughts into which the world cannot enter, existing before it existed, and they will go on after it to find the perfection of their accomplishment in the new heavens and new earth. (See Prov. 8)

If we look through the crust of the world, what a scene it is! What darkness; if I begin to think about it! Open out the heart of a man of the world before God; oh, what a story it would unfold! Look at the world itself; oh, what confusion twice confounded! All the good that wisdom and power did, is smashed to pieces by the devil; while fragments of the wisdom and power and love seen here and there, are but proofs of the smash that Satan has made of everything. How unaccountable if we do not bring in sin! What perfect moral confusion! What a paradox man is! He cannot put the thought of God out of his head, though he tries hard. It comes back to him in times of dangers and in death: he cannot get rid of it. He must have a god, so he makes one suited to his own passions, nay, the passions themselves are made gods of and worshipped, to help him to carry out his passions! The heathen have their devil gods; one a good thief; another the upholder of the vilest corruptions. Lovely natural characters found among men, but spent on what passion has put in their heads. It is right and useful that the heart should be exercised about the state of things we now find around us.

But how comforting it is to go back to “Holy and without blame before him in love.” It is rest of heart to get away from’ even the needed exercises of our hearts, to the thoughts of God before ever evil or responsibility came in. These blessed holy counsels of God in and for His own Son—He whose delights were with the sons of men “hath saved us according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” (2 Tim. 1:9.) You need not go into the world to learn God’s thoughts about you, they were “before the world began.”

When you come to the execution of these counsels, God does not begin at that end. The first man is brought into the world innocent—not holy or righteous—but ignorant of evil, with one thing he ought to do—to obey God. This is the character of that one test. There was no evil in him to be forbidden; no harm in itself in eating the fruit, obedience was everything. It was not like the law which forbade lust. Tell Adam not to steal, he had no one to steal from: tell him not to lust, he would not know what it meant. Then the moment the creature was put in responsibility he. fell. Wherever man is tested he has failed the first thing. Noah gets drunk the first thing after having offered his sacrifice. Before the law is brought into the camp, the calf is made. When priesthood is set up, the first day Nadab and Abihu offer strange fire, and Aaron never entered the holy place in his garments of glory and beauty. Whatever God has set up for good and blessing, the creature drags down into ruin. But it is not only what we have done that is in question, but what we are; that goes a good bit deeper.

Patience and grace go on working still, but testing is at an end. Look through man’s history: though no promise could be given to the first man, yet in the judgment pronounced on the serpent, the promise is given to the second man, the seed of the woman, which Adam was not. The instant sin came in, God gave something out of man’s self as an object for faith, something for him to rest on. Still there is this responsibility of man; but now it is of fallen man. No dispensation had been set up, and man was left to himself till the earth was filled with violence, and God has to make an end of him in the flood. The world had become so bad that God had to judge it, before the great white throne is set. After the flood God begins to deal specifically with man, and we must have grace, as we see it in the call of Abram. Idolatry had come in, and judgment follows, and God for the first time calls out a man in sovereign grace to be father of His family, as Adam was of the sinful family. But He must separate him from the world to live for and with Himself—the world which God had made but which had become corrupted. He calls out one to whom He gave promises in sovereign grace, without the smallest condition; “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” God is going to bring in Christ—the seed, and blessing must come. All rests upon the promise of God. There cannot be an intelligent creature without responsibility, of which the law was the rule.

The law came in “by-the-bye,” 430 years after the promises, but could not disannul or add to them. It came in as the perfect measure of man’s responsibility. Tested by it, I ought to love God perfectly, ought to have a pure heart—a heart that loves my neighbor as myself. But where is it to be found conscience says it is all perfectly right, I ought not to have bad lusts, but I have them. I do not love God as I ought, nor my neighbor as myself. You do not find one whom the law does not convict of sin. Patience went on, grace worked in individuals; prophets sought to restore; but the history of the thing went on till there was no remedy. Then God said, I have yet one Son; one thing to wake up good in the human heart, if it be there. “It may be they will reverence my Son.” The answer was, “Come let us kill him!” Thus responsibility is at an end, and man is lost; it is the Willing point of man’s history. All has been gone through in the dealings of God. They had had the law, and broken it; the prophets, and rejected them; the Son, and killed Him; and I may add, the Holy Ghost, and resisted Him. For though the cross had brought all to an issue, grace lingered for a little moment in Israel, and till the testimony of Stephen, in answer to the prayer on the cross. Thus the question of responsibility has been thoroughly settled. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen, and hated both me and my Father.” (John 15)

There is man! The individual gets the consciousness of that in his own soul. I find it all true about myself. I am a sinner with whom God has dealt in all these ways. It is my story that is told. “We indeed justly.” I am one that despised grace, that rejected the Son, and I am convinced of sin—I do not say the world is, though true; but I say it is I who have done it all!

Up to the cross all was thus thoroughly gone through, and man fully tested. Now God brings out grace, which proves that He no longer deals with man on the ground of responsibility. The law came in after the promise and before Christ, to bring out the offense, to make sin become exceeding sinful. Man did not merely what was wrong, but did it in spite of God forbidding him. Responsibility (not the Christian’s) ends in the first man being turned out of Paradise, and the Second Man turned out of the world by him, as unfit to live in it: on no terms will the first man have God. He may heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind, cast out devils, but they will not have Him, they would rather have the devil: and we are in a world that has done this.

Now, when man’s responsibility is at an end, and Christ is rejected and on the cross, God begins to work:—works simply, effectually;—does the whole at once and completely. The very point where the enmity of the human heart was proved against God, was the point where God proved His love to man. Man is thus convicted of sin up to enmity against Christ who was the perfect expression of God’s love to him; and God is above it all in grace! What hath God wrought! Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Sin was there fully developed, and the history of it in man brought to an end. Then in that very place, and as to the sin, Christ perfectly glorified God. “In the end of the world.” He has done it so perfectly that, as man, God has set Him at His own right hand. So perfect was the work for man, and for glory to God, that the Man who did it has gone up into glory! We have here not a man turned out of Paradise on account of responsibility, but a Man gone into the heavenly Paradise in whom God is glorified! So glorified that He must glorify Him “straightway,” and not wait for the kingdom. The work is done for taking away the sins, and taking man to glory. The thing is complete and absolute, and He must have glory. What had we to say to the world our sins and hatred of God, that was all. It was a work done between Christ and God, in drinking the cup which no heart can fathom.

Now from this man entering into the glory of God, I get a new starting point altogether. Now He can bring out the counsels which were before responsibility began, because Christ was there as the center of them. The things that were in God’s mind that He could not before reveal, He can now. bring out, the blessed and glorious work being all accomplished which gives us our title to have part in them. Christ is our title. What is a Redeemer without His redeemed? He has brought us to God. Are we then unfit for God? Nay, fit for Him conscience can rest. We are accepted in the Beloved, and sealed with the Holy Ghost. My place before God is not in the flesh, but in Christ; not in the first Adam, but according to the worth of Christ’s work. He must see of the travail of His soul, and must have me with Him in glory.

A word as to how we are brought into it The Holy Ghost is given in Scripture consequent upon the faith of a person in the work that results in the remission of sins. It is a person who has received that who is sealed. (See Acts 2:38 and 10: 43, 44.) I am made as white as snow, and now the Holy Ghost says, I can come and dwell there. I am not speaking of being born of God, but of the way the heart is brought into it all.

In Rom. 1-3 we have all the world brought in guilty before God, in respect of sins,—not the state, but works as the ground of judgment. Now God sets forth Christ for a propitiation. This is the blood on the mercy-seat, and we get both sides of Lev. 16—the goat for the Lord’s lot, and the scapegoat for the people. All is grace now. It is no question of experience, for “there is none righteous, no, not one.” I do not want experience about this, for it is the positive testimony of God, though the deeper I feel about it the better. I find my responsibility perfectly met, and my sins all cleared away, ending in the perfect blessedness of Rom. 5:11,—what God is to the sinner.

After this we come to experience, which is connected, not with what I have done, but with what I am—what I have got into through Adam’s sin. I am away from God, and have a sinful nature and lusts. I have to do with what I am, no matter whether I am a Jew or not. This brings in the law. I ought not to lust, but I do. Lust comes from vile flesh. What is flesh? It is that I like sin, and it is there. I shall resist it if I am a Christian, but still it is there. This goes deeper, and the remedy is deeper. You find another truth. It is not Christ bearing sins, but I must reckon myself dead,—crucified with Christ. Can I live on in sin? How did you obtain a part in the obedience of Christ? By death. How can you live on in that which is dead? If I tell a man that his debts are paid, it is not his experience of it, but resting on my word that makes him happy. Unbelief raises a question of experience here, and says, I am not dead; God says you are, and you are now alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus, I have the way to appropriate all that these counsels give me. For I am not in Adam, but “in Christ,” and of course have all that is His.

Rom. 8 gives us the second aspect of our blessedness—what the saint is before God “in Christ Jesus.” Now I can understand what it is to be accepted in the Beloved. I have an entirely new place; “ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” The flesh is all past; we are not in the first Adam, but in the last! We are brought into His place; if He is heir of all things, so am I.

Thus it is not merely my responsibility which has been met, but I am transported out of the condition I was in in Adam, into Christ. I do not enter consciously into this new condition till I have learned that in me dwelleth no goad thing, and cry, “oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?”—not take away my sins—not deliver me from what I have done, but from what I am! That brings me into the place where I have the fruit of those counsels; Christ’s place in the present grace where He is.

All responsibility is thus settled up to the cross, “guilt cleared away; and besides all that, I am in a new place, in new man before God. Then the responsibility of the Christian begins. I never can know what it is to have to do with being in Christ, until I know what it is to be delivered from the flesh. If we are in Christ, Christ is in us, and our responsibility is to show Christ in everything. Man’s responsibility has proved a total failure; the Christian’s responsibility is to manifest the life of Jesus in His mortal flesh, and nothing else. You are the epistle of Christ. That is where you are set in the world: “Manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, hut with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” Men are now to read Christ in you as plainly as they could read the ten commandments on the two tables of stone. It is the engraving of Christ by the Spirit of God upon our hearts that is to be read. Our responsibility as men is over; our responsibility as Christians has begun. We have now to overcome the flesh and to manifest Christ, and He says, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

May the Lord give us earnest purpose of heart, that we may be ever near enough to Him to draw the grace we need to glorify Him!

The Cross

1—ON MAN’S PART.

1. It was a refusal, and the end of all remedial measures, by the rejection of Christ.

2. The close, therefore, of the moral government of God, as established under the law.

3. Man taking the place of the betrayer and murderer of Christ.

4. The outlet of human enmity against God.

5. The closing up of all relations with God, by death.

6. The proof of the world’s rebellion.

7. The new center on which the issue of all things must be tried in righteousness.

8. God forced at the cross into the place of Judge. The act of man has done this.

2—ON SATAN’S PART.

1. The masterpiece of the devil’s craft, to get Christ out of the world, and put an end to Him.

2. The concentration of the usurper’s hate against God and man.

3. The heading up of earthly revolt under its ringleader, the prince of this world.

4. The crisis of the ways of God with the devil.

5. The measure and, limit of Satan’s power, except to deceive the nations, and head up all things for the Antichrist.

3. —ON CHRIST’S PART.

1. The place where He glorified God, when He offered Himself up, through the eternal Spirit.

2. The place where He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

3. By the blood of His cross He made peace.

4. The cross was the measure of His perfect obedience unto death.

5. It was there that He brought mercy and truth together, and righteousness and peace kissed each other.

6. It cleared the way of all the obstructions to God’s coming back in grace and blessing to sinners.

7. The place of the Son of Man’s glory; for it was He who wrought this for God and men, and for the overthrow of Satan.

8. The fire of God’s holiness fed there upon the fat of the sacrifice.

9. It was there the righteous judgment of God spent itself upon Christ as the sin-offering.

4. —ON GOD’S PART.

1. The inlet of divine love to the world.

2. The wisdom of God, and the power of God to salvation, to everyone that believeth.

3. The declaration that God is just, and the justifier of the ungodly, who believeth in Jesus.

4. Righteousness has there a new claim on God, by which grace can reign unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

5. There God condemned sin in the flesh, and by death brought it down to death, and left it in ashes.

6. It is the new meeting place between God and the believer, where sin and death and judgment are no more.

7. On the cross Christ gave up the ghost, and correspondingly God rent the veil that hid Him.

8. There by the death of His Son, God reconciles us to Himself.

5. —THE CROSS BETWEEN JEW AND GENTILE.

1. It was there that man was reconciled to his fellow, and Jew and Gentile made one.

2. It broke down the middle wall of partition; Christ having abolished in His flesh the enmity.

3. He made in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace.

4. He reconciled both unto God, in one body.

5. Them which were afar off, and them that were nigh, have (both) through Him access by one Spirit unto the Father.

6. —THE CROSS AND THE LAW OF COMMANDMENTS.

1. There the handwriting of ordinances, that was against us, was blotted out.

2. He took all that was contrary to us out of the way, nailing it to His cross, and triumphing over them in it.

3. The shadows of things to come were superseded, and the body is of Christ.

7. —THE CROSS OF CHRIST TO A DISCIPLE AND HIS LORD.

1. It is the only way by which he can follow Christ.

2. It is the power by which he denies himself, and goes after Him who made the path.

8. —THE CROSS OF CHRIST BETWEEN THE BELIEVER AND THE WORLD.

1. It is that by which he is separated from the world, by its own crucifixion to him.

2. He maintains by his own death to the world, his part with the Christ whom the, world rejected, and becomes a living witness in it to the fact of the judgment of God to be poured out upon the world which did it. B.

David

In the books of Samuel and Kings we have the histories of David and. Solomon; there they are considered historically; but in Chronicles they are to be considered in their moral and typical character, whether as showing forth the Lord Jesus, or His saints.

Did you ever meditate on the difference between David and Solomon? David teaches you of grace, and Solomon of glory. Grace is illustrated through David’s whole course; he was a poor shepherd boy, despised by man, a stripling. Samuel asks Jesse, “Are here all thy children?” The right man, was well nigh passed by; but Samuel says, “send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither.” This was the Lord’s anointed, chosen by grace, when despised by man; sustained by grace, when destroyed by man; and ultimately when set on the throne of Judah, kept there by grace. There is more still, He was chosen, anointed, sustained, and raised to the kingdom; but, besides that, when he had fallen, he was restored by grace, but by grace through righteousness he was restored—that was grace; but the sword never departed from his house—that was righteousness. When defiled, he was kept to the end and suffered to depart in peace. This indeed was grace.

Solomon teaches us of glory. He had never been a despised shepherd boy, nor like a partridge hunted upon the mountains. We catch our first sight of him on the throne. The tale of glory is less affecting than that of grace; we live in the midst of scenes more affecting than those of glory, more sweet than eternity can tell.

Again, in David we have the warrior king, in Solomon the peaceful king. If David views the surrounding nations, he finds them enemies, and sallies forth against them, sword in hand. Solomon, from the quiet dignity of his palace, accepts their homage, and is honored, and sought unto by them. Lastly, David is the servant, Solomon the son. First Chronicles gives you David the servant; second Chronicles, Solomon the son.

Now, these combinations often occur in Scripture, and the more we are let into the secret of the dispensations, the more we can enjoy the Word. For instance, Enoch gives us heavenly stranger ship, Noah earthly blessing, Moses, on Pisgah, takes us to, heaven, while Joshua follows, taking possession of the land. Elijah, again, is the heavenly stranger, and Elisha the man of the earth. These things show unity of purpose throughout the whole book, and prove that God’s own principles and purposes have been always before Him. His book is no mass of confusion, with a bright thought glittering here and there. It has a well-defined, premeditated character, framed for eternal blessing. David illustrated the blessing of God in His servant. Solomon sat in the fruit of David’s labors. Jesus, in His first coming, was the Servant; in the second coming He will be manifested the Son. Was He not always the Son? Most assuredly was from all eternity. But He came as a servant, and when He comes again shall He not serve you? Surely He “will come forth and serve,” but it will be in the character of the Son. In all these combinations of which we have spoken, from Enoch and Noah, David and Solomon, we are in company with the Christ of God.

Having thus prefaced the history of David, we shall commence at the thirteenth chapter of 1St Chronicles, and divide the subject into four distinct parts, the first of which will suffice for this day’s meditation, and will carry us to the close of the sixteenth chapter.

At the end of the twelfth chapter we find David established in full blessing; by the unanimous voice of the tribes, he is anointed king in Hebron with hosannas! It was an intoxicating moment, more so than any we have known, yet we can understand it: we know that it is easier to gain a victory than to use it. The use is more moral, and the gaining of the victory more, so to speak, physical. David, in his humiliation, had gone from strength to strength, but in his day of triumph he got restless, and summoned his captains to bring home the ark from Kirjath-jearim. How could he think of entrusting the ark to his captains? Ah! there it was, he had just been amongst them, the favorite of the nation; it was a moment of intoxication, and David was thrown off his guard. Very, very natural.

But there was besides this act of the flesh, a very beautiful one of the Spirit. It was the desire to bring home the ark; never had Saul attempted it. It might have lain at Kirjath-jearim forever for him, but David desired to bring it back. The Spirit and the flesh were acting together. The flesh demanded of the captains, and set the ark upon a cart; the Spirit had set David’s heart on haying God with His people, and made him resolve that his throne should be where God was. How wonderful to see these two agents working together in one act, and to trace each as clearly as if the other were absent. Cannot we often see this in our own doings? “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh,” and “these are contrary the one to the other.” (Gal. 5) This is a vivid instance of the complex nature in the saint of God. If the carelessness of the flesh puts the ark upon a cart, and commits it to the care of the captains, it is the earnestness of the Spirit that desires to bring God back to His people, and cares not for the kingdom in His absence. If God be not king, neither will I be!

But, let me ask, will God form an alliance with your carelessness? He could as easily join with your lusts! The Word had commanded that the ark should be carried on the shoulders of the. Levites, and if David prefers a new cart, God will vindicate His own Word. (Num. 4:15.) To touch the ark was, for any but a Levite, judicial death. Uzza touched it, and he died “before God.” It could not be otherwise. “Hath God spoken, and shall he not make it good?” You will say, perhaps, it was a venial fault in David. I grant you, indeed, it was very different from the matter of Uriah the Hittite. But can God be as indifferent as I am about His own word? We think the Levite and the cart equally suitable; God thinks differently. He surely pities me, but He never complies with my ignorance. The idea of the ark on a cart! Could there have been greater carelessness of Scripture, yet where is there more beautiful energy of the Spirit than the desire to have the ark of God at home? Now David quite misunderstood the dealings of God; “he was displeased.” He was quite in a sulk about the death of Uzza. After all my hilarity and my merry-making in the presence of God, after all my desire to bring the ark borne, is this all I get? David allows the ark of God to pass into the hand of a Gentile. (Chapter 13:13.) Have you not sometimes felt in a sulk, out of humor with God? Has He ever crossed a day of your festivity, and with, so to speak, rude foot dashed all your joys to the earth? David sulkily judges that God has, without reason, interfered with his spiritual enjoyment.

As we go through the fourteenth chapter we find the Philistines assembled against David, and he applies to God to know if he should go against them I God says, “Go, and prosper.” And again they come against him, and again he asks, and again God says, “Go, and prosper;” think on this. If we were but familiar with the Word we could never be puzzled as to what to do in any emergency. Here is a man out of temper yet coming back to God! Have you not seen this at home, a shadow in the family, yet they are thrown together still? Now, God does not deal with David’s temper. He melts all the sulkiness clean out of him, by heaping coals of fire on his head. This is what you must do; you must not be overcome of evil. God overcomes evil. He does not resent the ways of His children, but gives sulky David victory over the Philistines. God takes coals of fire and heaps them on David’s head, and melts the sulkiness out of him God never tells you to do anything that He does not do Himself. He tells you to love your enemies and give them food, and He does it Himself. He tells you to overcome evil, and He does it Himself. Here it is. The consequence is, that David finds out his mistake. I see how it is, he says, “none ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites” (chap. 15: 2). It was late in the day to discover the mistake; but David had to say, “Perez-Uzza,” at his own door at last. Blessed moment, in which I find myself wrong and God right! I can bear to find out that I am wrong—to find that God was wrong, would be eternal ruin. No doubt it is very humbling to discover that I have been sulky, unwarrantably sulky, and with God; but then no two things more sweetly combine than broken-heartedness and joy. You cannot be truly happy unless you know a broken heart. You may have pastime; but joy in God demands a broken heart I do not speak of the measure but of the fact. How can you be happy in God’s presence, unless you know that you are a sinner?

David no longer sulks with God, he blames himself now, though God has never upbraided him. Was the prodigal upbraided when he returned broken-hearted? And when Jesus spoke to the woman of Samaria, did. He reproach her? One beam from Sinai lie let fall to discover to herself her condition, but the moment she saw herself, He had done.

The ark was in Obed-edom’s house. The Lord blessed Obed-edom for its sake, and used this blessing to melt David. The process works the cure; David discovered it all now. Poor foolish David, how like ourselves you were.

We all blame God when the mischief is at our own door, but, He restoreth us, and leadeth in the paths of righteousness, for His name’s sake.

David calls Aaron and the Levites. He is now with God. You may have your moments of spiritual merriment. They may be with God, and not with Scripture. If not they will all pass away! David brings no cart now; he calls the house of Aaron and the Levites! Ah, brethren, “I commend you to God.” Is that all? Nay, I commend you to God, and to the “Word of his grace.” Devotional feelings won’t do, you must get the illumination and seal of Scripture.

“Because ye did it not at the first” (v. 13). I do not blame David a bit for putting. blame on the Levites; they ought to have resented it. They ought to have protected the purity of the house of God. The Levites in Uzziah’s days, were more faithful; when he dared to go into the sanctuary they forced him out. “Go out of the sanctuary;” (2 Chron. 26) “It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense.” And Uzziah was angry, and became a leper.

In the fifteenth chapter we have the great preparations that were made to bring home the ark; there is neither stumbling or smiting now. All is right with the Scriptures as well as with the piety of the mind, and the ark is safely brought to the tent prepared for it.

In the sixteenth chapter David steps into millennial days, and gives us, as it were, a rehearsal of them. David has singers; Moses never prepared a song for the tabernacle; David does for the temple, and delivers it into the hands of Asaph and his brethren. There had been a burst of music on the banks of the Red Sea, Moses and Miriam answering each other, but there was no music for the tabernacle. There could not be, for Israel was not at rest. The songs of Asaph could not be awakened till David had prepared for Solomon. Then they could rehearse the songs of the kingdom. Can you do it? The kingdom is not yet come, but you can be tuning your cymbals about the door! David does it, and puts in the hand of Asaph a composite song, made up of patches of various psalms, where Israel leads the praises and the Gentiles join the chorus. “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever.” Aye, whatever may have been the depths of wickedness, whatever the impious apostasy, the kingdom will be the witness of this-that God’s mercy has prevailed! We have, seen David restored; can anyone enter the kingdom without being restored? Rare it would be indeed, for grace reigns through righteousness. Does David ask if he may sing his songs to God? Does he ask liberty to do so? No, he knows his title to praise his God, and you should know your right to—tune your instruments about the gates of heaven, till they burst asunder, and you join the shout of the kingdom, “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever!”

David, Joab, and the Woman of Tekoah

The heart of God in its love towards sinners, is sometimes shown in the Old Testament through incidents connected with the person (David especially) who sat on Israel’s throne. Because the person who sat there, might be said during that time of a theocracy, to represent God, and therefore to exhibit His ways. We are told in the opening of our chapter, that “Joab perceived that the king’s heart was towards Absalom.” This Joab was a famous general, and a kind of prime-minister of David. His affection for David, and as a statesman, his sense of the dignity of the throne were qualities about evenly balanced in his character. Eventually he failed in the matter of Adonijah’s rebellion, but that is not our point just now.

On the present occasion the sorrow that he saw on David’s countenance 37, 39) determined him to attempt a re-conciliation for Absalom, without a due equivalent for his sin; that is, without the death of a victim, and by his artifice he committed David to a great mistake; nevertheless the account itself claims our notice, for whilst wanting in some of the truths for a sinner’s salvation, it brings out, in illustration, in a very marked way, the concern of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, about our miserable condition at a distance from Him, as Absalom was from David. Absalom had murdered his brother Amnon (although under some provocation) in cold blood, and on that account had tied his country. Whilst thus banished, the heart of him that was on the throne yearned for him; and Joab was able, through the means of the woman of Tekoah, to draw out his thoughts, and eventually to carry out his will towards his banished one. It was he who had to go down to the very place of Absalom’s abode, in order to bring him back.

Joab induces a wise woman of Tekoah—a town perhaps famous for producing a class of mourners who wailed at funerals, (Jer. 9:17) to feign herself to be one, and by a supposed case of her own misery, to bring out the fullness of David’s heart. First, she puts the quarrel (vv. 5, 6, 7,) between her two sons in language so equivocal, that you could not say which of them was the aggressor, so as to remind David in the mildest form of the quarrel between Absalom and Amnon; and she gets him so far to betray his feelings, as to give a reply rather in her favor, “ Go to thine house and I will give charge concerning thee,” (v. 8.) As instructed by Joab, this uncertain answer will not suffice, so she at once takes the daring course of seeming to wish that the dignity of the throne in the punishment of an offender should be more thought of than her distress. “O King,” she says, “the iniquity be on me and on my father’s house, (v. 9) and the king and his throne be guiltless.” She succeeds so perfectly, that she draws out an answer entirely in her favor, “The king said whosoever saith ought unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee anymore.” Emboldened now, she alludes to that dread law in Israel, whereby the revenger of blood might destroy a murderer wherever he was found, save in a city of refuge, (Num. 35:9.) “Let the king remember the Lord thy God, (notice, it was after the death of Uriah) that thou wouldst not suffer the revengers of blood to destroy any more, lest they destroy my son,” to which speech she gets the immediate answer, “As the Lord liveth there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.” Thus cunningly had she committed the king, and now it was easy for her to bring the case of Absalom before him; but not before David had discovered that the hand of Joab had been in it all. So we see how the three minds fitted in together, Joab’s with the woman of Tekoah’s; the woman of Tekoah’s with David’s; and David’s again with Joab’s; all were in accord to bring this rebel back. It was in the counsel of the three that he should be restored; but one in particular had to go down, “Go therefore,” said David to Joab, “bring the young man Absalom again.” “So Joab arose and went to Geshur,” out of his own country into another, “and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.”

Dear reader, do you perceive in this history, that you are the Absalom—the sinner—in rebellion against God, dwelling a long way off in a land of darkness and the shadow of death. You are, alas I that I should have to tell you so, nothing less than a murderer in God’s estimate. Is it not written that “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,” and have you never given hatred a place in your heart? what does He say about your inner man, whose eyes are “As a flame of fire,” and who is going to judge “The secrets of men by Jesus Christ”? (Rom. 2) But more than this, this world is yet held guilty of the death of Christ; The men that sentenced that “Just one” are called “Betrayers and murderers,” and it is just your natural heart, dear reader, which is, like the Jews in Christ’s time, averse to, everything that speaks of God, and afraid of coming to the light, because its deeds are evil. Yes, an unbeliever is guilty of the blood of God’s own Son, and will yet have to answer for it. He is convicted of sin because he does not believe on Jesus. (John 16:9.)

Do you know, dear reader, that notwithstanding this, these are plans and counsels for your benefit, which only want your assent. Did Absalom refuse to be reconciled? Was he not glad to return to Jerusalem? The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are concerned for you. The heart of the Father is in your favor; the Holy Ghost is the Exponent of His will; and the Son efficiently carries it out. But this Old Testament picture gives but a feeble idea of the present aspect of things. Joab on this occasion could not bring Absalom beyond his own house. (v. 24.) There was after all uneasiness in David’s mind—he could not fall upon his son’s neck and kiss him—could bring forth no best robe, nor sit down with him to the fatted calf. The reconciliation too, such as it was, wrought no improvement in Absalom’s mind, for he set on fire his benefactor’s field of barley. (v. 30.) It was reconciliation without blood, which neither suited the throne nor changed the heart of the one brought back after such sort. Absalom was not altered in character or demeanor by such a reconciliation. But now the entire mystery has been cleared up—the Son of God has become Man, and died. The atonement is made, and sinners brought back by. Him, in His resurrection, come right up to the Father’s, house; nay, are accepted in His acceptance (Eph. 1.), and with Him have access to the Father. Christ met the sinner’s case where he was, in the place of death and in His own resurrection brings him up to the throne.

The woman of Tekoah, who disappears from the scene when she had elicited the condition of David’s heart, towards his banished one, for she had no direct intercourse with Absalom, re-appears in Luke 15, still under the figure of a woman picking up the piece of silver, having the image and superscription of its heavenly origin and precious to its owner, though lost in the dust and dirt of the world. It was a parable of the time of Christ’s incarnation, and beautiful as it is still needed that blessed word “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” It is that “Spirit of God,” who at the first “moved upon the face of the waters.” One of those who said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” and who, dimly seen in the Old Testament, now shines brightly forth in full relief as the revealer of God’s full salvation to us, and the revelation of His counsels from all eternity on our behalf. Faintly traceable in His ways to us in the Old Testament, He has now, since the ascension of Christ, come down to make good the full revelation of the Father by the Son. He is down here as the revealer of the Father’s will to us, and dweller in the Church forever!

Oh, dear reader, is not this wonderful! How can you reject the message, brought down by the Holy Ghost, of a full salvation? He did not come down from heaven till Christ’s arrival there with the marks of redemption on His hands and His side. Reader! it is a salvation for you! Your condemnation will be sealed upon the rejection of it. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation.”

W. W.

The Dove in the Cleft of the Rock

My heart has found a place of rest,

So sacred, and so sweet,

There she has built herself a nest,

And safe is her retreat.

A weary dove! the vulture’s prey!

She had not where to fly—

Her foe pursuing night and day,

She drop’t her wing, to die.

But as she sank, the Lord of love

Stretched forth His hand, and laid

Within His breast the fluttered dove,

And all her trembling stayed.

She folds her wing, and seeks no more

Another cleft to hide.

Here is her safety, here her store,

Her all by love supplied.

And when the angry tempests rise,

They only serve to teach

The sheltered dove, the more to prize

That rock they fail to reach.

Lord, ‘tis enough, Thyself shall be

My spirit’s peace and stay,

Till from the storm Thou called me

To God’s own rest for aye.

Eternal Life

It is remarkable the way in which the Lord here shows the source and power of eternal life, and how closely they are connected with Himself How entirely He takes us in the power of eternal life out of the place of nature, and brings us into fellowship with the Father and with the Son. The word of God holds this remarkable place, as the instrument by the Holy Ghost, of bringing us thus to God, on the ground of redemption.

The Lord had come down from heaven and associated Himself with man upon earth, walking in and out amongst men, and he took the hearts and thoughts of His disciples entirely out of the world. Grace had brought Him down into it, yet there was no connection with man, or man with Him but on the footing of death; as we read, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you;” and, “I will raise him up (who does so) at the last day;” I will give him another state of life altogether.

The Lord is the Word of life—the eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested to us in the. Son, (1 John 1:2). He comes and speaks words to us; and it is upon the word of His testimony which all depends. Grace must work in our hearts that we may receive His words; but “He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.” Thus we get everything by faith. We see who Christ is by faith. He was the carpenter’s son—seen outside of faith. He had no condition in the world, no authority, nothing that would enable you to see that in that person the eternal Son of God was in the world, but positive faith. Suppose that even prophecies were brought to bear and miracles laid hold of your mind, they would leave you just where you were. I could not see the person of the Son of God, except God had given the eye of faith.

In the second chapter we find— “For he knew what was in man;” that is, there was no work of God in their souls—nothing but man. He might have honest and sincere convictions, but still no new nature. The people who followed Him were the same who cried, “Away with him” afterward. It is not insincerity, but only what is in man. There was no personal perception that the Son of God had come into this world. The eye was opened if there was any perception of this, and it connected itself with the desires and need of the soul.

We must first have this desire of the heart and need in the conscience; the sense too, that we cannot do without Him! Whether there is one or the other, both are connected with that, and for both we find we cannot do without Him.

Suppose I believed all that the church has taught for 1800 years before I had this new life, there would be no more of eternal life in me than in that table! It would not bring me nearer to Him—because Christ has not been revealed to my inward soul. It would not be what Paul writes, “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me.”

You get this desire of conscience here in Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” (v. 68). When the sifting comes, nothing else could replace Christ; there is nothing else that can; there was the consciousness that if they had not Christ there was nothing left. The heart and the conscience want Him, and that is eternal life. I might have every thought right as to truth without this. There is no true work where this is not done in the conscience. The heart is drawn to Jesus because the soul sees who He is. Like Peter in Luke 5, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord;” but there is power to keep him, he cannot go away.

The prodigal illustrates the same thing; he says, “There is blessing there.” His heart was formed by the grace he knew was there. His heart was drawn to Christ, but his conscience told him he was not fit to be there; still the heart could not keep away. Then there comes a word from Christ which satisfies the soul. To Peter, it was “Fear not.” To the poor woman of the city who was a sinner it was, “Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace,” and all was done. She had Christ’s word for it, and this was everything. He had the words of eternal life, as Peter had said, “Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe, and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” This is the only thing that is the ground of faith. Faith is the effect of the word of God directly from God to the soul, without any intervention. Faith cannot rest upon any authority but that of God Himself.

What I press is the Word. Christ is the living word; so it is the word of God that has come from God, and has come into this world, and by which all and every operation of God is affected. Where that is not the case, there is no real result. Miracles were proofs of His mission, but they were not life in the soul. If faith rested on the evidence of miracles alone, the Lord would not trust man. Where the word is received, the soul is begotten of God.

Suppose I believed every truth which I now believe before I was begotten of God through His word, it would have no link between God and my soul; there would have been no revelation of God by it to me—nothing that brought God into my soul by it—no drawing of the Father to make Christ needful and precious.

Such knowledge is merely the fire being laid, but no more. The revelation from God is the revelation of God. Christ was this when He was here; though known as the carpenter’s son for many years. What Christ spoke, was an expression of what Christ was. Who could reveal God, but God Himself? and Christ was God, come into a world which had departed from Him, to reveal Himself to souls, and “he that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true,” (John 3:33).

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” There I get the fact that the soul cannot do without Him who had laid hold of their heart. Ah, I say, He has “the words of everlasting life;” I cannot go elsewhere. The soul has got the first link, by the testimony of the word to it, and it knows Him.

You should ask yourselves whether the voice of the Good Shepherd has reached your souls—has spoken to you so that you know His voice! Take an instance of the thief; He knew him; He answers for every bit of Christ’s life from one end to the other. God had revealed to him what His Son was, and when everyone was against Him—when the authorities of the world had all got rid of this presence of God—one man was there who answered for Christ’s spotless humanity.

Why had the word of God to come down in this way? Why not teach man, and guide man as he was? Why bring the Eternal Son from heaven? People will accept a great deal of truth, but, Why have a revelation? they say. There must be a revelation, because man has departed from God, and God in mercy to him must reveal something new to him.

If God is not revealed in perfect grace to my soul now, I must have to say to Him in judgment by and by; I cannot forever stay in the dark in my own soul as to God. I must have to do with Him sometime or other, then I find the grace of revelation of God. I get in Christ—the word of God—God Himself come down. Not waiting till I go up for judgment—that would be a terrible story! Then the whole question turns, on this, how has He been received? How have I received Him? Why, my heart has turned to every vanity when He has been presented to me! That is the way I have received Him.

He has come down into the world—the “living bread”—to raise people’s hearts to God, and to take them out of the world; but we do not like this. He comes amongst men as the lowliest of the lowly—so that the unjealous angels can sing, “God’s good pleasure in men.” Yet in Him we see the only begotten of the Father. He comes down so that man where he was, and what he was, might have God close to him. My heart is opened to the blessed consciousness that God has found His good pleasure in men

But you will always find that a revelation of God is a revelation that says, “You are all ruined and bad.” This is too low for the world—it does not suit a person of fair and proper character. There is that which is attractive to the natural man in Christ; there is that which God meant to be attractive to the heart of man. You see the daughters of Jerusalem weeping as they followed Him. They are actuated merely by natural feeling. The pride of this world would not have Him; but the love of God did not stop for that—God will go on with the truth; if the world will not have it, He will go on for those who will!

But if you receive Him, you must do so as a dead Christ —One who has come under the power of death; “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” If you will have an incarnate Christ, you must have a crucified Christ as well. This hurts man’s pride. In the present day an incarnate Christ is put in the place of a dead Christ; because an incarnate one exalts man. But a’ dead Christ shows where man lay, and the need of redemption. An incarnate Christ was presented to man down. here; but now it is one who has passed through death and gone on high.

“Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day”—I cannot give him a portion in this world, but I can give him a place with me in glory! He can give me thus a part with Himself but He could not have a part with me here, “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me.” Now I get the blessed side. I do not live by Adam—I have to contend with Adam—with my old flesh; but I live by Christ, and “Christ liveth in me.” I live by Him and shall reign with Him, but entirely outside everything here.

In the opening of the chapter He sends the disciples away and He goes up alone to the mount, and there they are toiling, away from Him-it is a picture of what is going on now. Now He says, there is food for souls while I am away—from the beginning to the end I am the sustainer of your life!

The moment we know Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, we are justified. But what I dread is that a person should rest here. He has saved you but do you not want to abide practically in Him, and He in you? Do you not want to sit under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit be sweet to your taste? Do you not want Him to manifest Himself to you?

I may be going through the billows of this scene, but I am feeding on Christ. I see Him if I trace Him here, and find every feeding blessed! He says He is my food; and by eating Him I shall have the consciousness that He came into a world without God, and brought God into it, and the world would not have Him. Then I find I belong to Him in glory (where He has gone, but I have not the glory yet), meanwhile I have Him for my whole living portion.

Is that what your hearts are following after, beloved friends, in this evil world? Are your hearts taking as your everyday portion, that One whom the world rejected, or are you taking the world which rejected Him!

The Lord give us to answer this truly in the secret of our hearts, for His name’s sake. Amen.

Extract From "Letters to a Brother"

On my meeting at— having known some of his family well, and himself slightly, and having heard he, was a changed man and had become “religious,” as it is termed; I was anxious to see what his religion was thinking, that as our habits and tastes, it may be, in life had been more or less alike, if it was available for him it might be for me.

Not having seen him for five years at least, his appearance struck me very much. The marked alteration in his countenance shewed me not only that his health was gone but that there had been much inward working of the mind: At first he avoided me, evidently; but, as I was quite indifferent to anything in the way of slight, having been tolerably well hardened to what the world calls “cutting,” I rather forced him to speak to me.

Long, long had I known that the salvation of the soul—the home for eternity—was the only thing worth living for here, and as long had it been ever uppermost in my mind that here it must be settled; but, being brought up in the usual way, viz., taught, (here he goes over the usual religious training and attending to ordinances, &c.), I never gave that any place seriously in my thoughts or mind as good for anything in the sight of God, seeing that myself, as well as others—all nearly that I knew—I saw lived in sin, open sin, generally; and those who did not, only had a form, while the decent sober moralities of their heart and life was their real standing and religion before God.

I was far too real in my ideas of God and heaven to let this be of much value in my eyes; and so, up to the day I had this following conversation with him, I was a total stranger to peace with God through Jesus Christ. After two or three times of meeting, he said all at once, “Do you not read the Bible?” “Yes,” I said, “I do; but I can get no comfort from it.” A long pause ensued. I then said, “I will tell you my stumbling-block: I can fear God, but I cannot love Him.” “Love God!” he said, with such an expression of countenance and despair as I never saw depicted, “I have not a bit of love of God in me; He loves me!” (1 John 4:9.)

This astonished me so much, that if I had been taken up in the clouds, I could not have been more surprised. He was then going home to dinner; and as he went into the house, he put a book into my hands and said, “There you read that.” This book was “Eyles Pierce’s Letters.” I immediately opened the book; and, reading letter after letter, as I went home, I had a distinct mental revelation of Jesus Christ as my Saviour, and so forcible as almost to make me shout out, “Now I shall go to heaven,” a thing I had for at least twenty-five years utterly despaired of. When I got home I read and read, and the truth was more and more confirmed and brought home to my heart and conscience with God. From that hour to this I have never lived ten minutes without the sense of God’s love and my own degradation and sin before me; and, through grace I can say it, with much desire to be more and more thankful that I have rarely, if ever, been without the full assurance of having my sins forgiven for His name’s sake who died, the just for the unjust, to bring such poor, degraded, guilty wretches as myself to God. (1 Peter 3:18.) Wondrous thought, but true! and not more wondrous than true!

Alas, alas! to live the life of Christ while in the flesh is no easy matter; and although I cannot boast, I can say honestly that “old things have passed away, and all things become new;” and my earnest desire and prayer is to glorify God in my body and my spirit which are His, and to present my body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, by and through Jesus Christ, being assured that this is my reasonable service.

Nothing is available but the Holy Ghost working in me, as the servant of Jesus Christ, to carry on and complete the work He has begun, till He shall come to take me to Himself. May I be found watching and waiting, walking in the Spirit, and thus not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.

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If you never thought of doing anything unless it was God’s will that you should do it, how three-fourths of your life would disappear!

We want faith in order to lose our fortune and to forgive; but it is coming out of the society of man, and entering into that of God!

A man is always “under law” when he refers his acceptance to his own state of soul.

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Fears, founded on your own badness, disturbing and hindering your peace with God, are as senseless as trust in your own goodness, as giving a ground of peace.

There is no communion in conscience. In it I am alone. So are you. In order to communion I must have nothing to settle with conscience. A purged conscience is. the basis of communion.

In order to have practical power I must not only have the thing, but know that I have it. Suppose a man possessed all the wealth of India, and did not know he had it, it is practically useless to him,

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Peter got strength by learning he had none!

If Christ’s love is not filling my heart, I will go to some vanity in a shop to satisfy it.

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There is no more common device of Satan than to seek the destruction of a divine testimony, by evil insinuations against them who render it.

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There is not a moment of each day but which is either an opportunity for a victory or a defeat; for obedience or disobedience,

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“The world” is a vast system, built up by Satan, wherein man departed from God, to satisfy “the flesh” in man. Therefore we have “the world,” “the flesh,” and “the devil.”

Let us remember that there is no battle So decisive with others, but what is an outward reflection of the secret victory over self with the Lord.

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The new nature is one that hates evil: the Holy Ghost dwelling in us is the power to do the good.

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The secret of power without, and peace within, is only, and always, to be occupied with good!

Fragments

The use that a Christian makes of the things of the world, which he possesses, shows where his heart is.

He is a bad shepherd who holds the hay two high for the sheep.

Fruitfulness of Soul in Infancy and in Maturity

I have read these two scriptures, beloved, with the desire to speak a little on the fruitfulness of a soul in its early days, as also in the maturity of spiritual life. I need hardly add that the first scripture will only serve our present purpose as illustrating the thoughts I desire to present to you.

When the person of the Lord Jesus is before the soul at the early moments of spiritual life, I believe it generally follows that the tone of life is one of special, devotedness to Christ. It marks what we should call a happy conversion, and this is better than clear doctrine, good as it is, and we cannot do without it. When John cried “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,” we do not read of any one having been converted. But when he uttered the last lovely strain of his ministry—his swan’s song” Behold the Lamb of God “there were two souls linked to Christ forever! “The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.” And more (for one of them doubtless was John), the Lord never had to say to one of them from that moment “Follow me.” There was fruitfulness as the result of that conversion.

Almost every Christian knows the story of David conquering the Philistine giant and delivering Israel. (1 Sam. 17) Israel was trembling before the hosts of the Philistines, and the challenging’s of the giant. The Valley of Elah (curse) lay between, and there was none to deliver David (so blessedly a type of the true David) came down to see the battle. He was the eighth son of his father Jesse. When he came, his brethren despised him (as the Jews did the Lord of Glory) attributing his actions to the pride and naughtiness of his heart. The great and decisive moment had come, and he who had walked with God in secret moments when no eye was on him but His, stands forth in the strength of Him who had delivered him out of the paw of the lion and the bear. He goes forward in the unhesitating confidence that He would deliver him out of the hand of this Philistine, who had defied the armies of the living God. It was a question of what God was; and faith always counts on what God is for His people, no matter what their condition may be.

Then you notice he tried Saul’s armor, and it crippled him. How man’s arrangements and man’s order cripple and hinder the soul that walks by faith.

David chooses him five stones out of the brook. The weakness of man where death put forth its power, was that which conquered in the hand of God. It was the weakness of God that was stronger than men; He who was crucified in weakness, by weakness won the victory. It was Satan’s last strong hold; Christ entered death, by entering defeated it, and discomfited the power of the enemy. David went forth and met the giant (the great power of Satan), who was six cubits and a span high; he went forth in the name of the Lord of hosts, slang the stone and sank it in the Philistine’s forehead, and destroyed him. And there was nothing in David’s hand. Then he took the sword of the Philistine and hewed off his head. The very power of death Christ took out of Satan’s hand and destroyed it forever, for faith and for God.

The stripling, flushed with victory, returned with the head of the giant in his hand; and when David had made an end of speaking unto Saul, “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

This scene so beautifully illustrates the moment when the Lord Jesus came up from the dust of death, a mighty conqueror, bearing the spoils of His victory in His hands, and, making known to our souls what He has accomplished, He wins the heart to Himself. It is not so much the victory, as the Victor who touches the chord of the heart in this scene; then Jonathan’s—nay, the sinner’s heart is knit to the heart of Jesus, and “we love him because he first loved us.” “Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

If we follow the illustration onwards, we find how David loved him and valued his love: “Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” (2 Sam. 1:26.)

Now the result was, that all that which adorned Jonathan everything which he possessed as the son of a king lie stripped from himself and gave to David, “even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.” It is thus with a soul in its first early brightness, occupied rather with the person of its deliverer, than with what He has accomplished; the result is, that all that would clothe and give importance to self, is dropped and laid at the feet of Jesus!

So with the Queen of Sheba. She came to Solomon burdened with her hard questions, and when her heart was relieved, and “there was not anything hid from the king which he told her not,” she pours out all her treasures at his feet: then the king gave them back to her, and besides these things, “all her desire.” Thus, when the heart is determined to have naught apart from Christ, and all is surrendered, He deprives us of nothing which we can hold with Him. How sad to see souls tried, even if some little trifle has to be given up for Christ! When the eye is on Christ all is simple, and anything that comes in between the soul and Himself is treated as a hindrance, and is dropped. If one look of faith at Jesus has been followed by the soul’s salvation, how much deep blessing will come through continuing to gaze.

I have taken up this lovely Scripture to illustrate the fruitfulness Christ of a soul just born of God, and though we might o find many other like instances in the New Testament we will now turn to Phil. 3, that we may see the fruitfulness of a mature soul, who has not ceased to gaze on the Lord.

The epistle to the Philippians is the practical proof that a soul can walk in the Spirit so as to be in no way under the influence of the flesh, as we read in Gal. 5:16, “walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.”

We have sometimes heard it stated that this is conflict, but that is a mistake. We think too, that because we have got “flesh” in us, that it must always be a warfare. It has been remarked that “sin” is not once mentioned in the Philippians, nor “flesh,” but to say that he had no confidence in it.

Paul has his eye upon a glorified Christ, and we are to be “followers of” Paul, and to do the same. It is not to have your eye upon Paul, but upon Him upon whom Paul was looking, while he ran in the full energy of the Spirit of God. He is walking in the power of those verses in John 12, ending with, “if any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall also my servant be” (vv. 23-26).

From thirty to forty years had passed away when this Scripture came freshly from God, through the experience and pen of Paul. Thirty years (or so) before, he was physically blind for three days from the sight of a Saviour in the glory. He was morally blind to all else that this world could afford from that day.

All was judged that stood between them; all was dropped which could not pass into that scene where Christ was. “What things” were gain then to Saul the chief of sinners, the new man counted loss for Christ. He had eclipsed them all as the stars are eclipsed by the light of the sun. Did thirty or forty years bring a change? Did the prison in Rome, and the neglect of the saints, make any change in what he once expressed? No! More full of Christ than ever, his undimned energy bursts forth in the words, “yea, doubtless, and I count all things (the range had increased) loss” for Christ! It was indeed with him, “my soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.”

Beloved friends, this is what we need; a heart going out after Christ in this vigor and energy; enabled to count all things dross and dung to have Christ for gain; to win Him where He is, and as He is, in glory. “And be found in him;” so always when in the race, all is to be attained at the end. No question or uncertainty in the course, but then I must run to win all there. Thus, the soul drops the weights and hindrances, and does not think of them as sacrifices at all. There never was one yet, who having given up something for Christ, has not found a vigor and energy imparted, of which lie had no conception until the hindrance was gone.

Christ as He was, is still more wonderful than Christ as He is! Glory is the natural sphere for God. Bat God, humbled and obedient, is more wonderful still: This you have in chapter 2. It is Christ as He is, he seeks to win, and he throws all aside that he may do so. In chapter Christ puts all aside, humbles Himself, and comes down to obedience and death. In chapter Paul puts all aside, and looks for obedience unto death, if found by the way in his track to glory! See what different motives actuated each in the surrender of all! He desires to know the power of His resurrection, to lift him outside of all here below, that he may live and walk as a man who has died and risen with Christ. If suffering came, he looked for the fellowship of His; if death came, he would have nothing else, because he found it on his track to glory. It was very near too to his soul (ch. 1:20).

“If by any means,” here an “if” comes in, because it is the race which leads to glory which is before us; the responsible course which ends there. “If” ten thousand difficulties came in the way, he would not shrink from one, because they were found in the pathway which ended with complete conformity to Christ on high.

Not as though he had already attained, or were already perfected. There are two ways in which perfection is looked at in Scripture. Positional perfection on high in Christ; and moral perfection, i.e., the heart’s response to the former, walking in consistency with the place, on high. It seizes the purpose of God as to complete conformity to Christ in glory, and the heart is governed by this purpose, and asserts in practice the course and conduct suited to the end in view.

In this chapter you find moral perfection (v. 15) which is the response of the heart to the place which we have on his, while in the race which leads to complete conformity to him; and enables him to apprehend that for which he had been apprehended of Christ.

“This one thing I do”; one thing governing the heart all day long. A simple undivided heart that can in loneliness and toil, whatever it may be, think of Christ and the things of Christ in unbroken communion and joy.

No doubt the poor heart discovers how feebly it can do this; but it discovers Christ’s heart increasingly in the measure it discovers its own. When a soul is thus simply engaged with Christ, others see it, and that which ought to have been the state of the whole church, is produced in the individual by the Spirit of God; the answer below to the glory of Christ in heaven. That is Christianity!

If there were this unbrokenness of occupation with Christ in our souls, there would be more unity amongst the saints, more power, more faithfulness, more forgetfulness of selfless of man and more of Christ.

Thus beloved brethren, you have a sweet picture of the fruitfulness of a soul in its maturity—the first object is the object still—things once judged and surrendered, are judged and surrendered still; and the growing appreciation of what Christ is, brings more deep conformity, more energy and grace. Then when the eye is turned for a moment from Christ to serve the saints who are His, it carries with it the interests of His heart for His own, discerns the faintest line His hand has traced on the souls of His people, and is enabled to rejoice in the fruits of His grace in those whom He has made the objects of His love, and the travail of His soul.

Gleanings

“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” (Job 28:28.)

Christianity starts with the fact that not only had man sinned, and God had driven him out of paradise, but that God had come into the world to seek, in perfect love, the man He had so turned out of His presence, and that man bad spurned His love and turned Him out, giving Him the death of a malefactor.

Godly Sensibilities Without Godly Energy

What moral illustrations that beautiful book of Genesis does afford us; what a variety of character is exhibited for our warning and instruction. Isaac takes his place in the midst of these characters thus produced and presented—and for a saint we get in him but a poor sample. He had godly sensibilities as well as human, amiable, virtues, but he had not godly energy. He reminds us of Jehoshaphat in other days. Jehoshaphat had godly sensibilities, but he failed in godly energy. Through vanity he failed; he joined affinity with Ahab, and had not strength to refuse to go to the battle with him. But still he had sensibilities in his soul that were spiritual and of divine workmanship—for in the midst of the prophets of Baal he was not satisfied. He had a witness within that this would not do, and he asked, “Were there not beside a prophet of the Lord.” But strange and humbling, to tell it, he would still go to the battle in company with the very Ahab who had thus wounded the spiritual sensibilities that stirred in his soul, and who had thus in infidel revolt from the God of Israel consulted the prophets of Baal. (2 Chron. 18)

This was terrible—but this was that king Jehoshaphat.

Isaac, so, on this occasion had his sensibilities, but not his corresponding energies. It was not through vanity, as did Jehoshaphat, that he failed—it was rather through a general relaxed moral tone of soul, that sought ease and indulgence, but while Isaac, with a godly mind, could grieve over Esau’s marriage with a daughter of Heth, one of the people of the land, yet, that very Esau is Isaac’s object, and keeps and holds the dearest affections of his heart, so that Isaac cannot give himself back for God. He is answered by an earlier Ahab, though the witness within tells him that it is an Ahab that is doing it. He would fain help the profane Esau to a blessing, as Jehoshaphat would help the idolatrous Ahab to the victory.

What sights are these—and what lessons and warnings to our souls.

The Gospel Echo

True faith producing love to God in man,

Say, Echo, is not this the Gospel plan?

Echo—The Gospel plan!

Must I my faith in Jesus constant show

By doing good to all, both friend and foe?

Echo—Both friend and foe!

When men conspire to hate and treat me ill,

Must I return them good, and love them still?

Echo—Love them still!

If they my failings causelessly reveal,

Must I their faults as carefully conceal?

Echo—As carefully conceal!

But if my name and character they tear,

And cruel malice, too, too plain appear;

And when I sorrow and affliction know,

They smile, and add unto my cup of woe,

Say Echo, say, in such peculiar case—

Must I continue still to love and bless?

Echo—Still to love and bless!

Why, Echo, how is this? thou’rt sure a dove;

Thy voice will leave me nothing else but love!

Echo—Nothing else but love!

Amen, with all my heart, then be it so;

And now to practice—I’ll directly go,

Echo—Directly go!

This path be mine, and let who will reject,

My gracious God me surely will protect!

Echo—Surely will protect!

Henceforth on Him I’ll cast my every care,

And friends and foes, embrace them all in prayer.

Echo—Embrace them all in prayer!

His Delight

“Unto you, believers, he is the preciousness.” 1 Peter 2

Precious, O Son of God, Thou art,

Resting in love the Father’s heart

Ever brings forth for Thee;

Before His works His power employ,

Before He plans, Thou art His joy,

The same eternally!

Precious to Him when here on earth,

The lonely stranger at Thy birth

Thou dost in grace become;

In man’s cold heart no place hast Thou,

Yet unto Thee His angels bow—

The First-begotten One.

And when Thou standest here alone,

Refused by all that is Thine own,

To Him how precious still!

When He, Thy God, no man can see,

The Father is declared by Thee,

Who dost His bosom fill!

And when with the repentant band,

In lowly grace He sees Thee stand,

Bowing to own His claims,

Oh, how His heart delights in Thee!

“Beloved Son,” He claimeth Thee,

And His own joy proclaims!

When in obedience unto death

Thou dost send forth Thy latest breath,

And dost Thy life lay down,

A new delight His heart doth fill,

Thy preciousness increaseth still

And weareth now its crown!

Joy fills the heaven where Thou art,

The oil of gladness is Thy part,

Thy God exalteth Thee;

His full delight its course doth run,

With glory, His beloved Son,

His own hand crowneth Thee!

In Thee forever God doth rest,

Forever with Thee men are blest;

The Lamb their light shall be

In heaven and earth made new again,

Thou, the delight of God and men!

The same eternally!

The History of Events and Exercises

The deeper and more varied the exercise, the more peculiar is the expression, i.e., the result indicates the nature of the foundry where it has been wrought.

For every Christian there are two divisions of his history—the history of events, and that of exercises—the history of events is easily written and remembered, though the events themselves be not often easily explained, nor ever truly explained, if the history of the exercises which preceded and accompanied them is not known. To every conscientious soul there is some exercise preceding and accompanying every event; though continually one is more occupied with the mere event than with the education offered to the soul in connection with it. The exercise is properly speaking to prepare one for the event. The Psalms celebrate events; but they detail also the exercises which prepared the souls for the events.

I believe it is healthy for the soul to be exercised, not knowing possibly what is coming; but I do not think it helpful or happy for a soul to go back and dwell, like an aged man, on the feelings of his youth. I think we ought to be able to celebrate the results of our exercises, and not reproduce them as if fruitless, for if they have had their proper fruit, they have laid the basis for larger and fuller development of the divine nature in us. We are unprepared for events, if we have no exercises. We are often surprised at some unusual exercise, and it is some subsequent event, (i.e. some occurrence, trial, &c.,) which explains to us the value of the exercise. Which was intended to engage us so with the Lord, that when the event occurred, we might meet it in His grace. Jacob’s wrestling was his exercise, it was to prepare him for meeting his brother Esau. If Jacob had not been so unsubdued, his lameness would not afterward have been so constantly felt; yet it was a blessed time for him—not to be talked of afterward to promote feelings of self-importance—but to establish his faith in God, who had thus in spite of himself strengthened him for an emergency. The whale’s belly was the place and time of exercise for Jonah; learning God there in His absolute mercy and power-he was prepared for the service appointed for him; he only dwells on the exercise as declaring how by it he was led in a state of mind spited to his calling, which was the fruit of it, and to abide in the fruit of the exercise, and not in the mere operation of it, is the only true place of blessing.

I do not believe any exercises are objectless. Job did not understand the exercises through which his soul in terrible bitterness passed; we have the benefit of his history, and therefore we may say that from whatever cause, ignorance as with him; unbelief as with Jacob; willfulness as Jonah; self-corruption as with David and Peter—they always prepare us for another scene or event, and our blessing is to dwell on what they prepare us for, rather than on the conflict we went through, foe we reached the dry land, or the morning dawned upon us.

How God "Weans" the Soul

The time of weaning is one of great suffering to the soul, but a very necessary time; no one learns true independence of infant helps, until it is weaned. It is surprising how many nurses we have, and it is just in proportion as we attain strength to get on without any of them, that our age or advance in Christian life is determined. I believe most of us are going through a process of “weaning,” and, what is it for? Simply, that in our given strength, we might be able to depend on God, without the support of that which betokened our personal feebleness.

The suffering of weaning arises from the deprivation of something with which we connected the blessings of life, and this evidently may occur in many ways. Satan, no doubt, thought Job could not be weaned, for he said to God, “Touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face” (Job 1:11); but Job was weaned. The soul is weaned when it worships God, and prays for others. I cannot worship unless my soul is engaged with God; I cannot pray for others if I am occupied with myself, and the loss of any of my channels of comfort. God must wean us

Oh! what days and nights of bitter soul-tears are shed while the soul is being weaned from some long-enjoyed mercy. Is it that our God would not indulge us? Is it that He who gave His Son would deny us anything? No; but He must wean us, or we shall never know what it is to depend on Him apart from any human or natural intervention! Paul, no doubt, often spoke of having no confidence in the flesh, but it was in the prison at Rome that he felt he was entirely weaned. For any soul who has marked its own progress from the moment of deprivation until he was weaned—that is, until he was resting in God, and independent of his loss—can toll the momentary lulls and the rapidly succeeding agonies which marked the desperate, dark tunnel, until he reached the light and joy of God’s presence. Oh! how He pities us in all this anguish. He cannot give in, or relax His hand, but He furnishes us with many lamps to modify the chill and darkness of our subterranean travel.

Let me just notice, that if we have learned the love of God evangelically, and not historically (i.e. experimentally), we shall be more distressed the greater our knowledge of His love, than if we knew less of it—for we are disappointed with God. God’s love can only display itself fully in its own sphere. If I have learned the righteousness on which it is based, I shall better understand how much it must correct and subdue in me, before it can enjoy itself with me. If I judge myself in the light of His love, I must see how much I need to be weaned.

In Christ

I would take up in measure one special subject I have in my mind in reading this chapter—the place in which God has set us. I would first remark, this epistle has this distinct difference from Romans: it begins with the counsels of God; Romans begins with what man is, takes him up as a sinner, in the condition of man, and shows how God has met that condition by the blood of Christ, the question had been, how can a man be just with God? Romans shows that man is a sinner, and it shows also how in the gospel God’s righteousness meets man’s sin. In Ephesians, the apostle begins with the counsels of God, and therefore he can open out far more fully what the blessings of the children of God are. Consequently, the Epistle to the Romans as to doctrine takes the fact of Christ’s death and resurrection, in virtue of which man is justified; here, in addition, he not only dwells on Christ’s ascension, but shows that the Holy Ghost has come, and unites us with Christ as members of His body, which is not found in the doctrinal part of Romans at all.

In Ephesians you get the unfolding of God’s whole thought towards man, in view of His own glory, but nothing of justification. Man is looked at as a new creation, and does not want to be justified; he is looked at in Romans as living in sins, needing justification. Here he is looked at as “dead in sins,” and the largeness and fullness of the blessing is brought out. It is not so much what we need, as the blessedness of God towards us, and it does give in a wonderful way the place we are given “in Christ.”

I will go through it a little. We shall see while we get this place with God, it is by His “calling”—God’s. When he speaks of the “calling” it is without any unfolding of the future; when he speaks of the “inheritance” he does look on to the future, and the Holy Ghost is given to us meanwhile as the earnest of the inheritance.

We read in some hymns of the “earnest of His love,” but you do not get it in scripture. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,” (Rom. 5.) We are objects of His love. We have nothing of the inheritance now, so we have the earnest of it, the presence of the Holy Ghost in us, “sheds abroad the love of God” (it is God there) “in our hearts,” We know it by the Spirit given to us, it is “shed abroad” now, but we shall enjoy it more when we are done with these poor earthen vessels, which will not be till we dwell in the Father’s house.

The apostle speaks of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. Another thing he adds in his prayer is, that we should understand that the same power wrought in putting us, who believe, into our place with God in Christ, as He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. It is the same mighty power. We were dead in sins—Christ has died for us,—the holy, blessed, sinless One. We might have tasted death in sin, He tasted, it in grace. The mighty power of God takes us up and puts us in heavenly places in Him; therefore he looks at us as an entirely new creation. The exceeding greatness of His power wrought in raising Christ from the dead. We were lying in sins, Christ conies to die for us in grace; and the same mighty power takes us up, quickens us together with Christ; and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We shall be with Him, but we are now in Him.

Turning to the beginning of the chapter, we get the “calling,” and then the “inheritance” in the end. Nothing can be more blessed than the way he unfolds the place into which the Christian is brought. Looking at the Lord Jesus Christ, He has a double character: He is perfect Man before God, but the Son with the Father, and He puts us into the same place with Him. After the resurrection He says to Mary Magdalene, Go tell my brethren “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.” I have accomplished redemption, and have brought you to the same place as myself. She thought He was going to bring the Kingdom, but He says, no, do not touch me, “I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren,” &c. This is the first time He calls them brethren. It was the literal accomplishment of Psa. 22:21,22, “Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns: I will declare thy name unto my brethren.” He tells Mary to declare it now in virtue of His having accomplished redemption. He drank’ the cup of wrath for us: He had to go through it all, and drink it Himself; and having done so, He can bring us into the place He now has Himself. He now having glorified God perfectly, having come as a Man and wrought redemption, can, bring many sons to glory, and gives us in that sense His own place. “God over all” cannot be given, of course, but there is no communicable blessing He does not share with us.

The more you search Scripture, the more you find that it is not only blessedly true that we are saved through Christ, but blessed with Christ—that is the essence of what is in His heart. The world can give generously when it pleases, but it, never gives all the blessings and privileges that it has—it gives little if it loves little, much if it loves much, but it is not so with the Lord, He gives us His peace. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you (John 14:27). He gives us His own joy, “That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” (John 17:13.) His own glory, “The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them.” (John 17:22.) His own words, “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me” (John 17:8); and His own love, “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26.)

Whether you take one or other He shares it with us, and gives us a place with God and the Father. “My Father and your Father, my God and your God.” “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” We are predestinated “to be conformed to the image of his Son.” and “we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

The nearer you are to Him the more you will adore Him. If I am near a man I shall soon find out his weakness, but the nearer you are to God the more you find out His greatness, and that makes nothing of you; and therefore you need never be afraid of being near to God, as if you would be puffed up by, it; believe me you will there soon find out your own littleness. People say, “It is not well to be always on the mount,” but it is a great mistake; when there we never think of ourselves at all. Paul was not puffed up when he was in the third heaven, but when he came down the thorn was sent to keep him from being so. We may be puffed up if we talk of the experience we had while near the Lord, but not while we experience it; poor wretched flesh will puff itself up about anything!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he adds, “who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” I pass rapidly over this just to give the general idea upon ‘it. You cannot get more than this; it is the fullest and highest blessing you can ever get; the highest kind of spiritual blessing, in the highest place. “Blessed,” characterizes it, not among angels but “in Christ.” With all spiritual blessings! Not some. We are blessed with all in Christ. God is showing the exceeding riches of His grace. How? In His kindness towards us. That is the way, showing that He is exceeding rich in mercy, and He must act in a way worthy of Himself. That now unto Angels and principalities might be known by means of the church the manifold wisdom of God. It is in us, and to the glory of God by us. (2 Cor. 1:20.) That, we find, is the uniform language of the Holy Ghost, taking up all the saints, “by us.”

Then he takes these two names, the God and Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love,” That is God’s character and nature—in the blessing, perfect blessing, “holy, blameless in love,” a nature capable in its nature of enjoying God. If I am according to God, I have no need of a conscience, I am in the presence of God, and have perfect delight in Him. The apostle does not speak here of the future, but of the calling—our place now; we are poor earthen vessels, but that is our place before God.

Take Christ Himself, that was what He was down here as a Man, He is now at God’s right hand, and we are brought into this place in grace—it is His place—it is ours in the mind of God. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.” He might have servants, but here you find another element in it. He is a Father, and He wills to have sons; showing that the perfectness of His love was not satisfied till. He brings us in as sons. That is the calling—His calling—God’s calling. He has a double character as God and as Father, I get the love of His nature, He delights in what is holy, and without blame before Him in love. I get the two characters, one a nature that delights in what He has made me, and the other that it is “the good pleasure of his will,” we not only are united to Christ, but objects of His love as sons.

You get a character of election here which is very important to know: Suppose, for a moment, that God was to take ten people out of this room now, it would be just as sovereign as if He had chosen them before the foundation of the world; but the whole expression shows that we were chosen in the thoughts of God before the world existed. “He hath chosen us (individually) in him before the foundation of the world,” that gives a character to it. There we see the true character of the saints of God—the mind of God concerning us, before even the world was. Under law this was not known, but now the previous thoughts of God come out; and the apostle speaks of, “The hope of eternal life which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began, but hath, in due times manifested his word through preaching.” (Titus 1:2,3). This is the heavenly calling, the saints are not merely a people in the world—not even as Israel, but they are totally unworldly, they are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, and have nothing to say to the world at all. “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” This He does, taking our hearts and faith out of it; “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.” (2 Cor. 4:18).

“Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” (2 Tim. 1:9.) “To the praise of the glory of his grace.” God’s thought about us is according to “the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved,” the expression being the stamp of God’s mind, He hath chosen to have us in the beloved, and He has made us accepted in Him. What a place that is; not merely among angels, but in Christ the eternal Son of whom He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;” I am accepted in Him, and therefore He says, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them and I in them.”

This is hard to believe, you say—well, I can understand that, if you take your own thoughts and not God’s. Faith takes God’s thoughts not its own. He hath not spared His own Son but gave Him up for us all. I am silent before such love, and believe it! If we were to talk of such grace and such glory of ourselves I should say it was simply madness, but when I get Christ I can look at God’s love, and measure it by Him. The glory I can partake of with Him in grace, the cross I never could. There is more in the cross than in the glory—there is that in the cross which the blessed Son of God alone could do to glorify God. It stands alone, the moment that is done, anything is credible, the moment you get the Son of God dying on the cross, the rest is but the natural consequence.

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.” Now the apostle comes back to the point, and tells us the result. We first get the counsels of God; if I speak of them they bring out His own thoughts “the praise of the glory of his grace.” Now we get the fact of how we are brought into the blessing “according to the riches of his “grace.” I can believe in the glory of His grace, because I believe in the riches of His grace; it could do anything!

There we have redemption according to the intention and purpose of God—we have it, remember that, it is not a thing to talk of only, we have it in these poor earthen vessels: my place with God is not the effect of my sin, but the effect of Christ’s redemption. God has dealt with my sins on the cross, the very things He would have had to judge and condemn in us, at the throne of judgment, He has judged in Christ at the cross. Christ gave Himself for me, and I now wait for Him to receive me to Himself.

Then He speaks of “the redemption of the purchased possession.” Having put us in this place of acceptance, having adopted us as children, He can now treat us as friends. “He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence.” “Having made known unto us the mystery of his will.” He is telling us His intention about us—and more than that, about Christ. “That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him.”

I know no more wonderful words in scripture than those the Lord spoke to His disciples: “If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I go unto my Father.” He expected them to be interested in His happiness, He tells them how He came down in grace to give them a place with Himself, and He looks for their delight in His happiness. The Son of Man was going through toil and suffering and anguish, that He might give us His place in glory. O, what a thought, that it should be given to such as we are! We have poor, wretched, cold hearts to get into it. He tells us the consequence here: “He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will.” His counsels now are, “To gather together all things in Christ.” This is the ground the apostle takes in Col, 1:16: “All things were created by him and for him;” He has become a Man, and associates us with Himself. “He is the head of the body,” and God will put everything under Him. He has title as Creator, and as Heir, and there is nothing that is not put under Him except the Father. It is the purpose and intention of God to put us in this blessed place: “We are joint heirs with him;” “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance.” We have not an atom of it yet; but we shall have it with Him.

“That we should be to the praise of his glory.” “He will come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.” When He takes the inheritance, we shall be glorified with Him. The whole universe, when filled with glory, will belong to Him, “That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.”

“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom, also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.” This is, not merely being born of God, but sealed with the Spirit it totally different thing; and you cannot be in heaven without it. You do not necessarily receive the Holy Ghost when born of God. Who is born of God? An unbeliever, an unconverted man, a sinner in his sins. Is God going to seal an unbeliever No; he has to be born again. A converted man has to be sealed. The Comforter was promised to those who were clean through the word Jesus had spoken to them.

Take the blessed Son of God Himself; the Holy Ghost was seen to come down upon Him who was truly Man, and truly God. The Father sealed Him by the public testimony given by the. Holy Ghost coming upon Him as a man. “He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him,” and it “anointed” him “with power,” (Acts 10:38.)

Be clear about this: how it is I am sealed? I am first quickened-the word of God reaches my conscience. I get a little hope, and I say, “make a servant of me, only let me in, any corner will do me, if I can only get in, I am not worthy of a good place.” But “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” and I could then stand in His presence. At first it was, if I could only get in, if He only makes a servant of me. There is no knowledge of redemption, there, if you are thinking of your fitness, and if you get the least light you will see that if you are to be dealt with at all, as to what you are, you had better stay out, for you have no corner at all.

When did the Prodigal then say, “Make me as one of thy hired servants?” when he was quickened and converted, and set of to his father; but not when he met Him. It brings him to his father in his rags, and it brings us to a point—we see what God is to a sinner in his rags. The son does not say it, but he confesses his sins. Quite right. He does not say, make me a servant, it would be shameful to say it then, when he gets what never was his before, “the best robe.” My sins are gone, I get my place consequent upon what He is for me, not what I am for Him. If I have never met God at all, I may say I wonder how He will receive me; but I have met God in Christ, and he has accepted me in the beloved.

Mark the consequence of this: it is through the blood of Christ which has glorified God, it is not that I am only quickened and sometimes hope because He is good, or fear because I am bad; I have the value of the blood of Christ upon me in the eye of God, and the effect of it is the Holy Ghost can come down and dwell in us, because we are as clean as the blood of Christ can make us! In the Old Testament the leper was washed with water, typical of the washing of water by the word; afterward he was sprinkled with blood, then anointed with oil, i.e., the Holy Ghost. When I believe, or having believed, I am sealed. “Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost!” It is one of the characteristics of the Christian state. It is the ministration of righteousness and the ministration of the Spirit. “This spoke he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.” But He is glorified now, and has sent the Holy Ghost, and it is the seal of that in my heart.

Again, take Galatians— “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, and because ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son, and if a son then an heir of God through Christ.” (Gal. 3:26;4. 4-7). “He which stablisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed us is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” (2 Cor. 1:21,22).

While a man might be born of God he requires what will make him spotless and righteous before God; and when he has got that, he is sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. He has Christ for him in God’s presence, by whom He has been redeemed, and the Holy Ghost in him by whom he has been sealed! Paul asks the disciples at Ephesus, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” (Acts 19:2.) If quickening was sealing, they had, of course. How could he say, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost,” if quickening was the same thing It is consequent on the efficacy of the blood. “Know ye not that your bodies”— not your hearts— “are the temple of the Holy Ghost?” How can you go and connect them with sin, if so How did you get the Spirit? By giving up all trust in yourself, and being justified by faith in the Person and work of Christ; there is no question about that. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty;” “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

We are justified by faith, through the redemption God has wrought for us in Christ, of which the Spirit is the earnest and the seal. I know the value of it, and thus I know any relationship to God. He has “predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.” “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20.)

Do you all know it, beloved friends? I address myself to those who love the Lord. Can you say, I am accepted in the beloved—I know my place before God? You have it, then, from the lips of Christ Himself. “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” Do not let anything dim it, beloved; do not let any pretense of humility lead you to say, “Make me a hired servant.” You wrong God if you say it. The prodigal said it before he met his father; it would be a shame to say it after; it would be robbing his father of the grace in which he was acting. Could he have taken him into his house in such a position? No; he must come in with the dignity of his father on him!

Have you, though humbled as to yourself, the consciousness of your dignity, have you bowed to the sovereign love and grace of God? Do not talk to me of your, state, it varies in each of us. I speak of the ground we are all on, “Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children.” That is the ground. “Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost?” How can you use them for sin if so? This gives the greatest possible power for conduct. I expect you to go through the world as a child of God—as one whose body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. As you would say to your child, “you must not do such a thing because you are my child.” There are other motives, “ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 6:20.)

We know this blessed truth that when Christ went up on high He sent the Comforter down that is the difference between our state and the state of Old Testament saints. The veil was not rent then; the way into the holiest of all was not made manifest; now we have boldness to enter through the veil. We have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father.” Whoever claims fear and uncertainty as to the love and favor of God, is doubting the efficacy and distrusting the love that caused Him to give His Son, and caused His Son to die upon the cross. “Hereby perceive we the love, because he laid down his life for us.” (1 John 3:16.) You cannot believe it without saying, doubtless, “But I am such a sinner.” That makes the love the more wonderful. What did He give Him for? Was it for your virtues What part had you and I in the accomplishment of Christ’s work upon the cross? As to the fact, our sins. That was all the part we had as to the work that saves us, the only part we could have. And therefore it is all grace, full, blessed, and holy grace. God could not bear the sins, and He put them away according to His holiness, but. He did not put us away; thus I am in His presence not merely cleansed, but He has sent the Holy Ghost to dwell in me.

He is the earnest of the inheritance, “after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.” The Spirit was acting in Old Testament times, but till after the cross there was only the promise that He would pour, it out, not only that He had, done so. When Christ had gone up on high as a Man at the right hand of God, the Holy Ghost came down, to dwell in those who believe. The Comforter came down, so that the gospel is the ministration of the Spirit as well as the ministration of righteousness. He is the seal that God puts upon us until the redemption of the purchased possession.

His counsels concerning us were “to the praise of the glory of his grace,” now the earnest of our inheritance is “unto the praise of his glory.” He desires in his prayer, addressed to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that we may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We know we are in Him and He in us, if so, I say if you are in Him, He is in you, now let me see Christ, and not anything but Christ in you, “Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ,” the world ought to read Christ in us, graven in our hearts, just as they read the ten commandments written and engraved on stones-for that is the comparison. Let us live Christ. Blessed, joyful is the heart that knows Him, it has conflict with self, with Satan, and with the world, plenty of conflict, and the more faithful we are, the more we shall have, but it has the conflict along’ with God, with Him we have peace!

The Lord give us to see that when we were proved bad, God proved Himself good, and good according to the majesty and holiness of Himself. The best thing He had was given to the vilest thing in the world. He “was manifest in these last times for you, who by Him do believe in God that raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.” (1 Peter 1. 21.) What I know about God is, that He gave His Son to die for a poor wretch like me! It is His view of the blood; not mine, that gives me peace, His estimate not my own; God’s estimate in righteousness. The God I have offended is satisfied not one of us values it as we ought—God does. We see what sovereign grace can do for creatures like us, making us joint-heirs with Christ. How can we talk of such a thing? Looking at myself I would call it folly-madness! But when I look at Him, I see the one who is God’s delight in glory, I get the fruit of God’s dealings with Him and that explains it. “He will come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.”

We have the consciousness that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. The Lord keep you, and make you most watchful never to dishonor God, nor to put a slur upon the efficacy of Christ’s blood, by thinking that God could allow of anything like sin resting upon you for His name’s sake.

In the Midst of the Church

All the path the saints are treading,

Trodden by the Son of God:—

All the feelings they are feeling,

Felt by Him upon the road;

All the darkness and the sorrow,

All around and all within;

All the joy and all the triumph,

He passed through, apart from sin.

Issuing in resurrection,

Passing onward to the throne;

Having suffered all the judgment,

Borne the storm of wrath alone;

He is able thus to succor

Those who tread the burning sand,

Pressing on to resurrection,

And the seat at God’s right hand.

Now He praises,—for the darkness

And the sorrow all are passed;

His, the earnest of our issue,

We must reach the goal at last.

Yes, He praises I grace recounting

All the path already trod,—

We associated with Him—

God, our Father and our God.

Join the singing that He leadeth,

Loud to God our voices raise;

Every step that we have trodden,

Is a triumph of His grace

Whether joys, or whether trial,

All can only work for good,

For He holdeth all, who loves us,

And hath bought us with His blood.

It is finished! It is finished!

Who can tell redemption’s worth?

He who knows it leads the singing,—

Full the joy, as fierce the wrath

Taken up in resurrection,

Desert ways rehearsed above,

Tell the power of God’s salvation,

And His never-ending love.

J. W. T.

“And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev. 22:17.)

The Issues of Eternal Life

The first and second verses of this chapter belong to chapter 1. They bring out advocacy to restore to communion after failure. Our communion is with the Father and the Son, but God’s nature is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. Then, if we fail in walking in the light, communion is interrupted walking, and the provision for our failure is the advocacy of Jesus Christ the righteous. He has made propitiation for our sins, and He is with the Father the expression of divine righteousness, and on the ground of established righteousness He acts to restore our souls.

In vv. 3-11 we have the tests of the confidence of the relationship in which we stand, brought forward to meet the pretensions of those who say they are in the light, and do not walk in consistency with it. Remark, these tests are to “assure our hearts before him,” and not to lead to doubt and uncertainty. The tests are obedience and love, to give us the consciousness of the position we are in, not to answer doubts whether we are there or not. For we can neither obey nor love, till we know the Father, and are in the relationship whence our responsibility flows. How can I obey as a child, if I do not know that I am a child? Again, take love to the brethren; “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light;” if I do not know who my brethren are, or if I doubt that I am a child in the family, I cannot love them as my brethren.

This is not a vague charity, which both false religion and infidelity will support and insist upon.

The Word of God teaches me to love God’s children as a positive, manifested people. It does not teach me to love every one alike, for if so, where are the brethren, the children of God? Take, for example, an earthly relationship. If I am a child in a family, I am to love my father’s children as my brothers and sisters; I am not to love any child in the street as one of the family; for if so, I have disowned my father, for they are not his children. Certainly we are to love all men and love the world, as God loved it; but how did He love it? Why, as lost and perishing; this is not the way we love the brethren. See how positive is the ground the Word of God takes— “we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” There is the perfect consciousness of being children ourselves, and of knowing others as such, or we could not say “we” and “us.” I grant you, in the mixture of the present day, it may be difficult to find out the children of God, but, notwithstanding, there is a manifested family, and no one can love the brethren, unless he is assured he himself is one of the family. This is of all importance in this day of doubting and uncertainty.

It is the same thing in the twelfth verse; “I write unto you little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.” Not “little children” as a class, for here the Apostle is addressing the whole family. He writes to them because their sins are forgiven them. We never find in Scripture such a thing as a child of God whose sins are unforgiven just as we have seen we cannot love the brethren unless we are in the family and know the Father; so the Word of God does not own as children those whose sins are not forgiven. The Spirit of God may be working in them, showing them their need, giving them desires after Christ, attracting their hearts, all very blessed in its place. But the Word of God never speaks of any as Christians who know not the forgiveness of sins. Now this is of vast importance in a day like this. Many would not like you to question their being Christians, while at the same time they would not think of saying their sins were forgiven. Scripture, however, never separates one confession from the other.

What do we see on every side? Numbers of souls in clouds and confusion. Some who have known forgiveness and have got clouded through bad teaching, others who have never been delivered; some gone back to doubts, others never come out of them. But when I turn to Scripture I see all sure and positive. All the children have their sins forgiven them for His name’s sake.

It is very touching all through the epistle to see how the heart of the Apostle is so filled with Christ, that sometimes he does not even mention His name. There was no fear of their mistaking whom he meant, for whose name’s sake the Father had forgiven all His children. They could not be His children and not be forgiven. This positive standing is the texture of all the epistles, I do not say of some difficult texts, but every epistle is addressed to saints and to no one else. There may be allusions to others, the gospel to sinners may be stated in them, but the epistles themselves are addressed to saints. If you cannot take the name to yourselves, you cannot take the epistle as addressed to you, you are not on Christian ground. God may be working in your heart by His Spirit, revealing Christ to you, and attracting your heart by His Person, as He did to the poor woman in the seventh of Luke, but till you have learned the value of His work in the putting away of sin, you cannot be addressed as a Christian.

See for instance Col. 3:12: “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering.” You can only take this up as one “holy and beloved,” “elect of God;” if you cannot say this is true of you, you are not in the relationship from which these holy affections and dispositions flow.

How can you put on lowliness of mind as one elect of God, holy and beloved, if you do not know it is true of you? How can I love my father, if I do not know whose child I am, or to whose family I belong? It is quite impossible.

The Apostle now proceeds, from addressing himself generally to all as children, to address specially “fathers”—“young men”—and “babes.” “I write unto you fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.” This is the knowledge that characterized the people of God as fully matured: they know Christ. It is a term of great importance, and constantly repeated by, the Apostle, “Him that is from the beginning.” I do not dwell upon it here, but allude to it as declaring what Christ is in answer to all pretenses of progress and increase of light. He is, from the beginning, the perfect absolute manifestation of God. In John 1 we have the beginning of all things to which we could possibly attach the idea of beginning—earth, the heavens, angels, and whatever else we can conceive; and when their beginning commenced, Jesus Christ. Was the eternal Son of the Father—God in fact. But here we have the beginning of His manifestation. From the beginning He was the perfect absolute manifestation of God, and all that He is. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” He did so here below, having become a Man. There is no development here, growth in the knowledge of Christ there is in us; but from the beginning He has manifested all that the Father is. Prophets and types have spoken of Him. Adam was a figure of Him who was to come, as Eve was of the church. Types and shadows of Him to instruct us, as God spake in times past by the prophets, we have; but in all this God was not revealed, God was manifested in Christ. Angels, too, learn their God in this. as we read, God was “seen of angels.” The fathers thus knew Christ. This is all that is said of them, nothing can be added to this, it will be the eternal delight of heaven.

Young men are characterized as overcoming the wicked one. It is not the peaceful enjoyment of Christ, but what they have to go through to enjoy Him. There is everything in the world where Satan reigns to oppose this knowledge of Christ, to draw away and distract their hearts. They have to meet Satan in conflict, and thus to overcome. He presents the world to attract them, and they must go through it. Their age in nature, as well as in grace, brings them into conflict with the world. They are in it and have practically to go through it, they must either overcome it, or be overcome by it.

Fathers have learned what it is, and know its emptiness, and find their joy in Christ, who feeds the nature they possess, for, as we read in the second chapter, (v. 8) the life that has been manifested in Him, is in them their life, and thus there is communion in the possession of a divine nature to enjoy Him, and delight in its perfection in Him. But those who are young men have to overcome that they may enjoy Him. We see this difference when a man is converted in old age, he finds Christ; and goes quietly out of the world to be with Him. The young man has to go through it and overcome, and get the victory over it.

He writes unto babes, because they know the Father. They are in the happy enjoyment of the Spirit of adoption; they would not be owned as babes, did they not know the Father. But they are not said to know “Him that is from the beginning;” neither are they in conflict like the young men. Theirs is the joy of the Spirit of adoption in one sense a happier state than that of the young man. We who have been Christians for some time, know the difference between the first j oy of the Spirit of adoption and the conflict we have to pass through to enjoy Christ in an alluring world, where Satan reigns. The apostle has nothing to add in addressing the fathers—they know Him that is from the beginning, and he can say nothing more in addition to this.

To the young men he can say, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” They are strong, and the Word of God abides in them, and they have overcome the wicked one. Their condition is more developed here. They are strong; their strength is that the Word of God abides in them, the divine weapon to meet all the attacks of the enemy. But their energy exposes them to the power of the world. They have to pass through it, and they need to know its real character. It is impossible to love the world and the Father too. They are to discern its evil by their relationship, to the Father.

Persons may keep out of sin by the thought of God, and yet be in the world; for, as a God of providence, He has not given it up. But once realize what your relationship is as a son to the Father, and you cannot love the Father and the world. Persons may say, they ought to use their influence in the world to benefit it; and I grant that the more they are in it, the wider will their influence be; but we have to test all this, and everything else, by Christ. What we want is to be the true expression of Christ in the world. If by your influence you can do more than you could by manifesting Christ, you are only putting the light half out to accommodate yourself and those who hate Christ and love the darkness.

People ask me sometimes, what is the world? It is so difficult to tell, they say. Indeed, I reply; Do you not know what it means if I ask, “How is your son getting on in the world?” If I speak of people “rising in the world,” “prospering in the world,” and such expressions, do you not know what that means? The world is made up of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. There is the lust of the flesh-we need not speak of this for all would own sin to be wrong; then the lust of the eyes, all the vanity that Satan puts before you to attract and engage your mind—this persons find more difficult to condemn; and lastly, the pride of life, the most difficult of all to judge, because all carry so much of it about with them. It does not apply to any particular class in society. There are those who desire it, and who attain it; others there are who have it, and keep it.

Remark how wide the expression is, “all that is in the world,” People may explain it away, and say it cannot mean what it states; I would answer, I, for one, dare not deny the truth of Scripture. “All that is in the world is not of the Father.” Here is the test; I must judge the world by its treatment of Christ. If I am a child of the Father I must learn how the world treated the great Son of God, if I may be allowed the expression, the eternal Son of the Father. He was in the world manifesting all possible grace and love, and it spit in His face, and crucified Him. If any man love the world, then the love of the Father, whose Son it thus treated, is not in him.

Suppose I had a mother whom I loved, and she was ill-treated and put to death one day, could I go the next, and be “a hail-fellow well met” with those who did it, and retain my love to my murdered mother’? The two things could not go together—it would be quite impossible. I must pass through the world as an overcomer, because of its treatment of God’s Son.

In the eighteenth verse the Apostle addresses babes. The spirit of Antichrist was working in the professing Church, “whereby we know that it is the last time.” It is not that Antichrist personally is come, for, through grace, we believe we shall be taken out of the scene before this; but the spirit of Antichrist has been working from the Apostle’s days, and the evil has only been more and more developed since. “Whereby we know,” yes, even babes in Christ “know” that the last time is come. Men dream of progress and improvement, and the march of intellect. The babe in Christ is not deceived; by the knowledge of Christ he discerns the spirit of the day, and judges it as that which is the last time, and not a day of improvement. But these little children have the conscious possession of the good, whereby they judge the evil. They speak of these evil workers going out from us, and not being of us, I know since then profession has been so corrupt, that there is no need of false teachers going out, the whole thing is corrupt. The professing has tried to pull up the tares by persecution, and sometimes has burnt tares, and sometimes wheat, as the Jew said would be the case, if men tried to pull the tares out of the field, but, notwithstanding how profession has sunk, we can still say of all error, they are not of us. Do you say, how can we judge thus? The, Apostle answers, “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things; I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but, because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” The babes have an unction from God, they are taught of God. Mark too, the unction is from the Holy One, it is His own character, whereby they know all things, His own holiness, the unction is the Holy Spirit, and comes from God as the Holy One. Again, they know the truth thereby—that is Christ Himself, who is the Truth, and they know no lie is of the truth. They need not any to teach them, as the same anointing teacheth them of all things, and is truth.

It is very blessed to see the Apostle telling them they have no need of any one to teach them, and yet he is teaching them all the while.

It is an infinite blessing to have divine certainty in a world of darkness and uncertainty. All the teaching of the Apostle is grounded on divine certainty. Are we to love the brethren! Then there are brethren to love, and a known relationship to God as the Father, teaching us that we are the children of God. Then there is positive knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, the portion of every child in the family. I am a child, and I can say, “Abba, Father,” by the Spirit of adoption. I know what Christ is, and what the world is, and what the truth is.

Persons may say to me, how can you say this? Let us argue it out and put the question in doubt.” “No,” I reply, “if I know the way to my home, and you come to me and tell me all the roads in England, I simply answer, they are not the way to my home!” I am asked to discuss this as an open question and to canvass the matter: I decline, because I know the right way, and any other way is wrong. But how do you know this? Because, I reply, God says all my children “shall be taught of God,” and are taught of God, I may be called presumptuous and what not, it does not matter; the children of God can say, “we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.”

The man of the world says, “I do not believe” I reply, I cannot help this; if you are not taught of God, of course you cannot know the truth. We must act in patience and grace to such, but the Word of God gives us divine certainty, and this is an immense blessing in a day of unbelief and universal misgiving. The babe in Christ knows the truth, and has only to let that which he has heard from the beginning abide in him, for, “as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”

It Was Meet That We Should Make Merry, and Be Glad

Hark! these sounds of joy and mirth,

Telling of a heavenly birth;

Hark! these long triumphant chords,

Triumph more than earth affords;

Say, what may the meaning be

Of such untold ecstasy?

Wouldest thou know the secret spring

Of this gladsome reveling?

Find it in a Father’s heart,

From a son no more to part;

Find it in the sweet surprise

Echoing welcome through the skies.

Lonely wanderer no more,

Exiled on a distant shore;

“Lost” and “dead” but yesterday;

“Found,” “alive,” at home today;—

Is not meet that there should be

Sound of gladdest minstrelsy?

Holy Father I long above

Didst Thou wait to show Thy love;

Justice, holiness, and power,

All of these have had their hour:

But Thy love, though sometimes seen,

Manifested had not been.

Now the Father’s heart of grace,

Seen at length in Jesus’ face;

Father’s arms are opened wide,—

Prodigals are reconciled;

And of right there now may be,

Feast, and robe, and revelry!

Heaven’s vaults and arches ring

With the praise the angels bring;

Countless myriads adore,

Of His grace the wondrous store;

But the Father’s heart must prove

All the joy of conqu’ring love.

Give us hearts, Thou Blessed One,

To Thy love and grace to own,

That in us for Thee may be

Springs of truest sympathy;

We Thy holy joy would share,

We would have our portion there.

Every wanderer homeward bound,

Every “piece of money” found,

Every “sheep “within the fold,

Is to Thee a joy untold;

We would “friends and neighbors” be,

When Thou say’st, “Rejoice with me,”

—R.M.

Joab and Absolom; or, the Requirements of the Throne

Never was decision more needed nor more productive of good, than when Joab, talking to the man who informed him of Absalom’s accident, said, “I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak;” (v. 14). In the character of Joab there are points of great interest. He was a real friend of David—his General and counselor—be always knew what was befitting the dignity of his throne, although on occasions he was harsh and severe, and failed at last (as politicians simply as such, usually do); in the rebellion of Adonijah, and had eventually to be put to death by Solomon. But in the best parts of David’s reign he was ever at hand to advise him (1 Chron. 21:1-6).

He had perceived the longings of the king’s heart to get Absalom back, after this wretched man had compassed about the death of his brother Ammon, and he had effected a reconciliation, without bringing in right counsels. It was therefore entirely unsuccessful. Absalom came back unchanged in heart. Joab lost his field of barley, and David himself, still unhappy and dissatisfied, could not admit his son to any intimacy. A fresh rebellion was the result of Absalom’s untamed spirit; and the throne of David was really in jeopardy.

By the advice of Ahithophel Absalom had publicly scandalized his father, and had thus drawn the sword, and thrown away the scabbard! The true-hearted ones clung to David in his distress, but when an army was collected, so infatuated was David—so entirely did paternal affection stifle the proper and dignified thoughts which ought to have possessed him—that, as the commanders of the army (amongst whom was Joab) passed before him, he charged them in the hearing of the people, in these words, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom” (v. 5).

But Joab knew better what befitted the throne of Israel: so when the man with whom our tale opens told him of what had befallen Absalom under the oak, his quick inquiry was, “Why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver and a girdle. And the man said unto Joab, Though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king’s son: for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai, and Ittai, saying, beware that none touch the young man Absalom. Joab’s presence of mind did not fail him for a moment, and the speedy death of Absalom was the result.

Joab full well knew the necessities of the throne and by his action, he showed his true regard to David. After this there was no more need of bloodshed. “Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel” The rebellion was crushed by the death of its chief, and the affections of his subjects returned to the king.

It deserves our attention that the only difficulty Joab had, was to convey the news to David. Two men presented themselves, Ahimaaz son of Zadok a priest, intimate with, David—the other Cushi, a man with no genealogy, possibly a Gentile like Ittai, attracted by his affections into the service of David. Both these men offered themselves to carry the intelligence to the king, both having an interest in the victory. Joab says to Ahimaaz, “This day thou shalt bear no tidings, because the king’s son is dead,” (v. 20), and he prefers to send Cushi to tell the king what he had seen. However, at last, it is a race between them, Ahimaaz arrives first finds the king sitting in great anxiety between the two gates of Mahanaim, announces the victory—and to the king’s anxious question, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” gives a reply, and it is left to the rude, blunt Cushi to announce the fatal words, “The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is,” (v. 32). Then, indeed, burst out from David’s long pent-up heart, “O my son, Absalom! my son, my son, Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

These words should tell a tale to our hearts. They express the feelings of the Father of mercies towards sinners. The history is not written for nothing. It has a meaning in it. It serves to tell us how much the Father loved the Son; yet He gave Him up to die for sinners. “He that spared not his own Son; but delivered him up for us all.” Observe that David preferred the safety of his son to the safety of his crown, and the welfare of his people; hardly could he be persuaded to show himself to them, Joab said, “I perceive that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well.” Consider too, when it was a question of Abraham slaying Isaac, God spared his feelings, and accepted a ram in his stead! But when the time came to show what a frightful thing sin was—how it had reached up to the throne, and marred the whole government of God, then—oh! then,

“That he might spare His enemies,

He would not spare His Son.”

Now there are two special features in the gospel. First, a care for His own dignity on the part of God. Secondly, intense but wise love to the sinner, which both saves and changes him, for it turns his affections to their proper object. Joab as a counselor in close connection with the throne exhibits the one; David expresses the love that meets the sinner, for David would selfishly have retained Absalom, cost what it would—God, so to speak, loves the sinner at the expense of His Son. If you want rest of conscience, see how the death of Christ has established the throne of God on a firm basis. Sin has been atoned for, and righteousness brought in. If you want your heart to expand in love-think at what a cost of love your salvation has been affected. It will surely also effect a moral change in you. Combine these two thoughts if you wish to be a happy Christian.

But there is one more substantial and consoling truth found in our chapter. Joab did not know how to break the truth of the death of the king’s son to the afflicted father, but the gospel solves this difficulty. Christ Himself raised from the dead takes up to heaven the account of His own victory. Hung up on the cross for our sins, and the whole weight of them heaped upon Him, He cries, “It is finished.” The heap of stones mark the spot of Absalom’s grave to this day, but, on the resurrection morning, the great stone was rolled away from the sepulcher—the word of the angels is, “He is not here, but is risen,” and His own word to Mary is, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”

In David’s case “the victory that day was turned into mourning: for the people heard say that day, how the king was grieved for his son.” In our case not only is it said by Christ, “therefore doth my Father love me, because lay down my life that I might take it again,” but the Father having received Him, sends down the Holy Ghost—witness of His welcome arrival in heaven; (John 16:7, Acts 5:32), and so the good news of salvation is called the glorious gospel of the blessed (in Greek; “happy”) God. (1 Tim. 1:11.)

Reader! may it be yours to your own joy, and to the glory of God, Amen. W. W.

Jonah

Our moral corruption is very deep, indeed it is complete; and at times it will betray itself in very repulsive, hideous shapes from which we instinctively shrink, are confounded at the thought that they belong to us.

Privileges may only serve to develop instead of curing them. As one has said, “You will never know what the flesh is, till you see it in the saints of God.”

The love of distinction was inlaid in us at the very outset of our apostasy, “Ye shall he as gods” was listened to, and to this lust we will, in cold blood, sacrifice thousands—as at the beginning we sacrificed the Lord himself to it. (Gen. 3) We take Christ’s gifts and deck ourselves with them. The church at Corinth was such a one as that—instead of using their gifts for others, the brethren there were displaying them. But the man who had the mind of Christ in the midst of them, would say, “I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” (1 Cor. 14:19.)

Jonah was doubly privileged. He was a Jew, and he was a prophet. But nature is quick in him to take advantage of these privileges, and to serve his own foul corrupt ends by them. He was a saint of God, as he was a Jew, and a prophet, but that alone gives no adequate security against nature.

As a prophet, the Lord sends him with a word to Nineveh. It was to be a word of judgment. But he knew when he was receiving it that it would not be verified—that in the breast of Him who was sending it mercy rejoiced, and that the word which was to speak of judgment would be gain-sayed; set aside by the grace that abounded. Was he prepared for this? Could he, as a Jew, suffer it, that a Gentile city should be spared and favored? Could he, as a prophet, suffer it, that his word should appear to fall to the ground, and that, too, in the face of the despised uncircumcised? This was too large a demand on this saint of God. He goes on board a ship bound for Tarshish, instead of crossing the country to Nineveh. It is a proud apostate, another Adam, that is now on the waters of the Mediterranean Sea; and he takes the sentence of death into himself as his first father did, He who aimed at holding his privileges and honors as a Jew and a prophet, and would not brook the thought of their being trespassed on, or shared by others, has to meet the penalty of his sin, and be wrapped among the weeds of the sea, down in the bottoms of the mountains.

To accept the punishment of our sins is a blessed principle of faith; it is the first duty of an erring soul. We are not to seek to right ourselves when we have gone wrong, lest Hormah be our portion. (Num. 14) Our first duty is in the spirit of confession, to accept the punishment of our sins, and be humbled under the mighty or the chastening hand of God (Lev. 26:41). David did this, and the kingdom again, and not Hormah, was his end.

And so does Jonah now: “Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea,” said he to the mariners, “so shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.” They did so, but with a grace that might well have shamed their betters. But now, I ask, could Gentile Nineveh be in a worse condition?.... A Jew, and a prophet, in the bottom of the sea, with the weeds wrapped round his head, because of the displeasure, and under the judgment of God! Surely such a one in such a plight may well end his boasting, and no longer despise others, He could not well be lower. Apostate, proud Adam was behind the trees of the garden; apostate, proud Jonah is in the bottom of the sea. But soon it will be only his sin that shall be left there. Precious grace Jonah himself shall be delivered, singing of salvation, as Adam before him left his guilt and his covert together, returning to the presence of God, to be clothed and accepted, and to walk again in the bright, unclouded light of God. But Jonah was educated ere he left the belly of the fish. He finds out that he wanted the salvation of God just as much as any Gentile could want it. Uncircumcised Nineveh had been unclean in his eye, and he grudged her the mercy of God. What would become of himself now, but for the like mercy’? He was in prison, and he deserved to be there. What would do for him now but mercy “Salvation is of the Lord,” he has to say. It is not in himself; as a privileged Jew, or as a gifted prophet, that he will now rejoice, but only in Him to whom it belongs to bring salvation. And, then, “is he the God of the Jew only? Nay, but of the Gentile also,” would his experience be, the experience of a Jonah, a prophet in Israel, when under judgment of God in the belly of hell. Our need of justification, our dependence on the sovereignty, the grace and the salvation of God, equalizes us all; “It is one God that shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.” (Rom. 3:30). The Jew would come in, in the very same mercy as the Gentile does. So Jonah needed it that is the lesson which the whale’s belly taught him. Let Nineveh be what it may, Gentile and uncircumcised, a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, or anything else, it could not stand more in need of the salvation of the Lord than he, the favored Jew and the gifted prophet, at that moment did.

It was all over with him but for that—but that he gets—and the fish casts him up on the dry land when he had said, “Salvation is of the Lord.”

His nation by and by shall learn the same lesson. No aim is now left with them but the sign of this prophet; and they will have to learn with him as out of the belly of hell, as from under the judgment of God, that grace, free, full, sovereign riches of grace in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, is their only refuge. Through our mercy they will obtain mercy. (Rom. 11:31.) Just as the Gentile receives blessing now, so will the Jew by and bye. God has concluded all in unbelief, or sin, that he may have mercy, the like grace and salvation, upon all.

As one who has there been taught to know his own need, and to take, as dependent, a place in the rich grace of God as any can take, Jonah is sent on a second mission to Nineveh. He comes with words of judgment on his lips, he enters that great city. “Yet forty days,” he proclaims aloud, “and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”

Thus he “mourned.” It was his commission. Responsively, Nineveh “lamented:” The King rose from his throne, and all the nation put themselves in sackcloth. And a King of Nineveh shall find God, as a King of Judah had before found him; “I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,” said David, “and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” So here “who can tell” says the Gentile King, “if God will,” &c., (ch. 3:9), “and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”

“Is he the God of the Jew only?” again I ask with the Apostle; and with him again I answer, “Nay, but of the Gentile also.”

But “tell it not in Gath.” Did Lot go a second time to. Sodom Did Hezekiah, after the shadow upon the sun-dial, sin through pride with the ambassadors of Babylon? Did Josiah after his humbling and tenderness, go willfully to the battle I Did Peter, in spite of lemmings, deny his Lord? Have you and I, beloved, forgotten the lessons and correctings of God? And is Jonah now to be unmindful of the whale’s belly

Jonah is displeased. He cannot exactly again take ship for Tarshish but he goes outside the city. The mercy shown to Nineveh had made a Gentile city as important with the God of all grace as a Jew; and frustrated, as pride would have it, the word of a prophet. Jonah was very angry; and he said, “O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? therefore I fled before unto Tarshish for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil; therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”

What naughtiness of heart all this was. Was he preparing another fish’s belly for himself? How richly he deserved it; yet it was not quite so. But he was about to feel a vehement east wind, and a burning sun, under the disappointing shadow of a withered, blasted gourd.

What troubles we make for ourselves! Why did not Lot remain in the calm unruffled tent of Abraham, and why did he prepare for himself a fish—a second furnace—in Sodom? Why did David bring a sword upon his house that was commissioned of the Lord to hang over it unsheathed till the day of his death

The Lord’s voice crieth unto the city, hear ye the rod. How much more shall the saints hear it? But Jonah was deaf. He soon forgot the lesson of the whale’s belly, and he must now be put to learn the lesson of the withered gourd. He had been set to learn the grace of God in one character of it, and he shall now be set to learn it in another. But it is divine grace he has still to learn. Blessed lesson for all! The whale’s belly, the belly of hell where he once was, had taught him his need of “salvation,” and that the salvation he needed was “of the Lord “ in sovereignty, in that magnificent height and depth that could stretch as from the throne of power in the highest, to the bottom of the sea in the lowest, and there extricate a captive as from the belly of hell.

The withered gourd shall now teach him how the blessed Creator delights in the works of His hands, and finds His rest and refreshment in them. Jonah has to prove this. He sits under the shadow of the gourd, and is “exceeding glad.” But the worm withers it, strips it of all its leafy honors, and thus of that which refreshes Jonah; and the wind and the sun make Jonah to faint, so that he would rather die than live, and he is very angry. The Lord, in marvelous gentleness, turns all these simple circumstances into a page of the profoundest instruction.

The prophet’s delight in the gourd for which he had not labored, is but the reflection of the Lord’s delight in the creatures of His hand, be they at Nineveh or Jerusalem and if Jonah would fain have had the gourd spared, he must allow Nineveh with its cattle and its children, not to mention its thousands of grown and ripened inhabitants, to be spared also. Jonah shall witness for the Lord against himself. Out of his own mouth he shall be judged.

Thoughts On Sacrifices. —No. 7. Cleansing from Defilement. Num. 19

The ashes prepared, the occasion of their use is next declared-the sprinkling of any one defiled by the dead. Here also we see shadowed forth what sin is before God. “He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.” To touch the dead body of a clean beast which had died, rendered the person unclean till the evening; to touch the dead body of a man, however good he might have been, rendered the man unclean seven days. How humbling to the pride of man! A descendant of Adam, who was made in the image of God, after His likeness, was more defiling when dead than the body of a beast. Why was this? By man came sin, and by sin came death. Death witnessed of the presence of sin, for death was the consequence of it. Surrounded with the consequences of sin, and often made to feel them keenly as death entered the family or the tent, yet a man could not always help being in the tent where death had entered, or refrain in the call of duty from touching a dead body, or a bone, or a grave. God knew this. It might not be a wrong act on the man’s part, for God did not command them to refrain from this (the priests, outside certain family relationships excepted), yet He pronounced whoever did, touch the dead body, etc., unclean for seven days. And mark this, the period of uncleanness could not be shortened; no excuse, no argument could avail to set aside God’s word, or procure a relaxation of this stringent rule. On no ground could defilement by the dead be passed over as a thing of little consequence, or be excused by the exigencies of the occasion; for even if the passover was nigh at hand, those unclean by a dead body must wait for the following month, before they could again commemorate the redemption of the people from Egypt. Touching a dead body was a serious thing in God’s sight, whatever it might have been in man’s; for He judged according to the holiness of His nature, not according to the necessity of the case.

What an illustration this affords of the nature of God! All that came into the tent, and all that was in the tent where death entered, were rendered unclean by its presence. Contact with defilement defiled, and entrance into the place where death was, became a cause of defilement likewise. Inflexible was the standard of God’s holiness, which must be maintained, whatever it might cost His creatures. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” cried the seraphims (Isa. 6:3), and here we see exemplified in some degree what that holiness is. Had it been an atrocious act of sin, which called forth this stringent rule to guard the holiness of God from being sullied by the sinner’s presence, all must have agreed in the justice of his exclusion. But here, where man might not have been able to avoid it, born in God’s providence into a world in which death has found an entrance, whatever excuse he might have been prepared to offer, or whatever plea of inability to have kept himself clean he, might truly have urged, nothing could avail when the holy character of God was in question. Unclean he was, and unclean he must be till the appointed epoch had passed away. God could admit of no compromise. The man had not sinned it is true, but he was unclean, because death, the wages of sin, was there. It was no question then about the measure of a man’s guilt, but entirely a question about the nature of God. How little, surely, is this, understood even in these days.

Made to feel in himself how sin excludes from the presence of God, and how holy He must be who so jealously guarded the purity of His sanctuary, the man, whilst learning the defiling character of sin, and all connected with it, might learn also the gracious provision of his God for the effectual removal of his uncleanness by the sprinkling of the water of separation. How to be made clean when defiled he could not have discovered, but God had disclosed the means to be used, manifesting thereby the utmost care for the sanctuary, but manifesting also His real desire for the defiled one. “He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean; but, if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean,” The water must be used on both days. Purified he would be if he conformed to God’s law, but the full time must elapse before he could be, clean. The clean person must use the water with hyssop, and twice must the unclean one be. sprinkled. A little thing it might seem to touch the dead body, or to be in the tent; but the man must deeply feel what sin and all connected with it, is before God. On the third day and on the seventh day was he sprinkled. It was no hasty work, done in a moment and forgotten. Sprinkled on the third day, he must wait till the seventh day arrived, and then be sprinkled afresh before he could be clean. The condition he was in as unclean must be pressed home on him. He must feel it fully, as a whole period of time elapsed between the act which defiled, and the final act of bathing himself on the seventh day at even. Besides this, he had to own himself indebted to a clean person for the sprinkling of that water, by which alone he could begin to emerge from his state of ceremonial uncleanness. Without the sprinkling with the water on the two separate occasions he could not have been cleansed, and without the washing of his clothes and himself in water, the cleansing must have been imperfect.

Of what does this rite speak to us? It tells of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ under the judgment of God for us, brought home to the conscience in power by the Holy Ghost. His death was needed to atone for our sins, His death was also requisite to put away sin, and to be applied to the believer as an adequate motive for his walk in separation from evil on earth. How great then was the need of that death, and how rich are the provisions we have in it. By it God’s holiness is maintained, and because of it the defiled one can be cleansed. And, as the type sets forth what was needed, so the order therein enjoined is the order with God’s people now. First, the death of Christ is applied to the conscience by the Holy Ghost, then separation from what is unclean around us will take place; just as the man was first sprinkled, and then he washed himself. He washed himself because he had been sprinkled, and that twice; not to fit himself to be sprinkled, for another—a clean man must move in that matter first of all on his behalf. Humbling fact and since it was a question of cleansing from what had defiled him by contact, or by his presence within the tent where death was, and not of standing before God, he needed not the immediate services of the priest, (they had been rendered in the preparation of the ashes); but the offices of one that was himself ceremonially clean. The aspect of priestly work is towards God, so the blood of the heifer had been sprinkled by the priest towards the face of the tabernacle of the congregation. None but the priest, the type of the Lord Jesus Christ could do this; but, the using the water of separation on behalf of another, was an act of a different character, for it shadows forth that service which one believer can do for another, as, beholding him entangled in that which is defiling, he applies by the power of the Holy Ghost the word—which tells of the death of Christ, and the consequent position of His followers on earth—to free the soul from all that communicates only uncleanness.

And as the sprinkled one purified himself, and washed his clothes, and bathed himself in water; so those to whom such a service is rendered must themselves acquiesce in it, and act accordingly. “Blessed are they that wash their robes (so we should read) that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev. 22:14.) There is such a thing as “cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 6:1), besides having our feet washed by the service of another (John But, to minister to one in need of such offices, the individual must be clean himself.

Another thing comes out. Though only an individual was defiled, the consequences of his act were not confined to himself. Outside the camp because defiled (Num. 5), he was nevertheless a member of it, in the midst of which God dwelt. So, if the means prescribed for his cleansing were despised, or even neglected, God must have acted, because he defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. Hence, there was but one alternative. Death must come in in any case; but it was either for the man to avail himself of the death of the heifer, or to suffer death himself under the judicial hand of God. He might say he did not want the cleansing. That would show how completely he disregarded the peculiar privileges of the people of Israel, but that plea would not avail him. He could not shelter himself from what flowed from his position as a member of the camp, on the ground of his individuality. It mattered not what he desired, action must take place, because he belonged to the congregation in the midst of which was the sanctuary.

How holy then was that place. All connected with his cleansing felt it. The person who sprinkled him had to wash his clothes, and the Man who touched the water of separation was unclean until the evening, whilst the poor defiled person, unable to sanctify himself, imparted pollution to whatever he came against. What a state to be in. But death, the death of God’s own Son, provided all that was needful. No compromise of God’s holiness, nor continuance of defilement could be allowed for a moment, nor was there the need of either; for that death, as viewed in the type, maintained the one, and purified the individual from the other.

Judgment and Government

It is very important for newly born souls to distinguish clearly between Judgment and Government. The moment I accept the truth of my condition as a poor sinner before God, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I am entitled to know that there is no condemnation for me; for the very simple reason, that the Word of God tells me that the condemnation due to me has been already borne by my blessed substitute Jesus, and God has cleared me from all my guilt because of the work of Christ. “He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me,” says the Lord, “hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24.) “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,” says the Holy Ghost. (Rom. 8:1.) “Herein is love with us (margin) made perfect,” says the same infallible witness (1 John 4:17,) “that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.”

The same Christ that died for us, and “bare our sins in his own body on the tree,” (1 Peter 2:24) has risen from the dead, and has imparted to us His own life (1 John, v. 11). He is the one to whom all judgment has been committed. (John 5:22.) He cannot therefore condemn us, for in doing so, He must judge His own work—His own life—Himself. We can boldly say, “who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?” (Rom. 8. 33, 34.) And moreover when the dead stand before God in that awfully solemn day of the great white throne, to receive for the things done in the body, we shall have been for more than a thousand years in glory, in the image of our Lord; and seated with Him on His throne, reigning with Him (Rev. 20:4,6,) ourselves judges. (1 Cor. 6:2,3.)

The weakest babe in Christ has no need of uneasiness on that score, but may rejoice in the fullest sense of liberty from condemnation.

Quite distinct from this is the Father’s government of His child. This is confined to this present scene, as it says, in 1 Peter 1:17, “And if ye call on the Father, who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear,” &c. The moment I become a child of God I become subject to my Father’s government, and a more tender, loving, and yet faithful Parent could not be. He knows the difficulties of His child; He knows that he has the flesh in him to contend with—the evil nature that never can be better. Flesh and Spirit are there, and the tendencies of the two are precisely opposite. (Gal. 5:17.) “The Spirit of, life in Christ Jesus,” (Rom. 8:2) delighting to do the will of God, and the natural man still seeking its own will. He has given me the Spirit that I may walk in the Spirit, and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh; but if failure comes, and, alas, it does, “for in many things we offend all,” He deals with me as His child, using, if it be needed, and in love to me, His rod. Thus, though there is no condemnation for me in the world to come, it is well for me to remember that my Father expects from me a walk here consistent with His own holiness, and does not permit to go unnoticed any indulgence or outbreak of the flesh that still is in me. A word applied by the Spirit to the conscience may be sufficient at times to produce self-judgment, and restore communion. At times it may be needful to apply the rod, and this the more severely, the deeper the giving way to flesh. In such case humiliation and confession will alone avail to restore intercourse between the erring child and its Father.

May we then, who are Christ’s, and who have ceased to fear the judgment after death, seeing Christ was once offered to bear our sins (Heb. 9:27,28), endeavor so to walk in the fear of our holy Father, keeping our old man in the place of death, and never taking the eye off our glorified Saviour, that we may ever have His voice speaking to us in communion and joy and encouragement, and not need the rod in love to bring us to repentance. “Happy is the man,” says the Proverb (28:14), “that feareth alway.” D. T. G.

The Kingdoms

A few words on the difference between the various kingdoms mentioned in Scripture might be found useful to some of your readers. We have the Kingdom of God, Matt. 12:28; the Kingdom of heaven, Matt. 25:1; the Kingdom of the Father, Matt. 26:29; the Kingdom of the Son of Man, Dan. 7:13,14; the Kingdom of the Son of His love, Col. 1:13; the Everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 1:11; Heb. 12:28.

You are introduced to the first named in connection with the Lord when upon earth, for in answer to the Pharisees’ demand “when the kingdom of God should come?” He answered them and saith, “the kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, lo here, or lo there, for behold the kingdom of God is within you,” or as the margin reads it, “among you,” (Luke 17:20-21). One has well described it as “the exhibition, or the manifestation of the ruling power of God under any circumstances,”—and, in the person of His Son, God was manifesting His ruling power at this time; God was there in Him.

It is also spoken of as existing at the present time, for in Rom. 14:17 we read, “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost:” and again, in 1 Cor. 4:20, “the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.” In these cases, the ruling power of God is again exhibited, not in the Son, but by the Spirit, who, through. His presence on earth, produces in those that believe practical righteousness, peace and joy, and in His servants power to correct evil where needed. In Christ, then, during His time on earth, the Kingdom of God was to be seen; by the Spirit now. The Kingdom of God was the circle of Christ’s workings previous to. His being received up into glory, Now, it is the circle of the Holy Ghost’s workings. Scripture would seem to teach that in Christ’s day none but He could be in it, for though “among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist,” yet, “he that is least in the kingdom of God, is greater than he,” (Luke 7:28).

The Kingdom of God then was confined to Christ Himself in His day, though every man was pressing into or towards it, (Luke 17:1-6), waiting, as it were, till the Holy Ghost’s descent should open the door for them. This took place at Pentecost, and then the new creation entitled everyone to enter, (John 3:3-5). And thus the ruling power of God, exhibited only in Christ when on earth, is now manifested in those whose bodies have become the temples of the Holy Ghost.

So far as to its divine or proper form. The name however, is applied in Scripture to what the divine’ thing has in man’s hands become, what we know by the name of Christendom. The “tree” and the “leaven” (Luke 13:18-21), give us its outward dimensions and its internal condition. Outwardly, what was but a grain, a small thing, at Pentecost, has become a huge overgrown mass that shelters even the devil’s emissaries; while internal evil and corrupt doctrine has permeated that which was the people’s food. What a description of Christendom, and yet how accurate! —a vast system, but rotten within.

Thus Rom. 14:17, 1 Cor. 4:20, describe the present inward or divine aspect of the Kingdom of God. Luke 13:18-21, its external or human condition.

“The kingdom of Heaven,” or literally of the heavens, differs from the kingdom of God, and yet, in some respects, resembles it As we know, the name is only used in the Gospel of Matthew, and this is readily accounted for by the fact that to this Evangelist belongs the task of commending the truth to Jewish consciences, and amongst other things he proves that the kingdom foretold in old Testament writings was that which the Messiah proposed to introduce. He therefore calls it the kingdom of the heavens, because that name coincides with the description given of it in the Law, Psalms, and Prophets,

Israel was taught to lay up the Lord’s “words in their heart, and in their soul, and bind them for a sign upon their hand, that they might be as frontlets between their eyes—that their days might be multiplied, and the days of their children, in the land which the Lord aware unto their fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon earth.” (Deut. 11:18-21.) It was said of David, too, that his seed should “endure forever, and his throne as the 8 of heaven.” (Psa. 89:29.) And likewise it is said of the power of the gentiles that it should continue till the time that they should know “that the heavens do rule.” (Dan. 4:26.)

Hence we may trace throughout the Old Testament allusion made to a time when God’s will would be “done on earth” (as the prayer which the Lord then taught His disciples expressed it), “as it is in heaven,” (Matt. 6:10).

This time the Baptist came to introduce the Messiah, and therefore announced (Matt. 3:2) that “the kingdom of the heavens was at hand.” Jesus Himself (Matt. 4:17) makes the same statement; but instead of His claims being submitted to, they hold a council to destroy Him (Matt. 12:14), and consequently the kingdom of the heavens assumes a mysterious form (Matt. 13:11). The mystery being that it should be a kingdom with an absent king, a thing unknown in history—the king being rejected.

The 13th chapter presents the kingdom of the heavens to us in six different ways. But before we say a word as to these, we would direct the reader’s attention to Matt. 11:11-12, which seems coupled with Matt. 16: 19, to give us light as to the time when the kingdom commenced.

John Baptist was not in it, blessed as was the position he occupied—the door was not thrown open though Christ was on the throne, until Peter unlocked it on the day of Pentecost, and, then “the violent” (those really in earnest) reached the goal that they had been seeking for since the days of John the Baptist. Thus, then, it could not have been said the kingdom of the heavens is “among you,” neither could it be said, “I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of God.” The kingdom of God and the kingdom of the heavens are distinct and different. The one existing while the Lord was on earth—the other commencing on Christ taking His seat on the Father’s throne. The latter opened by a human instrument—the former inaugurated by Christ Himself. In certain points however, they resemble each other; both having’ an outward and an inward, a human (as one may say) and a divine form. As to the outward form, the same similitudes are applied to each—the “mustard seed” and “leaven”—as to the inward, we have in the one case the thing formed by the Holy Ghost, and in the other what the thing formed comes to. Outwardly then, the kingdom of the heavens is like a tare field, a tree, and leaven. A mixture of the Lord’s and Satan’s people—that mixture grouped into a huge wide spreading system, powerful outwardly, internally corrupt; such is Christendom of the present day. But to faith there is an inner or divine form which the kingdom takes, and this is seen in separate pieces composing “a treasure” precious to God; and in a thing whose oneness and purity reminds us of the excellence of the Church of God as seen of Christ, and in a form of separation from evil that shows us that God delights not in the mixed company of the first three parables, but in companies gathered apart from the surrounding corruption. These latter are the kingdom of the heavens from God’s side. Thus, then, the kingdom of the heavens proper is the rule of the heavens upon earth—the days of heaven—the Lord hearing the heavens, and the heavens the earth. (Hos. 2:21.) This however; was refused by man, and consequently, now the days of heaven upon earth are seen by those to whom it is given, to exist in a mysterious form until Messiah comes to bring in the times of restitution of all things with the trumpet of Jubilee.

The kingdom of the heavens thus was openly offered by the Messiah at His advent—refused, and therefore commenced in a mysterious way on His ascension and is running on during the present time and will exist after the church’s removal, until the millennium commences; when it will take its proper form, but will be known partly as the kingdom of the Father, and partly as the kingdom of the Son of man.

These both commence and end simultaneously. The kingdom of the Father relating to things above, the kingdom of the Son of man to things below.

For the former, the Jewish remnant pray when they say “Our Father... thy kingdom come.” They will be gathered as the wheat into the barn and will as the righteous, shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. (Matt. 13:30-43.) A heavenly people; their reward is in heaven in the scene of their Father’s, dwelling. The kingdom of the Father is for the heavenly people. The kingdom of the Son of man for the earthly. The 8th Psalm explains this, as Son of man He takes the Headship of all below, the place that Adam lost. As Son of man He executes judgment (Matt. 13:41). As Son of man He welcomes into His kingdom the blessed of His Father-the sheep who satisfied His hunger, quenched His thirst, clothed His nakedness, and cheered Him in sickness and imprisonment, (Matt. 25:31-46). An earthly people, they have been counted worthy to “stand before the Son of man,” (Luke 21:36).

Thus the millennial “world kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Rev. 11:15) has a heavenly and an earthly aspect—the one embracing only glorified saints, the other, including the earthly ones, having eternal life but not glorified as to their bodies. The one is the sphere of the Father’s glory, the other the scene of the rule of the Son of man. Both will alike cease when He delivers “up the kingdom to God even the Father.” (1 Cor. 15:24.)

It remains but to notice “the kingdom of the Son of his love” (Col. 1:13), and “the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” (2 Peter 1:11).

These are quite distinct in their characters from those we have already mentioned, and give us rather the thought of position than display. The one refers to our present place, the other to our future glory.

They are more to be felt than described, and are only mentioned each once in Scripture. Christ has a present kingdom, the Christ whom the world refused to own as king. One which the Father’s love bestowed on Him the Son of His affections, and into this, we who have believed have already been translated. It is the region of blessing of which Christ is the center, and Christ in the most excellent way as Son of His Father’s love; we may enjoy it though we can’t describe it.

The other is before us, and a blessed contrast to the things that are “fading away” around us. It is everlasting, and we shall share it with Him, and His desire is that we should enter it, as one may say, full sail—as Paul when he said, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have “fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me de crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me.” (2 Tim. 4:6-8.) May it be ours, then, to add to our faith all these things that 2 Peter 1:5-7 contains, so that not merely an entrance, (we are sure of this as those who are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”), but “an abundant entrance be administered unto us into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Amen! D. T. G.

The Lamb in the Midst of the Throne

One is almost afraid to say anything about such a scene as this, lest one should detract from its glory, and hinder our own joy in contemplating it. My one thought about it this morning is that which forms our link with the scene, Beloved. It is nothing less than He who is the central object of it all, the one around whom we are gathered. In reading chapter 4, you cannot fail to feel, that in all the glory of it—wonderful as it is—there is a lack, something wanting to fix the heart. John finds in it no home object; but this lack is more than filled up in chapter 5, when we get for the first time the center of all these circles of glory. “In the midst of the throne, and of the four living creatures, and of the elders, stood a lamb.” They said to John “behold the lion,” and he looked, and beheld a lamb, yes, and a “Lamb as slain.” John recognizes in Him, the very One he had known, and loved on earth. His first sight of Him in heaven, is in the same character, too, as that which had first attracted him away from all else, to follow Jesus on earth.

It was at the testimony of the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God,” that his two disciples dropped off from him, and followed Jesus. Peter we know was one of them, and I have no doubt the nameless one was John himself, for he avoids mentioning himself in writing the gospel. Jesus hears the question, Master, where dwellest thou he and replied “Come and see.” They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day. Precious union with the heart of God, that found all its delight in that lowly One on earth. And now John sees this same Lamb in heaven, as slain. That linked him with the scene, and us, too, beloved.

It is true we have in these chapters our own place, and I need hardly say we are not there yet; but, the Lamb in the midst of it all, is the sum and substance of all our blessing. He has redeemed us by His blood. All in heaven fall down before Him, and worship; but we lead the song. We are able to say, as angels cannot, “Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed as to God by thy blood.”

Here around His table we have the same object before us; the same occupation, worship. In John 3:35-36, we find how this brings us into communion with the Father. “The Father loveth the Son.” All His delight is in the Son; and in this we have common thoughts with Him, for He has become the object of our delight too. All the Father’s counsels are for Him. When once He is put forth, everything is decided in reference to Him. This is the connection of ver. 36, “He that believeth.” Those who honor the Son by believing on Him, the Father will bless; those who do not, the wrath of God abides on them. Thus we see He was the Father’s object upon earth, as in Rev. 5, we find He is in heaven.

John 12, gives us a new center of attraction; yet the same Jesus. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” It is the cross; there He was lifted up between the earth and heaven; to be the center to which everything that is of God on earth must flow. But further, He is exalted to the Father’s right hand. It is there that we know Him, Heb. 2:6-9 (read), made a little lower than the angels; now crowned with glory and honor. The day is coming, when all things shall be put in subjection under Him. int “we see not yet all things put under him; but (as we gaze into the open heaven) we see Jesus.”

Eph. 1 Connects us with Him there. He is head over all things to His church, which is His body. When He ascended, the Holy Ghost came down to earth; was it that the object of the Father’s interest was changed? Had the Holy Ghost come down to take the place of Christ on earth, or to be a new center for our hearts? Oh, no, beloved The Holy Spirit is here to associate us with them there, and to lead up our hearts unto constant occupation with Him to unfold all His perfections to us, that we may love Him better and count Him to be the alone worthy one in heaven or earth of our adoration.

Now we are prepared for such a word as Heb. 13:13, “Let us go forth unto him, without the camp.” The camp was the earthly system of religion, once ordained by God, but now set aside; we are to go forth to Him, and that will necessarily lead us outside all that is recognized among men as religion—all accredited systems. For as truly as He is the center and gathering point in heaven, so truly is He the only divine center and gathering point on earth; and to follow Him must take us outside all that is owned by men.

2 Thess. 2 is, deeply interesting from this point of view. “We beseech by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him.” Impossible that He should come, and we not be gathered to Him! His place always decides ours. If He is “outside the camp,” we MUST go forth unto Him. If He comes, we MUST be gathered to Him. When He moves, we move. When He moves from the throne on which He sits, to the air, we move from the earth to the air —our new gathering point, where He is coming to take us back with Him to the Father’s house. Think what the Father’s house will be! The home of such a heart as Christ’s! where all His divine affections flow out, and are fully answered. That is where He is going to take us to, where He is at home! Oh, beloved, truly our blessing and joy will be full then.

It is the same people who are now gathered round the Lamb on earth—their object the same—their occupation the same. The difference is, that then the worship will be unrestrained, unhindered by the flesh; in the full energy of the Spirit of God. Now we have so often to mourn over failure—to grieve that our hearts are so slow to lay hold of what is before us. Then, blessed be God, there will be no failure to mourn over—nothing to turn us aside from absorbing occupation with Christ.

J. A. T.

The Lord's Death

For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the

Lord’s death till He come.” 1 Cor. 11:26.

Lord Jesus, gathered in Thy name

(E’en as the Scripture saith),

We to the universe proclaim

One mystery: Thy Death.

Free, in a scene that knows Thee not:

One Spirit, Lord, with Thee.

We turn to Calvary, Thy spot

Of blood-bought victory.

The Lord's Death Till He Come

On that “same night,” Lord Jesus,

When all the scene combined

To cast its darkest shadow

Across Thy holy mind,

We hear Thy voice; blest Saviour,

“This do, remember me;”

With joyful hearts responding

We do remember Thee.

The depth of all Thy suffering

No heart could e’er conceive;

The cup of wrath o’erflowing,

For us Thou did’st receive,

And oh! of God forsaken

On the accursed tree—

With grateful hearts, Lord Jesus,

We now remember Thee.

We think of all the darkness

Which round Thy spirit press’d

Of all those was and billows

Which roll’ d across Thy breast;

Oh there Thy grace unbounded,

And perfect love we see

With joy and sorrow mingling

We would remember Thee.

We know Thee now as risen

“The first-born from the dead;”

We see Thee now ascended

The Church’s glorious head.

In Thee by grace accepted,

The heart and mind set free

To think of all Thy sorrow,

And thus remember Thee.

Till Thou shalt come in glory,

And call us hence away,

To bask in all the brightness

Of that unclouded day;

We show Thy death, Lord Jesus,

And here would seek to be

More to Thy death conformed.

Whilst we remember Thee.

G. W. F.

Manoah's Wife

I believe that very commonly when we read such writings as the Epistle to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, or to the Hebrews, indeed any of the epistles, we might very profitably keep in memory the words of Manoah’s wife to her husband. He was afraid, for they had seen God, and he thought he should die; but she said to him, “If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands, neither would he have sheaved us all these things, nor would, as at this time, have told us such things as these” (Judg. 13).

A very simple, beautiful and convincing argument, Faith is always the best reasoner; because it uses the very arguments which God in grace suggests—as in this instance of this simple woman, whose simplicity of faith is apparent from the whole chapter. Her husband was rather a devout and good man, who walked more in a praying a believing mind; but this simple reasoning of his wife may be our reasoning as we read such scriptures as those I have mentioned. There we find that our God has told us wonderful secrets, brought us into intimate and near relationship to. Himself, and looks for our presence in His sanctuary within a rent veil, with burnt-offerings and sacrifices of praise. In such character and places as these He addresses us. And how full such a thing as that is of the great proof that He has no purpose of a controversy with us, but that He has already accepted our persons, and forgiven our sins? Surely it is. He would not, after this manner, set us in the place of either sons, friends, or worshippers, had He not first set us as accepted and pardoned. The less is surely included in the better.

And He Himself treats acceptance and pardon very much in that way in such epistles. He rather assumes it than teaches it. If He is recalled to it at all, it is because the saints were so disposed to return to the law, to the legal mind, and the world of ordinances. The question of pardon or justification suits the presence of God as a judge. But in some of these epistles our God speaks to us as a Father; or as from the sanctuary of peace; or as face to face, as a man would speak to a friend communicating his secrets; or as One that has us with Himself in heavenly places; and He would not thus deal with us we may say, in the spirit of Manoah’s wife, if it were His pleasure to kill us, or to keep us under law, and in fear of judgment.

Indeed, the reasoning of the apostle at the close of Rom. 8 has this character in it. It may remind us of Manoah and his wife in the field of Zorah. For, like that believing woman, the apostle is challenging the inferior thing in the presence or name of the higher thing. She says, He would not kill us because He has spoken to us, and accepted our worship; the apostle says, who shall condemn, since Christ died, and rose, and intercedes?

The Memorial Stones in Jordan and at Gilgal

God has bestowed upon us eternal life in His Son; a life on the other side of death and judgment; these were borne by Jesus before it was bestowed. This life is a witness that the sins we had committed are all forever put away; for when He passed down, in holy love into those depths where we lay “dead in sins,” He found our sins, He took them up and made them His own—died and rose again, leaving them all behind Him in His grave.

We have also been introduced, in Christ, into a new sphere on high with God-fitting place for the life He has bestowed. He has given us in title, the glory He possesses as Man and the possession too, of all He will inherit by and by. Thus, in this new place, we have wholly left the Egypt to which we once belonged and the wilderness we traverse, when we look at ourselves in “heavenly places, in Christ.”

And here comes in the double character of the Christian’s state. If he looks up he is in the heavenlies, “in Christ,” united to Him by the Holy Ghost sent down; but he is traversing the desert as a pilgrim and stranger, if he looks below. A place, whose every breath is noxious to the heavenly life he possesses in Christ. He has begun in the glory and he is in the race which leads to the attainment of the goal; the mark for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. He looks at himself below, and can truly say, “as having nothing” he looks at Christ on high, and says, “yet possessing all things.”

If “all things” then are ours, there is that which we never may, and never would lose sight of, nor would our God allow it so to be. I mean the way into this new sphere, and what it cost the Lord of glory that He might have us there. It would seem as if He only waited until His people were safely over, to speak of that which was nearest to His heart. (Josh. 4:2.)

There were two heaps of stones of memorial set up. One at the command of Joshua, by twelve men, in the place where they lodged at Gilgal. This was composed of twelve stones taken out of the spot where the Ark stood firm till all the people had passed across dry-shod. The other, by Joshua himself; in that spot where the feet of the priests bearing the Ark stood in the bed of the river of death. No doubt both are attributed to Joshua (v. 20); but there is a striking significance in the difference.

There are two ways of looking at these stones. They point to the Lord Jesus Himself, at the moment when the waves were flowing over His holy soul in death; and they point to Him as the Risen One; who was dead; and is now “alive for evermore!” They also point (for such is the perfect identification between Him and His—He the Redeemer, they the redeemed; He the Sanctifier, they the sanctified) to our being now one with Him who was dead; and lives for evermore; also, that as thus risen with Him; we are dead with Christ.

The moment we are introduced into this life in resurrection and this new sphere, the remembrance of the path into it for us—the Lord’s path of death—is the constant food of the soul. Instead of death feeding upon us its lawful prey, we feed upon death; but this death, the death of the Lord. It was thus we got this life at the first; eating the flesh, and drinking- the blood of the Son of man. Thus appropriating Him in faith, in the consciousness that except thus, we have no life in us (John 6:53). Having fed upon Him by faith—in death—and thus having received eternal life in Him, we live by that which produced it. We feed Upon Him as the risen One, who was dead, and thus we live by Him: “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (John 6:57). This is practical life—all else is death. It is but the Adam life (if you can call it such), and God owns it not.

The Lord instituted the supper; when here below, on the same night on which He was betrayed; but this was not enough. We do not (as the church of God) eat the Lord’s supper merely as then appointed. He has gone on high in glory; and again, as the true Josh. 7—type of a heavenly Christ, and by the power of the Spirit, the Leader and Guide of His people—He has instituted the feast: It is from the heavens He speaks through Paul—by the Spirit of God sent down—and thus does the church partake of it in the unity of one body. It had not this character as at first given, and the church of God partakes of it as the symbol of its unity as “one body”—breaking “one loaf,” which expresses this unity. “The cup of blessing, which we bless; is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The loaf which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ (His own body). For we, being many, are one loaf, one body, (i.e., the church, His body,) for we are all partakers of that one loaf” (1 Cor. 10:16,17).

With Israel it was twelve stones, as the symbol of the unity of the twelve tribes. With the church it is “one loaf”—because it is “one body” in union with its Head in glory. There is no room in this for, the independency of the present day. There is no room for the self-will of man, in having as many loaves, as he pleases, or each one for himself, as in the cut-up loafs. How these proceedings betray where the church of God has drifted, through the “commandments and doctrines of men!”

Thus the church of God; if, obediently acting under a glorified Christ by the power and direction of the Spirit of God, has the precious memorial in that, feast (in its verity) the touching, and heart-searching remembrance, of...the death of the Lord. In the anti-type of these stones, taken from the bed of death, she carries death with her once her enemy, but now her ally to, the place of strength. She is conscious of her union with Him who died. There was no union with Him till He rose, till then He abode alone. But also (now that she is in union with a risen Christ) she knows that she has died with Him, and now is risen with Him, and thus introduced into this sphere of glory.

Oh, what a crowd of thoughts, would flow freely through our hearts by the Spirit of God, were we to meditate further on many thoughts that present themselves as we contemplate this feast! But we must be satisfied in presenting the meaning of these memorial stones, as far as we can in this meditation....

The other heap of stones was set up by Joshua in the bed of the river Jordan. The first heap at Gilgal, was placed there by the twelve men, at his command. These he is said to have placed time in the place where the priests’ feet stood firm with the ark. To me this difference conveys most touching truth. We are told in verse 18, that the waves flowed on, over this second heap of memorial stones, as soon as the Ark of the Covenant, borne on the priests’ shoulders, came out of Jordan, and there they are unto this day.

Both these heaps of stones refer to Elm in His death and His resurrection, they also speak to us, (because twelve were thus used in the type of our being risen with Him) who was dead; and as risen, we know too, that we have died with Him.

Now one heap—that at Gilgal—was always to be seen, while the other was hidden deep in the waves of the river. There are two sides, so to speak, to the thoughts which encircle the Lord’s Supper, one of which the Church always enjoys; but I do not think that practically, she invariably enjoys the other. The stones which the twelve men took Under Joshua’s command (like the Church acting under the power and direction of a heavenly Christ) are ever to be possessed and enjoyed. She always has the remembrance of Him in His death, carried to the place of communion—the ever freshly—speaking memorial of her blessing, and of the death of Him who gave Himself for her, “Till he come” marks its continuance. But, let the ask my reader, does he always enjoy that of which the second heap, of stones speaks? Is Christ always free (it was Joshua’s action in the type) to lead us to the brink of that river? Are our hearts always so in order that we may be led there? Yea, more—are our souls spiritual enough to be so led? Can He, I say, ever freely lead us back to the river, (while we have but stepped to that spot from the Gilgal where self is gone), and put back the stream draw aside the veil of waters, and allow us to gaze down into their depths, and behold the spot where His precious feet stood fast, and let us read His heart, with His sorrows and His cry?

How blessedly have we enjoyed Him speaking to our hearts of our blessings in feeding together in peace at the Supper of the Lord? But have we always been let into what flowed through His heart at that memorable hour? I can answer for myself—perhaps for others—no!

Oh, for the Church of God to come together in such condition of heart and conscience, that He might be ever free to manifest Himself, and allow us thus to discern His body. That we might not only have (what, thank God, we ever have) the truth conveyed to us in the heap of stones at Gilgal, but that He Might be free to carry us in company. With His spirit to the place where His holy soul stood fast, and when deep called to deep at the voice of (God’s) waterspouts (Psa. 42:7) where the waters compassed Him about (Jonah 2:5); where they flowed over His head (Lam. 3:54); or when they came into His soul, (Psa. 144:1).

Thus letting us into the secrets of those moments when nature veiled; her head, when the son put on his mourning, and the rocks rent, because the Son of God was pouring out His soul unto death; when His heart was like wax, melted in the midst of His bowels (Psa. 22:14). There in His solitary path through death’s river He stood fast; there was God most fully glorified; there to the Father was presented a fresh motive to love His Son. And He values our remembrance of His love, now that we are tree to think of Him who gives us His company at Gilgal! —Extract from “The Lord’s Host”—in the Press.

Mephibosheth, or the Kindness of God

Men are very slow in comprehending the character of God. Even if they accept a salvation, they do not often find the God in all His own blessedness, who gives the salvation, and reveals Himself in it. He always gives in consistency with Himself. It is very helpful for us to see that the majesty of the throne of God, and all that might be called the severer attributes of His character, do not lose, but gain by the salvation of a sinner.

Parts of His ways, however, such as His government, are more developed in the Old Testament than in the New; for in the Old it was God governing, in the New it is God saving. Both in governing and saving He is perfectly harmonious. He is just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. “Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Our chapter opens with a display of the grace of David’s heart just after a beautiful narration (in part a prophecy 2 Sam. 7) of the promises of God to him and to his successors. Then (chap. 8.) we have the victories of David over, and the subjugation of the surrounding nations; and lastly, comes the ordering of his own government and household. All this must be done before he has leisure to think of other matters, and now his heart turns to his old intimacies with the house of Saul. “Is there not yet any of the house of Saul that I may shew the kindness of God to him I” That is, deal with them as God has dealt with me; for he had been dealt with in the richest and fullest grace. God had taken him from the sheepcotes and made him king over His own people Israel. He had brought down the self-willed Saul, and set up David, the man after His own heart, in his stead.

Is it not certain that Jesus, raised up to God’s throne in glory, has, ere this took place, settled the whole question of sin in God’s favor? That by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus the throne of God is firmly settled, and, to speak after the manner of men, He is at leisure in perfect consistency with His own majesty, to show mercy to sinners? Had not sin disorganized everything? Was not Adam a traitor to his trust when he, or rather Eve, beguiled by the serpent in the garden of Eden, ate the forbidden fruit and so fell, and did not the whole creation become subject to vanity with him? (Rom. 8) Did not sin enter, and death by sin? How was all this to be effectually remedied? How were the rights of the Creator to be met by this breach in the creature? Was sin a light matter? Upon what basis shall the throne of God stand? Could grace reign on the part of God towards man, without a suitable adjustment of His claims on man as a sinner? How were. God’s rights and a sinner’s salvation to be reconciled? Let us proceed with our history.

David was, we say, at leisure, God having firmly set him on the throne to think of mercy. There was no longer danger in so doing. He hears of this poor lame man, a grandson of Saul; he was a long way from Jerusalem, in the more northern parts of the land, hiding himself away from a just fear, perhaps, of the wrath of the king, as sinners ignorant of the gospel do in these days. David sends and fetches him from Lo-debar, said to mean “no pasture.” There is finding and fetching grace. Poor Mephibosheth had neither the means to come, for he was lame, nor the mind, for he could only suppose antipathy on the part of David to him. But David sends and brings him right up to the city of solemnities into his presence and calls him by name. “Art thou Mephibosheth? “This poor man came without claim or title to be noticed, nay, as rather expecting sentence of death. He could only fall on his face and do reverence. Is it thus with you, my poor sinful friend! Have you realized your condition if called upon by God in such words as, “Who art thou?” or “Where art thou?” Have you, like Mephibosheth, lost all claim to be thought anything? Have you yet realized the fact that although once by the title of your forefather, an heir of Eden, you are now an outcast, and cannot upon any claims of your own win a place there again? Do you know that your existence, as by the old nature, is forfeited? Now, how did David, out of the mercy and grace that was in his own heart act to Mephibosheth? Did he begin with reviling his grandfather, Saul, or by looking suspiciously upon him as a plotter against his throne? No; his words were, “Fear not, for I will surely shew thee kindness,.... and will restore thee all the land of Saul, thy father.” Is not this the way in which God deals, nay, must deal with a sinner if He is to gain that sinner’s heart? The attitude of Mephibosheth upon the ground before him showed that he had accepted the place of abasement, and there was nothing now but to show him mercy. But this was not all. It was something to have all the property of his house restored to him. This might have contented Mephibosheth, but it did not content David. He must have this adopted child always before him, and so whilst Ziba was to take care of all his land, and till it for him, David must have him to eat bread before him at his table continually. Was not all this according to David’s heart?

Oh! my poor friend, are these your thoughts about the love of God? Do you know that He wishes to restore you back to more than the place which your father Adam had before he fell, and which he forfeited in that fall? He lost his position before God, and death, too, came in. By the reception of Christ you get more than a restoration; you get life and righteousness—the life an eternal life, and the righteousness a standing before God in the person of Christ. This is the way in which God would begin with you. He does not ask anything from you. In fact, you are a beggar—you have nothing to offer. But in the greatness of His love, and because of the work of Christ, which has harmonized. all His attributes, He is able thus, in consistency with all His perfections, to give you everything you need, and more than you lost in Adam. He bestows everything according to the love which He has to that Son who died, and whom He has raised from the dead. But more than this, not satisfied with restoring you to His image, He would have you very near Him, and where you may be acquainted with all His counsels, as Mephibosheth must have heard everything that went on at David’s table. Less would satisfy us, but less will not satisfy Him. So there David and Mephibosheth sat day by day; the one looking with delight at the object of his mercy, the other wondering at that grace which, finding him so low, had raised him so high.

But it was also true that all this time Mephibosheth was lame on both his feet, and knew it—until the day of his death he was lame. Yet he still enjoyed the king’s presence, and ate of all the good things at his table.

Dear reader, can you apply this history to yourself? In your natural state, is it not a fact that you are “far off” from God? But I can affirm that, notwithstanding that you are “alienated in your mind by wicked works,” His heart is towards you. Has His love in the gospel yet found you out? Have you received the message of pardon and the gift of righteousness yet from His hand. It is through death that Christ has reached the throne— “The throne is established by righteousness.” The sword that awoke against Him (Zech. 13:7) when it was a question of sin on the cross, is now sheathed, and the favor of God is extended to all those who believe on Him. Nay, we are made the righteousness of God in Him. All that you have to put down is your own stubborn heart, and to accept the position of a “dead dog.” Moreover, do you believe that you may enter into the presence of God and realize your acceptance, and yet feel sin as Mephibosheth felt his lame feet? Oh, how often sinners stumble at this! They refuse to believe their sins forgiven, because they still feel sin in their members, as if the lame feet of Mephibosheth made his presence at the king’s table less real! Oh my reader, the Holy Ghost has been sent down from the ascended Christ, with the very same truthful realities to be made known to us, with sin still in us (1 John 1:8), which we shall enjoy in glorified bodies when Jesus Himself comes to fetch us. They are made known to us by the Holy Ghost, for our full enjoyment and food now, according to grace, as they will be hereafter in a state of glory.

Oh! may you have the will to come for pardon, righteousness, and eternal life at the hands of Jesus, and be received into His household by faith, as you will hereafter be personally received into glory. —W. W.

A Merciful and Faithful High Priest

I want to bring a little before you what Scripture tells us of the Priesthood of Christ; and still more the way He is in the presence of God for us.

The first four verses of this Chapter refer to the previous one. The Apostleship of Christ as sent into the world—the Word of God spoken by the Son—The High Priest of our profession. It impresses upon us the importance of taking heed to the Word spoken by Him: to neglect it were eternal ruin.

But He is the Priest as gone up on high. He came down to manifest God to man, He is gone up to represent marl before God—believers of course— “those who come unto God by him.” He is a Man on high, taking part with all that we are—sinlessly of course—in all that God has produced in us. When we speak of taking part, it shows that He had no part naturally. He took up the seed of Abraham.

Here Scripture speaks at once of (what is never lost sight of in the Gospel) “the world to come.” That new state of things under Christ. As Adam had all put under his dominion—(Gen. 1:28) He lost this headship too—so all is to be put in subjection under man’s feet, i.e., Christ’s feet as man. As yet “we see not all things put under him; but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” God has set Him in the highest place, when He had been in humiliation in the lowest. The very fact of His; having being humbled and obedient in it, is His title to exaltation. Being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and.... became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name. (Phil. 2) There I get the man of God’s purpose. Adam was the man of God’s creation in responsibility—Christ is the man of God’s purpose. All promises were to Him as the seed of the woman, there were none to Adam. Christ was to destroy all the power of the enemy, and to bring man by redemption into God’s purpose when he had entirely failed. Thus we are brought in by grace as sharers in what He inherits as the man of God’s counsel.

We do not see our place with Him until we see how He is raised above all creation. The first reason is because He was the Creator of it all; the second, because He was the Son; and the third, because he was the man of the counsel and purpose of God.

“He took not up angels”—most glorious of beings who are kept of God—witnesses of God’s preserving grace and mercy; ministers to do His pleasure—holy angels. They are not named at the creation, but as spectators. “The sons of God shouted for joy.” But they were not the vessels of God’s purpose—man was to be that. And that the whole thing might be of God, man having gone down below all creatures—below the brutes in that sense—for man is lower than a worm in the degradation of his own lusts and his forgetfulness of God. He has sunk down into the lowest state of wretchedness, and misery, and sin. Christ comes down to take him up in that kind of love which had no motive but what is in God, and the misery of its object. He gave His son, in whom he delighted, for those who were children of wrath. “He took not up angels, but the seed of Abraham.” It makes nothing of us, because it is the very character of God’s love to take up the sinner.

A holy being, delighting in God, is a thing we can understand; but there is nothing more extraordinary, when we come to look at men—even Christians—degraded in sin, (for flesh is no better in the Christian if he allows it to act,) and in all the weakness and degradation of a brute, and to find such a being put into all the blessedness of the Son of God. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” The heart sinks down with shame when we think of what we are, and what we have been, and when we contemplate the grace that has so dealt for and with us! Yet God would display all His ways, nay, Himself! and this Blessed One takes us up in our failure, weakness, temptation, and sin too, as a merciful and faithful High Priest—the One who will be before us in everything, leader even in our praises. “In the midst of the church (assembly) will I sing praise unto thee!” He leads up all our praises to His Father, and in the ages to come He is going to show “the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus!”

I get to learn the manifold wisdom of God when I find myself connected with fallen man on one side, and with the Son of God on the other. I must get an absolute and complete redemption, entirely and totally taken out of the condition in which man was under judgment, and an introduction into another in Christ; so that God loves me as He loves His Son! And then my greatest blessedness is to find out every instant of my life my absolute dependence on His grace. If I forget it for a moment I sink back practically into all that I was—I was an independent sinner, now I am a dependent saint! With flesh still in me while here, and every sort of temptation, and all that gives me those necessary exercises of heart in passing through things here, I am forced to lean upon this grace. I learn all I am, and at the same time, through mercy, I learn all the blessed grace of Christ Himself, when I am thoroughly exercised and humbled, so that God can let the flood of His goodness flow in on my heart. I find that I have got Christ before God instead of my sins; that He is there an advocate with the Father, who has been the propitiation for me. He is my righteousness. Then comes all I have got to pass through.

If the condition of my heart is such that I know Christ as my righteousness in the presence of God, I have nothing to think about on that matter—the question of sin is a settled one, and I have nothing to have experience about then, (I have joy to be sure in the thought of this, and I have to bless God for it); but I know that I am introduced into a totally new thing, and this makes the riddle of my state. It makes my heart be exercised as to how far I am daily living in this new condition, and how far I am living in the old. You may do both (though not at the same moment) if you are not watchful; but if you are walking in the new, you are walking in the Spirit, and it is of all importance to see that I am not only walking rightly, but in the Spirit.

If you are doing so, He is showing you what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man. You realize yourself as united by the Holy Ghost to the Head of this new creation; you are conscious that you belong to it, to the very center and Head of it, “of His flesh and of His bones.” The Holy Ghost takes of the things of Christ, and shows them to us—reveals Him to us. It is the Spirit, not of bondage, but of adoption, and I, a child, and an heir of God, and joint-heir with Christ, I get into all the scene of glory which is His in the heavens, and in the earth; and I know “the things that are freely given to me of God.” I live in them, set my heart upon them, them alone, because it is where Christ is.

I belong to all this scene consciously thus; but as a poor earthen vessel, and God’s plan has always been to make us find our place in those things, by leading us through the wilderness, where we are thoroughly tried and tested. We are no longer in Egypt; we have passed the Red Sea on our way to Canaan, (we are there now as to title and privileges too,) hut not actually come to it yet. We are running the race—present in the body, absent from the Lord. We have not got to the rest yet, and we have to labor to enter into it; and in our own strength to seek to do this were to labor into misfortune and wretchedness.

When God visited Israel in Egypt, He said not a word about the wilderness. His purpose was to bring them to Canaan. His plan was to teach them in the wilderness. So with us. His purpose was to bring us to heaven when He placed His Son there: His plan is that we should pass through all the exercises of heart down here that we may discern pod and evil; and yet more, to learn that God “withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous;” and we ought not to withdraw our eyes from Him!

This takes many shapes in the soul. Discipline working by the power of the Spirit of God in us, which produces that energy of heart which says, “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3) This, too, in an epistle where sin is not mentioned, and flesh only to say that we have no confidence in it. The intents and purposes of the heart are all right, the eye is single, and the whole body full of light. Opposition is a different thing to a man who had this.

Who had such energy and singleness of eye as Paul? One sinks with shame to think of him in contrast to ourselves, and he has to get a thorn in the flesh; something to oppose and thwart him in his energy. Why? That the power of Christ might rest upon him! He must be brought into a furnace, and he glories in infirmities. Then, My grace, my strength, is sufficient, Paul, for you! You must be a dependent man, a weak man. Ah, says Paul, “When I am weak, then am I strong.” Human energy was a striking quality in Paul, but he must have a dependent heart on Christ. Do I not find in Philippians a dependent heart in Corinthians, “Without were fightings, within were fears.” No comfort, no rest of spirit. You must get cast down, Paul, and then I will come and comfort you.

It is the plan of God to bring us into the wilderness, where everything in our hearts is tried. Where He suffers us to hunger and feeds us with manna that we knew not, that we may know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. That was the way the Lord Jesus Christ lived.

Do you walk as practically living by every word of God, beloved friends? or, do you walk in the counsels of your own hearts? Do you not live a greater part of your lives in your own thoughts? Can you say, The Word of God bids me do this and nothing more? What blessed grace it is to us that we should have every movement of our lives, our inward ways, all governed by the Word of God. That is Divine wisdom.

Living by the Word of God my flesh gets thwarted. If I listen to flesh I sin, and lose my communion with God. My heart condemns me, and my confidence is gone. My heart gets away from Him, and unless instantly restored there is a disinclination to return to communion with God. The flesh has got to possession. What are you to do now? There I get an advocate with the Father. He recalls my soul. But this is not the special subject of Hebrews. There it is that there is grace to help in time of need, that failure may not come.

When I am near God I judge myself, I can say, “It is not I; It was I, but it is not so now.” And I condemn it and judge it. But I must first know that I am with God, and God for and with me, for this. I must be living in proper Christian life in order to have Christ sustaining me—helping me in my praises, in my infirmities and failures too, but helping me out of them. A poor feeble creature, with a treasure in an earthen vessel. Christ has seen to the righteousness which I needed there, and now He ministers the grace I want down here. My eyes then look “straight on” in the energy of the Spirit of God. This is one part of the Christian’s life.

But besides this, I find opposition from Satan too. I belong to God’s army—I have to, fight God’s battles. The land belongs to God, but the Canaanite is there still. This is “Joshua-work,” and I must know that I have passed the Jordan—dead and risen with Christ. That I have put off the old man, and put on the new, and thus that Christ’s death has been applied practically to all in myself. I have to reckon myself dead; to bear about in my body, the dying of Jesus. All the movements of flesh have been brought under the power of the cross, and crushed and broken. There is no real entrance into the land, no real looking back at Christ’s death until the heart is thus really circumcised. We have been put into heavenly places that we may walk according to it. Heaven is thus in our hearts while we are going through the wilderness. You do not want the armor for the wilderness; you want it for your conflict with Satan’s power. You are with Satan in heavenly places—with God in the wilderness. Wonderful paradox! But Christ is there on high, a High Priest, close to God, so that I am always conscious of a throne of grace, and help in time of need. He thus brings down grace; brings down heaven.

O what blessing! The very things that I have to dread in myself, and rightly too, as those which separate me from God, these things bring God to me! He is a High Priest that can be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He has passed through the difficulties and trials Himself, and is now a Man in the presence of God; not in them now, but He knows all that I am in. He can understand and enter into them not only as God, but as Man. He can understand what your heart goes through.

The Lord give us to be faithful in the exercise of our hearts; to learn to be soldiers, but with an exercised, sifted heart—one that knows itself—the spirit of self-broken—the remains of self-detected from day to day. That grace working in us thus, we shall find Christ the portion of our hearts yet more and more.

The New Man

Most of the exhortations, as to walk and conduct for the Christian, in the New Testament, after redemption is accomplished, are founded on the fact that he is “dead and risen with Christ;” and thus associated with Him who is in heaven, while walking here below upon earth; his affections set upon things above, and so is to bring forth fruit to God. He is risen with Christ, but is always seen in Colossians as walking here below on earth, with a hope laid up for him in heaven.

In Ephesians he is looked upon as “in Christ” in heaven. Here it is only a hope. (Eph. 1:6.) Associated in heart and affections with Jesus who is gone up there, but walking himself on earth, and thus a fruitful pathway all the way through.

This truth of his being thus “dead and risen” with Christ, detects all and everything that is of the “old man” in us. We have been delivered judicially from the old man; and, as risen with Christ who has borne our sins, we are associated with Him who is our life, in heavenly places. It is founded on what you get in Gal. 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ”—the old man—all that I had done, and all that I was as a sinner has been clean swept away before God and for faith in the cross; “nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” —He has become my life. As a sinner once, I had to do with God. Well-what then? The precious blood of Christ cleansed me from all sin-cleansed me so perfectly that God says, He will never remember my sins again. (Heb. 10:17.) So perfectly has this been done, that unless God denied Himself, and the work of Christ, He can never charge them on me again. I shall be raised, or changed, and set in glory consequent upon the perfection of this work, and when I am raised, it will be in the likeness of Christ. It will be too late then to judge whether I am meet for heaven or not; or whether my sins are put away or not; for I shall then be like Him! “When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2.)

God has not merely saved us through Christ, but has given us a place with Him. We have the Holy Ghost now, as an earnest of all we possess in Him. We know that all the guilt we should have had to answer for to Him as Judge, He has first come and cleared away as a Saviour! Well; a man learns that he is cleansed in God’s sight; but he wants more; he wants deliverance, too. That, God has given us also in Christ. It is this want which is expressed in the cry, “O wretched man that I am, who shall—not, forgive, or, cleans—but, “deliver me!” In Rom. 6 he has to reckon himself dead—to believe that as Christ died to sin when He had to do with it on the cross, so has he died to sin; and that he has now but to live to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. In Col. 2:3 he goes further. He has died with Christ, and has been quickened together with Him, and all his trespasses forgiven all left behind in that order of things into which Christ entered in death for sin. He has borne them, and died and cleared them away—died to the whole thing—He went down to the “lower parts of the earth,” where sin had brought man under the power of death. He is raised from the dead; and God has taken us up; quickened us together with Christ, having forgiven us all trespasses. We have died with Him—and have deliverance from the evil nature. We “have put off the old man, and put on the new,” as in Christ risen from the dead; a total change by a new nature, not of “the flesh,” but of the man; the flesh remains the same. He is not now in “Adam,” but in “Christ” Christ is his life. By dying for us He has cleared away all that stood against us, and now He lives in us. He put away when He came in grace, what He would have to judge when He came in glory! and He has associated us with Himself after having done so. “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

We thus have deliverance from the sense of sin as well as from its power: and this by reckoning ourselves dead, Christ having died and delivered us. We had natural life from Adam, and now Christ lives in us—the true “I.” Thus, all that Christ has done God has appropriated to the Christian. We have died to sin because He has; we are dead, because we have died with Him; Christ is risen, and we are risen with Him; Christ is hid in God, our life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, we shall appear with Him, and be like Him. Thus the debts I had contracted as a poor sinner are all cleared away; and He has, taken me into partnership with Himself, having done so, so that all, that is His is mine. His peace is mine—His joy—His place—His glory—all mine! It is not, then, as the world gives, He has given to me. It is generous if it loves much. It gives little if it loves little; but it loses what it gives—not He brings us into His own possessions, and glory, and joy, that we may enjoy them with Him. We can now say, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” (1 Cor. 15:48,49.) We have this life in a poor, feeble vessel, surely—but we have it! We can say distinctly, we belong to up there! Christ has gone up as a man. Down here we have to get our hearts exercised, and be strengthened to patience, and pulled to pieces: tried and tested, and the like and good for us it is so. He desires to do us good in our latter end.

The Apostle now (v. 5) turns to the consequences of all this. He begins with grosser things. He does not allow that we have a life down here at all, but members to mortify the gross sins which bring down the wrath of God on the children of unbelief, in the which once we lived as having our life in them. He is not content with that, but adds, but ye also put off all these—the things which spring up in the heart—after which I have no lust: “Anger, wrath, malice,” &c., all because of having put off the Old man. “Seeing that ye have put of the old man with his deeds.” Then you have put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him, i.e., after God. You know God now that you are a Christian; He is holiness, and love, righteousness, grace you go and be the same. Walk worthy of Him, by a spiritual apprehension of what He is; not worthy of Adam, but of Christ. “Be perfect even as (not “with;” we are that in Christ) your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” God loved you as an enemy—you go and do the same. Where can I learn what is worthy of God? In Christ. He gave Himself up for us, who were unworthy, to God who was worthy. He “is all and in all;” everything to us; and in all as life and power. We get this brought out in Gal. 2:20. “Christ lives in me”—He is in all. “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me;” He is an object which governs all in the heart.

Does He, beloved friends, govern all the motives of our hearts? If not, He is not all! He is grace, and life, and strength as in us. There may be failure, and, alas, there is but the Christian gives it no quarter, or excuses himself. Mind he does not say, He ought to be in all, Nay, He says He is there. “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness:” and, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his.” (Rom. 8:9,10.) You say you are a Christian. Well, if so, Christ is in you, and He should be seen in your ways.

Now we get the practical “putting on.” You have put off the old man with his deeds. Put on, therefore, “as the elect of God “: not, “that you may be;’ but “as” such. As I say to my child, “I look to you to walk as my child.” Presumption someone will say. Why, He tells me to do it! Is that presumption? If a child does not know he is his father’s child, do you suppose he can walk as such? We never can walk as God’s children till we know we are such. God puts us in the relationship, and then tells us to walk as elect, holy and beloved; and we shall never walk worthy of Him till we do so. It is where God would have us walk, and, beloved friends, because it’s true! I am a poor worm in myself, but elect of God, holy and beloved; and God asks me to walk in it because He loves me, and would have me enjoy it! Christ was all this before Him in the fullest sense: Elect-holy-beloved; and He has brought us into all the blessedness of His own peace with God. Now, He gave Himself up; do you do the same? It takes me far beyond the law. Love me and I’ll love you, was what it proposed. But here is the giving up of self, and loving others when they do not so!

The world rejoices, dear friends, when it sees a Christian fall-when he does not live out what it hates; and that is. “Christ!” “Over all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.” It binds all together with the olivine nature. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts;” and, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly:” and all this after the “putting off”—after a right condition of heart with God. It is not to be content that I am saved, merely; or not immoral in my ways. But Christ expects the heart to listen and attend to all He has to say. As if He said, “I have spent myself to bring you there, and I expect you to enjoy it and live in it, for my glory.” He has called us friends. Do you believe Christ is dealing with you as a friend?

Beloved friends, if I am to set my affections on things above, I must know what is there, and who is there. It is Christ? That makes me unworldly, and nothing else will.

It is His joy to make me happy here in His love. By and bye He will come forth in the glory to serve and make us happy there. Is that the thought you have of Christ? We are babes, indeed, in the way we enjoy it; but a babe can know its mother’s love? He looks for our hearts to respond to His.

Now we get conduct in the pathway. “Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” One thing governs the heart; it is a simple rule, but reaches the spring of everything. “Are you doing it in the name of the Lord Jesus?” Well “Giving thanks to God, and the Father by Him.”

It is the complete picture of the expression of the life of Christ—the new man—in us here below, from the sinner walking and living in sin—then as dead and risen with Christ, and all sins put away, and the new man put on. the word of Christ dwelling in us richly, and all, in word or deed, done in His name. He is done with Adam, and to him Christ is all! Then the results and consequences of all this in practice here. The flesh is unchanged, and remains; but there is an intrinsic change in the man by a nature suited to God who has produced it, and caused it to spring up in his heart.

The Lord give His people, for whom He has spent Himself, to walk in the power of this new life, with the eye upon Him, for His own name’s sake. Amen.

Notes on Philippians 3

As Christians we are called to walk through the world by faith, in the things unseen and outside of it. Walking by faith really tests the state of the heart; for “The things that are seen are temporal;” but “The things that are not seen are eternal.”

In Phil. 2 we find Christ coming down here, and as Man His path is the opposite of Adam’s, who sought to exalt himself. Jesus humbled Himself, and became “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” He was made in the likeness of men—took upon Him the form of a servant—and, as Man, was the pattern of graciousness and obedience. The Son of God alone could do this. It is the business of the creature to keep his first estate. Though Son of God, His elevation never destroyed the sensibility of. His heart to all round; He felt everything a great deal the more; but He felt it for others.

You never find Christ governed by the circumstances through which He was obliged to pass, but always moved by them. At Nain He meets the widow who had lost her only son—He is touched with compassion—touched by the circumstances, and He acted divinely in them.

As we advance in the divine life we never find it is stoical insensibility—indifference to the Borrow and trial of circumstances through which we pass ourselves, or those through which, others are passing. There are links which bind the church of God together in divine communion. You see these features come out in Paul and Epaphroditus in chapter 2. These bonds in the church of God will be the expression of divine grace in the midst of circumstances which affect other people. We have to cultivate this more than we do. The power of Satan may have been in that sickness of Epaphroditus; but God was above it in mercy. We see these links of heart of the apostle entering into his epistles, except in Galatians when their hearts were getting away from the foundation. There we find even no salutations.

In Phil. 3 we get the energy of that life which carries people clean out of the world. To walk well, we must have the characteristics of both chapters 2 and 3. If you see a person with one of these characteristics, without the other, it runs into carnality. The one is divine life coming down into the circumstances (chap.; the other, divine glory carrying you clean out of the circumstances (chap. 3.)

The more we go on; the more we have to say to the Christianity of the world, or what the world calls such, the more we find that the testimony of Paul and of John is dropped in the professing Church. If a Christian is a person who has died with Christ, and is risen with Christ, he has nothing to do with this world at all, but to walk by faith through it and out of it. Hence we speak, of heavenly things— “our conversation is in heaven.” Our position in Christ now, is all but dropped in its true testimony. Hear the apostle in. another scripture, “Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” (Col. 2:20.) Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” (Rom. 8:9.) “Ye are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world.” (Col. 2:20.) It is very easy to say I am a religious man, but that is quite different to saying I am dead with Christ, and I am alive through Him, because that sets aside all thought of being a religious man. I must now walk as a son of God.

After Paul’s decease the church ceased to be heavenly, because it ceased to count itself as dead with Christ, and as risen with Him. Consequently the state of the Christian was not “Worshipping God in the Spirit.” To see people building up the flesh again, and giving it a place was what broke his heart.

Paul shows how if anyone could boast in the flesh he could. A fleshly religion did not require man to be spiritual at all. He might be devoted in a certain sense in truth, and yet be the enemy of Christ. Paul was so himself After all this Paul could say of himself, in a restricted sense, for it was true, that he was the chief of sinners! He found fully the fact that the mind of the flesh was enmity against God. The Cross came and told of flesh, that there was no good thing in it. Then he says, “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee.” Had He a right to say so—He who came to reveal the Father?

Do you think you can reveal God better than He could? Can you go into the world and say, it is to declare Him? Do you believe that at the cross God tried His last means with man, and found the world wholly against God? Do you think Christ could link you now with anything in this world? You know He could not. How far has your heart taken up the cross, and said, “I believe that the Son of God is rejected from this world; and, what is more; that it was my flesh did it!” Then you have “no confidence” in it. In the cross is seen the excessive expression of enmity of the flesh against God; yet where the hatred and wickedness of man rose up and met God in goodness and grace, it was the occasion by which God gave expression to all the grace and love that was in His heart! You say “I am a poor sinner and Christ died for my sins.”—True. That is where you learned love—the forgiveness of sins you were guilty of in the flesh.” True. But He has taken you out of the flesh, and brought you into the place of God’s child “in Christ,” so that it can be said of you now, “As is the heavenly so are they also that are heavenly” —not now a child—of—a dark place, but that of a child of God.

Then, again, you can say to the world, if you want to know where my life is, it is “Hid with Christ in God.” It shows how completely I am associated with the Lord Jesus Christ; and when He shall appear, I shall appear with Him in glory, for He is my life. It is put in a very striking way, and so I am to set my “affections on things above.” I am in the body still, and have to go through the world, but if I look at my life, it is hid with Christ. Then you ought to seek, to, glorify Christ—in short, you ought to do nothing else.

An object before a man gives him energy. What madness, then, to let anything dim our sight. You can then say, “That I may know him.” Is it your earnest desire to get acquainted with Him? Are you running on to that? Is Christ so your object that you are desiring to know Him? You are going to be with Him forever—would you not like then, to know the perfect display of all that God is in a Man? —to know what governed His heart when in the world? No human mind can get at it, but the humble, heart feeds on Him, and grows like Him?

Are you getting more acquainted, then, with what will make you happy forever in heaven? or are you feeding on what shuts Christ out? What is hidden in your heart is the whole question. You say, “Oh! it is Christ who is at the bottom of my heart.” It must be so, or you are not a Christian at all; but what is there between that and your outward walk? The news of the day—your business—things around? Not a bit of Christ comes out in them. Your heart is the highway of the things you meet with through the day.

The kind of joy that He had, necessarily involved sorrow in. the world-it was the activity of love passing through everything here that caused it the deepest sorrow. Have we the same kind of feeling? Do we know in any sense in that way, what it is to have fellowship with Christ’s sufferings; yet along with it all a positive joy from God? We know very little of outward suffering. “If we suffer with him we shall reign with him.” It is not suffering for, but with. Love shows itself by being absolutely governed by a single object—it leads that way. Yes, but you say it will cost me my life. Very well, I say, I must go that way, my business is to win Christ. I have seen Him in glory-I must have Him. Just as Christ, “For, the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame.” My heart is so identifying itself with Christ-so conscious of divine favor as a present thing resting upon me-that when the wicked are in their graves I am gone to be with Christ, and to, be like Him forever! Having “Borne the image of the earthy;” I have gone to “bear the image of the heavenly.”

In Romans we are looked at as “dead to sin “not “risen,” but “alive to God.” In Colossians a step farther, we are “dead with Christ,” and “risen with Him.” In Ephesians a step farther still, “Quickened together with Christ”— “raised up together.” Seated together in Christ in the heavenlies. We have got into a new state and we have to say, that is my place as a child of God; and I never can rest till I get there. I am not thinking of being like innocent Adam, but like the glorified Christ—I shall be when I see Him. A man sees a lamp at the end of a long straight path, and every step he takes towards it, the better he sees it; and so the nearer we come to. Christ the more we see Him in all His brightness; but we are not actually at the end of the path. When we are we shall be conformed to the image of the Son, that He may be the first born among many brethren.

Redemption is a settled thing. I am redeemed out of the whole Adam condition; I have passed the Red Sea; and not only was the blood upon the door post, but I am brought out of Egypt with Him. Are you with Him? I have a great deal to learn to humble one, but I am with God! God says of Israel, “It is a stiff-necked people;” and that is the very reason Moses gave God as why He should go with them. So you may make it your plea and say, “Oh God, go with me; I never can be better; Thou must go with me!” The Holy Ghost has come down and united you with a risen and glorified Christ. This is actual practical power. Then you are down here, and your hearts will be tried and sifted; but it is because you are with God. You have got the key to it all now. You want to know distinctly and clearly that flesh can never be with God; it crucified Christ, and it won’t have God and God won’t have it. Reckon yourself dead then; treat yourself as dead. You have a right to do it-it is the foundation of all your liberty and joy. If a converted man walks in the flesh, or seeks to have religiously to do with God in his flesh, he has a perpetual burden where God lays none.

We find in John 4, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Jesus says this to the outcasts; for He had left Judea where flesh had been in connection with God in a religious sense. Now true worship was to be in the Spirit: and if you are not there, you may confess your sins, but you are not worshipping God. Could you follow Christ in the praises He, as Man, is capable of singing now? He says, “In the midst of the congregation will I sing praise unto thee:” the praises of redemption accomplished—of righteousness made good—of God made known. In this He had the first place, as in everything. You say you cannot—but you are going to take a place at a little distance from Christ. Yes, but remember, you have no place at all unless Christ gives you one. If you think you have, you are keeping up some of the rags of your own righteousness. You have no place, or you have Christ’s place, and God has given us that. Have you learned His place? He puts the best robe on the prodigal, and makes the whole house sing. God does not say, “My prodigal is come back,” but, “My son.” It is the Father’s glory to have him back, the question is, Is my heart at home in my Father’s house? Is it at rest there? “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you,”—the heart knows it, and it has to go through the world and get sifted and tested day by day; but it is at home with God. It looks for a city—the rest of God. It is waiting for Christ till He shall come to take us to Himself. Blessed to have hold of the fact that I have died with Christ, “Nevertheless I live;” and that “by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” I am with God, and I know Him, and so I can ask Him to go with me: just because I am such a poor thing. Does your heart trust God who spared not His own Son? then you say, “This one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Keep your eye fixed on Him, and thus you will be able through grace to walk with Him-following hard after Him, you will find His right hand upholding you. He gives us, in His grace, to have our hearts identified with His interests; and He is not ashamed to call us brethren.

Let us, then, be “Like unto men that wait for their Lord,” that when He comes we may open to Him immediately. “Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.” He will “Make them sit down to meat,” and will “gird himself,” and “come forth and serve them!”

Notices of Coming Glories

Were we, if I may so speak, to go in upon the field of the New Testament scriptures, and gather up fragments of the glories of coming days, we should find them, I do not say lying there profusely, but still we should find them there, and we should find at least a handful to feed upon.

There is no one writing that digests this subject, but coming glories shine out here and there in the midst of other thoughts, when different subjects of present interest to the saints are under consideration.

We know that in the coming days of the kingdom there will be both the earthly and heavenly departments, and also connection and intercourse between them. We see notices of each of these in different parts of the four gospels. Thus, the Lord entered the city of the daughter of Zion as her King. All that was needed to set Him forth in that glory for a moment waited on Him. The ass and its owner, the palm branches and hosannahs, the whole material and mind of the scene aided in giving us a sample of the days of the King of Israel. The Greeks are presented as coming up to see the King in his beauty, and in this we get another sight of His further glories.

All this, however, was simply and entirely earthly, no glimpse of heaven appears. It is Messiah in His place on earth; King in Zion, accepting the homage of the nations. On the holy mount glory shines again. But it is another glory—not earthly but heavenly. It is the light of bodies of glory that shines there; samples of the transfigured, translated saints of God in company with their Lord in heavenly places.

But, as I may say, on either side of them, another place is seen; the earth in the persons of Peter, James, and John; the higher heavens, or, as it is called, “the excellent glory,” in the voice that breaks forth upon the scene.

This is something very fine, and very comprehensive. We have coming millennial days finely and largely anticipated here. We have notices of the heavens and of the earth in their separate places, and then of the connections, and medium, and intercourse which is to be established between them. That, while there will be a higher heaven, an excellent glory, a Father’s house, unrevealed to sight, there will be also a people in flesh, and blood on the earth; a display of heavenly glory in the sight of the earthly people, and intercourse maintained between the translated saints and them. The throne and the footstool shall be but different parts of one great system.

This is a fine anticipation of corning days. The Lord again intimates “the excellent glory,” under the title of the “Father’s house” in John 14, letting us know that it is a wealthy place, a many-mansioned house, the dwelling of the family, the homestead in the realms of the highest glory.

Thus, we are gathering fragments. But further. These are distant scenes. There are nearer scenes also thrown open to our sight in these same scriptures of the New Testament.

We have the spirit of the Lord himself before resurrection taken to and by the Father, in Luke 23; and then we have the glorified body of the Lord after resurrection, translated to heaven in Luke 24.

We have instructions as to ourselves in each of these things. We are taught to know that should we die, as Jesus died, before the day of resurrection, our spirits will be received by Him, in paradise or heaven, Luke 10:3, 43; Acts 7:59; 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23, teach us this. And should we live till the day of resurrection, we are taught to know that we shall then be glorified and translated in company with those saints who have already died and gone in spirit to Jesus. 1 Cor. 15:42-54 witness this; as also 1 Thess. 4:14-17.

But, further still. After this translation certain and divine scenes are disclosed to us. The heaven that is set for the execution of judgment on this present evil, revolted world, is opened to our sight in Rev. 4, and actions which take their course, while that heaven continues, are presented to us in the progress of the same book. But in turn judgment is all executed, and then succeeds the heavens set for the ministration of government of the “world to come,” or the millennial earth; this is apparent to our sight in Rev. 20;21,22.

But even further still. The world that is to be the scene of righteousness under the heavenly scepter of the glorified Lord and His saints will have its end. The heaven set for the ministration of government will have fulfilled its course, as well as the heaven set for the judgment; and then we get another scene of glory opened to our view. There is the Great White Throne trying everything; and then the new heavens and the new earth introduced by the judgment of this Great White Throne; as the millennial heavens and earth had been introduced by the judgment executed under the heaven from the throne of Rev. 4

Here the series of glories end. Various scenes and regions have thus unfolded themselves to us in their different characters; but we are to see them, and learn what they severally are, by taking up notions of them here and there throughout the New Testament scriptures from beginning to end; to glean in that fruitful field; to gather up fragments which lie there; left there by the hand of Him who is preparing for the feast-days of eternity.

And had we but a heart for’ the feast itself we should occupy ourselves more diligently and joyfully in this gathering up a kind of gleaning that goes before the harvest. But we fail in affection. We are wanting in desire. Present interests divert the heart and do not allow the eye, and the thought, and the hope to tarry where notices of coming glories shine!

Numbers 9:15-23

There is not a trace on the wilderness sands

Where the foot of a saint hath trod;

No marks have they left who are passed on before,

Save the word of a faithful God.