WHAT a very beautiful lesson is conveyed to us in these simple words of the Lord Jesus, and how blessedly they fall upon the ear of those who, in this day of work, of activity, of restless energy, have been led to see that there is something that should be known and enjoyed even though work for Christ-blessed as it may be-is left for other hands to carry out. This is a day when the actual state of a man’s soul before God, when his full entrance or otherwise into God’s purposes in Christ, when his knowledge of “the certainty of those things in which he has been instructed,” is not by any means so much looked after as the fact as to whether he is doing anything. Is he actively engaged in some “religious movement” Has he attached himself to some “cause?” Has he taken up any “Christian work?” If these questions can be answered in the affirmative, it is enough. His own soul may be starving; he may himself never have experienced what it is to know his full place in Christ; or, worse than all, he may really never have been himself brought into the presence of God, to learn what he is; to learn his own utter need of salvation.
How sad all this is, and how detrimental to the true testimony for Christ down here in the world! Now if those I am addressing have been, in God’s grace, brought out of it all, have been brought into a purer and better atmosphere than that which surrounds them―like as into a true Goshen in the midst of Egypt’s darkness―yet surely it is blessed to be reminded of what the Lord said tinder circumstances so nearly identical with those which are around us at the present moment.
We see the seventy disciples coming back to the Lord in all the flush of the success which had attended their mission―that is to say, the success of the outward manifestations of power, for we hear little about the truth they were sent out to preach. There whole thought seemed to be absorbed (like the Corinthians a little farther on) with the striking character of the gifts which were entrusted to them, forgetful that those gifts were only accessories or accompaniments, of that “word of life” which they were to hold forth.
How does our Lord deal with the exultation of His disciples, occupied as they were with what they had themselves done? “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.” The very highest form of gift, that gift which up to that time had been exercised only by the blessed Lord Himself, even that gift was put into the shade completely in the presence of that deep and mysterious fact that their names were “written in heaven.”
Let us try for a moment to enter fully into the blessedness of what this means. Another Scripture will illustrate it. “For our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:2020For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (Philippians 3:20)). That is, though we are found down here mixed up with the world, and working in it, having to take our share, and perhaps more than our share, of its troubles, its difficulties, its temptations, yet our blessed place as Christians is away there as citizens of a country where none of these things ever enter, where there is nothing Nit peace and sunshine.
Do not we get a faint picture of this in what we see in some continental countries where the names of all the citizens are enrolled? whose citizens may wander far away among people of different blood, different habits, different nature but their names are still kept enrolled in the records of their owl: native land, and they wait to be called back at any time, should their presence be required.
Just in like manner are our names―the names of all those whose portion is in the Lord Jesus Christ―enrolled in those records in heaven, “in the book of life” (Phil. 4:33And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlaborers, whose names are in the book of life. (Philippians 4:3)); kept continually before the eyes of the blessed God, though we ourselves may be wandering far away, as true “strangers and pilgrims” here or earth, where, like Noah’s dove, we can find no rest for the sole of our foot How wonderful is the thought, that my name, perhaps an obscure one on earth, perhaps unknown outside the little narrow circle of my daily life, should be written by the finger of God in His book, kept up there in heaven for a perpetual remembrance before Him! How overflowing should be our love to the One through whom it has all come about, and how infinitely higher should be our rejoicing that our names are enrolled up there than at the result of any efforts of our own here on earth, however successful, however striking!
What a comfort, too, to those whose work for the Lord Jesus Christ is apparently not successful, is not appreciated by those around them, those to whom the “spirits” are not subject; they have always the one blessed thing before them, that, notwithstanding their feebleness, their inability to cope with the rough details of this wilderness scene, there is the assurance that their names are “written in heaven,” kept in that book of life, in which, blessed be God, there is not a single erasure! How do our hearts answer to all this? How far do we keep before us the blessedness of being little and unknown here, but well-known and recognized up there? How far do we enter into and realize the fact that the Father and the Son, in that wondrous communion existing between them, delight to read together over the pages of that book in which our names―my name, your name―are written!
Just one word to any dear soul who might read these lines who may be working―it may be with apparent success for the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet who does not know whether or not his or her name is written in that book of life, kept in heaven. To such a one I would say, before you move another step, before you speak another word for Christ, do cast yourself before Him, and lay everything at His feet—your work, yourself, everything you have got―and do not leave Him until you possess the assurance, the certainty, that you have passed “from death to life,” that henceforth for you “there is no condemnation,” and that your name is indeed “written in heaven,” in that book of life which God Himself keeps, and from whose Almighty hand it is never taken away for a moment. Oh, if Satan could only get that book into his possession! what would become of our names? But he cannot! It is in the Father’s hand, and it is kept there by a power before which Satan quails, before which the “accuser of our brethren” dares not lift up so much as a finger!
Oh that we might all have a more abundant entrance into the blessedness of knowing that our names are “in the book of life,” are “written in heaven,” and of waiting for that time, now coming quickly, when the record will be gone through, and when every one whose name is found written therein will be summoned into the presence of the blessed Lord, there to remain forever!