Christ the Way

This was a momentous word for man—for every man, woman, and child. No words more encouraging were ever uttered, even by the Lord Jesus Himself, for such as felt the need of divine direction.
I have no doubt that there was more in them than the mere answer to the question...They meet the need not of one man only, but of all. Yet our Lord was not addressing a multitude of hearers, but the perplexed disciples; and this gives a definiteness of application. He is addressing a believer under Jewish prejudice, not an unconverted man. Not that I am going to confine myself to its strict bearing on the inquiring disciples; for there is in it the fullest answer to the darkest heart. There is divine help for those who know really but very partially. Their knowledge was scanty; they were not the wise and prudent of the earth; and Scripture takes pains to show this. They were not chosen for anything in themselves. It was manifest that they could add no luster to the gospel. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the, things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are; that no flesh should glory in His presence.” (1 Cor. 1:26-29)
Thus does God confound the pride of flesh, and show the utter folly of any pretension on man’s part to worth in the things of God, seeing that he is really nothing but a lost sinner. When Thomas asks the question about the way, the thoughts of the disciples were still hampered by the earthly expectation of Israel. But how different was their condition in little more than a month afterward! We do not hear again of Thomas. May it not have been because he was going on well? In that case there is not much to talk about. It is people’s intrigues and ambitious designs, their quarrels and fights, that make up the most of history, man’s attempts to circumvent or repel evil, sometimes successful, more often failing. It is the constant conflict of evil with good; and evil but too often prosperous. The time will come when good will always triumph; but it is not come yet. A poor thing truly is man—the world. No wonder that God’s thoughts find their center in one person; and He is the object of God here and everywhere.
One person was always before the mind of God; and this was expressed thousands of years before He became a man. He was not only perfection, but He was the Perfect Man, as well as God come down to deliver those who were most opposite to Him in every way. Here we see divine good in a man, and nowhere else. No man can be a Christian who refuses Him, or takes any other way. On the one hand, were He not God, it would take away from God’s glory as well as destroy man’s hopes. He could not else have been the perfect Savior and Deliverer. On the other hand, it would have taken away all the means of our blessedness if He had not deigned to become man. But He who was God became man, is so now, and ever will so abide, though infinitely more than man. It is just as true that He is always God, even on the cross; and this is the pledge of sure and stable blessing for every soul who would hide himself by faith in Him, spite of all his sins. Have you fled for refuge? Have you thus come to Him? Or, are you thinking to try and make yourself a little better first? But remember, salvation is for sinners. He does not want people who are good (not that He could find them. if lie did); He is come to seek and to save the lost. It is they who need Him. Are you willing to take this place? It is a solemn thing to tell out all our sins to God; it is as much as to confess that one deserves hell-fire. Do not draw back when I press this. Does it make any difference to God’s thought of you? He knows it all before; but for you it is all-important to take the place of good for-nothingness in His presence. Thomas was slow to believe; and so are very many. No man likes to tell out what he really is; but when he does, he finds out what God is; and He is love. Indeed grace, and grace alone and exactly, meets the need of him who finds out that he is nothing but a sinner. It will not do to say in a general way, “Ah, yes, we are all sinners.” I must have to do with God about my own sins, and that in a particular way. It is neither faith nor conscience to deal with them all in a lump, as it were. Do not tell me that you have done so—that you have been to God about your sins, and come away empty. You deceive yourself as to this.
You have not been simple or truthful in telling out what you are: else you would have found all you want to meet your need in the Lord Jesus. His fullness meets all our wants. Could I say less when it is about Jesus? He did not come to limit Himself to any one people, or country, or age. His grace flows out freely to all. It is no longer only Israel, but any sinner at any time. When John said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” what was the effect? He tells us, “which taketh away the sin of the world.” Accordingly, this is what the work of the Lord Jesus will accomplish: no particle of sin or of its effects will be left in the world. But that day is not come yet. Before it can come, the wicked must be banished, that they may go to their own place. No man will be condemned merely because he is bad, but because he refuses the grace of God as shown in Christ. Wrath then comes on him for all his sins. The promise of salvation is to him who hears the word of God—the gospel; and man is condemned because he refuses God’s remedy in it. Do not you then lose your time; and it may be your soul, in troubling yourself about God’s dealings with the heathen. The Lord will judge them; and He will do His work perfectly. What you want yourself is mercy, forgiveness, salvation. Therefore, I pray you, banish all thoughts of your own on such a subject; you do not and cannot yet understand God’s ways. Venture not to sit in judgment on Him.
There is nothing so presumptuous and inconsistent as unbelief, nothing so humble as faith. So those who would not scruple to discuss and condemn God’s dealings with the heathen count it the height of presumption on a believer’s part to say, “I know I am forgiven, washed perfectly white, and free from all stain.” Yet this confidence is from nothing in themselves; it is founded ‘simply on faith in the efficacy of Christ’s blood. It is due to what Christ has done, not to what we are, A man who knows he is a sinner gladly owns the Savior. His first desire is that he may be brought to God. How is he to get to Him? Here is our Lord’s answer: “I am the way.” Let us consider then a little what “the way” means in Scripture.
When man was first made, he was not as he is now. God made man upright. He was the most wonderful being that God had made. An infidel may talk (and there is plenty of such talk in these days) of man having grown gradually to the state he is now in, that he came into existence of himself nobody knows how, out of nobody knows what. And this is science! Nothing is so utterly foolish as unbelief. But supposing the protoplasm was seaweed, we have still the difficulty, How did the seaweed come? and how did it so change? The very least object could not have come into being without the will and power of God.
But wonderful as the power of God in His works may be, and the more as we think truly of all He has made, much the most wonderful is man even now, though fallen; for he is still responsible as the image of God, if not His likeness. And this is why murder can only be wiped out by death; for man has destroyed the image of God in another. Yet there has never been a good man born into this world.
Man was originally made in the likeness of God; but Adam was fallen before his firstborn child appeared. Thus sin had conic in; and so even Seth was born in Adam’s likeness, though in God’s image still. A brute has not a reasonable soul. Man is the only one of all God’s creatures here who is thus endowed. We therefore see that God did not make the world or man as we see them now; for, when they came from His hand, there was not a single thing that He did not pronounce good, or very good. Then there was no need of a way; for whether man turned to the right or to the left, all was good; and there could be no need yet to say, “This is the way; walk ye in it.”
The use and importance of a way would be when that which may have been good everywhere is so no longer. Evil has come in, and the world has become a wilderness. Such being the case, there is no way; and we need one. The world is nothing but a waste and howling wilderness, through which we cannot pass without a way. There is no rest here, nothing to satisfy the heart of man. He may seek to take his fill of the pleasures of the world; it is but a dram to render him insensible to the fact that he is miserable at the thought of facing God. Having a bad conscience through his sins, there is no one he would so like to get away from as God. He has perhaps some fear of Satan; but he is not so afraid of him as he is of God. What does this tell? That he is a sinner away from God. It is the sense of sin that makes him afraid. The same terrible being (Satan) first entraps a man into sin, and then whispers that he is done for; first entices, and then gives a sense of God’s judgment against him. Man then tries to drown his fears in pleasure. He will go anywhere, do anything, to get rid of the pressure of sin; he will occupy himself with, it may be, his family, his business, even his duties, as he calls them-anything that will keep him away from God. Then, it may be, he is laid on a sick-bed, and he feels, “I must meet God in my sins;” and some especially come up to ‘mind that had been long forgotten, but ah none forgiven. For you cannot be forgiven a little here and a little there. Sin is not to be got rid of in this fashion, one at a time, perhaps when you feel sorry about it. Whatever they may say who sell masses, it is not so with God. But when and how does He meet this ruined condition? Man is lost, and the world is as much of a wilderness as the sands of Arabia to a traveler who has missed his way. Man has absolutely no resources as regards his sins. What then is to meet him in his need? Trying to make amends will not avail. Your sins are upon you; and what can you do when they confront you in the light of God’s throne?
But how does God meet your need? Jesus says, “I am the way.” Jesus is the way, the only way to God the Father. Jesus is the way in this world of utter alienation and departure from God. Man is the head of all the ruin as he is the head of the creation. Adam was the head of all before Eve was given to him; he had called all the creatures by their names. Eve’s place was in association with him. So the church has no claim but by association with Christ. He is the way; and can this way fail? Christ fail! What folly! He is the way. I have nothing to do but to take the way. Crowds of different cases come, and no wonder; for no one that came ever went away as he came. Nor did Christ ever send a soul away unblessed; none that came as sinners and lost.
This is what man really is, a sinner ruined and lost. He has no resources towards God; he cannot diminish one of his sins. What is to become of him? Jesus says, “I am the way,” and it is sure, unfailing. The Son of God became a man in order that He might be the way. He came to be a Savior, but a Savior only to those who believe. He will be judge of those who reject Him. He has other offices too, but they are mostly connected with salvation. A man who will be-Saved is not brought into judgment. Men who have life and are saved have no sins upon them. How then and for what are they to be judged? “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24) The word really is judgment, not “condemnation,” as it is translated in the A.V. I do not wish to find fault with our translation; but let me prove that the word ought to be judgment. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.” Here the very same word that is translated “condemnation” is used. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” Here it is another word; and there is just as much difference in the words used in the Greek as in the English. What God declares is, that he that hears His word has everlasting life. It is a present thing. The believer again is passed from death unto life. What would be the sense of judging life, of judging what God has wrought? But all men will give account of their deeds. We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. This is a very different thing from being brought into judgment by God. To be judged, a man must be a criminal. It is not always the case where there is an earthly judge; for if the grand jury bring in a true bill, the man, even if innocent, must be brought before the judge, and might even be condemned; but this would be caused by man’s infirmity. There could be no such thought in connection with divine judgment. No believer ever comes into judgment, speaking now of the judgment of the great white throne; and this because he has eternal life, and his sins are forgiven now. Are you rejecting this salvation?
God is now in Christ beseeching, entreating you to be reconciled on the ground of His, acceptance of Him who was made sin. Your rejecting Him proves that you are not willing to be saved. He is ready to save you, to pardon here and now. But you have some secret reserve; something you are keeping back from Him. You either wish to serve sin a little longer, or you do not believe that God is as good as He is. You prove that you judge yourself unworthy of eternal life.
No man is saved because lie deserves it. I implore you, put it not off, wait not for anything. Christ will not be more of a Savior to-morrow, and are you sure that you will hear His voice tomorrow? Is it not to be feared that you will be less and less inclined to receive Him? He is the way and the only way. When we get to heaven, we shall not need a way, any more than it was necessary in Eden. All is right there, and no way will be required above. When in heaven, there will no longer be responsibility. Here it brings ‘danger, failure, ruin; for now, on the ground of responsibility as a man, you are lost altogether.
Henceforth it is really a question of faith. Do I rest on Christ, believing in Him? I learn that He has undertaken for me; that God has given me a Savior, and that He commands me to repent and take the place of one that is lost. When a man tries to become religious, he is denying that he is lost; he sets himself to read and pray, to work out righteousness for himself. He says, David prayed three times a day, and I will pray four times; but will it help him? Do I think lightly of prayer? By no means; but when a man acts like this, he shows that he does not know his sinfulness and lost estate.
Suppose the case of one guilty of high treason and condemned to die. The king might say, I know the man is guilty, but in my sovereign mercy I grant him a free pardon if he will only come and avail himself of it. But the man obstinately refuses to come out; he will not credit such goodness; and the king orders the sentence to be carried out. So it is with man, he refuses to believe that God is willing to save, and why? Because he judges of God by himself.
Faith is sure of God as He reveals Himself; and He is not only willing, but He can afford righteously, to save. God saves on the ground of Christ’s redemption. It is not mere mercy. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life; for Christ was judged for our sins by God Himself on the cross. Hence He is righteous, to forgive; for Christ has paid the penalty. God is not merely justified in forgiving, but glorified also. It brought far more glory to God than if He merely punished all as sinners; for every attribute of His is satisfied—His majesty, His love, His truth, His holiness. All the grace of His character shines out for every soul that comes, bringing out more of the infinite worthiness of His Son.
Be afraid then to stay away from the Savior, of sinners, lest to-morrow find you in a More hardened state than today. All delays are dangerous; but what is so dangerous as to put off bowing to the Son and accepting God’s free salvation? W. K.
The Christian’s Place
The second thing is, there is another principle in me, another “I” which is not the flesh, bet which longs after God, which “delights in the law of God.” What a bitter disappointment it is to discover, thirdly, that this new nature, the new “I,” has no power of itself. And this is the point where people get disheartened. Many a one who may have given up hope of correcting the old nature, or of getting any good out of it, is utterly discouraged when they find the new nature of itself has not power over the old. The common idea is, that the cross of Christ has some kind of charm on man; that conversion consists in the re-adjustment of what was there before. This is deeper down in minds than we think. Scripture says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” You cannot make anything out of the flesh but flesh, however you may cultivate it. All the culture and care and diligence you may bestow on a crop of nettles will only produce a crop of nettles, because the nature of nettles is to produce nettles, though they may be stronger nettles from cultivation. A little ray of comfort breaks into the soul when it knows there is another “I” which wills right, which longs after God; but a terrible thing it is to discover that this new “I” has not power. Take an illustration: a child who is born today has got life, but no power; it has all the constituent elements that go to make the man, but there is strength wanting. It has been said, “All we have to do is to put our will over on the side of God;” but it is said, “to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” (vs. 13) Here the will is on the side of God; but there is no power to act. Are you saying, “I expect in the power of the new man to get power over the old man; I will keep it down; I will put a curb on this and. that evil tendency; I will check it”? This is Rom. 7. You will find it so. “How to perform that which is good I find not.” Every soul must go through this in some way or other, and, as has been truly said, “no one can get out of it until they get into it.” In order to walk happily with God we must learn this lesson. It is like a person in a deep ditch; the more he struggles to get out, the deeper he gets into it; the more he tries to get free, the deeper he sinks in the mire. Then he turns from all expectation in himself, and says, “Who shall deliver Me?” Often there remains in souls (it may be undiscovered by themselves) some latent hope that they can gain the mastery, and God allows the exercise to go on till we are broken to pieces, and we look outside ourselves to another. The reason why people struggle on in this experience of Rom. 7 is because they have not practically found out the condition God says they are in. As long as there is a lurking suspicion in your mind that you can help yourself, God, as it were, says, “Go on, try.” I could not call the experience of Rom. 7 conflict. If a giant were in this room on the neck of an infant, this would not be conflict.
Verse 24. “Who shall deliver me,” not from my sins, but from that which produced them; who will take me out of the terrible condition in which I am involved? Then at once follows, “I thank God through Jesus Christ!” This is the breathing of the man delivered out of the pit, and whose feet are on the bank. He falls down and worships at the feet of his Deliverer, whereas before he was trying to get out of his helpless condition. To know deliverance the eye must be turned altogether from self to another. We learn we have died with Christ—our old man was crucified with Him; and we have passed out of the condition in which we were involved in connection with the first Adam, and now we are in Christ.
In the history of Jonah we get an illustration of this exercise which souls go through. Jonah is cast out of the ship, and would have been lost, but God prepared a fish, and Jonah was saved in the life of another. Look at all the exercises he went through; he was in a safe state, but not a delivered state...We get three things in Jonah 2 which correspond to the three points of Rom. 7 “I will sacrifice unto thee,” He is not delivered for that, “I will pay that I have vowed,” He is not delivered yet, “Salvation is of the Lord,” and at once the fish vomited out Jonah on the dry land. Directly he looks outside himself, or anything he could do, or say, or render to God, he gets his feet on the dry ground, and hears the word of the Lord the second time, saying, “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” The Lord give us to understand the difference between the forgiveness we get, through the death of Christ, of all Our transgressions and sins, and the deliverance out of the condition we were in by nature. All our sins are forgiven; but beside, we have died with Him, and are delivered through death from the terrible state of thralldom we were in, to be now in everything for Him who died for us. Deliverance gives power over self. Turned entirely away from self, a new song is put into my mouth, even praise to our God. We need Christ to deliver us as much as to cleanse away our sins. How blessed to know Him as our deliverer, our friend, our stay, our all; to learn “salvation is of the Lord.” The Holy Ghost is the only power by which we can do anything. If we could have power apart from the Holy Ghost, we could use it when going on badly. All must be practically consistent with His presence, or there can be no power. When we see persons without power, one of two things must be true of them; either they do not know deliverance, or they have been inconsistent with the deliverance which is theirs, and with the fact of the presence of the Holy Ghost, and thus the Spirit is grieved. If I grieve Him, He has to witness to me of my sins till I judge them, instead of witnessing to me of Christ. Proper Christian conflict comes in after deliverance is known.
The force of Gal. 5:16,17, is “in order that you may not do what you otherwise would do.” There is One dwelling in you who conducts the conflict against the flesh; but the victory is on the side of the Holy Ghost. Rom. 7 is the experience of a quickened soul under law, and consequently bondage. Gal. 5, is the Holy Ghost, the strength and power of the new nature, and there is victory. In Rom. 8 we get the true and proper standing of a Christian “in Christ Jesus, and what the Spirit of God says of such is “no condemnation,” which is much stronger than merely saying they are not condemned. We stand in One who in grace went down under the judgment and condemnation which was due to us, and who appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He has risen out of it. Can there be condemnation for Christ? neither for those who are in Him.
The first great fact is, “Christ died for our sins;” the second is, we died with Him. Nothing will give the soul deliverance but knowing I died with Christ. The sentence of death has been passed on me in the cross of Christ; then that which I am to reckon dead has been crucified with Christ. A Christian is entitled to know he has died with Christ, that therefore he is no longer on the ground on which he once stood as a child of Adam; but he has been brought into another position and condition, “in Christ” risen from the dead. Do you say, “If only I could feel this”? You never will till you believe it. If you begin at the realization side you will never realize. Begin at the side of the testimony of God; viz., that His Son has died, settled the question of condemnation due to you through His death, taken you out of the position you once stood in, and given you a new position, a new place; given you deliverance in the power of life in Christ risen from the dead. But you say, “I feel the workings of the old man in me.” But observe, it is one thing to say it is still in me, another that I am standing in it before God. “They that are in the flesh cannot please God;” but “ye are not in the flesh.” Oh the blessedness of knowing we are “in Christ Jesus “before God, all condemnation gone forever, “sin in the flesh condemned” (not forgiven) in the cross of Christ. The effect of being in this new position is seen in verse 4. The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. If we do not walk in the Spirit the evil principle. within us will assert its existence; but we are brought into a place of power as well as security. We have to keep the sentence of death on ourselves. If I allow self any place, or allow it to work, the Holy Ghost must occupy me with the judgment of it, instead of being free to occupy me with Christ, and to fill my heart with Him. When the evil nature acts, and the soul does not know deliverance, we find the question arising in hearts, “Can I be a Christian? have I the root of the matter in me?” In the power of life and of the Spirit I am entitled to reckon myself dead in the cross of Christ. The second great truth in chap. 8. is, that the Holy Ghost dwells in the believer, and is the power of the new man; the Spirit of God energizes the new man. We get two things in connection with this. First, He is in us, the witness to the fact that we are children (vss. 16, 17); and second, He takes part in sympathy with us, because of the link we have through our bodies with a groaning creation around. (vss. 22, 23)
In verses 19, 20 we see creation waiting on us, waiting for the day when the sons of God will be manifested. Then it will be brought into its blessing.
Verse 20 ought to be read, “By reason of Him who hath subjected it.” Creation was subjected to vanity by Adam; i.e. under Adam, its head, the whole race partook of the consequences of his fall. Man, brought in the ruin; the whole creation groans.
Verse 21. “In hope that the creature itself shall be set free from the bondage of corruption unto the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” We have a link through our bodies with the groaning creation; but these very bodies will ere long be fashioned like unto His body of glory.
The Spirit of God is spoken of in three ways in this chapter: “The Spirit of God,” as contrasted with the flesh—with what man is in his nature; the “Spirit of Christ,” as formative of our practical state; and the “Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead,” in connection with the raising up of our mortal bodies.
From verse 29 to end we have God pews. Observe sanctification is left out in verse 30, because it is not a question here of the work of the Holy. Ghost in us, but God for us, no matter who or what may be against us. A Christian is a man in Christ; God is in him, and God is for him. We are brought into a wealthy place. Alas! how little we know the wealth of it. Eternity will not be too long to praise Him for it all. Oh the blessedness of standing outside all that we were, and to raise the song of triumph to Him who has so blessedly accomplished it all, and at such a price!
“By weakness and defeat
He won the meed and crown;
Trod all our foes beneath His feet
By being trodden down.

“Bless, bless the Conqueror slain,
Slain in His victory;
Who lived, who died, who lives again
For thee, His Church, for thee!”

W. T. T.