01.03. Part 3.

Part 3. So far, the moral perfections of the Lord Jesus in His life upon the earth have chiefly engaged us: a theme which calls for the exercise of holy affections. Let us turn now to the application of His grace and redemption to His saints that we may learn how the heavenly is woven into their being by the Word and Spirit of God. This calls more for the exercise of the renewed mind and connects itself with His ministry from the place where He. now is, having in view the believer’s transfer from his fallen state as in Adam to a new status and position spoken of in Scripture as being "in Christ."

Here a difficulty meets us because of how few there are that have any real sense of the importance of the present time. It may be said that the hour of Christ’s session at the right hand of God is exceptional and differs greatly from the divine dealings in every other hour in the history of time. Not only is it fraught with the richest unfoldings of the mind of God, surpassing anything before revealed to men, but the Spirit of God dwells in the believer to form him by the things revealed. It may be distinctly affirmed that the apprehension of Christ in glory by the Spirit puts us at the centre of all God’s thoughts, and gives the key to the unlocking both of the counsels, of eternity and of all His ways in time. The light of a glorified Christ rays itself forth on all the activities of the Godhead in time, illuminating the histories, types, and shadows, with a glory which no Old Testament saint could conceive, throwing, too, its beams forward, and opening up the whole vista of glory through millennial times to God’s eternal day. "Undimned Thy radiancy appears, changeless through all the changing years." The gospel of the glory of the blessed God comes forth to meet the sinner in his need, showing how all his guilty state has been met for God at the cross. The Holy Ghost works in him, bringing the joy of what Christ has done for him into his soul and linking him up with his risen Head in glory, the divine plan being not only to clear him from the effects of the fall, but to go back to the original created position and transfer him from the earthly to the heavenly order. If we ponder this carefully, we shall see how in the wisdom of God He uses man’s failure to effectuate His own purpose, and in recovery, brings him back not merely to where he departed from, but to a place marked out by Himself in the counsels of eternity. On our side, this could not be the work of a day, but is connected with a process of experience whereby the soul learns its own resourcelessness and the incorrigibility of the flesh It is true that every believer begins with the reception of the Spirit which constitutes him part of the new order, but it must be apparent to all that changes of great import are involved in all this, and the more real the person is, the more painful must be the experience, The revolution in the soul which makes a man love what he hated and hate what he loved, involves a thorough shaking from the very foundation of his being, taking in the source of thought, feeling, desire, and conduct. It is a transition which affects both character and conduct, being connected with moral questions, involving responsibility to God and faithfulness to fellow-men, it concerns both righteousness and holiness, and is attended with great searchings of heart. This is that process spoken of as deliverance, called by some sanctification, which is set before us in Romans 7:14-25. The marvel is, that such a transfer can be made while in a bodily condition which is suited for the earth, and in that way incapable of giving expression to the new heavenly thing implanted there.

If such a lesson is not soon learned, neither can it be got merely from books. Being an experimental process it involves the ups and downs of circumstances in trial and conflict which are necessary to self-knowledge. As we grow in this, the evil of our sinful nature shows itself more and more which, in the light of all the grace which has reached us, makes us cry out in distress: — "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of this body of death?" It is then that the gladdening truth dawns upon us that all this wretched state has come under the eye of God in judgment in our glorious Substitute at the cross, and we say, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 7:24-25). A landmark in the soul’s history is thus reached and the person can now offer his body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is his reasonable service (Romans 12:1).

Happy are they who have reached this in the soul’s history; a point by no means transcendental, but a deep, practical reality known and enjoyed by those who were once far from God in their sins. For such, life is much simplified, all being reduced to a question of what is of Adam or what is of Christ. The outlet from the fallen state, whether Jew or Gentile, was by death, that only could end a condition which as long as it lives is rebellious; and the believer, in virtue of the death of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, is privileged to reckon himself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11). The importance of our being thoroughly alive to this and entering upon it will be seen from the following, where deliverance is spoken of ill relation to life and nature.

{"Now the things of the Spirit are the things of Christ, "all that the Father hath." Are these things less real and substantial than the things of the flesh? (Hebrews 11:1). What of our home with its new relationship and joys? What of the fellowship which is ours with the Father in His thoughts of, and plans, and counsels and work for, the glory of the Son? For which we need indeed, Christ dwelling in the heart, that we may comprehend the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, but are strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man for this very purpose. What of the new objects thus presented to us, instead of the poor things we were pursuing after the flesh? What of the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to which we are called? Is it less powerful to our heart than the association and fellowship of men we once belonged to and took such deceived interest in? What of the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory — which none of the princes of this world knew — to replace and displace for us for ever its wisdom, and learning, and philosophy.

. . . The heavens, with Christ there as the intimate link that connects us with all that is there, are the present revealed scene of our home, relationships, objects, hopes, joys, interests, and pursuits, that thus a heavenly people may be formed practically as such, by what is heavenly on the earth — showing out nothing but what is heavenly." "Truth for Believers," Volume 2, Pages 183-185, J. A. Trench.}

Looking back from this standpoint we can clearly see that the grace which came out in the birth of Christ could not stop there. That wondrous stoop had the cross in view, that the power of death which rested on man might he broken and that the Saviour might enter on life of another order wherein others could be associated with Him before His God and Father. He laid down flesh and blood, which in Him was perfect, to take up an order of Manhood which abides for eternity, while in that same act He brought to an end for God, and for faith, the state of ruin in which the objects of His mercy lay. In His exaltation the Holy Spirit came forth for the interweaving of the blue in their souls, forming in them a new moral being which is of God in Christ Jesus, constituting them heavenly: redemption and new creation, having in view for them not only deliverance from that which came in by the fall, but lifting them from the earthly as created, to the heavenly in new creation. This work is of fine needle-work, every stitch involving the displacement of what is earthly, and is accomplished by the Word penetrating the heart through the conscience, involving constant exercise of soul, but with richest blessing. Normally, it is the result of a proper estimate, the things of heaven taking their own proper precedence, but often becomes a costly process because of the tendency to cling to things here. "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life " (Job 2:4), and the ruling passion being strong in death there is often a struggle at parting with what is of earth. The effect of this formative work is put by John as that which is ’true in Him (Christ) and in you (the saints) in the first epistle, chapter two, and in chapter four it is put in the words, "as He is so are we in this world." This meets the thought underlying the garments made for Aaron’s sons. While the beautiful priestly robes belonging to the high priest spoke of what was proper to, and inherent in our Lord in His glorious Manhood — nothing could possibly add to Him — the embroidered robes made for his sons, speak of the moral qualities of Christ formed in the saints to-day by the Holy Ghost. They too, were clothed in garments of glory and ornament, indicating. another order of things, all of which link up beautifully with the scene and state into which reconciliation brings, as seen in Colossians and Ephesians, as well as with the grand paraphernalia of glory seen in the tabernacle and its heavenly priesthood in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Reconciliation supposes the person brought from alienation and distance to the place of nearness in the complacency of God, a condition of things made possible by the removal of enmity in the death of Christ. To be inside the house one must have on the best robe where the eye of God rests upon His saints as accepted in the Beloved. This, the parable (Luke 15:1-32) shows, has in view, love’s response and festive joy where, adorned in the beauties of Christ in measure, and under His Headship, God can have returned sinners before Himself as sons for His pleasure. Of Israel Jehovah has said, "I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badger’s skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen? and I covered thee with silk" (Ezekiel 16:10). . .

It is in the Epistle to the Hebrews however, that the Holy Ghost seems to present the antitype to Aaron and his sons, for although the garments of glory and beauty were never worn in the Holiest in Israel all is in view of that here. Whatever breakdown may have been in man’s hands, all that was sketched out must have its answer in Christ. We come into the apprehension of the revelation of God in Christ, where the delight of God is known in the expression of His counsels of grace in His well beloved Son and in perfect suitability, as the priestly company robed in garments of salvation can rest without reserve. Christ is shown to be both Son and Priest, the one hanging upon the other, the same being true of the saints whom He leads in as His companions to all the blessedness of that scene of heavenly glory. As the Minister of the sanctuary and Mediator of the covenant, saluted by God as Priest for over after the order of Melchizedek, He is able to control the whole company, forming and giving character to all, and having gone in by virtue of His perfect sacrifice, He carries on through the saints the service of the sanctuary, declaring His Father’s name to His brethren and leading their praises to the Father.

Ephesians opens out the purposes of eternity which necessarily shows the whole time scene to be but yesterday, every bit of which is controlled in view of these counsels and their fulfilment in the eternity to come. As we open the epistle we are, in a certain sense, outside of earth and time, being led back to before the foundation of the world, to see what engaged the Godhead regarding the display of itself and for its own pleasure. The range of blessings, the thought of which strikes the note of praise, are spiritual and heavenly as contrasted with basket, and store, and the land of Caanan and at the same time, secure in Christ as contrasted with the first Adam. The great point is Sonship and the inheritance fruit of the divine will which leads on to the new man, the House of God, and the Body of Christ. With that should be noted, however, the significant description of the new heavenly position brought out here as nowhere else in Scripture. In Ephesians 2:1-22, the saints are viewed in the work of God in their souls as having anticipated in a spiritual way both the truth of resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-58), and translation to heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:1-18). "But God . . . has quickened us with the Christ (ye are saved by grace) and has raised us up together and has made us to sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:1-22). The blessing peculiar to the day, consequent on there being a Man in heaven and a Divine Person here, is that saints are heavenly in constitution, and in character, and in hope, and thank God, heavenly also in destiny. Nor is it different with John, the character of whose ministry is to claim the world for God. If, as is often said, Paul takes the saints to heaven, but John brings God down here, nothing could more perfectly show heaven and earth brought together in moral accord. In that Gospel eternal life being (after the Person of the Lord) the great theme, the transfer from the earthly, sinful state to association with Christ in risen heavenly life is shown. The sovereignty of the Son as life-giver, whose blessed voice is heard in death, our side being the appropriation of that death by eating His flesh and drinking His blood, all looking on to the time of meeting them in resurrection where, as last Adam, by breathing upon them He associates them with Himself in resurrection life before His God and Father.

There is nothing mechanical, legal, nor forced in all this for God does not lift a person out of his sins and lay him down so to speak a full-grown saint all at once, as a man would transfer a log of wood from one place to another. We are moral beings and He works in the soul, producing feelings of sorrow for sin and desires after Himself and holiness which bring about moral progress by which the person travels in his consciousness from the fallen Adamic condition to a new state in Christ. The sense of the new environment follows, for there must be the position. This gives the range of things the soul is introduced into — a faith system where all things are of the God which has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.

O EVER GREAT AND GRACIOUS GOD AND FATHER, BEFORE WHOSE MAJESTY ALL CREATION TREMBLES, WHAT INTELLIGENCE CAN EVER CONCEIVE THE WAY THOU HAST TAKEN TO BRING GLORY TO THYSELF IN THE REMOVAL OF OUR RUIN, SIN, AND SHAME? AND WHAT INCONCEIVABLE WONDERS ARE SEEN IN THE FACT THAT WE ARE TAKEN OUT OF IT ALL AND PRESENTED BEFORE THEE IN HIM WHO ALONE COULD DO IT, THE ONE WHO IS THINE OWN CO-EQUAL, BUT MARVEL OF ALL MARVELS, IS A MAN. JESUS LORD, EVER TO BE ADORED, WE ARE AMAZED AT THY WONDROUS STOOP AND DESIRE TO HONOUR THEE HERE, THEN TO LIVE WITH THEE IN A SINLESS, STAINLESS SCENE TO PRAISE THEE AND THY GOD AND FATHER IN THE POWER OF THE ETERNAL SPIRIT FOR EVERMORE