The Love of Christ, and the experience that flows from it.

Ephesians

 

J. N. Darby.

 

<16052E> 377

 

There are two points seen distinctly in our salvation and in the ways of God. The first is God bringing His thoughts to pass about us in grace, the second is the dealings of God with us, so as to bring our souls into the full enjoyment of both the source and effects of all His thoughts. And I am sure we ought to take heed to the difference of those two things, if we are to walk wisely as Christians. We need to hold both distinctly - God accomplishing His thoughts about us in grace, and His dealings with us to bring us into the enjoyment of them. The first is as sure, settled, and stedfast, as God Himself is, because "Hath he spoken, and will he not do it?" But the other is His work also, and it is a process that must be carried on in our souls. For God never can depart from what He is. None of His counsels can deny His nature. His nature is holy, and He must have us holy; His nature is love, and He must have us in love. He cannot have us enjoy Himself, which is His purpose in grace, in a way different from what His nature is.

What man got in the fall is the knowledge of good and evil. This must be worked out in our hearts, if I may so say, to the measure and thoughts of God. It is there that all kinds of exercises come in - discipline, if needed, sifting processes, etc., which go on in people's hearts.

If it is a question of the accomplishment of God's thoughts, He brings them about. He has called us, and, when the time comes, He will glorify us, as it is said, "Whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." So we find here, "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it . . . that he might present it unto himself a glorious church, not having spot nor wrinkle, etc." But then there is this other thing which our hearts have to notice (and it is all grace), that we are brought - our minds and souls are brought - to enjoy God. Now, we must all be conscious how often, either positively or - negatively, our souls are short of enjoying Him. Sometimes we enjoy something else, or our hearts are dull and - old with God. But we must not confound in our hearts the full certainty of salvation through God's work, and the actual enjoyment we have of it; nor, on the other hand, by shortness of enjoyment, dim or cloud the certainty of His work. Our foolish hearts are apt to do both. But if we look at the truth, the word of God, I see as to the first that it is all quite settled. The apostle can even speak of it as a thing past. "Whom he justified, them he also glorified." I am perfect in Christ. Beyond doubt the knowledge of good and evil is there, in our hearts alas! sadly dimmed; but still this is what we have got. I am brought into this condition, so that, if my heart is not according to the light I am brought into, I get the consciousness of it at once. There might be a person going on outwardly well for years, and yet all that time he is not brought into the light of God.

378 As to the first of these points, it is important to look at it as all settled. While our souls are exercised, and have got perhaps under law, we cannot understand this. We are looking at our own responsibilities, and are not thoroughly brought down and emptied of self. We have not yet real faith that the first Adam never has reached God, and never will. These are exercises of the heart short of the full knowledge of redemption. But when I have understood that our whole condition as children of the first Adam is a rejected one, that all are sinners, and that sin cannot get into the presence of God - when that is wrought, I look to another thing. I see in a sense that that responsibility is over - that I am entirely lost. Through grace Christ takes my place, and I get into another position altogether; I am a new creature in Christ Jesus. This is not speaking of my practical condition, but of the place that I have got into in Christ. Not one single bit of the old nature can come in there. And this is as true of the life I received from God as it is of redemption - "that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." Of course, when the glory comes, there will be no difficulty in saying, It is entirely of God. All is perfect and settled, whether I look at the individual saint or the church of God as a whole. He has loved it, and given Himself for it.

So, again, when I look at all that has to be done, "that he might sanctify and cleanse it," etc., He takes God's work and cleanses it, and then presents it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing. just as God in the garden of Eden presented Eve to Adam, so Christ will present the church to Himself, a glorious church and faultless. All that is blessedly certain; and if received as a divine truth, and mixed with faith in our hearts, we become thoroughly clear before God as to the new ground we have got; and no question remains whatever, because it is a question of the efficacy of God's work. It is a settled thing for my soul that, looked at in Adam as a sinner, I am utterly rejected, and that it is a question now of whether Christ has done His work well. I have done my work, which virtually sent me to hell; and now it hangs upon God's work, which of course, is perfect.

379 The more one looks into it, the more there really is a deep sense of perfectness. I see the perfect love that is the source of it all - infinite unspeakable love, a love which God's very nature, and being, and purpose about us too, express. When I look at the way it is accomplished, I see the perfectness of Christ's work, the absoluteness of His obedience in giving Himself up entirely. He gave Himself for us altogether, not merely His life, but Himself. He "hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God," etc. The more I study it, the more I see the intrinsic blessedness of it, and the delight that God takes in it. It is a "sweet smelling savour to God." We cannot see it too completely in God's hands. Christ "loved the church and gave himself for it"; that is the first thing. And then He sets about, after He has got it and made it His own, to sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. It is according to His own mind that He does it, and then He presents it to Himself a glorious church.

Now the effect is to put us into the light, as God is in the light - into that light which makes all things manifest. it is the fullest and completest work, in effect redeeming us from all iniquity. I need my conscience to be brought into the presence of God according to His own delight in what is blessed. There is no evil there, and we are made light. This is just as completely true as the redemption is perfect. "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in. the Lord." Not merely you were in the dark, but you were darkness; but now you are light, and not merely in the light. My nature, as born of God, exactly answers to what God is.

But now I come to another thing. I have a nature capable of enjoying God and being in the light. Yes. But what is the knowledge of good and evil? What place am I brought into by that knowledge? I am brought into the fight, and I am light. And when these two things come together, when this divine nature in me and the perfectness of the divine nature in itself come together, practically and consciously, What comes of our judgment of all other things? It is then that the knowledge of good and evil takes its true and full character.

380 When we as light come into the light as God is in the light, having a nature capable of resting in it, in the power of this, all in my heart becomes judged according to what God's presence is. The light makes all things manifest, and I see everything perfectly and according to God. How can I enjoy this light? How enjoy God in fact? It is not a question here of salvation and peace, because it supposes you are in the light of God, that is, brought to God. My new nature takes cognizance of all that is not of God, and I say, What is this? I get my conscience occupied with all these things, and in the presence of God. Here exercises come in for the Christian on the very foundation of salvation. The very thing that gives the judgment of evil in his heart is that he has got to God, and that there, in His presence, he gets the right estimate of everything. It is not absolutely perfect, of course; but he gets the just estimate, according to the degree in which he knows God, of what he is himself. All these exercises may go on either gently or painfully; but there must be a bringing up in our souls - a dealing with - good and evil, according to God's estimate of it.

This is founded on grace. I never should be able to think about good and evil in my path, and to walk according to such an estimate, except as knowing that Christ suffered, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. And here is the practical importance of the fullest clearness as to salvation. You will never see a person safe against the corruptions of Christianity where that full assurance is not known in his soul. If I am not brought to God, I must get something in the shape of a mediator between me and God. But Christ has brought us to God. And this assurance of salvation really is a part of Christianity; because what Christ has done in suffering, the Just for the unjust, is to bring us to God. But if I am looking for anybody or any ordinance as the means that is to carry on anything between me and God, I am not brought to God. As regards my walk here, I do want these supplies of grace; but if I want anything in order to keep up my condition with God, I am not brought to God. This was the principle of the Jewish system. There was the holy place, and again the holiest also into which the way was not then opened.

381 The principle of all priesthood supposes that the man has not got to God himself: he cannot go himself, and he will be glad to get some one to go for him; whereas, as a believer now, I do not want even Christ to go for me, because He is there already. Thus assurance of salvation is connected with Christ, and, in one sense, it is the very essence of it; because we are brought into the presence of God, and the effect of this in our new nature, the divine nature that is in us being in God's presence, is to make us judge about good and evil. His presence makes us judge it, just because we are there and have a title to enjoy everything that is there. If a man is walking with God, he has the light of God upon his path: no part is dark. And this is what Luke himself tells us. "The light of the body is the eye; therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light," etc. "Awake, thou that sleepest and arise from among the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Paul speaks there of a real Christian who has got asleep, who needs this perfection of Christ as the light of his path. Are you then thus gone to sleep? You are not dead really as to your condition before God, but you are walking like a dead man. You must awake and rise from among these dead people, and you will have the perfect light of Christ.

But supposing I have been asleep, and I wake up and find myself to have been walking among the dead, what is the effect of this light? It is to bring in the light of God upon the conscience, perhaps to the extent of clouding all joy, or even for the moment causing me to doubt of salvation. But the exercises of the soul that is holding fast the certainty of salvation, founded upon the word of God (which is the real starting-point of the Christian, and in virtue of which it is that he gets any exercises of soul), flow from this - that he looks at the inward state of his soul, and sees that it ought to be up to that full character of the presence of God in which we are placed. It is there that our daily exercises go on. God has brought us to Himself - brought us all to Himself, because this is the very position of the Christian. We may be passing through the world with different degrees of knowledge and acquaintance with Christ and power of communion, but, as far as His work goes, we are brought to God. The conscience has nothing inconsistent with that light. Brought to God, as certainly as if we were in heaven, the effect is, as we are not really in heaven, to bring all our thoughts and ways into the light.

382 How far are we, from day to day and from hour to hour, walking where we are set? We walk in the light as God is in the light; that is, we are brought to God, who is light, and then it is a question of degree of realisation. Are you walking according to the light, as God is in the light? This is another question, and it is where practical exercise of soul comes in, founded on salvation, whether from day to day and hour to hour. I am not looking on the things which are seen, and temporal, rather than on the things which are not seen, and are eternal. His word is that which is the revelation of all that is not seen, but alone real and enduring. All the rest will perish - every thought of our hearts. Nothing but the word of the Lord abides for ever.

You will find, when speaking of Christ's work which He carries on, Paul speaks of sanctifying and cleansing the church. He is bringing it up towards this light, that He may present it to Himself a glorious church, etc. That is, in virtue of God's having brought us to Himself, we start from Him to pass through the world, with a divine nature and the knowledge of God according to that divine nature that is in us, and to judge everything that is in the world by that light. As it is said in 1 Corinthians 2, "He that is spiritual judgeth all things." How does he judge all things? It is not his own judgment; it is by that light which maketh all manifest.

Whatever the will of God allows as a path in the world, He gives light for it in His word. He shews us a path, and He gives the light for it, if I am walking in the light. The question is, whether the path in which I am walking, and my ways, hinder or are the effect of my communion with God? whether they are in the light? Does my path in every-day life come from the light, and is it guided by it? Does it flow from, and is it the effect of, my new nature being in communion with the divine nature - with God? That is the question. If not, it has not glorified God. I may not have sinned outwardly, or done anything positively wrong; but so far I am asleep. I am not thinking about it; and it dulls the spiritual sense. But when I awake, I find out that I am away from God, and all is disturbance with my Spirit. I cannot see God clearly. The practical enjoyment of God by the new nature is interrupted by the workings of the old, so that the things of God and God Himself have got - out of sight, and I am not quite sure where I can get hold of them. All will be bright where it is with God. There will be trials, and trials with God are perhaps the brightest spots in any man's life. If not, the soul's condition of enjoying God has been injured. When it cannot enjoy God, what a disturbed state it gets into! God is perfect love, I say, but I cannot enjoy it, if there is uncertainty as to His love.

383 I am sure of the sun while it is raining, but still I say, What terrible weather we have! - there is not a bit of sunshine. God will never make us doubt about His love, but He will make us feel the loss of it. He will bring us into the conscious sense of the loss of His love. He may make us find out some positive wrong thing that has done it, or a slothful state of soul in not acting in the light. But He loves us too well to let us go on, without finding it out sooner or later. God is perfect in His grace, and He deals with us so that if a person is walking with God, we shall find weakness, but we are with Him about it directly. But where there is a failure in walking up to the light, where it is anything habitually wrong, there the soul gets away, not from the knowledge that God loves it, but it goes on asleep, and, when it wakes up, as it does, through mercy, it finds, perhaps, darkness as to everything - certainly as to the enjoyment of God. It is there where the exercises of soul come in, and the need of constant watching unto prayer. If it be not so, there will be the loss of the enjoyment of divine love; and when we get back into the presence of Him that loves us, that is the very time we get distressed and miserable.

But then we have the second part of Christ's work on the other hand, which is in constant exercise towards us - not His finished work of redemption. In the very verses before us, the first part looks at His finished work, and the second at His carrying on the work till He presents us in glory. "He loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it," etc. That cleansing is still His work to bring us up to the level of what God is; and then what is connected with it? "That he might present it to himself a glorious church," etc. It is that work which He carries on perfectly to the end. But there is another thing, and this He adds in verse 29: "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church." Here I get the daily care of grace: the priesthood of Christ comes in. And it is of all importance that there should not be insensibility to it. The walk not being in the light makes us to have less intimacy with His daily care over us. This is going on constantly. A man takes care to do all for his wife as he would for himself; so does Christ to the church. He nourishes and cherishes it. And our faith, if we are walking with God, can look for that for the church, in spite of everything. He nourishes and cherishes it through all and spite of all, as a man does his own wife.

384 We may speak of the ruin of the church, but Christ is faithful. You never can touch that - never can touch the fact for faith that Christ always nourishes and cherishes the church as a man does his own wife. He never ceases to do it. And it is our privilege to go along with Christ, to be associated with Christ in caring for the church. But in caring for it I may cast doubt on that very consciousness that He nourishes and cherishes it, so there is the continual exercise of faith in communion with God. We can count upon Christ actively. If I love the church and the saints rightly, I shall have the consciousness of Christ's love to them, and sympathy with Him in it. I shall have it, and my heart, in its love toward the saints, will be reckoning always upon Christ's love towards them, and so making it active. But we have this comfort, even where we fail, that He restores us, and intercedes for us. He is either maintaining, or bringing the soul, which has got away, back into the full enjoyment of the sunshine of God's perfect light. only remember this, that it will always be wrought in the conscience and in the affections, I grant His love will attract us. He will tell me of His love, and make me find out, by recalling it, that I neglected it. It gets into the conscience and then comes exercise of heart, in order that the divine life should be perfectly unclouded upon my soul.

And then I can give thanks for everything; I can glory even in infirmities. The apostle Paul himself besought the Lord that the thorn in the flesh should be taken away. But the moment he got the clue of divine love working in it, he said, I would not have it gone for the world. He glories in his infirmities, that the power of Christ might rest upon him. Christ's every-day care over us, and the exercise of His love, reveal that love, and bring the heart back to it. But all this is carried on in the conscience, which therefore gets exercised; and then the heart returns into the unclouded brightness of God's face, where we see everything is ours - life, death, things present and to come. This is founded upon the blessed truth, that we are brought to God, that the very meaning of salvation is that we are brought to Him, and have a nature which comes from God and enjoys Him. The Holy Ghost has the power to keep up the communion, and we are walking in the light.

385 How far has my soul been walking thus in the presence of God? Enoch walked with God, and God took him. only let us remember that the life of Christ has been given to us, and that we are in the light, as God is in the light. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us. How far are our lives going on in this grace? God always has the state of the heart in His mind. He has various ways of dealing with the individual soul as He has with His church. But it is wondrous to see that God is every moment thinking of us - how to bring us up to the full enjoyment of His love.

The Lord give us to know the perfectness of that love. And then, while in the world where everything is passing, and where evil has come in and produced all kinds of confusion, there is a sense of divine grace that, if the sin has come in, grace has come in. The Lord give us to walk in the consciousness that we are brought into this, and then may we seek to enjoy it in communion! It must be by faith and not by sight. We cannot see these things; but there is a divine work always going on. It may be either recognised or forgotten by us; but it is always going on. There is not an instant that we have not to say to God: there is many a one that we forget; and then I have to start up again, and say, Ah! where have I got to?

The Lord give us, in the full sense of His grace, to have our souls exercised before Him.

Our Relations to Christ

Revelation 1: 4-7; Revelation 22: 16-21

<16053E> 386

I have taken these two passages which precede and come after all the prophetic part of the book, as giving us the relationships in which the saints stand to Christ, to whom the book is confided.

In these opening verses we get an address, and the answer of heart in the saints to that address; and then, when the book closes, the address of the Lord to His people as the bride, and the answer. I desire to shew the place in which the Spirit of God sets the saints, and the connection of it with their character, affections, and duties.

One abstract remark may be made: our affections and our duties flow from the relationship in which we are set. It is clear that, if we are creatures of God, our duties as such flow from our knowledge of that. So with our earthly duties and affections - they flow from our relationship one with another, whether as husband and wife, or as father and child.

It is a very simple remark, but of all importance, with regard to the saints' position. But then I must be in this relationship to have these affections, and I must know what the relationship is to which those duties belong. If I had no consciousness of being a child and happened to meet my father, I should have no sense of the duties and affections belonging to me as a child. In order to have right affections, I must be in the relationship to which the affections belong, and I must know that I am in it too. The relationship must be known as mine, in order to possess the affections belonging to it. I cannot love Christ as a Saviour, if I do not know whether He is a Saviour or not to me; I cannot love God as a Father, if I am not sure whether or not I am a child.

Now the importance of this is, that a full settled knowledge of salvation is the spring and foundation of our duties to God - not only the knowledge of the fact of salvation, but of what that salvation has brought me into. It has made me a child, and I am bound to walk and feel as a child. It is so if I take Christ as He presents Himself at the end of this book: immediately the Spirit and the bride say, Come. If I do not know that I belong to the bride of Christ, how can I, when He thus presents Himself to me, say to Him, Come? It is the relationship in which I am from which an must flow, and no duties and affections are rightly founded until we know ourselves to be in this relationship to God. There may be a craving after the thing, and there will be. If I am an orphan, I would give anything to have a father; but I cannot have the affections of a child, because I have not got a father to love me.

387 Wherever the divine nature is, there is the spring of these thoughts and feelings of love to God, and of holiness; but I cannot have them in perfection for my soul, because I have not the constant enjoyment of my relationship. A law may be imposed upon a person, but it never produces any affection. There may be a law which claims certain feelings and affections from me, but this gives no consciousness of the relationship by which these affections are produced; consequently it gives me no power. This is the real character of the law. Instead of being founded on a relationship that is existing, it promises that by keeping it I shall get life. If I keep the law without having real life, I am to get life by keeping it.

I find this principle laid down in Scripture - duty called for in order to the obtaining of life; but never does it produce the thing. Law claims from man what he ought to be, but it does not and cannot place man in any relationship with God, in which he may enjoy the blessing that belongs to God. Now it is not so with Christ. He does bring us, by the salvation which He has wrought, into relationship with God; He gives us a known settled place before God; and then our affections and duties flow from the place we are in. They are not the means of obtaining the place, but that which belongs to the place we are in. If we are the bride of Christ, we ought to have the feelings and wishes of one that is so.

Throughout, when you enter into these verses, this suggests itself to the heart. In whatever way Christ is spoken of, there is at once what calls forth a response from the hearts of the saints. Whatever may be said as to His titles or offices or what He is, the effect of speaking of Him with whom we are in relationship is to awaken feelings in our own hearts of what He is to us. For instance, if I were to speak to a child of its father, as one who had eminently distinguished himself as a hero or a statesman, the child's feelings at once would be, That is my father. He would not say, That is a great conqueror. The child's feelings would be, That great man is my father. So it would be with a wife. If she were told that such a person had greatly distinguished himself in any place, and she knew it was her husband, she would say, That is my husband; because all this glory awoke, in the mind of the child or the wife, the consciousness of the relationship in which they stood to the one to whom they belonged. Now, this is the case with the church of God. You cannot speak of any glory of Christ or of God, that does not awaken in the heart of the saint the consciousness of what God and Christ are to itself. This is characteristic of the existence of such a relationship, and the affections that belong to it. You cannot speak of the person with whom others are in relationship, without awakening in their hearts the sense of what the person is to them.

388 The whole character of this book is one of judgment. It is not the Father communicating with the church by means of the Holy Ghost which dwells in it. And when Christ is described, it is as one whose eyes are like a flame of fire, judging in the midst of the churches, or as one coming out of heaven on a white horse, a sharp sword going out of His mouth that with it He should smite the nations. When it is God, He is sitting on a throne from whence lightnings and thunderings proceed, and sending out preliminary or final judgments on the earth.

Now, we shall find here, by the feelings that are expressed, the way in which the saint, the child of God, feels when Christ is brought forward. We shall find that, even when He is presented in judgment - that is, in an earthly character - the church has immediately awakened in her heart the place and relationship in which she stands to the one thus presented. Jesus, the Prince of the kings of the earth, is alluded to: at once the answer is, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." If the "Root and offspring of David" is named, the "Spirit and the bride say, Come." It is the characteristic of the soul that lives in the conscious blessedness and enjoyment of an existing relationship with God. However Christ is presented, it is her own relationship with Him that is at once awakened in the bride. What I see in the word is not merely God visiting us as sinners, as He has done, but that when He has visited us, He has brought us into blessed connection with Himself, and having brought us there, He calls us, as in that connection, to live in the delight and in the duties that belong to it.

389 We do not thoroughly understand how lost we are in our natural state, because we do not look simply to our place in Christ. It is in the measure that we understand that they who are in the flesh cannot please God, and that the flesh is not subject to God and cannot be remedied, that we rest by faith in our place in Christ. The moment I come to know that my relationship with God depends upon what He is for me and what He has made me by grace in Himself, and not upon what I am to Him, it is all simple. It may astonish many to see that it does not depend upon what they are to Him. They will say, Are not men judged according to their works? To be sure they are. But who among you will stand this judgment? It is not merely a truth; but what is your condition if it is a truth? We are lost. We can only say, "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." There is an end of all flesh as such. If Christ came, He came to call sinners - to seek and save that which was lost. It was all a settled thing to a man in the flesh. You and I, looked at as moral responsible beings before God, have walked in such sort that we could not stand in the judgment - no one, not even a Christian could. I am not talking of grace saving, but of man judged as a responsible being to God. If God deals with us on this ground, we could not, as job says, answer Him one in a thousand. This we know to be true. There is not a single person, if it were a question of the most careless person in the world, who does not know that he cannot stand in the judgment. If he were brought to-day into the presence of God, he would do what Adam did - go and hide himself if he could; he would not dare to stand and be judged of God. The saint knows it, but the sinner knows it too. As a present thing, he has no desire to be with God. If it was offered to ever such a decent man of the world to go to heaven to-day, he would not - nor to-morrow either. When then is he to go? When he cannot help it. If he must die, he would rather go to heaven, but there is not a man of the world but would stay out of heaven as long as possible.

If God reveals Himself in judgment, man will fly from Him; and when He revealed Himself in grace what did man do? Spat upon Him, crucified Him. The story is told. Conscience tells us the one thing, and the facts of Christianity tell us the other - man would not have God. This is what we all are, and without any difference. Some may have produced more bad fruit than others, but we are all alike lost, and therefore God deals with us consequent upon the death of Christ, on the ground that we are lost. It is of immense importance to see this fully, in order that we may fully enjoy God's love. "For a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That is, I learn this - that if I am bad, dreading judgment, and having no affections towards God, if God has loved me, it is according to the perfectness of His own nature. This is how grace meets a man's case. He is brought to this conviction, that he is a poor lost sinner with no desire after God - a lost sinner after having been tried in every possible way - tried without law, tried under law, and then tried by Christ coming in grace to meet them in all their need. And what was the result? Man was lost, hopelessly lost. "We will not have this man to reign over us." We will have the world, without being troubled with God.

390 Here I get God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself I find perfect love cognisant of what the sinner is, knowing how it would be treated, yet coming down to save. When I look at Christ's coming to me, I get thus the knowledge that God, in perfect love, and with the knowledge of what I am, has visited me to save me. He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Having found this, I have met with God, and I know Him. I find myself perfectly evil, my heart altogether evil, but I have seen Jesus, and He loves me perfectly; I have met Him in my sin, and I know Him. That is not relationship yet, but I know what He is. If I have gone to a person that I have considered my master, and have done everything against him, and if afterwards I have met him, and he has assured me of his love, I have my every doubt and anxiety taken away. I shall not then wait for the day of judgment to know what God is to me, for I have met Him in Christ when I was in my sins. But then we could not go into heaven with our sins, and the next thing I find is, that Christ takes up this very place in which I was. Was I in death? He goes into it. Was I under condemnation? He goes under it. Was I in sin before God? He is made sin for me. I find in the cross the Lord Jesus coming and putting Himself in the very place where I was before a God of judgment. Thus, taking the sinner's place, He goes down into death.

391 He is forsaken of God, and being made sin, He bears their burden upon the cross, and now He is risen again. The question of the dealing of God with sin has been gone through on the cross. But, that blessed one having been made sin for me, the holiness of God has been gone through, and man has been proved a lost sinner. But, Christ having taken his place, the whole history of my sin is closed; it has received its reward in the Person of Christ. And He is risen, and there is another Adam, instead of the first Adam, in the presence of God. It is not merely God visiting the sinner in his sin, but that one who has taken the judgment of my sin upon Himself already, is in the presence of God in righteousness. There I get the whole dealing of God to settle the question of sin. Christ has appeared once in the end of the world, "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." In order to be enabled to enjoy the love of God, this is what my conscience wants. If I receive this by faith, I can stand in the presence of God, with the knowledge that God loves me perfectly, and that, as a righteous God, He receives me in Christ.

If you take these two passages, you will find in one what Christ has done for us, and the place in which He has put us, and in the next the relationship which flows from it, and the conduct consequent upon it.

In Revelation 1: 4 there is not a word about God in His character of Saviour, but in the character of Jehovah, as Almighty; and the seven Spirits that are before the throne shew that perfection of the divine Spirit in which God judges. Therefore Christ comes last, and when I come to Him, I get the statement that He is the faithful witness on the earth; then there is His resurrection - He is the first-begotten of the dead, and lastly, He is the Prince of the kings of the earth. It passes over all that He is in heaven as the High Priest, and as my righteousness before God. But though Christ is only thus spoken of, in connection with the character of the whole book, yet what is the answer of the saints when Christ is spoken of? "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." It is what He is to them.

Though Christ is spoken of suitably to the whole character of the book, yet the church knows Him as He is for itself. Even if He is spoken of as the Prince of the kings of the earth, I say, That is the one who loves me, who has saved me know Him as the one who is in heaven, consequent upon the work that He has done for me. I know what He is for myself. He has loved me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood. He is the faithful witness, and the Prince of the kings of the earth; but what I know is, that He has loved me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood, and if I think of the place in which He has set me, He has made me a king and a priest to God and His Father.

392 It is the character of Christ's love, that all which He takes from the Father in glory and blessing, as man, He gives to us. If I talk of Him even as on the throne, He cannot do without me, He makes me a king too. A man of the world can be generous, but he does not bring another person into his own condition. This is what Christ does. "My peace," He says, "I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you." I will give you the very same peace that I have Myself. So, too, "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them." And not only this, but He gives them His Father's love "that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." He puts us into His own place. This is perfect love. He Himself comes, and He has washed us from our sins in His own blood. If He is a King and a Priest, He has made us kings and priests along with Him. It is only when I have the consciousness of being utterly lost, and look up to the love that God has shewn in the gift of His Son, that I can understand it all.

If I look at the day of judgment, I say, It is all over, it is a settled thing with me; and if God deals with me in judgment, I am ruined. It is too late to talk about being better - I am lost. But now through Christ I am saved. God has come in, dealing with this lost person, and giving His Son for him. It is not merely quickening him; but, besides that, when a soul is quickened, and feels what sin is, and what righteousness is, and yet that he has not got it, God has given Christ as his salvation. You want deliverance, out of a condition that you are in by nature, into another condition in Christ; and this is what God provides. The believer is not only born again, and sees that holiness is needed, but he has found in Christ the very thing that he wants. The grace of God has brought salvation. This is another thing. I am not merely renewed, but I wanted an answer to the exercises of my soul, and this is what I have got in Christ. Would it be right for a child to be uncertain whether its father loved it or not? If it were so, I should say, That child has not right affections. We ought to be able to say, I know thoroughly well that the Father loves me - He has given His Son for me. It was a love which knew my case, and thought of it. And He has loved me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood. He has made me as clean as the value of Christ's blood can make a person. I am put thus before God, and then made a king and priest to God. By-and-by every one shall be blessed under his own vine and his own fig-tree; but the place that the heart of the believer finds itself in now is in Christ's own place, consequent upon the love wherewith he has been loved.

393 "Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him." And what is the consequence? "And all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." I can testify that "every eye shall see him, and they which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." But am I to be wailing because He comes who has washed me from my sins in His own blood? No, I am rejoicing. My portion is one thing, my testimony another.

If we look at the last chapter, after all the prophetical details have been gone through, I am not only washed, and made a king and a priest to God, but I form part of the bride. And here Christ sets Himself again before the church; He always does so. In the previous part of the chapter, as a warning, He said, "Behold I come quickly." And now the Lord, having closed the testimony He had to give to the world, says in verse 16, "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches." And then He gives Himself these three characters: "I am the root and offspring of David." He is the root of David, the spring of all the promises made to David; and He is the heir of all of them, because He was the promised seed of David. But then He gives Himself another character, and this is "the bright and morning star." Nothing is said about the Bridegroom here. He is the bright and morning star. What is that? It is not the day. It is what no one sees the moment the sun is up. Those who are on earth in the day of the Lord will not see that star. It is what is seen by those who during the night are watching. Then, when the Lord comes, the star is seen no longer.

394 "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." That brings home our present condition urgently to the church of God. From the moment that Adam fell, it was night, it was dark. It was still deeper night, as God went on dealing with man till Christ was rejected. And now the judgment comes. But it is just there the dawn begins. Man has departed from the light. The rulers of "the darkness of this world" is the ｅxpression. Before Christ came, it was night, because the sun had not risen; and when Christ was in this world, He was rejected. There was no connecting man with Christ but by His death. He came down to man, He visited him in grace; but "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." He was merciful, He might come down to others in the meeting of all their need, but He was alone except He died: and when Christ died, there was the closing of the practical judgment of all that man was, looked at as in the flesh. It was proved that no dealing of God could make the fig-tree bear figs, and God said, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever." He had gone on digging and pruning, but no fruit was borne; the gardener was cast out, Christ was rejected. But "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," and God comes in in grace and sets a man at His own right hand. And now the night is far spent, the day is at hand. The very rejection of Christ, which proved fully and completely the entire darkness in which man was lying, set a new man, another man, according to God's counsels and heart, in glory at the right hand of God, displays this blessed one before our faith, and says, Look there, and you will find life. "Because I live, ye shall live also." You will find righteousness - everything - there.

I now know that God has come in, not merely trying man as He did for four thousand years, but doing His own work; and He has wrought that work completely, and Christ has gone up as "the second man" that has taken His place in righteousness in the presence of God. I can say, That is my life. There is a victory over sin, there is a putting away of sin, there is an accomplishment of righteousness. There is one who has got His place there because of sin being put away, and because of accomplished righteousness; just as surely as the first Adam was turned out of Paradise, the last Adam is gone in. And now I can say that I can see the dawn. The Jew must wait till the High Priest comes out to know whether the offering is accepted or not. When Christ comes out again, they will look upon Him and mourn.

395 But I do not wait for that, because the Holy Spirit is come out, and His presence gives me the blessed consciousness that Christ has been accepted before God as my life and righteousness. My faith makes me know that I have it all in Christ. But when am I to have the fruit of this? I have the Holy Ghost, but what is my relationship to Christ? The Holy Ghost come down gives me the knowledge of it. I have the Spirit, and the knowledge of these two things - that Christ is my righteousness in the presence of God, and the Holy Spirit the seal of it. But, more than that, Christ is the Head, and we are the members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. And what is their character when He talks about them? It is as the bride. It is never said of Christ that He was bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, when He was down here. But now that He is at the right hand of God, we are bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh. Just as Eve was of Adam, we are of Christ; and more so, because the Spirit of Christ dwells in me and unites me to Christ. When the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings, there will be judgment, treading down of the wicked, etc. But meanwhile, while Christ is hidden from the world, faith sees Him; and faith, seeing Him, has trusted and leaned on Him as its righteousness before God, and the Holy Ghost is given as the seal of that righteousness. Therefore He says, "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." He is these two; the earnest of the glory, and the present certainty of the love. I do know the love now, the Holy Ghost giving me the consciousness of perfect love; but He is also the earnest of the inheritance.

The bright and morning star is before the day rises. We know Christ before we see Him. We have not seen Him and yet have believed. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you," We are associated with Him while He is not in the world. When the sun rises, I shall see Him in His glory, but we know Him behind the cloud. He is the Son that has revealed Himself to me - the one who is in the heavens, as He revealed Himself to Paul: therefore it is the gospel of the glory. I know Him as my righteousness, and as the Bridegroom to the bride. The morning star is that which will be accomplished, but which is the knowledge of Christ as known to the watching believer when he is not known to the world at all.

396 So, in Peter, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts." The word of prophecy is a light shining in a dark place. The world is all dark, and prophecy comes in and tells me the end of a dark world, and of all that passes in it. It is going on down a full stream to destruction. I cannot go on with that - my affections cannot be engaged in it. But the night is far spent, and the day is at hand. We know Christ in heaven, we know Him as the morning star when the world does not see Him. We know Him above, where the church was first put in relationship with Him.

It is said to the church of Thyatira, "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron," etc. "And," he adds, "I will give him the morning star"; that is, he shall be a king, and shall rule; but, besides that, I will give Him Myself. We shall have an inheritance, and this with Christ. But do you think, supposing a person were going to be married and said to the bride, You will have a fine estate, would that be what would most occupy her mind? Certainly not. If her affections were true and right, it would be himself, and not the inheritance, that she would be occupied about. So it should be with us. All God's word will be accomplished. We shall have the inheritance, but we shall have Christ. We get the bright and morning star. It is in that character that Christ reveals Himself here. But what is awakened in the church's heart is the thought of her own proper relationship to Christ. He does not say, Now I am coming; it is she who says it. "I am . . . the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come." It is the desire of her heart. When He is named in that character, she is longing for Him to come - not to be washed. The saints already had said, He has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. His first coming did that. He has done it all. And when, through grace, I am brought to look up to God, and trust Him as a poor sinner, I am brought into this place by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, because righteousness has gone up on high. The Holy Ghost comes down and seals me, because I am made the righteousness of God in Christ. And now it is not merely the thought and feeling, I wish I were the bride, but there is the consciousness of the relationship, and I say to the Bridegroom, Come. The Spirit says it, because the Spirit is down upon the earth. I have the living water and the Spirit, but I have not yet the Bridegroom. The Holy Ghost, having come down, and dwelling in believers, produces the certainty of the value of what Christ did and was down here, and the longing desire to see Him. We shall reign with Christ, but to be with Himself is better. James and John said, Give us a good place in the kingdom. But what does Paul say? "That I may win Christ." I have had Christ revealed in me, and I want Him. It is not the uncertainty of there being relationship, but the affections that belong to the relationship."

397 "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." We get the whole circle of the church's affections. When the Spirit of God is working in the saints, what will be the first affection? Christ. The Spirit and the bride turn to Him and say, Come. What is the next affection? It is the saints. Therefore it turns and bids him that heareth say, Come. If you have heard Christ, you come and join the cry. Even if you have not the consciousness of relationship, would you not be happier if you saw Him as He is? Therefore say, Come. The first affection is towards Christ Himself; but the bride would have every saint to join in these affections, and in the desire to have the Bridegroom. But does it stop with those who have heard the voice of the Lord Jesus? No. The first effect of the Spirit's turning our eye to Christ, is the desire that Christ should come; and, next, that the saint who hears His voice should have the same affection. And what next? We turn round to those who may be athirst, bidding them come, and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. The saint who has the sense of the blessedness of having drunk of the living water which Christ gives, wants others to have it also. What is a thirsty man? It is a man that has got a want, and no answer to it. "He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me, shall never thirst."

I have an affection created in me by grace, but it is satisfied. I have got what my soul wants. I have God in all His blessedness in love, and I have Him nearer to me than human friend could be. I have known what it is to thirst, but now I am satisfied. I have got all that my soul longed after. But if you are a thirsty soul here, you will say, If I could only feel sure that I have got this living water! This shews that you have not drunk. You cannot enjoy Christ without knowing it. If the Spirit of God quickens a soul, it will have wants that are not satisfied; but if it has gone and drunk of Christ it will be satisfied. The church has not yet the Bridegroom, but it has the water of life; and therefore it can say to the world, I have what you want; you come and try it. If you are thirsty, and only drink of that water, you will never thirst again. I have Christ in my heart; and when you possess Him in your soul, it gives you the consciousness that you have the very same happiness that there will be in heaven. You may know Christ better, and love Him better, when you get there: there will not be the hindrance of the vile body; but it is not another God, another Christ, another Holy Ghost, that you will have. All the things that will make me blessed in heaven I have now. I may be inconsistent with Christ, groaning in this wretched body, because I have so little faith to see my place. I say, What a hut I am in! The reason I do not like the hut is because I know I have got a palace. I judge my present position because of the glory that is before me. But if you want to know what makes a Christian happy in life and death, it is that the Christ he has got now is the Christ that he will have in heaven. He has got his home there, where the one he loves and knows best is already.

398 But more than that, if we have this living water, and people do not even thirst, still I can say, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." I can tell them I was just as vile as they, and God came and called me in His grace, when I was going far astray from Him. So that now I can say to others, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." We have now this water, we have not got to buy it. We have this relationship to Christ, and the affections that flow from it so that we turn to those that are athirst, bidding them welcome yea, "Whosoever will, let him take," etc. And thus I get the whole circle of the church's affections, from Christ Himself, down to the poor sinner far from God, because I have the consciousness of the affections that are suited to Christ. The Christian is in this world, in virtue of his salvation in Christ, a witness of the love that has saved himself. And then we have to seek, remembering that the life we have is a dependent life, that this witness should be bright; "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body."

399 only remark these two things - where we are brought in faith, with the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. I see that Christ has died to put away my sin: that is what I know' looking back. And, looking forward, I see that the same Holy Ghost who gives to my soul to possess a certain knowledge of the value of Christ's first coming, tells me that He is coming again. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, etc. . . . looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us." He puts us back and shews us Christ; He puts us forward, and says, That is your Bridegroom; He is gone to prepare a place for you, He will come again for you.

If I look back at Christ made sin for me, and if I look forward to His coming again to receive us unto Himself, shall I be afraid of judgment when He comes? He positively declares that He will come and receive me to Himself. Is this the way I shall stand before His judgment-seat? Yes; He will come and fetch me, and receive me to Himself. And why? Because at His first coming He had settled the whole question of my sin. The Person before whom I appear in judgment is the one who has already put away my sin, and who is my righteousness before God; and it is as made like to His glorified body that we appear before Him.

I would ask you, Are your souls standing in this relationship with God in Christ? Do you believe that God in mercy has thus visited you in perfect love, and that now the place you are set in is that blessed relationship itself as the bride of Christ, who is waiting till He comes to receive her to Himself? only remember that if you desire the affections and the walk that belong to a Christian, you must have the consciousness of being in the relationship, or you cannot have the affections that belong to it. God has given us a salvation that brings us as saved persons into relationship with Christ. But, in order to be consistent, I must know what I am to be consistent with. Do I expect you to be consistent with me as my servant, or as my child, if you are not standing in those relationships to me? If I am of the bride of Christ, let me seek to be consistent therewith. But we must first be consciously in the place of relationship, and then seek, though it be amid suffering, to be consistent with it.

400 The Lord give us, by His living grace, to be brought into the consciousness of the place in which He has set us.

Affliction's Lessons, a letter from a friend on the death of a child.

<16054E> 401

My dear sister,

I thank you and dear M- much for having thought of sending me the account of the accident to your dear babe. It is indeed a sore trial to see one who is a part of ourselves thus taken off at one blow, and unexpectedly. Still, what a difference, to have the Lord's love to look to, and to believe one's babe - as I surely do - the object of it. It is a consolation which changes everything, because everything is changed. The knowledge of the love of God, which is come into this place of death, has brightened with the most blessed rays all its darkness; and the darkness even only serves to shew what a comfort it is to have such a light. There is nothing in the heart but light: nothing can make darkness when we have it. It is a world of sorrow; and the longer we know it, and the nearer even we walk to the Lord, the better we shall know it to be such. I do not mean that none of our sorrows are chastenings: we know that they often are such to His most beloved ones, as we see in Job. By all, save Christ, there is all grace to be learned by them; and even He entered into the sorrows of others, as arising from their faults and foolishness; for His sympathies were perfect, and, blessed be God, they are.

He suffered for righteousness, and He suffered for sin; but, besides this, He entered, as taking by grace a place among the godly remnant in Israel, into all which that remnant would feel as seeing the state of Israel (of which they were actually part) under the chastening hand of God for sin. All this He felt as none else could feel. His sympathy is as perfect now, though no longer passing through the sorrows by which He gained the experience of it. Besides, it is only in the part which has to be broken and corrected that we suffer; a touched affection, when Christ is with us in the grief, is of infinite sweetness, though the sweetness of sorrow. It is only when the will mixes itself up with the sorrow that there is any bitterness in it, or pain in which Christ is not. But then this is all useful and what we need. The Lord takes your dear babe to heaven (certainly he has no loss): what is the rest of God's dealings in it with us - with one's heart? He who has made a mother's feelings knows what they are - knows what He has wounded, and knows why - has a purpose of love in it. There is a mass of things in the sincerest of us of which we are not aware, which are not brought into subjection to God, which work and shew themselves unsuspected. God breaks in upon us; how many things He shews - how many cords He cuts at one blow! A whole system of affections is touched: we feel that death has its place and part in them. I never saw a family the same thing after the first death that it was before. There was a breach in the circle. What belonged to the whole body of affections and life of this world was touched, was found to be - mortal: it was struck in its very nature. The course of life went on; the wave had closed over that which had been cast into it; but death, and the affections which belong to this world, had been found to meet. But all this is well; for death is come in. Besides we live in these things; our will lives in them; and when the will is broken, so far as it is so, it is broken for everything. We learn much more to lean on what never breaks - not to lose our affections, but to have them more in connection with Christ, less with this will of our own nature; for nature must now die as well as sin. But then Christ never makes a breach, except to come in and connect the soul and heart more with Himself; and it is worth all the sorrow that ever was, and more, to learn the least atom more of His love and of Himself; and there is nothing like that, nothing like Him; and it lasts.

402 But, besides, there is a useful work by it in our own hearts; and so more capacity to know, and enjoy, and learn communion with, Him; more capacity to delight in and understand God; to know, and to know the value of, what He delights in; more moral capacity to delight in what is excellent. We little know what high and blessed things we are called to. Oh that the saints knew it better! to be with, and have common joy and communion with, God!

Some have much of it down here. It is opened out to them. But all that is of nature and will can have no part in this; and often the saints, though not directly dishonouring the Lord, are living in nature. Then the Lord deals with them, "turns man from his purpose, and hides pride from man." Oh what a profitable thing it is to have that hidden from us! And how completely it is, when God deals with us, and brings us into His presence, whatever means He may employ, for He knows the springs of our hearts and how to touch them. But oh what grace is this daily, constant care! - "He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous." What a God to have to do with! and all in love! And when the storm is all passed, the brightness for which He is preparing us will shine out unclouded, and it will be Himself - Him we have known in all this tender care. Yet in the brightness of His glory, the glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb will be its light. We shall be with the Son, with Jesus, enjoying as and with Him the brightness and divine favour which shine out on Him. And oh! how blessed the love, Jesus' love, that has brought us there for ever with Him, in virtue of it, and now in the full blessed enjoyment of it with Himself.

403 I do earnestly pray that this sorrow may be blessed to you and to all your dear children, that they may see how near death is, but the Lord still nearer. Assure dear M -  how truly I sympathise with him. A father's sorrow, though of another character, is not less deep than a mother's. You must expect that, as time passes on, the present feeling of loss will diminish, and, in a certain sense, pass away too. Not that the affectionate remembrance of your poor little babe will be at all gone; but its character will be changed, and your living children and daily occupation will make it less absorbing. This is natural, and, in one sense, right. Living duties have their place, which cannot be rightly yielded to absorbing affections. What I would earnestly recommend to you is to profit by the moments when the impression and present effect of it is strong; to place yourself before God, and reap all the fruit of His dispensations and tender grace. It is a time when He searches and manifests His love to the heart at the same time. May you grow much by this - surely to a mother's heart - painful occurrence.

Ever faithfully yours in Christ,

[END OF PRACTICAL - VOL. 1]