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We learn here what a Christian is, and how a man comes to be one. First, we notice what introduces the subject; and next, the circumstance to which the apostle alludes as bringing out the true character of Christianity.
The apostle had been forced, by the attacks of those false Judaizing teachers, who said he was no apostle, to speak of himself, though he is grieved to have to do so. He began, in the end of the previous chapter to say a few words which lead to this: "We are not as many who corrupt the word of God," etc. Then he asks, "Do we need letters of commendation to you, or from you?" He means just such letters of commendation as are given now. But he tells them, "Ye are our letter of commendation." He had them so much on his heart, that, if people asked him for proof of his apostleship, he just said, Look at the Corinthians. At this time they were going on well; they had received the first epistle, and the apostle had seen Titus, and learnt that it had produced its effect. They were brought back again to a right walk; his heart was enlarged towards them (chap. 7: 11), and he could say, "Ye are our epistle." He could hardly have said so in the first epistle, though he was the means of their conversion.
Next, he shews how or why they were his letter of commendation. "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ," etc. (v. 3). They recommended Paul, because they recommended Christ. He then passes to a comparison of this with the law, which introduces the general subject of the chapter. "Written . . . not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." The law of the ten commandments, as we all know, was written on tables of stone; the Corinthian Christians, in contrast with that, had Christ graven on their hearts. This is what a Christian is: an epistle of recommendation of Christ to the world, by having Christ engraven on his heart by the power of the Spirit of God. It is spoken of the Corinthians collectively, though it is true also individually. He does not say, Ye ought to be the epistles of Christ, but "Ye are." This was the position they were in. If I call myself a Christian, even without being one, I am in the position of an epistle of Christ. My profession, though it be merely profession, is a profession of Christ. The apostle could hardly have had the heart to say that of the Corinthians, when they were walking badly. Still they were in that position. They were before the world to shew out Christ, as it is expressed doctrinally in chapter 4, "that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." At the end of this chapter he speaks of it as growth into the image of Christ. It is the same thing under a different figure. There, too, we see how it is brought about.
417 To return to how this is introduced. These Corinthians were a testimony to Paul's ministry - a letter of commendation of him - because they were a letter of commendation of Christ before the world, shewing what the power of Christ's life was in a man; his motives entirely changed, and above all that is in the world; a walk of holiness; unselfishness; self-restraint; the power of money gone; a conversation in heaven. He had alluded to the tables of stone on which the law was written, and he follows out that line of thought in the chapter. He refers to the fact that, when Moses came down from the mount the second time, his face shone, so that the people could not look at him, and asked him to put a veil upon his face. That veil is done away in Christ; nevertheless it is still upon the heart of the people when the Scriptures are read, but when they shall turn to the Lord it shall be taken away, just as Moses put off the veil when he turned to the Lord. They will look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn. When Moses came down from the mount the first time, it is not said that his face shone, because then he brought pure law; but the second time a certain measure of grace was added: God had been revealed as "the Lord, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth." The way in which He spared Israel then was by His goodness, which He had caused to pass before Moses (he could not see His glory). The people could not look on the glory of God - not even at the reflection of it in Moses' face.
It is a most touching history, shewing out again and again the grace, and forgiveness, and patience of God. First, Moses went up and got the law, graven by the finger of God on two tables of stone; but before ever he had brought it to the people, they had broken it. They had made a golden calf to worship, and thus broke the very first link with God: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Moses, seeing this, cast the tables of the law out of his hands, and broke them. Thus pure law never came into the camp at all. Law came in afterwards, when mercy was shewn too, but unmixed law never. How could Moses carry the tables of the law into the midst of a people who were serving other gods? How could he put the ten commandments beside the golden calf? When he comes within hearing of the voices of them that were singing and dancing, his indignation is kindled, and he casts down the tables and smashes them. That was where pure law ended.
418 Moses went up again, taking new tables, according to the word of God, who wrote the law upon them afresh. He had told the people, "Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin"; and it is lovely to see how he pleads for them, and how God answers in goodness and grace. He reveals His mercy in government, as "forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." This is sometimes called the gospel, which it is not at all. God did indeed bear with Israel in patience, but still he adds, "In the day when I visit, I will visit their sins upon them." It was not forgiveness as we know it now. He forgave them in not cutting them off, and putting Moses and his seed in their place, as He had threatened. Moses had said, in beautiful disinterestedness and love for the people with whom God's name was bound up, "If thou wilt not forgive them, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book." The Lord shews present mercy and forgiveness, but at the same time puts every one of the people on his own responsibility. "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book."
This is the first part. Even this (law qualified with mercy), so far from being the gospel, is what the apostle calls the ministration of death and condemnation. Then, in contrast with this, he speaks of the gospel - of Christ's work - as the ministration of the Spirit, and of righteousness. A person not in the presence of God may not find the law a ministration of death and condemnation, because his conscience is not awakened. He is like Paul, "touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless"; "alive without the law once." But that is never found in the presence of God; there it is, "There is none righteous, no, not one." The young man who came to the Lord asking, "What good thing shall I do?" and saying, "All these things have I kept from my youth up," had not got a bad conscience, in a natural sense. He thought he was going on very well, and he came to know what was the best thing he could do; he did not ask to be saved. The Lord dealt with him as He dealt with Saul. He brings down the law upon the very motives of his heart. Saul might be satisfied that he was blameless touching the righteousness which is in the law, but when the law said, "Thou shalt not lust," all was over; he was discovered and condemned. "I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Why? Not because the law is wrong, but because it is right, and I am not right. The Lord did not say to the young man that he had not kept the law. He told him to go and sell all he had, and give it to the poor. This immediately brought out the lust of money: "And he went sway grieved, for he had great possessions."
419 See, again, how the Lord uses the law in the case of the woman taken in adultery (John 8). The scribes and Pharisees bring her before Him in a most wicked way, hoping to entrap Him. If He said, Stone her, He was no more a Saviour than the law; if He said, Do not stone her, He was breaking the law. The Lord does not weaken the authority of the law, but He applies light to them all, telling them, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her." They found they were in the presence of God, and they went out, one by one, owning practically that they had all sinned, and were under the condemnation of the law. They felt the detecting power of God - the veil was taken away, and they could not bear it.
Our consciences may be quite at ease while we are far from God and unawakened; but the moment we have to face what we are in the presence of God, we see that our case is desperate. We all know, more or less, what self-righteousness is, and we can go on with it well enough till we get God's eye upon us. There is not a man in this town who is not washed in the blood of Christ, that, if called apart to answer for himself to God, would not try to get away as fast as he could. He may have an excellent character, and deserve it too, but he has not a perfect conscience. We may go on for a long time as decent natural men without anything to shock the conscience; but the moment God's presence is recognised, the veil is off, God is seen, and His word searches the thoughts and intents of the heart: then we can understand the words of poor Job (and there was none like him in all the earth), "He cannot answer him one of a thousand." "If I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." That is, though clean in the eyes of men, he would be in God's sight like a man brought out of a ditch. Then he goes on to say, "Neither is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both. Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me." That is what we have got in Christ; God has taken away our fear.
420 The law is most useful in this way to convict the soul, where known in its spirituality. It demands from us what we ought to be for God, as God's law must do, and then tells us, if we do not answer to it, we are cursed. The apostle goes even a step farther in Romans 7. A man may be quickened, born of God, so as to say, I hate these evil things, that I do. The law says, So do I, and that is the reason I curse you. It is because the law is right, "holy, just, and good," that it kills us morally because we are sinners. It is useful in this way, but it always ends in condemnation. The time will come when God will write it in the hearts of His people, and then the case will be different. The law will not curse, but bless. When the law comes to the conscience, saying, "Thou shalt not lust," no man can stand it; the lust of the flesh is detected, and it is shewn to be not subject to the law of God. "So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God." This is the sum of it. Sometimes the flesh may run to excess of riot, and sometimes it may be very respectable; but this is true of all, in their natural standing as children of Adam. Man is a bad tree, and cannot bring forth good fruit.
The law deals with our consciences. It is not an arbitrary thing. It takes up the relationships and duties which already existed among men before the law was given, and were owned of God, as father, husband, wife, child, etc. It comes with God's sanction and authority to these relationships, and gives His rule for them, and says, If you do not maintain them according to it, you will be cursed. Conscience owns the propriety of it, and says it ought to be so. The law does another thing. It not merely says, "Thou shalt honour thy father and mother," etc., but it says, "Thou shalt not steal," "covet," etc. It is an instrument and weapon in God's hand to restrain and punish the evil propensities of men. But a man might not be a thief, or an adulterer, or in any other outward way offend against the positive prohibitions of the law, and yet it will take hold of him. Here comes in the great principle upon which all hangs: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength." Is it what you do? People can delude themselves sadly about it, and say they do love God thus, not knowing themselves. But then comes the second great part of the law: do you love your neighbour as yourself? Are you as sorry when your neighbour loses his fortune as if you lost your own? Oh! you say, you are expecting something supernatural. Just so - I am. You do not love your neighbour as yourself; you do lust. And if you do not love your neighbour whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen? If you are on the ground of the law, God comes, and demands (though you may be free from theft, murder, and the like), Do you love your neighbour as yourself, or do you lust in your heart? When the conscience is really touched by this, it cries out, "O wretched man that I am!" The use of the law is to bring us to this, and not merely to convict us of open sins, which it does. It adds this detection of lust to all its rules for human relationships, and all its prohibitions; for otherwise a man might be a hypocrite, and live outwardly very fairly, and so be righteous according to the law, which could not be.
421 The law does not give life, and it does not give strength. Man's great need is power to do right. I may know what is right well enough, and even have the desire to do right, and yet something else have power over my heart, so that I do wrong. Neither does the law give a motive to love. It tells me to love God with all my heart (and conscience owns I ought to do so), but why? Because I shall be cursed if I do not. But that will not produce love. Thus law gives neither righteousness, life, nor strength; for, though it puts an object before us, it gives no revelation of God to draw love out. In Christ we get all these. He sets His seal upon the law, as a perfect standard of what man ought to be. He charges Himself with our sins. He does give life, and strength, and God as an object. Conscience consents to the law that it is good, but feels that for this very reason it must condemn me because of what I am. There is no mercy, or salvation, or redemption in the law; it is a ministration of death and condemnation. Have you kept the law for a whole week? Have you loved God with all your heart? Has there been no love of anything else? Has nothing else possessed your heart at any time? Have you been thinking for your neighbour as for yourself? Have you not, perhaps, been thinking of getting on in the world? Well, that does not do for God - it could not; if there were such a state of things in heaven, it would not be heaven at all. What, then, can the law do but announce condemnation; for it cannot sanction sin? In the very nature of things it must be so. Men would like to be in heaven, because they think it is a happy place (and so it is); but if a man were taken as he is, and put there, he would get away if he could. Do you think he would find pleasure and delight in Christ being glorified, and in having nothing but Christ and the Father's love to occupy his mind and heart? He could not bear it - it would be to him a most monotonous and tiresome thing. It is only deceiving ourselves to think that heaven is a place where a man in his natural state could be happy. I have dwelt upon this to shew where we are on the ground of law, but I turn now to the ministration of the Spirit. Let us see how God deals with us in Christ.
422 Men had been sinners, lawless sinners and law-breaking sinners, before Christ came. His coming brought an additional element of sin. God came into this world in goodness. What did it do to Him? Speaking of the ministration of the Spirit, a part of His mission was to convict the world of sin, because they believed not on Christ (John 16). His message to the world from God is, Where is My Son? He has been among you in grace and love: what have you done to Him? Just as He said to Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother? The unconverted heart is still the same; it would get rid of Christ, though it cannot kill Him now, of course. What did He do here? He healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, raised the dead. But God was too close to men, and they took Him and crucified Him. I cannot even call myself a Christian, without saying, in effect, I am in a world in which the Son of God has been rejected and cast out. His murder was, of course, a deed of law-breaking, but it was a great deal more - it was rejection of God come in love and grace. It was the display of this, that the carnal mind is enmity against God. I insist upon this last point. When it is really seen and brought home to the conscience and heart, a soul is in a condition to receive blessing from God. He sees himself to be a lawless sinner, a law-breaking sinner, and one that preferred the world, and its vanity and dross, to Christ. When we see this, all our sins are out before God; we are law-breakers and God-haters. This we learn in the cross, though the law shewed it too. "For my love, hatred," Christ would say.
423 But when I come to that in which my hatred for God is thus manifested, the cross, then I learn that Christ died for it. This is the fulness of the triumph of God's love over my sinfulness. After God had tried man in every possible way, without law, and under law mixed with mercy and longsuffering, He sent Christ, saying, Surely they will reverence My Son; and we know what they did to Him. God came into the world to save us, that where sin abounded, grace might much more abound; and it was in that very act in which man shewed that he hated God, that the work was done which saves us, shewing that God's love is superior to man's wickedness.
What I see first in the blessed Lord, even in His life, is God coming down to men, and walking in grace and holiness through the world, in order to bring God's love to every one in it. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." He brought divine love to those who owned what they really were. He tore off the mask of pretended righteousness from the Pharisee, but where he found a poor wretched soul - like the woman of the city, who dared not shew her face among decent people, much less to God - He said I will have you. To the proud and insensible Pharisee He said, "You gave me no water for my feet" - he did not even offer the common courtesies of life; "but this woman hath washed my feet with tears." Thus the self-righteous man is exposed by the light, but the poor woman - a sinner confessed - finds divine love, and, more, forgiveness. All this is a great deal more than promise. There are blessed promises to believers, but God's dealing with the soul of a sinner is not on the ground of promise. The Syro-Phoenician woman, for instance, being a Canaanite, had no promise, except to be exterminated. When she cried to the Lord as Son of David, He did not answer her; He did not know her in that way at all. She drops that, and the Lord graciously waits upon her till she gets down to her true place. "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He tells her "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and cast it to dogs": how can I give the things promised to Israel to Canaanites? What does she say? "Truth, Lord" - I am a dog - "but the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." Her heart apprehends that God is good enough to feed people who are not children; He is good enough to receive a wretched sinner who has no righteousness, and not even a promise. God revealed in Christ shewed her there was love in God, even for a person who was entitled to nothing. Christ could not, would not, deny this.
424 Thus God brings down souls into their real condition before Him, where they have not a word to say, and not till then do they get the blessing. This is what I get in Christ as to salvation. It is not a promise only: He was the Messiah who had been promised; but He was there as God present with the sinner; and now we have got even more, for He died for us. Think of this, that God Himself came down to meet me, a poor sinner, when I could not lift up my head! And what did He bring? Perfect love; God so loved the world, that He gave His Son. He could not allow sin, but would put it away. I get a step further when I see that He was the Bread of life that came down from heaven. Then there must be eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
I turn now to the cross. It was the manifestation of goodness, in the midst of the wickedness of the world, in a way never to be found anywhere else. During Christ's lifetime the heavens would open upon Him, and testify to His perfection and the Father's delight in Him; and thus I learn the terrible evil of the heart that could resist such goodness. When I come to the cross - supposing I am thus convicted of sin - what a wretched creature I see myself to be; I have hated this blessed one, and, more than that, my sins brought Him there. But He is not there now! I come to the cross, and there is no Christ on it. Where is He? He is sitting at the right hand of God. But my sins brought Him to the cross; they were on Him there. Has He gone to God's right hand in glory with them upon Him? No. What has become of them? I find in the cross that God has dealt with my sins, when they were upon Christ. It was when He had by Himself purged our sins that He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1: 3). This is the contrast in Hebrews 10. The Jewish priests were standing daily, offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, but this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down. He will rise up for judgment when the time comes; He is now waiting, not on His own throne, but on the Father's, till His enemies be made His footstool. We get there this special work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. He was made sin for us there; He bare our sins in His own body on the tree, and in consequence had to drink the dreadful cup of God's wrath. But it is all over, and now that I see Him seated at God's right hand, I am bound to believe in the efficacy of that work once for all. The word used there is a very strong one; there is no interruption, nor discontinuance of its efficacy. Therefore the worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sins. He cannot come to God without finding that Christ, who bore his sins, is there, and entering into the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered, and to whom the Lord imputes not iniquity.
425 There is a great deal of looseness and unbelief at the present time (thank God, not so much in these countries) as to the immense value and import of the death of Christ. In that death God has been perfectly glorified in all that He is, and, at the same time, man's need has been met. If God had merely manifested His hatred of sin in the destruction of the sinner, it would have been righteous surely, but where then His love? If on the other hand, sin was passed over, men allowed to keep sins, and no more about it, there would be no righteousness.
When I come to the cross, I find what could be found nowhere else - righteous judgment against sin, but perfect love to the sinner at the same time. The more we look into it, the more we see the value of the cross, the more precious will Christ be to us. I get in the cross man in absolute wickedness, hating what is good, hating God, who had come down in mercy to him, who had shewn love and compassion to him in all his sufferings and yet had for His love hatred. Satan had complete power over man - "this is your hour, and the power of darkness." Not one remained with the Lord in that hour, even the disciples ran away. I further get there, absolute perfection in Man - that is, in Christ - taking even the cup of wrath in perfect obedience, "that the world may know that I love the Father."
I get there also God in perfect love towards the sinner, and in perfect righteousness against sin. Every question of good and evil, in their deepest and highest character, is settled there (I do not say for them that slight it). The first man stood upon his responsibility in the old, or first, creation, and he failed, and ruined all. The second Man glorified God in the midst of the ruin; the results are not all seen yet, but they are all secured - even the new heavens and the new earth depend upon His work on the cross. All that man is in evil, and all that God is in righteousness and love, are exhibited there. Thus it was the ministration of righteousness. The thing that manifested God's righteousness was this, that, Christ having glorified God in the place of sin and ruin, God glorified Him at His own right hand. That is where I know Christ now; the cross is over once for all, though its value abides perpetually, and the man who was on it is at God's right hand - the place which He had before the world was, in His own divine Person, but which He now occupies also in virtue of His work. He is there because He put all my sins away, and glorified God in doing it. on this the Holy Ghost comes down, and makes known that Christ is there; He makes known a great deal more, too, as dwelling in me. That is how it is the ministration of the Spirit.
426 Thus the gospel ministers righteousness for my soul - righteousness for those who had none for God. When man had nothing but sin, Christ was made sin, that we might become God's righteousness in Him. All that is over, and righteousness has been testified in setting this blessed Man - not an ordinary man, of course, or he could not have done it - at God's right hand. Such is my position now, as to my acceptance with God. This ministration of the Spirit was not merely the Spirit speaking in prophecy of a work to be accomplished, but the Holy Ghost come down because it had been done. There were promises before; the life, and death, and resurrection of Christ all clearly testified of; but the thing was not actually done. Saints then rested on promise, and God owned their faith; but I do not rest on promise now, but upon this, that Christ has finished the work which His Father gave Him to do, and that, having borne my sins, He is now at God's right hand in righteousness. Therefore when I come to the cross, I find He is not there; He has been there, but He is gone up on high, and the Holy Ghost has come down to make known to those who believe that His work is finished, and their sins all put away. And, not only so, but that work has put a Man into the glory of God: He is entered as our Forerunner, and He will come again to receive us to Himself, that where He is, there we may be also.
427 We are not there yet; we have the treasure in earthen vessels, but the gospel we have received opens up heavenly scenes: it is the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We see the effect of this, for example, in Stephen individually. I am not now speaking of the work of the Holy Ghost to convict of sin, and to point us to the cross of Christ, but of His sealing of believers (Eph. 1: 13). God gives the Holy Ghost to dwell in a man after he believes. A Christian is a person whose body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and therefore John is not afraid to say, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." The Holy Ghost thus dwelling in a man gives him to know that Christ has completed the work which saves and delivers him, and gives him also to look forward to the glory. What was the effect of looking at the glory in the face of Moses? They were afraid, because it convicted them of their sins. But when I look at the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, far more glorious than in Moses, does it alarm me? No, on the contrary it is the proof that I am brought to God; it is the testimony that I am saved, because I see it in the one who bore my sins on the cross. I see the love that He shewed in dying for us, and I see the efficacy of His work in His being there, because He is there and glorified as the Man who died for me and bore my sins. Instead of being terrified, "we all with unveiled face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit." This glory is presented in three ways: the glory of God; the glory of the Lord; and the glory of Christ. I see it in the one who has put away my sins, in the one who did not spare Himself, but drank the dreadful cup for me; and I can delight to look at it. I have got an object that makes my conscience perfect before God (Heb. 9).
The effect of thus thinking of the Holy one who gave Himself for my sins is, that I am changed into the same image; it has this sanctifying power. I can look into the very glory of God with joy and delight, and know, moreover, that I shall be like the one who is there (1 John 3: 2). As we have borne the image of the earthly, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly. The heart is thus filled with Christ, and the effects are soon seen. Of course there is progress in this, and watchfulness in our ways is needed to preserve and manifest it; but how we get it is by contemplating the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. There is also the fulfilment of the Lord's promise of what would take place when the Comforter was come: "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." People tell us you cannot know that you are in Christ; but my answer is simply, I do not believe you, for Scripture says ye shall know it. What did Zacharias say of even John the Baptist? "To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins."
428 Then I am called to walk in this, and the more closely I walk, the more my heart is purified, and I see more clearly. The word of God, and all the helps that He has given us, come into operation, that we may grow up unto Him in all things. I am not trying to find out how I can get accepted; I am accepted. All that is settled, in order that I may be free to think of holiness. You cannot think of holiness really till you have peace about acceptance. You ought to think of being accepted first. It is the most solemn question possible, Can God have me? We are judicially before God according to the righteous requirements of His nature. But this is not holiness. Holiness is that I delight in good because it is according to God, and hate evil because it is contrary to God. Naturally I cannot turn to that until my soul is settled as to whether I am accepted or not. Then I can go on to follow holiness, not to get acceptance, but as that in which God delights, and I delight too, and bear more of Christ's image every day.
A little further on, in this very epistle, the law is brought in as requiring righteousness from man, and man cannot give it, and therefore there must be death and condemnation. But when all that man is - lawlessness, law-breaking, Christ-hating - is manifested; when sin has come to its highest pitch in the cross, God's wonderful grace comes in, and makes that cross the very means of salvation to sinners. When the soul is awakened to what it has done, and then finds that God has already dealt with its sins on Christ, once for all, that He has by Himself purged our sins, then the conscience is purged from dead works to serve the living God. I have a new nature in the light, as God is in the light, and I look to have my heart answer to this in practical holiness, because the question of acceptance is settled. I am separated to God personally. I look at the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, the testimony that I am a saved man, and I seek to walk in the Spirit, as I live in the Spirit. We must not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption. We are to be followers of God, as dear children, walking in love, as Christ also has loved us, and given Himself for us. We are to walk in the consciousness that we are God's children, and to behave ourselves as God's children. Thus we are the epistle of Christ. The soul has received this full and blessed truth, that, if I am in Christ, I am in perfect acceptance before God, and Christ is in me. Then let me take care that nothing else comes out of me.
429 I only add one word, which clears up many a difficulty. Very often, in divine things, we cannot see a ray of light, when the same principle in human things is as plain as A B C. Our duties always flow from the position we are in. It would be foolish to expect persons who are not my servants, or my children, to behave as my servants or my children; when they are, then they must behave as such. You must be a Christian, a child of God, before you can behave as one. You do not become a child by trying to act like a child; but when you are a child, you are bound to behave as such. But your being a child does not depend on your behaviour. Think of any one saying, You are my child, and you must try and continue to be my child still.
I just put this to each of our souls: are we the epistles of Christ, known and read of all men? Are we practically in the place which belongs to us? Take a heathen who has heard of Christianity, and what it is, and who expects that all Christian people are living for Christ. He comes here, and he sees people running after money, and pleasure, and honour, and what will he say? Why, that Christians are no better than the heathen; that people here are running after just the same things as in China. They are not epistles of Christ. Let our consciences consider this: how far we really are a letter of commendation of Christ before the world. It is an immense privilege. It should be like what the Lord said to the poor man who had been brought to his right mind: "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee." What a blessing and honour it is that He who loved us, and gave Himself for us, can use us poor worms as a practical, manifest, testimony for Himself before the world!
The Gospel of the Glory
2 Corinthians 3
<34032E> 430
The apostle's statement is this, that there is now no veil over the glory of God. If there be any veil now, it is on our hearts. This is a solemn truth. All the glory, all that God is, shines in the face of Jesus; and there is no veil over it. The veil is all on us. This we find in the next chapter: "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ" (for so it really is, not "glorious gospel"), "who is the image of God, should shine unto them." This veil is on your hearts if the glory of Christ be hidden; for the apostle says, "We all, with open" (or unveiled) "face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord." This is the glory of God displayed in Christ.
Now we will see what the Christian is, what his place is in this world, and how he gets there. The apostle shews us all this in contrast with the law. The Corinthians had called the apostleship of Paul in question; they had said he was not one of the chosen twelve. He had spoken a little about himself in the previous chapter; they had forced him to do so. Now the Corinthians had been going on badly, but afterwards they were going on better; and Paul could say that his mouth was open to them, and his heart enlarged towards them. He gave them many signs of his apostleship; but after all it was not needed. He needed not letters of commendation to or from them as others did, and as we do now; for they themselves were his epistle, known and read of all men. They were the witnesses of the truth of his ministry; and that, because they were manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by him - written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. Such then is the Christian - a person in whom the world can read Christ, because Christ has been engraved upon his heart by the Holy Ghost. Let us remember that it does not say this ought to be, but that it is so, whether he walks so as to manifest it or not. A child is a child, whether he act up to the relationship or not. The Christian is the epistle of Christ, to be read of all men; it is his place just as truly as the law was written upon tables of stone. He has to realise it. And more, beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image; he grows in it also. It is from glory to glory, and by the Spirit; and this is the Christian in contrast with the law. Law shews what a child of Adam ought to be. The Christian is the living epistle of Christ. The Holy Ghost engraves Christ upon our hearts, and then it comes out in our lives.
431 There is the greatest possible contrast between law and gospel. Paul calls the one the ministration of death and of condemnation, and the other the ministration of the Spirit and of righteousness. This is what I propose we should now look into. When Moses received the tables of stone the first time and came down from the mount, we hear nothing about the glory of his face. He never brought those first tables into the camp at all. He hears how the people are behaving, pleads with God for the sake of His great name, when God offers to destroy them, and make of him a great nation; but when he came down, and saw the calf and the dancing, he cast down the tables and brake them beneath the mount. How could he bring God's law into the midst of the people who were breaking the very first command contained in it? When Moses entreats the Lord, as to His present government, the Lord forgave the people's sin. Moses could not make atonement, and they were put back under law - the soul that sinneth it should die. Then he took with him two other tables like the first, and emboldened by God's graciousness to him, he asks that he may see His glory. But this may not be; but He makes His goodness pass before him, and proclaims before him His gracious name in government, and then He put them under law again. Moses had proposed to make atonement for them, but could not; and God proclaimed Himself as the one who would by no means clear the guilty. After this, when Moses came down, all this intercourse with God caused his face to shine, and the people could not bear to see even the reflection of the glory of the Lord, so he puts a veil over his face. Here we learn that God deals in mercy with His people, but we do not get a perfect atonement made. The promise of a deliverer came in from the beginning, even in the garden of Eden; but there was only one who could make this atonement. In all the revelation of goodness one fundamental point was wanting, and that was the clearing the guilty. Then guilty Israel asked that a veil might be over his face, and to this day the veil is over their hearts; but when they shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken away. The law could but point in many sacrifices to the one perfect Lamb, and Israel could not see through the figures to the thing figured; but the veil is done away in Christ. There is no longer any veil over God's thoughts towards us, although the god of this world may still keep it on men's hearts. It is because this veil is done away with that it is called the gospel of the glory.
432 We find God acting according to two great principles - law and grace. Law is God requiring from man what man ought to be. It takes up all the relationships formed of God towards God and man. The duties were all there before the law was given, but it gave the rule of them, and attached God's express sanction to them. The law came and claimed from man obedience. Our Lord sums up the whole law in two sentences: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," etc.; and, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The law came and claimed from man what he ought to be. It gave no life, no power, deliverance, or object to be a motive; it could not clear the guilty, nor was it any help or strength, although God does help His people at all times. But the law itself could do nothing but demand obedience; and as man was a sinner, and incapable of obedience to a holy law, it was a ministration of death and condemnation. There is no grace in law (the two are opposed to each other), but God's grace dealt with individuals. The law was a ministration of death and condemnation because it gave from God what man ought to be, and what man is not. If a man's heart is not exercised towards God, the law does not trouble him much. He thinks he has not done anything very bad; he is no worse than his neighbours; he has not committed any very gross sins. Besides, he says, God is merciful; for he is sure to bring in the thought of a little mercy to meet his need; for deep down in the heart of every man is the sense that he has sinned. He is pretty comfortable, and it is all very well as long as it is a question of natural conscience; not of God's eye reaching the heart and thoughts. When the law says, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," we are at once convinced of sin; we know that we do not. Who is as troubled at a loss to his neighbour as he would be at a loss to himself? But if we get a revelation of God ever so small along with the law, we are utterly condemned at once; for no flesh can stand His eye. Now one of two things will happen. You will either seek to hide from God, as Adam did in the garden of Eden, or you will seek to hide God from you, as Israel did when they entreated that Moses should put a veil upon his face: for if a man once gets but a sight of God, he can say with Job, "If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean; yet wilt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." Whatever I may have thought of myself before, I see that in God's eyes I am only like a man that is just dragged out of a ditch - utterly unclean. Under the law the soul may feel all right when it is not exercised towards God; but in His presence no man can stand it. Lust is there in the heart.
433 The principle of the law is, that what God is for me depends upon what I am for Him. But God has brought out that I am a sinner, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. It is a manifestation of death and condemnation, and nothing else. Law will never give peace. It is not grace; it is looking not at what the Lord does for me, but at what I find in myself for Him; and I may be under law in looking at the cross itself. I see a display of perfect love towards me on the cross, and I look into my heart and see there such a feeble response to His love that I begin to doubt whether I really love Him at all. It is quite right that I should desire to love Him; but it is not the gospel, and you can never get peace in this way. It is putting a question as to your relationship, founded on your conduct; and what confusion would it cause in a family if the children began to question whether they were their father's children or not. I may ask, Am I walking according to my relationship? but I must not question whether I am a child or not. This is all law, though in a more subtle form. I am still looking to get peace in what I am for God, and not in what He is for me. This is the state of a Christian who has not found peace. Like the prodigal, who, far off from his father, asks to be made as one of his hired servants. When he comes into his father's presence, no such word: he knew his relationship. Before he was only thinking of what he was to his father, and not of what his father was to him. In the first two parables in Luke 15 we get the grace that goes out to seek what was lost, and then reception on the return; and the Lord shews how the work goes on in the heart, how the soul is often still upon the principle of law, saying they are not what they would like to be. This is looking inside to see if they love God, and when they see no signs of love in their own hearts they then begin to doubt whether He loves them. This is a more subtle form of law; but it is still the same principle - looking at what I am for God, and not at what He is for me.
434 Now I turn to the gospel of the glory. Into the midst of a law-breaking world God came in grace. Before Jesus came God had not come out to man, and man could not go in to God. He gave man law and promises, but He did not Himself come to man. But the great fact that we have now before us is, that God has come. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us"; and man is gone right in - into the presence of God. When I say man, I mean Christ Himself; but who as the Forerunner has entered in for us within the veil. I find that God came in perfect goodness, and not in manifestation of His glory. He came when we were sinners and law-breakers, when we were far off. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." We get the manifestation of the purest love in our Lord's life down here; His miracles were not only power, but power in love to meet every want in every man. He removed every effect of sin; He was the manifestation of God in perfect goodness; and the result was that man spit in His face and rejected Him. May the Lord give us all always to remember, that we are in a world that has rejected God when He was in it in grace! The world now is as bad as it was then; it is no more in relationship with God; souls are not nearer God by nature than they were. In fact, as we look around, we can see things are in a worse condition than they were. Sin has reached its climax. And it is not only that God has turned man out of the garden of Eden, but that when God came into this world man turned Him out. As Jesus Himself says, "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." He passed through this world in goodness, healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him. The Son of God has been in the world, and been rejected by the world. God revealed Himself to us in the Person of His Son while we were sinners. He shews His perfect holiness in His life; this is brought out in a striking and touching manner when the poor leper comes to Him. He was with sinners unsullied by them; but there in perfect love. Here was one who came acknowledging His power, but doubting His love. And what is His answer? does He reproach him? No; His answer is, "I will: be thou clean"; and He put forth His hand and touched him. one who touched a leper was unclean like the leper; but Christ acquires no defilement by His contact with men, but cleanses them in grace. It was divine power touching and driving sin away: it was a most beautiful ｅxpression of what His grace is. But such as He was, they rejected Him; and in this act sin was completely manifested, for it was the rejection of God in goodness. But God uses this crowning act of man's sin for his salvation; Christ was the Lamb of God, who puts away the sin of the world: and here we come to the cross. The work was done which was the ｅxpression and accomplishment of the height of wickedness on the part of man; but it did but manifest the supremacy of grace on God's side. I get God's righteousness against sin manifested, but more than that, God perfectly glorified. All Satan's power is put forth, and it but serves to bring out God's perfect love to the poor sinner. There where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; as it says, "If one died for all, then were all dead." If you will not come to Christ, you are still preferring other things to Him; but there is a very solemn thought for you, and a solemn question for you to answer. Where are you going to spend your eternity? The question must be settled now in this life. Men shrink from the thought of eternity; and where there are infidel thoughts about God, they deny it altogether, or at least hope there will be none.
435 If I come to the cross, knowing that my sins brought Christ there, shall I find Him? No; when I get to the cross I find He is not there, and where does my faith know that He is? I know that my sins brought Him there, but my faith sees Him at the right hand of God, and that is why it is called the gospel of the glory; for He is entered into it for me. He is there now sitting at the right hand of God; but He has not got my sins upon Him now. No, He is sitting there because all my sins are clean gone for ever. By one sacrifice for sins He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. When I come to give account of myself, whom do I find as judge? The very one who by Himself has put away my sins. For a soul perfectly established in grace there is no thought more happy than that of the judgment seat of Christ; for when I am manifested before it, it will be in my glorified body made like the Lord Himself. He said the work was finished, and the person who judges me is the one who bore all my sins away. The gospel of the glory is, that the one who died for my sins is there in the glory with all my sins put away for ever; and that is where the gospel in its fulness begins. It was not till Christ sat down at the right hand of God that the Holy Ghost came down, and that the disciples could go out in the power of the Holy Ghost. It is righteousness that has set the one who bore my sins at the right hand of God, and He is there without my sins upon Him; and having so borne them and glorified God as to them, it is the ministration of the Spirit - the Holy Ghost bearing witness in the gospel that the one who did it all is the one who is now exalted at the right hand of God. I see a Man in the glory, the Forerunner entered in for me. We had no part in this wonderful work that was done, except our sins and the hatred that put Him to death. He died, and God set Him in the glory because He had done a work which perfectly satisfied God. As we get in John, speaking of the Holy Ghost, He will convince the world of righteousness "because I go to my Father." He sits there in the glory because the work is perfectly done - their sins put away for ever for all who believe. It also convinces of sin, because it was my sin which brought Him there on the cross, where He bore all, and perfectly satisfied the righteousness of God.
436 The law cannot give life; it can only convince of sin. The work was done between God and Christ; the whole question of sin was settled and done with, and He is my righteousness before God. God's righteousness has been displayed in putting the Man who bore my sins at God's right hand in glory. The Holy Ghost comes and says to me, You have no righteousness for God. Then I try to grow more holy. Quite right in itself that I should long after holiness; but as a means to peace it will not do. But here in Christ I have a divine righteousness that is fit to put me into glory. They that are led of the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. In the cross of Christ it is not merely that my debt is paid, for that might be, and yet I might have nothing as it were to live upon; but God has made me a joint-heir with Christ; and now down here I live looking for Him to come to take me to Himself, to be for ever with Him in the glory where He is.
The New Creation
2 Corinthians 5: 13-21
<34033E> 437
It is blessed to see in this chapter how the thought of God comes out in the new creation. In this aspect man is gone as to his sins and responsibility - dead in them. The judgment of the first Adam is complete. The old thing is entirely gone. It is a new creation now, and in this new creation I find God instead of man. Even Christ Himself, as known after the flesh, is known no more. True, He was, when down here, the hope and expectation of faith as coming into the world; but the apostle only knows Him now as having died for all and been glorified - all under death whether Jew or Gentile, and Christ no more known after the flesh (that is, as come after the hopes of man in it) but Head of a new creation, where all things are of God, and in which we have been made in Him the righteousness of God. God has manifested Himself in the second Man, and wrought atonement in His death, and now we are the righteousness of God in Him.
In the first creation we see man and his responsibility. In the new creation, all things are of God, and man is reconciled by Jesus Christ unto Himself. We want to have the power of this in our souls, to live as belonging to the new creation, as reconciled by God to Himself, all that belonged to the old creation for ever gone to faith, "old things are passed away, behold all things are become new."
We see how the apostle walked in the power of this in verse 13. "Whether," he says, "we be beside ourselves, it is to God." That is, if he were beyond the influences that belonged to him as a man, it was not an excitement that belongs to those influences, it was because he was absorbed in God. It is what is called ecstasy. When his spirit was free to rise above present service in what he was in Christ, he was lost in God, carried out beyond himself. If he were sober, if he had to weigh difficulties - come down into the sober estimate of what was before him - it was God in love working in him. His thought was entirely for others in that love. This was his daily life; as to himself, transported with God; and, when he did think about things down here, all his thoughts were for others. It was the love of Christ that constrained him, and he looked upon all around in connection with the death of Christ. It was no longer a living Messiah in the flesh with promises for Israel. All this was over. Christ had died, and he judged that Christ would not have gone into death if men had not been there. The whole history of Adam's race is closed in death. If they had not all been dead, Christ would not have been found in death; why have gone down there if others were not lying there? And therefore those who from amongst these lived were now to live not to themselves, but to Christ who died for them, and rose again. Thus, if he me. an unconverted man, he would not think of him as an old acquaintance, and know him as such. He would look upon him as one that was dead and needed to be saved by the death of Christ. Or, if the person was a Christian, it would be just the same. He would not know him after the flesh according to an old acquaintance with him; he would look upon him as one alive with Christ, and his one thought would be that Christ might be glorified in him. Even Christ Himself was not to be known any more, in connection with this creation. He had died to it, and if any man is in Christ, he is of the new creation, where old things are passed away, and all things are become new, and all things are of God. Man is looked upon as dead, and God brings in a new creation.
438 We have the same aspect of truth, when in verse 19 he speaks of Christ coming in the flesh. It is not looked upon as fulfilling promises to Israel, but God revealing Himself in grace to the world. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." This was the aspect of Christ's first coming, in which the apostle thought of Him. We know He came to His own, and was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers. All this is blessedly true; but here we have God in man come here, and the apostle sees neither Jew nor Gentile. If God were in Christ, He acts toward the world. To what portion of it can you confine Him, if it be a question of God displaying Himself in grace in the world? For the same reason, when he speaks of the love of Christ, he judges all to be dead, and sees neither Jew nor Gentile, but a new creation, in which God counts every man that is in Christ.
We know that that is God as to the glory of His divine Person, but the apostle is speaking here historically; and therefore when he looks upon the Lord Jesus living in the world, he sees God in Him acting in overtures of grace to the world. God was in Christ; that is the great fact, that God has been here as the Reconciler, and man would not be reconciled. Does the apostle say that God is reconciling us? No, but that God has reconciled us by Jesus Christ unto Himself, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation to the world: specially, no doubt, the apostles, but in their measure true of all. Man would not have God when He came, and therefore He had to make Christ sin, to work atonement for us, and now He is at God's right hand, in whom we become the righteousness of God. The apostle does not say to the Corinthians, Be "ye" reconciled, for they were reconciled; but Christ being in heaven, having gone there through death in working out atonement for us, and His presence there being necessary to complete all in glory, He must have ambassadors to carry out His work of reconciliation here; so the apostle says, when he preaches - that is the gospel to sinners - "We pray in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God." That is what he had to say to men as Christ's ambassador. How far are we living thus? Living in the power of God's new creation, judging the whole thing belonging to the first creation as gone to faith, and entering into the blessedness of our place in Christ, in the power of an ungrieved Spirit? Exercised for others, that the life of Christ may have power in their walk and ways; judging evil practically in our own path through the world, but yet having our souls so full of our blessedness in Christ, of what it is to be reconciled to God, that directly opportunity arises, our hearts burst forth in praises to God, and ever go forth after others still dead in their sins. That this may be so practically, we must bring the death of Christ to judge everything in ourselves and in our ways. As the apostle says, "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," 2 Cor. 4: 10. If we do not daily, and hourly, bring everything under. the sentence of Christ's death, and judge everything by it, the Spirit will be grieved in us, and, instead of filling us with the joy of our portion in Christ, He will cause the light of Christ to awaken us to the judgment of ourselves, and of our ways.
439 May the Lord give us to walk in the power of an ungrieved Spirit, bringing everything into subjection to Christ, that we may know what the apostle goes on to say, "Death worketh in us, but life in you." In thus bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, Paul found death to self, and the result was life to the Corinthians. Paul held the power of Christ's death on the natural man, so that when he ministered among the Corinthians, there was no Paul at all, but only Christ. It was life to them, because death was working in Paul.
440 May the Lord give us thus to live! And may He grant us, especially in a day like this, to judge of men as Paul did, so that whatever the boast of human nature may be, we may see that all are dead, because Christ died for all in grace - for the highest act of grace and love is the proof of it - and that the only living ones are they that live to Him who died for them and rose again, while in our own souls we enter into His new creation. We may have to go down to babes, and feed them with milk, and not with strong meat; but may we ourselves live in the light of this new creation, where all things are of God. We must pass through exercise, and be tried and tested to learn what is in our hearts, and to have our senses exercised to discern good and evil. This is all needful and profitable, but then there is our distinct place in Christ as part of the new creation, where instead of having the first man responsible to God, we have God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself in grace, and making Christ sin for us, to bring us into the new creation, where all things are of God, and where man is before God in divine righteousness, and, as to his enjoyment, finding himself lost in God. It is God, and not man. It is what God is to man, and the blessedness of man being with God: God we know, revealed in Christ; but nevertheless God revealed, and man made the righteousness of God, a part of God's new creation.
The Lord Jesus in Humiliation and Service
Philippians 2
{Revised.}
<34034E> 441
It is ever happy to have the Lord Himself before our minds as the object of our thoughts. The Christian is so completely brought to God, that He goes out from God to shew the character of God to the world. The subject of this epistle is Christian Experience. And you get this experience in the power of the Spirit of God so completely, that you never get sin mentioned in the epistle from beginning to end, nor the flesh, looked at as bad flesh, save to say he did not trust in it. Paul here does not know which to do - die or live. If I die, I am with the Lord; that is better; but I cannot work for His saints. If I live, there is the activity of love for them: and so he does not know which to choose. There is utter absence of self in that, and power. Then, he says, it is more needful for the church that I stay, and so I know that I shall be acquitted; deciding his own case. It is all power, the power of the Spirit of God leading a person out of the reach of sin. If you look at the detail in verses 15, 16, You will find his exhortation to others is an exact picture of what the life of Christ really was: "blameless and harmless"; that is what Christ was - "the sons of God"; that is exactly what He was, Son of God - "without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation"; such was Jesus - "among whom ye shine as lights in the world"; when He was in the world He was the light of the world - "holding forth the word of life"; He was that word of life. The detail is precisely the same power of the Spirit of God, and the exhortation is just the detail of Christ's life in the world.
In this epistle there are two great principles of Christian life (the last chapter is, he is superior to all cares and all circumstances). In chapter 3, it is the energy that carries a man on, so that everything else is dross and dung - that is Christ in glory. He has seen Him up there, and he says, I must get that. There are hindrances in the way. I will throw them aside, he says. You will lose everything. I cannot help it; I must get Him. Oh, but you will die. No matter; that will be all the more like Him; I must get on to Him, the one up there in the glory, whom I have seen. "If by any means"; that is, whatever it may cost me, even life itself. "Resurrection from among the dead," that is the character of Christ's resurrection. The resurrection of the saints has nothing in common with the resurrection of sinners. Christ is the firstfruits, then those that are Christ's at His coming: He is not the firstfruits of sinners to be judged. Not a hint in Scripture of saints and sinners being raised together. "That I may attain unto the resurrection from among the dead" (the apostle uses a rare and emphatic word to explain his meaning) - what is there to attain to, if the wickedest man in the world goes up at the same time and in the same way? "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection." What is the good of that, if all rise together? The character of Christ's resurrection was the positive seal of God's approval on Him and His work, and so is ours. As regards justification His resurrection is of all importance, for it is the seal of God on the excellency and perfectness of the work of Christ. He was taken out from among the dead as a perfect seal upon His work and Person, and everything else; and so is our resurrection the seal of our acceptance. Because God delights in us, we are taken out from among the dead, as Christ was. So he continues his running till he gets that. You have Christ in glory, and all is dross and dung except that. He wants Christ instead of Paul, and all he gets by the way is nothing - if he gets even death, it is all the more like Him.
442 In chapter 2 you do not get Christ in glory as the one he is running after; not Christ gone up, but Christ coming down. one whom I am to be like in this, the graciousness of the walk that He displayed; and that is always going - down - going from the form of Godhead down to death. Where do I find what God is fully displayed - righteousness and love perfectly displayed? In death. It is a wonderful riddle that has come out, the Holy one going down - the Prince of Life going into death. We never completely learn, till we see it there - the things that the angels desire to look into. No one knows the Son but the Father. We know the Father, but no one knows the Son; the divinity of Christ is maintained by the inscrutability of the incarnation: God becoming a man - that is unfathomable - and the meekest, lowliest man that ever walked this earth. Paul is taking up the truth of lowliness, etc., but the moment he begins he must bring out Christ. The motive of all exhortations is nothing less than the whole scope of Christianity. God come down and bringing salvation, and gone back again as man. Take the commonest exhortations, the spring and motive is nothing short of obedience to the word of God Himself. Eating and drinking even is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. I am merely eating like a beast if it is not. He exhorts them to walk in lowliness and love (there had been some little squabbling, I suppose, among them). These Philippians had been sending help to the apostle from a long way off, and he will not reproach them, but says, Now I see how you love me; I see how you care for me and my being happy. Now, if you want to make me perfectly happy, walk in love among yourselves. It is a reproach so delicately brought in that their hearts could not resist it. "And let each esteem other better than themselves." It sounds unpractical and impossible; but if I think of myself with the mind of God, I see the evil, the sin in myself. If I think of another, and I am full of Christ, I shall see all the value of Christ upon him, I shall see with Christ's heart, and I can esteem him better than myself, for I see evil in myself, and I see Christ in him. "Let this mind be in you," etc., that is, the spirit in which Christ was, always going down; first, being in the form of Godhead, and in the glory, He takes the place of a man, and then He humbles Himself again to death. He is the first grand example of "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted," and that is what we have to do - go down.
443 Here we get the principle of Christ's whole personal course, and we get not only what He was, but the delight He took in us. He took us up. His interest is in us, and the ｅxpression of this delight was not simply He acts graciously towards men, but He Himself becomes one of them. He went down to death. We go down to death by sin, He by grace; we by disobedience, He by obedience. So He gets by obedience and grace what we get by disobedience and sin. From the first step that we go He takes us up till He has us where He is. Speaking in a general way, I cannot look at Christ in His life and walk till my soul is at peace and settled. If a soul has not settled peace, you will find it wants the Epistles first, not the Gospels; because the Epistles are the reasonings of the Holy Ghost on the value of Christ's work. John's writings bring God down here in grace to sinners. Paul takes man up there in righteousness to God. Paul takes man up to God in the light; John brings God down to man. You get in the Gospel of John, God brought down to us in our need, get Him talking to the woman at the well, and His disciples wondering, and she finds that in this tired man at the well, she has been speaking to the Lord of glory. I thought, she said, He was a poor tired Jew, who wanted a drink of water. Oh, He says, if you knew how that God had come so low as to be dependent on you for a drink of water, you would have confidence in Him at once.
444 This poor, tired man was the Lord of life and glory, who not only could lay all her life bare before her in its sin and shame, but could fully meet her heart, meet her need, and attract her to Himself, so that she loses all her sense of fear and shame in her anxiety to bring others to Him too. When our consciences are awakened, we want then to know how a sinner can be just with God, and so we turn to Romans and the reasonings of thy Epistles; but when the heart knows I am a child, and that the same favour rests on me as on Jesus, I turn back to the Gospels and say, I must look at Jesus - what a Saviour He is! I want Him close, close to me then! brought close to my eye. Then I look back to the Gospel of John and see God come down in Him. I get in Him one who, instead of driving the one who had the defilement away, drives away the defilement, and leaves the poor leper clean and near Him. Where do we find the blessed Lord going as soon as He is called out to His public ministry? To the baptism of repentance. Why does He go there? Oh, He says, these poor people going there are those in whom God is working. They are taking the first step in the right direction, and I must go with them. I find this perfectness and love in Him. I cannot leave them to go alone, He says, I must go with them. I need not say He needed no repentance, but it was the first right step of that poor remnant, and He will be associated with them. This is not your place, says John. Yes, He says, but "suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." He does not haughtily say "becometh me," but "becometh us." He takes His place in grace along with us (here it was with the Jew), and the heaven is opened for Him, and the Holy Ghost descends upon Him, and the Father's voice proclaims Him Son; the model of our place in grace through redemption.
445 I get heaven opened four times. At His baptism, when the Holy Ghost comes down on Him. Then heaven is opened, and the angels of God ascend and descend on the Son of man, that is, the highest angels become His servants. Heaven is opened, and He comes out on the white horse to judge. And between these two I get heaven opened for Stephen to see Him. The heaven was opened to Stephen as to Christ. But mark how the glory of His Person is always maintained. When heaven is opened to Stephen, it is that he may look in and see Jesus; but when at His baptism heaven was opened, it is for heaven to look at Him. He was not looking at an object in heaven. Heaven was looking at Him. Heaven was never opened for heaven to look down on anything in this earth till that divine blessed one is there. The fulness of the Godhead is in Him, but He is sealed as a man. The Father says, All My delight is there. What is most despised on earth is the one heaven cannot but be opened to, and the Father cannot keep silence about Him. A man is the delight of God. Heaven is opened to Him, the Holy Ghost comes down upon Him, and the Father's voice proclaims Him His Son. And it is of profound interest to see that here first the whole Trinity is fully revealed, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
First, then, His place as the manifestation of accepted man is settled. As soon as that is settled, Yes, He says, but these people are in conflict and difficulty, and have got this tyrant over them, I must go and meet him for them. He meets the devil - overcomes him, of course. The devil wants Him to go out of His course, to keep not His first estate; he would have Him leave the place of obedience and a servant on the plea of His being a Son. The written word was sufficient to conquer the devil, and enough for the Son of God to use. All possible salvation depended on His victory; all that victory depended on the written word of God. Never, save at His death, was there such a solemn moment. What He held for enough, and what Satan held for enough, was the written word of God. He bound the strong man by that means, and set about spoiling his goods. There is one man who knows the truth because He is the truth, who is satisfied with the written word, and that is the Lord. There is no craft of Satan that the word of God is not sufficient to meet. There was one as a man wielding a power that was sufficient to deliver man from all the effects of sin. If sick, they were healed - healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him - power working in goodness. And what is the effect? They would not have Him. The Lord on earth had power to remove the effects of Satan's power, but behind those was man's heart, which could ask Him to depart. Where there is a legion of devils, and He sends them off into the herd of swine, the men prayed Him to depart out of their coasts - did not want Him. The quiet devil that influenced their hearts was worse than all the legion of devils that ran noisily down the steep place into the sea.
446 Satan says, If you take this people up, you take them up at your cost. I have got the power of death over them. But He goes on. Presently Satan, prince of this world, raises all the world against Him. The disciples are afraid, and leave Him; one betrays Him, one denies Him, and the rest run away. Well, then, He says, since this hatred is so great, I must give up My life to redeem them out of it - "Through death, destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
They ask Peter, "Does not your master pay tribute?" Peter comes to Jesus, and He shews He is God by shewing that He knows what is in Peter's heart, and says, "Of whom do the kings of the earth take tribute; of their own children or of strangers?" "Of strangers," Peter says. "Then are the children free." He was the Son of the Great King of the temple, and free; and so was Peter. He puts Himself with Peter. "Notwithstanding, lest we offend" (puts Himself with Peter again), then shews He is God over all, and Lord of creation, by disposing of creation, commanding the fish of the sea to yield up the tribute money, "that give for thee and me" - puts Peter and Himself both together again. It is lovely!
While He was God in everything, He was the humblest, most affable man that ever walked this earth. In death only is He alone. He looked for compassion and found none. "Tarry ye here, and watch with me." In His sore trial He looked in Gethsemane for them to watch with Him; they could not, and an angel from heaven comes to strengthen Him. Will He ever give up being a servant? Never? That form of servant He will never give up. Selfishness likes to be served. Love likes to serve. That is just what I find in Christ.
No intellect knows God. We only know God by our wants. Infidels say you cannot have more than the power of man's mind. If I see a decrepit old woman leaning on the arm of a strong man, and supported by his strength, it is not in herself that she knows what strength is: and that is how we know God. No man can know God by knowing; he would not be man if he did, and God would not be God at all. It is conscience that knows the way God meets us. It is a want in me. Look at Simon the Pharisee and the woman. What did he know of Christ? He felt no need of Him; thought he was putting honour upon Him in asking Him, though in curiosity, to his house, and does not shew Him courtesy even as to a guest. And Christ is not inattentive to neglect. He knows and feels it. If I am cold and indifferent to Him, He knows and feels it all; it touches His heart. God's essential names are Light and Love. Look at the woman: the light made her know herself, and the love made her know Christ and trust Him. Christ thoroughly knew her heart, and she thoroughly knew Christ's heart. While Simon had thought Him unworthy of the common courtesies of life, she found a fulness of grace, and of light, and love that could meet all her need. Her sins, which are many (He knew them all), are all forgiven, for she loved much. God's heart and man's heart, through grace, met in blessedness where the Pharisee was an utter stranger.
447 I learn this lesson here, that the Person of the Lord Jesus may have full power in my heart before I know the fact of forgiveness. The essential names of God, Light and Love, I find both brought out in Christ 5 the light that reveals everything in me, and the love that puts it all away. When the light comes and manifests me before God, I find myself in the presence of love, that has done everything for me. If I had the light without the love, I must run away and hide myself. If I had the love without the light, it would not do at all. It could not be. I get both in Christ - the divine Light that discovers all, and the divine Love that makes me know that all is put away. When light comes in, the conscience is honest. Take the thief, and hear him - "We indeed justly" - light had discovered that to him - "but this man has done nothing amiss." How did he know? By divine teaching. Would not our hearts all say, He has done nothing amiss? Then again, "Lord," he says - that is divine teaching as to His Person. All His disciples had run away; he alone owns His Lordship there on the cross - comforts His heart in that hour. And what does he ask? Is it relief from his pain? No. Suffering all that terrible agony on the cross, does he ask the one hanging by his side, whose power he owned, to lessen the suffering? No; but to be remembered by Him in His kingdom; and the effect of this is, "To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise." Oh, here was a heart that had found out what He was. A Pharisee is a Pharisee, and a whited sepulchre, but a broken heart is suited to a heart-healing God.
448 Is He a Servant in the glory? Oh, yes, He says, indeed I am. He says to His disciples, I am going to the Father; I cannot be your companion any more on earth; but I am not going to give you up. What is to be done? I must fit you to be with Me; give you "a part with me." You are clean, but you will be picking up dirt in your walk in this world, and this will not do to be associated with Me in glory; I must wash your feet. And that is what He is doing now. He is a Servant to wash our feet now.* He sets Himself to that service. We do not cease to be clean, looked at as to our standing before God, but we walk through the world and pick up dirt, and Christ is our servant to wash it away. In Luke 12 we find He will be our Servant in the glory. "He will gird himself, and come forth and serve them." It is divine love unspeakably blessed. He will never give up being a Man. "Let your loins be girded, and your lights burning." I must have a full profession of Christ, that is, lights burning. Have your loins well tucked up for service, while I am away; when I come again I shall have My own way, and you shall sit down, and I will serve you. Shall I ever forget the humiliation of Christ? Shall I ever forget His manhood in that way, giving Himself for me, and then taking me up there to be with Himself, where He is remaining a Man for me through all eternity; shall I forget? Never! never! through all eternity. I shall never forget His humiliation on earth. While seeing Him in glory animates the soul to run after Him, what feeds the soul is the Bread that came down. That produces a spirit that thinks of everything but itself.
{*"Washed," in John 13: 10, refers to the whole body; "wash," to feet or hands. The words are different in Greek.}
I need not go into detail, but you get in the rest of Philippians 2 all the delicacy of feeling brought out which flows from absence of self, and love to others, because the soul has got imbued with Christ, and is feeding upon Him, till unconsciously it grows to be like Him. I must have the second as well as the third of Philippians: all the energy you like, but then go and study Him, and live by Him, and you will come out in His likeness, in all His grace, and gentleness, and loveliness. Oh, what a place - redeemed by Him, going to be with Him in glory, and set meanwhile to manifest Him on earth!
449 The Lord give us to be so occupied with Him who was so full of love, so full of gentleness, so full of lowliness, that we shall manifest the same! The first sin of the world was losing confidence in God. He comes back to us in all these sins of ours and says, Now you may trust me. It is God winning back the confidence of your heart, unbounded confidence in unbounded love - and that not by exhortations from heaven, but by His presence on earth. If you are a poor woman, not fit to face any of your fellow creatures, come to Me; I will have you, trust Me: if you are hanging on a cross for your crimes, you shall go up to-day with Me to paradise. My blood is enough to put your crimes away; my heart is open to receive you."
The Lord give us to know more of that one, who, when He put forth His own sheep went before them - met the lion for them, and delivered them! The Lord give us to realise what He was!
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