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In Corinthians Paul is still speaking about the change. What is

here in this earthly tabernacle house, a treasure, housed now

in mortal weak conditions, will go through to glory. “Now he

that has wrought us for this very thing is God, who also has

given to us the earnest of the Spirit”. Not only the light of it, not

only the doctrine of the Lord’s coming, but the earnest of the

Spirit means that a divine Person is here to maintain alive in

our hearts a longing for Christ in the waiting time. What grace!

He says, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”

(John 14: 18), and He has also given us the earnest of the

Spirit. The earnest of the Spirit means you have the thing in its

essence, not yet in its fulness, but you have more than light,

you are able to live in the joy and assurance of hope now.

Another thing that is before us is “the judgment-seat of the

Christ”. This is very sobering; I know of nothing more sobering.

I feel a lack of power to speak about it. Why are some things

so prolonged? Why do exercises remain unsolved? May

it be that we are not walking in the light, or not allowing the

bearing of the judgment-seat of Christ to be with us? May we

each take it home to ourselves. Things will be reviewed then.

All believers “must ... be manifested before the judgment-seat

of the Christ, that each may receive the things done in the

body, according to those he has done, whether it be good or

evil”. There is no sense of penalty, but some will suffer loss.

Would it not be a sobering thing just to think about our present

exercises, and have them reviewed, as they will be at the

judgment-seat of Christ? We are so easily influenced by other

persons and circumstances, which may hinder us from getting

Christ’s view. I am sure matters would be much more quickly

settled if we allowed the bearing of the judgment-seat to be

regulating us now in our exercises.

It is not a question here of penalty, not at all; it has been said it

is a review. The things I have done; the opinions that I have

expressed; the kind of personality that I have exercised that