CHRIST DISPLACES THE OLD “I”

Galatians 1: 15,16; 2: 19,20; 4: 19-31; 5: 1

What I wish to bring out from these scriptures is this, how as in the dealings of God with men, so in His work in individual souls, His way is to displace the first man by bringing in the second; that is by the ministry of the gospel so to put Christ into our hearts as to displace self. This is of all importance in order that we may understand the ways of God, and that our souls may enter into the thoughts of God towards us, His grace to us in Christ.

It is of all importance that our thoughts should be connected with the right Man that is Christ; not the Adam man. In the ways of God what has taken place is, that God has set aside the first man, and has brought in a second. What I mean is this, that up to the time of the cross the first man was on the scene, he was under the eye of God, and the ways of God were connected with that man as of Adam; and that man was under testing in various ways, the object of the testing being to bring out the utter wickedness, worthlessness, and unprofitableness of that man, with a view to setting him aside and bringing in another. What we see in the cross are two things: one, the full and perfect exhibition of the utter wickedness of the first man; and on the other hand, the declaration of God’s judgment on him. When God is presented to him in the Person of Christ he will have nothing of God, he rejected God and Christ. “They have both seen and hated both me and my Father”, John 15: 24. At last he took the Christ of God, and by wicked hands crucified and slew Him. It was utterly hopeless to expect anything from that man, only one thing remained, and that was for God to pronounce His judgment on him. The cross is the expression of what he is worthy of in the sight of God. The end of all flesh morally had come before God at the cross, so that the cross in that way is the end of man’s history, as connected with the first Adam, and the end of God’s trial of that man; and from that time onward the whole scene is changed, as to the ways of God. That man disappears and another has come on the scene—the Lord Jesus Christ comes in and takes His full and proper place as man; and now all the thoughts and purposes of God are brought out, because that Man is in glory who was the central object of all the counsels and ways of God. No purpose or promise or counsel of God was ever connected with the first man; the first man was only a trial man, one in whom man was tried; but the whole counsel of God from eternity was all centred in and connected with another man, the Lord Jesus Christ; and now that He has taken His place and is exalted to glory, God is able to reveal all the hidden counsels of His own heart in connection with that Man, and our place before Him in that Man. That is what has taken place in the ways of God.

Now the other thing is, that the same thing takes place in God’s dealing with souls individually. The object of God’s dealing with the individual soul is to displace self, the first man, by bringing in the second; and just as in the ways of God there was a time of testing, man’s testing, so with the individual soul there is a period of testing under the hand of God; each one has to go through the testing process—and I believe the object of that testing is to bring me experimentally to the end of myself, to realise that I can have no confidence in the flesh, so to know myself and to realise what I really am in the sight of God, to see myself in all my sinfulness, vileness, worthlessness, and hopelessness, so that I become sick of myself. That is a very great point. I fear that a great many of those who are partakers of the Lord’s table have never reached that point, they have never had such a sight of themselves as to be sick of themselves, to be willing to drop themselves altogether. When a man does see himself in that way he is made to say, with Job, “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”, Job 42: 6. Then there is an end to all conceit and pride in man. That is the nature of the testing; it was a very hard thing to bring Job to that, and the more of human goodness and morality a man has the harder it is to bring him to see himself as he really is in the sight of God.

To such an one I would ask the question, ‘Would you like to get rid of yourself, would you like to see the end of that self?’ Where is it to be found? In yourself? No; but in the cross. What God sets before the soul is the cross, as the place where He has condemned man in the flesh; all that I am as a child of Adam has passed under judgment in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was there for me, as representing me before God; He who knew no sin was made sin for us, and all the judgment that was upon me passed upon Him; all that I was by nature met its judgment there at the hand of God; that is the end of me as a child of Adam. God has done with it there, and the soul that accepts that really, in true faith, can say, as the apostle in Gal 2: “I am crucified with Christ”. What relief to one who has been brought to realise what that old “I” is in the sight of God. Have we each one been thus brought to bow to God’s judgment upon us to see it executed and passed in the cross of Christ, and thankfully to say, “I am crucified with Christ”? There is an end of my history as connected with the first Adam—man in sin, away from God, subject to His judgment, for such was my condition as in Adam and I see the end of my history in that relation altogether in the cross of the Lord Jesus.

What do I get on the other side? Christ risen, exalted to God’s own right hand. I now behold the glory of the Lord. The Spirit’s work is to set before me the preciousness and glory of Christ as the Man of God’s purpose, so that now instead of being occupied with myself I am occupied with Christ—with another Man. This we see in Stephen, a man filled with the Holy Ghost. He had practically dropped himself, he looked up into heaven and he saw the glory of God; and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, his eye was turned outside himself, away from man and this world, and now he saw the glory of God and Jesus. I can understand now how God has set me before Himself in that man. All that was in Adam has been condemned in the death of Christ, and Christ risen is my life. Christ lives in me, and in that life I live to God. This is new ground altogether, outside of Adam entirely, entirely free from the first man and all that came in by him. The work of the Spirit of God is so to put Christ in our hearts as to displace self; not to better or develop or add to anything of the first man, but to displace him. What is brought out in the allegory of Ishmael and Isaac is, that when the new man gets His place the old man must go out. When Isaac was weaned, when he got his full and proper place in the house of Abraham, then Ishmael was cast out: “Cast out this bondwoman and her son”, Gen 21: 10. Ishmael was never the man of God’s promise; it was never connected with Ishmael, and therefore it says, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son”; God’s eye was upon Isaac, and all His purpose was connected with him. The great difference between Christianity and the religion of Christians all around is just this—Christianity is the doctrine of Christ, the antitype of Isaac, and does not in any way recognise Ishmael, or the man born after the flesh. The current religion of professing Christians generally is occupied with Ishmael, it retains the fleshly man, and seeks to improve and cultivate that man; it therefore occupies souls with themselves, instead of displacing self and occupying the soul with Christ. In Christianity we have the introduction of another Man of an entirely new order, and the revelation of God’s purposes in connection with Him, and His grace to us in Him. There can be only disappointment, and no rest or abiding joy, as long as souls are occupied with themselves. You must drop the old man entirely in order to find everything in Christ. Many may know deliverance from guilt and from the judgment of sin, but the greatest deliverance of all is deliverance from self. This is accomplished when God puts Christ into your heart by the revelation of His excellence and glory, engages the heart and mind with Himself, so that you are glad to drop self altogether, and to say, with Paul, what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. He then becomes the centre of your life, so that everything revolves around this new centre, it is now ‘Not I, but Christ’. Naturally self is the centre around which everything revolves.

But before this is reached how long souls are seeking to find some good in the old man, practically retaining Ishmael in the house; yet if Ishmael could be ever so cultivated, it would not be Isaac. Men can go a long way in cultivating and developing what is humanly good, and repressing what is evil in themselves; but after all it is but cultivated flesh, it is not Christ formed in them, it is the wrong man, it only proves that they have not learned that the old man, instead of being retained and cultivated, must be dropped altogether. This is what took place for the apostle when, as he says in chapter 1, It pleased God to reveal His Son in me. That did not happen at his conversion, but at some subsequent time. There was the testing process to go on first, by which he must learn experimentally the sinfulness and unprofitableness of the old “I”. There was a special work of the Spirit of God by which the Son of God was revealed in his heart in such a way as to displace everything of self. Then he could say, what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

It is by the Spirit’s ministry of Christ that Christ is formed in us, and as a practical result Christ shines out in our ways. The Spirit of God will not in any way recognise Ishmael; but He seeks to install Isaac in His full place in our hearts, and it is a joyful day when the believer can say: “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”.

May God by His Spirit lead us to know the blessedness of having our eyes fixed on the Man of His counsel, the true Isaac, and then we shall be able to enter more fully into all that He has revealed of His ways, and the grace of God given to us in Christ Jesus.