ATTACHMENT TO CHRIST AND PRACTICAL RIGHTEOUSNESS
God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul. This distinguished man from the rest of the animal creation. Thereby man was made capable of living in relation to God. He was not intended to be an independent being, but to live in dependence upon God, and in subjection to the will of God. Man was tested as to this by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If he had been content to be dependent upon God, he would not have sought anything which God had not given him, and if he had been subject to the will of God, he would not have disobeyed His command. Satan by his suggestion undermined man’s confidence in the perfect goodness of God, so that he was no longer content to be dependent upon Him, he was willing to accept something at the suggestion of Satan. Then Satan suggested that by the exercise of his own will in disobedience he could do better for himself than God had done for him. The result was, as we know, that he lost everything; he lost the estate in which God had created him, and lost the blessing which God had so abundantly bestowed upon him. His responsibility to live in relation to God remained, but he was no longer capable of fulfilling his responsibility; even the desire to fulfil his responsibility was lost, he had become lawless and independent, and tried to live without God, to find his satisfaction in doing his own will; the will of God was irksome to him. If man lives without relation to God, he is lawless, he is like a wandering star, he has got out of his proper orbit, and hence is rushing on to destruction. It has been said that if this earth got out of its proper orbit, it would rush into the sun and be destroyed thereby7.
Now we have the contrast to all this in the second Man, Jesus Christ, when He was tested by Satan. He would not depart from His dependence upon God, He would not accept anything at the suggestion of Satan, and He would not depart from the path of God’s will. His confidence in God was perfect, His dependence upon God was perfect, and His obedience was perfect. He always, and in everything, acted in relation to God as He said, “Preserve me, O God [dependence], for in thee do I put my trust [confidence]” (Ps 16: 1), and again, “I have set the Lord always before me [obedience]”, v 8. Again He could say, “I came … not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me”, John 6: 38. “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise”, John 5: 19. “I do always those things that please him”, John 8: 29. He was the righteous One, in contrast to the lawless one, He always continued in His proper orbit as man in relation to God. “As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do”, John 14: 31. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. But God has vindicated Him in raising Him from the dead, and the righteous One is with the Father. He has proved Himself fit to rule by being subject to rule. God has made Him Lord, vested in Him—all authority and power. A man is only righteous as he lives and acts in relation to God, and he can only live in relation to God as he recognises the authority of Christ, whom God has made Lord, and as he lives in relation to Him. Christ represents God to us in love and authority, for He is God. This is brought about by our coming under the reign of grace, we have tasted that the Lord is gracious. God has ordained that all grace should come to us through and in the Lord Jesus, so that our hearts should be attached to Him. The love of God has been declared in the death of Jesus, the Son of God. He expresses it to us, we know divine love in Him, and it is when this love is brought home to our hearts by the Spirit that we are delivered from lawlessness, because we are brought under the rule of divine love. One great object of the gospel is to attach souls to Christ, and unless this be done, there is very little practical result, there is no real deliverance from lawlessness or from the world; there may be a measure of relief, but there is no practical righteousness, because the soul is not brought into its proper orbit in relationship to the Sun of righteousness, hence such an one goes on living in relation to himself. If we are brought into our proper orbit in relation to Christ, and thus to God, then we are brought into our proper relation to one another. If we love Him that begat, then we love those who are begotten of Him. We see all this strikingly illustrated in Paul; his was a pattern conversion. Like every one else, he lived to himself, in him it was a religious self. To gratify his religious passions, in the energy of his own will and animated by hatred to Christ, he went everywhere persecuting the church of God. In the midst of all this the Lord took him in hand to subdue him, to deliver him from lawlessness, and bring him to practical righteousness. He caused the light of His glory to shine upon him from heaven, and He spoke to him in tones of tender grace. Saul felt himself to be in the hands of One who was in a position of supreme authority and power. He might have crushed him in a moment, for Saul fell to the earth perfectly helpless. But the words he heard were not expressive of anger but of tender love. Saul said, “Who art thou, Lord?”, Acts 9: 5. The answer was, “I am Jesus”, words expressive of the grace of God come down to men in a Man, the One once rejected and crucified now speaking from glory.
Those words brought the deepest conviction into the heart of Saul. With all his religious zeal and self-righteousness he was fighting against God, a Saviour God, yet they revealed the mercy of God toward him; as he said after, “I obtained mercy”, and again, “the grace of our Lord surpassingly over-abounded”, 1 Tim 1: 13, 14. He thus came to see that the One whom he hated and against whom he had so grievously sinned had really died for his sin—he learnt His love in this way. As he says, “the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me”, Gal 2: 20. He was thus completely subdued and held by the grace and love of Christ. He rejoiced to say “Lord” to Jesus; his whole life now was in relation to the Lord Jesus. “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all were dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again”, 2 Cor 5: 14, 15. And again he could say, “For me to live is Christ”, Phil 1: 21. Christ was the motive and object of his life, the One who governed his whole life. In this we see how the most lawless man is brought to righteousness by being brought under the influence of divine love, the love expressed in Christ, the Son of God, every thought being led captive into the obedience of the Christ. The object of the apostle’s preaching was to effect in others what had been brought about in him—that is, to attach souls to Christ. His preaching was the presentation of Christ to men, it was the gospel of the glory of Christ. It was not simply the statement of certain facts about Christ, though no doubt these were included; it was not merely calling upon men to believe in the work of Christ, or to trust in the blood of Christ—these things came out more in teaching to saints—it was the presentation of a living Person, Christ in glory, as the object of faith and affection. No doubt all the value of His blood, and the efficacy of His sacrifice, and all the consequent grace of God to men was presented in the Person.
If the Acts be read carefully, it will be seen that this was so with all the preaching recorded there. A living Christ, risen from the dead, was preached, and grace to all in Him. Apart from the death of Christ and the declaration of God’s righteousness in His blood there could be no gospel; this is the ground on which the gospel goes forth. But it makes all the difference whether souls have been taught to trust in the blood and to believe certain facts about the death of Christ; or on the other hand to believe in Him as a present, living Person, raised from the dead in all the power and efficacy of what He has accomplished in dying. The former may bring a measure of relief to the conscience, but the latter not only does this but at the same time commands the affections, and the believer becomes attached to the Person; otherwise there is nothing to hold the believer, and sooner or later he falls under the influence of the world.
I fear that to many a believer Christ is like one who is dead and gone. They look back and think of what He has done for them in bearing their sins upon the cross, and they have hope that they will be in heaven another day, but they have lost Christ as a present living object of their affections, and as the great commanding influence of their lives. They cannot say, “For to me to live is Christ”. When Christ ceases to hold our affection then some idol is bound to take His place in our hearts, and we fail in practical righteousness, for nothing can be right which is not done in relation to Him.
From Helps for the Poor of the Flock vol 17 (1912)