THE PARADISE OF GOD
[p. 374] THE PARADISE OF GOD
To the simplest reader there is a great difference between these two passages of scripture. But first, beloved friends, what I desire before the Lord to present to you is the new order; that everything is entirely new. The man of the earth has failed, and now it is a Man from heaven, everything is new, everything is of divine order. And there is no spiritual blessing that is not heavenly, for while God takes care of us in the circumstances here, every spiritual blessing is heavenly. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ - a very great point to hold clearly. Therefore I begin this evening (you may think it elementary, but it is a great thing to have the foundations settled; in fact, if you have not the foundations you never can get on) with what God has done, for that is unchangeable. I do not say this to permit of laxity, but that you cannot lose it; you own it; it is your place, and that which God has given you; no one can take it from you. You may pass through this world - alas! a great many do - without enjoying your property, but it is yours, it belongs to the youngest by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; all has been accomplished by that blessed One for His own. I cannot insist upon this too strongly; but there is another side that I must insist on, too, and if you do not accept it from God, you will not have a good conscience; that is, you must be in moral correspondence with your calling. You cannot enjoy it otherwise; but that is not the side I am on at present.
But to resume, any reader of these two passages must see on the face of them a very great difference.
[p. 375] In Genesis, God drove out the man. In Luke 14, the servant (no doubt the Holy Spirit) compels him to come in. There is an immense difference between driving man out and compelling man to come in. I know that it is popularly said that coming in here is coming to Christ, but that is not the meaning of the passage. Anyone who is at all thoughtful will understand that it is coming to the house, to a place; it is not coming to the Saviour merely. This is the finish, it is coming into the house. That is the correct reading of the word, it is the same word that is used for going into the ark. The meaning of it is that the servant was to go out into the highways and hedges, to the most distant spot, and then to compel the sinner to come to the brightest spot. It really was fulfilled to the thief on the cross. The Lord at one stroke conducts him from the very lowest conceivable point to the very highest conceivable point, all by His own work; the thief had no opportunity to do any work himself.
Now the first thing we require is simple faith to see what God has done. The man who was driven out of the garden of Eden is both guilty and lost. He has sin on him, and he is under the judgment of God, he was driven out of the garden. But you are to learn now that not only is man, believing in Christ, forgiven, but he gets a better place than the place he lost. And it is all of grace. All the part you had in it is, as someone has said, your sins. I trust that you will lay hold of this grace before the Lord, that you will be able to say, I see that God has transferred me, a believer, from being driven out of Eden, as Adam was, and that He has compelled me to come into His own house. I will explain what that is presently, but the first thing to believe is that God compels the sinner in the most distant spot, driven out of Eden, to come into the house - “that my house may be filled”.
First let us see how this has been effected. The [p. 376] first word God said to Adam was, “Where art thou?” the second, to Eve, “What is this thou hast done?” Now, as a rule, you will find souls are troubled with what they have done. I am not at all objecting to that proper exercise, but they must also learn the answer through grace of the other question, “Where art thou?” It has been familiarly said, Adam was like a gardener who was turned out of his place for bad conduct. Now would it be enough to tell a gardener who had lost a good place that he was forgiven for his bad conduct, without a word about reinstating him, or of giving him another place? Many souls are here and therefore not at rest. No soul is restful until he knows that he has a home in the Father’s house. You are not asked to do anything (the prodigal son was not asked to do anything); you must learn how your own soul is provided for in grace before you are fit to do anything. You are not fit until you learn that you are not only a forgiven sinner, but that you have a place in the Father’s house.
To proceed: look at Abel. Both Cain and Abel had a sense of the distance between them and God, and Cain tried to remove the distance, and I need not say it was ineffectual; but Abel had faith. Now the great mark of faith is that I have God before me. It is God I am thinking of, that is faith. The failure of Adam and Eve was that they turned aside from the word of God; they had not faith. It does not say that Abel did what he was told, it is said that he had faith; and his faith was that as he was under the judgment of God, nothing could relieve him of that judgment but a victim, not chargeable with his offence, bearing the judgment of his offence, and at the time of bearing it having personal excellency. He offered of the firstlings of the flock and of the fat thereof; and God accepted his gifts, and he was declared righteous; but he got no place. And many are not beyond this, because they confine Christ’s work to His blood-shedding,
[p. 377] so they have not solid peace, are not justified, are not at home in the paradise of God.
I hope no one will misunderstand me; you see that there is nothing in the type showing that the power of death was broken. And it is remarkable that when you come to know the state of one who has really believed in Christ as far only as the type goes, that such an one has not solid peace. Why? He does not see the enemy annulled. That is the great thing brought out in Hebrews 2: 14, “Since therefore the children partake of blood and flesh, he also, in like manner, took part in the same, that through death he might annul him who has the might of death, that is, the devil”. Now the word ‘annul’ is a very peculiar word. It is the same word as ‘abolish.’ It is to annul the condition in which a being is; it does not say you annihilate him. Now Christ has broken the power of Satan as the power of death and judgment; that is, as in the type, the Pharaoh aspect of Satan is abolished for every believer. I do not say that the Amalek aspect is gone, or that the Balaam aspect is gone, or that the seven nations are gone; but the Pharaoh aspect is gone for the believer. To the believer I say, You are no more under judgment; the power of the enemy has been destroyed, and all your enemies have sunk, as Pharaoh’s host, like lead in the mighty waters. Therefore in Romans 3 you get shelter, and most blessed shelter; but in the end of Romans 4 is justification, “Who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification.. .. Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God”. The morning has appeared! the morning of the resurrection! you are on entirely new ground.
Well, beloved friends, that is more than we learn from Abel; yet the scripture shows the intent of God to anyone who studies it. The next person whose faith is spoken of is Enoch, and Enoch is the seventh [p. 378] from Adam. Enoch is brought in by God to show how God Himself will not allow the course of man to run to a sevenfold victim of death, but that the seventh shall be translated. In the other line, the Cain line, death is continued; but in the Seth line you get that the seventh from Adam “was translated that he should not see death”.
I do not think that I need dwell any more on this, but I want you to understand how this distance has been removed. Man cannot do it, and yet man was bound to do it; man brought it in, and therefore it must be removed by man; as death came by man, resurrection must come by man. Now, beloved friends, you cannot remove the distance on your own side, but God comes out in His grace, and He has removed the distance on His own side. And you have learned, I trust, in your souls, the infinitude of God’s satisfaction in the accomplished work of Christ.
I turn now to Matthew 27: 50, “Jesus, having again cried with a loud voice, gave up the ghost. And lo, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom”. God has “laid help upon a mighty one”. You must look unto God. “Look unto me, and be ye saved”. Everyone knows that the sinner has an interest in the gospel, that the distance between him and God should be removed. But the marvellous fact is that God Himself takes an interest in the removal of the distance between Him and the sinner! That when man could not remove the distance, it is indeed good tidings that God has removed the distance on His own side. The infinitude of His satisfaction in the way He has done it none of us can ever know. We have to believe that He has done it: “God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law”, and He goes down into death and bears the judgment due to us. He glorifies God in death so that, the moment He dies, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. By the veil God was kept [p. 379] secret and impenetrable, He was dwelling in clouds and thick darkness; but now, if one might use a plain expression, the door of heaven is thrown open. It answers to the type, when the blood in Exodus 24 was sprinkled, “they saw... the form of heaven for clearness”; the distance was gone on God’s side. May it be written in divine power in each of your souls tonight! The distance is gone completely on God’s side, according to Himself. Mark the effect which will accrue to you, even that the nearer you are to Him, the better off you will be. Why? Because the removal of the distance originated with Him. We will come to our side presently, but first He calls you to look at His side; and His side is, that when you were bound to remove the distance and were not able to do it, God sent His own Son to remove the distance on His own side, and now it is so wonderfully removed that God can say, I have nothing any longer to keep secret. You can understand how a pious Jew would look at it. He would say, Something wonderful must have happened, the veil of the temple has been rent from the top to the bottom. Now I come to ourselves. We have “boldness for entering into the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, the new and living way which he has dedicated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh”. The first thing for the heart to get hold of is the fact that for the believer in Christ all has been effected to God’s infinite satisfaction in relation to Himself. A Man has glorified God, and God has glorified Him.
You see now that all is clear and open on God’s side; and if you turn to Luke 14 you will see the result. In verse 15 a pious Jew says, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God”; he meant the millennium. The Lord then announces that there will be a great supper, not in the land, but in the house. And in verse 23 the servant was to go out and compel - whom? The very good, and very [p. 380] pious and excellent? No, he was to go to the most distant spots, the highways and the hedges, and bring them to the house. Oh! you say, they must be converted. Yes, but that is not the point. The point is, they are brought to the spot that will suit the Father’s heart for them. It is not simply that God has removed the sinner’s distance to His entire satisfaction; but in bringing many sons to glory, He brings them to the satisfaction of His own heart, to His own house, not merely out of misery, but to the very highest spot. Of course conversion must take place, but there is more than conversion here. This verse 23 shows how great the distance is. It is like the thief upon the cross; I need not say that the thief was converted, and that no one could go in otherwise. Like the prodigal son, he had to come from the far country; he is converted, and he is fitted for a new place. I want your souls to get hold of the grace of God: the moment you are justified, you find that the love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit which is given unto you. The sinner has an interest in the gospel, but that is not all. The Father delights in it; it is like what is said of Jeremiah’s father when he heard of his birth, “making him very glad”. Now Luke 15 describes the joy of the father. The blessed God has joy in your being found. “It was right to make merry and rejoice, because this thy brother was dead and has come to life again, and was lost and has been found”.
I hope that now you definitely accept that you are not only forgiven, but brought into a new place - into the house; as you get it in the first part of the chapter, the sheep that was lost was not only brought home, but as the more correct reading is, brought to the house.
It is interesting to see this in type. Look at Exodus 15: 17, they sing, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made [p. 381] for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”. That was the song. They had only come out of Egypt; they had not been brought into the land, for that is over Jordan; I am not touching on that now; what I want is that you should lay hold of this solid rest to your soul, even that the Father has accomplished and secured in Christ all that His heart desires, that you should have a home in His own house, one that you will never lose, however you may neglect it. You may say, I do not enjoy it. I am not asserting that you enjoy it. The father had a place for the prodigal in his house before the prodigal went in, and he had everything ready for him. It is wonderful how pleased such are to hear that all is ready for them. Every soul has to learn, that not only is he forgiven, but that he has now a home, the Father’s house. I know how this truth is evaded. They say, We shall be in heaven when we die. That is quite true; but if the Father’s house is not your home now, earth is your home. A soul is never restful, nor has he made acquaintance with his Father, until he knows that He has fitted him for His house. I am now on what is very important. I believe that here lies the root of the little worship there is in the assembly. You have not pleased your Father; you have not acceded to His wishes. You believe that heaven is your place when you die, but He wants you to accept heaven as your home now. If you accept forgiveness only, you will cleave to the earth, because you have no new place. Be assured that the effect of a new place is that it displaces the old place. In the old place you are an exile, driven out of Eden, but in the new place you know that you are according to your Father’s pleasure. And until you know this, I believe you will never have the sense of pleasing Him; you certainly have not accepted the spot which He has given you; there is a reserve of heart. You can pray to the Lord, but not to the Father, because you have [p. 382] never pleased Him yet, you have not answered to the first desire of His heart; you have not accepted the fact that the Father has fitted you for a place in His own house. You may say, We are not there yet. I quite admit that, but I will not admit that the joys of that house do not come down to you here. I believe they do; and this the great supper symbolises. True, it is a parable, but it is a parable to express a great reality. What did Peter mean when he said to the Jews, “joy unspeakable and full of glory”? “Full of glory” does not mean full of earth, it is just the opposite. It is not earthly joy at all; it is heavenly joy.
Now just look beloved friends, and learn the wonderful portion given to you, the greatness of the place, and the rest it gives. Suppose Adam could say he was forgiven. That is where many souls are. They have no sense of being in the favour of God; they have not come into the house. They expect to reach heaven when they die. Now the thief on the cross got both. He asked to be remembered in the kingdom; he is assured in reply that he would be that day in paradise - not the one Adam had lost, but the paradise of God.
In Romans we read, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”.
I have given you what I may call Paul’s side, and now I will give you John’s side. When the Lord addresses the woman of Samaria, He does not begin with conversion. He says, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him” shall be in the most blessed state here on earth - “shall never thirst”. All the language man could bring together could not explain the magnificence of this state, and that in the very place where you were degraded to the lowest point. Now you do not get this in Luke, because there it is that the prodigal is brought into the house,
[p. 383] and you do not get anything about his new state, the state God has put him in. The new state I have in John 4. You are called to be in the most unbounded satisfaction by the Spirit of God in this poor vessel on the earth where you were in the most degraded position. Would to God, beloved friends, it was experimentally true to us! though, thank God, it is ever true for us. And the Father delights in our enjoying it. “They began to be merry”. And not this only, I am to worship the Father in spirit and in truth, the very highest blessing; therefore I must rise to an entirely new order of things; I must rise to where the Father is in the unclouded light, in the perfect holiness of His own presence, and there find myself a son, in the Son’s light, worshipping the Father. I trust that your heart will bow and say, Well, that is not what I have any hand in at all; that is gift, that is not promise.
I have thus far dwelt on God’s grace to us, His gift; the blessing to which He has called us. You may say, I do not enjoy it. Well now, beloved friends, I must turn for a moment to set forth how enjoyment comes.
But first I must recapitulate. God has not only forgiven you all sins; you are not only in the infinite satisfaction of all that Christ has accomplished, but through divine grace you have a home in the Father’s house, and the joy of that house is now yours down here upon the earth, and you should be enjoying it, worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth. How could you worship the Father otherwise? How could you worship if you were not yourself at home? You may say you are not yet in heaven. The great point in John 14 is that you know Him who is in heaven, and your joys come from Him where He is.
I turn now for a moment to point out where the failure lies. There is a tendency in the conscientious to be occupied with their state before they are assured of their standing. Do you understand me now? Do [p. 384] you admit that God, in His grace, has called you to His home in heaven? You might say, I admit it, but I am not up to it. I repeat, But do you admit that it is God’s own purpose, and that He has obtained it for you, and that you must be in it some day? I want you to admit this fully and freely; next I ask, Would you like to enjoy it at the present moment? If, like the thief on the cross, you were to die, you would be in it; there is nothing about experience there, you would be in it. And, thank God, you will go straight out of this world one day into it.
When in faith as to your standing, the Spirit leads you into the state corresponding to it in your path here upon the earth, that is, your course or the race, and then you enjoy your standing. Well, I must come to your path here. I have dwelt upon the grace of God and upon your actual inalienable right. But, beloved friends, if you live down here, you have to encounter everything; everything is antagonistic to you, and you must overcome everything; your standing, though inalienable, cannot be a reality to you unless you do.
Now, beloved friends, I believe we cannot hold both earth and heaven. Are you realising what God has made you, and that you are in Christ God’s unchanging delight? If I read His heart, I read there what He has accomplished for me through the Lord Jesus Christ, and what I am to joy in and enjoy for ever. But am I enjoying it now, when I am in a scene of antagonism? You may say, Look at the difficulties. There are difficulties, but you have the Holy Spirit, He dwells in you. And you, like a little child, are in absolute dependence, ever clinging to Christ - the dependence of faith because you know you may depend. No matter what amount of wealth or position a man has, he has to learn full dependence on God; hence faith, which sees nothing but God, is harder for a rich man than for a poor one. Next you [p. 385] surrender anything which interferes with the dependence of faith. Thus you will be the most blessed on the earth, you will have “manifold more in this present time” from heaven; Luke 18.
Now I turn for the doctrine to Romans 6. In the end of chapter 5 you are brought into the new position. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord; a wonderful blessedness! But now he says, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” No, beloved friends, you must accept death morally. There is no other way by which you can be free from sin. “He that is dead is freed from sin”. Perhaps one might say, Am I to die? I answer, if you were dead you would be out of everything here; but if you want to enjoy your standing now before you pass away from earth, then I say, you must travel through death; “Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”. Look at verse 8. “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him”. Therefore, “Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”. I find that I am dead with Christ; and that it is not merely that He died for me and accomplished everything, but you must accept death morally. Do you think you can go on living in the flesh, which is obnoxious to God, and at the same time enjoy all that has been wrought out for you by the death of Christ? Impossible! Therefore it is not a question of a man’s light; but no man is enjoying heavenly things except as he reckons himself to be dead unto sin. It is not that I am giving up things; I am not speaking now of giving up, I am explaining Romans 6. The Lord says in Luke 14, if a man “hate not .. . his own life, .. . he cannot be my disciple”. What will you do then? You now derive from Christ; you have a better spring in Him, and you are not to turn to yourself; Christ liveth in you. If you have His life, you know Him as your Head; you have the best motive for doing everything. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God”. “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus”. It is not simply that that man is gone. That is true, or God would not be able to raise you to the wonderful position He has; but He has called you to it. It is yours before you arrive at it, and if you died you would be in it without any hindrance, to God’s satisfaction, because according to His pleasure you are created in Christ Jesus. But are you living in it? I say, you must reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. The great secret is that you must pass through death morally - “Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in our body”. And therefore the apostle adds, “We who live are always delivered unto death .. . death works in us”. Death is a higher thing in a sense, because it brings you into the practical enjoyment of Christ’s life. A monk or a nun is trying to shut out the world; that is vain while you retain yourself. The thing is to shut out yourself, that is, abnegate yourself, after the example of the leper, drop yourself. He dropped himself; Luke 17. In Romans you do not get farther than being dead to sin, because you have only touched the border, as it were, of death to everything, which is Christ’s death. But in Colossians you are over Jordan, because you are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world; you are on new ground, and you cannot enter on it but as you are dead to the old ground. I trust that your hearts will lay hold of your home in heaven. Nothing ever gave me such a turn from this world as laying hold of the simple fact - I have a new place, a home in heaven; I have not only salvation and my sins forgiven, but I have a home in heaven. Mark the consequences which follow. What would the world be to you if you were enjoying your [p. 387] new place? What would be the character of your life here? Every thing would be in reference to that place. A man cannot help himself; he is sure to be occupied with his home.
In conclusion, I pray you, beloved friends, to lay hold by faith of the home the blessed God has obtained for you according to the satisfaction of His own heart, accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I come to do thy will” - not merely to secure the sinner’s benefit, but to do God’s pleasure. And therefore He says, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.. .. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”. Secondly, although you may see all this you cannot enjoy it but as you accept Romans 6, and take the place of death.