OUR NEW CONDITION

OUR NEW CONDITION

No favour is valued but as it affects our condition in making us gainers by it. The sense of gain as to our condition becomes the measure of every ^[p. 192] favour conferred. Increase the sense of gain, and you enhance the favour, for the value of the favour consists in the consciousness of having gained by it. This must be the case when the condition is imperfect, for how could anything be valued unless it met one’s need? and according as the need is met the condition is improved.

To man, fallen, and sensible of his fallen condition, nothing can be of value but as it tends to improve that condition. Cain knows that he is not on terms with God, and he feels that there can be no real improvement in his condition until his relation to God is a satisfactory one. When Abel secures the acceptance denied to himself, he is filled with envy. He sees Abel’s condition improved, while his own remains unaltered, and even worse than it was. The improvement is not unattainable, but another is preferred before him, and the fact that another has obtained what he sought, stirs up all the wickedness of his heart, and in envy he kills his brother, unable to endure that he should enjoy a condition denied to himself. “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof”, Proverbs 1: 19. Man, as he has sense, knows that his condition is not a perfect one. Enoch is translated before he had seen death, which of itself must mar any condition. Noah is saved in an ark. That met the necessity of his condition, but still did not render it perfect. Abram is carried forward by faith through promises, into scenes where his condition would be perfect; but he never attained to it. He saw Christ’s day and was glad; he could see by faith where his condition would be full and satisfactory; but as to fact, he remained as he was. Then, under the law, the offerer by faith comprehended acceptance with God, and so far he could rejoice; but he needed a renewal of this every day, a fresh ground of faith. Even the most devoted could not speak of a perfect condition.

For a man fallen and under judgment, a perfect condition must necessarily embrace two things; first,

^[p. 193] clear and full deliverance from the condition which is his by nature; and secondly, the gift of a condition which is entirely satisfactory, and hence perfect in itself. To speak of, or to offer, the second before the first was assured would be a mockery. Hence the great thing, and the main thing presented even to faith, is deliverance out of the condition in which we are by nature; for until this is definitely secured, there could be no enjoyment of a perfect condition — nay, it could not be conferred. Now could a perfect condition be conferred on one under judgment? Judgment must first be executed, and there must be righteousness, fully answering to the mind of God, before a perfect condition can be conferred. But if righteousness be established, if the judgment has been met fully and entirely, then the way is clear for the Lord to do according to all His will and pleasure. If this be not seen there can be no apprehension or perception of the new condition conferred consequent on the entire clearing away of the old in judgment. And hence it is that many true servants of the Lord and saints in general never seem to apprehend the nature of our new condition, because they are so occupied with getting clear of the old one. They dwell much on this subject; their speeches and writings are full of it. It is the first step, and beyond doubt of paramount importance, because there can be no divine progress until this step has been taken; but the reason there is no advance is that it has not been taken. Souls do not fully and entirely see and know that they have been delivered through the cross, in Christ’s death, of everything under the judgment of God, and also from the power of Satan. The condition man suffers from still remains; but the one in Christ is freed from both. Christ’s bearing judgment unto death has freed the believer from the condition under claim, and also from the power of Satan. If we be dead with Christ, we must be righteously clear of the judgment man was under to God, because in death the ^[p. 194] power of Satan is broken. In the cross Christ triumphed over all the powers; hence in Him we are superior to everything adverse. Souls are occupied with getting free of the old condition, and teachers go no further. How can any one reach or possess the untold blessings of Canaan until he has passed through the Red Sea and Jordan somewhere in his march? Souls are detained, and they never consciously set their foot on the land. There may be many a Pisgah, many a gleam of sunshine in the prospect presented of the happy times coming, or of what a blessed thing it is to be assured now of full deliverance from an imperfect condition under judgment; but there is no real sense of actual, fixed possession of a new and perfect condition, which one can speak of oneself as being in, more surely than one could speak of being in the old and lost one. Take as an illustration the fable of the phoenix. It rises from its ashes in an entirely new condition, outside and apart from the old. This illustration I admit is not perfect, for it fails to show that we are still connected with the ashes, the old tenement; but I refer to it to indicate the positive nature of the new condition.

In John’s gospel the new condition is at once introduced. The Lord in chapter 3 shows how the old condition will be removed. There is announced, not only the necessity for new birth, but that now, through the lifting up of the Son of man, God would be free to give eternal life. This eternal life is the new condition as to existence. Then in chapter 4 the condition itself, in all its greatness and perfection, is set before us in the Lord’s words to the woman of Samaria. And here He makes distinct reference to the former condition in itself; He says, “Every one who drinks of this water [referring to all that satisfies and cheers nature] shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall gave him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life” — a power to ^[p. 195] sustain one in the eternal life brought in through Him who has saved us out of our old condition. Now nothing could be more perfect than the state in which this gift sets us. We shall never thirst, never have a sense of need. It cannot be improved on, and it is a fountain springing up into everlasting life. The soul is sustained in the consciousness and virtue of eternal life. Surely, in such a condition there is no room for anything. It comes from Christ. It springs up from me individually to Him who is the life and source of it. This is our new condition. It is not a condition in prospect, but one now given, and is characteristic of the grace of God. That is, as God has in judgment on the cross righteously executed sentence on the man under judgment, every believer in Christ is exempt from judgment, and is in the righteousness of God; and that God gives — is free to give. We are saved, we are endowed, and that according to His own will. Hence, God is ministering righteousness, for He has found it in Christ; He comes out in a new character — He gives; and our new condition is the fruit and in virtue of His gift.

Now the great check to all divine joy and practice is either the ignorance or imperfect apprehension of this condition. It is not that souls have not the joy of salvation, and assurance; they may have this, and even more. They may desire to fly; but as there are many and varied stages between a bird being sensibly alive and its ability to fly, so there are stages in a christian’s progress before he enjoys this new condition. When a bird flies, it is conscious of a condition never known before. It lived, it desired to fly, often and long before; but until it had flown, it never knew how definite the condition was, and how distinct from any it had previously entered on. It now knows the power suited to its nature and enjoys it.

We find in Paul’s epistles that the point to which he refers everything is this new condition. The Spirit is ^[p. 196] the power of it. If they are not spiritual they are at best but babes in Christ. Hence the defect in souls is that they are not conscious of the distinctness of this new condition from everything that is possible in the old. They have not in fact the sense of possession of it, and they have not sought to possess it as if it were really attainable. The first distinct sense imparted to the soul by the Spirit is what is the essential law of the Spirit; and it is said, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”. Do souls look at sin and death as distanced, because they are in a condition which is as entirely freed from it as an island is from the sea? Can souls speak joyfully of being in a condition where they are free from these two great pressures on the old condition? Can they say, I have life and peace, because I possess the mind of the Spirit dwelling in me, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness? There is delight in the law of God after the inner man; but it is the Spirit which empowers one to live Christ, and enter into the fulness of joy at God’s right hand; and hence the measure is the riches of His glory — “that he may give you ... to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man; that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts” — and thus be led into all “the fulness of him who fills all in all”. It is only in the Spirit that one can have a full sense of being altogether apart from the old condition; and, as we see in 1 Corinthians, one may have received largely of the gifts of the Spirit, and yet not be clear of the flesh, simply because the Spirit’s own sphere — our new condition — is not occupied; that is, Christ in glory is not the known centre and rest of the heart. Once there, we are conscious of a very distinct and broad line between the new and the old condition; and hence in 1 John 2 we find that it is through the “unction” that we know all things. Secondly, we know He abides in us by the Spirit which He hath given us; and thirdly, we know we abide in ^[p. 197] Him and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.

The snare and delusion from which many suffer is, that while the truth is admitted in general terms, there is no sense of the new sphere and exclusive ground on which it places one. There is rather an attempt to improve the old condition, to render it resigned or in some way to affect it, than to confine oneself to the new, and from it, according to the Lord, to use the body here for His service. What God gives has not been accepted in faith, and hence there is not simple and earnest purpose to enjoy and possess it. If it were possessed, there would be a consciousness of a full cup, a condition perfect and satisfactory. The old man remains indeed needy and covetous; but it is silenced and left behind by one enjoying his new condition and able to speak of its virtues. Stephen could endure the direct suffering here, because of what he possessed in this new condition. Paul could walk here, counting all things but dung that he might have Christ as his gain, for he knew how satisfying the portion was, and therefore he pursued it at the loss of everything else. To him to die was gain, because he already knew in his soul that it was far better to depart and be with Christ. “If indeed our outward man is consumed, yet the inward is renewed day by day”. There is a conscious personality of the new man, which enables one to rise superior to the claims and desires of the old, though still clothed with the old. There is a daily deepening conviction and assurance of the greatness and the magnitude of the new, and thus there is not only a more defined separation from the old, but a fuller apprehension of what it is to be in a new condition, given by Christ, the Head and source of the creation of God; and with it a testimony characteristic of His grace, which must be compromised if this be not seen and accepted; for if our condition be not perfect, our relation to God cannot be perfect.