THE WORD OF CHRIST AND HIS PRESENCE

^[p. 385] THE WORD OF CHRIST AND HIS PRESENCE

As man is immeasurably below God in mind and intelligence, he cannot know His will, or indeed anything about Him, but as He is pleased to reveal it. Hence if God would make Himself known, or communicate His pleasure, His word is the first thing. By it He expresses His pleasure and counsel. There is no knowing either but by the word. At first, in the garden of Eden, the word of God defined the course of action for man which was well-pleasing to God, and Satan’s successful effort was to contravene it, and to divert man from it. When man has deviated from the word of God, he must sink to the level of his own mind about everything, and is without any safeguard against Satan. The word is the revelation of God’s mind. It is to me what a map is in a country in which I am a stranger; the more it is adhered to, the more is its value known, and when I am deprived of it, I am exposed to every wile. It is simple that the word is the first thing; and whatever is the most important truth communicated, that is the one which Satan most insidiously and assiduously opposes. I have no map, no guide for anything, no safeguard or power against the devil, but as I maintain the word. But besides the word, there is the presence of the Lord. The word is the revelation of His mind; without it I am in complete ignorance; but having received the word as His, and being in conscience ruled by it, there is added His presence. When Adam had disobeyed the word of God, he was afraid, and hid himself from the presence of the Lord. To be in full enjoyment of the presence of the Lord is the highest favour which He can confer on us. The acme of everything is when the father says to the prodigal, “Let us eat, and be merry”.

Now in the Old Testament we constantly find the words, “The Lord said” so and so, that is, He communicated His mind, uttered His word, when He did not ^[p. 386] appear; but whenever He appears, it is with marked and peculiar blessing to the saint. The first one of whom this is recorded is Abram, in Genesis 12: 7. “The Lord appeared unto Abram”, and it is added, “and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him”; and without question, this and other appearances of the Lord to him — that of Melchisedec, in chapter 14, the visit of the three men in chapter 18, etc. — made an impression on Abraham which no communication, however great, could do, The communication is divine light given, but the presence forms one in heart in keeping with itself. Everyone knows the difference between the counsel of his friend and his personal presence. I need not multiply examples. The appearance of the Lord in the burning bush imparts to Moses the personal presence which was to support him in his work, as the appearance of the Captain of the Lord’s host in Joshua 5, was to encourage and uphold Joshua. The word sets forth the line of action, but the presence assures the heart of power direct from the Lord, to sustain one in the path prescribed by the word, so that we can understand the solicitude which Moses felt for the presence of the Lord when he said, “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence”.

The New Testament opens with the Word being made flesh and dwelling among us. We have the Word in personal presence. The nature and effect of it have been known on earth. The apostles knew it; while He was with them, they lacked nothing. When, therefore, He was leaving the world and going to the Father, He set forth in the figure of washing their feet how He would apply the word to separate them from whatever would distance them from Himself. He would so act on them that they would be detached from the defiling influence here. But this was not all the provision He had made for them during His absence. Their hearts were not to be troubled. By faith they were to follow Him where He would prepare a place, and as they ^[p. 387] loved Him they would keep His words, all that reminded them of Him while on earth. And besides, He would come to them; He would manifest Himself to them, He would dwell in their hearts by faith. By the word He would separate them from the defilement of the world, so that they could have part with Him; there would be no break to an unreserved intimacy, but by faith they would follow Him to heaven; and besides, He would not leave them orphans, He would come to them.

In the account of our Lord’s interview with the two disciples going to Emmaus, in Luke 24, we get the different effects of the word and the presence. First, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Never was there an exposition equal to this, and no subject could be so interesting. The effect of it was that their hearts burned within them while He opened unto them the Scriptures; and saints are often content with this. He instructed them in order to prepare them for the manifestation of Himself. Now when He was known to them in breaking of bread, they rose up at the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem; an energy was acquired which the greatest instruction had not imparted, and they were actually in the same path with Himself, for as they thus spake, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them. There will always be an effort of the enemy to divert us from the word; but there must be care also that the word is not rested in merely in its own most blessed light and communication, but that it carries us to its Author. This we see in Hebrews 4: 12 - 16. There the word is shown to be the great agent of blessing, “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart ... all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do”. The word carries us to God, but not only this,

^[p. 388] for now the presence of the Lord in sympathy is sensibly known to our hearts; verses 15, 16. We are scrutinised by the word, kept in the true path; and then we find the Lord in company with us in it, because the path which the word enjoins on us is the one which had been observed by Himself; and as soon as we are in the path, then do we enjoy His sympathy, supporting and sustaining us in all the difficulties on either side. Where the word only is known, there may be true divine joy, the joy of intelligence, which the communication of His mind must impart, but at best it is the conscience only which is enlightened; there is no happy model before one of the manner and habits which the word would produce. One is like a mechanic who, though well instructed in pulleys and every mechanical force, has never seen any of them in use. Now this accounts for the feeble and imperfect ways of many well taught in the word. No one can have the ways or manners of one very superior to himself except by being in his company. The word or the teaching is the guide to my conscience, but it is as I learn Jesus personally that I am really able, not only to quiet my conscience, but to go far beyond it. It is quite a different thing to point out to a child what to do by giving him clear rules about it, and to show him how it is to be done. There is often the rigid dictum, clear and comprehensive, but lacking the grace of life which is conveyed by a living example.

The Lord in John 17, when speaking of sanctification, says, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth”. This is the light and counsel by which they are to be set according to God. As the washing of the feet frees us from the defilement in the world, so does sanctification lead us into the path suitable to God. The word is the light for this path, but were it only the word, there would not be a known standard of sanctification or a defined measure of it. But when He adds, “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (or ‘in truth’, that is, characteristically), we find that the Lord Himself, who is the living expression of the word, is the standard and measure of sanctification. And while the word prescribes the path for me, yet it is only as I am kept in spiritual association with Him that I have the tastes and ways of a person separated unto God from all that is here, and then I understand the unique and holy course I am to observe here. I am sanctified in truth, I am characterised by it. It not only guides me, but I am a guide myself, because of its controlling power on me. I have not only received light, but my body is luminous. As the moon reflects the light of the absent sun, because attracted by it, and with nothing between them, so do I, by association in spirit with the Lord where He is, set forth the same character of separateness unto God as His; so that I have not only a direction as to what I ought to be, but I have a Model whose spirit and ways I imbibe as I am in association with Him.

The Lord keep our hearts more intently watching for Him until we see Him and are for ever like Him.