IN SEEKING EARTHLY BLESSINGS WE MISS THE HEAVENLY
[p. 122] IN SEEKING EARTHLY BLESSINGS WE MISS THE HEAVENLY
We are being taught that there is no rest here. I think we do not apprehend the full efficacy of the cross. For the Christian all is cleared away in the death of Christ for him, and all that is contrary to God in him. There is a reluctance to accept in faith all that the death of Christ has effected for us — where it has placed us — for to faith it has really placed us on the other side of Jordan (where there is no death) to enjoy Him our life for evermore, in His own place.
I am often struck with the way we have limited our blessing to our needs here. We see in Psalm 63, though God is looked for there in a very wonderful way, it is all with reference to man’s circumstances down here. How little one knows of the things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard! How little is known of joy in the Holy Ghost! The heavenly family instead of seeking and appropriating their own heavenly blessing, have lost sight of it, while coveting the blessings of the earthly family.
I was speaking on Matthew 8 and 14. Unless we are superior to our own circumstances in the grace of Christ, we are not ready to leave all here, to rise above everything and join Him where He is. I think the manna is not appropriated but as we are freed from ourselves by death with Christ, and then it is we join Him with the consecrated company where He is, and feed on Him as the “old corn of the land”.
There is no progress until you reach heavenly ground. The gospel puts you over Jordan. This is full deliverance because you are set in an entirely new place; but after this (as Joshua 5 typifies), there is preparation to enter on possession, and this Colossians 3 sets forth. There we have the progress after you have crossed the Jordan.
The more I think of Christianity the more wonderful it seems to me. We have the natural mind and the mind of Christ; the former thinks only of man; the latter thinks first of God.
[p. 123] How simple all is if we accept the course of the Spirit! It comes more and more before me the entire newness of the man in Christ. I find I have but a very small idea of the great difference between the earthly man and the heavenly. In the festive day Isaac got his right place, and the rival was now an intruder and cast out. I believe the practical difficulty with us all is to say — not Adam, in any form or quality, but Christ liveth in me! How blessed! I find here, and everywhere, there is not an idea of changing from Adam to Christ; and with regard to Christ there is little or no conception of the spiritual magnitude of His house, where His honour dwelleth.... Every believer likes to advance himself spiritually, but hardly any one likes to exchange himself for another Man. The first man, with his tastes and abilities all must go, and a new man comes in his place. It is in the second Man that we shall know one another by-and-by, and not in the first man.
I have been bringing before them the Christian’s charter. It dates from Christ going away rejected by man. All your privileges are derived from Christ at the right hand of God.
- Sins gone — He has sat down.
- The Holy Ghost come — He is exalted to God’s right hand.
- He is our Priest in heaven.
- Heavenly blessings are ours; He is the Forerunner.
- The assembly is His only spot on the earth, and as we understand the mystery, His body is owned on the earth.
- The rapture.
- We shall reign with Him.