DIVINE TEACHING
DIVINE TEACHING
I am indeed thankful for the way you write about the heavenly side of truth, I believe in your heart no other could please you. If you were dead you would be in unbroken enjoyment with Christ where He is. You are a new being with divine ability to enjoy Him, but the marvel of God’s grace is, that we who are saved from the ruin and misery of the first man, are left down here where we were in misery, to be not only in abounding joy by the Spirit, but still more, to be here as members of His [p. 16] body — descriptive of the heavenly Christ, where He is not. The calling is God’s calling, and none but God could produce this in either you or me. The treasure is in an earthen vessel. The Spirit’s ministry attaches me to Christ (Ephesians 4: 13), and God’s hand in discipline severs me from every obstruction, as it is felt to be an obstruction. These two actions are always going on. The Spirit attaches and discipline detaches.
.I believe many do not in their faith go beyond millennial saints. I am studying the difference between the saint now and the saint in the millennium. Forgiveness, absolute forgiveness of sins and earthly joys can go on together. To be subject to the Holy Ghost’s control can be accepted in terms while seeking earthly things. The law as the rule of life can be accepted while seeking earthly things. Remembering the blood, its efficacy, and the benefit of Christ’s work, in adoration and worship, can go on with earthly things.
The easy way of getting at truth through the Synopsis has injured many. The divine teaching is not one bit easier now than it ever was. There is no advance in occupation with Christ without a corresponding displacement in you. Christ is not magnified in my body but as the flesh is driven back. God only can do this.
As to the life of our Lord here in the flesh it was wholly consistent with eternal life. He was ever the expression of God. There was a divine beauty about each act, though He was a real man. He never learned anything from any one but God. But I do not like defining. Christ is my life now. He was here, He is in heaven, and He will never be here again as He was here. He lives unto God. I believe many imagine that Christ lived here as the saints will live in the millennium. I think the great teaching of the first three gospels is that Christ raises me above everything, not that He removes storms and troubles from me. He makes me superior to them, because He was in them; now He is not in them; He is quite out of them, and there I am called to enjoy Him.