EARTHLY OR HEAVENLY
EARTHLY OR HEAVENLY
There are two places in which God blessed and blesses His people: at one time on the earth; at another, in heaven. Israel was blessed on the earth in Canaan. The [p. 180] saints now are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. The earth suits the natural man; it was given to the sons of men. The spiritual only could enjoy heaven; hence there is an identity between the spiritual and the heavenly. Every conscientious person knows how readily he is attracted by the pleasing things on earth; and how entirely distinct and at variance they are from heavenly things. We now are a heavenly people; but we are set on earth, and the exercise to our faith is to walk in consistency with our calling.
If it be not accepted that we are heavenly, there must be endless confusion in the attempt to regulate the church according to the calling and principles of an earthly people. The incongruous size of the mustard tree sprang from appropriating what was peculiar to Israel as an earthly people. The distinctiveness of the church calling has not been preserved. Imitating and adopting what belongs singularly to another always destroys individuality and makes one unreal, and unfit for everything. Let it first be admitted that the church is heavenly, and not earthly; and then let us ascertain how a company altogether heavenly, can be on the earth.
There are abundant passages to prove that the church is heavenly, both as to life, hope, and possession. Let us look at a few of them.
The Lord says in John 3, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven”. The eternal life is heavenly in its nature. Again in verse 31, “He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all”. So far we have a heavenly life on the earth; and in chapter 14 the Lord tells His own that He goes to prepare a place for them. “In my Father’s house are many mansions ... I go to prepare a place for you ... I will come again, and receive [p. 181] you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also”. So far we have a heavenly life, and a place prepared for us in heaven.
In 1 Peter 1: 3, 4 we read, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you”. This was now the hope of the Israel of God. They were looking for heaven now, as their fathers had looked for Canaan. Their prospects were connected with heaven, and not with earth, for here they suffered, and they were not to think it strange, the fiery trial that was to try them, as if some strange thing had happened to them.
So also Paul in writing to the Colossians, prays for them touching “the hope which is laid up for you in heaven”; while he warns the Hebrews of the day of provocation, lest there should be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. They were partakers of the heavenly calling, and their danger or snare was that they would sink to the old earthly standing in which Israel had been, and which christendom, to its loss and confusion, has adopted. These Hebrews had already proved the practical power of the heavenly hope. “For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance”. The food of heaven was known to them on earth, like the grapes of Eshcol, before they got there. In my judgment Peter refers to the persistent way in which Paul presses heaven as our only place when he writes, “Even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction”. While Paul in all his epistles had pressed that heaven was the only place, Peter speaks of all things on earth being burned up.
In Colossians 3 we are told to “seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth”. And again “Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth”. Finally in Ephesians we are not only “blessed ... with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ”, but we His body, are raised up, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him. Thus there can be no question but that the saints are heavenly in life, with a heavenly destination, and even now, blessed and seated in heavenly places in spirit. If the earthly be condemned nothing remains but the heavenly. Even James refuses the earthly and connects it with “sensual” and “devilish”. In one sentence Paul determines the matter, “as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly”.
Now it is not a mere contention whether we are an earthly people now, or a heavenly people, but it is of deepest importance to ascertain and to adhere to the character of our calling. Ignorance or indifference as to this great truth has been a bitter loss to souls individually, and has sadly obstructed the testimony committed to us.
I see in the gospels how carefully our Lord sets forth that His work was not only to deliver from human misery, but that He might give heavenly joy in the very spot where the misery is. The teaching of Luke 14 — the great supper — sets forth this, and contrasts heavenly joys with human joys. It is not that land, or oxen, or a wife are sinful, but they are earthly, and not the joys proper to the gospel. The fatted calf is peculiarly heavenly, and belongs to the Father’s house. The ransomed soul is brought to joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. The soul that is filled with the earthly thing has no taste for the heavenly. “The full soul loatheth an honeycomb”. Surely we all know if we study our own history that, while there has been much [p. 183] exercise of soul to reach the joy of salvation, which is called peace, there has not been persistent seeking for or sole expectation of heavenly joys, or feasting on the fatted calf, while we journey here. How little has even the matured believer grasped that the condition on earth of the saved soul is that he should never thirst, that there should be in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life! A perfect redemption through the blood of Christ, and an unclouded assurance of eternal acceptance are, thank God, enjoyed by many; but how many can say that they are in such practical enjoyment of this heavenly gift that they never thirst? and that they are so replete with it that out of them flow rivers of living water?
Now if the convert, like the young shoot, is not directed aright from his infancy, it is not possible, without beginning again, to lead him into the region of the church, which is absolutely heavenly. If he has not learned that only heavenly joys are given to him here, he, in seeking for or preferring earthly ones, will forfeit his own true happiness, and be subjected to vexations and many disappointments, besides being practically unfitted for the testimony. If, as I have said, the christian has been reared up wrongly, if he has grown up undirected, and untaught to joy in God, he is quite unprepared for the church’s portion in heavenly places. If he has never heard that the “fatted calf”, the joys of the Father’s house, are his present portion, made known to him by the Spirit come down from heaven, how can he desire to rise up to heavenly places, where Christ is, and enjoy them there as his right? If I do not know the taste of the grapes of Eshcol before I enter Canaan, I cannot long to be in the land, that I may eat them where they grow. We may well wonder, as we learn God’s calling for the church, that so few really enjoy the position of being united to Christ; that so few are in the enjoyment of being over Jordan, after the experience of Gilgal, remembering Christ in His death, because they [p. 184] are in spirit in the full efficacy of His accomplished work; and then feeding on Himself in glory — the corn of the land.
Now one way to account for this great lack is that there has been a defect in the christian education and calling from the beginning. God’s thought even, as set forth in type, was never merely to deliver His people from misery, or to find them a home in the scene of their former misery, but to translate them into the blessings of another place, as it is written, “I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey”, Exodus 3: 8. The hankering that Israel had after Egypt, and their reluctance to enter into Canaan lamentably depicts the career of saints now-a-days, only that Israel, better taught than the many in this day, knew that Canaan was their true destination on earth; and well it would be for souls, however behindhand they are, were they looking to reach here the enjoyment of ‘home comforts’ before they get home. The consequence of this ignorance or unbelief, as I have noticed, is twofold: first, an immense loss to the individual soul, and secondly, a complete barrier to the understanding of our corporate position and testimony. It is an immense loss to the believer if he has not learned that not only has the work of Christ delivered him from the misery in which sin has plunged him, but that now through the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, he has “joy unspeakable and full of glory”; for if he does not know this latter part, he is drawn away by the attractions of this present life. Hence the word even to young men who are strong is “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him”. In ignorance of the portion that has been given him, he hews out to himself cisterns that hold no water; he compasses himself with sparks of his own kindling; his righteous soul is often [p. 185] vexed, and everything is disappointing to him; for he has been looking in the wrong place for his happiness.
But that is not all: how can the saint who is seeking his pleasure in earthly favours, even of the best kind which nature, art, or science can produce, apprehend the mystery of God — the church — the body of a risen Head in heaven? How can one who has not turned to heaven as the sphere of his own joys, be prepared for the truth that he is one of a company united to Christ in heaven, raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ? The doctrine of the church as a heavenly company representing Christ here on earth is perfectly inscrutable to him. He has been looking for manifestation of divine favour on the earth; hence, though he has heard and read of the church, he regards it only in its earthly aspect. He has not known it as united to Christ, in the region where nothing could interfere with it. I may believe that the Holy Spirit is here, and that He dwells in me, and that He forms the body; but if I do not see and enjoy the fact that I am raised in company with all saints to the place where He is, I have no assured sense of union either with Him or with all saints; and the church is to me really an earthly thing, and not a heavenly, sent by Christ into the world.
In conclusion, it is impossible for any one who is not heavenly in taste, association, and hope, to comprehend the church as the body of Christ. There is union to begin with, but it is union in resurrection; hence the first action of one holding the Head is, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”. Many a one, through grace, enters into the gospel as delivering him from his misery as man on the earth, and assuring him an eternal home in heaven, who cannot grasp the church in its real character; because, though on earth, it is of a heavenly order.
One word I must add in order to explain how in things natural a heavenly man is to conduct himself here.
[p. 186] While I am heavenly in nature, I am here a child of Adam — the first creation. My Lord is the Creator, and as I am subject to Him, He disposes of me, according to His own pleasure, as He made me; so that under His rule, in my own person, I am in millennial favour, though not in millennial circumstances.
There is much accepted and owned in this day of the Spirit’s presence and indwelling; hence, it is necessary to insist that He does not lead to earthly joys. He leads to, and imparts, heavenly ones, and when the heart of the believer goes after natural gratification, a strange god, He is hindered and checked. It is not that He would lead us to despise or disregard the comforts which our Father’s care so continually provides for us in our path here; and He is ever ready to succour, and to console, and to help us in our infirmities: but while most effectually strengthening with all power according to the might of His glory unto all patience, He would satisfy our hearts with heavenly joys, so that even if we were deprived of all the comforts here, we should still have “joy unspeakable and full of glory”.