OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE
[p. 265] OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE
The terms objective and subjective are used to express on the one hand what God has done in His grace, and on the other what we are in consequence, or the effect produced by what He has done or given us. His gift is intended to produce an effect, but it exists before anything is produced by it. It was objective when God made man in His own image, and, in addition to this, placed him in the garden of Eden, and surrounded him with gifts suited to his nature. Adam accepted the gifts, but, because he was not subject to what was appointed for him, he forfeited all. This is the case always with man when set in responsibility; when he does not answer to the gifts conferred on him, he forfeits them. A believer now does not forfeit the gifts when he receives them in vain, because they are ensured in Christ; but if the gifts do not produce their proper effect, the believer is as if he had forfeited them, for his responsibility is to enjoy them.
It was objective when God brought Israel into Canaan, and they were warned that they should forfeit it if they did not retain what had been given to them, on the terms that it had been given. Hence, though they were set in the land manifestly by the power of God, they did not retain it. They did not continue in possession in the way in which they were put into possession, consequently they were driven out of it. A saint now cannot be dispossessed of anything that God has conferred, but if the possession of any of His grace be not retained in the very way in which it was given, the enjoyment will be lost, and he will be as if he had never had it; nay, more, if he ever returns to the enjoyment of it again, it will be with something of the experience of the captives of Israel, returning to the land from Babylon. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Receive not the grace of God in vain”.
[p. 266] Thus we have seen how the responsible man suffered when the subjective was not in keeping with the objective; that is, when the recipient of divine favour was not correspondingly affected by it. In principle now the self-same scope of grace (like the one pound in Luke 19) is given to each believer, and he who does not turn it to good account, is like the man who laid up his pound in a napkin; he admitted and accepted the objective, but he refused the subjective; he took a carnal view of God’s grace. God can say to His people, “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” The objective was perfect, but the subjective was deplorable; they brought forth wild grapes.
The first great thing for us to own is that God has done everything for us according to His own pleasure. This is the objective. The next is, that I really possess and turn to good account what He has given me. Can anything be more marvellous than that the blessed God should have conferred, out of His own heart, the most inconceivable blessing? And as I know of this blessing, as the Spirit of Christ is in me, I cannot but cling to it as far as it is made known to me. Can we suppose any dereliction more unworthy than that I should know that He, out of His own heart, has conferred a great blessing on His people, and that I should treat it with indifference? Could anything more betray the low state of a soul than that one should admit that a certain grace had been conferred on him, but that he had not in reality given it a place. If he had in faith accepted it, it must speak for himself — “a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee”. I do not understand the heart of God if I do not see the vast range of grace in which He has placed me; and if I can say, I accept it, and am not correspondingly affected by it, I am practically in the flesh, and not in the Spirit. How could I accept what God had given me, and not be formed by it, if I were in His Spirit? “The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God”. If there be not the subjective in [p. 267] answer to the objective; that is, if the one right effect has not been produced, the gift has not been received in the Spirit, who only could maintain it. It has been received by the carnal mind, and there is no power to hold it.
The gospel is objective — “himself hath done it”. He “laid help upon one that is mighty”. His “own arm brought salvation”. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth”. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you”. And of the Egyptians “there remained not even one of them”. That is the objective. The subjective is, that faith appropriates what God has provided. The work has been perfectly done. “Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father”. “He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God”. Is it accepted? “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” If it be accepted by His own grace working in me, it must be the spiritual with the spiritual. I have, or rather I enjoy, the most wonderful effect. I am turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, and I have forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified through faith that is in me. All this I enjoy, and I advance in enjoyment. It arises from what I have been given; I do not see the full measure of the gift at first, but it is the same gift that I am finding out more and more of. There is nothing added to the thing given to me, though I take a long time to find out all that is in it; I know that I have received it, and it is this great gift of God which confers such new and unspeakable benefits on me, and imparts to me a new life, and a new power to adopt new interests and new modes of action, which is the subjective side.
In the Romans you get first what God has done. Speaking of Christ, the apostle says, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, ... that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”; again, righteousness “[p. 268] shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification”. Now, one might allege that before conversion one could not accept anything. This is quite true; but I am not offered in the gospel a thing partially finished, or a thing in parts, that could be separated the one from the other; I am offered a whole; and on believing, this whole of inconceivable proportions is given to me, though I may take a long time to get acquainted with it, even partially. This great gift is objective, and my reception of it is subjective. Now when I receive the gift in the Spirit, which is the only power and way in which I can receive it (faith is the gift of God), I find that the more I apprehend and enjoy the gift, the more I require to know it in its entirety. Otherwise it is not complete to me. All the parts, like the mechanism of a watch, are so connected that they are necessary to one another; and I long for the gift, or the objective, to be opened or unfolded to me, in order that I may, in the power of grace, enjoy it and be subject to it.
Thus when in faith I believe, and find that my sins are forgiven me, I do not stop there, but I grow into the additional truth that I am justified; and though this was true of me when I first believed, I did not know it; though the more I entered into the blessedness of forgiveness, the more I must have longed to know more, because more was necessary to complete to me the objective; and my getting more was really that the gift was more unfolded to me, not that I received a new gift, but that I am discovering more of the one and self-same gift of grace in the gospel which I had as yet only learned in one of its parts. This part had made me ready and eager for the next; even justification.
Now justified, my knowledge of the objective has increased, and I am in the gain of it; and as I am, the better am I prepared for the additional parts of this great whole; even that the old man has been set aside [p. 269] judicially in the cross; the old man has been crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed. I also learn that there is no good in me, and I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord; and I find “there is ... no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus”, but that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”. My state is an entirely new one, even as by grace I had been placed in an entirely new standing. The standing is the objective, and the state the subjective. If I had not the standing I could not have the state. The state is but the consequence of the standing — the effect to the gift; and advance in the state always depends on the measure in which the gift is known, provided that it is known in the Spirit, by whom it is given. When the gift is intellectually accepted, there is no effect from it; but this is always marked by a cold adhesion to the objective, without any reference to the effect, or any of those divine outbursts which characterise the minister of God, who is sensibly alive to the greatness of the favour which God has conferred. While on the other hand, when a teacher dwells too much on the effect, or subjective side, he generally sinks to human effort; he is vainly trying to make a part produce the effect that the whole only could produce; he is like one pressing a man to make his feet serve for his hands, or vice versa.
There is a state produced by every distinct part of the whole. When I am not assured of the grace which I require to place me nigh unto God, I am not free to manifest the effects of it. The subjective or effect cannot really receive my attention until I am settled and assured in the gift which produces it. This is self-evident. How could I, if I have any conscience, which is the sense of God’s claims on me, attempt to act as one who had accepted the gift, and the benefits of it, before I had it? Jonathan could not really love David, and make him his one absorbing object, while there was any fear of the giant. In most cases it is because there is [p. 270] such an imperfect apprehension of the objective, that there is so little of the subjective. Generally when a believer is defective in state, the cause is that he is defective in the apprehension of the gift which would have fitted him for it.
What we have seen with reference to the gospel, applies still more to the church. Unless I see the scope of God’s purpose in the church, how can I, in any degree, answer to it? Unless it be apprehended by faith in some of its vast proportions, I am, in demanding subjection to it, like one asking a child to be a man, something which is imaginary to it. True the grace of God has raised me to the highest stature, but I have not apprehended it, though when I do, I am only what He made me.
The church is the great mystery; and while many can be interested about it, yet it has not the same momentous interest to them that the gospel has. It is only as my heart deepens in affection to Christ, that the church becomes of the greatest interest to me. When He is so known, that He is indispensable to me, union to Him is a crown of glory to my heart, and ineffable satisfaction. Oh! that it were better known!
Now, it is as much God’s grace that the church is united to Christ in heaven, as that by grace we are saved. And as, in arriving at the great benefit of the gospel, the word that cheered and established us most was, that “himself hath done it”, the objective. So, in arriving at the great blessedness of being raised up together and being seated together in the heavenlies in Christ, the word that will best cheer and assure the heart is, too, that “himself hath done it”. I cannot have the subjective, however much I may desire it, until I am at rest about the objective; and as I know the power that wrought in Christ, I am in possession of the gift, which empowers me to act in quite a new way. It worketh in us.
I need not pursue the subject further, but we may rest assured that wherever there is a defect in the subjective, that is, when there is not a true answer to the [p. 271] gift, that the defect really is in the apprehension of the gift; just as when there is not a good impression from a seal, there must have been some defect either in the seal or in the way it was used. The beauty of a seal is disclosed by the impression which it makes. When the apostle feared the Colossians might slip, his way to confirm them was by insisting on the objective. When he would establish the Hebrews, he revived, with renewed depth, the objective; and thus he reminded the Corinthians, when their eyes were opened to their state, of the scope and magnitude of the grace which he now beseeches them not to receive in vain.