THE CHRISTIAN STANDING
THE CHRISTIAN STANDING
The christian standing is where the blessed God puts the believer. The measure and greatness of it can be found out only in proportion as God Himself is known. The knowledge of God is necessary in order to form any idea of the standing in which He sets the believer. The believer may know that he is justified — that he is in liberty — but he has no idea of the measure or greatness of it but as he knows the One who has put him in this nearness to Himself. This is the first thing. The next is, that no amount of relief or satisfaction to my own heart can define or describe the nature of my standing. A child has a standing with his parent, but he cannot define or measure it by his own satisfaction with it. The parent has placed him in it, and no one but the parent himself can define the measure of his will. If I place myself in relation to any one superior to myself, I am assured of my success by the way I am received by him; but if my superior places me in any standing in relation to himself, then it is he who only can tell the measure in which he has placed me. If I owe a man a debt, and if I pay him, I know the nature of my standing with him. I have effected it myself. But if he forgives me, he must explain, above and beyond my own relief, his motive, or the nature of his act, in for [p. 304] giving me. When there is a breach between any two, it makes all the difference whether it is the offender who repairs it or the offended one. If it be the former, he has the feeling that he has justified himself; but if the offended undertakes to repair the breach, the offender can form no just measure of the nature of the reparation, beyond the position in which he finds himself. The offended one, who of himself repaired the breach, alone could explain what was involved in his act. True, the offender knows that the breach is repaired, but he cannot tell what is the measure of the reparation; that rests with him who effects it, and is in keeping with his own sense of the offence done to him. But if the man whom I have offended loves me, and I am unable to make reparation, if he effects reconciliation for me, it must be according to what his love requires. He cannot bear that the distance should continue; it is my offence that causes the distance; it is love which makes him wish for it to be removed, while, with me, it is the distance of an offender who has wronged the one whom he was bound to love and honour. In order to remove the distance, and place me where his love desires, he must remove the cause of the distance; and when he does, the distance cannot continue, and his love rejoices in the reconciliation which he has effected; but the nature of the standing of the reconciled one with him, no one can define or explain but himself; though the reconciled one grows in apprehension of the range and measure of the intention in effecting the reconciliation, as the knowledge of the love is known.
Now, when we come to God and the sinner, the latter is the offender, and at enmity irreconcilable, because not sensible of the enormity of his offence. If he is to be reconciled, God Himself must effect it. The sinner is not like a debtor who longs to make amends to pay his debt, but he is like one who owes so much that the very sight of his creditor is a terror to him. The sinner has an innate sense that he has injured implacably, as far as [p. 305] desert goes, the One to whom he owes most; but there is no inclination to own the extent of the distance in which he has placed himself, and still less to accept the fact that it is impossible to remove the distance from his own side. To begin with, he does not see the nature of the distance, and if he did see it, it would only aggravate his misery, because he is incapable, or resourceless, to remove it. “The redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever”. There would be no use in his giving the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul (Micah 6: 7).
First, then, the sinner, though suffering from his sinful distance from God, does not want to see the full nature of that distance because the more he sees it, and the real nature of it in the sight of God, the more oppressed he must be under the conviction that he could not avert the judgment of God, though the more sensible of deserving it. Consequently, a sinner in his state towards God differs from the ordinary debtor towards his fellow-man. The ordinary debtor would at least like to rid himself of an intolerable load. He looks carefully into his accounts, and sets himself steadily to accept the best terms he can get for liquidating his debt; he would like to know the full extent of the claim, and he longs to be clear of it. The sinner knows that there is a claim, and a just one; but he does not like to investigate closely its full extent, and still less to open his eyes to the startling fact, that he has “nothing to pay”. Hence the way of grace is entirely unknown among men; for if one forgives his fellow, or a parent a child, or a sovereign a subject, it is preceded by a petition to that effect from the offender. The offender admits his guilt, and seeks pardon and restoration to his former position, whatever that might have been. The sinner hates to own his guilt, or to look in the face the judgment so justly imposed on him. He hates to touch the question at all, as to its real character; and even though religious, he declines to see himself beyond what his own good works would effect for him.
[p. 306] If he had any true idea of God and His judgment, he would at once own that he was irretrievably lost, except through the intervention of another, not chargeable with his guilt, bearing the judgment due to him, and at the time of bearing it, presenting a full personal excellency. The natural man is enmity against God; he is “not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be”. When, through a blinded conscience, he would, like Cain, better his relations with God, he entirely denies the nature of God, and the holiness of His judgment. This is the state of the unawakened conscience; while the state of the awakened one, as we see in Adam, is to hide from the Lord among the trees of the garden, because he knew that he was naked — that he had, by his sin, reduced himself to this condition.
If we do not see the immense difference between the sinner, with respect to God, and any ordinary debtor, with respect to his creditor, we cannot understand the course and action of the grace of God. It is an unknown thing among men that any creditor should cancel the debt, when there is no wish for it on the part of the offender. Again, we must bear in mind that no one could be under the same penalty to his fellow as the sinner is to God. I might murder my neighbour, and the law would in justice, require my life; but though that is the most any man could require from me, for that is my all, yet, with regard to God, though I die, I do not by my death set myself right with Him, and cancel the sin on account of which I have incurred death, because I remain under the judgment when I fall under it. Unless my relations with God are re-established before death overtakes me, I must remain under the doom which has come upon me, through death.
Let us remember, then, before we enter on the nature of the christian standing, that we must first see that the sinner is an offender irreconcilable in his very nature, and that the wages of his sin exceed anything and everything known or heard of among men. Well. Bearing [p. 307] these two great facts in mind, we now come to see how God, in His grace, places the believer before Himself.
It is plain He must not only save him from judgment, in some divine way — for no ordinary way could effect it; but He must produce an appreciation in the heart of the sinner, even faith in the work which has been done. The blessed God must not only remove the sinner s distance from His own side, and according to His own satisfaction, but He must awaken and enlighten the sinner as to the real nature of His goodness and love.
We start, then, with the amazing fact, that it is God — the One who has been offended and abandoned — who is the only One that moves in the salvation of the sinner. The sinner will not move. God follows Adam! Let the heart conceive the magnitude of that, of the love that follows a beloved fallen creature, in order to save him, and to bring him into the happiest relations with Himself. Can we understand the love of God, the manner of that love, which is the greatest, deepest governing principle, when there is goodness, seeking to obtain all it desires, when sin is in the object of the love? This is perfect love in perfect holiness. The love is determined to reach and recover its object, while holiness insists that it cannot be done but in perfect holiness. The holiness is divine, as well as the love. The love could not enjoy itself if it secured anything at the expense of the holiness. But now, in order to secure holiness, there must be first righteousness for the guilty. Holiness gives stability to the love; every expression of it is in perfect holiness, and therefore there can be no deviation from any expression of it.
The subject for our contemplation is how the blessed God can place the sons of men, now under judgment because of sin, and alienated from Him by wicked works, according to His delight. There are plainly two great works to be effected ere this great consummation can be attained. The first is, that He is able, through the intervention of Another, to regard the sinner quite clear,
[p. 308] according to His own idea of clearness; that is, that He can justify him. The other work is in the sinner, so that he surrenders his enmity, and, in an entirely new feeling, draws near, and accepts the grace of God that brings salvation. Until this consummation is reached in this twofold way, we cannot seize or understand christian standing. The blessed God — as we see in the garden of Eden — resolves, according to His nature, to retrieve man’s lost condition in His own way, and we are told at the outset how it is to be effected. When Adam admits his transgression, God not only announces the way He will effect salvation for man, but, as a significant expression of His heart, He clothes both of them with skins, necessarily procured by the death of the animals; that is, setting forth figuratively that God will recover man, through sacrifice, from the ruin of judgment under which he is placed. His holiness is inexorable; they are driven out, but thus clothed, they wear the significant token of divine grace.
How little do we enter into the way the blessed God has sought to express His heart compatibly with His glory; that is, with all His attributes; to express His heart towards man who had sinned, and come short of His glory, and had thus distanced himself from Him. In the way God treated Adam and Eve, the great principles which governed Him came out. His purpose was to save. They carry the assurance of this with them in a twofold way. God had, in a figure, commended His love to them. The purpose of God is, not merely to rescue from judgment, as benevolence would do to a great sufferer, but to place him in the happiest relation to Himself. It is not as a sovereign seeking to effect an amnesty and full pardon for his rebellious subjects, but God, who follows man to his hiding place, and calls to him, “Where art thou?” This is not even a father’s heart going out after an erring child, but the eternal God, not ashamed, as I might say, to declare that He willeth not the death of a sinner; that it is not merely the comfort or gain of the [p. 309] sufferer that sways Him, but the positive delight it is to Himself to see him not only saved, but happy.
Let us briefly review God’s dealings with man. For fifteen hundred years after the fall man was left to himself. God was not unmindful, for before the seventh fell under the judgment of death, He arrested it in the person of Enoch; and this man, the seventh from Adam, was not only the trophy of grace as to salvation, but he was also a sample of the man restored to God — not merely acquitted and justified, placed without a charge before the great Executive, but he walked with God; and “he was not; for God took him”. We are told he “pleased God”. Here you have a man, before the judgment on man was confirmed by a complete number, “translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.... He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him”. Enoch not only believed, but he believed in God’s nature. Now this is a main point, because it is the very reversal of the act of the first man in the garden of Eden, who would not give God credit for His nature, even that He is the Rewarder — not a Saviour merely, not merely justifying the ungodly, but a Rewarder (mark the word!) and a Rewarder, not for good works, but for an acknowledgment of a verity, even what God is in Himself.
Now when violence covered the earth, God brought a flood of waters upon it. It repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart: “all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth”. Noah and his house are saved in the ark; all the rest died. “All flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man”, Genesis 7: 21.
[p. 310] Here is a great crisis. Man in the flesh has proved an utter failure, but grace comes in, and Noah and his house are saved — covered in the ark (figuratively the death of Christ) — so that there is no flesh to be seen on this universe. All flesh was either drowned in the waters of judgment, or covered in the ark, and we may safely conclude that it is a type of the far greater salvation and judgment, when our Lord says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”. But Noah, saved from judgment finds access to God through the altar of burnt-offering. Noah enters on a new history on the earth where he was a few months ago, not only saved from judgment by the ark, but now, out of judgment, he is in the favour of God, and he is His central object of interest here on the earth, though as a man he was nothing better, “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth”. The great thing we learn from Noah’s history is, that God not only saves, but that He secures man’s happiness and prosperity in the very spot where he had failed; and this, not only for man’s own sake, but because it is a matter of interest to Himself. The more one dwells on this, the more is the heart filled with adoration to Him for making us objects of His interest.
Again, when Babel was the outcome of man’s independence of God, He calls out Abram. I cannot enter minutely into the way in which God blessed Abraham, and what an object of interest he was to Him, so that he was called the friend of God; but I must refer to the new ground in which God sets him before he became the father of many nations. He “believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness”. The natural unbelief of man’s heart, and self-reliance, were displaced by faith in God. God had His own perfect way to reach the sinner, and this Abraham learns as soon as he, in the spirit of his mind, turns to God, and has faith in Him. Surely the desire of God is not merely to justify Abraham.
[p. 311] in order that he might escape judgment, that he might stand clear, or justified, before the great Executive; but that He might have him for Himself, and use him as His friend here, in the very scene of man’s sin and departure from God.
Now we come to law. It is not possible to understand the value of the law, or the necessity for its introduction, if we do not bear in mind that there is a determined unwillingness in man to own himself a lost, guilty sinner; and, were it not for the law, many would persist in their boast, that they had done nothing wrong. “By the law is the knowledge of sin”. Man generally must admit that he has broken the law in some way or another; and he that offends in one point is guilty of all (James 2: 10). Breaking the law is not the entrance of sin, it is the exposure of what exists there already. True, in a case like Saul of Tarsus, there was no self-condemnation, because his own conscience was his only judge. He had not come before God. As soon as the light of God’s presence shone round about him, he fell to the earth — he had no standing before God; he finds “the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin”. The law set forth what God required of man, if he were to live here on the earth according to His pleasure. There could be no proper order here on earth, unless the righteousness of the law was maintained; but as by the deeds of the law should no flesh be justified in His sight, the very moment the law was given, and in the same scripture (Exodus 20), the altar is given, where it is said, “In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee”.
Now the believing thief on the cross in his own person combined these two experiences. Irretrievably under the judgment of the law one minute — so irretrievably, that, up to that moment, God had no way to rescue him from its inexorable demands; he must be cast out from the earth, because he had broken the law; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and now “where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound”. Not only is there the sin-offering there in the Person of Christ, taking the sinner’s place, but what the altar sets forth — the burnt-offering and peace-offering are there also. He does not return to an earthly paradise, but he is suited in taste and condition for the paradise of God — companion there of the Son of God. It is not only safety, and that even of the most perfect order, but it is the enjoyment of the highest place in nearness to God, where Paul heard “unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter”; translated, indeed, from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love — from the darkest, deepest, most inconceivable misery and distance from God, to the brightest, holiest, and happiest scene in nearness to God; an unspeakable joy to him, and a delight to God which is to us incomprehensible; and that was his standing.
I would add a word, in passing, as to the day of atonement. In those sacrifices there was a remembrance of sins every year. There is the Lord’s lot, and there is the scape-goat, as well as the sin-offering for Aaron and his household. I merely call attention to it, in order to corroborate what I have already advanced — the twofold object and value of Christ’s work, how He has cleared everything perfectly, up to the virtue of His blood sprinkled seven times on the mercy-seat, not merely to effect an escape from judgment for the believer, but to establish a positive right of entrance into the holiest. He has entered into heaven itself with His own blood, there to appear in the presence of God for us, so that the worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sins. “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more”. Now where there is remission of these, there is no more offering for sin. The sins confessed over the head of the scape-goat are carried into the land of forgetfulness. The believer is placed by the blood of Jesus in a nearness to God beyond any possible expectation; where sin abounded, grace has much more [p. 313] abounded. The high priest could not enter into the figure of the true but once a year with the blood of others, but now the believer has an established right of entrance, and an inalienable place in the holiest of all, in the brightest, holiest place. The prodigal has not only returned to the land, but, through grace, he finds that his home now for ever is in the Father’s house — not only to his own unspeakable delight, but to the gladness of the Father. Who can find words great enough to speak of this? its meaning is more than we can ever comprehend. “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found”. This is christian standing.
I would now turn to the gospels, and gather from them the nature and measure of the new place, or standing, which the blessed Lord set forth in pattern — the result and object of his work. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the Lord first shows how He can lift off every pressure that lay on man. There are, I might say, three great sections in His work: first, that of relieving the sufferers of their sufferings. People were greatly attracted to Him, until He, by sending the swine into the deep, indirectly condemns their surreptitious way of evading the law, by making merchandise of swine which they must not eat. Then they prayed Him to depart out of their coasts. There was, first, then, the simple relief of the actual suffering, irrespective of the moral state of the sufferer. Next, the sufferer is not only relieved, but he is in heart attracted to the Lord. See the Legion — he was not only relieved, but he desired to be with Him. Thirdly, the woman in the Pharisee’s house was forgiven her sins. This is moral. The man that fell among thieves not only finds a Saviour, but is set on His own beast, and cared for at His expense for evermore. The prodigal is brought to the Father’s house; forecast of what was to come. And, lastly, through His death, the thief, from the lowest place with man is brought to the highest place with God, where the blessed Lord Himself is. Could anything [p. 314] surpass the position in which the believer is placed? And it is still more full in John’s gospel. There he has perfect divine happiness from inexhaustible resources in him, a well of water springing up into eternal life; and this, moreover, is outwardly demonstrated, for “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. Believers are transferred, while on earth, from the deepest misery to divine joys, by the Spirit dwelling in them; and from the most painful helplessness to the mighty power of God. And, consequent on Christ’s death, they are “all of one” with Him — His brethren; and because in community of relationship with His Father and His God, they are necessarily in common nature and position with Him. “As he is, so are we in this world”. This, great as it is, is the true and only christian standing.
I must now add a little on the doctrine of our standing as I find it in Romans and Ephesians. In the one it is essentially the gospel, and in the other the church. Our standing is unfolded more particularly in the former, while our relation to Christ, whose work has placed us in our standing, is opened out in the latter; and thus the standing is in full relief, in order to set forth how positionally qualified we are for the most intimate association.
In Romans it is the gospel of God — God’s good tidings. They come from Him; they are entirely the offspring of His own love. He satisfies His love. Hence it is not only the blood of the sin offering brought into the holiest, as was typified in the day of atonement; but the carcase, as execrable, burnt without the camp. This was the sin-offering. But there is also the burnt-offering. Christ who had glorified God here on earth, not only in private life manwise, but displaying the Father’s heart toward man, doing good, so that on the mount of transfiguration He was saluted by the glory. The glory of God had been vindicated on the earth by a Man; hence they saw His glory. They were eye-witnesses of His majesty. But He does not accept it save [p. 315] for a moment, then He comes down to die for us under the judgment of God, not merely death, but death under judgment, the old man crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed. It is gone in judgment. Consequently He is the propitiation or mercy-seat through faith in His blood, and then, too, were fulfilled our Lord’s words when Judas went out: “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him”. The blessed Lord goes down into death — offers Himself. Willingly in heart He undertakes to secure the glory of God, where there is judgment on man who came short of it. He undertakes, not merely to bear the judgment and to save man, but to glorify God. The main thing before His mind was the perfect satisfying of the glory of God at the greatest judicial distance from it; so that He was raised from death, the deepest mark of man’s distance from God. And thus He has not only placed us as believers in a condition of safety, or exemption from judgment, as completely as if the judgment had never existed, but He has placed us so that God could justify us; we are made the righteousness of God in Him; what Christ is, is the measure of our justification; it introduces us into God’s presence as Christ stands there, so that we are not only clear but in the fullest acceptance. “As he is, so are we in this world”, and therefore there is peace to us — peace in which there is not a single disturbing element, while the love of God, the spring of all the grace, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. It is not only that the love has acted for us, and God Himself commends it to us, but the Holy Spirit is given to us to shed it abroad in our hearts. The highest subject is proclaimed in our hearts by the greatest power. Then indeed we know that we are the sons of God, “for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”. The results tell how great our standing is, for we are not only at peace with God, but [p. 316] His love is the theme of the Holy Spirit in our hearts; so that, as His sons, we begin our new history here on the earth. In the very highest relationship to God — His sons, we sojourn in a groaning creation; and we groan in ourselves; but we are borne up by His Spirit, and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. All this is the effect of christian standing; thus expounding its magnitude.
One word on the Ephesians, and I must bring this paper to a close. I have pointed out the magnitude of the standing of Romans, which is proved by the state which is consequent on it; and now I have only to add, that the one in the highest standing is, in company with all saints, the body of Christ. Each and all by the mighty power of God are incorporated into this wonderful structure, of which He is the Head. And hence our standing there is that we are quickened together with Christ, raised up together, Jew and Greek, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. Our place then is in the heavenlies in Christ. There is no meaning in being His body unless the same power which raised Him from the dead has raised us. And though our position as to nature and rank could not be higher than it was already, because we are His brethren — the sons of God, yet, as Sarah, though as to personal nature and life as high as Abraham her brother, obtained a place of the closest intimacy when she was united to him, so the church, by union with Christ, does not obtain any position as to nature higher than had already been bestowed as sons of God, which the Spirit recounts in the early part of Ephesians 1; but as His body and bride she is brought into the closest union and participation with Christ in all that is His. In a word, if we had not the great standing which we have through Christ, we should not be in any way suitable for Christ as His complement, we should not be a real antitype of Eve, who was formed out of Adam and to be a help meet for him. Christ, I may say, has not been united to one who is in [p. 317] any sense incapable of communion with Him, for she has His nature. The very nature which He is as man, though Son of God, is that of which we each are, through new creation. But being this, we are advanced to the closest intimacy and co-partnership with Him in all that He is as the last Adam; and the church is thus His completion. So that to see “the Christ”, or Christ complete, you must see the church united to Christ — His body. And as such (invested with immeasurable power as to our apprehension) we give glory to God (see Ephesians. 3: 18, 20). “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen”. There is thus glory in the church even now; even as the new Jerusalem shall descend from God out of heaven having the glory of God. We not only through grace have come to His glory, but we are the vessel and witness of His glory here on the earth. Blessed and eternal God! Thy salutation to man, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”, has been responded to here, and the least and the lowest have been, through Thy grace, made to inherit the throne of glory; and in the Spirit of Thy Son to echo and swell it in the deepest praise and worship.
To sum up: Jesus as the sin-offering suffered without the gate — terrible moment, beyond all human conception! And His blood is sprinkled on the mercy-seat, which was the first thing Moses was directed to make, thus indicating that the first and chief object in the heart of God — Christ Himself, is the place His people will occupy. Christ, as the burnt offering, was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. Hence the believer is now in Him according to all His value and acceptance — a sweet-smelling savour; and thus justified, the Holy Spirit is given to us; we are not in the flesh, we are in the Spirit — sons of God. This is christian standing.
[p. 318] Once in the far country, now in the Father’s house. Once at the distance of exceedingly fearing; now in the holiest. Once dead; now quickened together with Christ and raised to heaven in Christ. These, one and all, corroborate the magnitude of the believer’s standing.