THE WORK OF CHRIST AND WHAT IT EFFECTS

THE WORK OF CHRIST AND WHAT IT EFFECTS

In order to understand the effect of a work, we must first know the nature and scope of it. The great defect in believers is that, while they believe in Christ, they have a limited or incorrect idea of what He has done. When I know the measure of Christ’s work, even though I may not be in the full enjoyment of all He has wrought out for me, I at least know what is mine, and I could not accept anything else. It will be found that in christendom the variety of sects arises from their varied limitations of the work of Christ. Christ’s work can be determined only by what He was sent to do. He can say in anticipation, in John 17, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do”. In like manner at the beginning of His ^[p. 397] course, with reference to the woman of Samaria, He says, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”.

The first thing, and the thing of the deepest interest to us, is to ascertain what was the work which was given Him to do, and which He has done. When we go back to the fall, we are told that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. Here we get a very definite and comprehensive view of Christ’s work. The power of the enemy is to be broken by Him; He is to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”. The full effect of His work in this respect is not yet manifested. Satan still rages. The time has not yet come when He will bruise Satan under our feet, but Satan was vanquished in the death of Christ, so that we can say, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? ... Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”.

The important thing for faith to apprehend is what Christ has done. He has abolished death and brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel. We are not to measure Christ’s work by our apprehension of it. True, there is no sense of its value but as we apprehend it in faith, yet it is of deep moment that we should have before our hearts the measure to be apprehended. It is clear to every exercised soul how little one walks here in the simple assurance that Satan’s power has been broken by Christ, that He has done this work. We practically realise it as we resist the devil; as it has been said, resist the devil, and when he finds Christ in you, he will flee from you. Now if we are feeble in our faith as to the subjugation of the power of the devil by Christ in His death, it will be found that we are still more so in our faith as to the place with God which His work has obtained for us: that it is according to His glory; that is, every attribute of His nature is maintained, His righteousness ^[p. 398] as well as His love, His light as well as His grace — all in harmony and balance, one beautiful whole.

When we read that “by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified”, what an immense scope and measure is presented to our minds! All that was typified by all the offerings is fulfilled in divine perfection. In His one offering we are brought, according to God’s holiness, not only from the greatest distance, but to the greatest nearness; we are entitled to be in the Holiest of all by the work of Christ. It is of all importance that we see that the work which sheltered us from the judgment of God, the worst and most distant place, is the same which has given us title to enter the brightest and the best place. If His work has done the one, so has His work, and His work only, obtained for us the other.

Now in His one offering there was the burnt-offering, the meat-offering, and the peace-offering, as well as the sin-offering. The latter gave the blessed God liberty to have us in the Holiest, and through it we are entitled to enter; but besides, in His presence we have fellowship with Him in His satisfaction in Christ as the Man who glorified Him on earth in death and in life, and who is ever the prosperity-offering for every believer. It is most important to see that it is the finish of Christ’s work which alone can declare the full effect of it. True, in my soul I may not have reached the finish, but surely if I have not the finish of it before me as He finished it, I have accepted a lower measure than what He has done, and here, though unintentionally, I dishonour Him and suffer loss myself. In all ordinary things the value is unknown until the execution is completed.

The gospel is generally regarded as safety from future judgment because of faith in the blood of Christ, with present earthly favour and heaven after death. This is rather the blessing of the millennial saint than of the christian. It is evident that Christ’s work secured the blessing of the millennial saint as well as that of the christian. The point to maintain is that His work, with ^[p. 399] nothing superadded to it, has secured the blessing of both the one and the other. His work, blessed be His name, has obtained a place for the christian in company with Himself, typified by the sons of Aaron consecrated. We are thus, as His companions, those who have derived from Him. “Behold I and the children which God hath given me”. “Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”. His work has secured for us a like place or position with Himself. Hence we are here but strangers and pilgrims, and now earthly prosperity is not to be expected. The work which enabled God, according to His glory, to have us in His house with Himself, the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, is the same work in virtue of which Jesus will yet, as Melchisedec, come forth and bless Israel on the earth; while we, the church, are blessed in heaven as co-heirs with Christ, the same work, but with a different blessing to each company. We might have expected this from the simple fact that on the day of atonement there was the blood of the bullock for Aaron and his house, the heavenly company; and the blood of the goat for Israel, or the earthly company. In the type there were two bloods; in the antitype, of course, only one blood — the blood of Christ.

Now not only is nearness to God, as the Holiest typifies, secured for us by the work of Christ, but also His place is our place. Surely it is not enough to hold that the work of Christ effects a clearance of all guilt; that is only a part of the great whole. The work of Christ is described, “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”; not only great as it would be — to save us from judgment, but to bring us to God. We have seen that by one offering Christ has effected, according to His own infinite perfection, all that was shadowed forth in types. Thus our approach to God by His work can only be measured by Himself; nay, the very glory resting on Him, as the One who has established everything ^[p. 400] according to God where man dishonoured Him, transforms us into “the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”. Hence we are not only in nearness, but in likeness too. Consequently the complete effect of His work is to set us in the same place as He is. His work sets us there in the heavenly places in Him. God said to Moses, “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”. It was in the mind of God one work. It is as much the work of Christ by His death to open heaven to us, as it was by His blood to shelter us from the judgment in Egypt.

There are four aspects of His death, and it is thus in parts that we apprehend it. We learn first how His blood shelters us from judgment. Then, when we believe in the death and resurrection of Christ, we are not only clear of all our guilt, but we are really as the type sets forth, brought to God; we can sing, “Thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation”. Practically, according to the type, we are not in Canaan yet; we have to learn experimentally the death in Numbers 21. The Son of man is lifted up, and He is now our life; “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”. Now, in the liberty of His life, I am not only dead to sin, but I also learn that having died with Him, I am dead to the world. I am across Jordan; I am in heaven. We are often a long time reaching up to this, the full effect of His work; and yet it is the same work which sheltered us from judgment which lands us in heaven. This is exemplified in the thief on the cross. In one step he is transferred from the deepest degradation and distance to the greatest elevation, and there with Christ — the most honoured position. The same work brought him from one place, the lowest and the worst, to the highest and the best. The man who would limit Christ’s work to the first part, and leave out the other, would not only deprive ^[p. 401] himself of the highest blessing, but would grievously misrepresent the service of our Lord Jesus Christ. It might be urged that the case of the thief on the cross was exceptional. I only adduce it to prove that a believer could in one step, in a moment, learn the full effect of the work of Christ. Nay, more; it is plain that a believer on the earth receives from heaven the Spirit, the promise of the Father, consequent on Christ being glorified; not only a well of water springing up into everlasting life, not only, I repeat, lighting up the heart with the resources which are in Christ, so that he who drinks of it never thirsts, but he is so enriched that out of his belly flow rivers of living water. It is hardly possible to conceive the exaltation vouchsafed to a man in the scene of all his misery and feebleness, even to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you”. And, moreover, He is the bond of union between us and “the head of the body, the church”, making us know “the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places”. That is, being united to Christ by the Holy Spirit, I can know here on earth the power which set Christ in heavenly places, which raised Him from death, the lowest, man’s lowest place, up to God’s right hand in the heavenly places; and we all, who were dead in sins, are quickened together, and raised up together, and made to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. That is, the work of Christ has spanned the whole distance between God and man, and His place before God is, through grace, the believer’s place. We are not only cleared of all our offences, but in the life of Him who cleared us, we “joy in God”, and we are the delight of His heart. He can say, “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad”. The “man in Christ” can pass into the highest place, “the third heaven”, and there he ^[p. 402] is received, not merely as a guest, but as one fit and welcome to the innermost circle; all this being simply and solely effected by the work of Christ.

May our hearts apprehend the effect of it more perfectly day by day, for His name’s sake.