THE STEPS OF FAITH
[p. 164] THE STEPS OF FAITH
Exodus 15: 1 - 19; Romans 6: 15 - 23
I want with the Lord’s help to indicate the line on which souls are led on. God has not two ways with His people. The details may differ and our experiences may differ, but there can be but one way of God with His people. We have one starting-point and there is but one terminus, but there are several steps between. These steps I shall indicate in Romans 6. (1) They were the servants of sin, but they had obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine delivered to them. Then the next step (2) “servants to righteousness”; then (3) “fruit to holiness”; and then (4) eternal life. I want to touch on these steps, because you get them illustrated in Exodus 15. It is wonderful that we can have these steps illustrated in the history of Israel. Israel were conducted personally and outwardly, but the course of God’s dealings with them was figurative and they are “written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come”. While God was dealing with man the end of the world had not come. Now I will take you up these three steps. (1) We have obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine delivered to us. I believe that refers to baptism. Baptism is not doctrine, but it is the form of doctrine. Until a Christian apprehends the spiritual significance of it (and it must be apprehended) you cannot say that his real history with God has begun. We are baptised unto His death, and there our history with God begins. In early days no one would have been recognised as a Christian if he refused to submit to baptism. But in Romans 6 the apostle says, “Ye have obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine”. They were delivered to it — to baptism — just as Israel was baptised to Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Baptism is a kind of setting [p. 165] forth of salvation. You can see this in Israel. They were free of the Egyptians as they were baptised in the cloud and in the sea. It indicated that they were free of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Where baptism is apprehended it has a saving character. It delivers from an ungodly world and an untoward generation. Through baptism you are thus saved. God has saved us by “the washing of regeneration”, which is an allusion to baptism. Peter, too, speaks of it: “the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us”. It was a kind of indication of deliverance from an ungodly world. Baptism in a corrupted Christianity has lost its import. They connect it with life instead of its being an indication of being delivered from an ungodly world. The Lord says, “I have a baptism to be baptised with”. It meant His dissociation from an ungodly Judaism. With the believing Jew it had this significance. I hope it is true of all of us that we have begun there, that we have realised the import of our baptism. Children may be baptised, but a moment comes when we come to the moral import of it. We have been separated from an ungodly world with Christ in view. It is of extreme importance that we get a beginning of our course according to God. The real course of Israel began with being baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Now the next step, when we obey the form of doctrine into which we have been delivered, is we get our freedom from sin. Sin is the principle which dominates in this world. Lawlessness dominates. Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but for the time being sin dominates; but we have got our freedom from sin, from the power which dominates, and thus we become the servants of righteousness. We are brought to a great many things before we understand them. We do not understand anything unless we are brought to it by divine leading. Many here, perhaps, could not give me a very clear idea of what becoming [p. 166] servants of righteousness means, and yet they are so, that is, they are the servants of righteousness. I shall try and give you an idea of it. It means that you stand in relation to the Sun of righteousness. Every planet is a servant to the law of the universe and revolves in its appointed orbit in relation to the sun. The sun of our system (I speak of the moral system) is the righteous One, Christ. He is the Sun of righteousness, because He is the righteous One and He has accomplished righteousness, that is, He has removed in death the lawless one. He has entered into all that which the lawless man was liable to, but He has terminated the lawless man in the eye of God, and hence it is — Christ is the Sun of righteousness. Christ is the law (I speak of law in the sense in which I spoke of it in connection with the solar system) of the moral universe. Scripture leads us to see a new heaven and new earth in which righteousness resides, and for this reason that it is the rule of the moral universe. We are placed in relation to Christ and to one another and that in grace. What is the practical effect of that? Just as the earth is held in its place by the principle of attraction to the sun, we are placed in relation to Christ, and the effect is we maintain fidelity in every relationship in which we are set. We are the servants of righteousness, and we stand in relation to the Sun of righteousness and then we get our direction from the Sun; the effect is we maintain fidelity in every divinely appointed relationship. There is obligation in the Christian economy. We ought to love God and to love Christ, and we ought to love one another. We are bound to love God. But we are bound to Christ by the Spirit of Christ, and thus we have the ability to maintain fidelity in every appointed relationship. If you come under the influence of divine revelation, and under the influence of the love of Christ, you will make it evident that you have become the servant of righteousness. The Sun [p. 167] of righteousness will yet arise with healing in His wings. These things will yet become public. Israel will yet become the servants of righteousness. They will love God with all their heart and their neighbour as themselves. But we are placed now in relation to the Sun of righteousness, and so we give their rights to every one to whom we owe them. “Love is the fulfilling of the law”, and the whole secret is Christ shining upon us. We are under the influence of His love, and thus we become servants of righteousness. Each one here is placed in relation to the Sun of righteousness, and we have delight in maintaining faithfulness in every relationship in which God has set us, and thus anticipate and form a little picture of the display of the great “universe of bliss”.
Now one word more, what is the hindrance with people? They have not obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine, they are not separated from the world. The only rule for the Christian here is “This world is a wilderness wide. I have nothing to seek or to choose”. My comfort has been that God can provide for me and make a way for me through the wilderness. God could provide for people numbering six hundred thousand, besides women and children. If you accept the wilderness, He will care for you. If you try to make the wilderness blossom, God may say, “Since you care for yourself, I do not need to care for you”. If the wilderness is accepted, it will be a great means of becoming servants of righteousness, carrying out and eager to carry out every obligation under which we are placed. When Christ was here He maintained fidelity to God in every relationship in which He was set as Man here.
Now come to the third step. Having become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness. The expression is changed. It is servants to God now, not to righteousness merely. It means you have come under the law of God. I do not speak of the ten [p. 168] commandments. It is law in the sense of the principle which has its source in God, and that is love. Now we have come under that principle. The Christian is now a tree; fruit suggests that thought. He is a “tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season ... and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”. It is the righteous man; Psalm 1. You are instructed in the knowledge of God; you have come under the influence of the love of God, under the law of God, and that is love, and we become servants to God. The great point for a tree is to be rooted in good soil. A tree may be put in an inclement atmosphere. A Christian is a tree and intended to bring forth fruit. What is the ground in which the Christian is rooted? It is in the revelation of God. There is no lack of earth — it can strike down deep in the earth. Christ has accomplished redemption, but more has come to light than that, and that is, God has been declared, and you can strike your roots deeper and deeper in the revelation of God, which has been given to us in Christ. As the roots strike down, it springs and grows upward and the leaf does not wither, and “whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”. He maintains his appearance — his leaf does not wither and he has spiritual prosperity. Fruit comes from a tree taking up the goodness of the earth. The Christian is to take up the good of the revelation of God; so you get vigour and energy of life in the tree. Now we are planted in the very best soil — the revelation of God, and you get the fruits of righteousness which are to the praise and glory of God. All the fruit is the effect of the revelation of God; God is love, and there is nothing in God contrary to love, and in that revelation of God I trust we have struck our roots deep, and thus you get a tree vigorous and bringing forth fruit. The fruit is “love, joy, peace”, etc. You get fruit in its season, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. I do not look for God to prosper a man in a wicked world, but God knows how [p. 169] to prosper a man. I knew a man in the world — a Christian, too — and everything he touched turned to gold; he made a fortune and invested his money, and a crisis came and he was reduced to penury. That is not prosperity. When God prospers a man he is renewed in the inner man. He is vigorous and bright and refreshes and encourages those with whom he comes in contact. The fruit is love, joy, peace — what characterised Christ when He was Himself here. The roots have to be nourished and fed by the revelation of God, and thus you would bring forth fruit in your season. If you are not faithful in divinely appointed relationships how can you bring forth fruit?
Now I come to the next point. The practical outcome of all that is that your fruit is unto holiness — you come to holiness — the end of all God’s ways is to make us partakers of His holiness. The man who has come to holiness is very well acquainted with God’s love. I refer to Exodus 15 to illustrate it — see verse 13. “Thou hast guided them ... to the abode of thy holiness”. Then verse 17, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in ... thy Sanctuary, Lord”, etc. The purpose of God’s dealing with us is to bring us in — to bring us to Himself. His ways are addressed to that end, that we might be brought to God, but if you are brought to God you must be brought according to His glory, and you cannot be that until you are conformed to Him in holiness. Now holiness is quite different to righteousness. Holiness is that we are apart from the contamination of this world of evil. There was everything in the Lord to repel defilement and contamination. Now all God’s ways are to this end — He brings us under the influence of His love and He disciplines to this end, that we may be conformed to His glory. We are to be “holy and without blame” before Him (not in Christ), but practically. That was to be fulfilled in Israel typically and He brought them to the abode of His holiness that they [p. 170] might be conformed to God. When that is true of them they will be brought into the land. In regard of us where are we brought to? To courts above — where God Himself is, but He intends to bring us there in accord with His glory. We are to be holy and without blame before Him in love. God has taken us up for Himself to bring us to Himself, and there it is that Christ is the Firstborn among many brethren. It is a great thing that we are brought to God according to His glory, so that His love may be able to rest eternally and in complacency. It is a circle of which Christ is the Firstborn. We may be brought to that morally. We ought to be earnest that we might thus be brought to the end which God intends. Righteousness is important, it leads to fruit, and fruit is unto holiness — all leads in that direction, and God sees that we get the discipline and the schooling so that we may be conformed to His glory, so that He may have a point where His love can rest with complacency. If there were not a circle conformed to His glory, where His love can rest, I cannot see what pledge there would be for the “universe of bliss”. May God give us to understand these things and the end that God has in view in leading us on. God’s end is to bring us to Himself according to Himself, and to be at home with God as much as the prodigal was at home with his father. May God give us to know it in His grace.