(2) THE BELIEVER'S LINK WITH CHRIST RISEN
(2) THE BELIEVER’S LINK WITH CHRIST RISEN
On the last occasion I was trying to point out the way in which believers are connected from the outset with the God of resurrection, that is, with God who acts in that power. It is evident that God could not act in that way until death had come in; but from Abraham onwards faith apprehends “God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were”. The link is formed thus as between God and man, and it is with God in that aspect that we have to do. We are greatly affected by links that are formed. That is true in natural things, but we are more affected by spiritual links than by natural links and ties.
Another point that came before us was that in the first two chapters of Hebrews we have presented, in Christ, both that which is for God and that which is for man. As to the latter it says in chapter 2, “We see Jesus ... crowned with glory and honour”; that is on man’s behalf. The Son of man has gone up, and that is the reception which He has met with at the right hand of God; just as He received on the mount of Transfiguration honour and glory; but it is a man going up on the behalf of men, having tasted death for everything, and He is crowned with glory and honour. That comes out in chapter 2, where we have, “He that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”.
This leads me to the thought of the link which has been formed between saints and Christ in resurrection. It is one thing to see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, but another to understand the link that [p. 14] connects us with Him. I am sure that the apprehension of it must have a great effect upon us down here. I believe it to be so important, because the link being with Christ raised again from the dead, there is brought in the power of life.
All spiritual vitality has its spring the other side of death. Christ is the true source of it: we abide in Him, and His words abide in us, and then we get the evidence of vitality, which is fruit-bearing. In the first part of our chapter we have fruit-bearing, and in the latter part, testimony in connection with the Holy Spirit. Fruit-bearing and witness, I may say, are not exactly the same thing. Fruit is spontaneous and the evidence of healthy vitality. This is the case in a healthy tree.
Now I do not think that the bearing of resurrection is always understood, though the fact may be accepted. There is scarcely any truth presented to us in Scripture which has not been neutralised in its application in Christendom. You get the terms of truth maintained, but the bearing of truth has been falsified in the use of it. Events have been taken up as in connection with this world and commemorated in that way. Christ’s birth is commemorated on one day and His death on another, and even His resurrection; and we have been brought up in this, and what we have learned traditionally is extremely likely to remain with us. Christ’s birth and His death were events in this world, but resurrection cannot have that character. God never intended that it should. It is the beginning of a new order of things. Resurrection really means the introduction of another world, because it introduces another Man. There has been one world, and that world depended upon a man. I am not now speaking of the material world, but of the world in the moral sense. The existing world has been built up on one man departed from God. You never get a right idea of the world if you do not understand that. The expression ‘world’ is used in the writings of John for the people in it. But also indeed in a moral sense, “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof”. Still John frequently uses the world for the people in it, and the world, as we know it, was built up on man departed from God.
But resurrection brings in another Man. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”. The terms of the gospel, as stated in Scripture, are that “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures”. “Buried” is the end of a man so far as the world is concerned, no more is known of a person after he is buried. Christ died vicariously, and in the fact of His dying and being buried there was an end of that order of man. The passage goes on to say, “He rose again the third day, according to the scriptures”; but that brings in another order of man. The first man was the natural one, but the second Man is the spiritual one. The resurrection has brought to light the spiritual, and is by a man. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead”. The present world, as we know it, is built up on one man, and so also the world to come. You can see the world to come because you see the Man on whom it is built up. Until Christ was raised, the world to come was future but it is no longer future, because the Man is there upon whom it depends.
Now you can see how erroneous it is to connect the resurrection of Christ with this world. Resurrection is the platform for God. “God, who quickeneth the dead”, is true in principle from the time that man fell. Abel’s link with God, and Enoch’s and Noah’s,
[p. 16] was with the God of resurrection. Abel came to God through a sacrifice which really involved resurrection, Enoch was translated, and in Noah you get the figure of death and resurrection. The same is seen with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham is spoken of as having “believed even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were”. Christians “believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead”. You have in Him the foundation, and on that foundation the world to come is built up. God has formed the link that connects Christians with Himself in the power of resurrection, and the effect is that death has lost its power. As you advance in life, death comes closer to you, but you find that the power of death is gone if you are conscious of being linked with the God of resurrection.
It is most confirmatory to faith to see that this has been the principle throughout the whole world’s history from the time that sin came in. It came out before the flood, and more distinctly in those to whom the promises were confided. I feel intimately bound up with the Old Testament worthies, Abraham, Isaac, and David, men whose souls had faith in the God who quickens the dead. David learned that God would not establish his throne in his seed after the flesh. The true seed, according to God, was Christ, and David learned this, though it may have been obscurely.
My point now is to shew the link which we have with Christ in resurrection. The thought of being connected with the God of resurrection delivers the soul from the fear of death, but the point is our link with Christ. If a man marries a wife he forms a new tie, and that man is greatly affected by the tie he has formed; and if our souls are linked with Christ, the effect is that the power of resurrection is brought in and thus we are delivered from the fear of death. And being now linked with Christ the result is that we bring forth fruit; we give evidence of vitality. The [p. 17] apostle Paul in his second epistle to Timothy, when counterfeits and imitations were coming in, insists that the only answer to these was in vitality. Imitations could only be effectually answered by the real thing. There was a divine basis in Timothy himself. He had been instructed in divine things by the apostle, and from a child had known the holy scriptures; and the way in which he was to meet the imitations, was by the evidence of life. All spiritual vitality has its source the other side of death. To shew that, I will read a passage or two, first in Romans 7: 4, “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God ... But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held: that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter”. Again in 1 Corinthians 6: 17, “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit”.
The passage in 1 Corinthians brings before us the truth that the link with Christ exists, not in the outward but in the inward. In a certain sense, when Christ was here, He was, as a Man, in association with the outward; but now, it is, “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit”, and if the link is in spirit, manifestly it is in the inward. When you realise that you are joined to the Lord, there is unity of spirit apart from flesh. That is where the link subsists in which we are bound to Christ. The figure of marriage is employed, but we have to realise union in spirit in the inward apart from the outward. But few of us have learned to withdraw from the outward and retire into the inward. Scripture speaks of the inward and outward man, hence there must be such a thing as retiring from the outward into the inward. The idea of a sort of connection with Christ after the flesh has come into the professing church, but Scripture teaches that, “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit”.
I read the passage in Romans for the purpose of shewing the object for which the link has been formed; we have been delivered from one order of things, in which possibly we were bound, in order that we might be married to another, or joined to another: to Him that is raised up from the dead, with the object of bringing forth fruit unto God, and that we might serve not in the oldness of the letter but in newness of spirit.
God has made Himself known to us in grace. The kingdom has come in that we are delivered from the power of evil. Grace has brought man salvation from the power of the enemy that we should serve God. God has not intended to set us free for our own wills, but that we might serve Him. The principle of this we find in Israel. Jehovah charged Pharaoh to let His people go that they might serve Him; and so, too, in regard of Christians. The purpose of God in bringing salvation to us is that we might serve Him in bringing forth fruit: but that really comes from Him who is raised up from the dead.
I cannot conceive anything more important than to enter into the reality of the link which binds us to Christ. If there is that in us which is of service to God, in the way of fruit bearing, it lies in the apprehension in the soul of that link. We have to meet imitations today, and that can only be by the production of reality. We must give incontestable evidence of vitality; and the secret of that is in the knowledge of the link that connects us with Christ who is raised from the dead.
We are set free from the law by the body of Christ with the object of serving God. In Romans 7 it does not exactly say you are married to another, but that you are delivered from one bond, from the first husband, that you might be married to another: to Him who is raised from the dead that we might bring forth fruit unto God. Being set free from the law of sin [p. 19] and of death, we are linked with Christ that He might be to us the source of vitality, of which fruit is the proof and evidence. Vitality has not its source in the Christian, but in Him who is raised up again from the dead. If my mind is not in accord with Christ I shall not bring forth fruit unto God. There will not be that in me which is acceptable to Him. If you want to know the character of fruit you will find it in Galatians, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law”. Fruit is the blessed and comely result of the link which exists between the Christian and Christ raised up from the dead.
Now to turn to our chapter, the first six verses prove that you cannot have any link with Christ after the flesh. He was the vine when He was here on earth, and there were the branches, but that state of things cannot exist now. You can no longer speak of Christ being the vine. Israel had had that place previously, and Christ took that place when He was here; but He has it no longer, and all that there is connected with earth now is the spurious vine. The Revelation shows us the spurious vine, and God dealing in judgment with it: there is no true vine upon earth at the present time.
From verse 7 the idea of the vine is dropped. It says, “If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit: so shall ye be my disciples”. Now mark the succeeding verses, 9 - 12, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love ... This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you”. The first principle of the link is, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you”. Do you believe that that is as applicable to us as it was to the disciples to whom the Lord said it? They were [p. 20] representative of those whom the Father has given to Christ. Christ valued them because the Father gave them to Him. The church is the compensation which Christ has received in the time of His decease as to His own people, and the disciples were representative of the church, and the thought in the verse has its application to us as well as to them.
Every one should accept the truth of the verse, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you”. You will never enter into the power of the link that binds you to Christ if you do not understand that the love begins with Christ. You will never understand that you are married to Christ if you do not see that the beginning is, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you”.
In the following verses, we get the transmission of the love: the continuation of its character in the disciples. We come to Christ’s commandments. But one might ask, what are the commandments? To Christ every expression of the Father’s will was a commandment. Everything that He heard from the Father. All the commands are included within one circle, and that is the Father’s. The Father will in result pervade and include and cover everything. Every family in heaven and on earth is named of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ makes known to us in detail the Father’s will, and everything in that sense is a command; and if we keep His commandments we continue in His love. The purpose of all was to separate His people from the world, and to bring them within the limits of the Father and of the Father’s will. To confirm that, read verses 14 - 16, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you ... Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name he may give it you”. The ground that the Lord takes here is that [p. 21] He had not treated them like servants, but as friends. He had given them His confidence, and everything that He had heard from the Father He had made known to them. I am more and more convinced that there are two great systems which are brought out in the word of God. One is, that of the world which is of man departed from God, and the other that which is of the Father.
In the economy of grace everything is viewed as proceeding from the Father. Christ came from the Father, and the Spirit proceeded from the Father; the kingdom is the Father’s, and eventually the Son, who holds it mediatorially, delivers up the kingdom, that God may be all in all; everything will be pervaded by divine love. The name of Father presents to us God revealed in love. The world is presented in the strongest contrast to the Father in John’s first epistle. It says, “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”. Hence one can see that it is a matter of the last importance for us to distinguish between the system of the world and that which is of the Father. The world is filled with lust and pride, while the system of the Father is pervaded by divine love.
The point for us is to understand the bond that binds us to Christ, namely, love. It is His love to us, not ours to Him. I believe we all fail to enter into the truth that we are loved of Christ. If the ear is opened to understand the communications of Christ, you will continue in His love.
It is a great thing to hear the communications of Christ. We see them coming out in principle in Luke 10. First we have the parable of the good Samaritan, in which Christ is presented to us as man’s neighbour; and following upon that, Mary is seen sitting at His feet hearing His word. The Lord was giving to her communications. Some one might say,
[p. 22] What were the communications? Well, I think, it could only be one thing, for previously in the chapter the Lord had said, “All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father: and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him”. The Lord was making known to her the Father’s name and the Father’s will. She sat at His feet to hear things which He alone could teach. How wonderful was this to Mary, she was entirely held to Jesus by it. Martha was restless; but Mary was held at Jesus’ feet to hear the communications that He had to make known to her. He was making known what He had heard from the Father, for what He heard from the Father was given to Him to communicate, and He communicated it to Mary.
We get two things from Christ: (1) love, and (2) His communications of love. The psalmist prayed that God might not be silent to him, and Christ is not silent to us. We get His communications as we sit at His feet. If you apprehend His love you will get His communications. He communicates the Father’s mind and will if we are prepared to carry it out, to keep His commandments, the effect of which is, that we continue in the sense of His love; we keep His commandments in loving one another as He has loved us. He loves us as the Father had loved Him, and we are to love one another as Christ has loved us, and in that way we continue in His love. It is the law of liberty.
We get the Father’s will and work coming out in detail in John’s gospel. In chapter 4 the Father seeks worshippers. In chapter 5 He raises up the dead and quickens. In chapter 6 He draws to the Son. In chapter 10 the Lord says, in regard of the sheep, “My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all: and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand”. John gives us the expression of the Father’s love in [p. 23] regard of Christians. If you are taken up with the Father’s things, vitality becomes manifest in you in relation to the saints, and you will be separate from the world. What comes out in connection with Christ will surely bring you into separation from the world. You cannot be surprised that the world hates you. The world does not love what is of the Father, but what is of the Father is going to set aside completely all that is of the world. The world has not the elements of permanence. Scripture is clear about this, “The world passeth away”; but in what is of the Father, and set forth in Christ, we see the elements of permanence, righteousness, holiness, and love, and these are not corrupted, nor do they deteriorate.
My desire is to indicate to you the great reality of our link with Christ. “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit”, and we are to bring forth fruit unto God. Christ has loved us as the Father loved Him, and if we accept that, we understand the strength of the link with Christ, and the blessed effect is, that we love one another as Christ has loved us. You get vitality in the saints, the bringing forth of fruit to God, as the result of being married to Him who is raised from the dead.
Our faith and hope is bound up with the God of resurrection, and we are connected with Christ in order that there may be vitality and fruit-bearing in us in the world. The principle of resurrection does not connect itself with this world or its course, but the power of God brings in another world, for the reason that resurrection has brought in another Man.
May God give us to apprehend the great reality of Christ raised again from the dead, that we, being married to Him, should bring forth fruit unto God.