OUR RELATION TO CHRIST AND SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD
OUR RELATION TO CHRIST AND SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD
Every believer likes the gospel, but no one really apprehends the gospel who is not across the Red Sea, and no one enjoys union with Christ who is not over Jordan. I do not think that any one can accept Jordan until he is drawn over by the object of his heart; with Israel it was the place, with us it is the Person. Many a one can delight in God’s grace to him who is not sufficiently attached to Christ to leave everything here to join Him outside of everything here. There is a large field of blessing belonging to the gospel while we are here on the earth; but in the church we are united to the glorified Man in heaven, and as you apprehend it an entirely new world is opened out to you, in which you cannot be but in Christ’s life, out-side of your senses. I believe if saints had truly known their relation to Christ, that they would have been preserved in the late sifting.
[p. 18] Brethren with an increase of light on scripture have departed from the separation, the body of light, which at first gave them so much moral weight. Our separation from the world then may have been in a measure legal, but surely now that we have more heavenly light we should be still more separate, whereas with the increase of light we are as a company, socially and every way, less separate. Once any Christian becomes in any measure socially on terms with the world or a worldling, he is on the worst incline on the road; the more he is on it the more he will keep on it, until he be lost to sight.
The way every progressing soul learns death practically is very interesting and very solemn.