A LIVING HOPE
[p. 62] A LIVING HOPE
In turning to New Testament Scriptures with reference to the House of God, we notice a great contrast between what we find here and what is found in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament things are presented in shadow and in dead types. There was no life in either the tabernacle or the temple; they were material structures of wood, stone, gold, etc., and were only types and shadows, though deeply instructive for us in many ways.
When we come to the New Testament everything is living. That is the great distinction between the Old Testament and the New. The Old Testament had regard to man in the flesh, and we are told here that “all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away”. There could not be anything very precious in connection with that. But in the New Testament CHRIST is introduced, and that brings vitality into everything. In the Old Testament there are shadows, types, and promises, like so many fingerposts pointing on; but nothing came into divine reality and vitality till Christ came. When He came into this world everything that was of God and for man’s blessing was presented livingly in Him.
But we do not begin with Christ here after the flesh, but with Christ in resurrection. As Peter says in this chapter, God has “begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”. Resurrection is our starting point; we begin there, because nothing could become living in our souls until the question of death had been settled. Life and incorruptibility had to be brought to light.
[p. 63] When the Lord Jesus was upon the earth all the goodness of God was expressing itself in His beloved Son towards men in their need and condition as sinners in this world, so that wherever there was pressure or distress there was goodness and power residing in that blessed One to meet it. But it was only provisional; the leper was cleansed and the sick were healed, but, after all, the leper died and the sick man died. Death was not removed from man. The children of wisdom were attracted by the goodness of God displayed in His beloved Son, but life could not really be brought in for man apart from the death of Christ. Life and incorruptibility were brought to light in Christ risen after redemption had been accomplished. Hence we start with resurrection, and therefore the apostle uses this wonderful expression, God “hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”.
Everything living is connected with resurrection. It is a great thing to apprehend this. Everything was living in Christ personally when He was here in this world, but life could not be brought in for us until He had gone into death and annulled its power and come out in resurrection. There is now a risen Saviour, and God has begotten us to a living hope by His resurrection from the dead. That is where we start. It has been demonstrated that everything connected with man in the flesh is a failure. People go to work now to build up that man. Everything in the religious world tends to set that man up again, but God does not work to set up man in the flesh; everything of that man ends in death. God said to Adam in the garden of Eden, “Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return”. That is man’s condition and its end. He may be ever so good and religious, but death comes in on him. If we want life we must have a man in resurrection. Even Christ after the flesh had to pass away; the silver cord had to be loosed and the golden bowl had to be broken; everything was scattered that had been [p. 64] in connection with Christ after the flesh (Matthew 26: 31). We can well understand that hope died in the souls of the disciples. Instead of seeing Christ come to the throne of His father David, they saw Him hurried to the cross. But God came in and raised Him from the dead. That is God’s great starting point. When we get a sense that God has begun everything in connection with Christ risen from the dead — that He has started on that new ground and in that new place, and has established all His thoughts after such a fashion that no power of evil or death can ever touch them — we come into contact with a system of things where all is living, and we have part in it through infinite grace.
It is thus we are begotten to “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you”. This is in striking contrast to an earthly inheritance according to the flesh. I think the inheritance in the mind of the Jew would be connected with the fulfilment of all the promises of god; and the Jew had to learn, and so have we, that instead of God’s promises being fulfilled in a natural way according to the flesh they are all made good in a spiritual way in Christ risen. Every Christian has to see that before he will make much headway in the knowledge of divine things. Everything breaks down on this side, but everything is established on the resurrection side.
We all ought to be interested in the promises. People do not make enough of the Old Testament promises. The promises display all the goodness of God; it does not lessen my interest in them to see how much they are connected with Israel. When God brings His blessing into the world no doubt Israel will be the centre; but to me the promises unfold what wonderful things the goodness of God will do for men, and that interests me very much, because it makes me acquainted with God and His blessed thoughts of love and mercy. The promises are all established and confirmed in Christ risen. “All the promises of God in him are yea,
[p. 65] and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us”. Instead of looking for things to improve down here — trying to leave this world better than we found it — we look up to heaven for all the blessed things which are soon coming forth from thence. Things are going to the bad here, but what we look out for is the introduction of all that is good and blessed from heaven — things that cannot be corrupted or defiled and cannot pass away. Christ is the great storehouse of divine beneficence, and He is going to bring it all into this world. When the goodness of God comes out it will be glory; but in the meantime we look up there and see it all established in Christ, and that is the secret of our joy.
“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations”. What a paradox that is! To be greatly rejoicing and at the same time in heaviness through manifold temptations! It is very easy to explain it. We must draw “the vanity line”, as an old servant of the Lord used to call it. The man who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes had a good chance of trying what was in the world, and he summed it all up as “vanity and vexation of spirit”. But when we cross “the vanity line” we get into a resurrection scene, where all the promises of God are confirmed in a risen Christ. The Christian as to his circumstances and condition is in the vanity scene, but in mind and heart and spirit he is in the resurrection scene. He has his portion there, and knows it, and exults in it, though he may be in heaviness as to this scene in which he is subject to trial and pressure. There are these two things always to take into account. The Christian is in a scene where there are manifold trials, and yet his heart has travelled into another scene where there is nothing but joy. We rejoice in Christ and in all that is established in Him. It is a great thing to know where to turn for joy. If we get a little bit of gratification from things under the sun we pay the penalty. There are always two [p. 66] bitters to one sweet. If we get lifted up by things connected with the vanity scene we get a corresponding depression. What is it worth, if we are only lifted up to be cast down? But if we cross the line and get into the resurrection scene, where Christ is, and see all the blessed goodness of God treasured in Him, we greatly rejoice. It is a joy, beloved friends, which has not a single bitter ingredient in it. There is unmixed joy on that side, though on this side there may be heaviness through manifold temptations. We have to learn how to distinguish between the two scenes. We are strangers in the place where Christ has been rejected, and our home is where Christ is. The Christian in spirit and affection crosses the line into that blessed scene. And he becomes “living” in proportion as he enters into those things.
Then in 1 Peter 1: 8 we have a wonderful setting forth of what a Christian is in his affections. There is no death there; all is living; the fact that the Christian loves One whom he has not seen is a proof of vitality. “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory”. People say that is transcendental. When anything is presented that lies outside the sphere of man’s vision it is called transcendental. Transcendentalism in human philosophy is very like a man trying to fly. Transcendentalists try to rise above the level of things here by the activity of their own minds, but there is a force of gravitation that holds them down. The Christian is not at all like that. The centre of gravitation has changed for the Christian, for it is where Christ is, at the right hand of God. There is a mighty power in the risen and glorified One to draw the Christian up there as to his affections. For the Christian, there is really a greater power in Christ viewed thus, than all the influence of things here. It is a blessed reality, beloved friends; Christ a glorified Man in heaven is a reality, and the great question is, Are we interested in Christ, and in what is established [p. 67] and treasured in Him? It is no good being sentimental; if we really love Christ it will be proved by our wanting to know everything that it is possible to know of Him. Do not tell me people love Christ very much if they neglect their Bibles, or the ministry of the word, or the coming together of the saints. These things are the tests. Psalm 111: 2 says, referring to God’s works, that they are “sought out of all them that have pleasure therein”. If we take pleasure in Christ and in all that is treasured in Him we shall diligently seek the knowledge of Him. Do you take pleasure in those blessed things, or is Christ very little of a present reality to you? I know very well how it was with myself. I thought of Christ as One who long ago had died upon the cross and cleared away my burden. But when it came home to me that He was a blessed and present reality at the right hand of God I had to confess to myself and to God how little I knew Him. We have to seek the things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, in order to have this joy unspeakable and full of glory. Nothing becomes living in our souls that we do not care to seek after.
This is really the way to soul salvation. Peter speaks of rejoicing in Him with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and then he says, “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls”. To be filled with joy in Christ is soul salvation. Many Christians feel the power of things here and try to struggle out of them, but we get soul salvation by being drawn out by the attraction of Christ in heaven. There is a mighty power to lift saints out of things inwardly, and thus we receive salvation of souls, while we are still in the circumstances and condition of men in the flesh. Our hearts are lifted into the blessed scene of liberty and love where Christ is.
Now read verse 13. Here we come rather to the responsibility side of things. The power of what is living is brought in for us in Christ as the risen One, and if we know anything [p. 68] at all about it, we find that every influence in this world is contrary to life. We have to learn that this is a death scene, and death marks all the influences of this world. So that if a Christian knows what it is in spirit to cross the vanity line, when he comes back to his responsible life here he has to gird up his loins. Every influence here tends to draw us back into death and darkness. I have no doubt the great danger for the Jewish believers to whom Peter was writing was that they might be drawn back into earthly religion. When he speaks of the “former lusts” he probably refers to lusts which worked in connection with religion; when he speaks of “fleshly lusts” it probably has a more general application. “Your vain conversation” was their religious life. The reason why they had to be redeemed from — it was that nothing will do for God but what is living. If people drop into earthly religion they fall back into what is dead. Judaism had its divinely instituted forms and ordered services, but it was dead. So we read in Hebrews of being purged from “dead works”. People try to imitate Judaism now; Christendom at the present day is an imitation of Judaism. If the real thing was dead what must the imitation be? We have to be redeemed from all that kind of thing.
Many Christians are in the habit of using forms of prayer, and I do not question the piety or the propriety of the expressions used, but such a practice does not indicate spiritual vitality. People are often very sincere in using these things, and true piety gets mixed up with them, but you cannot possibly prescribe forms for life or for the infinitely varied exercises of the soul as divinely taught and led by the Spirit. Life must be free to take its own course; you cannot anticipate its movements. A machine goes on with undeviating exactitude always the same way; you know exactly how it will go, but it is dead. God would have His people redeemed from everything like that.
Some one may say, I do not use a form of prayer. Perhaps [p. 69] you have not a form printed in a book, but if your prayers always take the same shape it is very much the same thing. They once expressed the living exercises of your soul, but you have got into the way of using them now that the exercises are no longer present. God wants us to be redeemed from all that; He wants living material in His house. Nothing has place in the House of God but what is living. There is so much religiousness in us — dead religiousness! I should like to see more and more the efficacy of the blood of Christ — to see that the man who can take up religious forms has gone from before God. Nothing counts now but what is living and, as I said before, you cannot anticipate the movements of a living thing. It moves in the energy of its own vitality. I feel what a lack of spiritual vitality there is, and yet nothing else really has place in the House of God but what is vital and in the energy of His Spirit. Nothing but living material is found there. If God uses what comes before us tonight to awaken exercise as to the spiritual vitality that belongs to His house it will be a great gain to us all.
God brings us out of dead religiousness into the vitality of divine love, as we see clearly in verse 22. I cannot help thinking that is a deeply important verse in relation to what comes out in the next chapter, where he speaks of living stones and about their coming to the Living Stone, and being built up. Being built up gives the idea of all the living material being bound together. How is it bound together? In connection with the tabernacle I was struck by the fact that all was held together by rings. The ring is the symbol of divine love. Now, it seems to me the apostle is putting the rings on here. He is, so to speak, preparing believers to be put together. And what is the power to hold them together? Love. Religiousness makes self the centre. Even the prayers that are taken up by religious flesh all revolve round self. But divine love always embraces others — [p. 70] it binds us to the brethren. It does not say “unfeigned love of divine principles”, but “unfeigned love of the brethren”. It is all very well to love principles; but what strikes me here is that I see a living company — the brethren. There are not only divine principles but a living company in this world. Do we love the brethren? It is easy to get attached to a system or a peculiar set of doctrines, but the great point is, Do we love the brethren?
Exercise is called for in relation to this, for we have to lay aside what hinders the activity of love. This is where the test comes to our hearts; are we prepared personally — am I prepared — to lay aside what hinders the activity of divine love towards the brethren? There are certain things mentioned here, “malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings”. These things are contrary to brotherly love. They have to be laid aside, and in this way we are tested as to how much we love the House of God. We may admire the truth of the House of God, but the test comes when we have to make some sacrifice — to go through some exercise — when we have to lay ourselves out for its prosperity. We were seeing how David laid up vast sums of money for the House of God. Are we prepared to lay aside things that hinder the exercise of brotherly love? That is how things become living.
I suggest these few thoughts as to the way in which God brings what is divine into the hearts of His saints; He thus delivers His people from what is fleshly in order to introduce them to a circle where divine love can be active. All this is in view of the structure in the next chapter. Things are acceptable to God in proportion to their vitality; He has no pleasure in what is dead. May God save us from dead religiousness!