APRIL 21ST, 1894

APRIL 21ST, 1894

What is in question is not the Person of Christ but the mode of apprehending what Scripture presents. In God’s ways in grace many thoughts are brought before us, as eternal life, High Priest, Prophet, Mediator, Son of man, Christ, Last Adam, Second Man, etc., each of which has its distinctiveness and value and measure, and must be so apprehended by us, for we know in part, but all centred in the Person of the Son. But to me His Person stands out clear and ^[p. 89] distinct amid all these official glories, and Scripture does not confound these glories with the truth of His Person, though they all have their lustre from it. There is “My glory”. As regards the question of death with Christ, I think the ground on which we die is that our old man has been crucified with Christ. I think my history as a responsible child of Adam was ended for God in the cross where my sins were borne, and hence when I see this I am entitled to die under the eye of God. I was dead in sins, but as made alive in the Spirit I die to sin. But I do not think I am dead to sin save as I account myself dead to it. So too I put off the body of the flesh because of the circumcision of Christ. I do not think the thought of having died in Christ is right as a present thing.