APRIL 29TH, 1896
APRIL 29TH, 1896
To J.B.S. It has been on my mind for some time past to send you a few lines to let you know what is going on in connection with the ‘testimony of our Lord’, so far as it comes under my observation, for I am sure of your great interest in what is going on, though you are yourself shut out from the activities save in spirit and mind. So far as I see, a great and general interest is maintained in the truth, and the old ideas of ‘standing and walk’ have given way to an apprehension of God’s purpose in Christ and of the moral state in the believer which is the answer to that purpose and the effect of the light which has been brought to man. The experimental side from Egypt to Canaan, especially the bitter waters of Marah, the brazen serpent and Jordan, are now subjects of much attention, and seen, I think, in their true light as the line by which we approach God’s purpose as to the church in Christ. It is on this line that ministry arouses interest. That there is here and there a certain amount of disaffection in one and another is indeed true; but I think it arises from the defect of clinging to dogmatism and ecclesiasticism, and failure of apprehension of the ‘living stone’. They do not, I judge, know, save in terms and doctrine, the true foundation of christianity, the Father and the Son, they lack an acquaintance with the Persons, and in the affections proper to that acquaintance.... Our readings in London are largely attended. We are still reading Matthew; we began chapter 17 last time, but harped back on the church; we held that the structure was built up in the divine nature — love; the foundation being the revelation of Christ as the expression of that nature, and hence the gates of hell could not prevail against it.
I have been spending two or three days in Birmingham. Our subjects in the afternoon readings were deliverance (Romans 6 to 8) as necessary to the new position of the believer in Christ in regard to God.. . and in the evening the raising up of man, as seen in John 5 by the light in the heart of the Father and the Son, and the absolute separation of the saints from the world by the Spirit of truth (John 14), with a view to fruit-bearing (John 15), and the unfolding to them of the Father’s things in which the Son was glorified (John 16).