HOW WE ARE LED INTO DIVINE PURPOSE
[p. 17] HOW WE ARE LED INTO DIVINE PURPOSE
What is in my mind is to seek to show how we are led into the side of divine purpose. I venture to read this scripture because it sets forth the judgment arrived at by one who knew what it was to be there. I like to refer to this epistle because it shows us the spirit of christianity — not as in Christ Himself, but the outcome of what was seen in Christ now seen in a man of like passions as ourselves — the apostle Paul. In that way the truth is in a sense brought nearer to us. I do not deny it was brought near to man in Christ, as Elihu said to Job, “I am as thou ... my terror shall not make thee afraid”. Christ drew near to man as a Man, so that the things of God and God Himself might be understood. The gospels present that to us — what Christ was as Man, drawn near to man so that in One in low estate God might be learned. The epistles in the main show how that is effected in others. That down-stooping of the Lord was effective, so that what He was here among men was reflected in others, and particularly in Paul; so that you have in 2 Corinthians the spirit of christianity presented to you. In the first epistle the terms of the covenant are made very clear, whereas in the second epistle the spirit of the covenant is brought into evidence. Now it is in the spirit of the covenant that we are prepared to say to God; so that you will find the apostle Paul saying “we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face”. It is in this spirit we have to say to God and to glory; and we are set in movement towards the land — towards Canaan.
I desire to enlarge on these points, because you can understand it is of very great importance that we should be set to enter into the purpose of God, and, as I said, it begins with a right judgment being formed. One would question oneself and others what judgment one [p. 18] has formed about things. I mean to say, what kind of judgment have you formed as the result of the gospel coming to you? If you have not come to Paul’s judgment of things here it is not a bit likely that you will ever leave them. You were born into them and accept them as a matter of course. The political economy in which you have been born — the social and commercial relations and the ordinary family relations and duties dependent upon them; all these things you accept as a matter of course. We have very little thought of them save that we are born into them and go on with them. But the thought of God is to set your heart and mind in movement in regard of all that. The gospel comes in to that end — it is light from God to us and is intended to set our hearts and minds in movement; and if we become active in this way we begin to form a judgment about things. People who have no definite judgment are practically of no use to God. Now one cannot enlarge upon that, but here it is in the epistle; Paul says, “We thus judge”. He had formed a judgment about one thing, and that was that if “one died for all, then all have died”. You say, ‘Well, I don’t understand that, people seem to remain alive here; man moves on as he did before, no more dead than he was before the cross’. The fact is that he was as much dead before it as after it. But suppose they are alive, how many years do they live? It is only a matter of a few years and we pass away. God does not take account of things as we do. If it is a matter of forty or fifty years till the thing becomes an actual fact — that does not set the fact aside. God speaks of things that be not as though they were. If you are to die next year you are as good as dead now. The apostle’s judgment was right. He did not judge by outward appearance, but from a moral point of view. “One died for all, then all have died”. It is useless to argue that men live a certain number of years — there is no moral consideration in that. It is simply a matter of God’s forbearance, “The end of all flesh is come before me”, and if they went on for a number of years, it was only in His longsuffering. God said “his days shall be a hundred and twenty years” — God’s arbitrary limit — He fixes the period. In His own account all was gone — the end of all flesh had come — call it the first man or the old man — in God’s account the man is gone: “the end” He says, and He means the end. The secret of it lay in this, that another head had come in — Noah appears in Genesis 6. His birth is recorded in Genesis 5 — it is the second Man in principle. That is you have a man brought into the scene who is for God — that man remains. The end of that Man has not come. He is for God’s pleasure — that man is to go forward — his name signifies rest, and hence the other man had disappeared. If the other man is allowed to continue a hundred and twenty years, it is in the presence of the second Man, and simply in God’s grace, under the headship of Noah really — in principle, Christ as the new Head. And Noah is there in activity, as we read of Christ, “in which (Spirit) also going he preached to the spirits which are in prison, heretofore disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was preparing”. And the first man is allowed a hundred and twenty years in God’s grace, really under Noah’s headship. In principle the new head was there from the end of Genesis 5, and God could afford to allow the condemned man to remain in order to preach to him. Wonderful grace! God is longsuffering — “the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah”. It is not a question of tolerating man, but of grace and longsuffering in order that possibly he might be saved. If God allows man to remain in this world, it is to preach to him. Noah was a preacher. The Spirit in which Christ rose from the dead is the Spirit in which He preached through Noah. But man is only given the period allotted and then the whole race disappeared.
[p. 20] And the whole does disappear; for if we take Noah as figurative of that race, he disappeared in the ark because he was connected with that race. The ark refers to Christ in the sense of being constituted to survive death, to go through it and survive it. Christ went under death, but He is out of it. He was a new order — He was always that personally, but He took upon Him our place vicariously, and rose out of it. Now, we are allowed to remain here, but it is not as the ungodly; we are here as a matter of righteousness, only one’s title to be here is on the ground of faith — we have no title in ourselves. Christ established a title for us to remain here. He is the standard of our title to be here; we are taken up under a new Head; He is the One who vindicates God’s name. Noah vindicated His name in that he carried through the ark, he carried through clean beasts by sevens, not by twos, but by sevens — which clean beasts he could take and offer to the Lord; and the Lord smelled a sweet savour. So in Genesis 9 Jehovah makes a covenant, not only with the world, but with Noah and Noah’s sons. They are taken account of formally by God. They were saved on the strength of Noah’s faith; but now they are viewed and a covenant made with them. Now, if we are to live to God, as the apostle says here — the Lord has established a title for us; it is a matter of judgment — “having judged this: that one died for all, then all have died”. Now, if you live, and we do live, through grace, it is to Him. Do you remember the passage in Hosea? “After two days will he revive is: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight”. That is the position — we are raised up really in the death and resurrection of Christ. That is the ground in Colossians. In Colossians 3 we are said to be raised up by faith, but faith in what? Faith in the power or operation of God who raised Him from the dead. That is the position we are regarded in there. The great point in Colossians is that Christ might have His place in the hearts of the [p. 21] saints; that is the point. Now, you find the apostle insists on that in this epistle; he says, “they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. That is the position that a right judgment leads us to if we accept the fact that we are all dead — it is only a matter of time over the earth. Not a trace or vestige of humanity was left in sight — all disappeared. If that man is here at all, it is in lawlessness, but if in Christ, one is here in righteousness. Christ has established a title for us to live before God; so we are here, really the only people entitled to be here — entitled to live on this earth before God. Christians should claim the death of Christ as the title to life on this earth before God, but then it is before God — “not ... unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”.
Well now, this passage opens up a wide and large sphere to us. Let us refer for a moment to the epistle to the Romans. I would suggest that the idea of living to another — “to him who died for them” opens up room for the marital relationship; it is in that connection that the thought in Romans of being to Christ fits in. I connect it in my mind, in the types, with the covenant. You remember the children of Israel, after they were delivered from Egypt Jehovah referring to it afterwards — to their original love — says, “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals”, etc. Israel was holiness to Jehovah and they followed after Him. The covenant, in principle, is God’s proposal for a marital relationship — God would take the part of Husband to Israel; and it has reference in that way to Romans 7. The subject could be easily opened up in the Old Testament. Romans 5 is really a question of the Red sea. The passage of the sea was the one thing in which it was said the people acted in faith, they were in earnest. Many people are baptised who have not got faith, but the point is that you should have faith about [p. 22] it; and when it is a matter of light to you, when you have faith, the moral force of it is that you are baptised to Christ, and that is to His death. Now, being baptised to Christ, He has a claim over you, and the result is your body is subject to His will. I would warn young people that unless your will is broken you are useless to the testimony; your will must go. When the will is gone, the body is the Lord’s and it becomes a wonderful thing. The fact is it becomes an instrument of righteousness, or rather our members become instruments of righteousness to God. It is in the hands of the Lord; that is where we become really qualified for the testimony. Old people, those who have been long on the way, in the service of the Lord and brought into subjection to Him — whose wills are gone — it is wonderful how the Lord takes them away — I have often thought they are the ones who ought to stay — but the Lord knows best. The Lord said to Peter, “When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not”. The former is will — — “whither thou wouldest”, but when old, the Lord says, “another shall gird thee”. His will is broken, and he is brought into accord with the ark of the testimony. Instead of his own will, it was a question of the testimony now, “another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not”. He suffered martyrdom for the testimony. I have often thought in that way, how important it is that we should begin early in subjection to Christ. It is a simple question of recognising that, as baptised to Christ, we should be subject to Christ, and you are able to be consistent with His death.
Well now, in Romans we get some light as to the Lord’s body, which is in full keeping with the idea of the covenant. The Lord, as you will remember, has given the institution of the Supper, and He said, “This [p. 23] is my body, which is for you”, that is, the Lord devotes His body to the church. I would guard this by saying that He came from heaven saying, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God”; primarily His body was for God’s will, but then He took account of the church, and devoted His body to the church. A wonderful testimony — “This is my body, which is for you”. In Romans it is not exactly in that connection, but to show that the Lord relieved us of legal pressure by dying for us: “ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ”. You can see what a service He did in His body by relieving us of that bane; but then it is, “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 we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter”. There you have the position of the believer, not exactly of the church; but you have light as to that which will ultimately develop into the position of the church, the principle on which the church’s relation stands to Christ. Christ has moral claim over your affections. The apostle states it here as judgment “that one died for all, then all have died; and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised”. In Christ, in resurrection, you have “newness of life”. You have the word “new” in Romans 6 — “walk in newness of life”, and in chapter 7 he devotes His body to free you from the old bond, and thus the link in affection is formed. I connect all that in my mind with Mount Horeb. I was saying this morning that the bride is seen coming up out of the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved. I touch on that for a moment. In the end of Romans 7 we come to the Deliverer, and you are prepared for the statement at the beginning of the chapter — the Husband. Chapter 8 is the support of Christ. I want to dwell on that for a [p. 24] moment. You remember she was said to be leaning on her Beloved in Song of Solomon — Romans 8 presents what I take to be like the arm of Christ. In other words the bond is formed — and now you have power by which you are supported into the land of promise. There is nothing more important than that. It is a question of what the Spirit is. Now what is the Spirit of Christ in connection with the assembly? It is the power by which He supports her into the land of promise. And in perfect keeping with the position, the brazen serpent is introduced at once; “what the law could not do” — the apostle shows you the impotency of the law — God did it — He sent His own Son for sin and condemned sin in the flesh — that which troubled you God has condemned. If God has condemned it, you need not be troubled by it any more. The power of the Spirit is there “that the righteousness” (righteous requirement) “of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”. There is great moral power in the fact that you are fulfilling every moral obligation resting upon you, and thus you set forward. I cannot go further in the chapter, but I sought to indicate that thought to you: it is really the arm of Christ in the power of the Spirit for the saints. To follow the types a little further, when they set out after the springing well — after they recognise the Spirit — you come to the point in the history of your soul where you recognise the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, and you make up your mind all power is in that Spirit and not in the flesh. There is no power in flesh; but more, it is habitually antagonistic to God; the biggest man in Scripture appears directly after this, and the size of his bed is given. It is remarkable that his bed should be given us; and when the Spirit records the size of a man’s bed, you may depend upon it it has some special reference to the kind of man he was. I leave that to your reflection, you will find that the difficulty with most of us is just there; it is that lazy spirit that hinders [p. 25] us. The fact is, a bed is a place where there is no exercise; that is the idea. Now, that man was overcome by the power of the Spirit. It is only in the power of the Spirit that that man is overcome. The Spirit of God works in us so that we might be delivered from that slothfulness. The Spirit of God goes on, too, in regard of that. You will remember how Rahab, in speaking to the spies, said ‘I remember what you did to that man’ — ‘We have heard’, she said, ‘how the Lord overthrew the Egyptians, but you overthrew Sihon and Og’. So, if you recognise the Spirit, his bed goes, a bed of iron six feet wide — a large bed. All that disappears, the man and his bed, where there is exercise, and only in exercise are you in power to overcome and to go into the land of Canaan. What you find in Romans 8 is in every contingency arising and in every exercise, the Holy Spirit comes in and aids you in every possible way, and you see clearly that “all things work together for good to them that love God”.
You see His purpose now, that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren — the brethren of Christ in their own sphere. Thus we enter into the inheritance. I have indicated to you a little of what the Spirit becomes to us. And now we do not know anyone after the flesh, not even Christ, had we known Him that way, all is a new order of things. Christ is in resurrection, and those who are in relationship to Him. What a change it is to us when we begin to know each other in Christ instead of in the flesh: it makes all the difference as to how you take account of a brother. The apostle Paul had such a keen sense of it that he says he did not know anyone any other way except as in Christ — he did not know them after the flesh; there is a man with a right judgment. What christianity would be if all christians had such a judgment as that! You see people trying to connect the man in the flesh with Christ, but it is contrary to spiritual [p. 26] judgment. Christ is the Man entitled to live; and if men are to be honoured at all, it is not by placing Christ in relation to them, but them in relation to Christ. Then he goes on to the complete thing, “if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”. Now, new creation strictly is connected with Canaan — a divine sphere where all things are of God. What a sphere that is! What kind of sphere are we connected with? All things are of man from the tower of Babel to the present day, of what man has done, all things of man. God’s thought in the epistle to the Corinthians was to impress them that they were God’s assembly; all things should be of God, not of man. And so, when you come to “in Christ” — to be “in Christ” is new creation — old things have passed away, all things become new, all things of God.
I trust at least you may have followed. It is a great thing to have the divine end in view, and to form a right judgment and to keep to it, and the Lord will support you in it and you will get more light, your light will increase — “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day”; it increases to the full day where all is of God who has reconciled us to Himself.
May God bless His word.