CLEAVING TO CHRIST

CLEAVING TO CHRIST

In Psalm 73 we see the effect of going into the sanctuary for oneself individually, and John 20: 19 the effect of being collectively in assembly in Christ’s presence. We must know the individual thing before we can enjoy the collective. I have been interested in seeing that “the Christ”, used so much in the epistle to the Ephesians, takes in the whole of Him, “the body” as well as “the head”. What rest to the heart exalted to such close relationship to know that we have His life and nature! How could we bear to be so near Him if we had not? We should be always ill at ease in the sense of our great disparity.

I fear we very imperfectly apprehend how the ^[p. 153] church, as a whole, is in the eye of Christ. He has not swerved from His place in it for those who seek Him, but His authority and rights are so ignored generally that there is no safety nor escape but in association with Himself We must get beyond 2 Timothy 2; now we are in 2 Timothy 3. As we cleave to Him and learn His heart to us we find a door opened, and as we overcome we are so in heart drawn to Him that, led by the Spirit, we say, “Come”. It is for His coming we are set, and not for the candlestick to be restored. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” It is interesting to see how the Lord will be received at the close. Every close was marked by a greater manifestation of God, but less of man, even instrumentally. We trace this in Jacob, in Samuel, Simeon and the woman who cast in all that she had, and in Stephen. But what is lacking in us is the separation which is connected with the enjoyment of the privileges of a man in Christ, and the consequent sensibility which would mark us here, in keeping with that separation. If it is only Christ up there, necessarily only Christ down here would be the desire of the renewed heart. I have still to count, and to go on counting, all things but dross that I may win Christ.