"THE BEGINNING OF THE CREATION OF GOD"

“^[p. 161] THE BEGINNING OF THE CREATION OF GOD”

“The water” tests every one. It is beautiful to see a soul so heartily following Gideon that he refuses to bow down to drink, and if he takes a momentary draught, he quickly resumes his erect position to follow him, I think the state of everything at this moment is critical. But the scene of the greatest assertion of independence of God was the place where we find the greatest expression of dependence on Him, and also of the good of it, and that was at the court of the king of Babylon. So we need only to “be of good courage”. Christianity humanised is very sad. Salvation for the sinner, and holiness for the saints, both presented in a human way is painful to a degree. The closing phase of the church as to its testimony is rapidly disclosing itself. There had not been doctrinally the knowledge of Christ as “the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3: 14) for eighteen hundred years; that is, there was no demand in the church that Christ should be “all and in all”; of course He was believed in for remission of sins, but this truth that He is the beginning of the creation of God was not known. Now it is accepted and professed, but is there anything more of Christ in the life? or any less acknowledgment of the first man? I fear the very heralds of the gospel, while holding the truth of new creation, which is Christ - accredit and sanction the old creation by introducing the human element, even boasting in it, and this is the state of Laodicea. It is remarkable that Peter in Matthew 16 had the greatest light, and yet he attempted to rebuke the Lord for the cross in which the first man would be set aside! If you accept the truth and retain the first Adam you are tending to what the Lord will spue out of His mouth!

^[p. 162] Occupied with getting rid of the evil in oneself is but negative - occupied with Christ and getting filled from Him would leave no place for the evil, for He would feed your heart with the entrancing delight of His presence.

When the heart has an object - and that is Christ - He is also the Object of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the power to effect what the new man desires. He will displace everything of the first Adam and put every duty and service in its right place in reference to Christ. The Lord is One, and His name One.