STATE BEFORE POSITION
STATE BEFORE POSITION
I have been greatly interested, and I hope helped, by seeing the imperfect way we learn truth; not that the truth is imperfect, but we have learned it imperfectly.
Some of us have been more occupied with seeing that we get the truth accurately as revealed in the word of God, than we have been with understanding the state that is necessary in ourselves to our apprehension of what is revealed. Many have been satisfied to see the purpose of God’s grace, but I find there is a great deal more said about our state to enable us to receive it; for instance, in Ephesians 1 the prayer to give you “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1: 17) before you have the truth; that is, that you must have got the mind of God in its breadth before you can understand the mind of God. We have been too much satisfied with clear expositions of truth and [p. 284] have contented ourselves that we had the truth, because we understood the exposition of it, instead of seeing that we require a divine state to enable us to apprehend the truth - the “best robe” is given to enjoy the “great supper”; this is most important as showing how necessary the subjective is for the apprehension of the objective. Generally the former has been put after the latter; but if we study the ways of God we shall find that He prepares us for the truth by giving us a state which can appreciate the truth, before He enunciates the truth to us.
We have thought everything of getting a clear idea of truth, whereas getting a state that can appreciate the truth is the great grace of God. We get a striking example of this in the parable of the Sower - the same seed to each heart had a very different effect; the state of the heart gave effect to the seed. It enhances God’s grace to us very much, when we see that when He makes known His grace He gives a state that can appreciate His grace.
I am sure I have sought to bring heaven before souls, but I find I have too much overlooked the journey to heaven. Though Christ is the object there, we must remember that there is no way to heaven but through the wilderness and over Jordan. We have thought we got there because our faith was in Christ who is there, but the real proof that we have reached any truth is that we have the state that fits us for it - the state for one risen with Christ is, having “put on the new man”. (Ephesians 4: 24) No one knows what it is to be in heaven with Christ, until he knows what it is to be severed from every link here - with Christ to walk through Jordan. He may resume links here, but he can never lose the state which fitted him for being in heaven; and then it is not what he has lost which occupies him, but the immensity of the gain wherewith he has been entranced!
[p. 285] I think a great defect in souls is that they have not crossed the Jordan, and have not realised what it is to have died with Christ, and to be thereby severed from everything in this world; and if not in heart and experience practically over Jordan, you do not know the Lord as Head.
Scarborough,