THE EFFECT OF TRUTH KNOWN IN POWER
THE EFFECT OF TRUTH KNOWN IN POWER
Divine power necessarily transforms man to a new condition. If this be ceded, and it cannot be denied, we can understand the force of the apostle’s words, “I .. . will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power”. (1 Corinthians 4: 19) Any condition or manner of life is easily adopted, when there is not only power for it, but when it is according to the ruling desire. A young bird enjoys flying, though it is new to him, and carries him to new scenes; because besides having the power to fly it is according to his taste to fly. Now an imitation is an imposition at once irksome and rigid, and always gives the impression that it is not according to your taste, because you discontinue it when you are in private or off your guard.
When a man is converted it is very evident that a new power has begun to rule him; he separates from his old associates, and seeks solitude in order to find God. This is the first step in the history of faith; the [p. 359] light of the gospel shines into his soul, and he knows that the God he seeks can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. Like Abel, he knows that Christ bore the judgment due to him. One not chargeable with the offence has borne the judgment of the offence; thus he obtains witness that he is righteous, and shall not come into judgment; and as far as I see in the history of faith, we must connect Enoch with Abel; for though everyone does not enjoy walking with God, it is there the work of Christ places you. You learn that you have passed out of death into life. No one can have truly entered on this first step without taking a very distinct path here, a path very different in life and manner, especially marked by the company such an one keeps (see Psalm 1) and by the way in which he breaks away from his old associations; so that his walk is in keeping with his ruling desire. “His delight is in the law of the Lord”. (Psalm 1: 2)
The second step in faith, as I may say, is how a man accepted of God is set up on the earth. This is typified by Noah in the ark. God says, “The end of all flesh is come before me” (Genesis 6: 13) - not only this, but all the earth “having its subsistence out of water and in water ... deluged with water, perished”, 2 Peter 3: 5,6. Noah and his house are saved in the ark, saved from the judgment; and after being there more than a whole year, Noah is placed on the earth, and in offering a burnt-offering he finds that he is not only out of judgment, but that he is in the favour of God; so that through God’s goodness he is here on the earth in favour, where once he was under judgment and the curse of God; he is now assured (Genesis 8: 22) of the continuance of seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, etc., and further, he is given power to subdue everything here for his own benefit. But he cannot control himself, and is carried away by excess; and the descendants of the man so highly favoured, set on earth in such new and gracious terms, eventually [p. 360] conspired together to build Babel, and thus betray the inward corruption of the heart in independence of God.
Thus we see that the true place for everyone brought to God is to be here morally in the death of Christ, as set forth in the ark, which prefigured baptism. Many pious people think that because they have accepted the form of baptism, they are in the condition of it, but the condition can only be by the Spirit. It is by the Spirit of God alone that we can be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus. We all know how prone we are to seek and to rest in possessions here. Though we do not join the world in their Babel-combination, yet we like the feeling of independence, and often avail ourselves of the opportunities or resources which God’s providence affords, to become so, instead of using them in dependence on Him. In the secret of man’s heart he likes independence of God.
The manner of life of every christian should be characterised by being out of death through Christ’s death, and in His life in Christ risen. Then by the power of the Spirit of God, he can use God’s gracious provision for man on the earth without being carried away by excess. He learns how much better it is to be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but to be filled with the Spirit. While the world is seeking in one form or another to be independent of God, the christian’s happy course is simple and continued dependence on Him.
This leads to the next step, a life of faith on the earth. “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God”. (Galatians 2: 20) This is set forth in the history of Abraham; it is said to him, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee”. (Genesis 12: 1) And he went forth without a guide, depending on [p. 361] God. What a remarkable separation the call of God effects! He went forth not knowing whither he went; he broke every link with the place he left and sought a place appointed by God. To act or walk in faith you must have to do directly with God; neither providence nor the wisest man can direct you. We get an example of this in Acts 27. The master and the owner of the ship and the majority of the passengers gave advice contrary to Paul’s; providence was in their favour; the south wind blew softly, but faith counted on God.
The history of Abraham gives us an example of the blessing of faith, and the trials and temptations connected with it. He had a happy assurance of being in the right way, at the altar (Genesis 12) when the Lord appeared unto him. Thus if we are walking in faith we are sure to get confirmation of our faith. Lot went with him; he represents those who imitate faith. Soon the test comes - a famine in the land - and Abraham gives up faith for Egypt: he drops from faith to man’s resources, and there he is exposed to the danger of losing her who is nearest to him, and only escapes through God’s gracious intervention. And now he returns to the path of faith, and then finds it absolutely necessary to separate from one who imitates faith. Lot soon betrays that he has not faith, for he seeks what suits him as a man - the green fields of Sodom.
Abraham’s faith is still further assured after he had separated from Lot. God tells him to “Look ... northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth.. .. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee”, Genesis 13: 14 - 17. Before very long, Lot, with all his property, is carried away in worldly contention. Abraham, the man of faith, cares for the people of God, and suffers on their account;
[p. 362] he puts his life in his hand, goes out by night and rescues Lot and his property; he receives no reward from the world, but has manifold more in this present time; for Melchisedec, King of Salem, meets him with bread and wine, and “he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand”. So that Abraham can say to the king of Sodom, “I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet ... lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich”, Genesis 14: 18 - 23.
Now the time has come for the Lord to make known to Abraham, who was the great impersonation of faith, the great multitude which shall be his children - the children of faith (Galatians 3: 7): “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham”. For he believed God when as yet he had no child, and it was counted to him for righteousness. But no sooner does he believe God than the flesh begins to work, in the attempt by Sarah to obtain a family after the natural order. “These are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar”, Galatians 4: 24.
Eventually Isaac, the promised seed, is born, by the mighty power of God, and now the man of faith has to cleave wholly to Isaac; for when he was weaned he made a great feast for him: everyone in the house honoured him, except Ishmael, who mocked; and as we read in Galatians 4: 29: “as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now”. Then the word is: “Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman”. The word of the Lord to the man of faith was: “Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman... for in Isaac shall thy seed be called”, Genesis 21: 12.
[p. 363] It was about forty years from the time when Abraham had believed that his family should be as the stars, that his faith is tested again and he is told to offer up Isaac on mount Moriah - a wonderful test of faith. He must with his own hand remove that which was dearest to his heart (all his natural hopes), trusting in God who raiseth the dead. Who can understand the deeply anxious moments of that three days journey! - a journey by us often extended over a period of years before we are really ready to part with everything that the heart cherishes here, trusting in God. But faith triumphs, and Isaac is restored, “Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure”, Hebrews 11: 19. Abraham calls the place Jehovah-jireh; and now he is blessed with the assurance that his seed shall be as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea, but all flowing from the risen one.
Next comes the death of Sarah. In figure the hopes of Israel after the flesh are at an end; then we arrive at the consummation or crown of faith. Eliezer is sent to get a bride for Isaac, and Isaac loved her and brought her to his home and was comforted after his mother’s death - a wonderful thing that the solace of the Lord for the loss of Israel is the church - His bride. The effect of Abraham’s faith was that he lived as a stranger and pilgrim, looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Lastly, we have to look at the faith that is seen in the history of Moses, which surmounts all the difficulties and opposition on our own side. We have been looking at faith as set forth in Abraham, which rises up to the height of God’s purpose; now we have to learn in the history of Moses how faith can surmount every obstruction on our side. Hence we see that Moses who personates this faith meets with opposition from his birth. By faith he is concealed from the hand [p. 364] of Pharaoh, and in the providence of God Pharaoh’s daughter takes him in charge. He is thoroughly instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and in deeds. “And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel”, Acts 7: 22,23. “He ... refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, .. . esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt”, Hebrews 11: 24 - 26. The first great obstruction to be surmounted is the greatness of the world. After this is overcome, a man must take an entirely new course on the earth. But Moses, like many another, thought he could deliver the people in his own strength; and after forty years in Midian, he learned at the burning bush what it was to have the power of God in the midst of weakness, so that eventually he could forsake Egypt “not fearing the wrath of the king”.
The people of God are sheltered from the judgment on Egypt by the blood of the lamb. “Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them”. (Hebrews 11: 28) By faith they passed through the Red Sea, figuratively, the death and the resurrection of Christ. The song of faith first celebrates the greatness of His victory (Exodus 15): “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously”. Secondly, God has become your object of interest. You are so clear of yourself that you prepare Him an habitation (verse 2), and thirdly, you know that He will bring you to His own dwelling place (verse 17).
We hear no more of Moses in the journey of faith in Hebrews 11, but we know from other scriptures, that a new and wonderful path is opened to the believer. According to God’s appointment there is nothing here for us but Marah, the water of the Red Sea, the water of death, which Christ having passed through makes [p. 365] sweet to us. Then there is manna and the smitten rock. But the heart of man is exposed; he will not accept this appointed path: consequently the law is given to disclose his contrariety, “for by the law is the knowledge of sin”. “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died”, Romans 7: 9. But in the unaccountable goodness of God, after He had given the law to make man conscious of the evil that was in him, He calls Moses up to be forty days in the Mount, receiving the patterns of things in the heavens; the tabernacle of God is set up, intimating that at the very time when all our evil comes out in the wilderness journey, we learn the goodness of His grace and the love of His heart, that He would make a way to approach Him, His presence being set forth in the cloud of glory filling the tabernacle.
Now when the generation that had murmured had died off, Israel begins to move onward, and Numbers 21 discloses the irremediable enmity of the heart to God they “spake against God, and against Moses .. . And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people”. (Numbers 21: 6) There is no improvement in man from the first; they return to their beginning and find that the serpent’s power is undiminished. Then God tells Moses to put a brazen serpent upon a pole; and all who looked upon it lived. This is figurative of Christ made sin for us; “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”. (Romans 8: 3) And we find in John 3: 15, that everyone believing in Christ lifted up, lives. “Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. It is not a question of salvation in this passage, but of life, not so much what is done for us as the effect of power in us. Many preach the gospel from this passage as if it were the work done for us instead of the work done in us.
Then outside the wilderness Israel comes to the [p. 366] well of God; where the word is “I will give them water”. This was in figure what we get in John 4: 14, “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. Now set up after a new way, they move onward, to Canaan, to the realisation of what faith had reached to in their song in Exodus 15. God comes in to help them, as we see in Psalm 135 and Psalm 136; to remove the kings, the powers that would obstruct the way onward, until finally the waters of Jordan are dried up, and they are across, and in the land. The walls of Jericho fall down and they are in possession, in the presence of the man with the drawn sword in his hand, figuratively the Lord of glory.
Thus we, having come to the place where Christ is, seated together in heavenly places in Him, are in company with the greater than Isaac, there to realise our new relationship to Him, now to come out as heavenly ones, in the church and in our own house by the power of the Spirit, to testify to Him in face of all the opposition and evil here. The answer of faith to all God’s grace is not complete till then; faith is then perfected. “Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” (James 2: 22).
Nothing is more painfully untrue and dishonouring to the Lord than for a man to be able to speak of the highest range of blessing to which God has called us, and at the same time not to be in any way descriptive in himself of a heavenly man. The human mind has reached the acme of alienation from God when it can suppose and propound that God could bestow the highest divine blessing upon a man to bring him near Himself, and yet that the man should not of necessity answer to it in his life and ways; and this not by introspection, but by the power of the Spirit. It has been said in public, If I am chided for not being over [p. 367] Jordan, I say Christ is over Jordan. But I retort, So much the greater loss to you that you are not over; for you are not where Christ is.
God surely makes good His grace to every believer, in rest and eternal happiness; but it is as we walk in answer to His grace now, and are in association with Him now that our place with Him in the kingdom will be determined. If you are not in association with Him now you do not know Him as Head and you are not His confidential servant. The great work of the Spirit now is, “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ”. (Ephesians 4: 13) So that Paul labours to present every man full grown in Christ Jesus. He commended Epaphras for labouring fervently in prayer that they might “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God”, Colossians 4: 12.
One word more, nothing can be so divinely beautiful on earth as a man so transformed by the mighty power of God, that he is in heavenly manners here on earth; so that he does not in any of his ways deny the Lord Jesus Christ; but in the most trying hour of his history upon earth the Lord can say of him, “thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name”. (Revelation 3: 8)