"SUCH AS THE HEAVENLY ONE, SUCH ALSO THE HEAVENLY ONES"
“SUCH AS THE HEAVENLY ONE, SUCH ALSO THE HEAVENLY ONES”
It is current among all christians that if you are saved you go to heaven when you die; but that heaven is our place now, and the earth where we are is not our place, is little known. “The earth hath he given to the children of men”; (Psalm 115: 16) and perhaps there is nothing so difficult to inculcate on the believer as the fact that [p. 411] his title now is to heaven, to an entirely new place. Everyone naturally likes a place on the earth, and very often a person, though truly converted, thinks his claim to the earth is stronger, because he believes in God, and receives mercies from Him down here; hence the effect of being destined for an entirely new place is lost sight of, and practically the believer is much advanced in grace before he wholly breaks from the world and the things of it, and accepts the truth that the earth is not his place.
Let us trace the moral journey of the believer from the “far country” to that day when he can say
‘And see, the Spirit’s power
Has ope’d the heavenly door,
Has brought me to that favoured hour
When toil shall all be o’er’.
Every believer has been in the far country - away from God, using his substance - the natural gifts with which he was endowed - to minister to his own pleasure, his mind alienated from God by wicked works. When God by His sovereign grace, works in his soul, he is turned to God, and then the light of the gospel is unspeakable relief to him; he learns, like Israel in Exodus 12, that because God sees the blood of Christ, he is safe from the judgment which is on the world and in the exercise of his soul, however little he may know of it doctrinally, he eats of the lamb roast with fire, with loins girded, and staff in hand, ready to leave Egypt.
The grace of God is that Christ not only gave Himself for our sins, but that He has also delivered us from this present evil age; but many do not for a long time get beyond the assurance of safety, and thus they are still in the presence of the enemy, typified by Pharaoh and all his host. They have not peace with God, and though they move on in a way, there is, as has been said, a large company at Pihahiroth; Exodus 14: 2.
[p. 412] Now when the light of the resurrection of Christ dawns on the believer, he learns that there is a way for him through the death and resurrection of Christ, as typified in the Red Sea, and there all the enemies are sunk like lead in the mighty waters; then he can say, “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”. (Exodus 15: 1). He can say, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God”. (Romans 5: 1) Now he learns that heaven is “the hope of the gospel”, as stated in Colossians 1: 5,23, and foreshadowed in the son (Exodus 15: 17), “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”. In the bright joy of salvation, the believer enters upon his new course in the world. Like Israel, he finds that there is no water to drink but Marah, which is really the water of the Red Sea; he has been filled with divine joy because he has been delivered from the judgment of death, and now his only true place on the earth is, baptised unto Christ’s death. Death is our portion here; of this, baptism was the expression, and we have to accept death here, so that through Him we may walk in newness of life. Generally it is a long time before anyone really enters on this divine path. But as the believer is in fellowship with Christ in His death, as expressed in the breaking of bread, the bitterness of death is removed, and the heart that is truly devoted to Christ in His rejection, could not seek to live where He died. The language of the true heart is “Whither thou goest, I will go ... where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried”. (Ruth 1: 16, 17)
This is the true beginning of a believer’s walk, but it is slowly entered upon, and, as we shall see, all the [p. 413] weakness and all the failure to advance ensues from not accepting death at the beginning. When the believer can seek to enjoy himself where Christ died he has lost true heart for Christ, he is not really in fellowship with His death; Christ is not his exclusive object, he has another object before him, he is enjoying himself here in the absence of Christ, and hence he is really an idolater, like Israel, who in the absence of Moses, “sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play”. (Exodus 32: 6)
When the divine path is not accepted, the tendency is either to enjoy oneself like the Corinthians, or to seek to keep the law, and to be made perfect in the flesh, like the Galatians; hence the wilderness is the test. God gave Israel the law in the wilderness to disclose the evil of man’s heart, for “by the law is the knowledge of sin”. (Romans 3: 20) At the same time He gave Moses a pattern of things in the heavens, to show the nearness in which He would bring man to Himself. The great falling away in christendom is that while they own that there is no salvation but by the blood of Christ, they make the law the rule of life, and the approach to God by carnal ordinances; so that even by true christians the Lord’s supper is regarded as a means of grace, and of benefit to the soul, in remembering the work done for it, but the idea of fellowship with Christ in His death is wholly lost sight of.
It would be unprofitable, even if I were able, to expose all the effects which have ensued from man’s mind attempting to imitate the Jewish ritual, when God and His grace are lost sight of. But to return to the divine path. There is, as I have said, nothing here for the believer but death, which is sweet to him as he has fellowship with Christ in His death. This is the path which the vulture’s eye hath not seen, and deviation from it leads us into incongruities and moral darkness. Many have been ready to give up the things of the world, and even their position in it, and yet [p. 414] have missed this path because their soul is not anchored where Christ is. You may deviate from the divine path even though you have surrendered the world and worldly things, but then you are more like a monk or a nun. You are not in fellowship with Christ’s death here, and you do not enjoy Him where He is. When the believer is true to this divine path, the more he realises that the earth is the place of Christ’s death, the more he longs to know Him where He is. Though he reckons himself dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus, yet he has further to realise that he is dead to the law by the body of Christ, or he must face the evil in the flesh (see Romans 7). Here, many are a long time troubled, because they find that when they would do good, evil is present with them; they are not delivered from the body of this death, they are not freed from the claims of the law until, by entering into Christ’s death, they are free from it, in order to be for another, even Him who is raised from the dead, to bring forth fruit unto God. This is a momentous step in the divine path, and one not entered on until there is purpose of heart to have part with Christ where He is. Hence, though the children of Israel had set out on the direct road to Canaan, they were “discouraged because of the way” (Numbers 21: 4); their soul loathed the manna. “The carnal mind is enmity against God”, (Romans 8: 7) and there is in it an inveterate reluctance to walk as Christ walked. With Israel, in Numbers 21, the full enmity of their heart was disclosed, and as they felt the serpent’s bite - the wretchedness of their condition - as they beheld the brazen serpent lifted up, they lived; so now often, as I have said, though being dead with Christ is accepted as descriptive of the true state, yet it is not until the wretchedness of the flesh is really felt that the cry comes “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7: 24)
Now when deliverance is known, and the believer being in Christ, and by the Spirit of life in Christ [p. 415] Jesus, free from the law of sin and death, he is not only free from that wherein he was held, but he learns that by Christ there is a change of priesthood, that Christ is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. This we see in Hebrews; and as we seek to reach Him, the Forerunner, we find that not only are we freed from the law by the death of Christ, but by Christ, the Priest, we are raised above all the weakness of humanity; He bears us above it all, and draws us to Himself, as Peter learned in Matthew 14. It was not there a question of his sins, but of entire superiority to himself, the human vessel, by being drawn to Christ; and as we know Christ at the other side of death, we not only know Him as Son over God’s house, but we have boldness to enter into the holiest by Him, where we enjoy His acceptance in the presence of God.
But though the believer is thus in heavenly enjoyment, he still has to do with the difficulties and contrarieties of this scene. It is only when he learns the wonderful truth that he has died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, and that he is risen with Christ, and can heartily seek the things above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, that he has the sense that “the body of the flesh” has been removed in the death of Christ (Colossians 2: 11), so that he can enjoy the sphere of Christ’s life. He has now reached heaven where Christ is, and then he learns of Him to do His pleasure here in His own circle; he is not exactly heavenly yet, but he tastes what heaven is, he has touched heavenly ground, he has crossed the Jordan, and he knows Christ as Head of the church.
Finally, the heart really set on Christ and His place will now realise by the Spirit what it is to be raised up together with Christ, and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Him; he is in heavenly tastes and heavenly power, and comes out as the new man (Ephesians 4) to be for Christ a witness for Him here, in the power of the Spirit according to John 16, above all [p. 416] the power of Satan. I need not add more; the epistle to the Philippians sets forth the manner of life and the experience of a heavenly man on the earth.