NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 52

NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 ^[p. 104] NO. 52

1 Corinthians 2: 2; 2 Corinthians 3: 5 - 15

Christ personally is presented, as well as His work. In christendom it is generally read as if it were Jesus Christ crucified with no ‘and’ between. The meaning of the scripture is, Jesus Christ (personally) and Him crucified, that is, seen in another aspect; as crucified He bore death judicially, but as Jesus Christ He is risen, and hence your blessing is as you see Him. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth”. (Isaiah 45: 22) Does your eye rest on Him? If you see Him in death you see the sacrifice for your sins, you are sheltered from judgment. All is accomplished in the eye of God, but you do not enjoy the fulness of the gospel yet. You have assurance of your salvation; God testifies of the excellent sacrifice; you are like Israel, under the shelter of the blood in Egypt, but still exposed to Pharaoh and the Egyptians; you have not peace. There cannot be peace until every disturbing element between God and you has been removed. There is often an attempt made to approach God through ordinances and religious services as under the law; but in order to enjoy peace with God, you must believe that God has raised Christ from the dead. When our blessed Lord came into the midst of His disciples after His resurrection, He said, “Peace be unto you”. (John 20: 19) When this point is reached, peace is known and the Spirit received; but there is yet another hindrance, the tendency is to be like the Corinthians, that is, being now at rest as to your salvation you may become engrossed with your own blessings; Christ personally not being before your heart, your own mind is in the ascendant. The greatest light is overlooked, and hence the natural light gets a place. When we come to the second epistle and find that the Corinthians were restored, we learn where they had been lacking. The apostle had not been at Corinth between writing ^[p. 105] the first epistle and the second, but they are restored, and hence in 2 Corinthians 3: 5 - 17 he dwells on the efficacy of the gospel of the glory of Christ, not merely His death nor His resurrection, but that the glory of God rests on Him. There is now, because of Him who had glorified God where we had dishonoured Him, a ministration of righteousness from the glory. Isaiah, in chapter 6, was afraid when he saw the King, the Lord of hosts. Grace is shown to him, but the live coal is an evidence that the judgment had not been borne. Now, on the contrary, the nearer you are to the glory the more you are assured that it is your place according to God, and the effect is that your heart is absorbed by Christ personally, more than the queen of Sheba was by Solomon. It is not your own blessing or anything about yourself which now engrosses you, it is Himself. Further, you behold the Lord’s glory; the glory is the expression of God’s satisfaction according to all His attributes. That satisfaction in Moses’ time had not yet rested on a man, but all has been met in the Lord Jesus Christ, and as you behold His glory you are transformed into moral correspondence with Him.