THE DEATH OF CHRIST THE DOOR OUT OF ALL HERE
THE DEATH OF CHRIST THE DOOR OUT OF ALL HERE
As to the death of Christ being the point of separation from the world, and that only through which we can walk in it - Christ in His death bore all the judgment [p. 41] which lay on me. In a word, He suffered for everything; for judgment is on everything. His cross is that through which by Him all things are alone reconcilable to God; whether things in heaven or things on earth; all in me contrary to God is judged there; and through it only, am I reconciled to God. It is not from my sins merely that the cross frees me, but from myself and from everything under judgment. People will admit that nothing but the cross could free them from their sins, and place them in reconciliation with God; but everything here is under judgment, and there is no other way for everything else to be reconciled, but the way that I, a sinner, have been.
If everything here will be reconciled through the cross, it is evident that everything needed reconciliation; and no reconciliation could be effected but through the “cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6: 14). This is our boast: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”. It is evident that the apostle is not here speaking of his sins; he is speaking of all the things under judgment, and he is glorying before God in his own position through it; not grieving that he has to give up the world, or trying to keep as much of it as he can without losing his peace of conscience; but glorying that he is absolutely severed from it all through the cross of Christ - the world crucified to him and he to the world. If you felt that judgment was on everything, you would like to be relieved from everything. You know what relief it is to you to have the cross between you and your sins - to know that in God’s sight it is so. You would not revert to your sins. You would not, if you could, neutralise the efficacy of the cross, and return to your sins. You rejoice that it has for ever severed you from them in God’s sight. You glory in it, and rightly so: you cannot do so too much, for it is God’s doing, and you glorify Him as you exult in and enjoy it.
[p. 42] Now if you could feel about everything in the world as you do about your sins, you would rejoice that by the same cross, you are crucified to the world and the world to you; as it is through it only, that there is in Him reconciliation for everything in heaven or on earth. This determines the question at once between what is of man’s will and what is divine. Everything connected with the first Adam’s fallen state, or with which he was connected, is judged in the death of Christ. All the old things stand on one side of His death; all the new things on the other side. When I in His life have reached everything according to God and suited to Him, am I sorry then to lose any of the things judged in His death? Nay, I am rejoiced, when loyal in heart to Him, to find that, at the same moment and by the same act, I am freed from all that is in and around me which is not of God, and under judgment. Everything not reconciled through the cross, by Him who bore it, is under judgment. How cheering to my heart to realise that I am, through the cross of Christ, entirely out of it; and “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2: 20). Christ lives in me, and I do His will in every position.
I hope you will see all that the cross embraces; and thus that the death of Christ separates me from everything here unto Him. His death opens a way for me out of everything here. I remember Him in His death and I announce it till He comes. What else does the scene tell me of? It required His death to effect reconciliation for me, and for everything that I see. Could the very earth be reconciled without His death? We know it could not. Can I look at it, and admire it, without recalling the price of reconciliation - or rather, is not the price of reconciliation the label to faith on every article on earth? His death is the only suitable association, solemn and momentous as it is, that you can have on earth. Everything else that you [p. 43] see, and yourself, alas! required it. You are in the place and scene of it, and you ought to be delighting that it has severed you in God’s sight absolutely from it, and that in the new man you are apart from the scene. Though you are actually in it, your only association with it is His death; for if it were not for His death, how should you find a place of escape from it! Hence it (the death) becomes the true and most grateful remembrance of your heart about Him while you are on the earth. You cannot see Him, or be as He was on the earth, but through His death. His death is the doorway to Himself. You must remember Him here as having ended everything against God of the first man, and brought in everything according to the mind of God. Is it not simple - is it not wonderful? If you go into the haunts of men, it must be as seeking for the silver pieces, and you must go there as a widow as to this world, not as a worldling; but in company with Christ, sweeping the house, and seeking diligently for the silver piece.
May you drink in of the resources which are in Christ, and thus find yourself independent of natural ones. Mercy and peace be with you.