OUR NEW HISTORY
OUR NEW HISTORY
As to the beginning of christianity, until Christ had brethren, and the Holy Spirit had come, it could not have begun. Then peace and life came out on the first day of the week. He became a Man, vindicated God in flesh and blood, and when entitled to glory, turned from it to die; and having borne the judgment on us, He was to God a sweet-smelling savour. Here our new history on the earth begins. He was alone before; He has now many brethren. The trouble at —- all springs, in my judgment, from separating the burnt-offering from the sin-offering; Christ was both. The sin-offering is my side, the burnt-offering God’s side. God sent Him to fulfil both. I have escape through one. I have access to God in the other. Righteousness was not God’s motive. The throne was established by righteousness, but it was not God’s motive. God’s motive was love; and even when Adam fell it was not righteousness which swayed the blessed God, but love; a determination to restore Adam, and relieve him from his degradation. Love is God’s motive; and hence when sin lay in the way, and obstructed His love, He [p. 347] sent His Son to establish righteousness, that His love might have a perfect ground for its activity. Righteousness was a means to an end. The sinner has to get to God in righteousness; that is the sin-offering, and no further does the Book of Common Prayer go. Justice asks no more. The burnt-offering gave full vent to the heart of God. The veil was rent from within. Now if I do not begin in the nearness in which love places me, I never can understand anything fully. I never can see my relationship to Christ clearly, if I do not see that He by His work has placed me on His own level. If there be any imperfection in my apprehension of the gospel, there is sure to be a still greater misapprehension of my place in the church - the body of Christ. If I were not as He is, as an individual, that is, of His life and nature, surely I could not be suitably united to Him. I am of His life and nature before I am united to Him. It is all Christ; old things have passed away, all is of God, and Christ is everything and in all.