OUR NEW PLACE
OUR NEW PLACE
Soon for us all things will be new. Indeed now to faith, the “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5: 17). I believe that when we truly see our new place where Christ is, we find it easy to see that we must be altogether new to suit Him in this new place.
[p. 383] There is an order in Ephesians 2. First the place - heavenly places; second - the new creature; third - the new man. The hope of the gospel is heaven. The new place is the greatest and the best. The earth hath He given to the sons of men. The Lord’s throne is in heaven. We see in Genesis 1 that the place was first formed, and then the occupants for it. Thus heaven is our new place, and so we are formed anew for it. The Lord having gone into heaven leads our hearts there. Stephen looked up stedfastly into heaven. Jesus is there. The soul looks up to see Him where He is. It is Himself who draws our hearts to the new place. “For their sakes I sanctify myself” (John 17: 19). His absence from this place draws our hearts to where He is, but that place is an entirely new one to us, and we are therefore fitted for it. This new history properly begins with being risen with Christ. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3: 1, 2). The new place is now the one that occupies our thoughts. Like a man on a voyage, going to see his dearest friend in a distant place, his thoughts are ever anticipating the new scene to which he is journeying; he anticipates the pleasure of meeting his friend, the beauty of the surroundings; and how much more when he knows that everything there is in perfect accordance with the mind and pleasure of his friend. Hardly anything is more attractive to us respecting heaven than that everything there is in perfect harmony with the mind of the Lord.
Now the more absolutely we are seeking the things above, the more fully will the rest of Colossians 3 be practically entered into by us. We learn that we must be practically cut off in divine power from the old man, and then we arrive at the new man, “renewed into full knowledge according to the image of him that has created him ... Christ is everything, and in all” (Colossians 3: 10, 11).
[p. 384] We are fit for the new place. “Such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones” (1 Corinthians 15: 48). The heart now not only soars unto the new place because its object is there, but the consciousness that I am new, and conformed to His image, makes me feel more at home there than I could be here. I am fit in new creation for my Lord in the place where He is. I am often made to feel that I am not fit for Him here. But the more I seek the place where He is, the more I find that the work of grace has severed me from the old, and from all that was of myself as earthy, and has made me new - heavenly; Christ everything and in all. I delight in the new place, for there the object of my heart is; and there I am suited to Him. I am fit to be in His company. When I look at this place, He is not here; and when I look at myself naturally I am not fit for Him. How happy then to know that I belong to the place where He is; and that through grace I am made suited to Him in that new place; so that I set my mind there, as the place where my deepest joys shall be realised.
May you enter more into these unseen realities, your anticipations brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.