THE FIRST LESSONS OF THE NEWLY-BORN

THE FIRST LESSONS OF THE NEWLY-BORN

It was very grateful to me to hear that the Lord had revealed Himself to your soul. Fallen man could know nothing of God; and he cannot be in any degree before Him without feeling that he is a sinner and morally unfit for God. Adam and Eve, when they fell from dependence on God, felt this the moment they encountered the presence of the Lord God, and therefore they hid themselves behind the trees of the garden. Up to this, though they had some sense of departure from innocence, this sense they were able to satisfy by making themselves aprons for coverings, teaching us that man may allay his sensibility of evil with regard to his fellow-man, but the moment he has to do with God really and distinctly, his efforts are quite of another order - efforts which only prove that he is resourceless, for he flies and hides. It would be impossible for a fallen man to be otherwise in the presence of God, and therefore if a man does not feel he is a sinner, the only conclusion is that he never was in the presence of God. As the voice of God followed Adam to his hiding-place, so does that of His Spirit now with each of us. And as with Adam, the conference that he shrunk from ended in faith in God; so now every one - the greatest sinner - who is drawn to Christ in the light, will always know, like the woman of Samaria, that the result of it, as to her, is eternal life.

God is revealed now by His Son, and the entrance into His presence is known by the light there; as Christ says: “I am the light of the world” (John 8: 12). Now this light ^[p. 49] has a twofold effect on the soul. What was dimly foreshadowed with Adam is, with the most blessed result, fully declared to us. The light makes manifest our unsuitableness for it, and the more this is seen, the more is its great power known; for there the value of the blood of the Son of God in cleansing from all sin is most deeply appropriated. If the light enters your soul faintly, disclosing to you very little of your natural alienation and unsuitableness for God, you will know proportionately little of its greater action, which is declaring to you the perfectness of your cleansing before God from all sin. The quickened soul is kept in healthy consciousness of the light by the word - the washing of water by the word. God is light; and you will find that nothing will deepen the two actions of light in your soul so much as reading His word. In reading the Scriptures, you will find how man’s nature, with its principle of evil, is exposed and condemned by the word of God. And, on the other hand, your soul will be confirmed by every line of it more and more in the depth and greatness of His love and purpose toward you. Make the word your study, and your soul will take the colour of it and know the power of it. Nothing is so effective for silencing doubts, correcting false imaginations, and establishing the heart, as the word of God. May the light of His own presence be always your refuge and rest, and may the peace of it rest and remain with you.