ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS
E.C.Burr
Insofar as it bears on the outstanding doctrines and privileges of the Spirit's day this epistle is not about the body; it is about sonship and deliverance from law. But I think it likely that the impression of the body was so much in Paul that he could not keep it out of anything that he wrote. He would have gathered from the time when the Lord Jesus manifested Himself to him in Acts 9 that there was something here which Jesus could call by His own name – “Why persecutest thou me?" - which had its own characteristics· and his initial impressions, I think, remained with him and come out in nearly everything he writes. It is something for us all to consider how far our initial impressions of the Lord Jesus, no doubt secured in our parents' homes or through the preaching of the gospel, had such an effect on us that they remain with us and that we cannot keep them out. It might be interesting for all of us to look back to our initial impressions of Christ and what He has here. "I think when Paul says "bear one another’s burdens”, he is implying the truth of the body as existing here. I think he would convey this to us today in a practical sense. As we take up marriage, as our beloved brother has reminded us, we necessarily take up responsibility; it is inescapable. Things begin to be your own responsibility instead of that of your father, and responsibility will come quickly enough; responsibility too in regard to the affairs of the Lord Jesus here, if not already taken on, will come quickly enough. Often in meetings on the occasion of marriage we are reminded of the responsibility attached to what we are taking on. I myself have felt quite humbled by what is said to people on these occasions. I have checked myself as to whether I was up to what they were being exhorted to; and that would be right - you would never exhort anybody below the highest standard. But scripture like this would remind us that alongside responsibility there is a powerful system of support. There is a sense, as the end of this paragraph says, in which each shall bear his own burden and we cannot escape that because our responsibility will bring us to it, but there is a great system of support available doctrinally and practically. It is available in the body. We do not think doctrinally every time we come across it or feel a need for it, but that system of support is here, and I encourage our beloved young brother and sister today, and our other beloved young brethren who have recently been married, with the sense that there is a great system of support in which burdens are not left to be carried in the responsibility of individuals, although that is there, but there is a bearing of one another's burdens. These things work out in the household; there are burdens that come on the wife, the mother, or on the husband or father, and marriage is an institution in which the mutual bearing of burdens is perhaps one of the most cementing factors. Therefore, we would encourage our beloved young brother and sister to take this up, that they will bear one another's burdens. There will be tests from day to day, problems, times of encouragement, times when they may be taxed with the unsmoothness of things; but they may bear one another's burdens. Then, beloved, there is in the assembly the greatest system of support that there has ever been on the earth. It helps you to bear one another's burdens. It helps us to take up this exhortation that we are part of this great system in which there is mutual support in giving effect to responsibility. We find that in our local gatherings - the beloved brethren in Edinburgh find it, the brethren in London find it, in Bromley, very much reduced but the principles remaining - in the local assembly there is a great system of mutual support, and you will find it between local assemblies, a system of mutual support; not interference but mutual support. Local assemblies are given credit for acting for the Lord, and are believed in as acting for the Lord and caring for His interests in responsibility as they do so, and the great system of support operates in that. If there are burdens in local assemblies (this epistle is written to a district), the spirit of bearing one another's burdens comes into view so that there may be what glorifies Christ and glorifies God in support in working out responsibility. Paul says "and thus fulfil the law of the Christ". Mr Darby's note brings out something of the man that he was; he says, 'The expression alludes to their fondness for law' - not quite the expression you would expect to find in a footnote to a scripture, but that is Mr Darby's characteristic coming out.
Beloved, we have been fond of law and become afraid of it, but we are to be governed by what our beloved young brother and sister will be governed by, what they will manifest, the law of the Christ. Now what was that? It was just to do the will of the Father. He had no meat except to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His work. The law of the Christ was the Father's will. The Father says prophetically "I will counsel thee with mine eye upon thee", Ps 32: 8. Beloved, that law is enough, that will is enough, there is no need for a law of commandments contained in ordinances; He has taken them out of the way nailing them to the cross. All that is taken out of the way that we may live by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, and sow to the Spirit, and thus acquire the substance and equipment to fulfil the law of the Christ here. It is tender, affectionate; it will deal with evil wherever evil arises. If evil should be creeping into a house, the law of the Christ will see that it is dealt with, but it will be a matter of turning aside to deal with that. The law of the Christ is living on account of the Father, doing the Father's will, finding blessedness in the compassions which our beloved brother has just referred to, in the way in which the Lord Jesus would take up each case that came under His eye in order that He might manifest toward persons what was the will of the Father in relation to it. It may be said that this too is a high standard: as I have said there is no less, you cannot recommend people to fulfil the will of God about fifty per cent or anything like that; the law of the Christ is to live on account of the Father. It is simple; you keep the Lord Jesus before you all the time. I was impressed last Lord's day by the way the men in the beginning of Matthew say "for we have seen his star in the east, and have come to do him homage" (chap 2: 2) and I wondered whether that should not be characteristic of the Christian, that all the time his spirit is that he has come to do Christ homage: not just in the service of God, or at the end of the prayer meeting, but all the time, the believer found as a worshipper. If he is found as a worshipper he will be fulfilling the law of the Christ.
I refer to this now in order to encourage our beloved young brother and sister that the responsibilities that they take on are sober and serious but there is a greater system of support than they have found yet and that they will go on exploring until the Lord comes for us all.
BROMLEY
12 June 1976
THE CHILDREN'S COUNTING
It seems that even a small creature such as a hen bird is able to tell when every one of her chicks is safely around her or under her wings. Therefore it is not surprising that as children we soon learn to count - perhaps first of all the days to the next birthday! Moses, the man of God, prayed that we should learn to number our days, which is more than just counting them. Each new day ought to teach us some distinct lesson about the God to whom we pray so that we become wise in heart as well as in knowledge.
An old hymn reminds us to 'count our many blessings'. At first we think of these as being the pleasant - and passing - things of life and these would surely take time to reckon up. To count a million pound notes, if we had them, would need several weeks of steady work. But to discover and enjoy "every spiritual blessing" that God our Father has given to His saints and faithful ones in Christ Jesus will take both time and eternity. More important even than this is the fact that we can thus bless Him by giving happy response.
In the Scriptures, counting means more than just telling by number. Paul, on account of his love for the Lord Jesus, counted as loss things that he had before thought of as gain. In receiving Christian baptism he had "put on Christ" which meant that he wanted henceforth to do only those things that pleased his Lord. Baptism really means a complete change. The water is a sign of death but it leads to "newness of life" because Jesus has died and we know Him as a risen Man. Especially for a Jew baptism is a very solemn matter. One, whom I knew personally, was given a mock funeral and burial by his parents because he was baptised to the name of the Lord Jesus. But he learned to enjoy "pleasures for evermore" in his new pathway.
Even the little children going with their parents through the Red Sea were under the rule of Moses, although they could not know at that time what this meant. So now children are baptised in infancy through the faith of their parents to the name of the Lord Jesus and must learn as they grow up to come under His perfect rule. The name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit tells what blessing is in view for us. Do you think and ask about your baptism?
J.C.Evershed