2 CORINTHIANS 11 (SECOND READING)
2 CORINTHIANS 11 (SECOND READING)
CAC It is not in view of commending himself that the apostle speaks of himself. Indeed for their sakes he was willing to do what appeared to himself a foolish thing, so that he was ready to abase himself. He was showing them the character of a true minister. He shows them the way the love of Christ has wrought in himself. He has left his ministry for the moment and is talking of the minister. He saw the saints being turned aside to what was inferior and his godly jealousy moved him in all this. It all tends to bring about simplicity as to Christ and where that was the case he espoused them to one Man. The idea is that they would not have to do with any other man. The apostle had given them a start on the right line. With many believers now-a-days that point has hardly been reached.
Ques What stage is this in progress or growth?
CAC I thought the spirit of his ministry was the setting aside of every other man in the preaching of the cross. They had this blessed ministry that presented only Christ to them and the effort of the enemy was to corrupt their thoughts from the simplicity of the Christ. It is almost an unknown thing to saints today — being espoused to Christ, bound up with one Man, so that there is no other man, that He has no rival. It is that [p. 321] Christ is the exclusive object of faith and interest and affection. I think what the apostle laboured for was to make them exclusive. It is for all saints. It is thrown out as a reproach to some saints that they are exclusive brethren. It is not just a name that is tacked on to a certain body of christians; it is for all saints, every saint in this town belongs to exclusive brethren. All christians ought to be exclusive brethren, to be exclusively for Christ; that is what the apostle laboured for; that was the whole drift of his ministry. That we are very subject to influences is the lesson we can learn from all these corrective epistles; we very soon slip away from divine influence to a human influence. It is surprising how soon we get influenced. If people are under spiritual influence for years they take colour from what is ministered; if that ministry is removed and an inferior takes its place the saints soon fall under the influence of the inferior and in a few years one can hardly find a trace of the former ministry. It shows how soon we deteriorate; everything tends to deteriorate in the hands of man; it is much easier to deteriorate than to advance. Any means that Satan takes are very subtle; he does not come and say, ‘I am Satan’. The work of God is a moral work; it works through the affections. He does not present a thing to us in an arbitrary way; He acts on our consciences and affections, but He does not force us into any path. All is consistent with God’s dealings with us as intelligent moral beings. The devil’s constant effort is to get us away from Christ and that is the character of the test now; if Satan can get us away from Christ he has destroyed everything that is of God. We are kept in appreciation of Christ through exercise of conscience and heart. There is a positive ministry going on. We are not called to originate anything but to respond. The great response with us is to believe on His Son. God approaches us by His Son and His commandment is to [p. 322] believe on His Son. God is always telling you of Christ. It has often struck me as a remarkable thing about Eve that she seemed to have forgotten the tree of life; she speaks about the tree as if there were only one.
I think the power really is the commandment of God. If God commands a thing there is the power. The great thing is whether I pay attention to what God says to me. If God commands me to believe on His Son that is the power. The soul very often tries to work from its own side to God, but in the gospel God is working from His own side and brings it to me. If I believe on that one Man I get perfection before me and God has brought it to me. You really want to know about God and that is what there is in the soul of one born anew, he wants to know God’s way of coming out in the midst of all the confusion that sin has brought in; you see that way perfectly in Christ. I suppose if we saw how Christ was wholly for us the effect would be that we should be wholly for Him; we should be engaged with simplicity as to the Christ and be as a chaste virgin for Him. In any point of failure we can hardly say that at that moment we were believing in Christ. All power and grace is by believing in Christ; practically we have to learn what we are.
Ques. As to our failures?
CAC When you have this miserable failure you are not believing in Christ at that moment. We have to find out how little we care to appropriate the resources of divine love; all those resources are for us! God in His grace overrules every failure and breakdown and uses it that we may learn that what He has shown us is true. In the cross He judges man after the flesh; there is no good in the first man, but we do not believe it and we have to go through humiliating exercises to understand that God is justified and cleared in judging it. “That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, be clear when thou judgest”, Psalm 51: 4. Man in the flesh is rejected, we do not believe that and we have to go through humiliating experiences in order to prove that man in the flesh is a failure. Every experience of that kind makes me appreciate the death of Christ more. This is a very holy exercise, not a careless one; it is no light matter. A soul with God gets a better apprehension of the death of Christ through failure than in any other way. You go right down through your own wretchedness and misery to the bottom of it all and then you tap the everlasting springs of divine love; it is worth while going through a bit of exercise to get to that. It all comes to simplicity as to the Christ.
Rem “When he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life”, James 1 : 12 (A.V.).
CAC I think in that verse he contemplates the path of faith. You meet with all kinds of trials but the apostle says it is blessed if you endure trial. He takes up temptation in another aspect which is quite another thing: “But every one is tempted, drawn away, and enticed by his own lust”, James 1: 14. We are often drawn away by our own lust and that is not for blessing. The general run of ministry in christendom is to draw people away from what is Christ. It may seem very good, it is all based on Scripture and that is through the wiles of Satan; he would take even what is in Scripture and use it to draw us away from Christ. Our safeguard is to get back to Paul; all recovery is to get back to Paul; for example, in the shipwreck there was no safety except as they came back to Paul. In Acts 27 there was no recovery until they took account of Paul’s words. When they listened to Paul there was safety for them. I think what the Lord is doing now is seeking to build us on the foundation of the apostles and prophets and that foundation is Christ.
“Let that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you”, 1 John 2: 24. That is the true safeguard.