"A MAN IN CHRIST" (ADDRESS)
“A MAN IN CHRIST” (ADDRESS)
In the fifth chapter of this epistle the apostle says, “So if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new: and all things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”. It is our privilege to contemplate an order of things in which all is of God. In the chapter before us we see how Paul was privileged to realise in a special way what it was to be introduced to such an order of things. He had conscious knowledge of what it was to be “a man in Christ”, and as such he was caught up to the third heaven and heard there unspeakable things. He was introduced in a very special way as a new creation man to new creation things.
Paul would not glory in what he was as a natural man, or even in what he was as a servant of Christ — save in his infirmities — but he made his boast of what he was as “a man in Christ”. “Of such a one I will boast”. He left behind all that was connected with his responsible life here when he thought of himself as “a man in Christ”.
No one of us has realised what it is to be a “man in Christ” as Paul did. We have never been caught up to the third heaven. But it is a great thing for us to see that in relation to that order of things where all is of God we are either men in Christ or nothing. “If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”. Everything is of a new order, and on a new footing. “The old things have passed away”
— [p. 382] everything that sin had touched and spoiled has passed away for God in the death of Christ. All that attached to me as a natural man has come to an end in the death of Christ. How blessed to see this! Christ came here to bring to an end sacrificially the whole system of things which sin had touched and which had therefore ceased to yield rest and pleasure to God. If we follow things here to their moral end in the death of Christ we are prepared to come in view of Christ as the risen One, and to see that all things have become new in Him. Man is in an entirely new place with God in the Person of Christ. Righteousness and life of a new order have come in. All is of God.
Let us look at one or two scriptures in connection with this. In Galatians 2: 20 Paul had, so to speak, turned his back upon himself as a man in the flesh. Have we done so? We hear people talk sometimes about coming to the end of self, but it is not a point that is very commonly reached. It is a great thing if I recognize that there is nothing in me, as a natural man, that will do for God. If one sees this one cannot be very well satisfied with self any longer. But there is a blessed Man who will do for God, and that is Christ. He died to bring me to an end before God, and He lives to be my righteousness and life for ever. When I see this, self is displaced, and Christ lives in my affections.
In Galatians 6: 14, 15 Paul not only turned his back upon himself, but on the world. The present world is an evil one; it is ruled by lust and pride, and it has crucified Christ. How can the believer go on with it? He is glad to turn his back on it. Luther said he got on very well with the world, for he thought nothing of it and it thought nothing of him. The world with all its glory was a despicable thing, a crucified thing, to Paul and he was despicable in the eyes of the world. He gloried in the cross which had brought this about. There was a clean cut [p. 383] between Paul and the world. Today the professors of christianity are so mixed up with the world that the line of demarcation is quite obliterated. There is not much glorying in the cross today.
But why does the christian turn his back upon himself and the world? It is because he has come in view of Christ, and has righteousness and life in Christ. There are two things which cover everything in the world, sin and death. In blessed contrast to this the believer has Christ for righteousness and for life. He has all, according to God, in the Man who is exalted at the right hand of God. There is neither righteousness nor life in any other. In Philippians 3: 8, 9 we see Paul ardently pressing on to have Christ for his gain, and to be found in Him altogether apart from the possibility of any intrusion of his own righteousness. It is only as found in Him and having Him for our righteousness that we are fitted for the holy associations and light and glory of a scene where all things are of God. How could we bring self in there?
Then there is another thing — He is our life (Colossians 3: 1 - 4). If you think of yourself as a saint and as brought by infinite grace into relationship with God, Christ is your life and Christ only. You may say, ‘I am poor and small in the knowledge of Christ’. That is, no doubt, very true, but Christ is your life. All that is really life for you is in Christ at the right hand of God. We spend a lot of time in things which do not give us much true satisfaction. But the time we spend meditating upon Christ, and the things above, where He sits, is the time that is really of account in the history of our souls. We ought to be more exercised to lay hold of what is truly our life.
Then we have not only Christ as righteousness and life up there but we have the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8: 9). We have the Spirit of the risen Man at God’s right hand. He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit. It is our [p. 384] privilege to live, morally, by the Spirit of One who is at the right hand of God. This is christianity.
I dwell on all this to shew that in christianity everything is of an entirely new order, and it is all of Christ. You have to abstract yourself from what you are naturally and even from what you are in your responsibility as a servant of Christ down here, to get an idea of what it is to be “a man in Christ”. Then you get an apprehension of what it is to belong to an entirely new system of things where everything is of God. Speaking of the “man in Christ” Paul could say, “Of such a one I will boast”. Of himself as a responsible servant he would not glory, save in his infirmities, but he would glory in “a man in Christ”. When you get the thought of what it is to be “a man in Christ” it fills you with divine joy. It is a rare privilege to live at a time when God is doing such wondrous things for the pleasure of His love, and presenting His thoughts and purposes to us so that we may apprehend, and have conscious knowledge of, things that are wholly of Himself.
The “man in Christ” has done with self and the world, and God opens a new scene before him. There is no barrier between “a man in Christ” and paradise. Paul was allowed to realise this in a remarkable way, he was caught up to the third heaven and there heard things so blessed that they could not be uttered in human language. He was not conscious of his body at all; he was only conscious of being “a man in Christ”, and of deriving everything from Christ. How blessed to have such a moment! We shall not be caught up to the third heaven, but it is possible to have the consciousness, by the Spirit, of being “a man in Christ”. This mortal body is an encumbrance. It is the vehicle through which the activity of the flesh manifests itself, and even when it is not active in this way it is an encumbrance. “We who are in the tabernacle groan, being burdened”, 2 Corinthians 5: 4. Paul was, for a time, emancipated from the encumbrance that he might be wholly conscious without distraction of what pertained to “a man in Christ”. We cannot realise it in the special way he did, but what he realised was proper to “a man in Christ”. There is no barrier between a man in Christ and the place where Christ is. We ought to go about with a sense of that in our souls. We belong to the place where Christ is. Hence Paul could say, “Having the desire for departure and being with Christ, for it is very much better”. But before he departed he was allowed to realise and enjoy in this peculiar way the scene to which he belonged. As “a man in Christ” he was in every way suited to the scene of light and glory where Christ is, and to which he was caught up. I repeat, we ought to go about with somewhat of the consciousness of this in our souls by the Spirit.
On the dark night of His betrayal the Lord said, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes”, John 14: 2. His own had followed Him into the deepening shades of His utter rejection here, but He opened up for them a scene of unsullied light and glory in company with Himself in His Father’s house. He gave them the knowledge of a place there with Himself in compensation for suffering and rejection here. The fact that He is there makes it our place. I am sure if we took this in, the present world system would not have the smallest attraction for us. Oh that we knew our place better as being with Christ where He is! We belong to that scene of light and glory where He is. Paul realised it in a special way, but could not put into human language the communications which he heard in that bright and blessed scene.
Now I should like to say a few words about what happened after Paul had thus been made specially conscious of what it was to be “a man in Christ”. He had to return [p. 386] to his responsible life here as a servant of Christ, and in that life there was a danger of his being “exalted by the exceeding greatness of the revelations”. He had to be preserved from this by a special discipline. Some people talk as though they had got beyond the necessity for such a discipline, but it is evident that Paul had not. The flesh was unchanged and was ready to assert itself had it not been checked by the holy discipline of God. A messenger of Satan was allowed to buffet him, and he was helped by this against the intrusion of his flesh. In principle it is so with ourselves. If we receive light as to our privilege as men in Christ, and have desire to walk in suitability to God down here, God helps us against the flesh by sending some discipline to check its activity.
What a contrast between “a man in Christ”, enjoying his privilege as such and not conscious of anything else, and the saint in his responsible life down here needing to be buffeted by a messenger of Satan to keep in check the activity of the flesh! We need to keep these two things distinct in our minds.
It has been remarked that Satan is presented in this epistle as doing three things. He blinds the minds of them which believe not and he seeks to beguile saints from simplicity as to the Christ but when he can no longer blind or beguile he buffets, and God uses this for the great gain and help of His saints.
Paul prayed three times that the thorn for the flesh might depart from him, but the Lord did not remove it. It was good for Paul to have it. We do not know what it was, and this leaves the principle open for general application. It was something that kept Paul in the constant sense of weakness as to himself. Great pain is not so trying to a man as the sense of absolute weakness. A man can steel himself against positive suffering, and harden himself to bear it by resolution of will. But to be reduced [p. 387] to absolute weakness brings a man down as nothing else does. You are obliged to go down under weakness; you cannot gird yourself up against it as you might against external trials or even pain. Paul was brought down to be conscious of nothing but weakness in himself. His service was carried on really in resurrection power, as he says, “We ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead”, 2 Corinthians 1: 9. All was weakness and death as to himself, but that was the way of God’s power. Paul was so reduced that he could only go on by divine power. If all those who profess to be serving God today were reduced to this point one wonders how much of their service would continue! I apply it to myself. If all were set aside in me that is not really in divine power I fear much would disappear. But nothing would disappear that is of any real value in connection with the work of God. It is the practical setting aside of what is of the vessel that makes way for divine power to work in it. When Paul saw that the Lord’s power was made perfect in weakness he could glory in his weaknesses and take pleasure in them. Think of a man taking pleasure in weaknesses! Did you ever hear of such a thing? Paul was not taking pleasure in weaknesses when he was beseeching the Lord to take away the thorn. Then how did he come to take pleasure in it? The Lord said to him, “My grace suffices thee”. Beloved friends, it is a rare moment for the christian when he realises there is only one thing he cannot do without, and that is the grace of the Lord. How blessed for Him to say, “My grace suffices thee”! I understand it to mean that the Lord’s grace would suffice to make Paul content even though reduced to utter weakness in himself, so that he should be perfectly happy in his weakness. That is what the Lord does first. He says, I will make you happy in spite of your weakness,
[p. 388] and then I will reveal to you the secret that my power is perfected in weakness. His grace can make us content to be weak and small, and then His power can be perfected in our weakness.
All this exercise goes on down here in the one who has been conscious of being caught up to paradise as “a man in Christ”. If, on the one hand, we touch the infinite privilege of “a man in Christ”, we must be prepared, on the other, for the discipline of God which brings death in upon what we are naturally, so that we may prove the grace of the Lord, and learn how divine power is perfected in human weakness here. A servant of the Lord now with Christ used to say that the angels excel in strength but that saints excel in weakness. It was so with Paul. He gloried in his weakness that the power of Christ might tabernacle on him. Many christians are too strong to learn what this means. Will and energy are the great things in the world, and a great many think that what is effective in the world can be effective in the things of God. But it is not so. Divine power does not work along with human power. Human power has to be set aside that divine power may be perfected in human weakness. Many a man is no good in the service of God because he is too strong. If we pray for more divine power it is most likely God will answer by causing us to experience our own utter weakness and nothingness as never before. This is humbling to us, but it is God’s blessed and holy way of preparing vessels for His mighty power. The power of man must be set aside if the power of God is to come in.
I do not feel that I can say more. I just wanted to call your attention to these two things — what it is to be a man in Christ and as such to enter into divine privilege, and then to see what goes along with that, the exercises and discipline by which we realise our weakness and [p. 389] nothingness down here, and by which all that is of ourselves is set aside so as to make room for divine power. We see this very fully in Paul. He was put in prison and had many trials, but he says, “This shall turn out for me to salvation, through your supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”, Philippians 1: 19. All the trial and difficulty was a check upon the action of Paul’s will, and thus it turned out for him to salvation. But for this there must be the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the manna fresh every day to sustain us in the wilderness according to the will and pleasure of God. We cannot do without the manna, the grace of the Lord, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. May we know more of the reality of these blessed things, that we may be here as vessels of divine grace and power!