THE VICTORY OF CHRIST AND ITS FRUITS
[p. 150] THE VICTORY OF CHRIST AND ITS FRUITS
I think it is of the greatest moment that we should apprehend what the purpose of God is in the gospel. We can understand the great benefit which the gospel has brought to us, but when once that is seen, it would be well for us to apprehend what has been the purpose of God in it, for most surely God had His own purpose in it.
I believe the purpose of God has been to gain the heart of man; it is that to which God has been pleased to set Himself. You may say it is a small thing to gain, but it is not a small thing with God. I cannot explain it, nor can you; but it is that God has been pleased to set His love upon man. People would say to me, Is not love God’s nature? But when I see that God has set His love upon man, I see that more is involved than the nature of God; it is the sovereignty of God. Love is really in that way sovereign, and God has set Himself in Christ, to gain the heart of man. It is a great thing in the eye of God — small perhaps in yours and mine, but not in God’s. It is not sufficient for God to have made known His love, but He would gain the heart of man, and make man responsive to His love; and now God has gained His end. I do not understand much of what it is to lay myself out to gain the affection of any, but that is what God has done; that is His divine purpose in the gospel.
Then comes out another great truth: He makes known by His Spirit the things which He has prepared for them that love Him; 1 Corinthians 2:9. But they are prepared for those who love God, and are now revealed. The first thing is to gain the love of man; and God gains man’s love by making known His own. I only ask one question — it is a pertinent question: Do you [p. 151] love God? I do not doubt that you will be prepared to sacrifice everything for God, if you appreciate the love of God. The love of God is more wonderful than anything else you might glory in. The blessed answer to it on man’s part is, that he can say, I love God: and then all things work together for good to them that love God Romans 8:28. The things which God has prepared for them that love Him, have never entered into the heart of man. If you love God He will make them known to you.
Now, admitting that the purpose of God was so to make Himself known to man, that He might secure the affection of man, how does God make Himself known? I have thought very much about the epistle to the Romans. It is an introductory epistle, but what I see is, that it is not a simple statement of the gospel, but it reveals the light in which God would be known by the gospel. Now the gospel reveals God to the heart of man, and it is a great thing to have that light in the heart; then it is, when the light has illuminated man’s heart, that we walk in the light even as God is in the light.
The great fundamental truth of the New Testament, the beginning of God’s ways in grace, was Christ coming into the world. He was here showing everybody what the heart of God was; He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. He came into the scene of the enemy’s power; into this scene of woe, moral and physical; and went about showing what was the heart of God in regard to man. Then we see next the consequence of propitiation having been made, of God having been glorified in respect of sin. The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the way perfectly clear by which God could come out to all men in the truth of the gospel, in the light of a Saviour God. That helps me with regard to the chapter before [p. 152] There are three points in the chapter. It is the song of Moses, and the children of Israel, when they had been delivered from the power of Pharaoh, the enemy of God. God is celebrated as a Man of war fighting on behalf of the people. The first point is the enemy swallowed up in the Red Sea, and his power completely annulled; that is the first part of the song. The next great truth is, that God had brought Israel out of the land of bondage and to His habitation; then the third point is, that He would bring them into His own land: “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in”, Exodus 15:17. That is what God would do.
Now, in the detail before us, the first two points were present: the enemy had been destroyed, and Israel had been brought to God’s habitation; the third point was future, it was that God would bring them into His land. But when I come to the application of the type, I see that I can venture to set forth all three things to you as present. There is a future application of the last for us, no doubt, but I only dwell on the present aspect now. God brings us to His dwelling-place. There is a difference between being redeemed and being brought to God’s habitation. It is a greater thing to be brought to God’s own habitation. That is the extent of the song.
Now the first point I want to present is God in the character of a Saviour God: not now in the character of Judge, but as Saviour. We have the judgment of God in Egypt; the character in which God was known there was as Judge. He was passing through the land in judgment. The blood on the lintel meant typically that the judgment had been anticipated, and it sheltered the children of Israel from judgment; the blood was the witness of it, and consequently the destroying angel had nothing to judge. Now it is evident that the character in which God was known was that of [p. 153] Judge, but in this chapter there is not a word about that. In the celebration here, the song presents God in the character of Saviour; He is a man of war: the enemy of the people was the enemy of God, and I will tell you why, because he set himself to prevent God accomplishing His purpose. Satan is busy today, seeking if possible to hinder God in the accomplishment of His purpose, therefore, though you may believe he is the enemy of God’s people, yet, after all, Satan is the enemy of God, which is a more terrible matter. God has come out in the character of a man of war to destroy the power of the enemy. Here we see the power of Pharaoh destroyed; he and all his host were swallowed up in the Red Sea, and the children of Israel celebrated the victory in this song of triumph.
Now you will forgive me if I use an illustration. A great many will be sensible of the feebleness of the illustration, but I use it because I think it will help some, and make the subject plain to your minds. I will suppose that this country was threatened with invasion, and all the horrors attendant thereon, by a neighbouring country, where there was a great military force. Such an idea is intelligible enough. But suppose the queen of this country sent a general into the country from which invasion was threatened, with a force sufficient to crush the entire military power of that country, so that it could never again be constituted or lift up its head. We will suppose this done, and the commander-in-chief to have brought back his force to his own country. Now that is what I see in regard of what God has done; God has taken in hand to defend His people. They were threatened with a fearful hostile force that could terrify them and bring them into bondage. Just think of this country being blockaded; no food, no liberty, all threatened with death; and you have a faint picture of the terror I am speaking of. Satan had the power of death, he [p. 154] could terrify man by the fear of death; death was the judgment of God on men, and the power of it was in the hands of the enemy. The enemy could exercise it to terrify the people of God; but this is what God has done; He has sent out His Son, and His Son has come into the enemy’s country. God sent His Son into the very territory of the enemy, and there has completely crushed and annihilated the power of the enemy in such sense, and so absolutely, as that the power of the enemy never can rise up again: “The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone”, Exodus 15:5. The Son of God has come into death, and He has brought about such a complete change, as that God is seen not as a Judge but as a Saviour. The fact of the death of the Son of God has completely changed the entire aspect of death; instead of being the judgment of God it is the witness of His love. The power of the enemy has been crushed, his head has been bruised. What a change it makes to a christian! Suppose I had to meet death as the judgment of God, death would be an awful terror to me. I have to give up every hope and possession here, and see nothing but the judgment of God beyond. Instead, now, of that being the case, I see that, consequent upon the Son of God having been into death, the power of the enemy is gone and death is the witness of God’s love. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”, Romans 5:8. Commends — that is a strong expression. There is no judgment now, for judgment is exhausted. It is a wonderful thing. The rod of God has been lifted up above the waters, and has made a way for us to pass through.
If I apprehend the love of God, I may be confident that nothing would please God better than that I should be with Him. If you love a person you will have very great pleasure in the company of that person. If God has made known His love in the [p. 155] death of Christ, He will have pleasure in your company. The death of Christ is the way to pass through into the presence of the love of God. In Romans 3 we get the righteousness of God; in chapter 4 He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification; then in chapter 5 the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to us Romans 5:5. Then you begin to argue that if for a good man some would dare to die, how much more God commends His love in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Christ died for us when we were sinners, to prove the love of God to us. If the love of God is such towards us as to give His Son, we are very slow to give Him our love in return. I own it as well as you. There are many things which hinder us from giving God His pleasure, the pleasure of our company. People use the phrase, ‘the pleasure of your company’, and hope to have it, and so on. God wants the pleasure of your company. He has given His Son to come down and change the entire aspect of death, and He will be well pleased to have your company. God has entered into the conflict, and by His Son having come down into the very sphere of the enemy’s power, has completely and eternally annihilated that power. He will bruise Satan under our feet shortly, even as He has bruised him under the feet of His Son.
Now I turn to the next point. “Thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation”, Exodus 15:13. I must come back to the illustration. I will suppose the commander-in-chief to be the queen’s son, who has gone with the mighty force placed at his command, and annihilated the enemy so that he can no longer be an occasion of fear; he has now come back to his country in order that he may be the comfort and support of the people, and that he may distribute among the people the favours of the queen. He has gained for the queen great spoil, and in her great [p. 156] delight at what has been effected, he comes back to be the minister of her favours among the people, to show the delight which she has in the victory he has gained. What we come to is this: God is revealed in the light of resurrection; resurrection is the pleasure of God, and the glory of God. God always delights in something great. It is not simply that the enemy’s power has been crushed in death, but God has raised His Son from the dead, and since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead; God has come out in that way in resurrection power. That is the way in which I should like to know God. What hope is there for us if we do not know God in resurrection power? Abraham knew God in that way; he believed in “God, who quickeneth the dead”, Romans 4:17. How is the world to come to be brought about? In this world everything is going to be weakened by death, sword, pestilence and famine. How will God bring to pass the heavenly Jerusalem? It will come in in the power of resurrection; and Israel, God’s earthly people, will be raised again figuratively from the dead; some to shame, it is true, but others to everlasting life. They will be brought back again from the dust of the earth where they are now buried. The great principle of resurrection power will overturn everything which exists here. What can man do? It has been computed that the great Napoleon was the cause directly and indirectly of the destruction of six million human beings. Did he ever raise a single one? Man can be destructive, and has power in inventing great things, but he never could create a grain of wheat, and yet he can show the most remarkable ingenuity for destruction. The glory of God is that He raises the dead. Abraham believed God who quickens the dead, and in the presence of the God of resurrection he could offer up his beloved son Isaac, the very child of promise, the delight and darling of his heart. I want God, in the power of resurrection, to be a great reality to you.
[p. 157] He has His general — to use the illustration. Everything is administered by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is in the very scene and sphere which God has created for Himself, and He has given us a footing in it; He has communicated the gift of the Holy Spirit so that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts Romans 5:5. God has brought us in that way to His own habitation — the blessed scene of His own administration — and His Minister is the Lord Jesus Christ, the great general by whom He has obtained the victory. I think you must be prepared to entertain the idea of a sphere. Faith must be in exercise, to take in the faith-sphere, where the Lord Jesus administers for the glory of God and the blessing of God’s people, and the Holy Spirit is active in making known the love of God. Can you not enter into that, can you not abstract yourself from everything here? Cannot your mind entertain the idea of a faith-sphere, where God has His own pleasure -His power is His pleasure — and where the Holy Spirit sheds abroad the love of God, and where God distributes the favours consequent upon the victory? I can remember very well in this country when at the termination of war with another country, and when a victory had been gained, those who had been conspicuous in the war received the queen’s favours. When I come to the application of it, God distributes His favours, but He does not pick out some special persons, He gives to all. He delights in the One by whom He has gained the victory, and by Him He distributes His favours.
What has come to pass is this, the Lord Jesus Christ is now the support and stay of His people, and He has given us a footing in the scene and sphere of God’s delight, and we have the Holy Spirit shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts: that is what has come to pass, in His strength He has brought us to His holy habitation. Great is the victory God has gained. Think of the blessed God coming out as a man of war; and how great the sphere is where we can know Him [p. 158] according to His pleasure; the enemy has no power there, and man is justified. We have entrance into it now; God justified Abraham in view of it. We are better off than the fathers; they will be brought into it by and by; we are brought into it now, to know the love of God where our faith can anticipate what is literally future. The sphere is not true to sense, but it is true to faith; all is real to faith, because you have to do with divine Persons. There we approach the God of resurrection, and have not any fear of death. Death is the witness of God’s love; it cannot stand between God and me. I go through it to the God of resurrection, and knowing Him in His power I can confide in Him as Abraham did; and in that scene Jesus is Lord. You believe on Him, you confess Him, then you love Him; you rejoice in Him, you walk worthy of Him, and you love His appearing; that is what the Lord Jesus is to you. He is that to me; I rejoice in the Lord, and I would seek to walk worthy of the Lord.
Then the Holy Spirit serves you, He sheds abroad the love of God in the heart, makes us acquainted with it. Now that is what we are brought into, to rejoice in the great victory God has gained, and to be in the sphere where there is no evil occurrent, and man is justified in that sphere, for the Lord Jesus has been raised for our justification.
Another point, to carry on my illustration. The queen’s son is the object of her affection. The queen would confer every possible distinction upon him; she delights to confer it upon him, and to that end she gives him a place in her palace, and then in order to satisfy his heart he must have companions there; perhaps it may be out of those who have shared his trials and conflicts. I quite admit the poverty of the illustration, still it may help. Now God will yet be satisfied. You and I are satisfied, but the strange thing is that God has not yet satisfied His own heart. Do you [p. 159] refuse God the right to satisfy His own heart? God will satisfy His own heart, first He has set Christ as Man at His own right hand. In John 10:17 the Lord says: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again”. The satisfaction of God is expressed; the love of God to Him is expressed in that He has taken Christ out of death and set Him far above all principality and power. He has given Him the highest place in His own habitation; nothing short of that would do. He must have Him there in heavenly places, and He has given Him the highest name, not only in this world but in the world to come.
But even yet the satisfaction of God’s heart is not complete; to have complete satisfaction Christ must have companions. “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved; ) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”, Ephesians 2:6. That is, the heart of God could not be satisfied unless Christ were satisfied, and in order to be that, He must have companions in the greatness of His exaltation. That is what God has set to work to accomplish, that you should be in God’s own habitation, God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, but that did not satisfy the heart of God: He must bring them to the sanctuary which His hands have established. That was the thought of God in regard to the children of Israel, and God is the standard for Himself. He will bring them into the land of Canaan, and so now, God brings saints into association with His Son in heavenly places. I know we are going to heaven in the end, but Scripture states what God has done; it does not say He will quicken, He will make us sit in heavenly places, but He has done so because of His great love wherewith He loved us; the full result is anticipated.
[p. 160] another point in connection with it is, it is for the satisfaction of the love of Christ. Christ has to see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, Isaiah 53:11. He is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows (Hebrews 1:9), He has companions, but He is anointed above them. Fellows means companions. They are predestinated to be conformed to His image, but it is that He might be the first-born among many brethren, Romans 8:29. ‘First-born’ is pre-eminence. He is not ashamed to call us brethren, because the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one. That is a present, not a future thing, which is declared in Hebrews 2:11. The saints are called to be His companions, and He conducts them into the holiest of all.
One point more: I carry on the illustration. The general is installed in the queen’s habitation. He has the habitation, but how are those companions going to be there? Their dress and what they have been accustomed to will not suit that place. They are persons of no account; their dress, manners and ways are not suited to the place to which they are called. Well, they must be both divested and invested, and that is what has come to pass. They have to be divested of all that is unsuitable to the new sphere, and they have to be invested so that the eye of the queen may rest upon them with perfect satisfaction. If you want an illustration, I will give you one: the thief on the cross is no longer a thief, the prodigal is no longer a prodigal, he is divested of all his rags and has on the best robe. Were it not so it would be impossible for us to be at home or at ease with God. The Holy Spirit has come in order that we should be divested of the flesh, of all that is uncomely and unsuitable, but, on the other hand, that we should be invested with all the comeliness and beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ, and be in perfect ease in that scene. If I were brought into the palace of the queen, I am so little acquainted with court society that I should feel ill at ease there; not only my dress but my manners and ways would [p. 161] not be suited to the place; I should feel I had not been trained for it. So when I come to the Father’s house, into His presence, though I see it is His pleasure that I should be there, yet His pleasure is that I should be at home there; so He sets to work to divest us of all that is connected with self and our ways, but He also invests us with all the blessed ways of Christ so as to make us perfectly at home in the new scene and sphere.
Do you think I have painted a picture? I have attempted to use an illustration. It is only a picture of a great reality. The remarkable thing is, that you get it presented to you in type and shadow in the children of Israel, and carried out in greater reality in the Lord Jesus Christ. His mighty victory has been gained; God is the victor. We may celebrate His victory. His general — so to speak, has come back to the country; He has come back to Him full of honours, to be the stay and support of His people. Christ has been raised again for our justification (Romans 4:25), but He is more than that; He is glorified, and it is God’s pleasure that we should be His companions in the palace of His love, for the satisfaction of His heart. There only remains, in order that you may be perfectly at home, that you should be divested of your vulgar ways and habits, and that is the work of the Spirit of God; it is the putting on of Christ, the beauty and comeliness of Christ are to be upon us. You get it all spoken of in the prophecies of Balaam, when Balak hired him to curse God’s people, and Balaam was as ready as possible to curse them, but the brazen serpent had come in and he could not curse those whom God had blessed, and he had to bless them to the intense irritation of Balak, and to announce on the part of God: “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel”, Numbers 23:21. Christ is their justification. Then he has to go further and say, “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel”, Numbers 24:5!
[p. 162] Now I have carried you along by God’s grace to this point. I desire now to go back to what I said at the beginning; the divine purpose in the gospel is, that God may be so known to you, that He may secure your heart. It is not enough that He loves you, but He will have your heart in return: “We love him because he first loved us” 1 John 4:19. Do you love God? I ask the young here, do you love God? Supremely? I do not want you to abate natural affection, but are you prepared to sacrifice natural things for Him? If you love God, God will do wonderful things for you. God is better to you than everything else. I have had long experience now, and I can say that I have found that God is better to me than I am to myself, and can do greater things for me than I ever could do for myself.
God uses the wilderness to prove to us what a wonderful God it is with whom we have to do,
‘In the desert God will teach thee
What the God that thou hast found;
Patient, gracious, powerful, holy,
All His grace shall there abound’. (76:6)