THE NEW HUSBAND
[p. 33] THE NEW HUSBAND
The verses we have read bring before us the great principle on which alone we can give pleasure to God. The thought of bringing forth “fruit unto God” is that we become pleasurable to Him. This can only he as we understand that we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, so that we may he married to Another, even to Him who is raised from the dead.
We can all perceive the necessity for forgiveness and justification. All believers know something of this. But it is not so easy to apprehend that as Christians we have become dead to the law. Every converted person can see that the law is holy, just, and good, and that from cover to cover of the Bible, God never requires anything from man but what is right and morally perfect. The law presents moral perfection, and all its requirements are just and beautiful. Indeed, all God’s will for man is full of moral beauty, and is attractive to the hearts of those who are born again.
There are certain books which are popular amongst religious people — such as Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying, and Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ — which take up almost every feature of moral perfection that can be found in Scripture, and present it as a standard for men td attain to. It is all very attractive and beautiful in itself, but it does not give power. It only brings home to an earnest soul the profound conviction that he is in every respect contrary to what he ought to be. This may be a very wholesome experience, but it is not a happy one. It brings bondage and darkness rather than joy and peace. God’s pleasure is that His children should be perfectly free and happy before Him. It is only as being so that we can bring forth fruit unto God.
[p. 34] To be married to the law is to be before God on the ground of what I am as in the flesh. It is true that the law is good, but it is equally true that there is nothing in me, that is, in my flesh, that can be made to answer to it. The more earnest I am, the more quickly do I find this out. What bondage it is to feel that God’s will is good, and that I ought to answer to it, but that I do not and cannot bring myself into subjection to it!
The whole principle of the law is the will of God presented as a claim. But it is impossible that any satisfaction can arise from a claim unless the person liable has power to answer to it. If I make a claim upon a debtor, and he cannot pay, the claim yields no satisfaction either to him or to me. But if I am disposed to bestow a gift so that the debtor may be able to pay his debts, and have a portion to live on besides, and my debtor is willing to receive it, there is satisfaction on both sides. The whole principle of grace in one word is GIFT.
It is very important to see that God treats us from the beginning as having “nothing to pay”. That is there is no response in us to the will of God, and, as to our flesh, there never will be. “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Romans 7:18). We thus find ourselves justly under condemnation and death, and God acquires no satisfaction in us; we “cannot please God” (Romans 8:8).
But what a perfect contrast to all this do we find when we turn to Christ! In Him we see the will of God presented as filled up in every detail in absolute divine beauty and perfection. It is a great thing to see Christ as the One in whom God has found perfect delight — His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. Many believers know something of Christ as Saviour, Advocate, and Intercessor who have not [p. 35] really known Him as the resting-place of God’s pleasure.
But one may say, “The very fact that divine perfection has come into this world in Christ only serves to make more manifest my utter depravity and helplessness, for I am totally unable to take one step after Him in His pathway of holy obedience and love. If possible the thought of Christ brings greater condemnation upon me than the thought of the law”.
All this serves to bring home to our souls a sense of the deep necessity for the death of Christ. If we find out that we are dead morally — that is, that there is no response in us to God — it prepares us to appreciate the blessed fact that we have become dead legally, if one may so say, by the body of Christ.
At this point I should like to read Galatians 3: 1. “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, .. . before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified?” God has sent His beloved Son into this world, not to keep the law for us, but to come under all the just consequences of our having failed to keep it — to be made a curse for us (see Galatians 3: 10, 13). In the death of Christ we see the penalty and curse of a broken law coming upon One who placed Himself under it in perfect divine grace and love. We also see the very state to which law applied brought to an end in His death. The law applies to men living in this world. It is impossible to impose a legal obligation on a dead man, or to expect any response from him. God sets Jesus Christ before our eyes as crucified — that is, as a dead Man — and tells us that we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ. God in absolute grace sets the believer in this position. By the death of Christ God annuls the bond which existed between the law and those who were under it.
And, on the other hand, He has brought us into the light of His grace. He has introduced that which [p. 36] gives the fullest satisfaction to His own heart, and brings infinite blessing and joy to the believer. “When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4: 4, 5). Everything now is on the line of promise and gift, and on our side the prominent word is “receive”; see Galatians 3: 2, 14; Galatians 4: 5. God’s approach to men now is not characterised by claim, but gift.
God has freed us by the death of Christ from the Man who ends in dust and ashes (see Job 42: 6), and He has connected us with the Man of His counsel and pleasure, and with all the perfection that is set forth in Him. This is not attainment, but the gift of grace. There is but one Man for the pleasure of God, and that Man is Christ. God works by His Spirit to bring us consciously into spiritual relationship with Christ. God would make Christ more to us than everything else — more than service or fruit — He would make it our supreme desire to know more of Christ. It is by being married to Christ that we receive power to bring forth fruit unto God.
Turn now for a moment to John 10: 1 - 4. This scripture is very distinctly connected with the subject before us. We see here the way the Shepherd takes to bring His sheep out of the fold — that is, out of the legal system. He first establishes a personal link with them. “He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out”. That is what He did when He was here. He formed links between Himself and the hearts of His own. By giving them the knowledge of Himself, and making them conscious of His company, His love, and His support, He brought them into liberty. They were no longer held by the legal system, but by Christ. Then He left the fold by death, and took a new place as raised from the dead, that in being attached [p. 37] to Him His saints might be delivered from the law. “The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep”
(John 10: 11). What a pledge of His love! May we not count upon all His power and resources being for us, since His love toward us knows no reserve? By going into death He has put the seal of His love for ever on our hearts. He has bound us to Himself. Each believer is entitled to say with Paul, “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2: 20).
Now just a few words on John 15: 4, 5. “Without me ye can do nothing” sums up the lesson that is described experimentally in the latter part of Romans 7. If I view myself as apart from Christ I am a “body of ... death”, and I can do nothing that will yield pleasure to God. But it is God’s pleasure that we should abide in Christ and bring forth much fruit. We abide in Him as we are conscious of our weakness on the one hand, and of His love and power on the other. It is the abiding of affection, as a wife looks to her husband continually as her stay and support. If we abide in Christ He abides in us, and in this way there is fruit for God. A wife who loves her husband takes character from him, and God would have us married to Christ so as to take character from Him. If we are in company with Christ we shall become morally conformed to Him as Timothy was to Paul (1 Corinthians 4: 17).
As we are thus bound to Christ in affection we get His support. He will not support us in money-making, or in the maintenance of social position here, but He will give us every needed support that we may bring forth fruit unto God.
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15: 7). I have no doubt the asking here is supposed to be in connection with the desire to bear fruit. If a saint desires this he will he supported, and [p. 38] cared for, and, if need be, disciplined that he may bear fruit. “It shall be done unto you”.
2 Corinthians 12: 8, 9 shows how the Lord becomes the Source of grace and strength to His own. Paul seemed to be crippled for service, and he besought the Lord thrice to take away the “thorn in the flesh”. But the Lord gave him something better than he asked for. “My grace is sufficient for thee”. He got support from the Lord, so that he was content to be reduced to nothingness. And he also got the blessed assurance that “My strength is made perfect in weakness”. Then he could say, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me”. He knew what it was to be married to Christ.
In Philippians 1: 19 we read of “the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”. The apostle needed this to enable him to go through his trying circumstances according to God’s will. But he knew that there was a supply of all that he needed. He was consciously married to Christ.
God would have us to be so assured of the love and support of Christ that we should think more of the support and the supply than of the claim. There is a greater supply in Christ than any demand that can possibly arise on our part. The sense of this would deliver us from legality, and instruct us in the blessedness of being married to Christ.