NORMAL CHRISTIAN PROGRESS
[p. 85] NORMAL CHRISTIAN PROGRESS
John 1:16,17; Psalm 84:5 - 7; 2 Corinthians 3:18
I have selected these verses to make some remarks as to normal christian progress. Progression spiritually is to mark believers. It is not that there is progression in christianity; the christianity itself into which we have come is what is from the beginning. What we come into is what is from the beginning, and it was a completed thought before we came into it, so that there is no development in the thing itself. It was a perfected idea set up here into which men were to come, and in which they were to grow. Progression therefore applies to the believer as coming into it, and that goes on whilst he is in the body, in the present condition. No one can say that he has already reached the fulness of it. He who perhaps reached it more than any spoke in this way, that he did not account himself to have “already obtained” or to be “already perfected”, but he pursued “looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14). The road therefore on which the believer enters is in that direction and leads to the calling on high in Christ Jesus. The believer progresses in that way and it is normal that he should. Anything else is abnormal. Normally that is the divine thought for us; and so I have selected these scriptures, one in the Psalms pointing to the strength, going “from strength to strength”; and that in 2 Corinthians 3, “glory to glory”, without giving any limit in either case. I know full well that with everyone here, even with the apostle himself when here, at the outset it is not just so. Our experiences generally are irregular or undulating, as I may call them; that is, up and down, more down than up, indeed! The types assumed that; although it says that there was not one weak amongst Israel as they came out of Egypt,
[p. 86] for the process of coming out of Egypt is in itself strengthening. One emerging according to the spiritual, of course, is strong, as we get in the Acts and in the gospels: how persons coming under the power of God and affected by it were strong. The ankle bones of a lame man were made strong, so that he walked and leaped and praised God. Walking is one strength and leaping is another and praising God is another; there is definite progress at the very start and it is to continue, so that the believer’s part in progress is certainly very attractive. As Scripture presents it, it is very attractive. No one should be at all ashamed of it in presenting it to men, women and children. It is a glorious matter. But, as I said, the young believer as a rule has ups and downs, and more downs than ups; but in all that, he is learning and brought into, as the types show, a remarkable system of things, a system that takes account of that very fact, for in the type which suggests the reception of the Spirit, or at least the gift of the Spirit from the divine side, in Exodus 17, the battle of Rephidim was an up and down matter, and it alludes to the daily experience of the young believer. God graciously furnishes us with that at the outset in the types so that no young christian should become weary and fall out, but go on. Hence as Moses’ hands were heavy and were let down, Amalek prevailed, as if Israel could not help it. It was a question of Moses’ support, and intercession, that is, that kind of thing. It is not that Christ’s hands become weak at all; it is a question of the system into which we are brought as set up here in responsibility. Although weakness is there, as we go on, as the exigencies arise they are met; so that as Moses’ hands grew heavy he was put on a stone and he sat thereon and his hands were upheld by Aaron and Hur, and Amalek was defeated. It is in that battle that young believers come to see that they can really gain a victory, and it is a [p. 87] great stimulant when you gain one victory; you gain another. You go from strength to strength; you go from that strength to the next necessary strength. But, as I said, it is undulating until the Spirit is received definitely; for whilst at the outset we talk about the Spirit, that we have the Spirit as believers, we have not learned how incorrigible the flesh is, and it takes a long time to come to that. It took Israel forty years. They learned the lesson of the brazen serpent and the springing well. That is a matter of digging under the direction of the lawgiver, for the real difficulty is that we do not recognise the lawgiver; that is, we allow our will. He is the best friend we have. The digging is at the direction of the lawgiver, and then the complete result is the springing well. They recognise it and sing unto it. It is not indeed left out of the service of God, for they sang there. They sang in Exodus 15, but they sang at the springing well. That is, they go from strength to strength, from one point to another, until they reach Pisgah where the whole position is in view; as if you would say, ‘What a God He has been to me as I look back on my history; Canaan is now my prospect, the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus’.
Well now, having made these remarks, I come to the first of John because this verse, referring to the setting of it (the preceding verses including this) speaks of the system inaugurated by the incarnation of Christ. I do not say immediately by His birth, but as John presents it, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. It is not a babe he is speaking of; it includes the babyhood of Christ, speaking reverently; but it is Christ, the Word become flesh, viewed in that way and dwelling among us. How attractive the thing is, dwelling among us, one like Jesus dwelling among us! Were one living in Capernaum in those days he might see the Lord; He lived there day in and day out. What grace shone! {88} [p. 88] How attractive He must have been as His neighbours saw Him! Yet He is the Lord of glory and can we doubt that the glory was shining as He came under their view? “Dwelt among us”, and certain ones say, “And we have contemplated his glory”, as if in a parenthetical way. It is not part of the main writing. It is to show that some anyway thought of Him and stood and looked on Him, for the word ‘contemplate’ is not simply a casual glance; it is an interested person occupied with this Person who comes before his view. So they say, “We have contemplated his glory”. They had an eye for glory, but it was His glory, and He is described. It is an important matter in telling about Christ to be able to describe and put it into language or figures, for after all language has that character, phrases and the like, to put your thoughts into such form that they are intelligible. “An only-begotten with a father” is quite a simple thought, and that is how He is presented here; “An only-begotten with a father, full of grace and truth”. What He was to the Father, or in that relation between His Father and Himself, the glory that was seen was the reciprocal affection between the Father and the Son. That was what they saw; that was what they contemplated. But what John is coming to as a practical thing, as bearing on the need of men here, is grace and truth. Men generally are not equal to beholding the glory of the reciprocal affection between God as Father, and the Son. That is a matter of progress. What men generally need is grace and truth, and it was there. It was there in full measure, as if there was nothing else there. It is not that there was not something else there; there was the glory radiating of the affections proper between a father and an only-begotten, but grace and truth were there. It is one idea; it was there in full measure because it was the urgent need, and is the urgent need of the moment, grace and truth. It was there in full measure [p. 89] sure. He was full of it. Anyone meeting the Lord in those days would find that out. The greater your need of grace the more it is there, the more it is shown to you, as in many cases that one could cite. It was grace first for that is what man needs. Truth will not do at first. He needs first grace and then truth. It is a question of the dispensation and the wisdom of the dispensation, and how this glorious Person was there full of the thing. It was so essential. And then John’s witness is brought in, John the Baptist, and he goes on to say, that is, John the apostle says, “Of his fulness we all have received”. Of His fulness! Well, you say, ‘That is the grace’. It is not just exactly the grace; it is an addition. It is not simply, ‘fulness, grace upon grace’, but “and grace upon grace”. That is what is needed. The fulness is more than that, of course. The glorious radiation of the affection between a father and an only-begotten is more than that, but the grace and truth are seen in Christ in full measure. It is a great thought as meeting the need of what He came into. Then receiving the thing, those who contemplate the glory receive the grace. It is not so easy to receive as we are apt to think. Reception, we are to be fitted for it. Those that contemplate the glory receive the grace, and they say, “and grace upon grace”. Now that is what I wanted to make clear at first, so that we see how the going on from strength to strength and glory to glory is possible, so that there should be here steady progress, as I said, from strength to strength and glory to glory, no undulation but steady progress in the believer. And so as to fortify us further, the writer in this verse goes on to say that “the law was given by Moses”. It is not that it is abrogated, but it came by Moses. “Grace and truth [it is one idea] subsists [not ‘in’ but] through Jesus Christ”. He is full of grace and truth; but now He has effected such a thing as that, and [p. 90] made it a great principle in the moral universe. That is the idea. I want to encourage you beloved young people here with what you have come into as christians. It is not simply what is in His Person, but what He has brought into being and set up as an integral part of the whole moral scheme. He has effected it. It is as essential to us as air is to the physical system. Light is essential, and air and food and water are essential to the physical system. It is just as essential in the system into which we have been brought, as air in the present system with which we have to do. We cannot subsist without grace and truth, and what is stated is that the Lord Jesus has effected that. It is through Him. It is an instrumental thought, as it is said at the beginning, “All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being”. So in the moral system He has brought this into being. “Grace and truth”, it is one idea, is brought into being by the Lord Jesus Christ and there it is. You come into it. Those who saw the glory said, ‘We have received the grace’. If you see the glory you say, ‘I must receive the grace; I cannot stand in the presence of it without the grace’. And then it is “grace upon grace” all the time. It is not one grace finally; it is not one transaction lasting for ever; it is a continuous thing. It is grace upon grace, one wave after another coming in as needed, that is from the divine side. So you can see how possible this progress is. Whatever the need for the moment there is grace for it. It is not simply the great principle of grace and truth set up, but there is grace for my particular need whatever it is. It comes in like waves in the ocean, one after another, never ending, “grace upon grace”. No one needs to be overtaken or overwhelmed. Whatever the need there is grace to meet it, one grace after another.
[p. 91] Well, having said that, dear friends, I would go on to the psalm. It is, as no doubt many of you have noticed, one of the psalms of the sons of Korah, and it links on with what I am speaking of. It is a psalm dealing with the mercy of God. It is “to the chief Musician”, a psalm “of the sons of Korah”. The Spirit of God prefixes these titles to the psalms. There is no part of Scripture more interesting than the Psalms, and perhaps no part less understood by the people of God, including, one would say humbly, oneself. But one is seeking to get on with the wealth of the Psalms and their counterpart in the New Testament. I think the Lord is in this too. This feature of Scripture greatly strengthens saints in what I am speaking of as involved in normal christianity, in the progress that is proper to it. We are enjoined to be “speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and chanting with your heart”, not simply to an air or a tune, but “to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). You must have a tune of course. The fact that it is “to the chief Musician” would remind us that tunes must be used, and suitable ones too. Sometimes what would be really edifying in the assembly is marred by the tune someone rashly starts. We must recognise the chief Musician. The more spiritual the contributions are in the Old Testament, the more the chief Musician is recognised. The readiness with which tunes are started would rather suggest that the chief Musician has not been thought of at all. This one is “to the chief Musician”. Habakkuk’s remarkable contribution to the service of God is developed out of discipline. A man that can say in the face of difficulty, ‘This happened for discipline; this happened for correction’, will gain; he will be a contributor to the service of God. He said at the end “Though the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive-tree shall fail, and the fields shall yield no food ... [p. 92] yet I will rejoice in Jehovah, I will joy in the God of my salvation”. Then he goes on to talk of the high places in which God would cause him to walk, and what he affords the service of God is assigned “To the chief Musician”. He has got a high note. He knows the value of what he has, and he wants to put it in good hands, recognising the chief Musician. There can be no harmony or real edifying in singing aside from the chief Musician. It was a psalm to the chief Musician with a certain instrument, whatever it was we do not know but it is there. The name of the thing is there. And then we have blessing. That is another word in the Psalms that ought to be noted, and ought to induce us to learn more of them, for blessedness should mark us, even in our faces. “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, they, in whose heart are the highways”. I suppose the word ‘blessed’ is mentioned in the Psalms more often than in any other part of scripture. Well, we do not want to be outside the range of that. We want to be amongst those men here that are blessed. The Lord on the mount, you will remember, speaks of blessing some nine times in regard of His disciples, in regard of others too, including His disciples. We want to be amongst those that come in for these things. And so here we have the verse I read, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, they, in whose heart are the highways”. It is not one man alone; the spirit of prophecy, the spirit of psalmody, would bring in the saints. We want to be brought into these things. It is very beautiful in the prophets and the psalms to see how the singular branches off into the plural: “they, in whose heart are the highways”. We must have the highways, meaning that we have strength in God. God is our strength, but we cannot claim that apart from the highways. There are those who do. There are those who pretend that they have all that God is, but they [p. 93] have not. The highways must be added. God has respect for the highways. You may say, ‘What do you mean by the highways?’ That is important. The highways are for the upright man; and what is any man worth if he is not upright? What are the highways for an upright man? To depart from evil! That is the idea. There are thousands of people who claim to have God as their strength. I do not deny it; I do not say that they have not, but then what about the highways? “In whose heart are the highways”. One of them, as I said, is to depart from evil. If I were in an evil association, the highway for me is open, and what is it? It is to depart from evil. The highways run through. There are other features. It is an interesting study in the Scriptures as to what the highways mean. The initial highway is to depart from evil. That is what the book of Proverbs teaches us. Deborah, in her remarkable song, deplores that the highways were neglected: “In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the roads were unused, and the travellers on highways went by crooked paths” (Judges 5:6). And they are neglected now by myriads of God’s people, those who stay in man-made associations and other associations, personal associations. To depart from evil is the first great highway to God, It is not only externally, but in your heart, “In whose heart are the highways”. And then it goes on to say, “Passing through the valley of Baca”; that is the valley of weeping. One has often had knowledge of persons dying, who were attached to these evil associations, and there is a flood of weeping, but little of the well-spring. Those in whose hearts are the highways, those who have departed from evil, “they make it a well-spring”. That is what they can do. Their strength is in God. In their heart are the highways of God, and they pass through the weeping sphere and they make it a well-spring. What power there [p. 94] is in separation, in the highways of God! God is there. One of the finest things you can get in Scripture is what is said to Joshua and David, “Jehovah thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest”. It is not, ‘Where I lead’, but ‘Wherever you go, I am with you’. God has confidence in them. God reads the heart. A man in whose heart the highways of God are, God knows him. You make it a well-spring; you do it. It is a question of the power of the Spirit of God, and the waves of grace that come in there, one wave after another, so that you are not overwhelmed with weeping, mourning and sorrowing, but make it a well-spring. And then there is “the early rain”, for that is really what is meant, the autumn rain. That is the rain that affects the seed as it is put into the ground. The early planting, how much it is needed! The devil is waiting on young people to pick up any little seed put into their hearts; but in the highways of God the rain fills the pools, or rather it “covereth it with blessings”, the rain coming down as the seed is planted in the heart. That is how the believer moves on. The greatest bereavement he overcomes; the greatest sorrow of any kind he overcomes. Like Habakkuk he joys in the God of his salvation. He is able to sing these songs and to walk in the high places, and to use his stringed instruments and to contribute what he has to the chief Musician; so that he goes from strength to strength. It is not from strength to weakness, although in another sense he does realise his weakness, as the apostle says, “When I am weak, then I am powerful” (2 Corinthians 12:10). That is in the sense that flesh profits nothing. You have no power at all in yourself, but in God. The acceptance of the powerlessness of the flesh brings in God. “I have strength for all things”, he says, “in him that gives me power” (Philippians 4:13). What a mighty victory that is! All things!
[p. 95] And so it goes on here, as you will many a time have noticed, “They go from strength to strength: each one will appear before God in Zion”. That does not mean that I go to church, as people would say. One would desire to see young people go to church; as it is, the drift is the other way. It is sorrowful to see people hiking off and leaving the churches empty. I am not telling you to go, but I am speaking of the apostasy that marks the moment. It is not going to church here, or even going to the meeting, although the meeting, the assembly, is involved; but they “appear before God in Zion”. How suitable that was to the sons of Korah, the subjects of the sovereign mercy of God! That is what every true believer acknowledges himself to be. The more he goes on in the highways of God the more he discerns that it is mercy all the way. Grace, of course, is there to meet the need, but there is mercy all through. The more I know God, the more I know myself and the more I see it is a question of the sovereign selection and the power of God. So that they go from strength to strength, as it says, “Each one will appear before God in Zion”. If there are those here who are not moving in this direction although christians, here is a word for you. You are only taken up by God in grace and sovereign mercy that you may appear before Him, not in your selected place, but in Zion. “When shall I come and appear before God?”. One may say, ‘It will be at Christ’s day’. “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God”, says another; “When shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42:2). That is the language of one who is in the highways now, in whose heart are the highways, and who has God before him. So if there are those here who have started in this way and are not serving God and having part in His service and worshipping Him, there is a word for you. The call indeed, the appeal to you, is to come with us and appear before [p. 96] God in Zion, not in poverty, not in weakness, but in strength, going from strength to strength, each one of them appearing before God in Zion. There are those who think it is only a question of setting up a place and calling it the house of God, but that will not do. God is very particular about Zion. “In all places where I shall make my name to be remembered, I will come unto thee” (Exodus 20:24).
Well, now, I go on to the New Testament to 2 Corinthians. What I am concerned about now is the glory, for the system we have come into includes that. It is not simply that God is glorious and Christ is glorious, but the saints are to be glorious. The glory is part of the testimony. Even the persons who took the bounty of the saints to Jerusalem were glorious. They were glorious in their action. They were said to be “messengers of assemblies, Christ’s glory” (2 Corinthians 8:23). The assembly is Christ’s glory, and anyone reflecting what characterises the assembly is glorious. That is now what I would speak about for a moment, the idea of being glorious. Of course, it all belongs to God. He is the God of it; He is the Father of it; Christ is the Lord of it; the Spirit is the Spirit of glory. You can see it all emanates from God, but then He intends to put it upon us, to have us glorious. You cannot imagine one in eternity before God not being glorious. One star differs from another in glory. Surely they are symbolical of the saints; each has a name; each is glorious; and so the divine thought is that we are to be before Him in glory. Two men appear in glory speaking with Jesus. That is the heavenly side brought into view, two men in glory speaking with Jesus. There were three men there besides, but they were not glorious. Peter and James and John were there, but they were not glorious. See the difference between them and Moses and Elijah. They were glorious, appearing with Jesus. See the difference between Peter’s poor words to Jesus, and those of Moses and Elijah. What were they saying to Jesus? They were speaking to Jesus about His death. The Lord loves to hear us speak about His death. They were speaking about “his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). They knew about it. I can understand Moses, by the types, saying, ‘Exodus all meant this; and the offerings meant this’. It is a question of the exodus, for the wonderful idea is the Lord’s exodus, how He was to go out from this world. They were talking about that. How delightful it must have been to the Lord that they spoke to Him about that. Moses said earlier, “Let me, I pray thee, see thy glory” (Exodus 33:18). Now he is himself appearing in it, and speaking about the greatest moral glory conceivable, that is, the way in which Jesus went out of this world. What glory enveloped Him as He went out! They were speaking about that. And so, dear brethren, the Lord is endeavouring to lead us on to this matter of beholding the glory of the Lord, and as beholding it to take it on. “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory”. One would venture if one had time to illustrate this in the lives of others. In the Lord’s own life, it was one glory after another. Take the gospel of Luke: It was one strength after another and one glory after another. It is just a record of glory, and the final exit, one of the greatest displays of moral glory conceivable, is the exodus of Christ out of this world, “his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem”. He said Himself, “It must not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). He must perish there, as all wickedness was concentrated there, and He stood out against it in moral glory. It is a wonderful scene. One loves to linger at it to see the glory of the Lord. It is really [p. 98] the glory of the Lord in one sense we are speaking of here. It is the glory of the way in which the Lord makes the love of God effectual in the believer’s heart. There is nothing to be compared with the cross for moral glory. Think of One despising the shame, and set down at the right hand of the throne of God! Think of Him occupying Himself with one christian, to invest him with the glory! That is the kind of service. Are you ready to put yourself into His hands? Looking at the glory, seeing how He does it, and as you look at it you become glorious, “even as by the Lord the Spirit”. He is doing it, but you are looking; you are not indifferent. Indifference is a baneful thing amongst us. The idea is intense fixedness of the eye, like Stephen; it says, “he saw the glory of God” (Acts 7:55). It is the fixedness of the eye on the one hand, and it is the steady service of Christ on the other, “the Lord the Spirit”, to bring about this wonderful transformation from glory to glory. That is what I wanted to bring before you, that you may see what christianity is in the normality connected with it, going from strength to strength and receiving from the divine reservoir, appearing before God in Zion and taking on the glory, going from glory to glory being prepared thus for the heavenly testimony that is before us.