HEAVEN IS OUR PLACE
[p. 226] HEAVEN IS OUR PLACE
The word “conversation” in this verse is more correctly ‘citizenship’; our polity, our citizenship, is in heaven. If you simply accept the fact that you are a citizen of another country, then you are not a citizen of this country. Nothing can be more definite than that if you belong to another country, you do not belong to this one. This is the great point. I will go through the subject in order, but the first thing to accept is, that the earth is not our place, but that heaven is our place. You may say we are not in heaven yet; still, it is our country, and therefore this is not our country. I quite admit we are subjects here, but subjects and citizens are quite different; we are subjects, but we are not citizens; we are bound to obey the powers that be, but our citizenship is in heaven. I believe it is of immense importance to apprehend the fact, and I do not think any one can form a just idea of the alteration it would effect in him. Practically, there is nothing that a man abhors more than to be displaced from the earth. The earth suits the natural man.
Now, firstly, the earth could not be your place, because Christ was rejected here, and He has been called to the right hand of God. “The light of the world” has gone away, and if you seek the light you will find that it is in another place, and that you cannot find it here.
The subject I am pressing is, that your blessings do not come from the earth. It is true that immense blessing has been effected for you here. Christ died for you here; but if you look for the blessings peculiarly christian, they do not come from this place, but from Him who is exalted to God’s right hand. And hence there are many christians, who, though true and [p. 227] devoted, do not enjoy the blessings peculiarly their own. They do not seek them where they are, and they cannot find them anywhere else. They come from heaven. I remember the immense effect it had on me when I first heard the truth that heaven was my place and not the earth. I press, then, on you, that the earth could not be your place, because Christ has been rejected from it; and I think any heart true to the Lord would say, I thank God that the place where Christ was refused is not my place, and that the place where He is accepted is my place. I do not say that you are in heaven, but, as I was showing you last evening, if your heart is drawn to Christ in the place where He is, the effect is that you are running to that place: heaven is the hope of the gospel.
I turn next to our Lord’s words in John 14: “I go to prepare a place for you”. Some commentators think He is now preparing it. No; your place was prepared when He went there. This is a corroboration of what I have said, that the earth could not be your place, seeing that there is a place prepared for you in the Father’s house. When you realise that you have a place in heaven, it has the effect, though you never were there, of drawing you to the Lord who has gone to that place; and if your hearts were true to Him, no other place could fully please you. The Lord counts on this when He says, “Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know”. Can we all say we know the way? Like Thomas, we have to say at first: “We know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” If your heart is simply fixed on Christ, you will soon find the way. Surely deep affection would soon find out where He is. This was the distress of Mary Magdalene: “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him”. The Lord then tells where He would be. Evidently it is one of the rewards connected with service: “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and [p. 228] where I am, there shall also my servant be”. And ordinarily, if an affectionate wife knew her husband had gone to Australia, and that she was to follow him, all her thoughts would be about Australia; she would not go into a shop or anywhere but she would think of the things that would suit Australia. The place would be before her because her husband was there.
Again, if you do not accept heaven as your place, you will not enjoy the blessings peculiar to you as a christian. I turn to Luke 14: 15. A pious man said, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God”; no doubt with reference to the millennial day. The Lord replied, as much as to say, There is something before that - “A certain man made a great supper”. Now, beloved friends, the first question is where the great supper is. The supper is in the house, and not in the land. Israel, man naturally, would like to find it on the earth. Many christians - alas! I have done it myself - look for blessings in the wrong place. One buys a piece of land. There is no sin in a piece of land, but it is a gain in the wrong place. The first thought of every man, even of the working man, is to purchase enough ground to build a house on, and he thinks that it is a mark of God’s favour when he succeeds. You cannot do without a house, I admit; but you are seeking possessions here in the wrong place. Are you not often drawn away from the Lord by something here? You are looking for blessings, advantages, in the place where Christ was rejected! Hence the servant was told to go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come into the house - not the land. Some quote this passage and say, Come to Christ. Of course, if any one does not come to Christ, he could not come into the house, to the feast, but the feast is the celebration of grace. It has been remarked that you get the feast in chapter 14, and the guest in chapter 15. But where is the feast? It is in the house. In the passage, “When he hath found it” [the sheep],
“[p. 229] he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home” is correctly “being come to the house”. Naturally you would have brought a sheep to the pasture. Now you find the home for the prodigal is the Father’s house. I do not mean to say that this is the same as in John 14, but I insist that you have a home in the Father’s house. Your home is not on the earth; you ought to rejoice that you have such a home. We have to learn how little we really enjoy our home. You may say, We are not at home yet. But we have home comforts, though we are still here. They come to us by the Spirit of God, but they come from our home. The desire of the Father’s heart for us is that we should share the joys of His own house. You cannot know these joys unless you look for them in the place where they are. You probably are like many who are looking for advantages on the earth. The fact is that every advantage you obtain here, though it be a comfort for the moment, will be a cause of sorrow some day when it fades away; whereas the blessings which come from your home, through grace, only add to your joy more and more.
I would that each one could walk through this world with the sense, My Lord was refused here, but I am not downcast, because, though He chooses to leave me here, my home is where He is. Without this assurance you lose your proper blessings, the blessings peculiar to christians. Most christians dwell on the fact that they are forgiven their sins, they have the satisfaction that they are christians, and they look for proofs of God’s favour all day long, and this mercy and the other, they say, is a mark of His favour. No doubt His mercies are “new every morning” but there is much more. The greatest mark of God’s favour is a fuller revelation of His mind; if you were to be given Europe it would not be equal to the favour of a better acquaintance with the One who has done everything for you. Any day that you see more of [p. 230] Him in His own greatness and preciousness, then you are most highly favoured.
Again, Scripture says, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”. It is plain that if you have not your treasure in heaven, your heart cannot be there. You must know that the treasure is there first; otherwise, though you may speak of being pilgrims and strangers, yet you really are not so. If you were in Turkey, you would not try to be a pilgrim and a stranger, because you are one there, you are not at home, you are travelling through. I hope to come presently to our calling and service here. I am trying first to establish your individual portion, and the blessings which you miss if you do not see that heaven is your place. “The forerunner is for us entered”; He has gone in, and now we lose if we do not know Him where He is.
Now bear in mind the fact that the Lord has gone away, and that He is at the right hand of God, but that we are here, and yet that our place and our home is where He is; hence we come to the grave question, What is your calling and service here? I have spoken on a former occasion on being sealed by the Spirit, “In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise”. The Holy Spirit has come down from heaven, and now you are connected with Christ in the place where He is. Your heart is bound to a Person in another place. If your heart is really bound to Him, you are necessarily apart from the earth. This is the great test; because the earth suits man, “The earth hath he given to the children of men”. And it is here that failure begins. The Corinthians had the Spirit of God, He had come down from heaven; but Christ in heaven was not paramount to them, they were led away and swayed by their natural minds, and not by the Lord. Their heart would have been in heaven had their treasure been there.
[p. 231] The Galatians, on the other hand, were seeking to improve the first man. I quite see that you might be clear of those two failures, but I want you to lay hold of the fact that one who has the Spirit of God, as the Corinthians and the Galatians had, may not have Christ as the paramount object. With every one walking in the Spirit, Christ is paramount; and you learn from the way the apostle corrects both the Corinthians and the Galatians, where the lack was. He corrects the Corinthians by presenting Christ in glory outside of everything here. The effect was that the flesh was in abeyance; it could not be in the glory of God. If Christ is paramount with you, your heart is fixed on Him. Christ in glory supersedes the man here; there is no place for him there. On the contrary, you are transformed into the same image, and practically the effect is that you would be “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus”. It is important to see that not only does the Holy Spirit dwell in you, but that Christ is in His true place when you are walking in the Spirit. In like manner, with the Galatians, the apostle sets Isaac in his right place, and then Ishmael must go out; that is, the man under the law must be cast out. If you are occupied with the man born after the flesh, you are sanctioning the Ishmael who persecutes Christ. You belong to Christ in heaven, and the Spirit of God has come to you from Him in heaven, and as you walk in the Spirit, Christ is paramount, and you are in this world for Him. I have not come to your service yet, I am speaking of your gain personally when you receive the Spirit. I fear there are many who do not walk in the Spirit, hence they rejoice only in their salvation; they have not the power to act here for Christ. But when you are walking in the Spirit, His normal action in you is to lead you to heaven. “Being full of the Holy Spirit” he “fixed his eyes on heaven”. If you meditate for a moment you will see that it must be so.
[p. 232] I often say to myself, If the Holy Spirit can come down to me in all the contrariety of things here, would not it be more natural to Him to lead me to the place where everything suits Himself? No doubt it would; and that is, as I may say, the new line.
Now I would direct your attention to your service here for Christ. I must begin by saying that no one can serve Christ here who is not in concert with Him in heaven. I shrink from distressing any of you; but I am sure that if any one is not in concert with Christ in heaven, in His place, in His exaltation, he cannot be for Christ in this place, the scene of His rejection; he could not know His mind, nor how to act for Him. Hence, in John 13, when the Lord announces that He is going away, He first washes the disciples’ feet. While He was here with them, they were in the closest intimacy with Him; leaning on His breast at supper, and the like; now He rises from supper, and washes their feet. This means that every soil must be removed; there must be no shade of distance, but fitness for Him in His own sphere. It is not merely that you are to have a good conscience; but you are to have communion with Him. You cannot have communion with Christ if you have not acquaintance with Him. If there be not acquaintance, there could not be a break in it. You may be at rest about your sins and walking with a clear conscience, but to be in communion is much more. Communion is being in concert with Him. He had come to your side of things, but communion is your being in concert with Him in His things. Ask yourself, How much do I know of Christ’s present interests? How much am I in communion with Him? First, every soil has been removed; there is not any break between you and Him. You may find, as has been said of Peter, that the conscience is relieved before the heart is restored. Many have not been intimate enough with the Lord to feel a cloud, a shade of reserve between Him and [p. 233] them. Like the bride in Song of Songs 5, there is, not any known sin, but a cloud, a sense of reserve. Peter had his conscience relieved in John 20, but he was not restored until chapter 21. Though he was attached to the Lord, he was not in communion with Him. Affection in itself is not communion; but when communion has been known, the heart is not satisfied until there is a return to communion.
I turn now to Colossians. We find there the hindrances to the servant of Christ in this day. The Colossians were evidently a nice company; they had faith in Christ, and they had love to all the saints; but they were exposed to a grievous snare. I do not think that we are exempt from it. I have already referred to the Corinthians and the Galatians, but the snare here is much more subtle. The Colossian snare is that a man can use his natural ability and his religiousness to contribute to Christ’s service. I assure you it is a great snare. It is not to improve yourself like the Galatian, or to please yourself like the Corinthian, but it is that you use your learning or your natural ability to make your ministry for Christ effectual. How often a servant of Christ expects that his language will produce an effect! I do not believe eloquence will have a divine effect. I have sometimes tried myself, I must own, to be eloquent, but I have found that I lost power instead of gaining it. Your faith is not to stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. If you expect by your ability to be divinely effectual, you have fallen into the snare the Colossians are warned of - that is, the natural mind. Neither human philosophy nor sanctimoniousness - religious culture - will help on Christ’s work. There is only one divine way of being preserved from this snare, and that is by knowing Christ as your Head.
The apostle is greatly pressed that the Colossians should know this mystery: “I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at [p. 234] Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment [full knowledge] of the mystery of God” (Colossians 2: 1, 2) - the knowledge of Christ as Head. Where is Christ? He is in heaven. It is a wonderful fact that you can know the glorified Man in heaven as your Head, that He is not only your Head, but the Head of every christian, though I grieve to say every christian does not know that He is his Head. If you do not know Him as Head, though He is your Head, you do not reap the benefit of this great fact.
You must be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world before you can, as risen with Him, seek the things above where Christ sitteth. I hope you will keep definitely before you the importance of knowing Christ where He is. You cannot know Him as Head, but as risen with Him where there is no human voice. I look to the Lord that your hearts might be arrested by the great blessedness of knowing that Christ in heaven is your Head. My subject is that heaven is your place; hence I repeat that you must seek Him where He is, or you cannot know Him as your Head. I wish to convince you of the greatness of knowing the Christ in heaven as your Head; hence the word is, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead” - or “have died”. I am pressing on you the greatness of your place.
Finally, it is plain enough that we are united to Christ in heaven, and this corroborates all I have been saying. In order to realise union with Christ, you must be led to Him in heaven. I do not mean bodily, but by the Spirit. As you read in Ephesians 1: 19, you must have conscious knowledge of “the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe”. It is by the Spirit we are united, though I do not say every one knows it. I have no doubt Stephen knew the [p. 235] gain of union, though union was not then revealed. Union with Christ could not be known except in the place where He is. Rebekah had to be conducted all the way through the wilderness in company with the steward (which figuratively is the Holy Spirit), to the spot where Isaac was. And if you are not led by the Spirit of God to Christ where He is, you do not realise union with Him, although through grace, you can say, ‘We are members of His body’. “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him”, yet you cannot comprehend union except by the power of the Spirit; and unless you know union you cannot understand the blessings connected with it. For instance, you could not understand the prayer in Ephesians 3. It is a prayer that all the advantages which you acquire by union should be made known to you. The Lord lead each of you to apprehend the immense blessing which is yours because of your union with Christ in heaven; the greatness of your position, that now your individuality is merged, for Christ’s interests are your interests, He dwells in your hearts by faith, His things are disclosed to you; and better than all, “to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”.
Reverting for a moment to service, you see from Colossians that unless you know the Head you cannot be preserved from ritualism and rationalism. Nothing can preserve us but the knowledge of Christ as Head; and in order to be descriptive of Him here, you must be heavenly, and you cannot be, except by union with Him, the heavenly Man, and then you can come forth in heavenly grace in all the details of your daily life. You have gained immensely. A slave would gain by his master being heavenly, for he would be a better master. It is a great principle that the nearer you are to God, the better will you behave in every duty appointed by God.
[p. 236] I need not add more. The Lord lead each of you to understand (the youngest can begin) that heaven is your place, and that your peculiar blessings come from that place.
The Lord grant, beloved friends, that each of us may be so assured in heart that the place where Christ was rejected is not our place, but that the place where He is accepted is our place, that we seek to be acceptable to Him in this place, and in order to be so, we cleave to Him where He is.