THE PRINCIPLES OF THE WORLD TO COME
[p. 139] THE PRINCIPLES OF THE WORLD TO COME
Address by F.E.R.
Romans 4: 23 to 5: 21 There is a great deal contained in the passage I have read; more than is perhaps seen at first glance. It takes up many thoughts, and in what I understand to be the line of the teaching of the Spirit of God. I do not know anything of much more importance than to apprehend that the Spirit of God has a line of teaching, and is never deflected from that line. He keeps to it; we do not keep to it. We learn in a very disjointed and miscellaneous fashion. We get a little bit here and there in divine things, but that is not the line of the Spirit of God; and, sooner or later, we have to be brought into the line of the Spirit’s teaching. I do not think you will ever be intelligent in divine things until you are directed into the line of the teaching of the Spirit; and that line is invariable, the Spirit of God never departs from it. The reason of that is that it is a line that is morally necessary. Everything with God, or of God, is moral, and there is a certain line which is morally necessary, and the Spirit of God is certain to carry you in mind along that line.
Now there are three or four things that I want to touch on, which follow each other successively, which you apprehend in the path of the Spirit. This is illustrated in the history of the children of Israel; God’s dealings with them become a lesson book to us. It illustrates the truth, and we very often learn truth simply by means of illustration.
There are four great thoughts which come out in this chapter before us in their own proper order in the teaching of the Spirit.
The first is the kingdom of God, expressed in the Lord Jesus.
[p. 140] The second is the covenant, or teaching, for ‘covenant’ means teaching, practically. It is covenant on the part of God, but covenant on the part of God really means teaching to us.
The third, I take it, follows upon the covenant, and that is reconciliation.
And the final point that comes out is eternal life — unto which grace reigns.
If you bear those four thoughts in mind, they indicate pretty clearly the line of the Spirit’s teaching.
The establishment of the kingdom of God has everlasting life as the end in view.
Now I want to make one point plain before I pass on, viz., that almost every thought in the chapter has reference not to this world, but to the world to come. For faith the world to come is already in view. I understand how it is brought in. It is in the fact that Christ is seated at the right hand of God; and if faith apprehends the place which Christ has at the right hand of God, it gets an insight into the world to come.
The world to come is not brought into manifestation, but for faith that world has already come in, in the exaltation of Christ at the right hand of God. I will point out in a moment how the passage I read refers to the world to come; but I want you to bear in mind that when I speak about the world to come, I do not speak exclusively of the future; I quite admit that the present world is going on, and that the world to come has not yet come into display; but in the exaltation of the Lord Jesus to the right hand of God, the world to come has already come to pass for faith. It is the argument in Hebrews 2. He says that God has not put the world to come under angels; and the world to come “of which we speak” was the subject of his testimony. But we do not yet see all things put under Jesus; that is what properly marks the world [p. 141] to come; but [p. 145] we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour.
Now I will tell you what marks the world to come. If you look at Psalm 8 for a moment; or perhaps I might refer to Psalm 2, to make it more complete. In verses 6 - 9 It says, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel”.
Now if you look at Psalm 8, we read, “O Lord (Jehovah) our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens”.
Those passages give you a pretty clear conception of the world to come. The first thing that marks the world to come is, “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion”. Psalm 2 begins with, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us”. And then it says, “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion”. That is, in spite of the raging of the powers of the world, God has accomplished His mind; He has set His King upon His holy hill of Zion. That is the first feature of the world to come.
There are two orders of things running through Scripture, one connected with Jerusalem, and the other with Babylon. When Jerusalem has its place, then Babylon is broken to pieces. On the other hand, when Babylon is in the ascendant, Jerusalem is trodden under foot. When Jerusalem became captive, Babylon was in the ascendant. In the time to come, when God [p. 142] revives Jerusalem, then Babylon is broken to pieces. I dare say some would say, where is Babylon today? I have no doubt Babylon passed on in succession to Rome. First in the vision of Daniel is the Babylonian kingdom, then the Medo-Persian, then the Greek, and after that the Roman. The Roman exists today; the book of Revelation gives us much light on the book of Daniel. In the Revelation is brought out that in the time to come the Roman power will be revived; it will come to light under a new form, in a federation of the kingdoms of the Western world. Thus you get the last phase of Babylon — and that will be broken to pieces at the coming of the Lord. That is, when God sees fit, in due time, to re-establish Jerusalem upon its own foundations, Babylon, which really means the glory of man, will be broken to pieces.
This is a great help to the understanding of Scripture. It has been said (pardon me for touching on prophecy for a moment) that Assyria is the enemy of Israel when Israel is owned, Babylon is the enemy of Israel when Israel is not owned; hence, when Babylon is in the ascendant, Jerusalem is trodden under foot, and when Jerusalem is in the ascendant, Babylon is trodden under foot.
Well now, what we find is that in spite of the raging of the kings, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion”, Jerusalem is restored, and this in spite of the contrariety and rebelliousness of man.
Then we find a further thought, “I will declare the decree”. The King in Zion is declared to be the Son of God, and He asks of God, and God gives Him the heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel”.
If you look at Revelation 2: 26, 27, you read, “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
[p. 143] and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father”. Now in that promise to the overcomer, it is certain that Christ takes up the language of Psalm 2, and gives to the overcomer the authority which has been given to Him; for in Psalm 2 is a similar expression, “He shall break them with a rod of iron”, and Christ adds, “even as I received of my Father”. The authority is given to Christ in Psalm 2, and He gives it to the overcomer in this verse in the Revelation. Further, in Revelation 19: 11 - 15, it is said, “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him, ... he shall rule them with a rod of iron”. There again is a quotation from Psalm 2, “He shall rule them with a rod of iron”, that is, the nations. “And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS”.
I have referred to those two passages because they make perfectly evident that what we get in Psalm 2 is prophetic, and refers to the kingdom; it does not refer to anything which has yet taken place, but to things which God will accomplish; that is, He will set His King upon His holy hill of Zion, and that King is declared to be the Son of God, who will rule the nations with a rod of iron and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
The application to the time to come is made evident by the passages I quoted from the Revelation.
Now in Psalm 8 we get first an allusion to man as God created him; then an allusion to “the son of man”. Man and the son of man are distinct individualities. Man was what God created at the beginning; the “son of man” cannot be that, because he is the son of man. The expression ‘son of man’ is, beyond all doubt, a reference to Christ, and the passage is applied to Christ in Hebrews 2. The Spirit of God [p. 144] by the apostle takes up that psalm in order to apply it to Christ. He says, “we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour”.
Now that Psalm has been fulfilled partially, but not completely; Jesus has been made a little lower than the angels; that part has been accomplished, and He is “crowned with glory and honour”; but, in Hebrews 2 we read, “we see not yet all things put under him”; that has not yet come to pass. The psalm, like Psalm 2, looks on to the world to come. Therefore in regard to the world to come, you get three things. The first is, God’s King set upon His holy hill of Zion; the second, He is declared to be the Son of God, who has the heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, and who will rule the nations with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Then the third, that He is the “Son of man”, crowned with glory and honour, set over all the works of God’s hands, and all things put under His feet.
That is what I meant when I spoke about the world to come. I would like to make the point plain, because it is so important to apprehend the features of the world to come. We see Jerusalem revived and restored, God’s King set upon His holy hill of Zion; Jerusalem become the centre and the light of the whole earth; the nations shepherded with a rod of iron, and their powers broken to pieces like a potter’s vessel. That is what becomes of the nations, and, at the same time, the Son of man is crowned with glory and honour, and set over the works of God’s hands. That is, instead of Satan having power and being the god and prince of this world, he is cast out, and all power and authority is centred in the Son of man, whom God has now set in heaven. Man, as God made him at first, was never set in heaven; he was set upon the earth; the Son of man has been set in heaven.
We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour; He is set in heaven, and Satan and his hosts are to be cast out.
The Lord foresaw this in Luke 10, when He said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven”. That is prophetic. In the Revelation a conflict takes place between Satan and his angels, and Michael and his angels. The result of the conflict is that the devil and his angels are cast out, and we have a significant statement in regard to them, that “neither was their place found any more in heaven”.
But I do not want you to think, when I speak about the world to come, that I defer it to the future; I do not; I take it up in the light of the Hebrews, and there we are told that, though we do not yet see all things put under the Son of man, we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, and set over all the works of God’s hands.
Faith has ever anticipated the world to come; but, in times gone by, before Christ was exalted and set at the right hand of God, you could not see the world to come. But faith ever had reference to the world to come, though it could not be seen until Jesus was, in the value of redemption, crowned with glory and honour. Now the apostle says we speak about the world to come.
My point is this: that every thought in Romans 4 and 5 has reference to the world to come. Look at chapter 4: 13: “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith”; and verses 16 and 17: “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even [p. 146] God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were”.
I put those two thoughts together; the promise that Abraham should be the heir of the world is connected in verse 17 with God, as “him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were”.
Now, the time has not yet fully come for that; God has not come out yet as quickening the dead; quickening the dead does not mean simply to quicken souls; it means quickening of bodies, and this has not come to pass yet, save in Christ. The promise to Abraham is connected with God who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were, and this has reference to the world to come.
To illustrate this for a moment: the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar was not connected with God who quickens the dead; it was connected with the Most High God who rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to the basest of men. God can allow a scourge of mankind like Napoleon to be raised up, the basest of men; He rules in the kingdom of men; and He gives the kingdom to whom He will. But the promise of Abraham that he should be the heir of the world, is not connected with God as ruling in the kingdoms of men, but with God as the One who quickens the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Thus it is the world to come of which Abraham was the heir; he was not heir of this world; he never got a foot of inheritance in this world; God brought him to the promised land, but he possessed nothing but a burying place in it. He embraced the promises, as we are told, but he never received them; and therefore the promise that he should be the heir of the world must refer to the world to come. When God acts as quickener of the dead, Abraham will get his inheritance; he is the heir of the world. Hence it is plain that the whole passage refers, not to this world,
[p. 147] but to the world of which Abraham is the heir, before God whom he believed, who quickens the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
I pass on to chapter 5: 2: We “rejoice in hope of the glory of God”. That is not connected with this world; there has been no display yet of God’s glory; God has been glorified, but there has been no display of His glory yet. The glory of God will cover the earth; the display of His glory is connected with the world to come.
The character of the present world is Babylonish, and Babylon means the glory of man; it does not mean the glory of God at all. Everything in Babylon is for the glory of man. The world to come brings in the glory of God, and we rejoice in hope of that glory. Abraham rejoiced in hope of his inheritance; we rejoice in hope of the glory of God, when every promise of God will be brought to pass in Christ.
If you will look at verse 9, we have: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life”.
It is evident that the wrath of God is not yet; it refers to what will usher in the world to come. Then in the next verse you have, being reconciled to God by the death of His Son, we shall be saved by His life. There is a long gap, in a sense, between the death of Christ and the life of Christ. The world was cognisant of the death of Christ; He suffered here; they were witnesses of His death, but His life has not come out yet. We shall be saved by His life; when that is manifest, then we shall be saved, but it has reference to that which is yet to come to light.
Now, take up the last verse: “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”. What thoughtful person could say that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life now? I do not think it does yet; I do not think that grace is manifestly set in the ascendant. It is “unto eternal life”; this is a divine thought and has reference to the world to come. I do not doubt that these thoughts depend for full effect upon the coming of the Lord. When the time appointed arrives, and the Lord comes, effect will be given to every one of the thoughts that you get brought out in this chapter. Abraham will get his inheritance in the world to come, the glory of God will be displayed, and there will have been wrath; but, at the same time, the love and grace of God will be brought into this world, and then grace will reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Divine thoughts that are presented to us in the word of God depend for their literal and actual fulfilment upon the coming of the Lord. Then God sets His king upon His holy hill of Zion; then He breaks the nations to pieces as a potter’s vessel. It is then that all things are put under the feet of the Son of man, according to Psalm 8; everything is fulfilled then. Then the kingdom is Jehovah’s. You get not only David’s kingdom, but Jehovah’s kingdom. The kingdom will be Jehovah’s; we read in the Revelation, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever”.
I have brought out this to show that if you fail to read this chapter in the light of the world to come, you cannot get the force of these thoughts, or understand the application of the truth. The fact is that in christianity we anticipate the world to come. We see the world to come for one very simple reason, and that is that we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. The condition of salvation is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”. “If [p. 149] thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”, Romans 10: 9, 10. Salvation, at the present time, depends upon the confession of Christ as Lord. That is, in the kingdom of God the world to come is brought into the view of the christian, in the fact of Jesus being crowned with glory and honour. If I accept and apprehend the testimony of God, of Jesus being at the right hand of God on the ground of accomplished righteousness, crowned with glory and honour, it brings the world to come into view. The kingdom is not yet manifest, but the kingdom stands good to us in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God.
Now I have gone so far in order to show how the truth of this chapter is connected with the world to come and the kingdom. I want now to take up those various thoughts in their application to us, in order to show the good of the kingdom.
What I understand by the kingdom is something very simple; that is, the moral sway of God, and the moral sway of God must of necessity be in grace. It is grace acting in power. That is, supposing you allow that man is a sinner and sinful, the moral sway of God must, of necessity, be in grace; hence it is the reign of grace, not yet manifested, but apprehended by faith.
If I look at the kingdom of God in the present day, as to what it has become in the hands of man, it is a mustard tree, something conspicuous in the world. I am an Englishman, and live in England, and if I look at the kingdom of God I have to look to the Queen, who is not only Queen of the country, but head of the church; the kingdom of God as man has made it, is represented to me in the Queen of [p. 150] England, who professes to rule by the grace of God.
If I look at the kingdom of God from a moral point of view, it is represented to me in the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God, who has introduced the sway of grace. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved”. I will tell you why it is the sway of grace; it is because there is forgiveness of sins in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is connected with the Lord Jesus is that God has been pleased to remit His claim upon man; repentance and forgiveness of sins are preached in the name of the Lord Jesus. God has remitted His claim upon man that man may be delivered from the power of Satan. He has “delivered us from the authority of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins”, Colossians 1: 13, 14. You can readily understand that the moral sway of God must be in grace. There are only two ways in which God can approach man, man being sinful; one is in grace, and the other in judgment. If God came in the way of judgment, there would be no moral sway, that is certain; but if He comes in the way of the kingdom, which is moral sway, then He must come in grace, for there is no other principle on which the sway of God could be established in regard to man. Hence, the first principle of the kingdom is peace; the preaching of peace in the name of the Lord Jesus brings in the moral sway of God. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”, and then we have the establishment of the rule of grace in regard to us, so that instead of being overcome by evil, we are able to overcome evil with good. That is the practical result to us of the throne of grace.
Now I want you to identify two things; that is, the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God, and the throne of grace. I said a few moments ago that the [p. 151] reign of grace is not yet publicly established; it will be established when the Lord comes. In the meantime the throne of grace is identified with the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God, and the place of a christian down here is that God has nothing to say to him on the question of sins; His claim is remitted, that man may have salvation from the power of the enemy.
You have read the history of the children of Israel. You remember what took place on the night of the passover; the blood of the lamb was sprinkled on the lintel and door-posts, that they might be preserved from the destroying angel. It was the indication that God had remitted His claim upon the people, for practically the children of Israel were just as obnoxious to God as the Egyptians; but He remitted His claim upon the people in order that He might deliver them from the power of the Egyptian. And so it is in regard to the christian. God remits His claim in order to establish the sway of grace over man’s soul, with the object that man may be delivered from the power of the enemy; that is, from the power of Satan. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”.
You have now got the sway of God expressed in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
I can bear testimony to the great gain of being under the sway of grace. It is far better than being under the sway of your own will; you have a throne of grace, where you can obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. If I am injured I do not injure again; if I am reviled I do not revile again. In my path I am under the power of grace and enabled to overcome evil with good, because my soul has been made acquainted with something of the goodness of God. He has freely remitted His claim that I may never come into judgment. Now I seek to walk in [p. 152] grace down here, and to act toward others as God has acted toward me. In that sense the grace of God becomes effective in the christian; and, instead of his soul being in bondage to evil, to the world, and to Satan, God has delivered him out of the authority of darkness and translated him into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
I feel how poorly I can present these things, but a very great point will be gained if you apprehend something of the world to come, and of the fact that God has established the kingdom in the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ to the right hand of God. The moral basis of God’s kingdom is righteousness; righteousness accomplished and declared in the death of Christ. The expression of God’s kingdom is the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God; the principle of the kingdom is peace; and the rule, or law of the kingdom, is grace; the soul of the christian is brought under the law of the kingdom. That is, that being sensible of the grace of God toward me, I am enabled to walk in grace down here; for the principle that governs my conduct is not how other people act towards me, but how God has acted towards me, and I walk in grace because I am sensible of the grace of God.
You get a beautiful expression in Titus of what I have been trying to bring before you; Titus 2: 9 - 14. It exhorts servants, the word really is slaves, “to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us,
[p. 153] that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works”. You have there the looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory; that is, of the world to come and the kingdom. In the meantime grace has its teaching in those who know it.
I wish all might get an apprehension of the kingdom having been established in the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God. The effect of it upon us down here is that “we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God”.
Now supposing that you have entered the kingdom; the next thing is this, God teaches; He teaches you what His disposition towards you is. God has, in grace, remitted His claim, and for the purpose that you might be delivered from the authority of darkness but He has something to teach you, and what He teaches are the terms of the covenant, and I understand the covenant to mean His disposition towards you. If I make a will I express in that will my disposition towards the persons to whom I dispose of my property. It is not simply that I have property to leave, and I leave that property, but the way in which I dispose of it indicates my disposition to those to whom I leave it, and that is the character of God’s covenant. A covenant on the part of God indicates the disposition of God towards those who come under the covenant, and we are brought into the kingdom of God in accepting the testimony of the Lord Jesus, in order that we may learn the disposition of God towards us; that is what I understand to be the value and meaning to us of the covenant.
Now let me read Hebrews 8: 6, “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises”.
Now that passage evidently refers literally to the future; to the covenant which God will consummate [p. 154] with the house of Israel and the house of Judah; it makes clear what the disposition of God will be towards them; it is different from what His disposition was in the past. In the past He dealt with them as in the flesh; in the future He will deal with them in grace, and hence the change; the covenant indicates His disposition towards them, and when the covenant is established, then it is they will learn by divine teaching. God will write His laws in their hearts, and give them into their minds, and remember no more their sins, and every man will know God, from the least to the greatest, in His mercy. “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness”. All that will be established hereafter in regard to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It is God’s testimony as to them.
Now, it is not exactly that with us, and I want to indicate what it is to us. If you will look at a verse in Romans 5, you will find it says, “And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us”. ... Again, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”.
Here we get an indication of God’s covenant; that is, His disposition towards us. Only one thing God has to teach you, and that is His love. His love is shed abroad in the heart, and the commendation of that love is the death of Christ.
We do not get the law written in the heart, like Israel in the future, but we get something infinitely greater in the teaching of the Spirit, that sheds the love of God abroad in the heart.
Thus the simple principle in the new covenant in regard to us is the love of God shed abroad in the heart; and, on the other hand, sins and iniquities are remembered no more. By one offering the christian is perfected for ever. God has nothing to say to him in regard to sins, and is free to shed abroad in the [p. 155] heart His love by the Holy Spirit. That is divine teaching; there is no more. The fact is, the more you become acquainted with the love of God, the more you will apprehend everything of God. People are slow to learn because they know so little of the love of God. In the light of love everything of God is simple and plain. You get the same thing in human things. A child that is conscious of the love of its parents has no very great difficulty in entering into their mind; and so a soul acquainted with the love of God becomes readily acquainted with the details of God’s mind.
That is the point of divine teaching, the one great principle of God’s disposition; it is the term of the new covenant; the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.
The covenant is the second point, it follows the kingdom. So it was with Israel in the past; God brought them into the wilderness; He Himself was their King; He reigned; then it was that He established His covenant with them. In the future, Christ will come; He will be hailed with joy in the very place where He was rejected, in Zion, they will say, “Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”, and then the new covenant will be established with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In regard to us, what you argue from the love of God is this: God will do, for His own satisfaction, the very best that He can for us. It is a wonderful thing to be the subject of the love of God, for you may be sure, from the very fact of what God is, that He must necessarily do the best for us.
That is what love means; grace does not quite mean that. You cannot measure love, but, in a sense, you can measure grace. You cannot measure the love of God, and love will work for its own satisfaction, and will do for the subjects of it the best that love can do. Scripture itself asks that, if God freely delivered up His Son for us all, shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? If He has given already that great [p. 156] proof of love, what can He withhold from the subjects of His love?
The third point is reconciliation, “By whom we have now received the reconciliation”. I understand by reconciliation that in it everything is agreeable to God. That will come to pass throughout the universe; all will be made suitable to God, so that God may be complacent in everything which He has created. I understand that to be reconciliation. Now we have received the reconciliation, and I think I can make plain the application of reconciliation to us.
Believers are now before God, for His pleasure, in the life of Christ, apart from all that Adam left behind him in the world. Adam sinned; Adam died, but, when he himself passed off the scene, he left a good deal behind him; he left the old man, and sin and death in the world. Christ has come in to remove sin and death; He has removed the old man, and that is what Adam left behind him. Christ has come in to remove all from before God, so that we might be before God, no longer in the trail of Adam, but in the life of Christ. I do not say that you are practically apart from it yet, but in the eye of God you are, and before God in the life of Christ.
Look at verse 18: “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life”. What a wonderful thought that is. You are in the life of Christ, and thus have justification of life; that is, in the eye of God you are apart from the trail of Adam. That is what reconciliation means to us.
We get a beautiful picture of reconciliation in the case of the prodigal son in Luke 15. He had been in the trail of Adam; had been under the power of sin; had wasted his substance in riotous living. He is brought back; he is reconciled; he is at the Father’s table, apart from the trail of Adam, apart from sin and [p. 157] death, in the best robe, with the ring on his hand and the shoes on his feet. We are in the presence of the Father, in the life of Christ; that we may be for the complacency and satisfaction of God. That is what I understand by reconciliation. The sum up of the matter is this: “the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”.
Thus we have seen that God has set up a kingdom, has established the reign of grace, not yet manifested, but established in the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God, and it has this in view, that grace might reign through righteousness; grace being the rule of the kingdom, it rules through righteousness. That is, as regards us, through self-judgment, and it brings you to the end, not hereafter, but now, “unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”.
Sin and death appear to be the rule in the world; sin has reigned by death, and in a certain sense still does; but, in the eye of God, sin and death have gone by the cross. Christ was made sin to put sin away; He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin; and, if sin has not been put away from before God, it never will be; but Christ has appeared to do it, and He has done it. More than that, He has annulled death; He is not going to annul it. He has annulled death, and brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel. So there is such a thing as the believer being apart from all the consequences of Adam’s sin, as before God; apart from sin and death in the life of Christ. That is where the christian is, and in that sense has received the reconciliation for God’s pleasure, and God has complacency in the christian, as reconciled, so “we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement [reconciliation]”. What a blessed privilege [p. 158] to be before God, apart from the fruits of Adam’s sin, in the life of the last Adam; that is, the One who appeared once in the end of the world to put away all that came in by the Adam that sinned. Sin and death are no longer the rule as before God; sin has been removed by sacrifice, death has been annulled by Christ going into it. Christ has risen; He is the last Adam, and christians are before God in the life of the last Adam, for His entire and perfect complacency.
Now in the summing up, it says that “as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”. God has established the kingdom, not simply to salvation, but unto eternal life. That is God’s end and purpose. God had in view, despite death, that grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is a great chapter, and I do not doubt at all that what I have indicated to you is the line of divine teaching.
God is working out His ways, and the great end before Him is the disentanglement of good and evil, so that each will find its own place. That will be the final result. Good will find its place with God; and all evil, I do not say will be done away, but will find its place with the source of it — Satan. It is a most wonderful thing to think that we can be before God for His pleasure, apart, in His eye, from sin and death, and in the life of the One who came here to put aside all the consequences of Adam’s transgression. Adam passed off the scene and left the terrible results of his transgression behind him. Christ came that He might remove them all, that we might be before God in His life.
May God give us to understand these things in His great grace, to understand His way and the real line of the Spirit’s teaching.