THE HEADING UP OF ALL THINGS IN CHRIST
[p. 198] SEPARATION AND HOLINESS
2 Corinthians 6: 14 - 18; 2 Corinthians 7: 1
I have been seeking on previous occasions to bring forward some of the moral characteristics which should distinguish the Christian; and it is important to remember the principle that, in every case, what we are to be depends on the way in which God has been pleased to make Himself known to us.
We are established in Christ because God has established everything for Himself in Christ.
Again, nothing can restore the veil on God’s side, so we are privileged to answer to that in being in the light as He is in the light. I believe vast numbers of Christians think that because the veil has been removed on God’s side, it has of necessity gone also on ours; but if the flesh is admitted and sanctioned and we seek to maintain a status in the world, we shall find a great hindrance in the enjoyment of the light of God. The veil ought not to exist on our side. We appropriate the death of Christ, and are circumcised in the putting off of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2: 11). We do not get the good of what God has done until we reach Gilgal.
Then again as to confidence, that depends very much on the Christian’s apprehension of God’s work in him; we cannot work ourselves up into it. (1) God has wrought us for glory. (2) He has given us the earnest of the Spirit. He has wrought us for something greater than our “earthly house of this tabernacle”, that is, the mortal part will be swallowed up by life. The Christian is thus always confident in spirit. There is no greater privilege than to account himself dead, so that he can live to God in Christ Jesus. The judgment has been [p. 199] borne and the believer is crucified with Christ. He takes the place of death to things here, and death is deliverance, because it disconnects him from that in which the flesh lives and which is contrary to God down here. To be free from the world is to be free from sin, so as to enjoy the full light of the blessed revelation which God has given of Himself in the death of Christ.
We come now to holiness; the obligation of the people of God. It is almost the first principle of relationship with God. It came out with regard to Israel, but it is applicable in a much greater degree to the Christian. Israel had to be separate from material things; with the Christian the separation is moral; and holiness follows separation, and separation depends on the light in which God has come out — the way in which He has been pleased to reveal Himself to us. If we fail to apprehend this I do not think we shall be marked by holiness. It is a great thing to accept an obligation, that is a principle of righteousness. An upright man in the world accepts his obligations, even though he may not be able to discharge them. We have to accept the obligation to holiness, because God is holy, and the obligation to love one another, because God loves us (1 John 3: 16; 1 John 4: 11). “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another”. In the passage before us, we have first the obligation to separation, and then we find that holiness follows on separation. It is love which leads, I judge, to holiness, it is not faith. I do not admit the doctrine of “holiness by faith”. I believe it arises from a confusion in people’s minds as between righteousness and holiness. Righteousness is by faith, because it is God’s righteousness, holiness is by love. There is no real antidote to lust, except love. The Spirit is against the flesh, love is against lust. If we were loving God and Christians and all men, as we are [p. 200] charged to do, there would be no room in our hearts for lust. It is only as we are walking in love that we shall be “perfecting holiness in the fear of God”, for love then governs the heart. If love is not there, lust will find room. In verses 14 - 16 we see how God has come out.
- In righteousness;
- in light;
- in Christ;
- in the believer;
- in the temple;
The first attribute in which God presents Himself in the gospel is righteousness, because the gospel came into a world of sin; “therein is the righteousness of God revealed” (Romans 1: 17) and the testimony to it is the blood of Christ. God could not tolerate sin; He must judge it. The judgment has been borne, and sin has been put away from before God; and the gospel is a witness that God is “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” — but first He is just.
Then He comes out as light; sin having been judged, He can come out in the full revelation of Himself. In the cross the veil was rent, but even light is in God subordinate to love, and it is love that has come out as light. So far we have had principles. Then, “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” This term Belial indicates some one worthless or apostate, and might be applied to Satan or Antichrist. It is the spirit that is opposed to Christ, and which is already in the world. Then, “What part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” There is no light from God in the unbeliever; what marks the believer is that he is in the light of God, because there is faith. The light you have is according to the measure of your faith, and the unbeliever has no part with you.
The idea of the temple is, where God is sanctified in the eye of man. That was the idea of the Old Testament; and what is opposed to that is idols, for idolatry claimed the authority over men which belonged to God, and the effect was that man was debased in his thought of God. Holiness marks God’s temple. The saints are now His temple. He repudiates a material house. “What house will ye build me? saith the Lord”.
It is a great point for us, as it was for the Corinthians, to recognize the way in which God has come out, otherwise we shall not see the obligation to separation. Lawlessness has overspread Christianity; we do not need to look for it among the heathen. In the “great house” the terrible spirit of Antichrist is working. “The mystery of iniquity doth already work”. In the Revelation the harlot rides the beast; and the beast turns the harlot to his own purpose before he casts her off, and she is burnt with fire. The principle of popery, for instance, is essentially sin: man claiming what is due to God only. Look abroad in Christendom and see how Judaism has been built up again, shutting out the fact that God has come out in light. A priesthood is not wanted if God has come out. It is not now a question of clergy and laity. The earthly priesthood depended on the veil being there.
“[p. 202] If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another”. So we might speak of the influence of Belial in the “great house”, the unbeliever also and idols; all are tolerated in what professes to be the house of God. We have to judge of these principles, and maintain a rigid separation from evil. Never was there a moment when the obligation to separation was so urgent. If we are going to get what properly belongs to us, the separation must be complete and absolute, otherwise we shall be greatly hindered from getting all that God would be to us. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate”, that is, from the world and the principles we see around: “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”. We have to judge all these in the light of God. “Touch not the unclean thing” — do not parley with it, “and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you saith the Lord (Jehovah) Almighty”. These titles of God were connected with His people down here, but the Christian gets the gain of them. This comes very close home, for if the Christian is looking to gain advantage by man, he will not get the good of them.
The idea of Jehovah is the eternally faithful One; Almighty is the One who showed Himself so, on behalf of those who feared Him. Abram would not take the least thing from the king of Sodom — the world. God was enough for him. The Christian who walks in separation is now the one who gets the benefit of these names. I quite admit the very special way in which we know God as Father; but in this passage it is not a question of entering into the highest Christian privilege, but of being sons and daughters of Jehovah Almighty. He will be a Father to His earthly people, but not in the sense in which we know Him as such in heaven. All the promises [p. 203] are established in Christ and they belong to the Christian.
Now a word in regard to holiness. I turn to 1 Thessalonians 3: 12, 13. “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love ... to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness”. The real way to holiness is love; that is the way it works. In Ephesians 5: 1 - 4 we have the contrast of love with lust. Lust will never be subdued in the heart except by love. In covetousness I naturally make self the object, and seek to turn everything to my own gratification. Love dispenses, does not consider itself, but serves its object, which is not self. Christ is the expression of God’s love to us, and we are to be “imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love”. That is the way in which the heart of the Christian is governed by love; we shall love others in proportion as we realize that God loves us. Then “perfecting holiness in the fear of God”. It is a very good thing to walk in the fear of God. The thought of God for us is, that we should be “holy and without blame before him in love”. There has hardly been a greater delusion palmed off on the Christian than “holiness by faith”. It is by love, but at the same time we shall not come to the enjoyment of the love of God till we are apart from things which are contrary to Him down here. We have to judge them, and then it is, “I ... will be a Father unto you”. He can then make known His love; but the love of God is a holy love, and love seeks not its own, but finds its joy in the gratification of its object. The love of the Christian too is a holy love, it is without partiality. We have to answer to the love of God to us; and thus the heart will be established unblameable in holiness before God.