MUSINGS
“NOTHING COMMON” It is said of the holy city in Revelation 21: 27 that “Nothing common shall at all enter into it”. Not only will what is positively evil necessarily be excluded, but also what is “common”. It is the holy city ... coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God. Therefore it is unthinkable that anything common should have any part in it. But in practice we are tested in this. A man may have great knowledge and ability and eloquence (Apollos was eloquent)—all are right in their place, but if out of control they become “common”. One might descend to the use of worldly expressions when speaking of divine things. That would be “common”. Paul was dependent on “words ... taught by the Spirit”, 1 Corinthians 2: 13. They would be fully suited to set forth the truth in its beauty and purity.
We have a striking picture of the holiness of God’s house in Isaiah 6. The prophet sees the Lord high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. The Seraphim cried, “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” There could be no trace of anything common there.
Sometimes showy fashions intrude. Really, in any assembling of the saints, they are something
“common” in a setting where Christ is to be the centre and object of all, and where everything is to be judged according to whether it pleases Him. Our natural personalities may intrude; that would be something “common”. May we be concerned to be in keeping in every way—
in how we appear, what we say, and in our spirits—with this most privileged and sacred area where all is to bear the stamp of the glory of God and the fragrance of the holy anointing oil.
FCM
EXTRACTS
Everywhere you go you see brethren that are in hard circumstances, but there is a lot behind it. We shall see, and we are seeing, the results. What comes out in that great famine is that the people of God begin to acknowledge smallness. The first expression of the sons of Jacob was for corn. There was no idea of limitation of quantity, but just to get corn. Light was with Jacob as to where the food was; on the second visit he directs his sons to buy a little; “Buy us a little food”. That, I think, is significant. It is the principle of reduction. You have seen the great prosperity abounding in the world in recent years; money came in easily. We swell out as we get the money. Of course the more we do it, the worse we are inwardly, the smaller we are inwardly. The Lord does not like that. Prosperity of that kind is only hindering the work.
It is a question whether we can say, like Jacob, “Go again, buy us a little food”; I will use a smaller house; I will use a smaller motor car. I am becoming more and more like the Lord as I become reduced, and I believe that the second letter [to Corinth] brings out the reduction in which Paul himself was reduced; but his heart was expanded. They were helped; let your heart expand itself. Let it be as if notice was given to me to let my heart expand itself.
(From an address given at Council Bluffs in 1932, during the economic depression) J. Taylor (Vol. 96, pp.283, 284)
Assurance of salvation is a question of Christ’s work. I have no thought that, in myself, I am anything else but a sinner. But I sin, if I doubt that He has made a perfect atonement. I affirm distinctly that there is no such thing recognised in the New Testament as that a Christian should doubt his salvation ... There is plenty of priesthood for infirmities, weakness, and so on; but God has taken me up, and dealt with me, as at the Red Sea of old, and put all, all away. We “have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear”.
I was myself in such a condition for some six or seven years after I was converted, but, that has only served to convince me that this is, not a Christian place at all. And the reason of my assurance is that while Christ is within, the Holy Ghost has come down, His coming proves that Christ’s work is accepted.
J. N. Darby (‘Notes & Jottings’, p.304)
When I was a boy I remember a brother coming to my father’s house, and I said to myself, I wish I knew all that he knows! But another brother came, and he made me feel, I wish I had what he has! There was an impression, not of mere knowledge, but of substance and satisfaction. That is what tells on children as well as others.
C. A. Coates (‘Outline of Deuteronomy’, p.133)
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