EXTRACTS OF LETTERS FROM F. E. RAVEN
[p. 278] EXTRACTS OF LETTERS FROM F. E. RAVEN
22nd July, 1891.
I was encouraged at —— . The brothers there were very hearty. There are some who will not have what for God has been effectuated in Jesus — the bringing to an end of the old man, and the bringing in of the new. I suppose one must make up one’s mind for conflict till the end.
... As regards what you say as to John, I believe we have there what is essentially heavenly, i.e., what is out of heaven, and what is out of heaven is heavenly and cannot change its character. It does not bring before us the exaltation of man in virtue of redemption, as does Paul, but the moral excellence of what has come forth from heaven — the living bread and the Father’s love. Hence eternal life is to know the Father and Jesus Christ His sent One (not exactly His glorified One), and into all this heavenly grace which has come out of heaven we enter while we are here; but it does not lose its heavenly character; and by Christ’s death we are free from the system in which flesh has its life. I think that to enter into and enjoy what is essentially heavenly, as having come thence, is greater privilege than to enter into the divine counsels which have their place in Christ in glory, which is more Paul’s line. If a concordance were consulted I take it heaven would be more often found in John than in Paul, only with the former it is more what comes thence, but without changing its character, and with the latter, what goes there. This may be rough, but I think it gives the idea.
[p. 279] 8th September, 1891.
... I am extremely sorry to hear of —— having been so poorly and being still so weak. Even when there is not acute pain I think weakness is a trying experience, but perhaps to some of us it is needful — giving us opportunity of proving the sympathy of Christ. One comfort is, we shall not always be weak, for we shall live by the power of God. I think weakness is what is best suited to one’s present mixed condition.
21st October, 1891.
... We began the fortnightly meetings last evening, and had a good time on the armour in Ephesians 6 ... I look for the mercy of God.
Hebrews 12 has come home to me (referring to the illness of one of his children), and I think with you that God in a sense prepares us for what we have to pass through, though perhaps when we come to the point we are sometimes spared it.
16th November, 1891.
I hear that a “keen critic” of mine takes exception to the idea of God dwelling among men save in the eternal state, in any other sense than that Christ is reigning. My point was taken from Leviticus 16, that the tabernacle remains among the children of Israel on the ground of the blood being carried into the holiest, and we find in the Old Testament abundant testimony to Jehovah dwelling among them. The last word in Ezekiel is “Jehovah is there”, and I think two ideas are continually presented, viz., Jehovah their God and David their king. Jehovah and His Christ. The two may be in one Person, but they are distinct thoughts, and the association of ideas in each case is distinct.
[p. 280] I stuck at the point you refer to in the paper. My thought is this, that it is of divine perfection that when a divine Person comes into the place and form of a servant obedience is there; but I cannot carry back the idea of obedience to One “existing in the form of God” — though I see the place relatively of the Father and the Son,† and it appears to me in Philippians 2 the Spirit of God will not bring in obedience and humbling until He had emptied Himself. There may have been the capability, but I doubt if obedience could be spoken of as characterising a divine Person as such .... It is of all importance to maintain that in order to take a servant’s form He emptied Himself.
24th March, 1892.
As regards your question as to the distinction between “the kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of heaven”, the two expressions strike me as follows, viz.: the kingdom of God refers to the moral sway of God as such; a man must be born again to see or to enter into it. Our souls as Christians are under the influence of what God is morally, as revealed in grace. Hence the Son could say when here, “the kingdom of God is among you”, and we read in Romans that “the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”. These are the portion of a soul under the moral sway of God. I think the tenth leper (Luke 17) who returned to Jesus to give glory to God in a sense illustrates it. The kingdom of heaven refers (it appears to me) to constituted authority, as the Lord said, “All power has been given to me in heaven and upon earth”. It seems to carry out the principle indicated in Genesis 1: 17, 18, viz. that the earth should be in the light and under the rule of heaven.
†See letter, 23rd November, 1898, on page 313 — ED.
[p. 281] What God has established in heaven consequent on redemption is to illumine and rule on earth. Hence hereafter the heavenly city is the seat and vessel of light and rule; the nations walk in the light of it. We as Christians are in the kingdom of heaven; we are of the day, in the light and under the rule of Him who in heaven is made Lord and Christ. I do not know if this will tend to make the matter any clearer. I think I can see the distinctness of the two things.
23rd April, 1892.
I am glad to send you a line in regard to my short visit to the north. I think I may say it turned out happily and I trust for mutual good. On the Saturday and Sunday at S —— we had readings on Romans 5 and 8, which seemed to be much appreciated and helped, I think, in some measure out of old grooves of thought .... On the Monday we had the largest gathering. I tried to show from 1 Corinthians 3 the importance of recognising the temple of God (where the living oracles are), and that saints are stones in it, and that the result of so doing is that we get light on the word. I showed how it was led up to in chapters 1 and 2 — that Christ was all for God — wisdom and power, and man nothing, and that for the apprehension of the wisdom of God we need to be in touch with a new scene (perfect) and characterised by a power beyond and outside of man’s mind (to be spiritual) .... In the evening I took up the place of hope and faith with a Christian.
June, 1892.
I am glad you wrote to me on the points mentioned in your letter, because although I do not think they are my originating, I am probably more responsible with regard to them than —— . I cannot say that I [p. 282] regret so much as some do questions of this kind being raised, as any hard and fast system of interpreting Scripture is in my judgement undesirable, and if matters are freely talked over I am sure what is not of God will not stand.
I should not for one moment be inclined to contest the position that the word of Christ in Matthew 16: 18 refers to His assembly in its full extent. It is that which He, rejected of His people, would build on the revelation and confession of Himself as the Son of the living God. Hence it takes in all saints from Pentecost to the coming of the Lord — in other words, the whole period during which in our point of view the church has been on earth, and it will come out perfected in glory. But I cannot think that J.N.D. could have intended that we should find no present status for the assembly in Matthew 16. On the contrary, I have often heard him identify Matthew 16 with 1 Peter 2, and surely a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, is true of the saints now. In the same way the whole building, fitly framed together, grows to an holy temple in the Lord; but saints are already God’s temple. They have that status and privilege. Though statements in Scripture may leave room for what may go on during an extended period, I doubt if it is the bearing in which truths are in general presented to us in the New Testament. I have heard it said that New Testament scriptures do not usually contemplate things beyond the lifetime of those addressed. The ten virgins who went forth to meet the Bridegroom are here when the Bridegroom comes. So the assembly that Christ builds would (as appears to me) have place here consequent on Christ’s rejection, and the gates of hell could not prevail against it. The gates of hell are hardly in heaven. So that I think we are justified in taking our thought of Christ’s assembly from Matthew 16.
[p. 283] As regards Matthew 18: 20, I take the passage in its connection with the chapter, and the subject of the chapter seems to me the ordering of conduct in the kingdom of heaven. In the main the instruction in the chapter refers to individual conduct (see verse 35). The assembly, as having a voice, is brought in only incidentally in reference to a particular individual difficulty. The “again” of verse 19 seems to me to take up a point additional to the “moreover” of verse 15. It refers to two of them agreed as touching anything they should ask in Christ’s name, and on this follows the statement that where two or three are gathered together to My name, there am I in the midst. You may say, that is Christ’s assembly, and I should not dispute it, but it appears to me that verse 20 is given as encouragement for those agreed in verse 19, and that the two or three in the former refers to the two in the latter. I should not like to stereotype the two as the assembly, though surely they must be in the truth of it, for nothing else is really recognised; but I should be sorry for the simplicity of the passage to be marred. It is a matter of fact in your letter you apply the passage to two or three gathered to Christ’s name in a day of ruin, who certainly cannot be said to be the assembly, though acting in the truth of it, and this, in principle is really all that is contended for. What is of value to us in a day of ruin had its value also when all was in order.
13th June, 1892.
I remember a question being asked on the Saturday morning (Quemerford) as to the kingdom. For my own part I cannot see much relation between the kingdom and the house. The assembly is Christ’s, and He gives the keys of the kingdom showing that He is supreme in it. Peter was a stone for the [p. 284] assembly, and received the keys of the kingdom — but the assembly is a structure of a new kind (built), and the kingdom regards us individually. We come in by the word; we come into the order that rules in the kingdom.
30th September, 1892.
In regard to your questions, I think that Scripture speaks guardedly of “Christ in you”, though it is what one may call proper Christian state. In this way it is used in Romans 8, “If Christ be in you”, and he tells you what then characterises — “the body is dead”, etc. But it is to the Colossians he speaks of “Christ in you”. In the Galatians He was not formed, but they had the Spirit. Every Christian has accepted the testimony of Christ as Saviour, but I think it is when they apprehend Him as the only Man before God, the pattern to whom they are to be conformed, that Christ is formed in them. This may be hindered, as with the Galatians; but till then I doubt if it can be said, “Christ in you”. I do not say it is attainment, for it is the proper starting-point for attainment.
I think in Galatians 2: 20 the apostle personifies in himself the true Christian state. Romans 8: 2 indicates the way in which we have life now with God — not, so to say, in the actuality of heavenly life, but in the Spirit, who has that character to us, “The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”, so that we can be, in a sense, with God outside and apart from our mere outward, natural life down here.
5th October, 1892.
The questions which you have heard raised are not very formidable ones. As regards my having said that Christ died to law — I have heard it said ever [p. 285] since I came into fellowship — Christ was made under law. He bore the curse in being hanged on a tree, and by death He passed out of its application and curse, and in resurrection He entered on a condition of life as man to which law does not apply. “The law has dominion over a man as long as he lives”, and Paul had died to law in being crucified with Christ. I do not pretend to speak with inspired accuracy, but I think to say that “Christ has died to law” sufficiently expresses one’s sense of the truth. I suppose the objector would hardly say He has not died to law.
As to the other question, the thought of Christ living in him is, it appears to me, individualised by Paul. I admit the title of every believer to reckon himself alive to God in Christ; and in his having the Spirit of Christ, Christ is his life, and in principle it is true that Christ is in him, as he is in Christ; but what I understand by Christ living in Paul is that he was so practically in the realisation of death to all that in which flesh lives, that Christ in the power of the Spirit was the spring in him of affections, thoughts, desires, of all in which life morally consists. I do not think this is true of every Christian. I do not think it was so with the Galatians, but it is the proper Christian state.
Belfast, 15th October, 1892.
We have come to an end of the meetings here, and I think there is but one feeling prevailing — that the Lord has been with us, and that we have in consequence had light and help. You will have heard what we read (Colossians and Hebrews), and the impression produced on me is that each time we read these epistles we get an increased sense of the Person, and thus in a way become less distinctly doctrinal. Now I think there is a general feeling that the truth comes [p. 286] before us at these meetings in a more distinct way as bringing to light the living associations in which we are set by the Spirit of God. Many old notions which had obtained place and currency are being exploded, but the living organisation which the truth reveals is coming out in their place.
I was led to speak on the first afternoon on the connection between light and love, in that light not only exposes man, but reveals God, and that the more we are in the light the more conscious we are of the love.
25th November, 1892.
I do not think any writings make one feel one’s spiritual feebleness like John’s.
I have certainly not written to any one that the Lord had the nature of a man before He became Man, though I certainly hold that what characterises Him morally as Man was of Himself, and not from Mary.
17th December, 1892.
I took up, or rather sought to bring out, the glory of Christ as presented in the gospels of Matthew, Luke and John — official as connected with the assembly and the kingdom in Matthew 16 — moral as connected with the administration of grace to men, and His service in heaven in Luke (Luke 12); and personal (the Son in distinction to the Father) in John. You may well suppose the handling was poor enough, but I trust it may serve to excite more interest in the Scripture, and lead to increased knowledge of the Lord.
[p. 287] 15th May, 1893.
It is very good of you to say what you do as to having been helped by my ministry. I am sure I often feel tried with its poverty, though in the intelligence of divine things I am conscious of having been helped of God; and certainly I have found more opening among saints than I could ever have thought of. The Lord’s ways are inscrutable. He uses whom He will. I cannot undertake to explain the sentence you quote from the reading on 1 Corinthians 10, for I do not understand it myself, although as I write it dawns upon me that I was deprecating the practice of connecting the Lord’s table with discipline, i.e., putting people away, and I maintained that the Lord’s table brought in responsibility in regard to our own associations (i.e., reflectively) and not in reference to dealing in discipline with others (i.e., objectively). I think this explains the sentence.
20th July, 1893.
... I return the enclosed, which gives no good reason for departing from what we have been accustomed to hold as to the seven churches. Paul sees the ruin of the assembly as a professing body as much as John. (See 2 Timothy.) John carries it on to judgement to make way for “the things after these”, and eventually gives the judgement of the great whore before the marriage of the Lamb. But when the Revelation was written the seven churches in Asia existed and stood in the normal relation of the church to Christ, and to the Spirit. They were not in judgement, but threatened with it. Taking the extended view of the seven assemblies there must come a moment when Christ alters His position, and His body is taken, and all the arguments in the world would not convince me that this makes no difference to the [p. 288] professing body. The house will be left desolate, and Christendom will no longer stand in any present relation to Christ or the Spirit. Judgement comes in and other things begin to operate. When the twenty-four elders are round about the throne the “things after these” have taken the place of “the things that are”, i.e., of the assembly on earth in its relation to Christ. I do not believe that the church is any longer owned in any sense, and it cannot be proved.
21st July, 1893.
Mr. Darby used to say that such an experience as that described in Romans 7 in which the desires were entirely right and the practice wholly wrong never really occurred.
He used to speak of it as a Christian’s estimate of the experience of a soul under law. The soul is born again, and is looking to its own conduct as the ground of acceptance, and hence sees God as a judge, as you say.
Justification is, speaking generally, that you are righteously relieved of judgement. There is no longer imputation of sin, and you are free of death (as God’s judgement), for Christ has been raised for your justification.
It is, I think, in the apprehension of Christ as last Adam, and of the justification of life through Him as such that you see that you are gone as to all that you are morally in the eye of God. Here it is that I think we pass out of death into life, and it is as in life, in the power of the Spirit, that the soul really learns the completeness of Christ’s work through which it has been brought where it is.
We ought, in a sense, to learn Romans 6 and 7 in order to enter on chapter 8, but most of us have to learn 6 and 7 after we have known something of 8,
[p. 289] though I question if we are really established in chapter 8 till we have learnt chapters 6 and 7, and I do not think we learn deliverance until we have learnt the reality and power of what we are to be delivered from, so that deliverance should become a necessity to the soul. We have to know what the “body of sin” and “the body of this death” mean before we really enter into deliverance by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
I think there is mischief in trying too much to balance; a judgement is thereby formed more by what is said than by Scripture. All know well enough that I have no kind of difficulty in speaking of an Old Testament saint as alive spiritually in his soul. My contention is against the idea of the communication of life (as a substantive quantity) in new birth. I believe the thought entirely misleading and hindering souls from seeing that the One who bore the judgement of death is the One who is a quickening Spirit towards man. Whatever there was of God in man before, Christ came that the sheep might have life. Before that they were not free of the judgement of death.
I do not think I ever connected born again exactly with John 5. It seems to me more the question of the Son of God in testimony and its effects; the one that has heard His voice shall live. In chapter 6 we have the sustenance of life — the living bread.
3rd February, 1894.
I am glad to reply to your letter, and to share with you any little light I have on the word. John 6: 53 - 57 is a very interesting passage. I should not say that verse 53 is a sinner eating for salvation. It seems [p. 290] to me that the Lord is showing (while still living on earth) that His death would come as a test, and if not eaten would prove that they had no life in them. I fancy that the first true evidence of life in the Spirit is the appropriation of Christ’s death. It is felt by the soul that it can no longer be in communion with the world in which sin reigns, and in which the flesh finds its life, and it appropriates Christ’s death as that which is morally suitable to itself. It is its suited food — and this appropriation becomes habitual. Then comes the eating Him as the living bread by which I am supported in life outside the course and order of this scene. The flesh and blood seem to me to be more akin to the passover than to the brazen serpent. (See verse 4.)
I think the prominent idea in it is grace rather than condemnation. It is undoubtedly the privilege, and, as to life, the necessity of every believer, but I fear that many Christians know but little of it.
Anyway, there can be no eating but in the power of the Spirit of life. The Israelites in Egypt ate the flesh on the night of the passover, but they could not drink the blood. The blood was for God. Now we eat the flesh, and drink the blood, for every claim of God has been met, and the Spirit given.
9th April, 1894.
I am glad to send you a few lines in answer to your note. The idea of “spiritual” in 1 Corinthians 2: 15 as to the question of perception, as evidently the mind of man is not competent in things entirely beyond the range of its powers, and hence the necessity of the spiritual man for entering into God’s things. The thoughts connected with the “temple” and the “body” in 1 Corinthians are that they are privileges proper to Christianity, and to which Christians can therefore ever return. The truth of the temple (i.e.,
[p. 291] of the Spirit being here) shuts out man as such as to all his importance, he is not to be gloried in; and the thought of the body brings in the positive place of the saints to be descriptive here, by His grace and gifts, of another Man — the Christ. One man is put out, and another brought in.
1 Corinthians gives us the present responsible place of the saints. Ephesians shows us their place in the thoughts and counsel of God; hence everything begins from the Head and the body, and the temple is seen as going on to completion, and there is added a kind of supplementary way the present status of saints as built together for a habitation of God by the Spirit. 1 Corinthians takes in general the present responsible side of the truth and Ephesians the counsel side.
21st April, 1894.
What is in question is not the Person of Christ but the mode of apprehending what Scripture presents. In God’s ways in grace many thoughts are brought before us, as eternal life, High Priest, Prophet, Mediator, Son of man, Christ, Last Adam, Second Man, etc., each of which has its distinctiveness and value and measure, and must be so apprehended by us, for we know in part, but all centred in the Person of the Son. But to me His Person stands out clear and distinct amid all these official glories, and Scripture does not confound these glories with the truth of His Person, though they all have their lustre from it. There is “My glory”.
As regards the question of death with Christ, I think the ground on which we die is that our old man has been crucified with Christ. I think my history as a responsible child of Adam was ended for God in the cross where my sins were borne, and hence when I see this I am entitled to die under the eye of God. I was dead in sins, but as made alive in the [p. 292] Spirit I die to sin. But I do not think I am dead to sin save as I account myself dead to it. So too I put off the body of the flesh because of the circumcision of Christ. I do not think the thought of having died IN Christ is right as a present thing.
June, 1894.
I believe the testimony of Scripture to be that Christ, while in Person divine, did not take here the place of God but of Man (Mark 10: 18; John 8: 40) and of servant. He came not to be ministered to but to minister. Still being in Person divine, and He could not be less, Jesus could speak with the authority of God, as we see in John 2: 19; John 8: 58. But He spoke and did nothing from Himself, and in this place and state as Son of man in the power of the Holy Spirit which was in Him without measure. He spoke the Father’s words, and did the Father’s works. Thus God was manifested in the flesh. I believe this to be the Lord’s own account of Himself, and the testimony to Him of the Spirit. The miracles which He did as anointed with power attested His word and approved Him as man. But He could not be such a man without being God. He, existing in the form of God, emptied Himself, and took on Him a servant’s form, becoming in the likeness of men, and as man humbled Himself in obedience. But at the same time it was the Person of the Son that did this and became identified with manhood. Now I would not be prepared to say that in becoming Man He did or could divest Himself of attributes that properly belong to His Person (see Colossians 1: 17; Hebrews 1: 3), though when here in the place of man we do not see Him in the exercise of those attributes, but in the truth of the state and place He had taken. How this could be is beyond human power to say.
I hardly conceive love to be an attribute of God, but rather what His nature is substantively.
[p. 293] June, 1894.
The real point in the case is the question of Philippians 2: 7. I really prefer the authorised version, for the expression “emptied Himself” suggests to the English mind — “emptied of what?” and I question if this can be definitely answered .... I should not like, in the face of John 8: 58, to say that He emptied Himself of the status of God. I am sure it is better left alone. But behind all this the question remains, was Christ here as Man or as God? I am content to take the testimony of the apostles to Jew and Gentile on which Christianity was founded (Acts 2: 22; Acts 10: 38; Acts 13: 32 - 39), and I need not say that they knew He was in Person divine, “The Word became flesh”, the Son revealing the Father; I think I am as distinct about that as any, and that adequate evidence of it was given; but none the less it remains true that His glory was veiled, and that He entered here into all that was suitable to man and to the servant, that God might be glorified in the Son of man, and I am not inclined to surrender this.
I trust things may make for peace and not disturbance. I am content to be in the shade, and to wait on God. I know of no divergence of thought between myself and J.B.S.
23rd October, 1894.
As to the trouble at —— they shut out —— and those with him because the latter will not own them as Christ’s assembly. I for one utterly repudiate that kind of church pretension. It seems to me that the only justification for our being apart from the outward order of Christendom is that we are morally in the truth of Christ’s body, and that the order of Christendom is inconsistent with it; but we are certainly not standing apart from it to set up pretension to be Christ’s assembly, or indeed any pretension at all, for if we are not morally in the truth we are the worst sect going, and if we are in the truth we shall not care to set up any pretension, because we know that we have the truth.
8th November, 1894.
I think that in approaching the subject of atonement we must remember that of necessity Scripture regards man here on earth from God’s standpoint, and that is with the sentence of death on him from God, and nothing could free him of that sentence save death having been borne for him.
This has been effected in Christ, who has tasted death by the grace of God, and the blood is the witness that death has been suffered. Hence God can have to say to man here in grace. He sets forth Jesus a mercy-seat through faith in His blood. But then death, though the penalty resting on man here, is not the bearing of the wrath of God, for which sin calls, nor the real clearance of sin from before God, though without shedding of blood is no remission. Hence in the nature of things, I think we must distinguish between death and the wrath of God, which in man’s case is the second death, the lake of fire. Now I believe that Christ in being made sin bore the wrath of God, which, as I said, death is not, and drank the cup of wrath to the dregs. And sin having thus been removed, He entered into death, the governmental penalty of sin, in perfect love and obedience, so that man down here might not only enjoy forgiveness, but be freed from the penalty under which he lay. And further, the state in which man sinned against God has been removed, and in such a way as that God has been glorified in its removal; hence man can now be in a new state before God for God’s glory.
[p. 295] 24th November, 1894.
What I see is that the assembly is actually here both vitally and responsibly, that is, as Christ’s body and God’s house.
All would allow that the body is here in completeness (co-extensive with the Spirit) and that Christendom has the responsibility of the house, hence my objection to the assumption by any company of Christians of assembly status, etc. Even in early days before ruin came in, I imagine that there were comparatively few who entered into the proper privilege of the church as united to Christ, and hence I can see no reason why those privileges should not be enjoyed by a few now, but they are spiritual and do not necessitate the assumption of assembly status; but I do not believe we could enjoy them but as having departed from iniquity. This is of all moment.
As to Matthew 18: 20, I believe it was spoken for the saints when the assembly was in order, but I judge it would stand equally good for two or three now in the truth of the assembly, and apart from evil in a day of ruin. We constantly and I should say rightly come together in the faith of it, but I doubt if it was intended to constitute the two or three “the assembly” as referred to in verse 17. It seems to me that verses 19 and 20 are a distinct point from verses 15 to 18. My contention with —— was that Matthew 18: 20 contemplated an actual meeting together of saints, not a fellowship, and that as the ground for our fellowship in a day of ruin we must go to 2 Timothy 2: 22 where we find that the foundation of it is moral and not ecclesiastical. The Lord’s table properly represents the fellowship, that is, of all the saints in a place — as one body in the fellowship of Christ’s death. But this can now only be seen in Scripture — not now in practice. It is a great thing to be in the light of it, and as far as we are concerned, in the fellowship of Christ’s death.
[p. 296] I feel sure brethren have to get away from formalism and ecclesiastical moorings, and to remember that the church is in ruins.
25th November, 1894.
I will endeavour to answer your questions according to such light as I have. I think that in the history of a soul (I do not for the moment speak of new birth) the first thing is that it is enlightened, in other words it receives by faith the testimony of Christ, and has thus the place of a son before God (though not yet conscious of it), because God’s purpose for us is sonship. I need hardly say that without a work of God in us we never should have received light.
Thus the first step is gained. The soul is in the light of Christ, and in Christ in the eye of God. Then the Spirit is received by whom we cry, Abba, Father — but as yet Christ has not been formed in us, but all is secured to us in the Spirit given, and we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. The receiving of the Spirit is the proof that we are in Christ, God’s seal on a man’s faith. Then begins by God’s power in us (which is well described in the two passages you quote from the Synopsis) a work by which a life, a character, a moral condition of being — a new man is produced in us (Christ formed in us) so that it can be said of the believer that he is quickened together with Christ, is new-created in Christ Jesus. He is in Christ, and Christ in him. This is what I should speak of as the proper Christian state, i.e., viewing state as the work of God, and not in the sense of practical condition. It is a state which faith accounts as our true state before God. Christ now lives in the Christian, but this is by the Spirit, for in our present actual condition down here we live for God only in the Spirit; but there is the nature or being that is [p. 297] suitable — the new man created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth; but this is not exactly life, in the sense of power to live in the relationship in which God has set us.
The difference between “in Christ” and “in the Spirit” to me is that the one marks our position before God as in a new Head, the last Adam, and the other our state; we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. This never ceases to be true down here though it may be, and is, true of a saint before he is said to be quickened together with Christ.
I think that Romans 5, where we have the thought of peace with God, does not give us Christian state as I understand it, but rather the blessings in which God has been pleased through redemption to make Himself known (righteousness, peace and joy), and which are now the portion of the one justified in the power of the Holy Spirit.
5th December, 1894.
The question of the previous meeting (brothers’ reading) came up, the point being to know where we are and why we are there. I maintained that the existence of a fellowship as distinguished from actual coming together in assembly was what really marked us off from Bethesda, who, by the course they took at Bethesda, repudiated the idea of fellowship. Further, that the original and only possible ground of fellowship here is that of calling on the name of the Lord, the obverse being the fellowship of His death; that the difference now is that as it is incumbent on every one that “names the name of the Lord to depart from iniquity”, we now have to look for those “who call on the Lord out of a pure heart”. The truth of the one body I hold to be light and privilege for those gathered in fellowship, and it is realised in our being [p. 298] together in assembly. I do not know that anything was advanced against it save that the one body was said to be a bond of fellowship, a sort of ecclesiastical formation, in which case I maintained that we should be a sect.
1894.
The attack on my lecture which seems to me entirely uncalled for is easily answered. The allegation is that I should have taught that Christ was only a channel of the grace of God to man. The answer is that the allegation is a deduction or inference, and that I never said nor thought anything of the kind. The omission of special reference in the lecture to the deity of Christ is explained by the fact that the subject of the lectures being “The Church” Christ was spoken of in them naturally in that relation, assuming that my hearers were as assured as to the true deity of Christ as I am myself. Paul might have been arraigned on the same principle for omitting in the epistle to the Ephesians any statement of the deity of Christ or for saying to the Corinthians that to us (Christians) there is one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ....
... I hardly need to answer the various questions raised in the letter as to the Lord’s words and actions here — they are an effort of the human mind to prove to itself the deity of Christ.... I have little doubt that in seeking to meet error on one side, error was plunged into on the other, and I judge it has arisen from want of appreciation of the Lord’s own statement of Himself in Luke 4 and the apostle’s testimony as to Him in Acts 2 and 10. It was on this testimony that Christianity was founded and by it the first thoughts of Christians as to Christ were formed, but I grieve to say that this is dismissed, in the latter being said to be “the lowest character of testimony to the Son”.
[p. 299] It is no wonder then that the truth of the real human identity of Christ is missed — the horn of salvation raised up in the house of David — the vessel of divine grace, so that there could be the anointing with the Holy Spirit and power, the going about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Thus it was that the grace of God was presented to man in a Man, all in the pathway of obedience, and it is in Him as Man that the connection is maintained in the line of promise, and that risen and exalted, He (Christ) is given as Head to the church His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all. That the One in whom all this was true was Himself in Person divine, the Son revealing the Father, who could while here being Himself divine speak, subject to the Father’s will, with the authority of God, and that abundant testimony was borne to Him by the Father and by the works which He did is what every true Christian sees and delights in, but none the less the truth remains that He was come from God and went to God, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself not imputing their trespasses. It seems to me that the first principles of the truth of Christ have not been learned in the Spirit. Paul brought out in testimony the truth that Jesus, was the Son of God, but this does not set aside the first testimony of the apostles, and John’s gospel is given that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and while I reverently accept the second, I am not going to give up the first. The greatest proof to one of the deity of Christ is the fact that He was such a Man as could receive the Spirit without measure.
9th April, 1895.
... and now in reference to your question as to Ephesians 2. The statement in that chapter is clearly of what God had by His power effected in the saints.
[p. 300] He had (as is seen also in Colossians) quickened them together with Christ. In referring to it my point was to show what it is in which this is displayed. Evidently the first thought is that Christ risen is the centre and point on which all is formed; then we stand associated with Him a heavenly band. We have (conscious of His love) appropriated Him in what He is to God as risen from the dead, and thus we live together with Him God-ward in love. (See chapter 1: 4.) It may be said that this is mixing up what is in a sense experience with the power of God, but I think that the result of God’s work is viewed as a whole in Ephesians, the fruit and effect of His power working where nothing was but death, and producing a result suitable and sufficient for Himself. It is seen there in its full extent, and is what is true in principle in all Christians, though not realised by all. I trust that this may simplify the matter.
1st July, 1895.
I look upon Philippians 2: 6 as the place taken by Christ in the fact of assuming a servant’s form; it was, so to say, an act of mind in taking the servant’s form. I really prefer the authorised version, “He made himself of no reputation”. It was not only that He assumed the form but the mind suited the form.... —— accuses me of not holding the real humanity of Christ, because I will not accept his idea of a complete man, “spirit, soul and body”, distinct from deity. He seems to me to have no idea of the Son becoming Man and giving a spirit to manhood, in fact of the incarnation.
8th July, 1895.
To J.B.S.
It is with the greatest pleasure and satisfaction that I send you a few lines to convey to you a sense of the privilege accorded me in having increasing sympathy [p. 301] and interest in the service which our blessed Lord has entrusted to you. I feel that the great point of late years was that the truth which the Lord had opened up by Mr. Darby should be maintained. Many made the mistake that it was to be guarded by insistence on the letter. I believe that the true way was in its being made good in the Spirit’s work in souls, and here I see the great value of your perseverance and service. I desire nothing better for myself than to be enabled to continue according to the measure of grace on the same lines.
I thank the Lord for the energy in which He supports you for what is needed both in the way of interest and inquiry in truth and in imparting to others.... We are having readings each afternoon at 3.30, in which I am seeking to awaken as far as I can some sense of our true place in assembly as Christ’s companions — but they are not very quick learners — and it may be that I am but a poor expounder.
September, 1895.
To J.B.S.
Our meeting ended too late yesterday for me to send you anything. We were together from 3.30 to 7.30; though I cannot regard the meeting as a glorious triumph, for one would have desired to carry the truth with more absolute conviction, I think it has ended in the way most conducive to the peace of the saints. There was the giving up of charges of heresy, the admission of misunderstandings, and in result we parted in peace. There was long discussion on many points, but it became evident that the point on which all turned was distinguishing personality from the idea of pure deity in the case of the Lord. We insisted on this as that on which the truth of the incarnation depends and on the complete identification of the Person with the state He took. So that it was [p. 302] very distinctly a personal humanity, but the Person still the same though the state was changed. Our allowing that He spoke and acted as Man according to the place and state He had taken seemed to clear away much of their difficulty. It is evident to me that some have gone astray in the endeavour to make out Christ from man, instead of learning what man is (according to the divine thought) from Christ.
8th October, 1895.
I am very glad of your letter as giving me some authentic news of Mr. Stoney. Since I wrote you last I heard rumours of an accident, and hardly knew what to think of it. I can understand the shock you received in seeing him fallen, and though the injury is a bruise, a severe bruise after 80 cannot be a slight matter, and having to lie in one position must be very wearing. I am only thankful for where you are. I am sure that my heart and that of a great many more will be lifted up to God for him and for his recovery, as we can in nowise afford to lose his service. Meantime I pray that he may have much comfort from the Lord.
19th December, 1895.
I had a telegram this morning from S ——, “Restless night, about same, end approaching”, — J.B.S. † ... The breaking of these links is hard to us — and I am very thankful for all tenderness of affection — but if we could see all we should see that in the Lord’s light, he has finished his service — long and diligent and devoted service — and is about to be taken to rest; and according to his own saying the Lord shows His sympathy in drawing us to His own side. For myself
†It was a year and a half after this that he was taken to rest.
[p. 303] I can say that there is no one on earth whose ministry and self have produced so lasting a moral effect on me as Mr. Stoney. It is a great figure removed from us whose place no one on earth can fill.
30th January, 1896.
It is, I think, clear that the church is viewed in two lights — as identified with Christ in the presence of the Father (all of one), He being Firstborn of many brethren, and as the vessel in which God sets forth the riches of His grace; and I think it is in this latter line that the thought of the body and the bride comes in. The church is Christ’s fulness, and the vessel (in Him) in which God shows the exceeding riches of His grace. Jew and Gentile are reconciled to God in one body, but they are also one new man created in Christ Jesus.
Christianity, as in the thought of God, becomes increasingly wonderful to me, and I can fully echo the thought that one is only in the infancy of it. Had it been maintained according to God, what a wonderful thing it would have been in the world! Certainly it was wiser on the part of the enemy to corrupt rather than to oppose it.
9th March, 1896.
Our subject in the main was the Lordship of Christ and the sphere of His administration. I contended that this belongs to that course of things in which the will of God consists, and that we must remember that if He is Lord to faith He has been rejected here, and that we have to be with Him in the things in which He is. We do not know Him after the flesh.
[p. 304] 15th March, 1896.
As regards last Thursday (Greenwich reading in Philippians 1 to end), I am glad that you said what you did. It leads me to reconsider the point, and certainly one must attach importance to what the apostle says in 2 Corinthians 5, “willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord”. I daresay I spoke too strongly, but what was in my mind was that while here we are in the activities of Christ’s body, which is hardly the case when we are with the Lord. Anyway, if we are taken before the Lord comes it is a comfort to know that we enter on what the apostle desired, and are with the Lord instead of being absent from Him. But then we shall be out of the path of testimony and responsibility.
I am rather thankful to have taken up the Psalms at Hazelville. I think that I see my way more through the first part of them.
29th April, 1896.
To J.B.S.
It has been on my mind for some time past to send you a few lines to let you know what is going on in connection with the “testimony of our Lord”, so far as it comes under my observation, for I am sure of your great interest in what is going on, though you are yourself shut out from the activities save in spirit and mind. So far as I see, a great and general interest is maintained in the truth, and the old ideas of “standing and walk” have given way to an apprehension of God’s purpose in Christ and of the moral state in the believer which is the answer to that purpose and the effect of the light which has been brought to man. The experimental side from Egypt to Canaan, especially the bitter waters of Marah, the brazen serpent and Jordan, are now subjects of much attention, and seen,
[p. 305] I think, in their true light as the line by which we approach God’s purpose as to the church in Christ. It is on this line that ministry arouses interest. That there is here and there a certain amount of disaffection in one and another is indeed true; but I think it arises from the defect of clinging to dogmatism and ecclesiasticism, and failure of apprehension of the “living stone”. They do not, I judge, know, save in terms and doctrine, the true foundation of Christianity, the Father and the Son, they lack an acquaintance with the Persons, and in the affections proper to that acquaintance ...
Our readings in London are largely attended. We are still reading Matthew; we began chapter 17 last time, but harped back on the church; we held that the structure was built up in the divine nature — love; the foundation being the revelation of Christ as the expression of that nature, and hence the gates of hell could not prevail against it.
... I have been spending two or three days in Birmingham. Our subjects in the afternoon readings were deliverance (Romans 6 to 8) as necessary to the new position of the believer in Christ in regard to God ... and in the evening the raising up of man, as seen in John 5 by the light in the heart of the Father and the Son, and the absolute separation of the saints from the world by the Spirit of truth (John 14), with a view to fruit-bearing (John 15), and the unfolding to them of the Father’s things in which the Son was glorified (John 16).
30th April, 1896.
I can hardly think any one could put such a construction on Philippians 2. He (Christ) certainly left His first estate to take a servant’s form, becoming in the likeness of men; the Word became flesh to dwell among men, but I do not understand this to mean [p. 306] that He relinquished attributes that properly attached to His Person, though I believe that in becoming Man He entered into the reality of the place He took as Man, and that Scripture can and does view Him (when seen in relation to men) distinct and apart from what He is as God, though what He is as divine gives its character to all.
10th June, 1896.
We had a reading last evening at —— and they proposed “the new man” in Ephesians 4. I tried to point out how after the epistle has given us a place in the heavenlies the great point all through is the presentation of God here. In chapter 2 we get Jew and Gentile builded together for an habitation of God by the Spirit; in chapter 3 the saints are seen filled into all the fulness of God, and in chapter 4 we have the new man created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth. It is to me a wonderful thought.
19th October, 1896.
I am beginning to get into the thick of things in London and am thankful to notice the apparent absence of any contentious spirit. I trust that through God’s mercy we may be allowed a moment of quiet. The fortnightly readings are being looked forward to with a good deal of interest and there is general satisfaction at Romans being taken up. It has brought home to me the importance of resurrection, as the great principle of God’s actings in blessing. It is by resurrection, first in Christ, then in those that are Christ’s, and then figuratively in Israel, that God will set aside the whole existing order of things which is under the power of Satan, sin and death. In Romans 3 righteousness is the basis; in chapter 4 Christ is risen on the ground of righteousness; in chapter 5 [p. 307] we get the setting forth of all that is established in the Lord Jesus Christ for man, in contrast to sin and death, and we are in the light of it; then in chapter 6 we accept death to sin and account ourselves alive in the One risen from the dead; it is a wholly new order.
5th December, 1896.
... I return the little paper into which I have suggested to bring a few more words, having regard that it is partly intended for Christians outside ourselves. Amongst ourselves the mischief is that while in a sense the terms are accepted the great reality is so little appreciated and for the want, I think, of deliverance. I think that we but poorly enter into the meaning of Christ’s death. We had the question of Romans 3 up again on Tuesday. I said the question was not the righteousness of God in all His acts, all would admit this, but of the righteousness of God as revealed in the gospel and that this was (in the words of another) in that “the man that was under judgement is gone in judgement”. Some tried to carry on the thought of righteousness to resurrection in the case of the Lord. I maintained that in the word of redemption which was of the will of God the thought of righteousness as between divine Persons is inappropriate. They tried to limit Romans 3 to sins instead of seeing the end of the man (blood) and hence they are not clear in their apprehension of the second man.
10th December, 1896.
... I am very thankful to have had my attention turned to Romans. I see that the epistle is not intended to give us the terms of the gospel, but to show to us God’s purpose in it, to bring the light of Himself into the soul of man. Hence in chapter 3 we have the righteousness, which is the foundation in the soul,
[p. 308] and in chapter 4 it is faith (not works) which links the soul with the God of resurrection and our Lord Jesus Christ, and in fact with the world to come, in which we have a footing, in “Christ raised for our justification”. Our justification has reference to God and to that world in which Christ is supreme, and hence we accept death here.
17th December, 1896.
We did not seem able to escape the subject of the house and the body .... I had deprecated the idea of the matter being brought up at the meeting, but —— plunged us into it by raising the question of whether responsibility (collective or corporate) was connected with the house or the body.
I maintained that the body was Christ’s body, the vessel of the Spirit, and that a true idea of the body did not go beyond the work of the Spirit in saints; that if there were responsibility as to the body it must belong to the Head, and that the light of Scripture as to the body (the mystery) was given us to enable us intelligently to carry out our responsibilities in the house. Some seem to fear that something is being taken from them. They have been accustomed to depend on mere statements without apprehending their import. They divorce the baptism of the saints by one Spirit into one body from the baptism of the saints individually by the Spirit, instead of seeing that the fact of our all receiving one and the same Spirit must of necessity form one body. They have an idea that by being formed into one body they gain something additional, instead of seeing that it adds nothing, but that the church is thereby subjected to Christ. My impression is that the real defect lies in want of knowledge of the gospel, hence they are not prepared for the mystery.
I think we distinctly gained ground.
[p. 309] 19th March, 1897.
To J.B.S.
I cannot send you on the enclosed without taking the opportunity of writing you a few lines. I saw —— last evening and had a good account of you, and am most thankful that you are still sustained in vigour of mind and comparative freedom from bodily suffering. One can take account of this as being very distinctly of the Lord’s goodness. There are other proofs, too, of His interest in and care for His testimony and those identified with it. The refusal of the ridiculous performance at H ——, and the bringing together on a moral platform of the scattered elements there, seem evidence of His hand. I think, too, that there are signs of a growing apprehension that deliverance must accompany life in the Christian, and that life is enjoyed in the light of Christ revealed as the expression and pattern of God’s purpose as to us. I think that many, and I trust myself too, see that we have to leave the boat and walk on the water to apprehend the Lord in a quite new light. I trust that thus what we have been through in the last few years has not been lost upon us.
23rd March, 1897.
... I am very glad that you apprehend my thought in Numbers 21. I think it must be that God may approach man in the accomplishment of the counsels of His love, and this brings in the truth of the cross and the Spirit of life in Christ.
1st May, 1897.
And so the end has come at last and we are left without the living voice of J.B.S. My feeling is as one without a father. In emergencies and difficulties he has never [p. 310] been weak. I have always felt that he understood the discipline of God, and no one has so much affected and influenced me in my course here, apart, in a sense, from the light gained through him. How thankful one is that his mind and brightness remained till the end, and thus he was a pillar of the truth.
9th September, 1897.
I have read through your diary† and have been very thankful for the opportunity. One cannot help being struck with the sustained spiritual energy evident both in the utterances and the writings, and it makes clear to me on what line a soul needs to be so as to have the Lord’s unfailing support in the extremity of natural weakness. I think it is a mercy that we have such a record.
19th November, 1897.
... I have been at —— for some weeks and trying to bring before them the platform of resurrection. It is evident that it is the only platform on which we can really be with God outside of sin, the flesh, and the world, and it is as much God’s mind for us as our justification. Concurrent with it is the work of God in us which brings with it practical deliverance. This is all very plain in Colossians 2.
... We were on 1 Corinthians 13 on Tuesday and I was glad of the thought that love puts us with God where there is neither knowledge nor prophecy, nor faith nor hope. It never fails and is greater than all.
†Diary of J.B.S. during his illness written by his daughter.
[p. 311] 16th December, 1897.
As regards the point to which you refer I think that faith apprehends the testimony which God presents. It appears to me that Christ risen is now the great testimony of God. In Him thus God has expressed His mind and pleasure in regard of man, and it is not only that man is justified but that he should be before God outside every order of man down here, in association with the One through whom He is justified. This is true for every believer, but I do not think that it is available save as there is in us the corresponding work of God, that we are quickened together with Him, and thus we can enter into the light of God’s pleasure. But it was God’s testimony from the outset in the operation that raised Christ from the dead.
Ephesians and Colossians speak so much of the work of God in the believer and its effect that it would be impossible to apply them indiscriminately to all Christians. Romans is God’s testimony and therefore to all. “Raised up” in Ephesians is what God has effected in Jew and Gentile, not exactly the light of His testimony in Christ. I do not know if the above will at all make matters clearer but I think it runs with J.B.S.’s thoughts.
8th March, 1898.
People may pass away sooner or later with all the attendant disruption of natural ties and laceration of human hearts, and the only one thing abiding is Christ, for whom all else must in result give way.
24th March, 1898.
I think it is interesting to compare the armour with the marks of Christ as He came out in revelation. My fear in regard to saints is as to whether they are prepared to put themselves at the disposal of Christ. They enjoy the truth and engage in certain activities, but [p. 312] there is more than this when a heart is under the influence of Christ’s love, and that is the only secure place for a saint down here.
30th April, 1898.
I had not realised that twelve months had passed since the departure of Mr. Stoney, but it does not do to allow the mind to go back on the things behind, and one can look forward to the time when J.B.S. will be conspicuous as “a pillar in the temple of my God, and go no more out”, and we shall see all God’s ways having their result in the heavenly city.
I do not know that my mind has any well-defined distinction between our being formed in Christ or Christ formed in us. I may have used the expressions interchangeably.
We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus; that I suppose is wholly God’s work; on the other hand Christ being formed in saints appears to be an initial work, and the work of ministry, the “apostle laboured in birth till Christ were formed in them”. It may be something of the same thought as the saints being Christ’s epistle. Had the Galatians appreciated Christ they would not have turned to law.
27th June, 1898.
I think that we are now exercised as to the subjects to be taken up at the (so-called) Conference. I think there is a good deal of prayer about it.... It is pretty much agreed that the evening meetings are to be lectures, but my anxiety is as to the readings. I earnestly pray that we may have the mind of the Lord in the matter and that we may be occupied with great principles of truth and not with points. In the existing state of Christendom, great responsibility rests on brethren that they should set forth the mind of Christ.
[p. 313] 20th October, 1898.
From Chicago
My desire has been (referring to the meetings they had had at Rochester) to lead saints to look at things in a moral light, so that they may apprehend truth as a whole, the revelation of God and of His will, that thus they may be led into the knowledge of God and of His calling.
23rd November, 1898.
I was naturally glad to reach home again, but I was very happy in contact with the saints in America, where are many whom I very highly esteem and am thankful to have been in contact with. I feel that I have gained by it. I am sure that I shall not forget them and I trust they will not forget me. I am now extremely busy with the notes of our meetings, which have been very fairly taken, and will be published in America....
... As to what you refer to my point was that it was permitted to us to know divine Persons AS and WHEN revealed and only so. In view of that revelation the Son has taken a new place relatively, that is, of inferiority to the Father, coming to do the will of God, though of course there would be no change morally or in affection. The names under which we know divine Persons, that is, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are, I judge, connected with this position, and I doubt if we are allowed to enter into the eternal relation of divine Persons apart from this revelation. No one knows the Son but the Father. What I think led me to it was a fear lest in our minds we should almost insensibly give to the Son a place of inferiority (save as regards revelation) in our thoughts of the Godhead, which could not be right. The point is to be within the limits of Scripture and not trading on what is merely orthodox.
[p. 314] 10th March, 1899.
... Though still weak I am gaining ground ... I am thankful in some ways for an enforced retirement from activity. It seems difficult to get it when in health and strength and I am sure of the need of it. Going on continually in service may prevent one from finding one’s true measure spiritually, and this is very needful. I made an effort to go to the brother’s reading on Tuesday and do not think I suffered any harm. We had a pretty good time on Luke 17 and 18, dwelling on the moral character of the kingdom of God in the time when the rights of the Son of man are in abeyance.
12th March, 1899.
... I think that comparatively few see that the basis of the word of God is the world to come. They look upon it simply as light come into this world, hence they fail to apprehend the significance of baptism as in figure the passage from the one to the other.
June, 1899.
... I am very glad to send you a few lines in regard to the meetings here (Quemerford). I can say I am thankful for it, though I do not think that it has been marked by any great display of power, but we were helped of the Lord, and the bulk have gone away brighter than they came.
I think Mr. Reynolds was pretty much on the line of practical piety, and maintained that, until we had in spirit passed the judgement seat, we had not much entrance into privilege. My main point lay between our instruction in divine love, in connection with discipline, purging and the like down here, and our touching the scene where love can rest because all is according to the divine glory.
... [p. 315] The readings were fresh, and turned mainly on divine teaching and the true place of the scriptures. There seemed pretty hearty fellowship all through.
28th March, 1900.
As regards the Scriptures I have always maintained most carefully that as being the inspired record of God’s communications it is the word of God. But the word of God has in my mind a different force. It means to me the revelation of God and of His mind directly or immediately to man. In the case of the fathers this was by direct communication. In the case of Israel God speaks on the mount. He gave His commandments to Moses on the mount. With the prophets it was by the Spirit of Christ in the prophets. Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In the incarnation the Son of God was Himself the Word. In the apostles God gave the Spirit of God that they might know the things that were freely given of God. In the Revelation the mind of God was made known by visions. We find then that there was another stage, namely, that the things made known were recorded or taught in words that the Holy Spirit taught, hence we get the body of doctrine. And indeed, without it we could not well communicate with one another. Scripture itself tells us its own value; we find this in 2 Timothy 3: 15, 16. But I am sure that its good would be frustrated if it hindered our seeing how God has given His mind in a living way, for whatever may be said Scripture never can be other than the letter. The point is to get to the Spirit. I am very sure in my own mind that many of us have put the Scripture in the place of the Spirit of truth as the means of teaching, and when one tries to cast saints more on the anointing, there is a cry that the Scriptures are being made light [p. 316] of. I think that it is extremely important to see that God’s communications to man are directly by the Spirit of the living God.
As regards the question of standing I have no objection to the term being applied to the Christian as a justified man here on earth. But the Christian is a child of God, and here the term is quite inappropriate. My objection has been to applying the term to such ideas as “in Christ”, being “risen with him”, “dead with him”, “quickened with him”, and the like. These all speak of the work of the Spirit in the saint and it is meaningless to speak of them as standing, and further leads to unreality, because the Christian takes credit to himself for things which are true for him as though they were true in him.
31st May, 1901.
... † The position I have held has never been other than that of a help. I fully admit the importance of there being no uncertain sound about the teaching. But nothing that I have said ought to produce any sense of uncertainty as to what is really the subject of the teaching. It refers only to the condition in which the good of the teaching is realised. And every one must prove this for themselves. Very much more has been made of this question of “the holiest” than the matter called for. The sum total of what I have said is that it appears to me that the teaching of the epistle to the Hebrews refers to saints individually, and not to the idea of the saints come together in assembly, though it does say they were not to neglect this. I do not know that I ever thought anything much different from this, though I may have mixed up the two things rather in my mind. The fact is that it has come home to me that we must take the assembly come together as we find it, and that the first principle is that they
†This letter refers to its having been said that Mr. Raven had changed his views as to the Holiest.
[p. 317] come together right as to one another. One may have in one’s mind an idea of the church as typified in Aaron and his sons, but this is hardly likely to be realised in practice. And I think we have to take things as they are and to be content with that which comes from the heart. All this does not indicate any radical change of thought, only things getting more into their places, and one cannot desire other than this. I have no doubt that the pioneers in the truth were upheld in a very remarkable manner; we that have followed have taken many things on trust, and we have to feel our own feet. But all this does not seem to me to touch the great principles of truth: it only affects the question of how we are going to hold those great principles, and anything that tends in this direction can be no harm to any one. What I deplore is that there are those who go away from a large meeting and magnify the importance of any modification of what may have been previously said; and further there are those that are prepared to make a bad use of it. However, one has to go on in patience, holding faith and a good conscience.
8th February, 1902.
... We had a good reading on Tuesday; of course the thought of eternal life became prominent, but I think more are beginning to look at it in its moral light rather than in the material way in which it had so long been regarded. It appears to me that to look at it as a certain substantive thing received through faith deprives it of all reality. The work of God in the soul of a believer will undoubtedly result in experience and practice, but it does not affect the truth that the man is still subject to death. The Lord says in John 6, “I will raise him up at the last day”. This hardly looks like a man having eternal life in himself. On the other hand, all the conditions of life, all that which is essential to living, never varies, it is unseen and eternal. I wish that it could be indeed said that one lived in the world to come; one is ashamed at the way one is affected by the present world, and I know of nothing that will deliver one’s soul out of it but the knowledge of the Son of God. It is a mercy that there is a witness to Him in the believer. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” May God in His grace lead us all into this more and more.
10th March, 1902.
I am very sorry that you are subjected again to the trouble of moving. With some people there is a pleasure in moving into a new house, but I am sure that this is not so with you, and that it is simply a question of pitching your tent elsewhere. When one is accustomed to value things down here at their moral worth, it is astonishing how it takes one’s interest out of many things.
I had rather a trying time at Manchester, being poorly most of the time. I can only be thankful that I was not hindered from going to any of the meetings, in which there was much interest. We had one good reading, at which I tried to show how salvation runs concurrently with eternal life; they professed to get help from this.
17th June, 1902.
There are not many in the present day that one can reckon on as having all their interest in the truth; so many seek to save themselves in this world, seem so afraid of losing any advantage in this world. I am sure [p. 319] that no one will afford what is grateful to God save as they are affected by the love of Christ. It is a wonderful and most blessed thought to me that we are attracted to Him so that we are delivered from all lawlessness.
17th June, 1902.
It is a great comfort and support that there are those that have sympathy with the truth, and are not disposed to be limited to the ruts of orthodoxy. It comes more and more before me that Christianity is vital, and that no one can do much good save as they apprehend Christ as the beginning of a new order of things, and understand that they have been attached to Him by the Spirit so as to bring forth fruit to God. The mere holding of correct doctrine is no power in the soul. Correct doctrine is gained by abiding in Christ.
23rd August, 1902.
I was very glad to have your letter, as indeed I always am. There are so few with whom one can count on complete sympathy. And I do not know why this should be, for I am sure that I for one desire nothing but the advance of the truth both in myself and in others. I am so pleased that you are so happily situated at ——, and have found the poor brethren there having interest in the truth. There is this to be said about the working men, that the truth is all to them, and that they have not luxury to divert them. I am not sure if they are not the best off. We are enjoying the time here (Scarborough) ... There are two or three severe cases of sickness, which have a sobering effect. The arrangements are as usual. Besides the readings we have a weekly lecture, which brings a good many. I have been endeavouring to bring before the saints the course of divine ways which culminates in the heavenly city. And to lead them on [p. 320] to desire the knowledge of God, I took up on Wednesday a passage in Jeremiah 9: 23, 24, and sought to show them that this is our present education in order that the glory of God may be set forth in the heavenly city.
25th August, 1902.
There is an effort to reconcile what has come into view with that which has been customarily held, and this temper is not one conducive to the apprehension of truth. The habit of mind to be desired is that of readiness to surrender anything that does not help, so that the truth may be held in divinely given form. The truth has to be got hold of as that which is part of oneself. And no one has rightly hold of any truth, until he sees how he is affected by it. As regards the thought of eternal life, I have no doubt that the idea of it in Scripture is objective, just as all the conditions of life are objective to a newly born child, and yet the child cannot live without them, and when the child is living, all these conditions may be said to be abiding in the child. What I refer to are the conditions of natural law (rule), atmosphere and light. These are the necessary conditions of life, and they are all objective, but when the child is living in them, they may be said to be abiding in the child. The child requires to be nourished with good food that it may live in these conditions, but however well it may be nourished it is never independent of these conditions, they are its life. So it is spiritually, we may be well nourished by the suitable food of grace, but we are dependent on Christ in whom are found all the necessary conditions of life. He is life to us. We find in Him the principle of rule, so that we are kept in the orbit of God’s will, we abide in Him, and do not sin; in Him is the love which forms the atmosphere of the Christian circle, and which the lungs of the believer [p. 321] must breathe, and in Him is the light of God, in all His mind toward to us in our pathway here, and by which our hearts are gladdened. Thus we have in Christ all the conditions of life, He is the eternal life. And if we are abiding in these conditions, they abide in us, but they do not abide in a murderer. If we abide in Christ, He abides in us, but He does not abide in a murderer, because the murderer does not abide in Him. People need to get hold of things intelligently and not like parrots. I am glad to hear what you say of ——; I trust that he may be kept. There is a brother going out from Croydon named McBride — a devoted man — and I should think will be a help. I hope that he may be happily received.
I trust that you are all well, and with love in the Lord, remain,
Your affectionate brother.
18th September, 1902.
I have only time for a line of farewell ... I can say that in many ways I go in fear. I am not fond of the sea, nor of leaving home, but all that has to be put aside, and all has to be trusted to the mercy of God, and there all is safe.
16th October, 1902.
We had three days’ meetings at Rochester, and I think they were profitable. We glanced at the principal points in the gospel of John. The light of God coming into a dark world and living water into a scene of thirst. Then the light in which Christ is to be known to the believer. Then the effect of the light as to that which existed religiously. Then the witness [p. 322] borne to Christ, then the effects of the coming of the Comforter.
... We spent a week at Chicago.
... We took up the first epistle to the Corinthians in connection with the particular way in which Christ is presented in that epistle as the power and wisdom of God to bring to nought all that existed and that held man in bondage, and to establish what was of God — the temple and oracles of God as the medium for the diffusion of the light. With this was the victory over death.
5th March, 1903.
I very often feel oppressed at the poverty of my service, for though one may be useful in some little way, there are deficiencies which largely tend to counterbalance this, and hence one can find but scanty satisfaction in one’s work. I daresay that this is well. I pray that you both may be greatly and increasingly enriched of the Lord in all that is good and enduring. I reached this (Manchester) yesterday, and this afternoon we began our meetings. A good many will be here from one place and another, and from what I gathered from a number of brothers whom I met last evening, there seems to be some expectation from the meetings, which I hope may not be disappointed.
... We had a good reading on Tuesday (Brothers’ reading in London), and the thought of the house of God came before us. There was a good deal of conversation, and I think that there was the disposition to accept the thought of the house as a spiritual house, which could not lose its character. I sought to maintain that Christ was the Builder of God’s house, while the work of man was connected with Christianity as a system of profession in the world.
[p. 323] I think it should be clear to any one that faith brings light into the soul. Life is the work of God. I maintained at Birmingham that there were three steps in the work of grace in the soul, as seen in John 3 and 4. First, new birth, the sovereign act of the Spirit; second, illumination, God is made known to the soul in His love, and in this faith has its place; and third, the communication of the Spirit as life, i.e. power to live — a well of water springing up into eternal life. And that the believer reaps eternal life of the Spirit. I further said that the expression in John of “every one believing”, or “whosoever believeth in him” indicates the kind of person that has life rather than the way by which we get it. Life is the work of God.
There is much that is interesting in the distinction drawn in General H.’s letters in the Indian extracts, but it seems to me that what I would call the moral element is wanting in the force which he attaches to both the words psuche and zoe, and to the latter he gives, I judge, a too exclusively objective import. Psuche appears to me to be the actual living principle in a creature which animates the body, and uses it as a vehicle. Hence it is common between man and the brute creation — the difference with man being that psuche was in his case derived from the breath of God, and was therefore a living soul with moral elements and characteristics, and hence immortal. A character of responsibility also attached to it, and inseparable from this is the idea of individuality. Every man has his own soul, and soul is commonly used for person and to imply individuality. “The soul that sinneth shall die”.
Zoe on the other hand, though employed in more senses than one, is a general idea, not in itself conveying [p. 324] the idea of individuality. We can speak of our life or life in general.
I may be mistaken, but my impression is that, like light, life is employed relatively in Scripture, i.e., in actual or implied contrast to death, Now death comes before us in two aspects, viz., moral and actual, hence we read “has annulled death and brought to light life and incorruptibility” — death here meaning distance from God and the power of the devil. In another scripture we have “Son, thou in thy lifetime”. Here life is evidently the period of a man’s natural life on earth, bounded by and closing in death or dissolution. Zoe is evidently, therefore, used both in a moral and actual sense.
Now in the vast proportion of cases in which zoe is employed in the New Testament its force is undoubtedly moral. It is unquestionably used for life in the subjective sense, as “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. Men saw One in whom was (morally) the life of God, and those who followed Him had the light of life, Hence I can well understand the thought of life being communicated to a soul: it is quickened, i.e., made to live in the appreciation and enjoyment of another (the Son), and it is said having the Son it has life. The Spirit is life if Christ be in us, The result is that life is manifested in character, the moral qualities of the life of God are seen in the believer, who, being in the fellowship of Christ’s death, is delivered from the flesh and its workings. And the body will be quickened so that it may be in every way a suitable vehicle for the quickened soul, and when this is the case life becomes an actual condition. Mortality will be swallowed up of life. Meantime the body is to be presented a living sacrifice.
But zoe is also evidently used in an objective sense as indicating the conditions, i.e., the relationships and surroundings in which life practically consists, and therefore there is constantly connected with it the expression “enter into”. This is more often than not its force in the New Testament. It is specially the case where an adjective is attached to it, to characterise it, such as “eternal”. Many of Daniel’s people that sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life — the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
A man hates his life (psuche) in this world, and keeps it to life eternal, and the form in which eternal life is now realised is in the knowledge of the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. The present condition of eternal life is faith, which apprehends the objects in the enjoyment of which that life is realised.
It will be seen from the above that the senses of psuche and zoe are totally distinct, and that the one in no way displaces the other. In Christ was zoe, and He took a psuche, which had a moral character from the zoe (though His body was also the temple of God), and He could lay down His psuche (not zoe), and take it again; and further that the two senses in which zoe is employed with a moral force meet in the believer, faith coming in (so long as we are here) in the second sense.
[p. 326] The following collection of Extracts is from letters written by Mr. Raven during his last illness to different persons.
21st May, 1903.
To have reason to believe that one’s work has been of real service to the saints is a matter of great comfort. It has pleased God to reveal the whole divine system of blessing which is before Him, and whether we are faithful in testimony or not, He will display it in due time to His own glory. But one would greatly desire that the saints should have a clear sense of the testimony of the Lord, and that their lights should be burning. For the present I am out of all activity; whether the Lord will allow me to have part in it again I cannot say. In any case I would desire that He should be glorified in His saints through Jesus Christ.
25th May, 1903.
I feel I should like to send you a line in answer to yours. My illness has had rather a stunning effect, coming on me as suddenly as it has done. This is going off in a measure.... It is a great disappointment to be shut out, at all events for a time, from all service of an active nature; but I doubt not I have to learn the power of the truth in its reflex effect on myself. I have learned one thing since I have been laid by, and that is the place one has in the affections of the saints, far beyond all I could have thought, and one can see in this the grace of our Lord. All things are in His hand, and He knows how fully to provide for all the need of ministry. I trust that the time at Quemerford may be exceptional in blessing and refreshment. My heart will be with the saints there ...
[p. 327] 26th May, 1903.
This illness has entirely shut me out from meetings and service. I have no doubt that I have many lessons to learn which could be learnt in no other way. Probably the reality of death can hardly be felt but in the presence of it, and if death be learnt, resurrection is also learnt, and this is great gain....
I have had so poor a sense of my service that I can hardly understand its being so highly rated by others. I have only endeavoured to set before the saints the scheme of divine counsel in Christ, and their part in it, and this in a very feeble way. If they have been helped, the praise is due to the Lord and not to me.
June, 1903.
You may be sure how gladly I would be with you at the meetings. I hope that the grace of the Lord may be abundantly with you all. Conscious as I am that there are many brothers with you far better than myself, I could not presume to send you a message, but I trust it will be remembered in any ministry that all truth centres in Christ, and not in the saints. It is their privilege to be in Christ by the Spirit, and thus in the full light and blessing. “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”. While expatiating on the blessings that belong to the Christian, I doubt if the saints are really touched, but if once their eyes are opened to an apprehension of the universe of bliss of which Christ is the Head and Centre, and of His capability to fill it, their souls will be lifted up, and they will readily learn their own part in the blessing.
4th June, 1903.
I have been intending to send you a line of thanks for sending me the copy of notes of the Quemerford meetings.
... [p. 328] It was a great deprivation to be absent, but it was the will of the Lord, and so one can find ground of rejoicing. I am pretty much a prisoner, and have ample time for meditation. I can thank God for all that He has brought before one, for it furnishes light and brightness amid the weakness of nature, I trust that the Lord will uphold me and bring me more and more into the greatness of the revelation that He has brought us of God. There is no limit to what He can do in one that has the Spirit. My condition does not change materially.... One feels in such a case that man can do but little, I hope that I may get some relief in the mercy of God.
1903.
At present my mind is clear, and I am in a measure free to meditate on the unseen things and their blessed Centre, who descended into the lower parts of the earth, and has ascended far above all heavens, that He may fill all things. It is indeed wonderful to contemplate a universe that is morally of God, and which will be filled by the Son of God. Resurrection is the way into it.
5th June, 1903.
I am pretty much a prisoner, and have ample time for meditation. I can thank God for all that He has brought before one, for it furnishes light and brightness amid the weakness of nature. I trust that the Lord will uphold me, and bring me more and more into the greatness of the revelation that He has brought us of God. There is no limit to what He can do in one that has the Spirit.... I would well like still to bear a part in the conflict for the truth, but the Lord has His own mind, and in the meantime I desire to know in my soul the power of His resurrection.
[p. 329] 6th June, 1903.
I suppose that if; humanly speaking, things take their course, my stay here will be cut short. It is a trial to me in measure to have no more opportunity to serve the saints, but this must be ruled by the will of the Lord. It is a great thing to have followed the Ark of the covenant over Jordan, for it is there, on the ground of resurrection, that every purpose of God must be fulfilled, and if this be the case it makes the article of death far less terrible. One sees Christ at the other side, ready to welcome those who pass over. The passage is but narrow.... I think I can witness to the sustaining grace of the Lord amid my present weakness.... It is wonderful how grace can sustain in the appropriate moment.
11th June, 1903.
I cannot report much progress.... It is a time when I have much time for reflection, but little power for it in the sense of great bodily weakness. Still, I can find great satisfaction in the thought that the Lord is above all, and that one can rejoice in Him.
His day will be a great day — when God shines out in light divine, in the fulness of that love of which Christ is the object, and into which we are called, and from which nothing can separate us, and we all have our part in it.
20th June, 1903.
I need hardly say that it is a cause of unfeigned rejoicing to have been in the hand of the Lord an instrument of blessing to others, and in it I have certainly reaped a blessing myself, for in this time of being laid aside I have been enabled to review with pleasure the truth on which I have sought to dwell. It is a great thing to have before one a living system [p. 330] centred in a living Person, who has power to subdue all things to Himself, and who is at the service of such as we are. I hope that brethren will get dislodged more and more from the old doctrinal methods, so that they are not only learning about Christ, but living Christ.
22nd June, 1903.
It would hardly have been my choice to have been laid aside in the way I have been from the path of active service, and I would fain have had a little more opportunity of serving the saints, but the Lord has willed it otherwise, and He knows what He does. It is now a time of suffering in measure, but I trust too of learning more the reality of things, and I pray that I may not fail to use the opportunity. The whole system of eternal things is not far off, and if one has to make the passage of death, the Lord is on the other side.... So Stephen found it.
25th June, 1903.
My being put aside has not at all dimmed the sense of the importance of the things which I have sought according to the measure of grace given to minister. I hope that the saints will get a clearer glimpse of that resurrection land where Christ is waiting to take the place appointed of the Father’s love. We all await it. Some may join the Lord earlier than others, but it is a common hope....
25th June, 1903.
... The affection of the saints is a very precious thing in this world, for it is pure and unalloyed, and it is a witness to me of the ability of Christ to fill all things, for if He can fill many a heart in such a scene [p. 331] as this, in the day of His power He can surely fill all things. This is a great thing to hold fast. I am thankful to say that the land that is over Jordan is precious in my thoughts — the land that God loves, because it is of His purpose, and the true Ark of the covenant is found there. I look for the mercy of God in this time of great weakness, and trust that one may not be overcome by bodily suffering. I think that one can count on the goodness of God in this way.