NEW CREATION
[p. 208] NEW CREATION
New creation brings in a further thought (than reconciliation): there is a positive divine work in the saints which will issue ultimately in the holy city ... . New creation is a subsisting fact when the soul receives the Spirit and is consciously in Christ. “If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5: 17).
Everything in Luke 15 is based on reconciliation. The father could not run and cover the prodigal with kisses if reconciliation had not been effected. The peculiarity about Luke 15 is that it does not tell the secret ... . We see the Fulness reconciling. Luke 15 is the glorifying of the supreme grace in which divine Persons are acting ... .
We begin small in it ... but the babe in Christ is a constituent part of new creation. He is part of that immense spiritual system which will be eternally for the pleasure of God. To grasp new creation fully we must apprehend with all saints the breadth and length and depth and height ... . (Insofar as there is new creation the city exists now; we have come to it, and it has come down morally.) What we read in Revelation 21 and 22 is of deepest interest; it shows the character of what pertains to new creation; those things we sang of in 206:1 pertain to new creation. We can measure ourselves in a way by the holy city, and particularly by the internal life of the city.
The “in Christ” is the secret of new creation. “If any man be in Christ, ... new creation”. I think it means we have come to be in Christ vitally, He has become the tree of life to us; all that Christ is becomes subjectively our life through the Spirit ... .
The twelve fruits (Revelation 22: 2) are the completeness of Christ in His ability to maintain the saints in spiritual freshness and vigour in every season of the spiritual year.
[p. 209] As being in Christ we touch new creation and if in Christ we want to use Him. What are we in Christ for? Is it only a doctrine? Or is it for headship, a perennial source of supply? If we are in Christ we are in the Head for supply. It ought to be a great exercise for us to be kept in the freshness which pertains to new creation.
In order to get the fruit of the tree of life we have to be overcomers ... . Then we sometimes fail to wash our robes ... . All our personal habits and associations have to be brought under the moral application of the word; a truly exercised heart cannot bear that there should be a spot unsuited for Christ, a single thing that God cannot pronounce very good ... .
There are no streets in the city ..., there is only one street; all move in one direction — in the energy of the divine nature. I think Christians generally are greatly hindered by looking at these figures literally. The street is the movement of the city; it is of gold, that is new creation character — all things of God ... . We can have a bit of that now; we should not need to have to hide our motives or to be opaque like the world ... . In the divine nature we can afford to be transparent — “pure gold, as transparent glass”. Pure gold can never be got without a refining process. It is a comfort to know that the saints are in the crucible of divine discipline in order that the dross, tin and alloy may be all got rid of and nothing but the fine gold of Ophir be left. God is going to bring His saints out as fine gold; there will be no suspicions in the holy city, no distrust, no uncertainty about the motives of each one. We want to cultivate a little of that now; that is the practical side of things.
The tree of life was not forbidden. God intimated to Adam that He had something in reserve far better than the old creation — the promise of life in Christ before the ages of time had begun to run their course ... . They ignored the tree of life; Eve speaks as if there were only one tree ... .
[p. 210] Then we have the river. There is nothing more interesting than to see how the tree, the street and the river are all mixed up together; that is, all the movements of the city and the tree of life and the river blend together. All movement in the divine nature has Christ as its spring and origin, and it is in the power of the Spirit. Anybody trying to make a drawing of this would be puzzled! It was never meant for that; it is a moral conception ... . If we want an illustration of it we shall get it in Acts 2: 4. We see a sample there of what the city will be; all the movements of the divine nature were in relation to Christ and were carried out in the power of the Spirit. Alas! it did not last long.
John 8 is reconciliation. “God was in Christ” etc. In John 13 - John 17 we have what answers to the city; it is the city viewed in its moral display in contrast to the present state of things ... .
“They shall see his face; and his name is on their foreheads” (Revelation 22: 4). The crown of the old creation was, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1: 26). That was the cherished thought of God, and His primary thought will be fully realised when His name is on the foreheads of His saints and they become the image of God and His likeness.
[p. 211] [p. 214] SUMMARY OF A READING 2 Corinthians 5: 1 - 21 “We know” is christian knowledge, I think. The apostle again touches on the subject of the glorified condition of the saints. Resurrection had been an important subject in his first epistle. The apostle has before him a new and eternal order of things, all the fruit of the work of God. He that wrought us for the selfsame thing is God; it is God’s eternal thought and purpose, what lies outside man’s course as a responsible creature here.
It is not here like in John 14, it is in contrast to our earthly tabernacle, it is a building from God. God has something before Him not made out of dust; he contrasts all that is of the flesh and all that is of God — the earthly thing and the heavenly. Here all is seen as the work of God, the body suited to the heavens; man as made out of dust was suited to the earth. God is in no way satisfied with restoring what has perished; it is not that He reinstates man into his forfeited place. In verse 3 he has the completion of the work of God before him. In Philippians 1: 23, 24, Paul is telling us how he settled the matter, for their sakes he would remain. He does not stop short of the final issue of the work of God, nothing else has a personal satisfaction for him. It is bringing in life really so that everything is swallowed up that is not life. It is very important that the christian hope should come out. When he enters the epistle of christian experience (Philippians) it is the christian attitude in view of departing. “The earnest of the Spirit” (verse 5) is, I think, the earnest of the full result — the earnest of this very thing. In Romans 8 it is the same thought, the redemption of the body. The Spirit does not engage the heart with anything short of the glory. Nothing short of being like Christ is the goal before the christian company. Our present bodily condition is more or less a burden. The [p. 212] saint is connected with the old creation in his mortal body, and in that sense he groans. The whole creation groans, everything is out of joint, everything groans and the Christian groans as connected with it. I think faith always has in view what is of God; God has an eternal system before Him and He is going to bring us into it. All His work is in view of that.
The thought of divine purpose never overlooks responsibility. The apostle had confidence in full light of divine purpose and yet a holy exercise as to responsibility, and the two are always kept together in the soul by the Spirit. What strikes me about the judgment-seat of Christ (verse 10) is that we shall have the Lord’s judgment about everything; the happiest thing possible for the saint is to be in accord with the Lord’s mind about what He does. Some things in our history we may find out after some time are all wrong, and we are therefore gainers; things done last week we would not do now, in the light of the judgment seat, so we have gained by it. I may be in the dark and not know if I have His mind or not, but at the judgment-seat we get His mind about everything, and that is what we want.
JND used to say we should greatly value that we are always the subjects of God’s dealing in mercy. Up to our conversion we were quite blind, and light will be thrown on all that. You can quite understand that if people have not purged consciences, anything of judgment in any shape or form would make them uneasy. The gospel remedies that. All this is put in to exercise their consciences; the effect on Paul was that it led him to persuade men. This did not raise questions for him, it made him think of men. All the time that Christ sits as Judge is really covered by the judgment-seat of Christ. It has often been said that “his wife has made herself ready” (Revelation 19: 7) is that she has passed the judgment-seat. Judgment is wider than penalty; it is often taken up in connection with the infliction of punishment, but it is more often the discrimination of things. We say a man has sound judgment. A judicial award is founded on a [p. 213] holy discrimination; the character of everything is thoroughly brought to light. A judge does not always condemn; take a dog show, for example. A judge is often as much concerned in the approval of what is excellent as in the condemning of the guilty.
The apostle was always zealous to be agreeable to the Lord. He cultivated the judgment-seat of Christ all along and was not putting it off to the future. The sense of having the Lord’s mind about things is a very real thing. It is a very distinct thing to have the Lord’s mind, and particularly if you have had a different mind before; our own mind has to go; it is very humiliating, but a great reality. You find as to the bride it was granted to her that she should be arrayed in fine linen — the righteous acts of saints. The fine linen is the righteousness of saints. The bride is seen to be adorned with all that is of the Spirit. There will be seen in the saint the display of all that has characterised that saint spiritually, it will all be distinctly seen. Many of those in whom the most fruit of the Spirit is seen are quite out of sight at the present time and perhaps many have not the opportunity of its coming out, but it will all come out some day. There may be those “boasting in countenance, and not in heart”, the apostle has in mind those who were making a fair show at the present time. He is insisting on reality in all this — there must be reality in having to do with divine Persons, and there were those at Corinth evidently who were not on this line. Whatever God has wrought in the soul cannot be lost. You may depend upon it that the Lord loves to show His approbation of all that is of and for Himself, He never forgets a good point. “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (Jeremiah 2: 2). He forgets our sins but never the good. “I will pardon their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more” (Jeremiah 31: 34). It has been said that when God speaks of an Old Testament saint in the New, He never records anything to his discredit; He calls Lot a righteous man.
SUMMARY OF A READING 2 Corinthians 5: 12 - 21 The apostle anticipated the judgment-seat. If anyone is fully manifested to God now, there is nothing to add. The saint always welcomes the light of God; one is not a saint otherwise. The difference between one born of God and a natural man is that he loves the light and the natural man hates it. If we are born of the light we cannot hate it; the saint is formed by the light. The government of God works out down here, not at the judgment-seat. If I do wrong, in the government of God I eat the fruit of my own way. If everyone travelled through Romans he would only do good; he would live outside every influence here and present his body a living sacrifice. Nothing is going to satisfy God but having His saints in perfect suitability to and holy accord with Himself. The saint at the judgment-seat gets everything measured according to Christ; Christ is the criterion of everything; it would be a loss to me not to have a divine estimate of my course down here. The judgment-seat of Christ is the end of man’s responsibility; God winds up everything worthily of Himself by giving the saint His estimate of it all. Everything must be according to the standard of Christ. The saint here is not supposed to be a mixture of good and evil but he is set up with a capacity equal to his responsibility. Paul was so manifested to God that he had not anything to go over. J.N.D. said when dying that he could say, ‘Christ has been my only Object, I am not aware of anything to recall, little now to add’. That is the result of really being manifested to God as you go along; and if we are thus manifested there would not be a sudden blaze of light throwing up a lot of hideous things in the past. The apostle knew what it was to be with God without the intrusion of a single thought that was of himself — we cannot say this (see J.N.D. note b, verse 13). The [p. 215] Christian can be outside himself with God in all the blessedness of what God is; it is his highest privilege. Then the apostle was held by the love of Christ. I suppose the love of Christ would be probably Godward, the devoted love which has taken up everything for God. The love of Christ held him; it holds me, that is the thought, the love in which Christ has taken up everything for God, the removing all the old and bringing in all the new even at the expense of laying down His life. It was what characterised that Man; it is all in relation to God, the obedience of Christ and the love of Christ. It had its outflow manward, but the essential point was what it was Godward. He died for all to bring to a termination that race — man after the flesh. All is removed that was unsuitable to God that there might be a people in connection with life being in relation to God’s Head. The general bearing of the passage is that old things being removed, the love of Christ comes out in that way.
“All have died” (verse 14) is judicial, not moral. Man after the flesh has gone in the death of Christ; all is now in new creation. The whole scene is terminated before God, “The end of all flesh is come before me” (Genesis 6: 13), and now everything that lives is in relation to the living One; there is no other life. The love of Christ is a love that has come out in a particular way, a way that sets aside man after the flesh. I think there is a tendency to lose sight of the way in which the love of Christ has come out. The point is that God has lost man, and Christ has recovered man for God in new creation, not after the flesh, having judicially terminated all that he was in his old position. The apostle enforces the need of new creation; everything connected with the old had to be entirely set aside that we might be formed in a new state. We cannot walk with God except on new creation lines; we must walk with God in the place that God puts us; we must be with God on another footing altogether. We all have to find out for ourselves that as natural men we hate God. There are times in our history [p. 216] when we would curse God to His face, which is grievous to the believer to find it, but so it is. We are by nature akin to the devil; it is a wonderful thing that Christ comes in with another Man; I have another Man’s life and righteousness, I rejoice in that.
[p. 221] [p. 223] NOTES OF A READING 2 Corinthians 5: 14 - 21 Nothing could be more sweeping than what the apostle says here as to “know no one according to flesh”.
Rem He is taking account of a man as before God.
CAC Yes, that is the attitude of a man who is living to the One who died for him and has been raised. With all our light, and we have a lot of ministry, yet how few of us come near to where the apostle was in this chapter. All the old things were really gone in the death of Christ, and in connection with Christ raised all things had become new. Everything that sin had touched had to go that there might be an entirely new beginning for God. Everything was good and beautiful as God created it, and sin came in and touched it all, and the mark of sin stands connected with all that is after the flesh. What is seen in Christ is the absolutely glorious setting forth of the righteousness of God and in new creation nothing is seen but ‘God’s righteousness with glory bright’.
Ques There is no discouragement, is there?
CAC No, that would not be the circle where reconciliation is known, would it? Everything is quite of a new order now. If there was anything perfect in the flesh it could certainly be found in Christ, and yet the apostle says we do not now know Him any more after the flesh; it must be a new order. If we are occupied with ourselves we are occupied with imperfection. The love of Christ is that which held the apostle, and the love of Christ holds us. In God’s new world everything is in relation to Christ, and in the old world everything stood in relation to Adam. You get the same thought constantly in Scripture, He becomes the gathering centre in attraction to Himself. “I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me” (John 12: 32). And again, “He should also gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad” (John 11: 52).
Then there is the fresh claim of redemption that God has acquired (verse 15). It is a wonderful thing to be able to take that ground; they were to live in relation to Christ, and if I do not live in relation to Christ I do not live at all. In all our relations with God there is nothing but what is of God. The soul is put in liberty. “He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it” (Isaiah 38: 15). We have to come to God, and it is a blessed thing to come to God. When we come there we find nothing but Christ; we are not occupied with ourselves, we disappear and Christ remains. Practically we are a long way from God sometimes. There is no greater joy than to see that there is only one Man before God. I see another man very often and that makes me value the death of Christ.
The old things in the case of the apostle were good things after the flesh; he surpassed everybody on that line, but he was very thankful to let it all go. Many have never come to this point until their deathbed when they are obliged to let themselves go and see nothing but Christ. It is a pity not to come to this a little sooner. There is no conflict in your place with God. The point is, on what ground am I with God when alone with Him? A man derives all his power and his character from God; if I am right in the inner circle I come out in the power of it to meet all the difficulties and complications outside. There must be a learning of things experimentally. We are now set in divine grace in company with the Holy Spirit who always resists the things of the flesh so that we may not do the things that we would wish to do. If you come to think of it, it is incredible that God should give us these wonderful things and then leave us to get on as best we can at the mercy of everything. We encourage one another in the things of God; the more we have to do with divine Persons the more we are encouraged. There are so many difficulties because souls do not know the true grace of God; souls want [p. 219] evangelising. If we only had the gift of evangelisation what a lot of good we might do; it is greatly needed even amongst people supposed to be Christians.
Ques What is “the ministry of that reconciliation” (verse 18)?
CAC There were the two things, the ministry of reconciliation that God had given to the apostles, and the word of reconciliation that He had also put in the apostles; they not only had an official ministry but the thing was really in them. Then everything in Scripture is for us — what the apostles had is all for us in a way — “Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matthew 7: 7). There is no other way of getting on; it is constantly presented in Scripture. “Diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11: 6, Authorised Version). And if these things are worth having, they are worth seeking. I think we shall all be able to say this, that if we have in any way set our faces that way we have got a great deal more than we expected. “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man’s heart, which God has prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2: 9). “Be reconciled to God”. It means that the soul comes on to the ground where there is nothing but Christ. When Christ was here after the flesh God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself; that was God’s approach to man; everything was according to Christ, and that gives character to reconciliation. When the people came to Him with their sins, diseases or infirmities, all were met in Christ; it was because God was in Christ; they came under the influence of all that God was. All that God does is according to Christ. If I see that God’s coming to me is according to Christ then everything in my coming to God must be according to Christ. One is the kiss and the other the best robe. It is a wonderful thing to be kissed by God. I have said sometimes to people, ‘Have you been kissed?’ And they have said, ‘I do not know what you mean’, which [p. 220] shows they have not. You cannot be kissed by God and not know it.
Ques Is that Romans 5: 1?
CAC Yes. You get the powerful and overwhelming sense in your soul that God loves you. The love of God is poured out — it is an energetic word! It is a wonderful moment. The prodigal knew the kiss, it showed that all was clear on the father’s side. The best robe added nothing to the father’s delight; it was as great before as after, but it altered everything on the prodigal’s side. That is another aspect of reconciliation. The best robe is to meet every thought of fitness in the soul which is quickened by God and equipped in suitability to God. When we see what it is to be made the righteousness of God in Him, that settles the whole question.
Ques Is verse 18 apostolic?
CAC The ministry of the apostles is living and abides. The scripture says, “The things thou hast heard of me ... entrust to faithful men” (2 Timothy 2: 2). It is supposed to be handed and kept alive — the apostles’ ministry was never to become dead. They were body and soul in it, they laid themselves out that this blessed ministry should find its way into hearts. The great thing is to preach Christ, what we know of Christ, however little we may know. If we speak of Christ there is a sweet savour about it; people are refreshed and comforted even when they do not properly enter into it. We are not simple in our joy in Christ. “He preached unto him Jesus”. The great thing is that people should be impressed with a Person; what is going to deliver if it is not the blessed and satisfying power of Christ in the heart? What else is going to bring the soul out of its graveclothes? Nothing but Christ. If you get the preaching of Christ you have a new Person brought in.
NOTES OF A READING 2 Corinthians 5: 19 - 21; 2 Corinthians 6: 1 - 13 When is a man in Christ?
CAC I thought there was progress in it; I do not think anyone is in Christ all at once.
Ques To what scripture would you turn for the first apprehension of this?
CAC There is a scripture (1 Corinthians 1: 30) which speaks of “in Christ”. I think if a soul has come to the apprehension of Christ as his righteousness, he has come to the first touch of it. Romans 8: 1 is another experience. I think a man was in Christ in contrast to his experience under law. It is not so much the righteousness of God as the new atmosphere a soul is breathing.
Ques What would be the difference between us in Christ and Christ in us?
CAC One is the answer to the other.
Ques What are the “old things” (verse 17)?
CAC The things that sin had touched. Nothing adds to the kiss; it was the father’s kiss that was the witness of the father’s love, and the next thing is the best robe. It is what the apostle is doing here, if you would only stand still and let him put it on you.
The Urim and the Thummim are light and perfection. The Urim are Luke’s gospel, the Thummim John’s. The breastplate was all within the span of a man’s hand. The Urim are the light of all that God is, the Thummim are perfection in man Godward. It is a great thing to see that the revelation of God is in relation to man; God was pleased to create man capable of knowing Him. The whole revelation of God is bound up with man, The glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. It has all come out in that way.
This chapter is the doctrine of the divine parable in Luke 15,
[p. 222] new creation. In the house the prodigal was suited to the father’s eye. We cannot enter into the truth of the assembly until we are in the good of reconciliation — God has pleasure in me.
Ques What is the word of reconciliation?
CAC The apostles had the testimony of it in their own souls. I think that verse 18 is the idea of all true ministry — ministry not only as to terms, but it is expressed. What a servant is impresses people much more than what he says. It is important that the true character of a thing should be seen in a vessel livingly; it might otherwise be taken up mentally. People ought to be afraid of taking things up mentally. There was no place given to the flesh, nothing had any place but Christ (verse 20). It characterised the full walk and life of the apostles. I think the great point was that the saints should be near to God according to God’s own way. A great many accept the truth without being near to God. And he wanted them to be personally near to God according to the truth.
NOTES OF A READING 2 Corinthians 5: 20, 21; 2 Corinthians 6: 1 - 18 “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”. Does that refer to any particular time when Christ was here?
CAC God was in Christ (verse 19) reconciling, etc. Everything was on the footing of what Christ was; all God’s ways with man were according to what Christ was. I thought that every bit of grace that was in Christ was on the ground of His death. In Luke, “good pleasure in men” was reconciliation; God had good pleasure in men. The point here (verse 19) is God was reconciling. There was great pleasure for God in having Christ under His own eye. “Ye have had affection for me, and have believed that I came out from God” (John 16: 27). That gives the idea of reconciliation. There is a bond of contact between God and men.
Ques What is it on our side to come into the good of reconciliation?
CAC I thought it was this, that really God has found His infinite delight in Christ and He has called us into that circle; it is like the prodigal. In new creation it is not sinful nature that is in view, but God’s delight; and the work of the evangelist is not really done until souls have come into a circle where there is positive delight for God. If I think of myself as a man, I am gone, and there is nothing before God but Christ.
The ministry of the new covenant is the setting forth of what God is to sinful man, but reconciliation is that there is delight for God in man. I think you see the activity of divine love in this ministry, thus put in Paul; there is a beseeching character about it, a warmth. In all true ministry there is a warmth and earnestness; that God is beseeching, God is seeking to win man by [p. 224] His earnestness.
Ques How do we answer to this earnest beseeching practically?
CAC I think to take it in is the most important thing.
We find ourselves with God on an entirely new footing if we take it in.
I think he turns in the next chapter (6) to the things that hinder. The apostle says, as it were, I have set such wonderful things before you, how is it that you are so small? He turns round pretty sharply on to the practical side; he says, as it were, if you want to be led into these blessed things you must be separate. Chapter 5: 21 is about the biggest verse in Scripture. Man has been a dishonour to God, he has been a libel on God’s character, but in new creation everything that is worthy of God will be displayed in us. God has dealt with sin in a right way on the cross, and it is all going to come out in new creation. As J.N.D. puts it in his hymn, ‘God’s righteousness with glory bright’ (88:4). Righteousness and glory go together more than once in Scripture. Righteousness is often used very much in the sense of faithfulness. It is a matter of righteousness with God to effect His own purposes. New creation will be the display of the righteousness of God. Everything there will be eternally right. Everything will be of God so that it is not creature righteousness but God’s righteousness. If it were creature righteousness it would drag down as creature innocence did, but it is God’s righteousness and that is all right, it is satisfactory to God.
[p. 227] NOTES OF A READING 2 Corinthians 6: 1 - 18 The ministry was not to be a dead letter, but to find a living expression.
CAC I suppose it is really what belongs to the day of Christ’s rejection — something for God in me. Everything that was of God and for God was set forth in ministry with the idea of the thing really working out. The apostle was anxious that the ministry should not suffer, that nothing should bring a cloud on the glory — the ministry having come into the world, the great thing is that it should not be clouded; it is not being concerned about our character to keep up a religious reputation.
Verse 4 shows the power to go against the stream. In Philippians 1: 28 it is, “Not frightened in anything by the opposers”. It is evidence of the power of God to go on, right in the teeth of everything. Everything was against the apostle’s ministry. I suppose we have to be tested in different ways, especially those who take up God’s service in any way. It brought out in the apostle that he was a true man. We can all get on very well when in favour, the question is how we get on when things are contrary. We might easily get high-minded as to doctrine, but the practical side comes in as a check. You get the doctrine in Romans; there he says, ‘Now I will show you the photograph of a man who is in the good of all this’. I suppose we only understand the doctrine as we are formed by the Spirit in the things.
Ques What is God’s temple?
CAC It seems to me a very holy thing to be said of the saints that they are the temple of the living God.
Ques. Why “living God”?
CAC We are very feeble in our apprehension that God is here; the general idea is that God is in heaven and [p. 226] we hope to get there some day, whereas the great thing of the present moment is that God is here. People of the established church have a greater reverence for stones and bricks — the material building — than we have for God’s building. The reverence they have in flesh, we ought to have in the Spirit and be the moral expression of what God is. God comes into the soul by blessed ministry; it all works out very simply and naturally, if we are only simple enough; there is nothing very complicated in christianity. The temple is a place where you are entirely withdrawn from all the influence of man; it is the shrine, and you are initiated there into things that are entirely outside the sphere of man.
Ques What is the difference between the temple and the kingdom?
CAC You must be initiated to get into the temple; there are mysteries; you must be a priest to have anything to say to the temple. It puts us outside man in the flesh altogether, for we are not priests according to the flesh. In verse 18 you are outside man’s resources. God would say, ‘If you be for Me I will be for you’.
Rem If I am wanted in the place where Jesus is, I shall be cared for in the place where Jesus was.
NOTES OF A READING 2 Corinthians 6: 11 - 18; 2 Corinthians 7: 1 What is the thought in the heart being expanded?
CAC I suppose the apostle had been under a certain restraint when writing his first epistle. The conditions at Corinth did not tend to give him liberty; but now his letter had taken effect, he was at liberty to open his heart freely to them.
Ques “Let your heart ... expand itself”, and “Come out ..., and be separated”; are these two different thoughts?
CAC They would be expanded by being more separate. True expansion of heart will only be found in the path of separation.
Rem In the first epistle he calls them “babes”; here he says, “children”.
CAC He had to tell them in the first epistle they were babes. They had not grown up in Christ, therefore they had not much capacity to take in spiritual thoughts. He could not speak to them of the things that were so precious to his own heart. “Children” was a suitable term of endearment for them; they were his children.
Ques Why does he say, “our heart”, and “your heart” in the singular number in verses 11 and 13?
CAC I think he is looking at them collectively. It was a general matter, and they were straitened because they were keeping up links with the world really.
Rem Things are put in very strong contrast here. Our tendency is to water things down in all directions.
CAC Quite so, righteousness and lawlessness cannot possibly go together, nor can light and darkness. It is an impossibility!
Rem It is remarkable that separation or division is the first principle that God works upon (cf. Genesis 1).
CAC Yes, it is the first principle of God’s ways; it is [p. 228] the first principle of spiritual enlargement that we learn to see the difference between light and darkness.
Rem There is to be no blending of the two.
CAC Satan is always working on the principle of mixture, he is always trying to bring about a mixture. God hates mixtures.
With God it is to be one thing or another, and Paul insists that the Corinthians are the living God’s temple. Well, if you are that, be true to it!
And this great thought is to be much before us, that God had said, “I will dwell among them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be to me a people” — that the saints are really the holy places where God dwells and where He walks, where His movements are known.
Rem It is very touching that God condescends to walk with His people, as it says He did in the wilderness. This, I suppose, is a provisional thing as it is here in the wilderness.
Ques I suppose it is the most wonderful thing to think of at the present time?
CAC Yes, if we realised that, we should want to be exceedingly separate from everything with the character of darkness or unrighteousness. It is striking how, in both the first and the second epistles, he holds the people of God to what they are. He does not say, You ought to be God’s temple, but, You are; therefore be consistent with it. It ought to be a great matter to us that God has a dwelling-place here on earth, where He moves, and where He discloses Himself in wonderful movements of grace and love and blessing and, of course, holiness.
We need, too, to keep in mind that God wants to receive us as having entered into His own great thoughts; so that He can receive us as intelligently in the place where He has put us. He would take on that character of Father practically with us. ‘If you suffer from the world’s hatred or opposition, I will be a Father to you’; and if so, it does not [p. 229] matter what happens to us outwardly.
Ques Why is the title, “Lord Almighty” used?
CAC Because He is looking at the saints as here on earth. He says, ‘I will be everything to you that I was to My earthly people of old’.
Ques Is there a difference between “separate” and “separated”?
CAC “Separated” is the thing completed, as it says of the Lord that He was “separated from sinners” — not simply separate, but separated. God has great pleasure in a people who are satisfied with Himself and who do not want that system where everything is opposed to God.
Rem It would involve holiness.
CAC That would be bound up in the thought of God’s temple. There is nothing so holy as what is connected with God’s temple. Though no respect is due to any building, respect is due to the saints. You cannot think of anything stagnant where God is. Our tendency is to drop down to a certain religious routine. “The living God”, and God moving, suggests activity. So when we come together we expect to get something in a new way, something we have not had before. Numbers 6 speaks of contact with a dead person.
Ques How might we be touching what is unclean?
CAC It needs constant exercise, and we have to recognise the utter evil of the man in the flesh. His world is utterly evil. Men talk of a new world, but it is a new world without Christ! Such a thing is abhorrent to every saint, so the thought of it is unclean. The thought of securing better conditions in the world without Christ is an unclean thought, and is doomed to bitter disappointment.
The thing is to be set to experience what God can be to His people in the midst of the very condition of things brought in by sin. What can God be to us as His sons and daughters, while nothing is changed in the scene around us, when everything goes on just the same? What can God be [p. 230] to us? It calls for separation and for holiness. So that this self-purifying is to go on continually, and the perfecting of holiness in God’s fear. It is a continually progressive thing.
The apostle was anxious that there should be more space for God to walk in at Corinth. Wherever there is room made for God, He will take it. Wherever there is a holy place — a suitable place — for God, He will take it; and saints will experience this just in proportion as they are separated from a fallen world and fallen man.
Nothing will satisfy God but that His sons and daughters shall partake of His own character. How wonderful to think of becoming more like God every day! That is, things we did last year, we cannot possibly think of doing today, we dare not. As we take on more of God’s character we become expressive of it, so that God can recognise us as sons and daughters in this world, taking on more of His character every day.
Ques Is John 17: 17, “Sanctify them by the truth”, a parallel thought?
CAC Yes, it is wonderful the place that the saints have in God’s thoughts. They are left in this world in Christ’s place, and they have Christ’s place before the Father. Of course God’s things are continuous in being worked out. He will chasten His children until they are like Himself and take on His blessed character of holiness. It has been said that righteousness judges evil with authority, but holiness shrinks from evil and repels it by its own character.
Ques Would righteousness be seen more at the cross and holiness at Gethsemane?
CAC Gethsemane is a most wonderful theme, in a sense more wonderful for us to apprehend than the cross, because it is the Son going with the Father anticipatively. I think there it is more holiness; that is, the sense pressing on His holy soul of what was involved in all that necessitated the drinking of the cup — the shrinking from it in His holy [p. 231] soul. It is remarkable that it is the only time He uses that unique term of endearment, “Abba, Father”. Gethsemane is a most wonderful study for the hearts of the saints. He went through it all in spirit beforehand and all in communion with His Father. I think holiness was perhaps the more distinctive feature there. Then the Father’s will must prevail, and, at whatever cost, He wishes the Father’s will should prevail. Well, that is a very holy feeling; it brings out the holy sensibilities of His soul. We belong to the One who has gone through all that in the agony of His soul, not only drinking the cup of judgment, but before drinking it, He has gone through it all in communion with His Father.
Ques Is that why “spirit” is brought in here (chapter 7: 1)?
CAC The spirit is very important, because the pollutions of the spirit are more evil than the pollutions of the flesh, because they work inwardly. The gratifications of the flesh work outwardly, but the pollutions of the spirit work inwardly — something working in a man’s spirit that is offensive to God. In Hebrews 12: 9 it says, “Be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live”. The Father is the Father of spirits, and we should remember He is concerned about our spirits — what we are inwardly. The pollutions of the spirit are to be cleansed. I might be a decent man outwardly, but thoroughly polluted inwardly. There were certain men at Corinth wishing for a place or to be leaders among the saints. Well, that is a pollution of spirit; there might be no pollution of the flesh exactly. I suppose it is the deepest exercise of our souls to keep our spirits pure, so that in our inward exercises we are purifying our spirits and perfecting holiness in the fear of God all the time.
Rem We only discover our motives as getting near to God.
CAC That is very true. It should be a great exercise with us that we want more of God. We want Him to come [p. 232] in and really have the place in our hearts’ affections that is due to Him. And when that takes place we find out all the things that work against Him.
Paul shows, in the chapter that follows, his intense affection for his Corinthian children. He wanted them for himself, but he wanted them for God first.
Rem “Ye are in our hearts, to die together, and live together”.
CAC And is it not remarkable that he says, “Die together, and live together”? We should not naturally put it in that way. Is it not because morally we shall only live together as we die together?
Ques It is a spiritual matter, you mean?
CAC Yes. The apostle was clearly on the line of dying, “dying, and behold, we live”; and death always comes first spiritually, and particularly in christianity. He was governed by the thought of dying out of the world so as to live with Christ. So the saints, if they would be in companionship with Paul, must die with Paul, so that they might live with Paul.
Rem The apostle was the great exemplification of what he ministered.
CAC He saw a little bit of movement in them, and it was sufficient to make his heart leap with joy. And we may have the same joy when we see the same thing; we can have profound joy.