LOVE WHICH SURPASSES KNOWLEDGE
[p. 303] LOVE WHICH SURPASSES KNOWLEDGE
To know the love of the Christ is the consummation of blessing — the very crown of christianity. The greatest endowment and the highest distinction of the church is that she is the subject of — she is enriched by — that precious love. And God would have each one of our hearts to find its glory, its satisfaction and its joy in the knowledge of that love. I purpose to bring some of the manifestations and activities of the love of Christ before your hearts at this time; and I trust that each one of us may be profoundly affected as we trace in Scripture a few of the steps and stages of the soul’s progress in love which lead on in a path of growing light to the goal spoken of in Ephesians 3: 19: “And to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”.
I desire to begin at a point where the very youngest believer may find himself in touch with the love of that blessed Person who is crowned with honour and glory at the right hand of God. Revelation 1: 5, 6 brings before us His love as Saviour. “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father: to him be the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen”.
It is a blessed fact that every believer is washed from his sins, but it is of the greatest moment to remember that this could only be accomplished through death. Christ has “washed us ... in his blood”. He has cleared us of everything that attached to us in our responsibility as Adam’s children. He has offered “one sacrifice for sins”, and “by one offering he has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified” (Hebrews 10: 12, 14). And if there is a timorous, burdened soul here tonight, longing to be able to say, ‘I am my Lord’s and He is mine’, it is my joy to assure you that you are welcome to Christ. God puts that blessed Saviour within your reach at this moment. Your sins, your weakness, your temptations, your many efforts which have ended in failure, are all known to God, but you are at this moment welcome to Christ. Believe on Him now and be saved.
Perhaps the majority of those present are assured of the completeness and efficacy of the Saviour’s work, but I would that every heart knew better the love in which that work was wrought. Love is the secret that lies behind it all — its source and the measure of its value. It was deep divine love that would have us clear of every spot and stain. If you love a person, you would like that person to be clear of every deformity — to be free from blemish. If Christ has washed us from our sins, it was not chiefly to relieve us, but to clear us in the presence of His love from everything that was painful to His love. And this imposed a necessity upon Him for which nothing but infinite love could have been equal. For it necessitated His death — it necessitated the unreserved surrender of the Holy One to bear under judgment and in death the whole desert and consequence of sin and sins. In short, it involved all that is brought before our hearts by the unfathomable words, “The sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9: 26, Authorised Version). Nothing but supreme and ineffable love could have been equal to such a necessity, and nothing could bear greater testimony to that love than the fact that He has “washed us from our sins in his blood”.
Believer, let it sink down into your heart that there is something greater and more precious than the Saviour’s work; yes, greater than the mighty act of redemption; and that greater thing is the love in which it was undertaken and accomplished. It is a wonderful moment for the believer when the thought of this love first enters his soul. Because [p. 305] it is not a love which exhausted itself in what it accomplished. It is an abiding love — a present love — which is set free by what it has done, so that it is now an unstraitened, triumphant love, for it has removed everything about us that was painful to itself. And there is a present outgoing of that deep and precious love from the heart of the Lord Jesus towards each one of His own in this world today. Many here are acquainted with the fact that this verse reads more accurately, “To him who loves us”, not “loved us”. His love is a present reality. May God make it good to each of our hearts in the power of the Holy Spirit!
I believe the characteristic mark of every one who has come consciously within the circle of Christ’s love is that his heart is possessed with real desire to know the thoughts of that love. It gives the soul an entirely new starting-point. It is no longer, What have I got? or What can I do? It is not even, How can I be happier, or holier, or more useful? All such questions centre in self after all. The heart is absorbed and commanded by the blessedness of divine love, and would fain know that love in the circle of its own thoughts, and of its own satisfaction. And while I say this I cannot help adding a few words suggested by the scripture before us. To be washed from our sins is, after all, a negative blessing, and it is in view of something else. To be washed from my sins might satisfy the cravings of my conscience, but it would not satisfy the love of my Saviour. It was the thought of His love to make us “a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”. He has cleared us that He might bring us to His God and Father in priestly fitness and nearness. He has cleared us with a view to our being made priests to approach God in His sanctuary. It was His object to secure a company of many sons for the satisfaction of His Father. I trust no one here will rest content with that part of the blessing which meets our need. I am sure that if we get a sense of His love we shall earnestly long to enter into, and [p. 306] to answer to, the thoughts and intentions of that love. May it be so increasingly with us all!
I wish now to say a little on that activity of love in which Christ is our Advocate with the Father. “And if any one sin, we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2: 1). The apprehension of this is of great practical importance, for Satan is ever ready to take advantage of any breakdown on our part, and to suggest that we have behaved so badly that we cannot now count upon divine love. Satan’s object is to deprive our hearts of the consciousness of divine love, and thus effectually to block the way to restoration. There is nothing that operates so mightily to produce self-judgment and confession as the consciousness of the fact that divine love is unchanged. There is no cessation of the activity of that love if we sin. Our sin becomes the occasion of a different kind of activity, it is true, but the love is unchanged.
The advocacy of Christ is not exercised in a court of justice but in the home of love — it is “with the Father”. And Jesus Christ is there as “the righteous”. He is there as the One who has glorified God completely about the sins of those for whom He is now the Advocate. His presence there is the blessed and abiding testimony that there cannot possibly be any question of imputation of sin to the believer. Divine Persons are now concerned about the one who has sinned, and the object of Their solicitude is that he should be restored to the proper affections and behaviour of one who belongs to the circle of divine love. Sin is entirely inconsistent with that circle, and the one who has sinned has allowed something which must necessarily interrupt the communion proper to that circle. The advocacy of Christ is exercised entirely with a view to our restoration, and I believe every movement of repentance in our souls is wrought by the Spirit as the outcome of that advocacy. If we are brought into exercise of soul about our condition, it is the outcome of the advocacy of Christ, and it is really a [p. 307] witness of the love which is active for our restoration. The thought of this breaks us down. When a shade has come in, and the heart has got away, nothing has such power to move us and to break us down as a sense of the unchanging love of Jesus Christ and the Father, and the Holy Spirit delights to impart this to our hearts.
It has often been said that the point of departure is the point of recovery, and this is certainly true. But souls often lose much time by attempting to find their own way back to the point of departure. We can no more restore ourselves when we have got away than we could save ourselves. We are as dependent upon Christ for restoration as we were for salvation. He alone can lead us back to the point of departure. He knows all the intricacies of our path of wandering which we could never trace out, and He knows the secret source of weakness and decline which may be entirely hidden from ourselves. But if He alone can give us divine restoration it is most encouraging to remember that it is the pleasure of His love to do this. I am sure the thought of this would draw hearts to Him in great confidence, and in being thus drawn to Him is the true way and power of restoration.
Then in Romans 8: 34 - 37, we have set before us the love of Christ as Intercessor. “Christ who has died, but rather has been also raised up; who is also at the right hand of God; who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? According as it is written, For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we have been reckoned as sheep for slaughter. But in all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us”.
The enemy, finding himself completely baffled in every attempt to lay anything to the charge of God’s elect or to bring them under condemnation before God, will harass and persecute them in proportion to their fidelity to Christ.
[p. 308] The seven things here alluded to represent all the power of the enemy in the way of persecution and pressure, by which he seeks to discourage the saints of God, and, if possible, to crush them. Though the fires of Smithfield are no longer kindled, and Christians in this country are not at present exposed to imprisonment and the tortures of the Inquisition, there is an immense amount of persecution abroad. In the home circle, in the shop, the workroom, the office, and the factory, Christians are subjected to petty annoyances; mean advantages are taken of them, to say nothing of the ridicule and contempt to which they are often subject, and in many cases there is the expression of real hatred towards them. I suspect there are not many who have sought in any measure to be faithful to the Lord who have not experienced something of this. People who are kind and amiable in other things often become cruel persecutors when it is a question of Christ. Many a husband and wife have got on very well together until one of them was converted, but after that the converted one has had to prove something of the meaning of the words, “For thy sake we are put to death all the day long” (Romans 8: 36).
Now what will sustain the heart under pressure of this kind is the knowledge of the love of Christ — that love in which He enters into all the pressure, and considers the effect of it upon our spirits, and makes intercession for us as to it all, so that we may “more than conquer”. As we apprehend this activity of His love we are greatly strengthened to face the opposition. There is One in the highest place — in the place of power, for He is at the right hand of God — whose love is active to sustain us; One whose hands never get “heavy” like those of Moses (Exodus 17: 12), and whose intercession never fails. The knowledge of this sustains our hearts in confidence and courage. If we lose the consciousness of the love of Christ we become spiritually weak — we fall behind as did some of old — and when Amalek assails us we are in great danger.
“[p. 309] Remember what Amalek did unto thee on the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; how he met thee on the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, all the feeble that lagged behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary, and he feared not God” (Deuteronomy 25: 17, 18). It is to be feared that many are smitten in this way. They are spiritually weak; they have not enough knowledge of the love of Christ to stand persecution, and when it arises they are very soon discouraged and overcome by it. May God establish our hearts in the love of Christ that “in all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us”.
I will now go a step further, and say a few words about the love of Christ as Deliverer. “I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me; but in that I now live in flesh, I live by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me” (Galatians 2: 20). “For the love of the Christ constrains us, having judged this: that one died for all, then all have died; and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised” (2 Corinthians 5: 14, 15).
Many approach the subject of deliverance almost entirely from the side of their own needs and exercises. They are distressed by certain things in themselves which are not what they could wish. They get before them a certain ideal of what they would like to be, and if they could come up to their ideal they would be quite happy. Most of those who go in for holiness by faith have not got beyond this. They do not enter much into the blessed thoughts of God. They only desired to be rid of the painful and discreditable part of the flesh, and having got power for this, as they suppose, they are content. They can still go on with all the things in which respectable and reputable flesh — religious flesh — has its life. This is a very poor kind of holiness; there is nothing very elevated or attractive in it to a spiritual mind. But it is what results from approaching the subject entirely [p. 310] from the side of need and expedience. To get the full measure of anything in divine things we must approach it from God’s side, and from the standpoint of divine love. Everything is then seen as the infinitely beautiful, and I may add, the necessary outcome of that love which is the blessed source of all “the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Corinthians 2: 12).
Now what we learn from the two scriptures I have read is that nothing would suit divine love but the complete removal of man after the flesh, and that this removal has been effected by judgment coming upon him to the uttermost in the death of Christ. But in the very place where we see this solemn judgment of man in the flesh, we see the most wonderful display of divine love. We could not afford to be obliterated, if I may so say, anywhere else but in the presence of divine love. All that I am must go, but how does it go? It goes in a way which magnifies the love of Christ infinitely. There has been a complete condemnation of all that I am morally as a man in the flesh, but that condemnation has come about in the way of divine love — it has come about in the death of Christ. Thus we get two things together of which the cross is the witness: the complete setting aside of all that we are in the flesh, and the introduction of the love of Christ as a new motive principle — a new moral centre — in the heart of the Christian. So that the Christian has a new standpoint from which to regard everything. He does not look at things from the point of view of the importance of self; the love of Christ is now his starting-point — it is that which constrains him. In the presence of divine love we know our nothingness, and we can afford to ‘pour contempt on all our pride’. When the love of the Christ is thus known in its constraining power, there is practical deliverance from all the weak and beggarly elements of legality which after all only retain self, and minister to the importance and satisfaction of the man who has gone for God.
[p. 311] Many souls go through years of exercise and self-disappointment in the vain effort to make the flesh suitable to God. There is a constant disposition with many to connect the blessings and grace of christianity with themselves as men and women in the flesh. And when, in the wisdom of God’s ways with them, things come about which discover to them what the flesh really is — that it is absolutely incapable of good, but infinite in capacity for evil — they feel as if everything has gone from them. Without knowing it, such souls are looking for the grace of christianity to be added to the flesh, and they have to learn that this is impossible, for the flesh is incorrigibly bad. But it is a deep joy to discover that in the depths of self-disgust in which the soul has to cry, “O wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7: 24), “I abhor myself ...” (Job 42: 6), it comes for the first time into touch with the mind of God. And such a one would rejoice to be able to change his standpoint, and to look at things from the side of divine love. He would realise the necessity for the complete setting aside of the flesh. And he would then learn, as we have seen, that the flesh is set aside in the way of divine love, and that there is another Man before God, filling His eye and heart with unspeakable rest and satisfaction, and that the blessings and grace of christianity are all set forth in Him. He would then be prepared to understand what it is to be “of him ... in Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption; that according as it is written, He that boasts, let him boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1: 30, 31).
We will now turn to a scripture in which the love of Christ as Sanctifier is brought before us. “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make perfect the leader of their salvation through sufferings. For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will [p. 312] declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises” (Hebrews 2: 10 - 12). Here we see another of those wondrous activities in which the love of Christ is known. He has become the Sanctifier that He might introduce His own to complete association with Himself, in a love which
’... gives not as the world, but shares
All it possesses with its loved co-heirs’. (249:2)
It is the blessed thought of the love of Christ that His own should be “all of one” with Himself, and if our hearts are attracted by this love, there is no lack of power to bring us consciously into it.
In previous verses of this chapter we see how One who was above all creation has been made some little inferior to angels to accomplish the pleasure of God (verse 7). We see in Him a devotedness to God which took Him into death so that the grace of God might touch everything. To the end of verse 9 it is grace, but verses 10 - 12 are the thoughts of love. It is the pleasure of God to have “many sons” brought to glory. It is the pleasure of His love. I think every Christian has an instinctive sense of what glory is. It is that holy scene where divine love has its supreme satisfaction and rest. And God will have us there for His own delight, and He will have us there in perfect suitability to the place and to the affections which belong to the place. We are not going into glory as aliens or as an importation of another order, but as belonging to the place. We hear of African princes being presented to the Queen. There may be favour in it but there is no love, for they are not at home in the place to which they are introduced; they do not belong to the place. But God is bringing us to glory as those who belong to glory — as “many sons”. Divine love has measured all that was involved in this, all that was necessary to bring it about, and has accomplished it all. It is not only that grace has perfectly met our need and our [p. 313] responsibility here, but divine love has given us an entirely new origin. The death of Christ is not only the end of everything that we were as in the flesh, but it is that from which we have derived our origin as a race who know the love of God. “Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone; but if it die, it bears much fruit” (John 12: 24). The fruit of the death of Christ is a race who know the love of God which has displayed itself in that death; it is a race begotten by the love of God. Christ has gone into death that He might be the Origin of a company deriving everything from Himself — a company of “many sons” knowing the blessed and perfect love of God, and at home in that love. He thus secures a sanctified company, “all of one” with Himself, “for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”.
If Christ could not regard us apart from the flesh, He would be ashamed of us, but on the ground of His death He can regard us as entirely apart from it, and as deriving everything in new creation from Himself. As we appropriate His death we are able to regard ourselves as apart from the flesh, and it is thus that we enter into the true privilege of the assembly. For what glory will be actually, the assembly is morally. It is that wondrous circle where we are privileged to taste the blessedness of being associated with Christ in the presence of His God and Father. He has declared His Father’s name to His brethren that we may enter into all the blessedness of the love which rests upon Him. “That the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them” (John 17: 26).
Then, on the other hand, none but Himself could give a suited response to the love into which He has brought us. Hence He says, “In the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises” (Hebrews 2: 12). He is the greater Praiser, but He has a company in harmony with Himself. The notes of His song vibrate in the hearts of His brethren. It is a wonderful thought of divine love that Christ should become the Centre [p. 314] of a sanctified company capable of appreciating the Father’s name, and capable of being in harmony with the song which only Christ can sing — a song which is the suited and adequate response to all the fulness of the revelation of God. May God lead our hearts a little more into the profound blessedness of this!
Just a few words in conclusion on the scripture to which I alluded before, where the apostle prays that the saints might “know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3: 19). Three things are necessary in order that we may apprehend the whole scope of the Father’s counsels. They are brought before us in the prayer of the apostle.
We must be strengthened with power by the Father’s Spirit in the inner man; Christ must dwell in our hearts by faith; and we must be rooted and founded in love.
Then we can survey “the breadth and length and depth and height”; we can apprehend the infinite scope of those counsels which will have their eternal display in a universe of bliss of which Christ will be the Centre and Sun. But in that universe of bliss the assembly has her own peculiar and distinctive portion in the love of the Christ. She will be the satisfaction of His heart for ever, and His love will be her satisfaction and her inalienable portion. As the last Adam — Head of the new creation — Christ will have His assembly which He loved, and for which He gave Himself, to share His glory and to know how He finds His satisfaction in her. And Paul would have us to anticipate the glory — to enter even while here into the peculiar distinction of the assembly — to “know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”. As I said before, this is the consummation of blessing, the very crown of christianity. May God greatly affect our hearts by the consideration of it, and bring each one of us more under the present influence of the love of the Christ.
[p. 315] NOTES OF A READING Ephesians 3: 20, 21; Ephesians 4: 1 - 6 We need to cultivate a great sense of the power that works in us.
Rem This is God working in us.
CAC Yes, and the great thought seems to be the thought of power. “Strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”, and then “fully able” in verse 18, which supposes power. There is an immeasurable power working in the saints.
Ques Would you say more about it?
CAC Well, I do not seem able to say very much, but it is evident to us all that there is such a thing.
Rem If we know ourselves naturally, we are not surprised at great power being needed to make it living in our hearts.
CAC Yes, I suppose that this is the climax of what can be reached by divine power in the assembly, because this supposes an assembly setting of things. It is “the assembly in Christ Jesus” which is contemplated, so that all the saints are necessary to the thought. It is “with all the saints”, as if it took the whole company of the saints to compass these things.
Ques The power, is it an allusion to the Holy Spirit?
CAC Yes, I suppose it is. It is “strengthened with power by his Spirit”; that is, the Father’s Spirit.
Ques Would you say something about “the assembly in Christ Jesus”?
CAC Do you think that it looks at the assembly as seen entirely apart from the flesh — from mixed conditions; that is, it is what subsists eternally? The assembly in Christ Jesus continues “unto all generations of the age of ages”. It is the thought of the assembly divested of everything which it will not carry into eternity. We should be able to see it so.
[p. 316] It is possible to conceive of the assembly from that point of view. The assembly in Christ Jesus presents that to me. It is the assembly viewed according to the counsels of infinite love, and viewed as an entirely unmixed spiritual product of the work of God. Well, it needs strengthening to apprehend the thought. So there is nothing there but glory to God; it is, “To him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”; that is, viewing the assembly in that light there is nothing there but the glory of God. I suppose we touch that when we are together — even for a moment — the blessedness of the condition of things brought about in the assembly where there is nothing but glory. It is something like the glory filling the house, is it not?
Rem We get the city coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, in Revelation.
CAC It is wonderful to think of the vessel of divine glory; and that is simply what is, not what ought to be; and as we are strengthened to be enabled to enter into it, we should pray for power to enter into it when we are in assembly. It needs great power to enter into it. Then God would have His proper portion.
Rem “In him is the yea, and in him the amen, for glory to God by us” (2 Corinthians 1: 20).
CAC Yes, and that you might say in a limited range — the range of promise. I have been told that there are 30,000 promises in the Bible; they are all yea and amen in the Son of God. The assembly should be able to take up everything that God has given expression to in promise, so that God gets the glory of it.
But here it is an unlimited range. It shows us the immense variety of the rules of worship. We are apt to get in a groove, to get contracted in the way we express our worship. God would have us expand into the full range of promise, and then to expand into what belongs to His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus before the world was. If we [p. 317] do not, the angels cannot! If we do not give Him the glory of it, He will not get it at all; is that not true?
It is a marvellous thought that there is a power working in us. We are poor things and cannot take it in, we may say, but what about this power? Does it not mean anything to us, or is it only a word in the Bible?
Rem We did not, I think, refer last time to the words, “That ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”.
CAC What had you in your mind as to it?
Rem It seems a very remarkable statement — a filling of the saints to enable the praise and glory to come out.
CAC The fulness of God is, of course, of fathomless depth, but is that which is adequate to bring out all that God is morally and in the counsels of His love. It is not what He is in His being, but what He is in His fulness. It is an unlimited range of things. It used to be illustrated by a basket in an ocean. Well, the basket is in the ocean and the ocean in the basket.
Rem I was thinking that the thought of glory must spring from resource. We must know something of those promises you mentioned, the knowledge of God and His riches. It does not spring from poverty.
CAC Yes, surely, and the thing is there in power, not just in word.
Rem Yes, it is not a flow of language, but something real and living, something that is vital.
CAC And the power does work in the saints; it is a great thing to recognise that. Sometimes we are on the line we wish it would. The assembly is the vessel in which the power of God works, so that there may be an apprehension of God in His great thoughts of love, and particularly manward — as men, and not angels, may know Him.
Ques Is it more operative when the saints are convened?
CAC I think so. I do not see how we can in a practical sense touch assembly conditions except as [p. 318] together.
Rem There is a warning as to “forsaking the assembling of yourselves together” (Hebrews 10: 25).
CAC Yes, I think we should look for a working of divine power when saints are together that you cannot get privately. Power working in two is more than in one; there is an accession of power. So that we should look more for this. We must admit that there is not always the power there might be. Well, that raises the question, Have we got the faith of this power working in the assembly so that God may be really known, so that this glory that is due to Him may flow richly in the assembly? I think it must be collectively, in the assembly.
Rem It speaks of the love of the Christ, the fulness and the glory in these verses. Are they progressive thoughts?
CAC Is there not a certain outline given for when the assembly is convened? Christ dwells in the affections of all, that is the first product. Well, I think we come to that through the Supper. Then there is the rooting and founding in love, and the apprehension of the breadth and length and depth and height (that is, the vast universe of bliss, as we speak); then the Centre of it in the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; then “filled even to all the fulness of God”. It seems to be an ascending climax. I suppose these things would be a matter of prayer all the time; that is, this is a perpetual prayer which I think we can realise in some small way in observing how the saints function in the assembly. There has been a certain development of these things and it is going on, and will go on right into eternity.
Ques The expression, “Unto all generations”, would it be connected with every family?
CAC I think it is about the fullest expression of eternity that we have, is it not?
Rem It is very uncommon — “the age of ages” — and I think unique. Generally “the age of ages” is used to [p. 319] emphasise the greatness of the eternal state. No age is comparable to it.
CAC We say sometimes, ‘Eternity’s begun’, and perhaps for a moment we realise it.
Ques Is there a sense of glory to God in the state of the assembly? There is a perfection in it that is glory to God, it has such excellence as wrought of God.
CAC Yes, and it supposes, of course, the answer to the prayer: that which has gone before has been answered. Well, it is very marvellous that it is in the light of all this that we are to take up our relations with one another as brethren. We are to walk in the light of all this. Persons who have been made so great in relation to God would not have much difficulty in exercising meekness and lowliness and forbearance.
Rem That would enable the apostle to speak of himself as “the prisoner”.
CAC Yes, it is very affecting. You have suddenly dropped down into prison, intimating that the actual conditions in which saints are found may be very straitened. It is a setting forth of the actual condition in which the testimony is found.
Rem The two sides presented are sometimes a difficulty to us practically.
CAC Well, I suppose we are really put to school to learn how to do it, are we not?
Rem We have had such good times for so long that we find the pressure side difficult.
CAC We find that things have to be worked out in a practical way in circumstances of trial and in contact with the brethren, who test us. We are tested by the brethren, but it is to bring out the divine formation.
Rem The children of Israel had a great prospect too before them, but when they were tested it brought out rebellion. We sometimes find it difficult to be in the good of [p. 320] our calling.
CAC Well, it is designedly brought in after this wonderful unfolding of divine power and what it can do for us in this spiritual realm. Then we are set along with the brethren where these qualities are needed, “lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love”. It is not the world here; these qualities are to come out when we are with the brethren. As placed among the brethren, we are “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace”. I think we should stand the test very well if we got the good of chapter 3.
Rem We should have a sense of wealth, so that the creditor should release his hand, as you remarked when we were reading Deuteronomy 15: 2.
CAC There is no spirit of exacting. If we are in the spirit of demand, wanting every penny, it is not like God — that is all. And these are inward qualities: meekness etc. It is not simply that we do not say anything though we are boiling inside!
Rem I think that is important, because a man in the world can do that if he has self-control.
CAC I think we do not ourselves get much beyond a little of that sometimes, and pat ourselves on the back for it! But the thought is that the inwardness of the saints is right, not just that things are restrained. There is the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. It suggests that it needs a certain application.
Rem We are never shut out from exercise anywhere.
CAC The unity of the Spirit is a subsisting reality, and we are to endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace; so the spirit of contention has no place.
Rem “I am meek and lowly in heart” showed His inwardness. It is the only reference to His own heart that the Lord made. If these are there, the testing will only bring them out.
CAC Well, if we get on so well together Godward [p. 321] in chapter 3, correspondingly with that is how we get on together in the working of it out practically amongst ourselves.
Rem It is not much use speaking of the one, what we enjoy, etc., if the outward and practical side is all wrong and does not answer to it.
CAC Yes, the thing is marred, is it not?