THE MODE AND OBJECT OF THE LORD'S PRESENT MINISTRY

THE MODE AND OBJECT OF THE LORD’S PRESENT MINISTRY

There are two services of our Lord for His people, one which He has perfectly accomplished, the other with which He is at present occupied. The first is, He has placed us in His own acceptance before God, so that the soul knows that “Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity”; the worshipper once purged hath no more conscience of sins. When he is in Christ he is made free from the law of sin and death; he has the assured sense that his sins and iniquities are remembered no more. I do not say that he never departs from this new state in which in Christ he is set by God in His grace; but the only real way of being cleansed from the ^[p. 213] sins and distance into which he has fallen, is to return to his only true state before God; there doubtless he will be rebuked, and he must judge himself and repent; but then he is consciously restored to his true state - the state accomplished for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the counsel and heart of God. He cannot see us again in our old state, though He sees us returning to it, and hence if we do not judge ourselves, and repent, He will judge us, because He cannot suffer that we should return to, or continue in, a state of distance and alienation from Him, after His love has so perfectly delivered us through the sacrifice and death of our Lord Jesus Christ; He also having given us life in Christ through the Spirit, to enter into and enjoy this new state. I am before God in this new perfect state which can never be lost nor improved, as it is in itself the same as Christ’s acceptance. This service of Christ has been perfectly accomplished. He has glorified the Father on earth and finished His work.

Now He is occupied with another service, which I will dwell on for a little, and that is, that our walk here should resemble His own walk on earth; so that it is our state on the earth which now, blessed be His name, occupies the attention of our Lord Jesus Christ. He could not add to nor improve our state before the Father, and He ever liveth to make intercession, that grace may unhinderedly follow us in our course here. But, beside this, there is an active present ministry of our Lord with each of us personally, and the mode and object of this I shall now inquire into.

The Lord, in John 13, when He knew “his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.... He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded”. In this act He sets ^[p. 214] forth part of the mode of His present service. He uses the word to separate our hearts and minds while we are here, and He in heaven, from everything which detaches us from Him; and in the power of it, to attach us so to Himself, that we should be in communion with Him, or as He expresses it, have “part WITH ME”. Peter sets forth the two mistakes which saints make, and thus lose for the time this great service. The first is from not understanding their need of the washing and thinking it too great a thing for the Lord to do. This shows ignorance of His heart for us; and then when Peter hears that unless his feet are washed he has no part with Christ, he hastens to say, “Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head”; thus disclosing that he did not know the perfect state in which he was set before God through the washing; and this is the state of many genuine believers, when they ask the Lord to wash or cleanse their words and their thoughts, as hands and head may figuratively express. The simple blessed object of the Lord in this service is to keep our hearts in unclouded nearness to Him by association with Himself. He is in heaven, and we on earth, and He in His love makes it His business to keep us in unbroken intimacy with Himself. It is not that He may produce any special quality or conduct in us, but that which includes and ensures every quality and conduct, even “part with me”. Nothing less will suit Him, and nothing less does He wash our feet for; we are beside His thoughts or object in His service when we seek or limit it to anything less, and if we are active we only show that we are not in communion with Him. Peter had practically to learn all this. He denied the Lord, was drawn away by the influence of evil doers among whom he associated. When convicted he left them, and in sorrow of heart saw how grievously he had fallen. The Lord meets him after His resurrection, and he is forgiven, and not only forgiven, but breathed upon, and sent into the world, as He Himself had been sent (John 20), and yet he is not in communion with the Lord; there is a sense ^[p. 215] of reserve which always warps our apprehension of His mind. Peter is active, and it is in activity in our works that we disclose the motive which has led to them; he goes a-fishing - he is not in the current of the Lord’s mind; but the Lord will set him straight, He will teach him “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter”. After they had dined, - after they had been socially together - after the saint is consciously near the Lord, He probes the soul, and says, “Lovest thou ME?” It is not, Are you more subdued, or are you less self-confident? Either of these is a result and not the spring; the only spring is Himself, and hence it is, “Lovest thou ME more than these?” Do you surpass all others in personal affection to Christ? Because that is the real thing to be desired, and not this or the other quality; for every right thing will follow when Christ is the mainspring. As all things in the firmament and the earth itself are kept in perfect order entirely as God would have them, because each is so distinctly and continuously attracted by the sun, so when our hearts are fully attracted by Christ, we do that which is pleasing in His sight.

The effect of Christ’s ministry is that the saint may have part with Him; hence anything, however good or useful, is not in itself the effect of His ministry, though it be a consequence of it. The young ruler was a lovely character, most unexceptionable among men; he could say, “All these have I kept from my youth up”, but yet he was a stranger to the effect of Christ’s ministry, or the mode by which He produces it. Martha (Luke 10) receives Him into her house; in the kindest way she is occupied for Him, laboriously and sedulously; but when she complains that her sister had left her to serve alone, the Lord says, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but... Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her”, Luke 10: 41, 42. Mary was subject to His word, that was the mode of His ministry, and she had reached the effect of it, even the “good part” which should not be taken away from her, and that was simple occupation with Himself. When He is really and fully in, everything of self must be outside, and therefore the aim is not so much to exclude this or that, or to improve this or that, but to live Christ. When that which is contrary presents itself, I can say to it, “ye have not so learned Christ”. If we do not know Christ, how can we know that which is not Christ?

The Galatians were making the cross of Christ of none effect; the way the apostle corrects this, is travailing in birth for them that Christ may be formed in them. I cannot know what is the right conduct for me, but as I know Christ and His grace at the moment; hence it is Christ I have before my mind, and not merely conduct. A blameless life according to the law of God may have no Christ in it; nay, such an one may go away sorrowful because asked to take up his cross and follow Him. A most energetic devoted servant, really loving Him, and valuing His company in her house, as did Martha, can miss the good part. The great thing the soul has to learn is Christ, the only man who in everything and position here on earth pleased God. Hence we read of our Lord, when instructing the two disciples going to Emmaus, “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”; and then when He had exercised their hearts, He was made known to them in breaking of bread.

There is only one remedy for the soul in any darkness or need, and that is Christ. The undue and continual insisting of one truth has been the parent of much evil and heresy in the assembly. Christ’s remedy is Himself. In the lowest state of things, to the assembly of the Laodiceans, He says, “I stand at the door, and knock: if any man... open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me;” or as He teaches the sleeping bride in Canticles, that though He arouse her by His voice and hand, and though her affections in the ^[p. 217] deepest way are awakened and revived, yet she does not find Him, He has withdrawn Himself and is gone, until He is portrayed to her in rapt contemplation, and then she finds out where He is, and can say, I have part with Him, “My beloved is mine, and I am his”.

The Lord lead us to understand the inconceivable love of our Lord in washing our feet, that we may have part with Himself, and nothing less.