DETACHMENT AND ATTACHMENT
I am conscious, beloved brethren, and I frankly own it, I am conscious at this moment in some little measure of what it means to rise here and to attempt to speak to you. I am fully persuaded that the Lord has brought certain things before us here this evening in a very distinct way, and it is just the consciousness of this fact that causes me to fear and tremble lest I should turn your hearts and minds and consciences aside for one moment from what the Lord has been saying to us here this evening. But I just venture one or two simple remarks.
I think Colossians is very encouraging. I will tell you why. Because it looks at us as actually down here upon the earth. That comes out very clearly in the opening of the epistle, where it speaks of “the hope which is laid up for you in heaven”. And I think this is encouraging, because I suppose we do know that we are actually here, and instead of this becoming less and less real it becomes increasingly real. And the blessed Spirit of God in this wonderful epistle just takes us up where we actually are.
Then another thing, beloved friends. You can see if you speak of this chapter the standpoint and starting-point of the Spirit of God is this, “If ye then be risen with Christ”. It is not saying very much to say that resurrection presupposes death. There would be no meaning in resurrection if there was no death. And so here “If ye then be risen with Christ” presupposes what has indeed been stated in the previous chapter, and that is that we are dead, or have died, with Christ.
I do not attempt to speak in a doctrinal way, but in a very simple and practical way; because, after all, death is a wonderfully real thing. I venture to say that the word death throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation never loses its own proper force and meaning. It is a great thing—death. Take actual physical death, it is a great detacher. When death comes in there is an unmistakable, yea, an absolute detachment. Take the death of a man, what an awful breaking up of everything there is! What a complete detachment from all his links with this life! All family links, wife, or husband, or children, all business links, everything that has connected you and linked you with this scene down here, all is completely severed the moment death takes place. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above”. We are a detached people. Not only has Christ died, but we have died with Him. In the previous chapter the apostle says, “If ye then be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?”
I am struck with what has been said this evening. It is a great thing simply to accept the truth of God. We often turn our eye in upon ourselves and the thought comes at once, I am not up to things; I am not what I ought to be; and then the heart goes down and a dreadful sense of discouragement comes in, or else certain activities and energies are aroused which are no help really, because we give ourselves up sometimes to our own energy and effort as if we could make ourselves this or that. It is a wonderful thing to accept the truth of God. What will produce the most profound exercise in our souls is the acceptance of what we are, that is the way the Spirit of God puts things. He does not say—you ought to be this and that. No; He says, “you have died with Christ from the rudiments of the world”. That is the truth of God. Well, I say, let that come home to you. Accept that and you will get exercised as to everything in your life that is inconsistent with that.
But now it is, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth”. It has been said with truth that resurrection takes place down here. You could not talk of resurrection in heaven. There is no death there. People will not need to be raised up there. It is down here that death is and down here resurrection is. It is the blessed putting forth of the power of God on the ground of redemption and it takes place here. It has often been remarked that the great chapter of resurrection (1 Corinthians 15) does not take anybody to heaven. But if you have died with Christ you are detached from this place. You have no links here, no attachment here. But Christianity is not a mere negation. There is the positive side of the truth. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”. As risen with Christ our links are formed with another place.
In John 20 Mary Magdalene reached Him in resurrection. He spoke her name; she would have embraced Him, but the Lord says, “Touch me not”. There is to be no renewal of the old links at all. And if we are risen with Christ, it is that we are linked up with the place where Christ now is.
I have been greatly impressed tonight with the thought of the place. That is the place, “where Christ sitteth”. Surely the place where Christ sits at the right hand of God is the place where our links are, and we are to set our affection, or mind, on what is there. It has been said, that risen with Christ is not an experience but a fact for faith. “Wherein also ye are risen with him through faith of the operation of God, who raised him from the dead;” and I quite accept it. But I venture to say that when the Spirit of God makes it true to your soul, you will have an experience; I believe you will have a wonderful experience when the Spirit of God makes that good to you. Though you are actually here you will realise in some measure that you do not belong to this scene at all, and you will begin to have heavenly longings and heavenly desires. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above”.
What are “those things”? Well, I can tell you how to find out; you can find out by seeking. I got a thing in Park Street ten years ago, and it has stuck to me ever since. It was said by a servant of the Lord, ‘It is an invariable principle in scripture, He that seeketh findeth … Every one that seeks finds’. But that is not the point. I think it is this, seek those things. It is a wonderful thing to have the heart going out to that blessed scene described as “above”. It is clean outside this place, it is above; and then the charm is, it is, “where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”. I am sure the Lord has brought these things before us in a wonderful way this evening.
Then he goes on, “have your mind on things above, not on the things on the earth”. We sometimes question whether this is good and right or whether that is bad, and so on, and we ought to have our senses exercised to discern good and evil; but that is not the point here. It is things above; have your mind there, “For ye have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God”. Ye have died; that is involved even if it had not been precisely stated, it is involved. If you are risen with Christ, death must have taken place. If you have died, you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Ah! beloved, our true life is not in the scene down here. As to that, death has come in and every bond and link is snapped and broken. We have been thoroughly detached from everything here, and now the Holy Ghost has been given to us to attach us to that place above and to the One who is the glory of that wonderful place; the One in whom all these things above are set forth on the part of the blessed God. Have your mind there, for “ye have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God”. It is said in the previous chapter; “Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” You have no life in this world; no, you have died. You have no real life in things here; your life is hid with Christ in God.
Then you get the statement that follows, and it seems like everything in scripture, in such perfect and beautiful moral order. It is not exactly an exhortation; it is just what is left for us, what remains, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory”. It is just what is before us there. May we have our hearts going out to that place and the blessed One who is there, and our minds set on what is there. What is before us? Why, the only thing that can be in such case—we are looking for that blessed One from the place where He is. We are looking for Him from thence, and when He is manifested we shall be manifested with Him in glory.
Oh, beloved, may the Spirit of God make these things real to us, so that we may really be formed by them while we are down here!
QUEMERFORD
May 1902
From Truth for the Time—part 15, 1902