CRUCIFIXION JUDICIAL

CRUCIFIXION JUDICIAL

I hope now to answer your letter in detail. It is not easy for me to write all I am expected to do. The more we count on the Lord to bless us at the coming readings, the more we shall be blessed.

I think when you say that it is with the latter side of grace that you are chiefly occupied you are right, that is, with this proviso, that you are assured of and walking in the grace you need. I think Romans 8 unfolds, first, the great operations of the Spirit in me, finishing up with the assurance that God’s purposes — power and love, are for me; then I am ready for Romans 12 — service; and not till then.

I have not been assured as yet as to the scriptures we should have before us. I do hope Colossians will be read. As to Galatians, I do not see your reason for thinking of it. I think there is more laxity (Corinthians) amongst us than legalism (Galatians). I had thought of Colossians and Hebrews. I think the truth needed is — first the house of God and its object, and then the mystery (Colossians). I think Galatians is grace for ourselves, and I see the periodicals and the teaching for the most part never go beyond our side, except to appropriate ignorantly the grace which belongs to the servant. “Let not your heart be troubled” belongs to the servant.

I have read the article on crucifixion. I do not see anything to object to. Crucifixion is clearly judicial. It is thus the Lord was made a curse, not, of course, by any wrong, but by being put on a cross, and this occurs in Galatians. It is the force of Galatians 6; but when anything has been judicially removed, it could not be righteously recalled or referred to. I heartily wish saints understood this, and they would not be so ready to speak of their sins in the assembly.

^[p. 152] It is the body that dies — Adam’s body. When the life leaves the body it is dead. This is the judgment on Adam and his race. The “nakedness” (2 Corinthians 5) is that the body is under the judgment of death, and the body after that order must go in death.

There is a great difference between the knowledge of the word and the word dwelling richly in us. When it is the latter, one finds it ready to bud. It is not stationary knowledge, it is growing. There is an affinity for the word. The tree is getting larger, but it is still the same tree. Hence I find the truth I know in my heart best is the one I long to know more about, and the one I feel I know so little of, though ever enjoying and seeking to know more of it. ‘Adding’ is the mark of life.