NOVEMBER 21ST, 1937

NOVEMBER 21ST, 1937

BELOVED BROTHER, — I greatly value your letter and the care which you and the dear brethren are expending on the case before you, which is in many ways so sorrowful, and yet in connection with which there seem to be some rays of divine light, and some prospect of a maturing of the work of God. As having had the matter brought before me I feel now under obligation to share the exercise with you, at any rate in my prayers....

The Corinthians evidently took some time before godly sorrow and true repentance to salvation were fully brought ^[p. 255] about. The patient service of grace is needed, as counting upon what appears of the work of God in the soul, and looking for its deepening. If there has begun to be divine sensitiveness it will be increased as Christ and the grace of God are ministered. I trust that you, and the dear brethren, will have the comfort and joy of seeing this brought about in the great mercy of our God.

From what I heard I was a little concerned lest the moral disorder of the past, which in this case is very sorrowfully manifest, should be in any way regarded as a barrier to one being received to fellowship who now judges it and has thus been morally cleansed from it. Your letter makes very clear that you have not this at all in your mind. I think you are right in wishing to be assured that moral cleansing has taken place, so that what was wrong is now viewed as wrong though it is now manifestly impossible to retrace the steps and undo the past. There is the sprinkling of clean water upon the subjects of the new covenant as well as the full discharge of sins and lawlessnesses being remembered no more. But in relation to this it is well to bear in mind that there is not the same capacity for self-judgment in all, and the sin-offering of Leviticus 5: 11 would have a bearing on this....

With warmest love in the Lord,

Yours very affectionately in Him,