CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 6
Take this in connection with the beginning of the next chapter, “Therefore, leaving the word of the beginning of Christ,” etc., instead of wasting your time with what has passed away, go on to the full revelation of Christ; be at home there, and understanding what the will of the Lord is. We cannot separate the knowledge of good and evil from the knowledge of Christ. When I come to separate between them of myself, how can I? How can I walk as He walked, without Him? I cannot do it. “In him.” What is that? “Ye in me.” Where is Christ? In heaven; then I am there too. My affections should be there too; my hope is to be thoroughly identified with Him. The portion I have is what He has — life, righteousness, glory: all my associations are with Himself. There is the difference between the word of the beginning of Christ and the full perfection — “being made perfect” (chapter 5: 9) or glorified. He went through the experience down here, and then went into heaven to be Priest, because our blessings, associations, etc., are all above, perfect up there, not down here. He had not reached that point of the counsels of God in glory when down here. Now He is there, and He has associated me with Himself in that place. I can see Christ has been through this world so as to sympathise with us in all our sorrows and difficulties. He has borne my sins; and where is He now? In heaven; and I am there too in spirit, and He will bring me there in fact. Where He is is His “being made perfect.” The work is done, and now He is shewing me the effect of that — shewing me the walk belonging to the righteousness He has wrought out. He has taken my heart, and associated me with Himself; and He says that is the “perfection” for me to go on to. Where did Paul see Christ? In glory. If he had known Christ after the flesh before, he did not know Him so now (that was the beginning when on earth); but now he knew Him in heaven: and this great truth was revealed to him, that all the saints on earth were as Christ.
[p. 365] Paul had been a hater of Christ, having sought to root out His name from the earth; he had gone on in sin — if not a breaker of the law, a rejecter of Christ when on earth, and, more than that, he had resisted the Holy Ghost, refused the testimony by the Holy Ghost given in mercy to those people for whom Christ interceded on the cross. They stoned Stephen who bore witness, and Saul was helping in it. He was “chief of sinners,” because wasting the church of God. He discovered the carnal mind to be enmity against God, not subject to God; he proved it in his own experience, and now he found there were saints not in that state — those quickened with Christ, and associated with Christ in glory. “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” They were not associated with the first Adam, but with the second Man, in Christ; this was their position. These people whom he had been persecuting were Christ. What broke him down was seeing Christ in glory, and all these associated with Him. Now he learns that he is dead to law, dead to flesh. The Christ I want to win is a glorified Christ. To win Christ may cost me my life. Never mind. That is my object. As to the first Adam, he was “weighed in the balance, and found wanting”: I am out of it; not in the flesh, but in Christ. The old thing is entirely past; the Christian is crucified to the world, etc.; dead and risen again, having another object. He is alive from the dead, because Christ is; he is “accepted in the beloved”; he has the consciousness that this work of Christ put him into a new place (not glorified yet in the body): this was the “perfection.” What was the state of his affections then? “That I may win Christ” was his desire. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” This was his object. His mind was full of it.
[p. 366] The Holy Ghost has come down to bring all these things to our remembrance. Believers are united to Christ (it is never said Christ was united to man) in glory. Then the apostle was living by the power of the Holy Ghost. What a trial for him to see these people going back to their “first principles,” “repentance from dead works, faith toward God ... eternal judgments” — all true! but if you stop there, you stop short of a glorified Christ. “Who hath bewitched you?” he says to the Galatians. He says of himself, “I know a man in Christ,” and his spirit is broken to find the saints resting with things on earth about Christ. The Holy Ghost was come out to make them partakers of a heavenly calling; to associate them in heart and mind with Christ, and to shew them things to separate them from the world; not only to keep them from evil, though that is true too. They had a temple standing then, where Christ Himself had been. Why should they have left it if Christ had not judged the flesh? The middle wall had been put up; how should they dare break it down, if God had not done it? If God had not said, “I will not have to say to flesh any more,” how could they dare leave the camp, and go outside? Christ glorified is the end of all the “first principles,” and we have to go through the world strangers and pilgrims.
The only thing God ever owned in religion was Jewish. It had to do with the flesh. That is gone by the cross; all is crucified: your life, your home, your associations, are all in Christ. The doctrine of the beginning of Christ was not that. What do I find when Christ is on earth? He is speaking then of judgment to come, which they believe. The Pharisees believed in a resurrection of the dead; baptisms, which mean washings, etc. All these they had then, they formed a worldly religion, and were sanctioned by God until the cross. The Messiah coming on earth was the beginning; but now I leave that; I do not deny these things — they are all true — but I have other things. Saul might have been the brightest saint going under the old things, but not knowing Christ. But suppose persons got into the heavenly thing, being made partakers of the Holy Ghost, having “tasted the good word of God,” and then gave it up, what could they do then? Suppose they had received it all in their minds, and then gave it up: what else was there for them? There might have been a going on from faith in a humbled Christ to a glorified Christ, but there is nothing beyond.
[p. 367] There is nothing of life signified here in their being partakers of the Holy Ghost. It brings very strongly before us the actual presence of the Holy Ghost, and power through Him; a very different thing from life; and what, notwithstanding, we are in want of knowing. We must have that besides life. Being born of the Spirit, there is power for us through the presence of a person, who may act in another without his having life. There may be light in the soul, without the smallest trace of life. In the case of Balaam, we read the Spirit of God came upon him: he had to see the blessedness of God’s people, and speak of it. He had light, but there was sleep on his soul, and he has to say, “I shall see him, but not now.” That was the opposite to having life. You see a man close to life, seeing all the blessing of it, but not having it. Now, if all the heavenly blessing is seen and rejected, what else could there be?
“Tasted the good word of God” — Simon Magus is an example of this.
“Powers of the world to come,” or miracles, putting down Satan’s power. In the future day this power will gain the victory over all Satan’s power. Simon Magus wanted this power when he saw it.
“Impossible, if they shall fall away ... seeing they have crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh,” etc. The nation of Israel had crucified Him — they did not know what they were doing. Now these knew what they were doing. The Holy Ghost had poured forth the light, and now they did it for themselves. It was not ignorance, it was will. There are some who anon with joy receive the word — the very thing that proves there is nothing in it. They would have it in joy, and give it away in tribulation. The word of God does not always give joy. When it comes in and reaches the conscience, and breaks up the fallow ground, and judges the thoughts and intents of the heart, that is not joy. It racks the heart when it is to profit, but it is for life and health. Here is not merely the joy of hearing about it, but having tasted of the good word about a glorified heavenly Christ. It is not quickening that is spoken of here. Moses was quickened, but he was not baptised with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost did not come till Pentecost. He made the house shake where they were assembled, but that was not for giving life. Power is a different thing from giving life. Those already quickened were to be the habitation of God through the Spirit. There were manifestations of God through these things, tongues, etc., anticipative of setting up of the kingdom.
[p. 368] It is after salvation is given, after the soul is born of God, the Holy Ghost comes to the believer as a seal, an earnest, an unction. I might get a taste of the power without being sealed; but as a believer I have the seal, am broken down in myself, not only “with joy” receiving it. I am a sinner — no good in me. It is a direct question between my soul and God; not like Simon Magus, believing the miracles that he did. Before I was converted, I believed there was Christ as much as I do now. When Christ was on earth, there were those who saw the miracles, and went home again. But when the Spirit of God works in the heart, He shews what we are, and makes us submit to God’s righteousness. It ploughs up the whole soul and being of a man — makes him submit to the righteousness of God — shews him his place in the risen Christ — shews him that all is his. That is a different thing from merely seeing it. If you have rejected these glorious things, there is nothing else for you. If you will not have Christ, there is nothing else. Here this warning is in connection with the Holy Spirit in chapter 10. It is connected with the sacrifice. Then what follows shews no change supposed in the man. “The earth which drinketh in the rain ... receiveth blessing from God; but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected,” etc. The ground is just the same — the rain comes upon it, but it brings forth briers. So in men, there may be nothing in them to produce fruit. The result of life is seen in fruit, not power. The dumb ass might speak; but this was power, not spiritual life.
“[p. 369] But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation,” verse 9. There is the work of love here; then there is life. Perhaps there is only a little bit of fruit; but the tree is not dead if there is any fruit — “things that accompany salvation,” not power merely — not joy merely; that might be without a divine nature. But “though I give all my goods to feed the poor, and though I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” Judas could cast out demons as well as the rest, but Christ says to His disciples, Rejoice not because the demons are subject to you, but rather rejoice that “your names are written in heaven.”
The connection of your heart with Christ, the consciousness of God having written your name in heaven, is the blessed thing. Here was fruit; love of the brethren was there — the divine nature was there, and the “full assurance of hope to the end” is the thing desired. We may look for that.
When the seed fell into stony places, it sprang up rapidly; there was no root. When the word does not reach the conscience, there is no root, no life, and therefore no fruit. You might weep over Christ, and have no life, like the women going out of Jerusalem. Flesh could go all that length without divine life. There might be working of miracles, without knowing or being known of Him. One atom of brokenness of spirit is better than filling all London with miracles.
Verse 6. The nominal church of God is just in this state. There is to be falling away, and they are to be broken off; prophesied of in Romans 11, to be cut off, if they do not continue in His goodness. The apostasy will come, and no renewing them again unto repentance.
Now a little word for ourselves — what we have got in Christ. We have heavenly things, we are associated with Christ in heaven; “because I live, ye shall live also.” I have all in Christ. He is my life, my righteousness, before God. Then God rests with delight in me, because in Christ. What place have I in Christ? In heaven, and He has given me the Holy Spirit to know it and enjoy it, so that my soul rests on it as the testimony of God. God cannot lie. Abraham got a promise, and he believed in it; an oath, and he believed it. I have more than that. I believe He has performed it. I have a righteousness now in the presence of God; and we have more in hope, namely, the glory that belongs to His righteousness. I have life, righteousness, the Holy Ghost as the seal, and more, the Forerunner is gone in, and the Holy Ghost gives me the consciousness of my union with Him; not merely the fact that sin is put away. We have the Spirit in virtue of the righteousness. The Holy Ghost has come to tell me I am in that Christ. What is the practical consequence? If the glory He has is mine, I am going after Him. Then all in the world is dross and dung.
“[p. 370] They might have had opportunity to have returned”: that is, where faith is exercised and put to the test. You who have known the Lord some time have had opportunity to have returned, how has it been with you? A stone left on the ground gradually sinks in. There is constantly a tendency in present things to press down the affections — not open sin, but duties, and nothing is a greater snare than duties. We have one duty, that is to serve Christ. On the side of God, it is all bright.