THE CHRISTIAN'S ORIGIN, SALVATION AND LIBERTY
THE CHRISTIAN’S ORIGIN, SALVATION AND LIBERTY
James 2: 16 - 27
It is a point of great moment to apprehend the consistency of Scripture testimony, and to this end to get hold of the tenor of the various writings. There is a variety of writers in the New Testament as well as in the Old. I suppose that no critic would contend for a moment that the books of the Old Testament were all written at the same time, or by one person. Such a thought could not be maintained. There is a variety of writers, but in them there is one mind, which is to me the great proof of Scripture. God at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets; the prophets were all governed by one mind, and all laboured to one end.
In the New Testament we have a variety of writers; no one would be bold enough to maintain that the New Testament was all written by the same person, for all evidence is to the contrary. It is written by different men, even men of different nationalities. Luke was a Gentile: men different in character, men of education and knowledge like Paul, or humble fishermen like Peter and John. But all are governed by one mind, and all labour to one end. They are teaching Christianity. They may take it up in some particular aspect; but they are all teaching it, and that cannot be gainsaid for a moment. It is that which is the great testimony to the word of God.
I fully admit that it requires a little measure of intelligence to see this. A clever man of the world, or a scientific man, is in the dark because he has no light as to what the writers are driving at. In divine things you understand the words by the thing, and without [p. 317] having the thing you cannot understand the words. This is contrary to common experience. You ordinarily learn a subject by the words; but it is not so in divine things: it is the contrary. If you have got the thing proposed, you see that the various writers are working to the same end, being governed by the same Spirit and mind. That is the most conclusive evidence as to Scripture. I can understand unconverted men, who have not entered into Christianity, wanting outward evidence, that they may be convinced; but where there is simplicity of heart you get incontestable evidence of the truth of Scripture in itself. To go outside of Scripture, seeking for proof, is dangerous ground. You do not go outside the sun to seek proof that it shines: it does shine. A blind man may not see it; but even he feels its warmth. Blind men may not see the truth, but that is not the fault of the truth, but of the men.
I want to point out this consistency in one or two particular points as seen in all the writers in the New Testament. There is one point on which they are unmistakably consistent, namely, the character of the world. Another point is the decay and eventual judgment of professing Christianity; and a third is the introduction of another system, of which Christ is Head. The system of which I speak has its source in God, and is ruled by His will. That is the principle of righteousness.
In regard to the world, it is not one scripture writer only that gives you its character in the eye of God, and shows what it will end in. James says, “He that will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God”; here a man is not seen as an enemy by what he does, but in being a friend of the world. John is emphatic about the world, and says, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”. He gives you the principles which rule in the world,
and their end. “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever”. That must come to pass when God comes in. Paul speaks of the world in Galatians 1: 4, “Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father”. Peter, quoting Isaiah says, “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever”. The consistency of the testimony on the part of all the writers in regard of the world comes out very plainly. We are living in a world of lust which has not yet passed away, but will pass away most certainly. The flower of the grass is, to a certain extent, here — it presents the glory of man for the moment — but when the breath of the Lord blows upon it, it withers. Paul speaks of the work of God in delivering us out of the world. The Revelation gives us detail of the judgment of the world system. It is couched in obscure, symbolic language, but the world system is set aside to make room for the only-begotten Son of God.
Now, for God, the world came to an end in the death of Christ. That is seen in the direction as to the burning of the red heifer in Numbers 19. The cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet were cast into the burning, and there was an end of the world system morally for God, though not yet in fact, for God allows it for the moment to go on.
We turn now to another point, to what has occupied God since Christianity was first introduced. The different writers in Scripture are consistent in regard to the decay of the church and the eventual judgment of the church system. In 2 Peter you get a sort of prophetic view of Christianity, and what it comes to. We get the same thing developed by Paul, and also by Jude, who gives us a view of the apostasy of the [p. 319] church, and the end of it, in terms somewhat like those Peter uses. Peter takes up the failure as unrighteousness; Jude as apostasy. The defection is traced in the addresses to the seven churches in the Revelation. Paul gives us the same thing in 2 Thessalonians. In the epistles to Timothy we get similar witness in regard to the failure and judgment of the great professing system called the church.
But now we come to the point of that which is before God. The different scripture writers are equally consistent in their testimony to another system existing before God. I would like every one to appreciate the meaning in which the word “system” is used. We speak of a person being delivered out of system, but I do not use the word in that sense. I speak of it as we would speak of the system of which the sun is the centre, and in which the different bodies are governed in relation to the sun. Just as the writers in the New Testament are consistent in their testimony in regard of the world and the professing church — and indeed I might have said a great deal more as to this, I might have carried the thought through the gospels — so they are consistent in their testimony of the system which is before God.
That system has its source in God, and is centred in the Sun of Righteousness; and it is going to displace the world that exists. In that system God is glorified and not man. I want you to apprehend its source, and the principle which will rule in it. There will be various companies in that system, but all will be regulated and governed in reference to the Sun of Righteousness, who will arise with healing in His wings. The system has its source in the revelation of God. That is the first principle of it.
Another point is that the revelation of God gives character to all. It shines out in the face of the Sun of Righteousness, and He fills all things. Christ has ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill [p. 320] all things, as in the solar system all is filled with the light and warmth of the sun. It is a great thing for us to see what God has before Him.
You might ask me, How can you show that all the writers of the New Testament witness of this system? Well, take first the Lord’s own words. He said, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out”. There is an end morally of that system. But He does not stop there. He adds: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me”. Everything in the solar system is held to the sun by the force of attraction, and so it is with Christ. He draws all to Himself, and that gives us at once the idea of the introduction of another system of which the One lifted up from the earth is the Sun and Centre. The Old Testament leaves off with the promise of the Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in His wings. In the doctrine of Paul Christ is definitely Head and Beginning of another system. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. John introduces the system. He brings it out in the Revelation. The world is judged to make room for Him who comes in as “the Word of God”. John brings in an additional truth in connection with this, the heavenly city, which comes down from God out of heaven having the glory of God and her light like unto a stone most precious.
Now in James we get the same principle, and I draw attention to three points. The first is in verse 18, in which it says, “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures”. The second is in verse 21, “Wherefore laying apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls”. The third is in verse 25, “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of work, this man shall be blessed in his doing”. James is not content with profession, it is the doer of work who is proved to be a real hearer.
I touch on these three points, the first-fruits of God’s creatures, the implanted word, and the perfect law of liberty. They give you the idea of how James teaches Christianity, and brings us into the presence of another system which God has before Him. James will not have the world at any price. He speaks more strongly of the world than anyone. He looks upon it as being immoral. “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” An unholy alliance is formed with the world.
The first thing as to us is, that our existence spiritually has originated in the will of God. “Of his own will begat he us”. He has done that. James says further, Every good and perfect gift is from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. That is an allusion here to the centre of the universe. When you look up to the heavens and see the sun you see the father of natural lights. The sun is the source of light. Every planet shines by reflected light. It has its own orbit and turning, and moves in relation to the sun. Everything moves in the light of it, and so it is with God and His system.
God has come out in the revelation of Himself, and His glory is set forth in the Sun of Righteousness. Nothing can be more important to us than to apprehend the place which Christ has in the universe of bliss. Not only is He the centre and bond of the whole system, but the glory of God shines in His face. The effulgence of God is there. God has come out in Light, and the light is in the face of Jesus Christ. “God, who commanded that out of darkness light [p. 322] should shine, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. We are taken back here in thought to Genesis 1, but now the light shines in the face of Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, and He is the source of every good and perfect gift. He has ascended up on high and given gifts unto men.
Many people never get much beyond judging of God by providences. Job judged of God by providences, when they were favourable he was happy, but when they went against him he was full of unhappiness, and for the reason that he did not know God within the veil. The veil hides God. When Adam was in Eden, before sin had come in, there were no providences, for God walked in the garden, neither will there be any in the kingdom. They exist now, and God is hid behind them; but, in Christianity, we learn that the glory of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ. We have no uncertainty as to what God is. We have the light of His goodness, love, grace, and mercy; all is disclosed; all that constitutes the moral glory of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ.
What greater proof of divine love could you have than in the fact of living bread coming down from heaven? I cannot conceive what heaven can be, as the abode of God, but goodness. It must be filled with goodness. The bread of God came down from heaven to be within the reach of man down here, so that he might eat of it and not die. Christ gives His flesh for the life of the world. The light of God has come out in Christ, the day has dawned, and the day-star has arisen in our hearts. That is the beginning of a system of bliss. Christ is the Sun of Righteousness, in regard of whom every family is regulated and governed. Every family in heaven and on earth is named of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures”.
[p. 323] God has acted in grace, giving the truth a place in our souls. How can a man be right where the truth has no place in his soul? The truth may as to our apprehension of it be very small, but where God has operated there is the principle of truth.
I understand by truth that which enables us to judge of everything in its true relation and proportion. A madman has no sense of truth, things are for him all out of gear, and something has an exaggerated import. He looks at things not according to reason. You get the same thing in dreams: they are fruit of the imagination, not regulated by reason, and the nearest approach to madness is dreaming. A madman is in a perpetual dream. Now the same is true morally of every unconverted man, he sees nothing in its true relation and proportion. He has an exaggerated idea of himself, and no adequate idea of God. The serpent said to Eve, “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”, and that became only too true. Man thinks himself competent to argue out a question with God. Job was disposed to this, and Elihu had to say to him, “God is greater than man. Why dost thou strive against him? for he giveth not account of any of his matters”. Job came to the truth eventually in regard to God and himself too, and that was the effect of the work of God, which gives truth a place in our souls.
God has begun His work by the bringing in of truth. Christ is the truth and the Spirit is the truth, and He has begotten us by the word of truth: the testimony of truth. All God’s creatures will in result be of the truth. There will be new heavens and a new earth, where all will be according to truth. We are to have our loins girt about with truth. We want the light of God in our hearts to expose ourselves. When you get a sense of the mercy of God you get a sense of your own nothingness. We then can say —
“Oh, keep us love divine near Thee
That we our nothingness may know”. (87)
[p. 324] God is love, and in the presence of it we must learn our nothingness. We are nothing in its presence, and every creature that will have a place in the universe of bliss will have to learn its nothingness. What are we? Our life is like a vapour — it appears for a moment and then vanishes away. What is God? He is love, and has manifested it, and we are in the presence of it. We are nothing, and there is nothing more important for a man than to come to a sense of his nothingness in the presence of love divine. God has begotten us to that end, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures, appreciating His love.
There is only as yet the first-fruits: but there will be the harvest. The Sun of Righteousness is Christ, and the church is a first-fruits of God’s creatures; but Israel will be of the truth in order that it may have its place among the creatures of God, and even among the Gentiles God will place the truth that they may have their place in His creation.
Now, a word in regard to the salvation of our souls. Peter, in his first epistle, speaks thus, “Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls”. That is in chapter 1. In chapter 2 he says, “Desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby to salvation”. That is evidently the salvation of the soul. Paul puts the truth a little differently, and says, “By grace ye are saved, through faith”. That is through the word. In our chapter it is, “Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls”. That involves the apprehension of two things: the position which God has given us, and His corresponding work in us.
Paul, in writing to Titus, speaks of our being saved “through the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit”. If we recognise the position which God has given to us in Christian fellowship as His own house, and what He has wrought in the renewing of the Holy Spirit, it means salvation [p. 325] to our souls. People do not reach salvation in any other way. You get righteousness by faith; but salvation is another matter. It is indeed by faith; but it hangs on our position here by God’s will; and the work of God suits us for that position.
People who remain in system — really in the world — can know little of salvation because they are, religiously, in the world. The object of God is to set them free, for if they remain there they do not realise salvation. They have not received the implanted word to save their souls. We need to be brought into the reality of Christian fellowship outside of the world, and with that there is the renewing of the Holy Spirit which really fits you for enjoying salvation. There is no subject so little understood as that of salvation. It has been distorted into meaning something which it does not mean in Christianity and its force has thus been lost.
Another thing is that you look into the perfect law of liberty. In Galatians 4: 21 and following verses we get an idea of the perfect law of liberty. Liberty depends upon your mother. Isaac was born of the free woman. Sarai and Hagar are contrasted. Hagar is taken as symbolic, and answers to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. Jerusalem that now is never was begotten of God. It had its beginning with the Canaanites, and was originally called Jebus. It was not begotten of God, neither the people that inhabited it: they were the children of Abraham, but not of promise — they were after the flesh.
Jerusalem above is begotten of God, and there is not a bit of flesh in it; that is, it is all of promise, and all who are of the Jerusalem above are free because they are begotten of the free woman. They are begotten of the purpose of God. The purpose is the mother. All that is of God’s purpose needs His work, for His work is to give effect to His purpose. We have to apprehend ourselves in that light as begotten [p. 326] of God according to purpose, and His purpose is that we should be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren. God is bringing many sons to glory, and Christ is the Firstborn, who gives us the privilege and freedom of the house. We are of it.
Liberty lies in the apprehension of Christ. The day is coming when we shall be like Him, but the point now is to get close to Him, and that is by the apprehension of Himself. If you appreciate Him you will get liberty and enjoy it. The perfect law of liberty is in the appreciation of Christ. In John 8 Jesus says, “The servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”. The bond-servant is to be cast out. You get liberty from Christ in the thought of Jerusalem above, which is free: which is our mother. If God makes a promise He works to give effect to His promise. A Christian is begotten of God: is the seed of the free woman: of the purpose and promise of God, who has wrought in him according to His purpose. He has given to him an appreciation of Christ. It is by this that He brings us into the realisation of liberty. He gives us the liberty of the house, to abide in it, and we have to stand fast in the liberty wherewith He has made us free.
We want to understand the foundations of the law of liberty. We must find this in the purpose of God, and in the work by which He gives effect to His purpose. You must apprehend your calling, as of the many sons whom God is leading to glory, and the work which qualifies you for that calling. In that way we are put under the perfect law of liberty, and we are blessed in our doing.
God has begotten us by the word of truth: that is our origin. Then there is the Way by which we enter into salvation: receiving the implanted word, and so we look into the perfect law of liberty, so that, not [p. 327] being forgetful hearers, but doers of work, we may be blessed in our doing.
I trust that every one will enter into the Scripture testimony in regard of the world, and of professing Christianity; and, while seeing how true that is, at the same time apprehend that new system which began in the revelation of God, and which has its centre in the Sun of Righteousness; that is, in Christ. “He has ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill all things”.