ROMANS 5 (NOTES OF A READING)
[p. 491] ROMANS 5 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC I think it is important that we should understand the difference between justification and reconciliation, and particularly with reference to how these great truths would affect us personally.
Ques “Reconciled to God through the death of his Son” — how does it work?
CAC It is evident that the death of His Son is what brings it about. I was thinking that many believers as to their relations with God know something of what it is to be justified by faith, and it is professedly the faith of the Protestant part of Christendom, but I doubt whether many have entered into the truth of reconciliation.
Ques What does the word reconciliation convey to you?
CAC Well, the word obviously suggests that estrangement and distance have come in. If two persons need to be reconciled it is evident that estrangement has existed.
Rem A person may be justified and yet not happy or at home with God.
CAC To put it quite simply, it seems to me that justification makes me clear, but does not necessarily bring me near; whereas you cannot conceive of reconciliation except as having the effect of bringing us near. To take a familiar illustration, when God clothed Adam and Eve with coats of skins, they were invested in type with a divine righteousness that could not be improved, but we do not know that it led to nearness.
We have been seeing in the third and fourth chapters and the beginning of the fifth that it is in the mind of God in grace to justify men, so that no sin whatever is or can be imputed to them. It is impossible to lay any charge against a justified man. The challenge is to the universe, “Who shall bring an accusation against God’s elect?” (Romans 8: 33).
[p. 492] Ques God had reconciliation in mind for man, but before that he must be justified, would you say?
CAC I think that is right. Justifying in itself does not suggest the thought of nearness. There was no thought of nearness in Adam — no thought of approach to God. If you might use what follows illustratively, you get in Abel at least a hint of nearness. He brings his offering; there is a proffered movement to God. Cain entirely ignored reconciliation.
Ques Would the younger son in Luke 15 illustrate reconciliation?
CAC I think the younger son is the best illustration of it in Scripture. Not only is he self-willed and has he taken his own course, but it has landed him in the place of distance. Not only have I sinned, but my whole state is that of distance from God. And I believe many a person has a sense of distance between him and God; it is a right feeling and there if men’s consciences are alive and awake. It seems to me reconciliation meets that.
Rem The father removes the distance from his own side.
CAC As soon as there was the desire and he returns in mind to his father, he finds there is not an obstacle in the way; it is wonderful! Reconciliation has to be received. None of us are in the good of justification or reconciliation until we are in the faith of it. All the distance between us (which is on our side) God has removed, because He would have us near. God felt the distance with Adam, and God feels it if we are not happy and in nearness. If nearness to God is not my chief joy, God feels it. The same gospel that tells me I am justified, tells me I am reconciled; it is there for me, for faith, if I take it in.
I think it is a dreadful thing when we discover we are enemies, what hard thoughts we have about God and what unwillingness to trust Him — it is a very serious matter. And reconciliation stands in relation to that. I am in moral distance from God and I have bad thoughts of God, and if so I am an enemy. We have all to find it out.
Rem “For we being still without strength, in the due time Christ has died for the ungodly”. The whole history of man confirms it.
CAC That is exactly it, and the gospel comes in on that footing. We only know God by the way He has considered for His sinful creature. Mr. Darby has said that the knowledge of God depends upon sin; that is, His moral character is displayed. Reconciliation brings us into the appreciation of God, so that we delight in nearness to Him; that is how I understand it.
Ques The love of God comes first, then reconciliation; is that the order?
CAC I think so. This epistle lays down the permanent way over which souls have to travel. We may get things in a disjointed way, but sooner or later we have to fall in with God’s permanent way.
Rem The shedding abroad of the love of God in our hearts gives us desires Godward.
CAC And in a sense we could hardly bear the exposure of what we are, unless we had some sense of what God is. “Reconciled to God through the death of his Son” shows how divine love enters into the matter; that is, the love of God did not stop short of any cost, that He might have His creature near to Himself. This all sheds light on how we come to want God.
Ques Would justification be a step towards this end?
CAC You could hardly say that justification was the divine end; we learn the condition of enmity marking us — it is not learnt all at once — and we come to it after a certain preparatory process or we could not bear to recognise what the flesh is. When we discover the enmity, we discover that the condition of things which is characterised by enmity to God must be brought to an end. We have the conviction of it, and we see that God has brought it to pass in the death of His Son. It is not an enemy turned into a friend, but he is entirely dismissed.
[p. 494] Rem In Colossians the saints seem reconciled.
CAC Colossians shows how the fulness of the Godhead enters into it; every part of the Godhead, we might say, is engaged in this. It is to the fulness of the Godhead — to nothing less than that.
Ques Would you explain your remark about an enemy not being made a friend?
CAC It is not that the fallen nature is improved or changed, it is absolutely set aside in the death of God’s Son, so that we might understand how we are with God: entirely apart from the whole state of the fallen creature. The point is reached where we are thankful for it, and there is no liberty with God without it; no one can come into the assembly apart from this. Mr. Stoney used to say that many come to the Lord’s supper to see for themselves that Goliath’s head is really cut off. If we come to express by a public act our identification with His body given and His blood shed, it is His death in view of nearness, not justification, that we have before us; so that there is the blessedness of fresh enjoyment of nearness when together.
When we have arrived at the conviction of enmity to God, we are deeply thankful that God has closed it up in the death of His Son, and we do not want to go on one step with the man at enmity. If I sin after I am justified, I am going back to what I have left.
The robe, the ring and the sandals are for nearness — not for the far country! And as we find we are wholly identified with Christ — if His death has become a great reality to us, so that the enmity is gone and we are invested in Christ — we learn more and more of the One we are identified with. We do not learn His preciousness at a distance. In the assembly we speak of Christ and of the Father’s love. If we are there in reconciliation, we are blessedly unconscious of anything else.
Ques What is the reason for the delay in getting into the good of reconciliation?
CAC Well, I think the principal reason is that we are [p. 495] slow to accept the lessons that God is teaching us. He has taken us in hand in grace to teach us the most blessed things that are in the thoughts of God. I do not think anything could be more precious to God than the thought of reconciliation.
Rem The old man has to go for God and for us. Many go on for years in concern over it.
CAC And do you not think always with a certain secret desire to retain something of the flesh? Then we see the cost at which God has effected the complete removal — it has been costly to God, it cost His Son. “God, having sent his own Son” (Romans 8: 3) — it is the cost it has been to God because He wanted us near and in perfect suitability to that nearness.
Rem Our supreme relation is to be with God.
CAC We have to learn that. There is often a sense in souls that they can trust the Son, but they are not sure about God. Such people have not received the gospel; they may have taken in part of it. It suits us for relations to Christ as Head; all this is preparatory to the headship of Christ being brought out in the latter part of the chapter, and we do not really know our suitability to Christ apart from this.
Ques What is the force of “making our boast”?
CAC Well, it is a strong word. I think God delights in the exhilaration of heart that His saints find in nearness to Him. It is most exhilarating — not to the flesh, of course, because the flesh is not there. We begin to see that the Lord Jesus Christ is the peculiar divine avenue through whom all the pure divine grace and thoughts of love have come, that have flowed out to us; He is the blessed Administrator of it. So we see Him glorious, as the One making God known in the full measure of all His thoughts of love for us. It is the exhilaration of soul when the soul comes near to Him and realises it is a positive happiness for God to have us near Him. I think the cup is presented in the Supper in view of nearness. The Lord’s death is the ground of nearness and we actually eat and drink it in eating the Supper. My impression [p. 496] is that the truth of reconciliation underlies every happy coming together. There may be a measure of relief, but we want a sense of the delight of divine Persons to have us near Them.
Rem It would help us in our relations as together.
CAC Thank God, the saints do find pleasure in being together; there might be much more of it. In blessing the cup our whole souls delightedly respond to it. It is that the Lord might have a company in nearness to Himself, because He does not want to come in among us at a distance, does He? So the apprehension of this would affect us very much in our relations with divine Persons; it would give us liberty and profound joy, and we should know God better. We always carry with us a humbling sense of what we were and are, but we like to leave that outside when we come together. I cannot imagine the younger son talking about the far country when he was inside, can you? I imagine he was engrossed with his father, his whole boast was in his father. If you had got hold of him that is all you would have got out of him. Well, you do not find too many on that line.
We need to take in this beautiful ministry. Justification and reconciliation are distinctive to Paul. He had the ministry of reconciliation, so he was an ambassador, his business in it was to beseech men to come into this. Saints need continually beseeching to come into the good of it.
Rem If these things were made attractive to us much earlier, we should enter upon them sooner.
CAC We may get relief in such a way as to stupefy our own exercises. Persons get so much of the gospel as will satisfy them on the relief side and stupefy them for any further exercises. Very often very little is received of what is presented to souls, just enough for the sense of relief, more or less setting aside the moral exercises the Spirit would raise in their souls.
Rem Reconciliation is the presentation of God’s side of things.
[p. 497] CAC Yes.
Ques Do Joseph and his brethren illustrate it?
CAC He had said to his brethren, “Come near to me” (Genesis 45: 4), but they were not in the good of it, because seventeen years afterwards they have to tell lies to be sure they will not be hanged!
Rem “Through whom now we have received the reconciliation”. It is what has been made available, though many of us have not received it.
CAC Well, practically and experimentally we have not, but it is there for us. These things are stated in their absolute perfection; we are so slow to take them in, and all our lives we are learning. Mr. Raven said that the love of God is the last thing we learn; well, I am glad to be in a spot where I can learn it.
Ques. Where is that?
CAC Well, in the presence of the epistle to the Romans. It is through Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, and having to do with that wonderful Person — a risen and glorified Man — He is the Administrator of it all. If I get near to Him, He will administer it to me. We must be near to Him. As we were saying last week, we must be near enough to touch Him to get the value that is in Himself. It is a very practical question, this question of being near to divine Persons. It has been said that we understand the words by the thing — we have the things. He comes first to us to minister to us, not for us to worship Him. When He says, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you” (John 14: 18), He is coming to comfort them, to minister, to express all that He is, all that is in His heart, and as the Mediator of what is in the heart of God. He comes near to us to make it a reality to us.
Rem It is good to have the breaking of bread soon in the morning meeting.
CAC It is a very great help if we are led in liberty into the reality of the Lord’s body given and His blood poured out, if affection brings us into it, but the great point is nearness. Remembering Him is not nearness.