WHAT IS IN THE HEART OF CHRIST
[p. 546] WHAT IS IN THE HEART OF CHRIST
CAC My thought in suggesting this scripture was that we might get Christ in a very definite way before us. I feel it would be a great help to us all if we could apprehend what is in the heart of Christ at the present moment. The only way in which we can get to know Him, or know Him better, is by getting to know what is in His heart Godward and manward. The two thoughts particularly before me are the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and the love of Christ in which He intercedes for us. The first of these statements brings Him before us as the Ark of the covenant, the second as the Priest. The first is what He is in relation to God, and the second, what He is in relation to us.
In Christ as the Ark of the covenant, the love of God is now in the Man who delighted to do His will; it is, at the present moment, in the heart of a risen and glorified Man who has accomplished everything that was in the will of God. There is nothing to interfere with the love of God resting on Christ. We begin by thinking of the love of God in relation to us, but it is “in Christ Jesus our Lord”. He came into this world in order to give expression to the love of God in death. He is now, personally, in the full enjoyment of what He revealed. He is the first one to enter into the full blessedness of the love of God; it rests in His heart; it is secured there. The love of God is treasured, enshrined, in a Person, an Object, perfectly suited to it. The love of God is in the heart of a Man and we are bound up with it eternally. We learn God’s love towards us first. “But God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us” (Romans 5: 8). There it is the marvellous self-sacrifice at which God has sent His love to us. On God’s part, He has [p. 547] made the supreme sacrifice. His own Son has died for us, “we being still sinners”. It is the love that surrendered all for sinners.
Christ as the Priest brings before us the place that the saints have in His heart. Two things are in His heart: firstly, the supreme enjoyment of the love of God; that is the love that no creature power can ever separate us from; and, secondly, His saints.
The Ark of the covenant would lose its glory if the saints were not in the blessedness of it. What are the relations between God and man? But the question is, Which man? Man after the flesh or the Man at God’s right hand? The relations between God and man are set forth in Christ. The love of God is flowing out on a Man perfectly suitable to Him and there is nothing to hinder Him enjoying it in the greatest possible way: that is the Ark of the covenant. We are bound up with that eternally, nothing can separate us from it. It is a fine thought. It is magnificent but very simple. You learn what is in the heart of Christ now, supreme joy in the love of God. As Man He is in the love of God. It rests there “in Christ Jesus our Lord”. It gives perfect liberty when I see that the relations — the present relations — of God and man are set forth in Christ, that we may come into the blessedness and joy of them now. When He was here, He was saluted as the beloved Son. He was the Object of the love of God when here and He enjoyed it perfectly all through His course here, but He was absolutely alone. But He went into death and is now risen and glorified, and has as Man come into the love of God, and the love of God is in His heart so that it can be shared. No creature power can separate us from it, the love of God is treasured there.
Ques “Our Lord”. What is involved in that?
CAC He has really become Lord to us as we have learned Him in the grace of the previous chapters of the epistle. As “delivered for our offences and ... raised for our justification” (Romans 4: 25), He has become Lord to us. We [p. 548] are with God in all the blessed clearance that He is in as the risen Man. We give Him the place of supremacy. He is the true Joseph. He administrates to us all the wealth of divine grace (Romans 5). He must get that place with us before we can appreciate His place as Man in the love of God.
Ques Would you say some more about Christ as the Ark of the covenant and the Priest?
CAC I think that knowing what is in the heart of the Priest comes first. We have to learn what is in the heart of Christ. What does He think of me and of all saints? How does He think of us? He expresses in His intercession the thoughts of His heart toward us. We have to learn the wonderful way in which divine love has set us up. It is an immense thing to learn that. It is of the greatest help to us to know Christ’s thoughts of us. “It is Christ who has died, but rather has been also raised up; who is also at the right hand of God; who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8: 34, 35). It is the love of the One who intercedes for us, who has died, has been raised and is at the right hand of God. He cannot regard His saints in any other light than being in the good of His death, resurrection and exaltation, and on the ground of that, He intercedes for us.
I could say to a doubting believer, ‘Do you think that Christ intercedes for you in your sins when He knows that He has put them all away?’ Let us think of things as Christ thinks of them. Would He ever pray for His saints as if they were living in the world, in vain pleasing, etc.? Impossible. He has died and believers have been buried with Him in baptism. A Christian living in the world has put himself outside the intercession of Christ. How could He pray for such a man?
Ques Would John 17 show how He prays for us?
CAC John 17 is the Priest at the golden altar. Is there any reference to any worldliness on the part of the disciples? Impossible. He speaks of them in the light of divine love and purpose and views them entirely from that standpoint. Did Christ refer to their failings? Never. John 17 is a little sample of His intercession. But you say, ‘Did not He pray for failing Simon?’ Yes, but as a man of faith. He took account of what was there that was of God. “I have besought for thee that thy faith fail not”. He takes account of what has been divinely wrought in our souls, He never comes down to our level but intercedes for us according to the value we have in His own heart. We have a wonderful place in His heart. I heard of a brother once who asked another who was ill, ‘How are you?’ The answer was, ‘I am in the 17th of John’. That is where you learn the love of Christ, by knowing how He regards us, in the light of His own thoughts and according to the pleasure of God. But you may say, ‘Is He not our advocate?’ (1 John 2: 2). Yes. But that is not priestly intercession; it is a separate part of His service but it does not come in with the breastplate or the shoulder-pieces (Exodus 28:9,10; Exodus 28:21). That seems to me to suggest the way that the saints are in the heart of Christ before God. Firstly, on the stones for the shoulderpieces the names are engraved “according to their birth” — how they were born as children of Jacob. Secondly, on the stones for the breastplate they are engraven “according to his name shall they be for the twelve tribes”, a different setting of names.
The Lord carries us before God, as typified in the shoulder-pieces, according to divine generation. We are all alike in that. It was the two onyx stones that were used for this. It is like Romans 8, that which is true of all saints. But as in the breastplate, we are not all alike but have our different places in the body. Twelve different stones are used. “As God has dealt to each a measure of faith ... but having different gifts, according to the grace which has been given to us” (Romans 12: 3, 6).
It is of the greatest possible value to us as believers to know how to think of ourselves as Christ looks at us. I can only learn my true place and my true value as learning it in the heart of Christ. The question is, What is true of me in the heart of Christ? We show where we are ourselves by the thoughts we have of our brethren. If I know my place in the [p. 550] heart of Christ, I know the place of every other saint as in Romans 8. In the heart of Christ there can be no other thought. He never thinks of me as in the flesh. He bore the judgment of man in the flesh that I might be transferred from that. The truth is that we are in Christ Jesus. How? God put us there through redemption and the gift of the Spirit. “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1: 30). God put us there. It is a great thing to learn things from the top. In the heart of Christ His saints are always viewed as “in Christ Jesus”, heirs, brethren of the Firstborn, etc. (Romans 8). We can understand how He values us. We are all alike according to divine calling and generation in the shoulder-pieces. In the breastplate we all differ. It is our place in relation to the testimony. There are twelve different stones. In Romans 8 we are all alike, the onyx stone. In Romans 12 we differ, twelve different stones. Each stone has its separate place (twelve is the perfect number administratively). Each apostle was different. Each had his own impression of Christ and ministered that. “As God has dealt to each a measure of faith” (Romans 12: 3). The bit He has given me is not the bit He has given you. The question is, What is the thing that God would have me to do? There is something in the heart of Christ that tells me what to do. The Urim and the Thummim were in the breastplate. God has dealt to each a measure of faith. You may be saying, ‘But I have not anything at all’. But you have. There is something you have faith to do — faith to take a certain place in the testimony here — and if you do not do it you are not in accord with the breastplate. You are set among the people of God with a specific gift of faith and the intercession of Christ supports you in that service. By any brother or sister not filling the place God has given them, all suffer. The body suffers. “If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it”. It needs all as put together in the unity of the testimony. If all are working properly there is beautiful harmony, all fitting together. Romans 8 gives us our general place of sons, children, heirs, brethren of the Firstborn; Romans 12 our speciality.
[p. 551] Each one of us has a place in the heart of Christ as Priest. We need to get near enough to Him to know it so as to answer down here to the place I have up there in the breastplate. I want to be learning what is in the heart of Christ, learning divine thoughts all the time. The calling of God is maintained at its full height in the heart of the Priest. When I know that, then I want to learn what is in His heart — “in Christ Jesus”, “in Spirit”, “sons”, “children”, etc. Learning it in the heart of Christ touches you more than learning it in the Scriptures. All hangs on the fact that He has died, has been raised up and is at the right hand of God. He never loses sight of what all that means — death, what is ended; resurrection, what is introduced or established; the right hand of God, the new place, what we are in the heart of Christ.
Ques What do the Urim and the Thummim mean for us?
CAC They signify direction, spiritual direction, the intimation of God’s mind. We are directed in our exercises. There is divine light for us on every difficulty. What the saints are in the heart of Christ is the answer to every question. And, individually, what is my place? It is not merely that I take a place, but if I take the place I have in His heart, His intercession helps me. You think “soberly” as to what the grace of God and the love of Christ would make you. To take the place allotted to me is the secret of happiness. There are far more saints who stop short of their divine measure than there are those who go beyond it. Most do not come up to it.
Rem “To every man his work”.
CAC He intercedes for us; difficulties come in but they do not separate but become helpful discipline. Discipline that God permits never damages the new man. It is humbling and reducing to the natural but it increases the spiritual. It strips us of all that hinders.