THE INFLUENCE OF CHRIST

^[p. 208] THE INFLUENCE OF CHRIST

Matthew 5: 21 - 48; Romans 7: 4

We read in Scripture that “there is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy”, James 4: 12. I want to refer tonight to the character of this Lawgiver. In Matthew 5 the Lord presents Himself as the Lawgiver; we read constantly “I say unto you”. I want to make plain the Lawgiver and the character of the Lawgiver. My object will be to show how we can carry out what the Lawgiver enjoins.

The Lord, in the chapter I have read, marks out a line of practice, but the question arises, how is it to be carried out on the part of the disciples, and then on our part? The point of all that the Lord enjoins is the distinct discrimination between good and evil — the disentanglement of good and evil. God has seen fit to disentangle them. God’s dealings had all that in view, the distinction between good and evil. When christianity came in, things became more urgent, and the Lord would enjoin upon His disciples a discernment between good and evil. The proof that we are no longer babes is, that we are able to discern between good and evil. We are set between them here, and if our senses are exercised, to discern the good and the evil, and then to choose the good and refuse the evil. We are in a difficult day. The world has become christianised. We are not surrounded by idolatry, the influence of which is very debasing, the principle of it being denying God, and in that way they got sanction for many evils, and thus the effect was debasing. We have nothing of that kind about us; we are surrounded by a very different state of things. There is a moral light about and around us, and we have been brought up in it. But notwithstanding this, there is a great deal which is not according to God.

Men of genius around us speak of exercising their ^[p. 209] powers to the glory of God. It is all a delusion. God is not glorified in what a man does, but in what the man is himself. God looks for glory in the man himself; not in the way he uses his ability. The point with God is the secret principle of the actings of his being. God wants truth in the inward parts, and righteousness for a breastplate. In the exercise of genius or ability man uses them with the thought of renown for themselves — they seek glory for man. If we are to be to the glory of God, we must not seek self-importance, in a name, or glory, or reputation. But men do not answer to that standard at all; they use their gift with a view to reputation and self-seeking. Man has got out of the place of the creature, and has become a centre to himself. In contrast to that, there was nothing of that about Christ. He “made himself of no reputation”, no self-seeking. Now when we come to the line of practice enjoined here, we must first see the lawgiver and His character. Moses was a lawgiver, but the law itself was what God wrote on the two tables of stone — but the law that Moses gave was but the expression of himself. Faithful as he was in general, there was failure with him, and for that reason he was not allowed to enter the promised land. In this chapter what we get is that whatever Christ laid down and enjoined He Himself was the expression of it. What He enjoins is the expression of Himself. He was absolutely that which He said unto them. Thus Christ becomes law to us. He is the Lawgiver in the sense that He Himself is the law. Christ will occupy that place in the universe of bliss that the sun gives the solar system: ‘Of the vast universe of bliss the centre Thou and Sun’.

Have we taken account of the fact of Christ being the Sun of righteousness, and of the world of which He is the Sun, and what is involved in that? To that world Christ will be the law, He will give impulse to all that is of God in that universe. Every impulse will proceed from Himself. Now one principle in regard of Christ ^[p. 210] Himself; when He was here, in His walk and ways, was, that we get the perfect solution and discernment of good and evil. The question of good and evil has been perfectly solved. He refused the evil, and chose the good in all His ways down here — that was the detail of Christ’s path down here in the world. Christ is the standard therefore. If you study the pathway of the Lord here, you will get an apprehension of the discrimination between good and evil. He “loved righteousness and hated lawlessness”. God “hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness”. On that ground He will take up the glory of the kingdom. All that principle comes out in detail in this chapter, that is, loving righteousness and hating lawlessness. The Lord rebukes violence and corruption, the fruit of man’s lawless will. Then another principle is overcoming evil with good. God is good, and He overcomes evil with good. The world is full of corruption through lust, but the principle which ought to regulate our conduct is to overcome evil with good. The Lord Himself showed the superiority of good. He suffered at the hand of evil, but He was so divinely perfect in good that He overcame evil in the power of good. Now what He enjoins, He was the expression of Himself — see what comes out at the end of the chapter, verses 44, 45, 48.

Now when Christ was here, His pleasure was to gather to Himself. He was entitled to be a centre of gathering. We are not so, we each stand upon our own responsibility. The Lord never discouraged any one coming to Him. He said, “Come unto me” — “and ye shall find rest”, etc. — Christ was a divinely constituted point of gathering, and all that were gathered to Him came under His influence. The two disciples who left John to follow Jesus, came to see where He dwelt, and they abode with Him that day — they came under His influence, and it was as having come under that influence that they were enabled to carry out the practice which the Lord enjoins here, He was Lawgiver to them. He ^[p. 211] enjoined their practice and they carried it out in this way, that they came under the influence of Christ. The company who was gathered to the Lord when here, He attracted to Himself that they might come under His influence. He was a centre of light and power, and they became imitators of Him. They were so acquainted with the good they found in Christ, that they learned to refuse the evil, and cleave to the good. Christ had put them in the place of the children of God, and their practice was to be according to Christ — according to God.

To be according to God is righteousness. God has made Himself known to us, according to His righteousness and goodness, and therefore we should be characterised in that way, being the “children of your Father which is in heaven”. Now turn to Romans 7: 4. “Become dead to the law” — “married to another” — to “bring forth fruit unto God”. In the present time we cannot bring Christ again to earth. I have often thought I would have liked to be associated with Christ when He was here upon earth — but it is an impossibility, for the heavens have received Him till the restitution of all things. What about the meantime then? We are to be married to another, to Him raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit to God. Now the way in which we can carry out what is inculcated in Matthew 5 is by the Spirit of Christ. He is the great life-giving Head, and He gives us His Spirit, that Christ may attach us to Himself, and in the appreciation of Him may bring forth fruit to God. The first effect of Christ being in our vision — we have found the perfect standard, and learn to discern between good and evil. It is only in the light of Christ that we can trace what He approved and what He refused. The Lord refused and disliked much that was highly esteemed among men, and yet the Lord approved many things which man despised. The Lord approved of the woman who sat at His feet and heard His word. He approved of the woman who cast ^[p. 212] in two mites into the treasury, and the woman who washed His feet with her tears. On the other hand, He disowned the conduct and the springs of the conduct of the scribes and Pharisees. This all tends to prove that in the pathway of the Lord upon earth we get the perfect discernment of good and evil. It is only, however, as we have the Spirit of Christ, that we can appreciate what comes out in the pathway of the Lord Jesus.

Now another thing, Christ was prepared to suffer at the hand of evil. He was meek and lowly in heart; He did not resist evil. He left evil for God to deal with. But another thing, you get the Lord ever ministering good, sight to the blind, having compassion, etc., but at the same time suffering at the hand of evil. If we partake of the Spirit of Christ, we ought to be able to appreciate Christ. If we appreciate Him, we imitate Him; we are married — attached to another, to Him raised from the dead.

The principle of vitality in christians is Christ, and that is the secret of fruit-bearing down here, but first we must learn to appreciate Christ. When Christ came here, He brought in all the light and goodness of heaven, and thus we have a perfect standard. The Lord met the self-seeking and ignorance of man down here, but He Himself was found in the lowest place, making God and His goodness known down here; He Himself really was the expression of all the good in God.

The only place which the Lord felt more congenial than another, was in the house of publicans and sinners, because they were prepared to listen to the witness of grace and goodness which came from the mouth of Christ. When we learn of Him, we come to answer to Him — we are content with the lowest place here, and draw back from self-importance, and self-seeking and conceit, and content to suffer loss and overcome evil in the power of good, and thus Christ becomes law to us. The Galatians were anxious to be under law — well, the ^[p. 213] apostle says, fulfil the law of Christ, and bear one another’s burdens.

The great point is to keep close to Christ, and thus you come under His influence. It is personal contact which is influence. Nothing could be more important to practical life, than for us to learn the hard and fast distinctions between good and evil, which have been so defined, since Christ has made a division between good and evil. We are acquainted with good in Christ. God is known to us because Christ has made Him known to us, and we get all the benefit of it. May divine goodness be the stay and comfort to us, and thus may we learn to discern between good and evil. The source of all evil is hell — it is from beneath, but good is of God. If we overcome evil with good, when Christ reigns we shall reign with Him. What the Lord enjoins is perfect — moral and practical — and now we have received His Spirit, and we can thus be enabled to discern between good and evil, and so acquainted with good that we may be able to overcome evil with good.

It is the principle upon which God Himself acts, and it is the course and practice marked out for us.