THE CHRIST

^[p. 461] THE CHRIST

2 Samuel 10: 1 - 29

I only refer to this chapter to notice the combination of enemies that we find as against the throne of David. In that day the throne of David was the testimony of God in the world, and this brought about a concert of opposition on the part of kings and nations who probably had little in common save hatred to that which was established of God. It would not be difficult to go through Scripture and point out the constant resistance of man to any interference of God in the affairs of this world. And this resistance brings into accord people that otherwise have little in common. What I desire to show is how this is reproduced in the present day. There is nothing new under the sun, the thing that has been will be. It is well for us to understand this.

Now what is evident in the present time is not only indifference to the truth, and there is plenty of that, but an opposition to what avows to be from God, coming out in the setting forward of what may be spoken of as a rival of it. Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light, and people are taken in by this. And in this opposition to the truth we see as allies minds that have little otherwise in common. We see genius, critical power, science, and philosophy all arrayed and acting in concert to produce something that may serve as a rival to the revelation of God. A leading scientific man talks of ‘the contemplation of the higher life which is possible for all, but attained by so few’. And again, he would ‘like to be remembered as one who did his best to help the people’. The man referred to was an avowed opponent of Scripture as a revelation from God. The question may be asked where he got his idea of a higher life from; one can only think from his own imagination, for it seems a perfect farce to talk of a higher life, that is, a life above ^[p. 462] the common level, without any kind of foundation in the revelation of God. I suppose that men would find a measure of difficulty in agreeing on what the higher life consisted in. And it is impossible for those who speak of it to completely divest their minds of ideas that have their birthplace in the revelation of God.

Probably the existence of God would not be denied by such, but I am wholly at a loss to understand of what moral value the existence of God is to man, if God is not revealed. It is remarkable in the opposers of revelation what an absence there is of moral ideas. One hears little of such thoughts as righteousness, holiness, peace, etc., and this is not wonderful when, practically for them, there is no God; for such thoughts manifestly have reference to a God who is and is revealed. God is known as righteous and holy, and hence the ideas of righteousness and holiness in man come in. The “higher life” which is spoken of, is apart from any true or certain moral ideas, for it is without any real fixed standard of right and wrong, for this cannot possibly be without some light from God. No kind of agreement among cultured men could fix a permanent standard of right and wrong. Thus the absence of such simple ideas as righteousness and holiness in the thoughts of those who reject the idea of revelation, is readily explained. My point is to make manifest the utter hopelessness of man in regard of moral things apart from light from God. And to think that genius, or philosophic ideas, or scientific knowledge, is light from God, is a delusion, for in this, even according to man, there is too much uncertainty, and the life of those in whom these things are seen, is often morally defective enough, judged even by the standard which exists in the mind of man.

Now in contrast to this sea of uncertainty into which the mind of man is plunged in following the leaders of thought in this world, the believer has, as a first principle, the thought of the mercy of God in which the day-spring from on high has visited this world of confusion and woe.

^[p. 463] And here we have the introduction of holiness and righteousness on a plane entirely foreign to the mind of man alienated from God. I imagine that it would be futile to look at the lives of philosophers who existed before and at the time of the introduction of christianity into the world, for any exemplification of moral principles such as are more or less familiar in the light of the truth. In Christ we see absolute fidelity in the maintenance of every divinely appointed relationship, whether it were to God, or to Israel, or to man, or to His own kindred after the flesh. And, in testimony, the rights of God were faithfully asserted. There was thus the establishment of the righteousness of God in Man down here in the place in which the rights of God had been set aside as the effect of sin having come in. And further, there was the accomplishment of righteousness for man, in the taking up of the liabilities under which man was by the righteous judgment of God, by One who, being divine, could impart living water to man, so that man might live by Him. Thus we get righteousness brought in on the part of God, so that His rights might stand, and that man’s conscience might have a true sense of the unalterable character of God. And we see, too, a holiness that could not be affected by contact with that which would have contaminated any other, a holiness that was of God and according to God. Such an one has been brought in to be the beginning, and sun, and centre of a world that will be filled with blessing. This seems to me a conception better than any aspiration of man, and one that is practical, for there is that in it by which the heart of any man may be rightly affected, while it gives its own proper place to God in relation to His creatures.

We come thus to the one that is the Sun of righteousness, the Head and centre of the universe of bliss. And in Christ that universe is pledged, indeed it may be said to exist, though the time has not yet come for its display; we see not yet all things put under Christ, “But we see Jesus, ... crowned with glory and honour”. The importance of this is that all in this universe of God takes its character from the One who is its sun and centre, just as the solar universe is regulated by forces which have their centre in the sun. Hence, in the world to come the ruling principle will be righteousness, that which is evident in the One that is the centre. There will be the maintenance of fidelity in every appointed relationship, and all will thus be held together. I think that this will be an advance on the moral chaos which the cleverness of man will bring into this world on which man can act, and in which men are ill-advised enough to listen to man, whose breath is in his nostrils. I need hardly say that in such a state of things as I have touched on there will be little room for legislation, or necessity for judicial tribunals. And further, there will be holiness that will be according to God, for all will be pervaded by the Spirit of holiness. The unction is from the Holy One; He gives to all a character that is according to the nature of God, and is Himself the revelation of the God in whom all rests secure in blessing. It is of vital importance that we should apprehend the place that Christ has in relation to the world to come, so that all should take its character from Him, should be affected by the light and warmth that shine out in Him, and be held together by an influence that is centred in Him.

Now in christianity we are in the light of Christ; Christ has shined upon us. “God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery, ... which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”. The one who is exalted above all heavens, that He may fill all things, is in the gentiles. The church in His body in which He lives here. And this is the witness in the present time. Hence the principle that should characterise saints in the world is unity. It is difficult fully to realise unity, save in the thought of the body. As to the nature of the unity, it lies in affections that have their source in the Spirit. It is remarkable that the only allusion to the Spirit in the ^[p. 465] epistle to the Colossians is in the expression, “love in the Spirit”. According to the prayer of the Lord in John 17, the oneness of the saints in the Father and the Son, that is in the Spirit, in separation from the world, was to be the witness to the world that the Father sent the Son. And with unity comes in another mark, and that is the absence of self-assertion, any claim to pre-eminence. The chief of all is the servant of all. We have thus in the bearing of saints towards one another a witness to Christ. He is seen in them, and this is the pledge of glory. And further, all that is characteristic of Christ is to be descriptive of the saints, sensibilities that belong to One that is of heaven and divine. Love the bond of perfectness, the bond divine, as it may be called, is to be put on; the peace of Christ, the arbiter of everything in the heart, is that to which we are called in one body, and the word of Christ is to dwell richly in saints in all wisdom. Thus there is to be a witness of Christ here in the new man that, after God, is created in righteousness and holiness of truth. All this is the result of the saints being knit together in love, and established in the full assurance of understanding to the clear knowledge of the mystery of God, in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We see thus how christianity connects itself with that which is to be set forth in Christ. Christ is Himself the beginning, and the church is the continuation morally of Christ, and the climax is the rising of the Sun of righteousness above the horizon, beneath which He is hid from the gaze of the world, with healing in His wings. But it is not difficult for that which is to characterise the body to discern that which is to mark the world to come, when all will come under the influence of the Man on whom it is built. This appears to me to be the great answer which God gives to that which has come in by the sin of man and the power of Satan. Hence, nothing can be more important in the present time than that we should be here spiritually in the truth of the Christ, and maintaining separation ^[p. 466] in spirit from a christianised world, having the day star, the harbinger of day, risen in our hearts. May the Lord grant that it may be more so with His saints.