THE LIFE LINE
[p. 116] THE LIFE LINE
What I have to say stands in connection with the three lines spoken of in this verse. I have before me to show the different testimonies for God, and, to call attention to the intent of each. And when I speak of the different testimonies I speak in a very general way, embracing under the first line the law and the prophets, and under the second line Christ down here in the flesh, and under the third line Christ in resurrection.
You will understand that in using a scripture in this way from the Old Testament it is not to present it in a dogmatic sense. I think we are allowed by the Lord great latitude in ministry, in the use of the Scriptures. They are said to be “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”, (2 Timothy 3:16); and I think a minister is given, as it were, certain latitude, by the Spirit, in his use of them. They are said to be profitable; that is to say, they help in the ministry of the truth, they help in the way of showing how it is set, its bearing; and I would say in that connection that the Old Testament is as much for us as the New. We read: “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning”, (Romans 15:4). So that you will understand, that in using these Scriptures, I do it to endeavour to make the truth clear to you.
This verse is found in a peculiar connection. In the previous verse David is seen smiting the Philistines and taking out of their hands Metheg-ammah, which, as you may know, is the bridle of the Mother (city); it was the capital. What a thing it is to see the power taken out of the hands of the enemy and placed in the hands of Christ! Before David’s day the people were dominated by the Philistines.
[p. 117] That marked, the situation, and Saul failed utterly to cope with this. We are told that he was to “come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines”, (1 Samuel 10:5). It was a serious matter, that the hill of God was in possession of the hostile power. Well, that was a reminder to Saul of what he had to do; he was to understand that that evil power must be dislodged. He never really answered to the charge, hence it remained for David to face the situation and overthrow the Philistine.
We are all held under some influence. I know the influence that God intends should affect us, and it is the duty of the preacher to make that clear, but you may be certain that you are under some influence. What we see here is that David takes that which dominated the situation. He smote the Philistines and subdued them, and took Metheg-ammah. I wish to show you the setting of the passage. David takes out of the Philistine’s hands the bridle. Now, apply that to Christ; power is in His hands now, instead of in the hands of the enemy. Let me ask you whether you are really, in subjection to Christ? He has power whereby “he is able even to subdue all things to himself”, (Philippians 3:21). To-day He is bringing souls into subjection, having gone on high, as we have been noting. You will remember how David referred to the sword of Goliath. He said, “there is none like that”. (1 Samuel 21:9) It was the means in the hands of David of overthrowing the Philistine’s power. The Lord took that which was the great weapon in the hands of the enemy in holding His people in terror and in bondage, that was death. What souls require is light. You want to see the full bearing of the death of Christ. The full bearing of it in this respect is, that He has wrested death out of the hands of the enemy, and having done it, He has gone up to heaven with the symbol of His triumph.
[p. 118] You will remember that David took the head of the giant to Jerusalem; he took there the testimony of his triumph. So Christ has gone into heaven. It is in this way that we are to understand the bearing and power of the kingdom of God. And in connection with this there is the purification of the conscience. A good conscience is by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for He died for our sins, and was raised for our justification, 1 Peter 3:21; Romans 4:25. Before you can have a good conscience you must have a bad one. The effect of the light of God thrown into the soul is to produce a bad one; and this leads to exercise which is met by the gospel. The gospel is the power of God, because therein is the righteousness of God revealed, Romans 1:16. The righteousness of God is seen in the death and resurrection of Christ, and by this the believer has a purged conscience. But you want more than a purged conscience; you want Christ in heaven, and so the apostle goes on to say, “who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him”, (1 Peter 3:22). All power is in the hand of Christ. What a great thing then the kingdom is! The Lord Jesus Christ has wrested the power from the enemy, and He wields it in heaven, and He intends that it shall exercise sway in your heart. That is the setting of this verse.
We come to Moab now. Philistine power is the religious power by which people are held in bondage; religion may be used to hold your soul. When you come to Moab you come to man as he is; man as he is is very proud. You remember what is said about Moab. “We have heard the pride of Moab (he is exceeding proud) his loftiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart”, (Jeremiah 48:29). Now, there are two lines for death. You may wonder how it is that God should [p. 119] have a testimony for death, but I think we can understand it if we understand what Moab represents. There are two lines for death and one full line for life.
I think you will find that wherever three, things are put together on the part of God, they refer to what may be termed complete testimony. If you get two things put together on the part of God you have adequate testimony. When you come to the complete testimony on the part of God, you have the means whereby God secures His end. The third full line has reference to God’s end for man. This is eternal life. It is a most interesting subject. I was speaking this afternoon to some of you as to what the Spirit of the remnant in the day of Hosea said: “Come, and let us return to the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight”, (Hosea 6:1, 2). They knew that God would do these things on account of light afforded them. God had rendered light and their faith was based on this. They did not stop with being bound up, if God creates a wound He will bind it up; they say, “After two days he will revive us”. (Hosea 6:2) That involves waiting, patience, but there is the testimony, which they understood. The third day is the day in which He secures His great end for Israel and for man, and it answers really to this third line, “one full line to keep alive”.
Now I take the first line to be the law and the prophets; that is, classifying them together, which I think Scripture supports: the Lord says, “The law and the prophets were until John, since that time the kingdom of God is preached”, (Luke 16:16). The kingdom of God was distinct from the law and the prophets. In rendering the testimony of the kingdom, in His ministry here on earth, the Lord was “the glory of God”. What must the glory do? The law effected death, clearly, and the glory of God, coming in as testimony, can only convict man of his state, even more surely. There can be no question that the law is the first great line for death. It was holy, just and good. It was ordained for life, but in result, it was found to be for death. It asserted God’s authority over man, but this only brought to light that man was utterly lawless, and so under the penalty of death. The apostle says, “I was alive without the law once”, (Romans 7:9). I do not say he was alive to God, he was alive to himself, his conscience did not smite him; “But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died”. (Romans 7:9) That is what I understand to be the first line of death. It was ordained for life, but it brought in death.
Has that testimony any weight with you? You must not think that it is not intended for you. I take the law to be intended for us in that respect. The law is a divine testimony, and has many bearings; by law is the knowledge of sin. Now one inquires as to whether it has rendered that service to all present? We have very little knowledge of ourselves. The apostle says, “I was alive without the law once” (Romans 7:9); his conscience was in the dark. How many young men and young women walk about on this earth as if they were entitled to live, and without any conscience of their state before God, without any sense of their sinfulness? The apostle says, “When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Romans 7:9); the effect is to smite you in your conscience, so that you are utterly without standing in the presence of God.
Now there was the second line, which had the same effect exactly; the second line is the glory of God presented in Christ here in the flesh. The apostle says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. (Romans 3:23) Sinning refers to transgression,
[p. 121] and without law there is no transgression; sins are put to account where there is law. Then there is the additional thought of the glory which shows how utterly wanting men are. The glory is what Christ was here in the flesh. The Psalmist says, “He delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy’s hand”, (Psalm 78:61). That was an allusion to Christ as here in obedience. Wonderful testimony on the part of God! He said, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God”. (Hebrews 10:7) These were the words He uttered as He came into the world. There was not only the thought of carrying out the divine counsels from eternity, but He was taking up a position as Man; He was entering into man’s estate; He was entering into every detail of man’s circumstances on earth; and in every detail there was the presentation of God, and the shining out of the glory. It was what man should be for God. Would that our souls could lay hold of that.
God said, “I am the God of Abraham”. (Genesis 26:24) What that meant was, that He was the God of that kind of man. As a man of faith, Abraham was, in God’s account, after the order of Christ. Think of what Christ was here; God is God of that One. Do you understand what I mean? God does not commit Himself to all; He is God to that One; and what I say to Christians is this; Christ has brought us into His own position Godward. He said to His disciples, “My God, and your God”. (John 20:17) But in the gospels God was God to the Man who moved for Him here; every pulsation and every movement of His life was to answer to God; He was the Man that God’s heart had set itself on. That is the idea of the glory. Adam was but a figure of Him that was to come. Christ is the One that was to come, and has come into human circumstances, and as here He was God’s glory, God’s glory is the measure for every man.
[p. 122] The application of the measure only shows how utterly short man has come of it, and hence his case is altogether hopeless if left to himself. He is appointed for death. God has no pleasure in literal death; He has no pleasure in the dissolution of His creature; but He does desire to bring the element of death into your conscience, so as to lead to exercise. This is by the law. The other testimony I spoke of was even a greater one, more comprehensive. That is Christ as God’s glory. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. (Romans 3:23) There is the standard, and God brought in a perfect standard, and that is the glory. Whilst, on the one hand, you are made to realise that you must be shut out for ever from that glory as on the ground of the flesh, on the other the gospel shows, that it is God’s thought that man should be at home in the presence of it, and that He can accomplish this consistently through the death of Christ.
I want to go on to the third line. The third line is called the full line. I connect it with Romans 5. I take that chapter to be the full life line. God has found the means of purifying man’s conscience. The blood of Christ on the mercy-seat does this, as we learn in Romans 3. In the light of this you are no longer under death in your conscience. Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ... for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith”, (Romans 1:16). As I understand it, it is the power of God in the first instance, as affording a good conscience. A good conscience is moral power. It is not the Spirit’s power here. A good conscience is moral power: “The righteous are bold as a lion”. (Proverbs 28:1) Has everybody here a good conscience? If you have never had a bad one, you have not a good one. The Holy Spirit is also power in the believer, of course, but that is [p. 123] another matter. A good conscience and the power of the Spirit go together. A good conscience is by the blood of Christ.
Having a good conscience - justification — the believer is prepared to apprehend God’s purpose for men, which is eternal life, and I connect this, as I have said, with the “full line for life”. God had devised that man, that order of being, should be preserved. Man was wisdom’s ideal, Proverbs 8, and so he must be made to live. I desire to say a word about that in closing. Man must be made to live. Hence there is one full line for life, and that is through Christ in resurrection. How great is God’s victory in Christ’s resurrection! Man has brought us life! Read Romans 5, from verse 12 to the end. There is the abounding of things through Christ, and all in the line of the accomplishment of God’s great purpose of blessing for man. “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord”. (Romans 5:21) The whole passage taken together is to emphasise the magnitude of the present position of grace in regard to the race of Adam. Grace is on the throne. What a happy thought that is for a purged conscience. You have to do with grace. The idea of a throne is that it is absolute. The throne in Scripture is in no sense modified, it is absolute. If you put grace on such a throne as that, what an economy that is! Absolutely nothing but grace for the soul. The law came in by Moses, grace and truth have their subsistence in Christ. Grace establishes your heart in confidence in God. To give you an example of the reign of grace, I would refer you to the Lord’s instruction to the apostles to begin at Jerusalem the preaching of repentance and remission of sins in His name, Luke 24:47. Where sin had been at its highest, there forgiveness is preached.
[p. 124] In Romans 5, the blessing is through Christ. That word. through, therefore, directs your heart to Christ. If you have righteousness and life, it is through Christ Jesus. It is intended to have a moral effect in your soul. He has a claim upon you. In the sixth chapter the expression changes; it is in Christ Jesus, verse 11. The apostle treats in these six chapters of the question of man’s relationship with God in righteousness and life here on earth; and he shows that through Christ Jesus our Lord man is brought into life, and that that life is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In other words, chapter 5 shows that you are indebted to Christ for eternal life, and chapter 6 shows that it is an “act of favour of God” for you in Christ Jesus. Christ acquires a place in your soul, on the one hand, and all your hopes and desires are centred in Christ on the other. That is the effect of the gospel. I do not think it is fully effective in us until every thought and every affection converge on Christ. The gift of eternal life is in Him, and it is in Him for all men, but only possessed by those who believe.
May God help us to understand the full bearing of the gospel, as that in which life and incorruptibility are brought to light.