RECONCILIATION AND ACCEPTANCE
[p. 88] RECONCILIATION AND ACCEPTANCE
It is deeply solemn and instructive to find an assembly like the Corinthians, which came behind in no gift, carried away by the natural mind, and that there was consequently such a break-up in divine things that they had got astray in every circle - private life, public life, etc., and this though they had received the Holy Spirit. In chapter 3 the apostle shows the difference between the righteousness of the law, which was a demand, and the ministration of righteousness from the glory. Isaiah said, when he saw the Lord of hosts, “I am undone”. Now, the nearer you come to the glory the better off you are. There is no one converted now but by the light from the glorified Man in heaven which has reached him. The first touch from God is the light. See the thief on the cross, the Philippian jailor, Saul of Tarsus. All the grace proceeds from Him, so the nearer you get to Him the better off you are.
I want to bring before you the subject of reconciliation. There are two sides of grace - one is how God has relieved His own heart, the other is how the believer gets the benefit of it. Many christians are occupied with Romans 8 before they have learnt chapter 5. Chapter 5 is God’s side and chapter 8 is our side. The first great thing to see is the weight that is upon us. I believe that the nature of the distance between God and man is but little known. What is it? The judgment of God - death - lies upon man. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2: 17). The creature must go in death. God said to Adam, “Who told thee that thou wast naked?” The word to Satan was that the seed of the woman should bruise his head, and that he should bruise his heel. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers [p. 89] of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death” (Hebrews 2: 14). The man who is under death must go in judgment. First, you must realise the pressure; man under the judgment of death must go, intellect and all. The flood was a type of it; God says, “The end of all flesh is come before me” (Genesis 6: 13). Noah prepared an ark; he was one year and ten days in the ark - a figure of every day of your life, every variety of circumstance the whole year. For that time there was nothing of flesh to be seen, it was either under the waters of the flood or covered in the ark. After one year and ten days in the ark Noah comes out and offers an offering of sweet savour and is now in a new condition.
When man was fully tested and tried, God had a Man in reserve - He laid help on One that is mighty. No one ever knew what sin is in God’s sight but the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has removed it. He had the full sense of what it was to be under the judgment of God. “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin”. After perfectly glorifying God in His life here, the glory claimed Him: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. But then He dies for the man who was under judgment; that man must go in death; he is made an end of, not atoned for. If you atone for anything you keep it. Christ in His death atoned for sins, not for sin. “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”, etc. If God sent Christ (”a body hast thou prepared me”), He comes to remove all that was not according to God.
I come now to reconciliation. Souls are more occupied with their own feelings about God than with God’s feelings about them. The prodigal wants to know what the father thinks about him. He says, “I have sinned against heaven, and before thee;” and when he comes he finds his father on the very best [p. 90] terms with him. Love travels faster than necessity. He “ran, and fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses”. When the prodigal came to himself he thinks about himself, and proposes to say, “Make me as one of thy hired servants;” but when he comes to his father he gets the very best reception, and he dare not make any proposal. The elder brother cannot understand it. He says, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, and neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; and you have shown me no such consideration. Here is a scapegrace, and you have killed for him the fatted calf How is the incongruity solved? The Shepherd had gone out and brought him back. God can now receive the returning prodigal on the ground of the glorified Man. John says, if you knew the love of God, you would find that as Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, so are you here in this world. The moment Christ died, having borne the judgment, the veil was rent from the top to the bottom. The One who has died is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and confers life. The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving Spirit. Now it is no longer Adam but Christ. The real practical defect in souls is, they do not prefer Christ to Adam; it is not that they do not love Him, but they hold on to the man who God has judged and ended. God never reverts to that man. God never imputes sin to the believer. He has judged sin; there could be no more offering for sin; but if you revert to the man that has been judged and do not judge yourself, you will be judged of the Lord.
Verses 14, 15: “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. Many believers hold resurrection, who do not hold it in its magnitude. He was “put to death in flesh, but made alive in the Spirit”. You have passed out of death into life. Why? Because Christ has risen out of it. There is no justification unless He has risen from the dead. We should no longer live unto ourselves; we are out of it all. Then comes, “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh”.
Do you know the terms of your acceptance? Christ has removed every shade of the distance. You never can improve your acceptance, and you can never lose it. You are accepted in the Beloved. If there were any moral disparity between you and Him, you could not be united to Him. “Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one” (Hebrews 2: 11). But that is not in the flesh. “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh”, etc. “So if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new”. God has only one Man before Him now for the believer. See John 17: 17, “Sanctify them through thy truth”. That is a new kind of being altogether. Your body is the Lord’s, and Christ is your model for everything. God has completely removed everything from His own eye, so that He can express Himself to the unspeakable satisfaction and delight of His heart; He is bringing many sons to glory. Romans 5: 1 - 11 are the terms God is on with you. Romans 8 is how you are before God. Is God happy about you? Yes. Old things are passed away, all become new. Every bit of the man who was under judgment has gone in judgment. If you do not know the terms on which God can receive you, it is vain for you to seek to be in correspondence with Him. “All things are of God”. You are to be in moral keeping with this.
Verse 20. It makes a very great difference in preaching the gospel if it is pressed that the judgment of death is resting on man. In what is called popular preaching, it is expected that by working on the [p. 92] feelings by music, etc., one will accept Christ. Believe me that every effort in a natural way will come to nought. If God is with you in your preaching your audience will be subdued by it, not exhilarated. If I were preaching to a sinner I should seek to get at his conscience, but it is the light he wants. Light finds out the silver piece; the light shows what is suited to God - turned “from darkness to light”.
The Lord grant that each of you may know, not assurance only, but your full acceptance with God, for His name’s sake.