OUT OF DEATH INTO LIFE
[p. 172] OUT OF DEATH INTO LIFE
Jonah 2; Acts 9: 1 - 18 We often find that many who have really turned to the Lord, who believe in Jesus, are not happy. They are not in the enjoyment of salvation, and it is important to see what is the cause of this. The reason of it is, that though they are truly converted, as we say, yet they have never yet learned what is between the sinner and God. That is where the great lack in souls is.
Here is Jonah; he was a prophet, and yet he has to learn in a very painful way the nature of the distance between God and himself - a sinner. It was will; he would not do what the Lord had told him to do. God had told him to go to Nineveh, but he preferred his own will to God’s will. He did not do anything very wrong in a human way, in a moral point of view, but he did not obey the instructions which the Lord gave him. And what was at the bottom of that? His own will. Will is the real cause of the restlessness, and of the absence of full joy in souls. They do not really see that their whole nature is contrary to God, and had to be removed in the cross. Jonah has to be cast out of the ship into the sea to learn what his will would bring him to. I suppose everyone here knows the story. Read chapter 2 and see what he went through in learning that solemn lesson. Figuratively he passed through death, for death is the only way to get clear of will. He entered into the reality of death, and thus we get him in the whale’s belly, alive without a will. If you want a striking illustration of a man alive without a will you get it in Jonah in the whale’s belly. He was alive, but wholly at the will and control of another. That is the only true place of happiness for a believer, to be without a will of his own. Jonah was moved at the will of another (the will of the whale). His own [p. 173] will had brought him into the depths. He says, “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains”. He entered thus by faith into the reality of death; and his case illustrates what we have to reach. I do not believe any soul has the sense of real clearance in the sight of God who has not travelled through this experience, which is really appropriating the death of Christ. You may say, I thought if I believed I should be saved, and so you would. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth”, Isaiah 45: 22. But for real rest of heart you have to learn what the greatness of God’s salvation is, and the better you learn it the greater is your enjoyment in it. When Jonah had passed through death in figure, what he comes to is, “Salvation is of the Lord”.
Let us go into the subject simply. In the garden of Eden, what did Eve do? Her own will. She acted contrary to what God had directed her; there was nothing immoral in her act in itself, she wanted to advance herself, but it was her own will and not the will of God. She did her own will and beguiled her husband to do the same. Many lament their sins and rightly, so far; but it is not your sins I am speaking of now, but your will, which is a far deeper thing. It is the root of sin, and what I want to press on you is that you have a will in you which is contrary to God, and what you have to learn is that you are to be without a will. Jonah might have said, I have broken no commandment of the law; but he would not take the work that the Lord appointed for him, and that was will. And thus he is cast into the sea, and has to go through three days and three nights there, to learn that what is due to that will is death. Death alone could clear him of it. Jonah’s case is figurative, I need not say, but it was typical of our blessed Lord in death, as He says in the gospel (Matthew 12: 40), “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”. He went through it for us He bore the judgment that was upon us, the judgment of death. I read the history of Jonah to you because it illustrates what I desire to present to you, and that is, that you must by faith go through Christ’s death. In order to be clear of it, you must go through it by appropriating Christ’s death. You will see this more plainly if we turn to the New Testament. Saul of Tarsus was a man who could say of himself what I suppose no other man could say. It was a wonderful thing to be able to say, “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day”, Acts 23: 1, and “touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless”, Philippians 3: 6. I have heard a man who was apparently interested in divine things say of Saul, Then he did not need a Saviour. He had not broken a commandment, but he had a will. It is a remarkable fact in the history of souls, that you find that those who have led the most amiable lives, and in whom no bad conduct can be traced, when they come to understand and accept the gospel, have a deeper sense of sin and a deeper sense of grace than the man who has led a reckless life. The latter is occupied with deliverance from his sins, while what marks the man who knows what it is to be delivered from his own will is that he is occupied not so much with the deliverance as with the Deliverer. A man who has lived what you would call a reckless life, when he knows that he is delivered from his sins, dwells on the great deliverance that he has had; but I say that an amiable person, who like the young man in Mark 10 has not done anything openly wrong, when he comes to discover that he has a will opposed to God’s will, has a deeper sense of the grace that has delivered him from himself, from all that he might rest in as a man, than the one who has lived a sinful life. You may doubt this, but you will find it to be true. And why? Because the former has been delivered not merely from his sins but from himself - [p. 175] from what he might glory in as a man. The young man in the gospels was like Saul; touching the law he was blameless, and it is said of our Lord that He “loved him”. But what did the Lord’s words to him expose? That he had a will; for when He said to him, “Take up the cross, and follow me”, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions; he went away because he had a will. The discovery of this is the thing that really breaks a man’s heart. He finds, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do”, Romans 7: 19. In short, he finds that he has a will. The Lord wants you to go to the right hand, and you want to go to the left. That is what breaks the heart of a really godly soul. That is what he wants to get clear of, and that is what properly results in death to sin. As I have said already, I cannot give you a better illustration of a man dead to sin than Jonah in the whale. He is alive but he is completely under the control of another. And whose control am I under? The One who saved me out of death; the One who saved me out of what was due to my will. That is the One who has control of me now.
Now I turn to Saul of Tarsus. Here is this man who never broke a commandment, and yet what God was most set for, Saul was most set against. He was very commendable as a Jew; he was a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, and he was highly esteemed among men; but the light comes from God, and where is he now? He falls to the earth. This man, held in such esteem among men, and who had such confidence as to himself, such a good conscience that he could say, “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day”, when light comes out of heaven from God, is struck to the ground. That is conversion. But what a distressing moment that was to him when he found that he could not stand in the presence of God; he could not meet the light of God. The light shone into his soul out of the glory, and he heard the voice [p. 176] of Jesus (think of the grace of that!) saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” “Who art thou, Lord?” he says. “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest”. Then he cries out, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”
Now, mind you, there are the two things. The work of God has begun with Saul. The light has shone into his soul, the light from the glory out of heaven shines down to him here. But not only that; he has heard the voice of Jesus, and he says, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” And the Lord said, “Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do”. And what follows? He is blinded, and is “three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink”. What was he doing? I believe in those three days he was appropriating the death of Christ, entering into the reality of it. Some of us may take three years to learn this, some thirty years, others never learn it till their death-bed, but learn it we must. What I want to show you is how the full effect of the gospel and the enjoyment of salvation is hindered in souls, and that to learn this is more than being converted. Jonah was converted before he was in the whale’s belly, and there was a work of grace in Saul of Tarsus when he was struck to the earth; but he is not in salvation yet, he is not clear of death yet; and he has to learn it, and so must we. You get the same thing illustrated in the children of Israel when they walked through the Red Sea (Exodus 14) which was typically the death of Christ; they did not make the way through the sea, but they walked in it. That is what I want you to do. I want you to appropriate the death of Christ. It is the only way to get clear of your will. When Israel crossed the Jordan there was no water at all. But there was water at the Red Sea. They went through upon dry ground, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. This is to teach you that through the [p. 177] death of Christ you are clear of all that is contrary to God. It is there that Israel is saved not only from Egypt but from the Egyptians, and they can sing, “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”, Exodus 15: 1. All their enemies “sank as lead in the mighty waters”. The way is made for you through the sea, but you must walk in it. Why do people not walk through it, why do they not appropriate the death of Christ? Because they have not a sense of the judgment that rests on them, they have not really accepted the sentence of death. They have believed, and have really turned to God, and no doubt they are resting upon the work of Christ; but, as I was pressing last week, they are satisfied with the relief of knowing that their sins are forgiven, and they stop short there; they have not come to God. Their happiness consists in relief, and they do not go on to the joy of acceptance with God.
I do not want to put a burden upon any of you; on the contrary, my one great desire is to show you that the only way out of judgment is Christ’s death; but you must appropriate the reality of it. It is a solemn moment when you enter into the great reality that all has gone in Christ’s death. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you”, John 6: 53. The nature and cause of the distance between God and the sinner is sin - will; the only way out of it is death. “The wages of sin is death”, Romans 6: 23. It must go in judgment. If you bore the judgment you would be lost, but Christ has borne it. Christ’s death has opened a way out of my death. May your souls enter into the great reality of that fact. Then, though like Jonah you will say, “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains: the earth with her bars was about me”, you will find that the way out of it is the death of Christ, that Christ Himself has opened the way out of it, and therefore that as [p. 178] you appropriate that way you are out of it, and if you are out of it, you are clear before God of the thing that caused the distance between you and Him, which is sin - will. When practically you come to the end of yourself, and say, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7: 24) you find the Deliverer, and can say, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord”, (verse 25). You see it was Christ Himself who opened the way for you out of it. No doubt Saul of Tarsus learned that in those three days. He had been truly acting up to the law, and now he found out that with all his good conduct he was terribly opposed to God, but that in the death of Christ he was clear of that man - clear of Saul altogether.
Souls are hindered in a very insidious way. Salvation is said to be that we accept that Christ died for us and cleared us from sin in the sight of God, and that is all. But it is not all. You have to learn that what caused the distance between God and you is gone in the death of Christ. This is what Saul learnt; he found that the whole thing which had caused the distance between him and God was gone for God, and therefore it was gone for him. Therefore he could say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”, Galatians 6: 14. We have seen it in figure in Jonah, when after being in the whale he is upon the dry land; he is out of death; but in Saul we see it more fully. After those three days of darkness he receives his sight, and is filled with the Holy Spirit; he begins a new history. What was the turning-point? “Behold, he prayeth”. “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found”, Psalm 32: 6. Saul, who had thought himself so incomparably good, had found that he had a will that was against God, so that he calls himself afterwards the chief of sinners; but he had got clear of it. How? By the death of Christ. It was a solemn [p. 179] moment for him, but one which I believe we have all to learn in order to enter into the greatness of God’s salvation. I do not think it possible for a person to understand truly what God’s salvation is unless he has learned this. As an old writer (John Bunyan) has said, ‘God always begins on the bass note.’ Be assured that where there is a deep work in any soul, that soul has apprehended the greatness of the distance, and the character of the distance between himself and God; and what he wants is to see that distance removed; and when he finds that it is removed, it dawns on his soul like the bright shining of the sun after rain. The Sun of righteousness arises on his soul with healing in His wings, and he can say, like Jonah, “Salvation is of the Lord”; and, as with Saul of Tarsus, he receives the Holy Spirit. Ananias comes and lays his hand upon Saul and says, “The Lord has sent me, Jesus that appeared to thee in the way in which thou camest, that thou mightest see, and be filled with the Holy Spirit”. Can anyone take in for a moment the greatness of that?
It was after Israel had walked through the Red Sea that they sang the song, “The Lord ... hath triumphed gloriously”. It is God they are occupied with now; and so it will be with you when you are on the other side of death. What is the other side? The other side is CHRIST RISEN. It is not only that by Christ’s death I have got free of all that is contrary to God, but I am in His life on the other side of death, “Out of death into life”. Even if you could say, I have not broken the law, “all these things have I kept from my youth up”, still the question is whether you have got a will that would have its own way instead of God’s way. That is the question that comes out practically in the experience of the soul that discovers that “when I would do good, evil is present with me”, and the consequence is that there is the agonising cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” And the answer to it is, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord”. This is what Saul of Tarsus learned - he who thought himself so incomparably good - that in the death of Christ he was clear of it all, clear of that man altogether. And now he comes out, not as an improved man, but a man in the Spirit of God. You may say to me, How do you prove that the man is changed? I say that he comes out in a different way altogether, not as an amiable character, but as one characterised by the Spirit of God. He had learnt that all of Saul is gone in the cross, but he had found Another - the blessed Lord - and he had a link with Him, and that link is the Spirit of God. There is no link with Christ but the Spirit. The real proof that you have had to do with Christ risen is that you have received the Holy Spirit. If you ask me, how do you get it? I say, If you come to Him you will get it; your eye turns to Him, you come to Him, and He answers the faith that comes to Him by giving you the “living water” - the Spirit of God, as He says, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”, John 4: 14. You have the fulness of God’s salvation set forth in its perfection in the case of Saul of Tarsus. He is a pattern man, his conversion is told three times in the Acts; it is not only that he is cleared, but he is in a new power. Those are the two things that I want to press on you. We have seen it in type in Jonah. He is not only out of death, the waters of death, but he is on dry land, on new ground; and now the Lord says to him, Do as I bid thee. Again we have a type of it in Israel when they had walked through the Red Sea, and when on the other side of it they sing of God’s salvation. But in Saul we get still more beautifully the way of grace set forth. That man who in the sight of men was unblameable, and to his own conscience [p. 181] science unblameable, when he comes into the presence of God finds he has no standing, and falls to the earth confounded because he cannot stand in the presence of God. He finds that the man he thought so much of is a man that has a will of his own, and that practically he is the chief of sinners, that there is no way of escape for him but in the death of Christ; and he appropriates the death of Christ, and he is absorbed with the greatness of the fact that he has to travel through that death, out of the death that was due to himself. He is not only clear, but on new ground, and receives from Christ the Spirit as the bond with Himself. What a wonderful difference there was in Saul! We read a little further on that he went into the synagogue and preached that “Jesus ... is the Son of God”, Acts 9: 20. He has been turned round, as it were; he has learned that the old Saul has gone in the cross; and does he regret it? No, he can say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world”, Galatians 6: 14. It is not only that his sins are gone, but he himself is a gone man, gone in the death of Christ. He has gone to his own funeral in that sense, and is glad to be free of himself. And now what has he found? He has found Another. And what is his link with Him? It is the Holy Spirit. There is no other bond with Christ than the Spirit. It is not a link of the flesh. That was the link I had with my old self. The link I have with the blessed Lord is the Spirit. What a moment of incomparable blessing it was to Saul! What joy of salvation he had when he could say, I am not only clear of that man that has offended against God, but I am in the power of the blessed One who has accomplished all the deliverance. I am not only saved, but I have the Holy Spirit in me. Is that the case with every one of you who believe in Christ? If your eye rests on Christ risen, you are clear. You are on new ground, and you receive from Him the Spirit as the [p. 182] bond with Himself. See what the grace of the blessed God is! He has sent His own Son to remove the distance between the sinner and Himself, and not only to remove it, but to set him in the grace and power of the very One who has effected his salvation.
The Lord grant that each heart here may not shrink from the waters of the Red Sea, but may walk through it - that is to say, may not shrink from appropriating the death of Christ. If this has been gone through you will find, when you come to your own death-bed, when you come to pass out of this world, that there is no water in Jordan - no judgment there. You have tasted it in the death of Christ. He went down into death and bore the judgment. You appropriate His death, and you are clear of it. You are on new ground at the other side of death - you see Him risen and you receive from Him the Holy Spirit. The morning of everlasting joy has dawned on your soul. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning”, Psalm 30: 5.
The Lord grant that each heart here may understand the magnificence of God’s salvation, and see that you are not only clear in the death of Christ of the man that has offended against Him, but that you are in the grace and power and blessedness of that Man who has accomplished it, so that you have a new history, and a new course upon the earth. May it be so, for His name’s sake.