CHRIST CRUCIFIED AND CHRIST GLORIFIED
[p. 5] CHRIST CRUCIFIED AND CHRIST GLORIFIED
Any reader can see in this scripture that there are two aspects of our Lord perfectly distinct the one from the other: the Jonah aspect, and the Solomon aspect. The Lord Jesus Christ is greater than either. Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly - that sets forth the death of Christ; while Solomon sets forth His glory - He was the “greater than Solomon”. We have to learn Christ in both these aspects. If you have not learnt Him in the first, you cannot learn Him in the second. I press that you must learn the first completely before you can reach the second. Christ once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. The judgment of God on man must be first removed in judgment. Many are in comparative darkness, because they do not see that the man under judgment has been terminated judicially in the cross for the believer. God never revives that man. That which was under judgment has been removed in judgment. The resurrection of Christ is not merely a receipt that your sins are atoned for, but that a Man after a new order has come up out of death, no more according to the flesh, so that for the believer, not only is the mortgage on the house paid off (speaking figuratively), but every stone of the house has come down, and a new one is built on the same spot, but with none of the old material. “We have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”, 2 Corinthians 5: 1. Many are trying to beautify the old. It is in Christ’s resurrection that the clearance was effected, “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification”, Romans 4: 25. We are no [p. 6] longer of Adam but of Christ. You are transferred from Adam to Christ; Romans 5.
The prodigal was surprised at his father’s reception of him; he could say, ‘My father is on the best of terms with me!’ If the shepherd had not gone out, the father could not have come out. God was the first relieved of the distance which sin had caused. Christ bore the judgment and glorified God in the most distant spot. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13: 31). The man under judgment has gone, for every believer, from the eye of God in judgment, and hence that man could not righteously be revived. The apostle says of himself, “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2: 20). The youngest believer should be able to say, The man under judgment has gone from the eye of God. In the early verses of Romans 5 we read how God is toward us. In chapter 8 it is how we are in Christ before Him. In Romans 6: 6 we read, “Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him”. Do you believe it? Do you believe that the body of sin has been destroyed? It is by the Spirit of God that you are free from the law of sin and death. You will not progress until you are free in the liberty of the Spirit.
There are three classes of christians. The first do not know how to be dead to sin. The second class do know, but they do not walk in it. The third are always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. “If, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8: 13). Are you occupied with the Spirit instead of with the flesh? I am dwelling much on this, because there is no progress until you are free. The Spirit of God first sets you free from yourself before God. The Corinthians and Galatians both had the Spirit, but neither were in the liberty of the Spirit, and therefore they could not enjoy the Lord.
First, then, you are clear of the old man altogether by the death of Christ. He has risen out from among [p. 7] the dead. Now where is He? Would you like to see Him who saved you? Where is He? In John 1 the two disciples heard John speak, and following Jesus, they asked, “Where dwellest thou?” Jesus said, “Come and see”.
I cannot tell you what an effect it had on me when I learned that there was a power in me greater than the flesh.
The queen of Sheba travelled through the desert to see Solomon, and she communed with him of all that was in her heart. When the apostle would restore the Corinthians he writes “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3: 18). As soon as you are clear through the work of Christ of all that lay upon you, you look up as Stephen did. When the Spirit is ruling, your eye is on Christ, and then an entirely new class of interests will claim you. The queen of Sheba is not occupied with the great buildings at Jerusalem, but with Solomon’s things. She was made acquainted with the interior of his house. Then “there was no more spirit in her”. You are transformed by beholding the Lord’s glory. Make Him in His glory paramount, and He will influence you for Himself. When you are beholding the glory of the Lord, there is no place for the flesh. It is not merely by reading and praying, it is by beholding the Lord’s glory.
I do not know how we could get on without our Solomon. Whatever the difficulty, whatever the question, He is the resource. To know Christ as your Head, where there is no human voice, is much more than to know the Saviour in glory; but you must know Him first as the Saviour in glory. You cannot know the effect of beholding Him until you try it. One effect you read of in 2 Corinthians 4: 10 is, “always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the [p. 8] life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body”.
There is a moment in the soul’s history when you can say, God is so absolutely for me that I must be absolutely for Him. You have to do with Christ in glory who has removed the judgment on man.
Isaiah was repelled by the glory. He said, “Woe is me ... mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6: 5). Then came the live coal. There is no live coal now. The nearer you are to Him the better off you are. I often think when I see a man in darkness, I wish I could push that man into the glory. I feel nothing but the Spirit of God - (language fails) - can show you that the nearer you come the better off you are.
In conclusion, the apostle says, “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).
Jonathan rejoiced that Goliath was gone. May each one of you rejoice that the man under judgment has gone, and that Christ - the glorified Man, the “greater than Solomon” - is the only source of your life and your every blessing, for His name’s sake.
[p. 9] THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN US (Four readings)