THE MANNER OF LIFE TO WHICH WE ARE CALLED
[p. 287] THE MANNER OF LIFE TO WHICH WE ARE CALLED
JBS This is a deeply interesting subject, but it is also a deeply solemn one. We have the same circumstances in the world after conversion as before, therefore how is the world a wilderness? As we sing:
‘This world is a wilderness wide’.
I must confess I approach the subject with timidity, because one is so little in the reality of it. We have got out of Egypt through death and resurrection into a new position, and there is nothing but walking in the power of death and resurrection that can maintain us rightly in that new position.
Ques Do we find Marah here?
JBS The waters of Marah were brackish, they tasted of the Red Sea, Israel could not drink of them; but the tree sweetened them. That is what brings in the manna and the smitten rock. There is no support for you in the wilderness but Christ. They could not drink of the waters of Marah because they were bitter. You must accept death here. If Christ has died for that gratification, could you yield to it? Would you seek it?
FHB Must it not follow that if one is in the enjoyment of the life of Christ, the world is to that one “a dry and thirsty land, where no water is”?
JBS No doubt; but what we have to remember is that there are the same opportunities after conversion as before to enjoy the world. I have not found many who have realised the world to be a scene of death.
In Peter we get, “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise [p. 288] with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin”, (1 Peter 4: 1); that is, from doing it. This does not go so far as Romans 6: 11, where it is “dead to sin”. If you had come from a very happy half-hour with the Lord in your own room, into a garden laid out with every natural beauty, you would be distracted. Even your own family circle does not help you.
FER Do you not think that the little sense we have of Christ’s being rejected here has to do with it?
JBS Quite so. If Christ died for you, and is still the rejected One, surely you would shrink from the scene of His rejection?
Ques What is an idolater?
JBS An idolater is one who enjoys himself in this world in the absence of Christ. If He gave Himself for me to deliver me from this place, how can I enjoy myself in it?
DLH If I apprehend that all my blessings come from the cross of Christ, then the bitter waters are made sweet by the cross.
JBS We want to be like Ruth, able to say, “Where thou diest, will I die”, Ruth 1: 17. Properly, I am in this scene to be identified with His death which delivered me from it. Paul alone speaks of the table, which is the fellowship of His death.
FER There is a great deal in what you were saying, that is, that the alternative to the wilderness is idolatry.
JBS It is clear you appropriated His death to get out of Egypt, and now instead of being identified with that death, you are enjoying yourself.
FER In that sense I should say you may perish in the wilderness; you never enter here into the purpose of God for you.
FHB When it says of the Corinthians, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep”, 1 Corinthians 11: 30 - I suppose that would answer, in a way,
[p. 289] to what is said of Israel - their “carcases fell in the wilderness”?
FER Evidently at Corinth they had not entered into the purpose of God about them. They had reigned as kings without the apostle.
EC If I live through the death of Christ, I must live in another life to the old.
FER Have you any thought as to the manner of life?
JBS The manner of life is entire dependence on God, and that is the manna. My Lord was here and He was sustained here by God. He had everything at His command, and yet was as dependent on God as though He had nothing. He did not find a solitary thing in the wilderness to sustain Him. The whole point for me as a believer is - I want to be sustained as He was. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”, Luke 4: 4.
I have sometimes used as an illustration the case of a sister, who was telling me she had been in a storm at sea. I asked her, What were you thinking of at the time? She answered I was thinking of the Lord in the storm. Then I said, you were not like Him. You must be with Him where He is to be like Him where He was. It is not that you can imitate Christ. But if you are living in His life - the life in which He lived - you are in the path and in the life in which He was upon this earth. The scripture that makes it plain is Galatians 2: 20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”.
DLH I understand that “the faith of the Son of God” is faith in Him where He is now.
JBS Quite so; you must know Him where He is, to be like Him [p. 290] where He was.
EC Association produces assimilation.
DLH What is the difference as to life, as you are now speaking of it, and that which is connected with the brazen serpent?
JBS Many souls know they are cleared of everything by appropriating Christ at the Red Sea, but they do not in that get rid of themselves; in Israel’s case it is only at the end of thirty-nine years they come to the point that they are unmendably bad; for that there is no remedy but the brazen serpent. We can never take our true start as to the manner of life until we come to Numbers 21.
DLH I want to get at the distinction between the life at the beginning of the wilderness and the end of the wilderness. At the beginning they had the manna and the water from the smitten rock.
FER I do not think you get the Spirit, as the Spirit of life, until you come to Numbers 21; they had the manna and the water from the rock (typical of the Spirit) at the outset for refreshment; they were God’s provision for the wilderness. But in Numbers 21 you get the flesh condemned in its principle, and the well of life springing up, and it is then you enter upon proper wilderness experience. In a sense a christian is on both grounds. I think we need to guard against the idea of imitating Christ. It is true we are called to walk as He walked. You cannot do that except by the grace that is in Him, and that comes down from heaven. Hence all through you want the manna, and God is just as good at the beginning of the wilderness as at the end. It was at the beginning before law was given that He showed His grace.
JBS In the New Testament our start in the wilderness is Romans 12. There are three great phases of the manner of life. (1) In Romans 8 you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; (2) in Hebrews 12 you are leaving this place for where Christ is. The [p. 291] idea of running the race is that you are leaving this place to reach a Person who is not here. (3) In Ephesians 4 you are called to come out in your family and walk as a new man. You are the exponents of the tastes and ways of the heavenly Man.
FER I think I can understand a man, first converted and brought to the Lord, being really in the wilderness with the desire to do the will of God, as in Romans 12; but he does not yet know what the Jordan means.
JBS In Romans 6 you are not over the Jordan; you are dead to sin, but not dead to the world; that is Colossians.
Ques Is it not difficult to be dead to the world, and have to do with business every day?
JBS I believe that as a rule a man, if he is in business, has a pressure on him, and he finds it good for him, it serves as ballast to a ship. I have often said, If you give up business, and do not keep your nose to the grindstone, you will be sure to go wrong.
FER The thing to be recognised is that a christian is not here for his business, nor for his family, but for the will of God, though in God’s ordering he may have a family and a business.
FHB 1 think it is a pernicious idea to assume that a christian cannot be in business and yet have the interests of Christ at heart; I may be engaged in the pursuits of this life, but it does not follow that they are the object of my heart.
JBS To be in the experience of Philippians you must have come from heaven. If you are not in Romans you are not in Hebrews; and you cannot reach Ephesians apart from Colossians. What sort of experience should I have if I came from heaven? It is not practice that we have in Philippians; practice is what you do, experience is what you know. But we must, as I have said, all begin as to manner of life with Romans 12.
[p. 292] What the christian requires is to come from heaven to the wilderness; that is Philippians. You will never have a true understanding of anything until you are in it. The sense I have is that if I were so cleared of everything here, and through death with Him so consciously entering into His life in another sphere, living in the power and reality of it, I should be unspeakably happy. Jordan is a privilege to the christian; and for a person who is over it, the Red Sea and Jordan coalesce.
AM What is the difference between the Red Sea and Jordan?
JBS At the Red Sea, I appropriate Christ’s death to clear me before God of judgment and of everything; all is gone in the sight of God. At Jordan I realise Christ’s death as setting me free of everything that is not of God - clearing me of the world.
FER It is important to keep in mind that at the Red Sea it is a question of judgment. At Jordan it is a question of deliverance from the world. It is a totally different thing to appropriate His death to be free of judgment; and to appropriate it to be free from the world.
THR We have an interesting picture in connection with Israel in the wilderness. They first get the will of God given to them - though it was in the way of law; then in Exodus 24 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel go up into the mount; and they see the God of Israel in connection with His glory, and they did eat and drink (representing communion). They touch heavenly ground, and then come down and have to make the tabernacle; and their interests are now bound up with God’s interests; it is then not merely going through the wilderness; it is not my interests that I have at heart; but I have come down here, and His interests are now my delight [p. 293] and concern.
FER Moses was the man of God in the wilderness, and it is in what is seen in him that we find instruction as to the mind of God.
FER Referring to the question of gifts which we had before us last night, will you say what is the nature of a gift?
JBS A gift is some distinct impression that the Lord has given of Himself. I gather the idea from the Lord’s words to Paul, “I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee” (Acts 26: 16).
THR And in it you carry out some grace that is in Christ.
FER Amongst us, those who minister are judged by it. A man is judged by what he can present of Christ.
JBS I used to like to hear J.N.D. going over the same scriptures again and again; but there was always something fresh brought out of it. One should not shrink from presenting the same scripture repeatedly. I find myself constantly referring to the prodigal son, but I as constantly get something fresh out of it. It is not a mere acquaintance with Scripture that we should look for; I do not know any man who is less to be relied on than one who has a great knowledge of the letter of Scripture without the knowledge of the Lord. It is not the man who is a great reader of Scripture, or is, as we say, well up in it, but it is the man who knows the Lord that can present it so as to affect his hearers.
We see in the case of the Lord with the two disciples going to Emmaus, that it was not the exposition of the Scriptures that altered their course. It was only when He revealed Himself to them that that came about. It is Christ’s pleasure to present Himself to you in [p. 294] some distinct way, and to this end He uses gifts. The pastor presents Him in one way and the evangelist in another.
FER No doubt the particular way in which Christ presents Himself to you is that which will characterise your ministry.
Ques What do we learn in the children of Israel coming to the twelve wells of water and the seventy palm trees?
JBS It is ministry; God giving refreshment in the wilderness; showing His care for you.