"PART WITH ME".

“PART WITH ME”.

In John 13: 8 the Lord said, “Unless I wash thee, thou hast not part with me”. We must be His brethren in order to have part with Him. We are “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling”. You must first accept the truth, and then look to the Lord to lead you into it. You are brethren of Him who is not here; you are associated with Him, and you have to know this in order to be with Him. You learn in Hebrews that when you are with Him, you are borne above the pressure of circumstances here. The “great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God” (Hebrews 4: 14), sympathises with you. He does not alter things here, but He draws you to Himself, just as He did Peter when he was sinking; He stretched ^[p. 392] out His hand to him; He did not smooth the waters, but He drew him to His own side. And thus it is that His sympathy is known. He draws you from the place where the sorrow is; the sorrow is here, and remains here, but He draws you to Himself where there is none. This is not all, for He is the way into the circle, the wonderful bright circle where He is the “great priest over the house of God” in the holiest of all. This is the assembly, and there you are with Him. You could not be with Him risen from the dead but at the other side of death. To break bread and drink the cup in remembrance of Christ’s death is not coming to Him, the living Stone. In order to come you must come to Him where He is, and He is at the other side of death. Then you not only know Him as the One who said, “On this rock I will build my assembly” (Matthew 16: 18), but you know Him as He is in the assembly according to His words, “I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises” (Hebrews 2: 12). I recapitulate a little, for I want you to follow as far as I have gone. First, reconciliation, “Old things have passed away; behold all things have become new”; you are a new creation, you have received the Holy Spirit, you are not in the flesh, you are “in Christ”; and not only are you the brethren of Christ, but you are with Him. Now with Christ you are learning, in association with Himself, to be in moral correspondence to Him. Then the heart becomes acquainted with the greatness of being brought to God; and I trust you will see that it is as you are acquainted with Him, beholding His glory, that you are “transformed according to the same image”. It could not be effected otherwise; you have left the old order of things and are learning now that all is of God. The apostle can say after thirty years, “that I may know him”. I feel that when anyone is going on, he is set on knowing Christ; you learn Him as you are with Him. And this is the special blessing in the ^[p. 393] assembly, but that will come before us another evening, if the Lord permit. The central blessing in the assembly is that you are in His presence, and you acquire in His presence what you could not acquire anywhere else; beholding the Lord’s glory in His own circle, you necessarily acquire suitability to Him.

I trust, beloved friends, that you are looking to the Lord that you may understand this - that you are an entirely new order of being, a new creation. “Old things have passed away”. I have dwelt long on this because many christians are trying to be according to God’s people on the earth, the law written in their hearts. I say, No, His own are now associated with Him inside the veil. He has been rejected by the world, and no one can be owned of God on this earth who is not of Christ; and if you are of Christ you join Him in the place where He is.