Appropriation
Appropriation
OR CHRIST—GOD’S PROVISION FOR MAN
“Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God”. This was appropriation. It was the appropriation of God’s Christ, and therefore it was the appropriation of all good, for all good centres in Him.
I have an idea that we only get the good of things by appropriation, and that this is also true as to the things of God. I think we as saints greatly suffer as to divine things by non-appropriation. The Spirit is here but He always conducts to Christ. Why? All good is found from God to man, in Christ, and just as people are conscious of this they will appropriate Christ. This appropriation is the only means which God has provided for our entering into divine good. It can only be known in Him, not in the first man but in the second.
I believe then that Christ is set forth, God’s provision for man. In the gospel Christ is first thus set forth. God approaches man, the sinner, in Christ. In John 1 we see the bread of God’s grace. In Christ God approaches the world that He had made, but “the world knew him not”. In the next verse He narrows the circle. In Christ He approaches “His own” (Israel) (where did He expect to be received if not of them?) “His own received him not”. Yet He was received, and “as many as received him to them gave he the right to be children of God” (John 1: 11, 12 NT), and so it is now, although a work of God within is necessary to every one who receives Him, for man is incapable of appropriating “grace”.
John 6: 51 sets forth what I have before me when I speak of the first appropriation of Christ. It is for life. Christ is seen there in death as the “living bread which came down from heaven”. But He is there “the life” in death and He is this from God that man who is there might appropriate Him. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven, if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”. Eating is appropriation. He who thus appropriates Christ “shall live for ever”. Every believer is in some conscious sense of the good of this first appropriation. He is in the conscious sense of it just in so far as he apprehends the wonderful grace of God and herein there are differences, see Luke 7: 41, the “five hundred” forgiven and the “fifty”.
But if this is the first appropriation of Christ, there are evidently two more.
The next appropriation of Christ will depend greatly on how far I have learnt that though I am in the good of it there is no toleration nor room in this world for Christ. I am pressed on every side in the midst of a scene of opposition within and without and I am driven to Him in it. As a poor sinner I came to Him, and every question of sin and sins—every question of that side was for ever set at rest. And what now?
I appropriate Him secondly as the Priest in heaven for my infirmities (not for my sins), see Heb 4: 15, 16. I am (so to speak) compelled now thus secondly to appropriate Him, because, though I see how eternally settled is all the former question, and that it never can be raised again, I am yet in the midst of this poor scene of defilement. I am in the midst of the activity of sin and sins because yet in the body. I am made conscious in myself of “the sin which doth so easily beset us” (Heb 12: 1), and this drives me to the throne of grace. That is why I said if I am in the sense of the good of the first appropriation of Christ I am compelled or rather I shall be glad to avail myself of the second, because infirmities, though they are not sins, may lead to sins. I appropriate Him who has passed along the road in which I now am, and who is cognisant of all its dearth, and of all the support which a godly man needs while in it. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need”, Heb 4: 16.
May I be excused of my brethren in Christ if I venture to offer a suggestion here? It has greatly struck me that there is a reason why prayer and the prayer meetings are not valued as they should be. And it is this, first, that people have not the sense in their souls that they have appropriated Christ and that for them the question of sin and sins is an eternally settled one, and second, also that this world will not have the Christ they have appropriated. But death has been exchanged for life. Were these more distinctly apprehended, I should see how impossible it is to go on here in the truth of them without this continual appeal to priesthood for my infirmities. And this is seen in prayer. Prayer is a necessity to the believer in his four relations (individually, in God’s house, in my own house, and in the world) of which the epistles fully treat, and in not one of these can we do without prayer if we desire to be in the truth of the death of Christ.
1. Individual prayer, for sin is in me, and my infirmities may lead to it, since I am subject to them.
2. Household prayer. I have a household and can only comfort myself aright in it as I get light and support.
3. House of God prayer. I am in the house of God, and have therein to behave myself and also to minister to the household.
4. World prayer, “for all men”, 1 Tim 2: 1. I am in the world wherein I have to set forth God, in His attitude thereto as made known in the gospel.
Knowing my own feebleness in all these, I am constrained to appeal to a power greater than my own, a power which is adequate, and I bless God for it, to meet me in them all! All these relations are found in Ephesians.
The third appropriation of Christ is my appropriation of Christ where and as He is now. He is personally beyond sin (Egypt) and beyond infirmity (the wilderness) and as the One supreme in the midst of His brethren He is in resurrection on the other side. But there they are with Him! John 20: 17, 19 gives me this side I think, as also does Heb 2: 11, 12. I appropriate Him now as of Him who is Head of the new creation and clear of all. It is evident then that to appropriate Christ thus, I must be in the good of the other two appropriations of Him. And this is the secret of worship. Worship in its highest aspect is not because I am relieved, but because I am filled. In the Old Testament we get “worship”, see Deut 26 &c, but it only went on the ground of being relieved. The worship which the Father seeks now, was not found then, because man was under probation. Now he is not. Man is seen, in the person of Christ now and in the glory of God. He comes into the company of His saints thus on earth, see John 14: 18. He comes to be appropriated, and His appropriation thus, as far as I see, is the only ground and producer of that worship which our God, as Father, now seeks, John 4: 23! I appropriate Him who is not here as with Him there. I believe the whole Trinity to be active now, for your blessing and for mine. The way they are acting is—the Spirit is here and leads to Christ. This begins in the gospel (though there is also a prior work of the Spirit). Then the Lord conducts to the Father as He knows Him now, and He knows Him perfectly as Man in the glory of God, and He is the only one who does. But I see that the Spirit seeks to conduct, not the sinner, but the saint, and not now to relieve him of infirmity, but to Christ the Son of God as HE is, and to Christ where He is!
Mary sought, after His resurrection, to appropriate Him on the old ground. That could not be, and He says, “Touch me not”. He must be known now in resurrection, and in the midst of those whom He is pleased to call His brethren. “Touch me not ... but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father and to my God and your God”, John 20: 17.
He had made known the Father in this world as the One sent of Him, and poor sinners, now His disciples, had been drawn of the Father to Him, John 1: 12. They had heard the Father’s words through Him, John 17: 8. They had appropriated (as far as they could before the Holy Ghost came) the light of God which had reached them in Christ. He says so, John 17: 8. Now they had, as left in the world, to appropriate Him for the infirmities of the way, the opposition that they would find in it. Moreover as His brethren and owned on the other side of death, they had presently to learn also what it was to appropriate Him there and thus, the old scene and its associations left for ever. This comes before us in John 20: 17-22, and that picture has to be also repeated and filled in now by us.
It is only as I appropriate Him in the new sphere and condition in which He is, that I can be led into the good of it. Only He can unfold it. While He was on earth He had declared unto them the Father’s name. “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it”, John 17: 26. This second declaration is in resurrection and He adds to it, “In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee”, Heb 2: 12. He had never associated them with Himself as His brethren on the other side until this moment. Now He does, and He is not ashamed of them. How can we enter into it but by appropriating Him? I know little about it but He knows all the present favour with God in which He is as man. I need Him then as Priest.
I repeat then that I think we are great losers by non-appropriation, and that it accounts for the little sense that we seem to have that we are in His company in the assembly. I do not speak of the local assembly, but of the one assembly of Hebrews 2 in the midst of which He ever is, to declare the Father’s name and to sing praises. He is always there, but are we in the good of His being always there, that is, have we appropriated Him? If so we shall be like old Simeon, He “blessed God, and said” (Luke 2: 28) words which shewed the engrossment of his whole soul with God’s Christ.
Now I recapitulate a little what was in my thought to put before you. Have you fully appropriated Christ? Christ for life, Christ for your infirmities, and Christ as He is to God, now the secret of worship? If I were asked why do we know so little of worship, which the third appropriation brings to, I should say because we are defective as to the appropriation of Christ as He is now, and we are also defective as to the second. We are not sufficiently and continually familiar with the throne of grace, and if asked why are so many saints defective as to it (that is as to prayer and the prayer meetings)? I should say (though it is but my judgment) it is because saints are not sufficiently and continuously familiar with what they have gained God-ward by the death of Christ. This would produce in us the sense of dependence. Divine things all hang together, and it is not a question of our knowledge of certain truths but of the truth, one divine whole in the mind of God and in which He would ever keep us, by the activity of the Spirit ever presenting Christ to us. It will be so in heaven. I judge (whatever defect as to these things may surround us here) that “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor un-circumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all”, see Col 3: 11.
As we appropriate Christ as He is now we pass into unconsciousness as to all that was true of us before this appropriation of Him! We lose it, and this is God’s desire for His saints. “Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more”, Prov 31: 7. We forget the poverty and remember no more the misery. But not only this. We pass also then consciously into that which is true of us in association with Christ. We worship the Father whom as He knows He makes known. This is God’s provision!
From Food for the Faithful—vol 2, 1899
