NOT SINS BUT INFIRMITIES
(IN THEIR RELATION TO PRAYER)
If through grace we are not in the region of our sins and self-will, wherein we once lived, but are delivered from the moral atmosphere of all that condition, we are still in the place where infirmities are known. Prayer is with regard to them and in view of them.
Prayer is asking God’s intervention. It is evidently not the atmosphere breathed by the dweller in “this present evil world”, Gal 1: 4. In that sphere God is unknown. Neither is it the atmosphere of heaven where not only sins but also infirmities cannot intrude. The inhabitants of this evil world sphere, and the inhabitants of “that world” (Luke 20: 35)—ie of heaven—are evidently both alike outside the region of prayer.
Yet prayer is truly called the Christian’s ‘vital breath’, as long as he is here in (not of) this world! It forms for him a secure middle atmosphere, so to speak, between “this present evil world” (Gal 1: 4) and “that world”, or the resurrection scene—his eternal home. He can breathe freely in it. A very large part of the time of the believer must be spent in this atmosphere, and if he does not pray, and pray “without ceasing” (1 Thess 5: 17) too, he must faint. He ought “always to pray, and not to faint”, Luke 18: 1. The atmosphere breathed now by him, as I think that I shall be able to shew, is that which I call the atmosphere of prayer.
First of all, I think that there was for all of us the moral atmosphere of this world, that of sin and of self-will, in which we once lived. I think it is very clear that we did not pray then. We were living “having no hope, and without God in the world”, Eph 2: 12. But through grace we are not thus living today.
Then there is, I think, for saints the privilege of breathing at times the atmosphere of heaven while we are still on earth. It is what I understand by being in the “holiest of all”, into which we are exhorted to enter with boldness, Heb 9. Our new life belongs to this region.
Prayer is evidently out of place here. We are in the company of Christ as “they who are sanctified” (Heb 2: 11), and of whom He is not ashamed because they are “all of one” with Himself! Heaven (to me) is unfolded in three words: “with the Lord”, and this is also what characterises the “holiest”. It is the one spot as near to heaven as we can get on earth, with our present unchanged bodies. In the Holiest we do not meet either sins or infirmities, and there is nothing to pray for in His company there.
But as I said, there are times (and they form a large proportion of every Christian’s daily life) when we are neither conscious of being in the atmosphere wherein we once lived, nor in that to which we really belong. It is then that we breathe this middle atmosphere, the atmosphere of prayer. And if we do not breathe it, we breathe what? Alas! Murmurs and discontents too often betray us.
Prayer is not with regard to sins. There is confession of sins, but I could not call that prayer. Prayer goes up on account of infirmities, see Heb 4: 15, 16. Christ, the Head, is in heaven, but His body, the church (Eph 1: 23), composed of all the saints, is on earth. This is an accident, but it explains why infirmities beset us. What then are infirmities? Infirmities are not sins; they refer, as I understand them, not to what is evil, but to all those things which are incidental to us as in this present tabernacle—the body, which (in its present state) is not our eternal house !
Because I am on earth, I have to meet every day with many things that I shall not meet with when I am in heaven, and whatever they are, I am, in my own strength, totally unable to meet them without being brought under their influence. And what is their influence? Their influence is to limit my vision to the present by confining it wholly to their own circle.
Hence the Lord wants me continuously to refer to Him about them. This is prayer. This, to me, is the teaching of Heb 4: 15, 16. Mercy is obtained and grace is found thus by me in coming to Him in this my “time of need”. I am relieved of the downward pressure of my present infirmities. I cannot afford to leave Christ out of one single moment, or out of one single incident, in my present life on earth, simple as I may consider that moment or that incident to be. No, I have no strength against these every-day calls upon me, apart from Him. It is a lesson hard to learn, but it is a plain one: I have no strength for what I have to meet today without Christ!
I think that many a dark spot in the past of our history, and many a dark spot in our future would have become, and will become, illuminated to us by PRAYER. Remember that I am not speaking of our sins, but of our infirmities.
Prayer is as to my infirmities in relation first to God’s house, then secondly to my own house, and then thirdly to the world at large.
God grant that we may distinguish these things. I once lost all my sins, and it was when I came to Christ as a poor sinner. All that dark history, the history of sin and sins, the story of the root and its fruit, ALL came to an end for ever for God and for me in the death of Christ! But I lose my infirmities only when I come to Him as the “high priest” of Heb 4: 15, 16.
And there is another blessed and often proved consequence of coming to Him in prayer. I get consciously near to Him in it. And the more nearly I approach to Him in this attitude, the more the sense and pressure of the infirmities, about which I came to Him, vanish. Then He fills the whole sphere of my vision instead. Prayer is thus the vestibule of the holiest, that is, I enter through it the place where Christ is found alone, “all and in all”, Col 3: 11. I do not understand any one reaching in the consciousness of his soul the holiest, if he knows but little of the middle atmosphere of prayer of which I speak, I do not mean that you must have a prayer meeting immediately before you enter the holiest, but I do not think you will enter it if you do not habitually breathe the atmosphere of prayer. I feel that the little entrance of many of us into the holiest consciously is on account of the neglect of prayer. If Christian people are not relieved of the pressure of their infirmities, they cannot enjoy their true portion. They feel that they are not fitted to enter the holiest. Any one may see that the order given in the Epistle to the Hebrews is this.
(1) Sin and sins are for ever settled for God by the work of Christ. (See Heb 1: 3 and 9: 26.) Those questions are never again going to be taken up by Him. Christ has sat down with regard to them both, see again Heb 1: 3; 10: 18-26. Then—
(2) the question of infirmities and how I can be relieved of them is solved by my coming to the High Priest, see Heb 4: 15, 16.)
And both of these being settled, I am prepared to be led by Him, the “great Priest” (Heb 10: 21 NT), into present association—
(3) with Himself in the holiest of all, see Heb 10: 19, 20.
May the Lord give us some little apprehension of the magnitude of these things and of His grace and desire for us. May we know the present good of this middle atmosphere so as to be kept consciously relieved of infirmities, and thus be fitted companions for Him who, thank God! is even now and for ever, with ALL POWER in heaven and earth committed to Him, outside of them both. May we come continually to Him in prayer who invites us, and also come boldly, that is, without fear!
From Helps for the Poor of the Flock—vol 4, 1899
