The Son on Earth as Man
There is a love which never fails,
A love He ne’er forgot,
A quietude no foe assails,
The Father changeth not!
Blest God and Father, keep us now
In memory of our lot11,
Where brethren all in sonship bow,
The Father changeth not!
From Mutual Comfort—vol 10, 1917
Extract
My point was, and is still, that the love of the Father was ever and fully appreciated by the Son, as Man down here, and that He has left us here in the same relationship. He ever lived in this “comfort of love” (Phil 2), and so He does still as Man up there. This is the whole point. There was a time in your history and also in mine when the “world” not the “Father’’ (the two are always in contrast in scripture), filled your souls’ vision. But what is it now? It is not so, what a mercy! You have come near to Him, and you hear and enjoy and partake in the “music and dancing” of the Father’s house, Luke 15. We have to keep it before us.
From Mutual Comfort—vol 10, 1917
COMFORT
(GOD’S PURPOSE IN CHRIST,
THE LAST ADAM AND SECOND MAN)
I do not see yet the immediate fulfilment of the word of prophecy. I see that everything for God and man hangs upon the incoming of “the second Man”. That Man has come. “The Son of God is come”, 1 John 5: 20. He is “last Adam” and “second man” (1 Cor 15), and I see also that by the presence of the Holy Spirit God is now maintaining down here the light of all His purposes respecting Him, both for heaven and earth. I think this is for very great and present comfort.
When the Gentile fourth beast of Daniel 2 and 7 (Roman ‘Imperialism’) came before God in its last and worst form, in Cæsar, both Jew and Gentile united in crucifying Christ the “second man”: then the first man and his hatred to God became fully manifested. Then God EXALTED the “second man” to sit at His right hand, until He should make “his enemies his footstool”, and the Holy Ghost came down to maintain the confession of Christ in man down here before God, and He is doing this at this day.
Having brought in the “second man”, God refuses the first man in every one. He says to all in Ezekiel 21: 27 NT, “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it! … until he come whose right it is; and I will give it to him”. And also to all such He says, “The Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him”, in Isaiah 59. There will be a diabolical, future revival of this last blasphemous form of opposition of the Latin or Roman12 fourth beast to God, and this is what is here referred to in the last day, compare Dan 7: 13, 14, 23-27, with Rev 13 and Rev 17: 8, 18. “The (fourth) beast … was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss, and go into destruction” (NT).
“Be still, and know that I am God”, Ps 46: 10. God is calmly and unswervingly pursuing His course, He is about to complete the removal TO HIMSELF of “the second man”, the man-child of 1 Sam 1 and Rev 12: 5. The Holy Ghost is down here, and believers are in all the present comfort of it if they are in the light of what is in the heart of God for them. May I suggest that the light of God (long known in His house) should draw all His people to Him now in holy confidence; but in true brokenness of spirit and humility, for all men in “prayer and intercession”, 1 Sam 1; 2; 3; Ps 1; 2; Luke 1, 2 and 1 Tim 1; 2; 3: 15.
From Mutual Comfort—vol 11, 1918
“IT IS THE LAST HOUR”
(1 John 2)
As to the active side, God has spoken His last word —CHRIST, and He is doing His last act—forming Christ in men by the Holy Spirit; and as to the passive, the Spirit adds one word more, “The world passeth away”.
In the unseen system of things God’s word, and His activity, come into display and all and only the invisible things remain. This unseen system of things is present. What a mercy to belong to it!
From Mutual Comfort—vol 11, 1918