GOD IN CHRIST JESUS
[p. 307] GOD IN CHRIST JESUS
I was speaking a little last week about the platform on which God has set Himself to accomplish the purposes of His love. It is important to apprehend this, though many might not enter into the thought just at once. It is difficult to some minds to grasp the idea of a moral basis or platform, whether on our side or on God’s side. But it is true that there is a platform on which God acts on His side, and which we occupy on ours. As natural men, we have not as Gentiles any platform to stand upon with God; apart from the grace of God we stand simply as units or individuals. But in Colossians we find the saints, i.e., Gentiles, spoken of as “risen with Christ”, and that is a platform. No one would for a moment maintain that we are actually risen with Christ, but Scripture regards saints as on that platform. You do not really reach God till you reach Him there, for the simple reason that He presents Himself there only. He will not have to say to us as in this world.
I want to enlarge a little now on the light and character in which God shows Himself to us. I do not wish to go into the point of the ground we occupy, but of the way in which God shows Himself.
The key to the first two chapters of Ephesians, I think, will be found in the use of the expression, “In Christ Jesus”. The one chapter is a contrast to the other in regard of this. In chapter 1 it is God in Christ Jesus who is before us. In chapter 2 we have what we are before God in Christ Jesus as the fruit of His power. But it is as wishing to show what God is toward us in Christ Jesus that I have taken up chapter 1.
In looking into Scripture I see three platforms of God’s dealings with men:
- [p. 308] Looking back, we see that God has taken up man on the platform of responsibility.
- Looking at the future, we see God taking the platform of judgment, and man will have to meet Him there.
- Now resurrection is the platform of this moment, and it is of a totally different kind from those I have spoken of. God now presents Himself to us on this ground. I think many Christians hold God virtually at a distance, but if we desire to know Him intimately we must meet Him on this platform. We must accept that we are “risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead”. (Colossians 2: 12.) What you find there is that you are associated with Christ, and consequently loved with the love wherewith He is loved. Christ cannot be known after the flesh, as the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, and hence, “If any one be in Christ there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”. (2 Corinthians 5: 17.) The ground is entirely changed.
Both these platforms are necessary. It was needful in the past that God should take the platform of responsibility in His ways with man, in order to demonstrate man’s state, and it will be needful in the future for Him to take the platform of judgment for His glory; for it is there that the question of good and evil must find its final solution.
Now, looking for a moment at the platform of responsibility, I would enquire, What is the principle of it? It is a help to get hold of the principle of a thing, for often when you seize the principle you can see the form of the thing itself. Now the principle of the platform of responsibility is law, that is, requirement. God there required from man what was his duty to God. Man’s duty to God was to love Him with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself. The effect of this was to bring all on this platform under the curse [p. 309] of a broken law. We get the answer to it in grace in Galatians 4: 4, 5. Christ has redeemed from the curse of the law; but the effect of God’s taking the platform of responsibility with man was, in the first instance, to bring everyone under the curse. Man was already subject to death, and law made matters, if possible, worse by bringing in the curse. Christ was made a curse — “for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Galatians 3: 13) — in order that the curse might be removed.
Now the platform of judgment is marked by reward. This is its principle. It certainly is not there a question of grace nor requirement, but of reward. Every man receives the due reward of his deeds. (Matthew 16: 27.)
I do not think anyone would care advisedly to meet God on either of these platforms. I would not like to accept the platform of responsibility, for it is not natural for me to love God with all my heart, nor my neighbour as myself. Indeed, I have often, as a Christian, to judge myself, which is a plain proof that I am not up to God’s requirements, for to judge myself means that I have allowed something which is not suited even to God’s law. On the other hand, I would not like to meet God in judgment, though I know we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, but that is to receive His estimate of the things done in the body — not their reward. No, I would not like to have to say to God on that ground.
Now the principle of the platform of resurrection is triumph, as seen in the glorious power of God, that brings life out of death. God entered into conflict with death and Satan’s power, and triumphed in resurrection, so that they have been annulled for Him. It is enormously important to see that God occupies this platform, and that death which was God’s judgment and the secret of Satan’s power, has been overcome; and the triumph of God is revealed in resurrection.
As an illustration of this I would remind you of the [p. 310] song of Moses when the Red Sea was passed. This song is really the celebration of God’s triumph over death and Satan’s power, for Pharaoh represents typically the power of the enemy, Satan: and the Red Sea represents the waters of death. “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously”, etc. With the destruction of death as God’s judgment the enemy’s power was destroyed. This is what Christ’s resurrection imparts.
But if we thus see God’s power, it is important to apprehend that His power is at the disposal of His love. It was His love led Him to triumph. God’s triumph in resurrection is the fruit of His love. The apostle prays (Ephesians 1: 20) that the greatness of God’s power towards us who believe may be known by saints, for it has been put in exercise. “For his great love wherewith he loved us”. You can understand that nothing originates in God’s power, but everything originates in His love, for He is love; His power is an attribute. I would like, for myself, that everything I did should be the outcome of love.
Sin and flesh have been removed from under God’s eye, and thus it is that God’s power is displayed on the ground of resurrection. If you want a text to prove this I refer you to Romans 8: 3: “God having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh: in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh, but according to Spirit”. (N.T.) By the righteous requirement of the law is meant the loving God with all the heart, and one’s neighbour as oneself. This is fulfilled in us in a power outside of the flesh — the fruit of resurrection.
What God has condemned is never revived. Our old man is crucified, not revived; sin is not revived, nor the flesh. God never forgave sin; what He did was to remove it from under His eye by sacrifice; it is condemned — gone. Hence the triumph of God in [p. 311] resurrection in bringing life out of death. God’s power is manifested towards us in order to carry out in us all the blessed purpose of His love; He works on the ground of resurrection to carry out His purpose of love.
In the passage I read from Ephesians 1, you will find four thoughts:
- Redemption.
- The knowledge of God’s will.
- Inheritance.
- The Spirit as earnest of our inheritance.
God shows us here what He has done for us in Christ. It is in Christ that we get the light in which God presents Himself to us; this is a most important side of things. It is evidently only in Christ that God can present Himself on the platform of resurrection. Who else is risen but Christ? Now I want you to notice that each of these four points presents something outside the course of things down here, and for the reason that all are on the ground of resurrection. I believe that in the millennium God will put things on the resurrection platform. Death will be swallowed up in victory, and hence man will rightly look to be blessed here. But it is not so now. The only way in which the natural man can pretend to know God is through His providence, but providence is really a veil behind which God is hid. You may often see a wicked man prospering in the world. I do not pretend to understand God’s providence, but I accept it. Job was stripped of all he had in the providence of God; and just so it may be with us. God knows how to turn all things to account; but providence is a veil, and the unconverted man cannot go beyond this veil.
But Christ, as Forerunner, has gone within the veil. All that in which God presents Himself to us in Him is outside of His providence. To take (1) redemption,
[p. 312] the forgiveness of sins. If we had these in God’s providence the mark of it would be that we were not subject to death. This will come out in the millennium, when death will be swallowed up in victory. We are subject to death now; but God reveals Himself in grace on the platform of resurrection in Christ Jesus, who has been raised again for our justification. What would be the use of telling a man of the world that I had forgiveness of sins? I could not prove it to him. He would most likely say he was as good as me, or think me most presumptuous. But it is good for me, because I am in the light of Christ Jesus, and I can testify that forgiveness is there in His name.
Next take the mystery of God’s will. This is not for accomplishment in the present, but for the “dispensation of the fulness of times”. Hence God’s will refers to things entirely outside the course of the world. All things are to be gathered up in one in Christ (verse 10). That is not the present providential order of things. There is no mystery about God’s will when displayed as there is about providence, but it is quite outside the present course of God’s dealings.
Thus we have redemption — and that is a big word, for it goes on to the redemption of the body — and God has made known to us the mystery of His will.
The next point is the inheritance. Now we do not enter on the inheritance until Christ gets in. The inheritance has been purchased, but is not yet redeemed; and Christ will not take it up until it is redeemed, but He will redeem it. Would you like to have part in the purchased possession while it is in Satan’s or men’s hands? I do not want any part in it until Christ redeems it. He has purchased it, but not as yet redeemed it.
The fourth point is the earnest of the inheritance — the Spirit. Has the Spirit anything to do with the world, or the course of things down here? “Whom the world cannot receive”, the Lord said to the disciples.
[p. 313] The world has no part in Him. He was never presented to the world as Christ was. His very presence here convicts the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment. He is here because Christ has been rejected, in order to support Christians, and to testify of Him. He came down from Christ in order to conduct the saints to where Christ is in heaven.
And He has another office, and that is to completely supersede the flesh in the believer. Hence the Spirit is in no possible sense connected with the world; for all that is in the world is made up of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now the Spirit has come to set the flesh aside — that is to say, to set aside everything that has connected me with the course of things in the world. What can lust do for us save to suit us for the world? If there were no lust in me the world would not tempt me. But the Spirit is here to set aside this link, so that by the circumcision of Christ we put off the incubus of the flesh, that we may be free.
Thus it is that God presents Himself to us in Christ. Everything is perfect on His side. His triumph is divinely complete. I think Ephesians 1 is full of interest, for it is there that the testimony of what God is in Christ comes out. In chapter 2 we get another side — the truth of what we are in Christ, quickened together with Him, raised up, and made to sit in the heavenlies.
It is important thus to see the platform on which God’s power acts. Everything of grace comes out in Christ with redemption. The mystery of God’s will, the inheritance, and the Spirit.
One word more. If sin and the flesh are removed for God, then their power must go for you and me. They are removed from God’s eye; but if I am to reach God on the platform of resurrection, then sin and flesh must go from my eye. I must learn what sin is, and what freedom from it is; and I must learn, too, what [p. 314] the flesh is, and what it is to have put off the body of it, and thus to be freed from its principle and rule. Many people seem content to put off details merely, but the body of the flesh must go.
I find myself on the resurrection platform, then, in company with Christ and all saints, outside of the whole course of this world and every order of man here, and in the place where Christ leads the praises of His people. Then the next thing will be to come out as gifted by Him in testimony for Him in this world.