Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. One
6. STANDING AND ACCEPTANCE IN
CHRIST.
WE have been occupied so far with the work in us - with
new birth and eternal life: things which are in nearer relation to one another
than the views we are examining would at all allow. Yet it is surely true, as
has been stated, and as Scripture fully recognizes, that there is a life we
live, as well as a life by which we live. The life we live is pressed in the
new system, not merely to forgetfulness of the life by which we live, but
actually to the denial of it. The consequence is that the whole thought of
eternal life is lowered. It becomes merely a kind of triumph over death, which
when we enter heaven ceases to be even of much significance! Here is a
conversation which will enlighten us in this respect : -
"Is the expression
'heavenly" included in the idea of eternal life?
"No, I don't think so. I
think eternal life refers to earth. I don't think we should talk about eternal
life in heaven.
"Only we have it there."
"I don't think the term will
have much force there."
"The thing will surely be there."
"WE shall be
there."
"I will have to get this clear, for I don't understand it. How do
you explain as to eternal life? I have understood that a sphere is
included."
"I think it implies a sphere of relationship and blessing, but
that is not necessarily heaven. I don't see much sense in connecting the idea
of eternal life with heaven"
"Well, I don't, but still I have understood
that it is connected with heaven also."
"I don't know the connection. The
point of eternal life is that it comes in where death was. I think it stands in
Scripture in contrast to death."
In another place an objector questions,
and is answered thus : - "I don't understand; do you mean that when we go from
this earth eternal life will cease?"
"I don't think the term has any longer
force. "Is it only the term then?
"What the term expresses has not any more
force."(!!)
So man's "thoughts" (of which there are plenty here)
belittle and degrade everything they intrude into. In new birth we are taught
that no life is communicated. Life itself is not to be understood as anything
"substantive" that can be communicated. "Nature" disappears in this way along
with life, as we find in the following : - "Have we not had a wrong idea as to
what 'nature' means?
"It is the looking upon nature or life as something
substantive: any substance is characterized by its nature; but you cannot talk
of the nature of a thing till the thing is there." (!).
So as we (like
the "murderer") have no "eternal life abiding in" us, we cannot, of course,
talk of a nature as attaching to what does not exist. The argument is
demonstrative if the basis is sound; but it shows how far a false step may
carry one. Let us listen again : - "I have sometimes said that Scripture does
not recognize two natures in the Christian: there is the nature in an
undelivered man; when he receives the Spirit he is not in the flesh but in the
Spirit, and the Spirit is not a nature but a Person." (!)
Poor
Christian! when undelivered he has nothing but the flesh; when he receives the
Spirit, it would seem he must have no nature at all; for the flesh is no longer
that to him, and the Spirit is not a nature, but a Person! No doubt there is
some way of filling up the void eventually; but with that we are not here
concerned.
But this leads us on to what is before us now, the question
of our standing in Christ, which according to Scripture is connected with the
life we have in Him. Our natural life in Adam has involved us in the fall of
the old creation; our spiritual new life in Christ has given us what we have
been accustomed to call our standing in Him. The very term (although they use
it) seems offensive to those who accept the views we are considering:
"ecclesiasticism, standing, ground, and such ideas," we are told, "have almost
ruined us." Yet, as I have said, the term is retained; perhaps it is only in
accommodation to the weakness that has been induced by it: "If you talk about
standing, I am a justified man, who have received the Holy Ghost." When it is
asked, however, "But what about being in Christ?" the answer is, "The moment
you bring in 'in Christ" it is new creation." And again : - " The moment you
come to 'in Christ,' you get the revelation of God's purpose in Christ, and the
work of the Spirit in the believer according to that purpose; that is new
creation, it is not a question of standing."
Yet it is allowed that
"the presentation of my justification is in Christ: He is my righteousness."
One would think that to be in contradiction to what has just been stated;
however that may be, it is only what is needed for the earth: "in heaven he
will not be a forgiven or a justified man. He will not need that in heaven:
nothing enters heaven but new creation."
Of necessity then the being in
Christ has nothing to do with any thought of His being our Representative. Our
Substitute in death, it is allowed, He was, and His resurrection therefore for
our justification; but this does not involve any thought of representation in
glory. "In Christ" is my state, as we have been told, a state which God has
wrought by His Spirit, true, but still my state, and nothing else. So
thoroughly is this maintained, that a Christian is said to be "in Christ as he
is formed in Christ;" and "in Christ is the measure of our spiritual
state."
The complete denial of all the positive side of representation
in glory is made plainer perhaps by a quotation I have elsewhere given, which
for its importance I shall give again here. It relates to the meaning and value
of the burnt.offering, and I quote it fully that there may be no possibility of
mistake: - "The blood of the burnt-offering never went inside; but that of the
sin-offering did. I have thought this remarkable. The blood of the
burnt-offering is connected with acceptance down here, but the blood of the
sin-offering goes in to meet and vindicate God's glory - all His claims met and
vindicated, and on the ground of this we can enter. We go in in the life of
Christ. It was on the day of atonement that the blood of the sin-offering was
carried in: we go in in a life which needs no acceptance, but the
burnt-offering being all burnt on the altar is the ground of acceptance for man
here on earth, and that will be equally true in the millennium. We get it set
forth in figure in Noah's offering. There is no ground of acceptance for man
down here save the death of Christ."
Let us look now at what is here
presented to us as the scriptural and beneficial truth, in opposition to the
well-nigh ruinous idea of "standing." Since it is allowed, however, that we may
use the term as applying to our justification, and that Christ is our
righteousness, the idea so far cannot be ruinous. Acceptance as symbolized in
the burnt-offering is allowed also, and that "Christ has gone into heaven
itself to appear in the presence of God for us representatively, that we may
reach there." How far acceptance differs from justification is not apparent in
this scheme, and the representation which brings us to heaven must have to do
with the sin-offering aspect of Christ's work simply, as is plain: for the
blood of the burnt-offering, we are told, never went inside the sanctuary, and
avails only for man down here.
Now at the outset, whatever may be
conveyed to us by the burnt-offering becomes, in this way, of comparatively
small account. The sin-offering is competent for the removal of sin, and to
bring us to heaven. When we are once there, we need it no more. If a man were
taken to heaven immediately upon believing, he would not, so far as appears,
need it at all. Israel as an earthly people will somehow need it till the close
of the millennium; the heavenly people (as that) never need it, though as in
the meantime upon earth, they do. What does it symbolize? It seems to be
answered in the quotation given, "the death of Christ." But the death of Christ
is shown forth in all the sacrifices, and the sin-offering is as competent to
express that as the burnt-offering. The evident point of contrast between the
two is not found in this, but that in the one the necessary judgment of sin is
set before us, in the other the peerless obedience of the Sufferer. For this
reason it is that, in complete contradiction to the place assigned it in what
we are examining, while the sin-offering is offered in the outside place, and
upon the ground without an altar, the burnt-offering gives its very name to the
altar upon which it is offered, and upon which it all goes up as a sweet savour
to God! The one is for the removal of sin; the other is for positive acceptance
of the offerer. Thus while the one had indeed its absolute necessity with a
holy God, the other was His delight, and was continually to be burning upon the
altar, never to go out. The work which Christ had to do to put away sin was
seen in the one case; in the other the glory of Him who knowing all that was to
come upon Him, could say, "Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written
of Me, I delight to do Thy will, 0 my God."
Did this avail merely for
the putting away of sin or sinner from before God? and was there no overplus of
value to give corresponding blessedness to our acceptance in the Beloved? Is
this to be lost when we enter heaven? left as an old garment no longer needed,
to be inherited by the millennial saints? "We go in in a life which needs no
acceptance," is to be our comforting assurance; and in consistency with this we
are informed that the "best robe" which is put upon returning prodigals is
"really new creation, Christ formed in the Christian!" After the millennium,
therefore, it is to be supposed that the sweet savour of an infinite sacrifice
will go up no more. With the saints' state perfected, they need no more that
which covered them for a time until they could shine out in their own beauty!
Is this your thought also, reader? and does this song please you better than
that we used so lately to sing: -
"Jesus the Lord, our righteousness!
Our beauty
Thou, our glorious dress!
Before the throne, in this arrayed,
With joy
shall we lift up the head.
"This spotless robe the same appears
In new
creation's endless years,
No age can change its glorious hue,
The robe
of Christ is ever new."
There are some, we trust, who if they are offered this
so called advanced and heavenly truth as the new wine, will say with their
whole hearts' approval still, "The old is better."
"If any man be in
Christ, it is new creation:" for that we have the full authority of Scripture;
for it is by a new creation alone that we come into relationship with Him who
is its Head. Adam, says the apostle, "is the figure of Him who was to come"
(Rom. v. 14). Our connection with the fallen head is by our part in the old
creation, and so by the life communicated to us. According to the type the
communication of spiritual life from the Last Adam who is a quickening Spirit
(i Cor. xv. 45) brings with it consequences in blessing more than commensurate
with the inheritance of sorrow entailed by our relation to the first. "As in
Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive (ver. 22). In Rom. v. the
apostle carefully develops the heritage on each side of the many from the one,
before he goes on to enlarge upon the results to us of that death with Christ
which frees us judicially from our place in Adam. The sixth and seventh
chapters cannot be understood aright until we have made our own the teaching of
the latter half of the fifth. The study of it ought to assure any one of what
is a riddle yet to the leader in this new departure, "where the idea of
standing comes from." As in our former head we fell, so in our present One we
''stand;" and "in Christ" means identification with our new creation Head. Thus
the apostle can say, "If any man be in Christ, old things have passed away," as
he could not if merely the inward change were contemplated: for the new life
does not accomplish in itself this passing of the old things; but looking at
the new place which accompanies the new life, it is absolutely simple.
Identified with Christ before God, the flesh is gone: we have our part in His
perfection. "In Christ," in its natural force, neither speaks of Christ in us,
nor of association with Him, with both of which these teachings confound it;
and this is seen in the very text which is claimed by those who hold them as
conclusive in their behalf.
The simple fact that there are two opposite
modes of expression for these two opposite ideas, we in Him and He in us, ought
to be convincing: they surely do not mean, as they are made to mean, only the
same thing! The Lord puts them together for us in His parable of the Vine and
the branches. We have only to remember in the application of it, that no one is
naturally in Christ, and that the scriptural figure which takes in this fact is
that of grafting. This prepares us for what has stumbled some, that in a
parable of vital relationships there should be branches that are taken away
because they bear no fruit. It is simple enough if we only realize that they
are grafts which have not struck. The Lord does not speak of grafting, because
He is not showing how the connection of His branches with Himself is begun, but
only the necessity of fruitfulness, and how it is realized: but the difficulty
suggested is accounted for by what we know to be the truth. That the branch
should abide in the vine is needed for fruit, and the graft that does not abide
has formed no vital connection. That vital connection is that by which alone,
the branch being in the vine, the vine (in its sap) comes to be in the branch,
needs no demonstration.
Living connection is that which, as we have
seen, subsists between the Last Adam and those to whom He has become a
quickening Spirit. The nature of the parable forbids more than a certain idea
of the results in blessing of the identification of the living soul with its
Head of supply; but there is the same limitation in all parables. The parable
of the Vine is found in the midst of such expressions as those we are
considering, and shows, if there were otherwise cause to doubt, the essential
difference of the two things which are vainly sought to be made
identical.
It is simple enough that the new creation "stands" in the
sufficiency of its glorious Head, and that our standing individually results as
part of this; while ting away of sins or of the "old man ;" it implies the
positive value of the wondrous person of the Man Christ Jesus, of which our
place before God is the due recompense. And this is expressly declared in the
apostle's statement, that "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. v. 21). So far then as
we have gone, the system we have been examining is negative and destructive
wholly. New birth is robbed of life; life is nothing substantive, and can have
therefore no "nature" attaching to it, for there is nothing for it to attach
to; eternal life will have no particular force just when you have fully reached
it; standing (if you talk of standing) is merely that you are a justified man
who has the Holy Ghost; the best robe in heaven is just the change wrought in
yourself; you may need to be accepted in Christ until you get to heaven, then
you will be so perfected as not to need it.; your being in Christ, and Christ
being in you are only equivalent expressions: and so, like the blast of a
simoom the work of desolation moves along.
7. RECONCILIATION, AND
THE REMOVAL OF THE OLD MAN.
THE presentation of what is claimed to be
the truth as to reconciliation is a very good example of the style of argument
which largely prevails among teachers of the school we are reviewing; with whom
boldness of assertion seems to make up for lack of demonstrative force. It is
amazing in these reports of conferences from which our knowledge of their
utterances have mostly to be gained, how little serious attention is given to
the Scriptures which are professedly before them, and how little serious
attempt there is to hold them to Scripture. Texts are cited, of course; and
sometimes a feeble demurrer is made, sure to be silenced immediately, though it
were only by an emphatic repetition of the statement questioned. It is easily
seen, as the present leader, though with a certain wise caution, says himself,
that they are not "simply!" - who are "simply?" - expositors of Scripture, but
only of what Scripture has taught them; but we are right in expecting that what
Scripture has taught them shall be able to stand an appeal to both text and
context; and this one finds here indeed little asked or proffered. There are
remarks, to be sure, upon texts many, the effort to connect which with the
context, and so with serious exposition is sometimes remarkable enough.
For instance, in a question raised with regard to the assertion that
"fellowship with the Father and the Son," as spoken of in John's first epistle,
was limited to the apostles, reference is made to the sixth verse of the first
chapter, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him." The answer is ready:
"That is saying, if we say we have it. It does not say we have it." And here is
the exposition: "The pretension is, that you have fellowship with Him, and walk
in darkness. The truth is that we walk in the light, and have fellowship with
one another" (!!) But the pretension then is, in fact, to be apostles; and the
walking in darkness (which cannot be part of the pretension, but is the
mournful reality which exposes the pretension) is a strange and roundabout
proof in denial of so exceptional a claim. The "we," as spoken by an apostle,
would in that case be as strange as all the rest. For manifestly he would not
exclude himself or any one else from the searching test of such a principle;
and in this is putting himself in the common rank of Christians, and not
separating himself from them as one of a peculiar class. The "we," all through
his various use of it, is that of Christian profession, and the light or
darkness characterizes the true or the false profession - nothing else. Notice
also whence the light shines: it is that of the sanctuary, where God Himself is
revealed. He is in the light; and that light is just what creates Christian
fellowship: "we walk in the light, as He is in the light;" and that establishes
the true fellowship for us all, into which every true Christian enters. The
apostle is bringing to bear upon this the great central truth of Christianity -
the open holiest, and thus has already shown the fellowship to he divine, as to
which he is now concerned to maintain the fact that no Christian can be found
outside of it. "Our fellowship"is thus not a different one from this, but that
into which (by the ministry of the apostles indeed) all believers are
introduced; and in the "we" so constantly repeated here, we have the apostle
putting himself thus with all the rest, instead of claiming for himself or
others a peculiar and exceptional fellowship.
Fellowship is rightly
said to be participation in common; but community of thought is strongly
objected to: "they that eat of the sacrifices have fellowship with the altar;
it is evidently not community of thought there." But if we look at this more
closely, we shall surely realize that it is after all the principles which are
identified with it that the altar embodies. The altar itself literally is only
an inanimate structure, with regard to which the term can only be used as it is
idealized. But as to all mental objects, ideas, fellowship in these may be
rightly spoken of. One might quote, I suppose, every dictionary that exists,
only that, as we shall see directly, the dictionary goes for nothing with those
whose views we are examining. Let us take Scripture then, and the very
Scripture which they cite against it, and it may be maintained without
possibility of successful denial that the altar in this case, apart from the
principles which it represents, would mean nothing - be utterly senseless in
the connection in which it stands. And just so with the idol of which the
apostle speaks in the same relation: the idol in itself is "nothing in the
world." Take it in connection with all for which it stands, and for idol you
may write "devil."
But there is another interest in maintaining things
like these: "Is it not helpful to see that on account of the difficulties and
opposition around, there must be a fellowship?" "The word (fellowship) implies
to me a special bond in a scene of contrariety; that is, I believe, the force
of it in Scripture. And there will be nothing in heaven to call for
fellowship." Thus we see how to preserve consistency, and rule fellowship out
of heaven, it must be denied that any element of it exists that would entitle
it to be there. Thus it is another of those terms, whose number seems
continually increasing, which in the hands of these teachers lose their
significance for eternity, and are lowered from heaven to earth; and thus error
to be maintained requires continually fresh concessions to be made to it. Alas
for him who has committed himself in anywise to it, and has not lowliness to
judge his departure and draw back his foot from the ever more devious and
downward way!
But to come to what is our theme at present -
reconciliation; we shall, as usual, put together the statements made regarding
it, and without comment, that they may speak thus for themselves, and make
their own impression. Afterwards I shall examine them. It is a pity that the
doctrine is only to be found in these conversational remarks which, as already
said, can hardly, save by courtesy, be called "readings." Yet the sense is
after all sufficiently clear, and the extracts are, save where noted, from one
speaker who is entitled to be considered the foremost leader in a movement
which is rapidly changing the aspect of many of the central doctrines of
Scripture for those who are being carried by it.
Reconciliation, then,
we are told, "is one of the terms the force of which you must find from its use
in Scripture. The dictionary would not give you the scriptural use of it. In
the ordinary use of the word the sense is that two persons estranged have been
brought together. That is not the scripture-idea. It is not minds that are
reconciled. There was no enmity on the part of God towards the world; and
certainly the mission of Christ was not to make people more pleasant. Yet in
Christ God was reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them. If you say that 'it came out in the Lord's ministry of
grace here on earth,' then you will be bound to admit this, that His ministry
was ineffective." "The truth of reconciliation is plainly stated in 2 Cor. V.:
God was in Christ; He ignored every other man in a sense, for the moment; there
was one Man before Him, and that was Christ." "The ministry of reconciliation
began with Christ Himself, and meant that in the presence of Christ here
everything was under time eye of God on a wholly new footing in connection with
Him. That was the effect of the presence of Christ. The new fooling was grace
and favour. God was in a new light towards man. He saw what was perfectly
suitable to Himself in Christ.
"The ministry of reconciliation was
effected in Christ in His life. God approached the world outside of it. He was
favourable to the world in Christ, not hostile; but when you come to the word
of reconciliation it is the testimony that reconciliation has been effected in
death. It is not now simply that God has approached the world in another Man,
in Christ being here, but the man hostile to God has been removed. So you have
both things now, God's approach to man, and the man antagonistic to God removed
in death. That is what I understand by the word of reconciliation, and we have
to accept it."
"The difficulty," says another, "with many of us as to
reconciliation is, that we have looked at it as reconciling us to God, instead
of seeing it as the abolition of us, that all might be in a new Man."
"That
is the idea."
And now in opposition to the dictionary meaning: - "We have
stopped at this, Alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now
hath He reconciled."
"How could that man be reconciled? you could not
reconcile a man who is an enemy in mind by wicked works. He can only be so as
being in another individuality."
Again "You cannot reconcile what is
alienated; it is impossible to reconcile that which is at enmity. If enmity is
there, it is there; it is enmity of will; that is not to be reconciled. 'They
that are in the flesh cannot please God.'"
"It is you that were
alienated."
"But the point is that you are reconciled by being removed, and
where the distance was complacency is, because Christ has come in. Hence it is
that reconciliation involves new creation."
"That which you are morally
has to go; personally you are reconciled. Is that the thought?" "I don't object
to that, but you may depend upon it, if you press that on people you will give
them the idea that reconciliation is some kind of change of sentiment in them.
I have no doubt that this is in the mind of the vast proportion of Christians."
. "That is, in new creation the saints are presented 'holy, unbiameable, and
unreproveable.'" "It must be that; you could not conceive of any process which
would change the man who was an enemy in mind by wicked works into holy,
unblameable, and unreproveable; no such process is possible, even to
God."
Elsewhere we find: - "The reconciliation of things is remarkably
simple. Everything is taken up in Christ. The reconciliation of persons refers
to individuals, and has to be individually accepted. 'Through whom we have now
received the reconciliation.' In Corinthians it is, 'We pray you in Christ's
stead, be ye reconciled to God.' Reconciliation has to be accepted when it is a
question of persons, therefore there was the ministry of reconciliation."
"Is there any thought of the enmity being brought to an end in
reconciliation?"
"The enmity is only brought in to show that the one marked
by it must go. You cannot improve with reference to enmity. You cannot
reconcile what is at enmity. It is the purest folly to think of reconciling
what is hostile."
"It says, 'When we were enemies we were reconciled."
"Yes; but it was by learning that what was at enmity had been removed by the
death of Christ. That is the way of it. I do not think that the apostle refers
to a change of feeling on the part of people, but to acceptance of the truth
that what was at enmity has been removed. They had received the word of
reconciliation - ' When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son.' They had accepted that as their death. This is the truth on God's
side - on the experimental side it is somewhat different."
Once more, even
though it may be ad nauseum "Do you think a man, an enemy to God by
wicked works, could ever be changed into unblameable and unreproveable in His
sight? It could not be. That person could be, but not that man." . .
"How
would you explain our identity remaining?"
"That is the point; the
complacency is where the distance was; that is in you. It is not that God
sweeps all away and brings in an absolutely new race. He does so morally, but
not actually. The old man has gone, and where he was Christ is; this has come
to pass in the Church."
What then is reconciliation? - "I think the
idea of the text is a bringing into conscious complacency with the divine mind
and pleasure." "What I understand by it is, that where distance was there is
complacency. . . . The distance has been removed in the removal of the man. I
don't see in what other way God could remove distance. The distance came in by
man, and the removal of the distance means the removal of the man. But the
point is that where the distance was now there is complacency."
"Would you
preach the ministry of reconciliation to sinners?"
"It would not be much
good to them."
"Where is the ministry of reconciliation to be
exercised?"
"I think very much amongst those who believe."
"But do they
need to be reconciled?"
"I think so, if they are to be for the satisfaction
of God."
"When the apostle says, 'Be ye reconciled to God,' had they
touched it?"
"I do not think the Corinthians had touched it. . . I think it
is practical; the Corinthians had not left Adam for Christ. They were
practically very much in Adam. They had believed in Christ; I don't doubt for a
moment they were Christ's, and had received the gift of the Holy Ghost. But
certainly, judging by the epistle, they had very little readiness to leave Adam
for Christ." "The truth for the Christian is this, that in the acceptance of
reconciliation he has put off the individuality connected with sin, but at the
same time he has put on the new man which after God is new created."
We
have now before us - produced, some will think perhaps, at unnecessary length -
what ought to enable us to arrive at a sober and sufficient judgment of what is
presented for truth with regard to the doctrine. Truth there is in it also,
along with much that is new, as generally in these teachings. The misfortune is
that here, as in so many cases, the true is not new, and the new is not true.
Not merely so, but some of the statements seem absolutely wild and reckless,
easily as they were accepted by those who heard thdm when first made. Only the
knowledge that they have been and are being so by so many could make it worth
while to repeat or challenge them now. Their currency and the gravity of much
with which they connect themselves, give them an importance which in themselves
they are far from having.
At the outset we are warned against the
dictionary meaning of the word; though it is not and cannot be denied that it
is the correct translation of that which has been chosen by the Spirit of God
as fittest to convey His meaning, and it would not seem to be one of those
words for which, as is well known,when Christianity came in, it had to coin a
meaning of its own. Scripture also, at first sight, would certainly appear to
confirm the dictionary use. Any simple person would suppose so upon reading
that "when we were enemies, we were reconciled," "you that were alienated and
enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled," and "to
reconcile both to Himself, having slain the enmity." The general consent, one
may say, of Christians for many centuries has without suspicion accepted
Scripture and the dictionary as speaking in the same way.
It is
startling to find, in what might seem to be the same line of things, - that is,
in arguing against some kind of change of sentiment, as from enmity to
friendship (which the dictionary use favours, if not involves) the strong
assertion that no process of changing a man who is an enemy to God by wicked
works, is possible to God! To save the speaker's character for sanity, we have
to assure ourselves that he is only using the word "change," so confusing in
this connection, for "whitewashing," perhaps. God cannot whitewash a man, of
course, and take him for what he is not. And we are encouraged to believe that
that is his meaning by what he says elsewhere, that "it is impossible to
reconcile that which is at enmity; if enmity is there, it is there." Truly; we
shall not dispute about this; but why so earnestly and with such extraordinary
emphasis, insist upon this? was it ever in dispute? while another passage
still, very similar to the one we have been trying to mend, seems to assert for
it that "change" is really meant: "Do you think a man, an enemy to God by
wicked works, could ever be changed into unblameable and unreproveable in His
sight? It could not be. That person could be, but not that man."
So it
is evident that we must walk very carefully, and define very closely, to suit
these leaders of the poor perplexed sheep of Christ! How good to have a Bible
that always remembers that God has chosen the poor! But we may say then that a
"person," an enemy to God, may be changed in this manner; but a "man," an enemy
to God, may not! Is that intelligible? Let us go on and see what is to come of
this.
Some one asks, seemingly in the same perplexity with ourselves,
"How would you explain our identity remaining?" Perhaps he wants to know
whether he is after all still a "man," or only a "person." But happily he is
assured that his identity remains:- "That is the point; the complacency is
where the distance was; that is, in you. It is not that God sweeps all away,
and brings in an absolutely new race. He does so morally, but not actually. The
old man has gone, and where he was Christ is."
"The old man has gone!"
Ah! does not a ray of light break in there? Is perhaps the old man the "man"
about whom our guide was thinking, when he spoke of the impossibility of the
man being changed? But then why distinguish so carefully between the man and
the person? The old man is in fact the person that was, before grace had
brought him under its dominion, the child of Adam in all the sad inheritance of
his fallen father; and because we were all naturally alike in this pre-
Christian state, Scripture speaks of "our" old man. But it is not the nature -
the flesh - which still remains in us, and with which so many confound it; "our
old man was crucified with Christ" and for every Christian is put off, and
non-existent. Thus the question is never raised of "changing" the old man, nor
could be raised by one properly acquainted with its force in Scripture. This
new man does not dwell in us along - side of the old, but displaces it; yet it
is the same man who was once "old" who now is "new." He has put off his former
self, which the cross of Christ has ended before God in judgment, but from
which it has thus liberated him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that
henceforth he may no longer serve sin (Rom. vi. 6). The old man cannot then be
distinguished as man or person distinct from the one individual alone existing
throughout. The assertions made are false and preposterous; and, of course, you
do not find a trace of them in Scripture. They are simply the inventions of a
fertile but unbalanced mind. It is the man who was once alienated and an enemy
to God by wicked works, who in every case of conversion becomes the holy,
unblameable and unreprovable child of God. There is no impossibility with God
of changing the one into the other; and there is no unchangeable " man" to
pronounce or speculate about. And reconciliation, instead of being so far on in
Christianity that persons who are indwelt of the Spirit (as the Corinthians)
may yet be strangers to it, is at the threshold of Christian life. "When we
were enemies, we were reconciled" not as Christians, but as "alienated and
enemies to God by wicked works, He hath reconciled us;" "God was in Christ,
reconciling the world" - and not believers - "to Himself." No subtle
distinctions can take away from us what God has thus written with a pencil of
light in His immutable Book. "If they speak not according to this word, it is
because there is no light in them."
How plain, therefore, that the
reconciliation does involve a change in the man from this alienation and
enmity, wherever it takes effect! How plain that the answer given to the
invitation, "Be reconciled to God," involves the dropping of resistance and
estrangement, upon the assurance of gracious provision made by which His
banished may be restored to Him. The weakness of God is stronger than man, and
the foolishness of God is wiser than man; and the amazing spectacle of the Son
of God dying for His enemies has power still, through the might of the Spirit
to subdue enemies to the love that seeks them. Consequently the testimony of
reconciliation is not that of the removal of the old man; nor can this be found
in connection with it: it is merely forced in in this way where it does not
belong. One wonders at the feebleness that can either put forth or accept such
triviality as the following. In answer to the objection that Scripture says,
"When we were enemies we were reconciled;" it is replied - "Yes: but, it was by
learning that what was at enmity was removed by the death of Christ. That is
the way of it. I do not think that the apostle refers to a change of feeling on
the part of people, but to acceptance of the truth that what was at enmity had
been removed. They had received the word of reconciliation - ' When we were
enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.' They had accepted
that as their death."
Now the whole of this is necessarily and at once
overthrown by the very sentence which it is supposed to explain. We have the
testimony of the very man who says this, that ministry of reconciliation
preached to sinners "would not be much good to them;" and the very words he is
explaining assert that it is enemies who are reconciled! Where are we told that
it was "by learning that what was at enmity had been removed"? One can only
answer, "Nowhere." Instead, we have confessedly the speaker's thoughts: "I do
not think!" And where does it say or suggest that "they had accepted that death
as their death," in any such sense as the removal of the old man? Not a hint is
given of this in that part of Romans from which the text is quoted. It comes
afterwards in the sixth chapter, and in quite another connection from what is
given to it here. Would it not be well if there were indeed an expositor to
help us, instead of men whose knowledge is of fragmentary texts, threaded
together with their own thoughts, and in supreme disregard of context?
Before we close we must look at what is said concerning the ministry of
reconciliation on our Lord's part, as it is stated in the second of
Corinthians: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them." Here, as it was in the ministry of Christ
on earth that this was accomplished, there could, of course, be no word of the
removal of the old man; but here is the comment : - "God was in Christ: He
ignored every other man in a sense, for the moment; there was one Man before
Him, and that was Christ. The ministry of reconciliation began with Christ
Himself, and meant that in the presence of Christ here everything was under the
eye of God on a wholly new footing in connection with Him. That was the effect
of the presence of Christ. The new footing was grace and favour. God was in a
new light towards man. He saw what was perfectly suitable to Himself in
Christ."
Now that it is the truth that in every intervention of God for
man Christ was before Him, the justification of the love manifested, is
fundamental truth, surely; and that when Christ was born into the world, His
good pleasure in men had not only decisive expression, but its justification in
the Son of man. But that does not make the interpretation of the apostle's
words which has been given us the more exact. True as what is said in itself
may be, it is yet assuredly not the truth which is stated in them. God in
Christ reconciling the world to Himself is not at all the same as God having
Christ before Him; and one may say, manifestly not. God in Christ as seen in
His gracious ministry to men,is that identification of God with Him who
represented Him on earth which showed Him in a grace which did not deal with
men according to their trespasses. It does not speak of Christ as the ground of
such favorable regard, but as the One who expressed this regard on God's part.
The effect or otherwise of the Lord's revelation of God in this way is not in
question; and His sorrowful complaint through the prophet, of labouring in vain
and spending His strength for nought, should have hindered this being pleaded
as an objection. Yet was His work with His God, as He declares. It could not be
in vain, whatever the effect among men, to reveal God thus; and where must one
be to say it? God's attitude is what is declared: "He was favourable to the
world, not hostile," is the truth of it. But the whole object of the proposed
interpretation of this passage is evidently to make reconciliation in it as far
as possible in accord with what I can only call the theory that reconciliation
means the removal of the old man. The reconciliation here, therefore, cannot be
permitted to involve the invitation to a change of attitude on man's part,
however much this is favoured by the direct appeal of those to whom the word of
reconciliation is now committed, "Be ye reconciled to God." This too is
enfeebled as much as possible by being turned into "accepting the
reconciliation." You must guard this from any suggestion of minds being
reconciled, which we have been told is not in it! You are only to think of
enmity being removed as this may be contained in the old man being
removed.
"Minds are not reconciled"; and yet to be reconciled is,
according to another definition,to be "brought into conscious complacency with
the divine mind and pleasure!" How is this to be done without the mind? But
indeed there is no putting together the various and conflicting statements.
Reconciliation is, of course, on God's part towards man - He reconciles; man is
reconciled - not reconciles: reconciliation is that "where distance was, there
is complacency; and this means divine complacency. God has removed the distance
by removing the man; that is the reconciling to Himself, and no work in us
comes into this. Well, then, is the whole world reconciled? Why no! we must
accept the reconciliation. After all, then, if divine complacency is to be
where the distance was, and that is in us, reconciliation there is not until we
are reconciled: the "be ye reconciled" must take effect. Reconciliation awaits,
then, the response on our part before it is accomplished; that is, before it is
reconciliation. This is the opposite of what has been so strenuously contended
for, and is proved by the very statements which are meant to be the denial of
it! Scripture does not negative the dictionary after all.
But more than
this; if this is true, and it is as asserted, Christians who have to be
reconciled - people, it may be, as in the case of the Corinthians, who have
already received the Spirit of adoption, and cry, "Abba, Father, " - then they
must be doing so, and rightly doing so, while yet in them the distance is not
removed, and divine complacency has yet no existence! There is no divine
complacency, but distance unremoved, for those whose souls refuse the distance
and draw near to God in the place of children! This is the contradiction into
which men fall who "do not read Scripture in the letter," in which God has been
pleased to give it, but in that which their own minds have distilled out of it,
and which they call, the spirit. How plain it is, that if reconciliation means
divine complacency now where distance was before, then, unless there are
believers who are not in the value of Christ's work before God, reconciliation
must be coincident with the very beginning of true faith in the soul, and not
in the place in which these teachings put it; and then, as a further
consequence, that the word of reconciliation is not the announcement of the
removal of the old man, but the simple story, than which nothing deeper or more
wonderful exists, that "while we were yet without strength Christ died for the
ungodly," and that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son"
for the salvation of the lost! By and by those who have received the message of
reconciliation will still need to know about the crucifixion of the old man;
but God's reconciling kiss waits not for this, but meets us in our very rags
and wretchedness. When we are enemies, we are reconciled to God by the death of
His Son.
Chapter 7. DELIVERANCE AND DEATH
TO SIN.
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