THE NEW POSITION
Return now to our diagram on page 8, where B is the place of a sinner standing in view of the altar and its sacrifices, i.e., Christ and His work in death.
Faith on Him gives the believer all the value of His work.
We have looked at the chief features of that work which are foreshown in the sacrifices; and now, assuming that the sinner has believed through grace, he is set by God on the other side of the brazen altar, carried, as it were, in Christ, through the altar, the cross, and receiving all the blessings that God gives out of the love of his heart. He stands now at C.
Contrast B and C carefully.
At B he is guilty, Rom. 3:19.
“ C „ forgiven, Col. 2:13.
“ B „ an enemy, "alienated," Col. 1:21.
“ C „ a friend, "reconciled," Rom. 5:10.
“ B „ a child of wrath, Eph. 2:3.
“ C „ a child of God, Gal. 3:26.
“ B „ dead in trespasses and sins, Eph. 2:1.
“ C „ passed from death unto life, John 5:24.
“ B the judgment is before him, John 3:18.
“ C „ behind his back forever,
Rom. 8:1.
“ B he has no hope, Eph. 2:12.
“ C he is looking for that blessed hope, Titus 2:13.
“ B a stranger and a foreigner, Eph. 2:19.
“ C a fellow citizen with the saints, Eph. 2:19.
“ B in Adam, 1 Cor. 15:22. „ C in Christ, Eph. 1:3.
“ B in the flesh, Rom. 8:9.
“ C in the spirit, Rom. 8:9.
“ B servant of sin. Rom. 6:17. „
“ C servant of righteousness, Rom. 6:18.
“ B a sinner, 1 Tim. 1:15.
“ C a saint, Eph. 1:1.
Could the terms of the revelation be more precise? Could the contrast be greater?
It is the full difference between curse and blessing, condemnation and acceptance, banishment and communion, darkness and light, shame and glory, death and life, hell and heaven.
Reader, are you at B or at C?
Great difficulty has been felt by many in seeing the full consistency of this absolute and unalterable change with one or two passages in the New Testament. This appears too important to be left unnoticed.
The chief passages are-1 Cor. 9:27; 2 Cor. 13:3-5; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:29; 2 Peter 2:20-22, which we will look at separately.
1 Cor. 9:27. "Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." The apostle in the 26th verse has just said, he did not run uncertainly, nor fight as one that beateth the air. He could not mean to deny this by the term "castaway," which is more literally "dishonored," but he could consistently mean, lest I fail to get the prize, though sure to run right through.
2 Cor. 13:3-5. The apostle here is meeting those who tried to throw doubt on his apostleship; and he says, "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me ... . examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves." He knew they had no doubt about themselves, and they were the proof of Christ speaking in him. Instead of throwing doubt on irrevocable grace by instituting constant self-examination, the point of his words lies in their ability at any moment to reflect, "well, we are Christians, so Christ must have spoken by him.”
Heb. 6:4-6 is true of one at B, not of one at C. At B a soul is "once enlightened," for there it is that the light of the truth reaches him; he is in it. He has "tasted the heavenly gift," heard the gospel of Christ as distinguished from the "carnal ordinances." He has been "made partaker of the Holy Ghost," not indwelt by the Spirit. The first work of the Spirit in John 16:8, is "He will reprove the world of sin." He may be resisted in this, as Stephen witnesses to the Jews in Acts 7:51—"Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye." So today, multitudes partake of the Holy Spirit in His blessed first work of conviction of sin, who are standing at B, but who are not yet indwelt by Him. He has also "tasted the good word of God," bible in hand, "and the powers of the world to come," the witness of miracles. All is true at B. And then most solemn is the warning, if such shall "fall away," if they turn their back finally on the altar—how long they may, through grace stand there, and listen, is not said—it is impossible to renew them again to repentance. They had judged themselves and their ways wrong up to a certain measure, but if they at last repudiate all the witness given here at B, there is no hope for them left. God Himself has no further Christ to offer them.
Heb. 10:29. If the gospel heard at B is rejected, he "hath trodden under foot the Son of God," and has "counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing," for he was "sanctified" through the blood of Christ by being brought to B (or perhaps as we have seen, been born at B), severed from the darkness of A, and he "hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace," refusing His convictions of sin, and all His other testimony.
2 Peter 2:20-22. One at B may have "escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," not through knowing Him, but knowing of Him only, and if he should be "again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning." The figure used shows this accurately; a washed sow is not a sheep, it is a sow still; only at C is the "sheep" to be found, and no "sow" is there. While if a sheep should get into mud, it is a sheep still, but hates the mud.
Strictly, looking at the nation of Israel among the rest of the nations, it is not the figure of the church of God, though it has been so used; it is rather the figure of Christendom, or the whole sphere where the privileges are found of hearing and knowing of the grace of God through Christ. Then the selected family of priests, Aaron's sons, will, in their official character, be more properly the figure of the believers of to-day. This view of the nation must not be confused with our general view of the camp; both are real but distinct.
Peter writes, 1 Peter 2:5, "a holy priesthood," and in verse 9, "a royal priesthood," and the soul who by grace is at C, is a priest "to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." He is perfected forever by the one offering, and, as God's "workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works," he now and forever stands in a new relationship to God, and therefore also to everything else, "old things are passed away, behold all things are become new, and all things of God," 2 Cor. 5:17, 18.
It is this wonderful change that God means should give its own character to the subject of it in his life. He separates (sanctifies) the soul from all its old connections, as well as pardons its sins; and it is this separation that we specially need to see and grasp. Thus, "who gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us out of this present evil world," Gal. 1:4. "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son," Col. 1:13. What living joy. The soul in a new place and sphere altogether, with a new object, a new hope, a new nature, a new power, and a new taste, with new affections. All given upon faith in Christ, to start that soul afresh, to live that which it is. Hence the importance of clearly owning what grace does at the very outset. Grow, we surely may, and must, in the sense of it, but to do that there is first needed a definite view of the way of grace in its communications. Perhaps the word "saint," which is applied to all believers, expresses best the position given.
Saint, are you? Then live saintly. Why? Because God has constituted you a saint for that very purpose.
Responsibilities flow from relationships. Am I a child? That settles my conduct to my father. But if I at all doubt the relationship, my conduct becomes unhinged.
And again, I only express what I am.
A horse cannot live as a pigeon; and if a man is to live a saint he must first be one.
The keynote to action is the kind or nature of the life that is to act. Hence the need to insist upon being born again, and upon a clear understanding of what grace does in this respect.