READER, have you accepted the Lord Jesus as your all-sufficient Savior? I ask not whether you are religious, attend a place of worship, and so on; no, for well I know that there may be all this without a particle of affection for the glorified Savior at God's right hand. Again, I repeat my question, have you accepted—fully and simply—Christ Jesus as your Savior? If so, if you can say from your inmost heart, "have taken Him in all His preciousness as my very own Savior as presented to me by God, and my conscience enjoys perfect rest through His finished work," then you have a prize, as well as being yourself the prize of Him who stooped in infinite love—"gave Himself," as the Scripture says—to die for wretched rebels.
Well, then, I desire to show a little of what belongs to you as a saved one, a believer on the Son of God.
1. It is certain from the Scripture that the Lord Jesus took all your sins upon Him on the Cross, and received at the hands of a Holy God all the punishment they justly deserved. God, as it were, with His searching eye saw all your sins—not those committed previous to conversion merely, but the sins of your whole lifetime—and laid them upon His well-beloved Son, who put Himself willingly under the consequences of them, and who in bearing them away forever, infinitely glorified God, and as a consequence is now in the Glory of God. What a joy, then, to know that God cannot impute a single sin to one of His own, and the result of that precious work is to give a cleansed conscience to every simple believer. Once purged he has no more conscience of sins, but is forever perfected by the one offering of Jesus Christ. (Read Heb. 10)
2. Through faith in the Son of God you have eternal life—the life of the Glorified One on the Throne above—Himself your life. (Col. 3:4.) This life is to be seen here below in the Christian. It cannot mingle with the world, for it belongs to another scene. Christ gives it (John 10:28), is it (Col. 3:4), feeds it (John 6:57), and is the object of it (Gal. 2:20). "To me, to live is Christ," says Paul.
3. At the Cross of Christ, where your sins were put away, God condemned that evil nature, "sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8:3), that you still feel within you rising up betimes, and seeking again to get possession of the reins and drive you about at its pleasure, having the government of your body as in times past. But having the new man you now love that which is good, and hate that which is evil. But perhaps you have been sadly troubled on account of experiencing so much evil still within. Let me say that conversion has not improved the flesh, or the presence of a new nature set aside the old. "But am I never to lose the sense of sin?" you say. Never while in the body. Try as much as you please, faith and experience never will run together here; but when the Lord comes, and we get our new bodies, then there will be perfect harmony between them. Yet, nevertheless, it is not at all necessary that you should be under the dominion of sin, but to be free from it (when I say free from it I do not not mean free from feeling it) you must simply reckon yourself to have died at the Cross of Christ, that Christ's death there was death to sin, so in His death you have likewise died to sin. (Read Rom. 6, 7.). God says that our old man has been crucified with Christ, and as He sees us dead to sin, so He desires that we should reckon ourselves to be as He sees us. This gives liberty and settled peace before God. Our history, then, as children of Adam has been closed at the Cross.
Further, that same Cross which is the end of our sins and of ourselves, is likewise the ground of our separation from this evil world, for by it "The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." (Gal. 6:14.) May we then keep ourselves apart from the follies, fashions, and ways of this present world.
4. But the believer is also risen and seated in Christ in heavenly places. (See Eph. 2:6.) These are present blessings, and to be enjoyed now, as true of the babe in Christ as of the father in Christ. Our blessings are heavenly, not earthly; bear this in mind, for ignorance or forgetfulness of this leads many who belong to the Lord to seek the earth and its good things, and thus practically to deny that they belong to heaven. (See Phil. 3:19, 20.)
5. Union to Christ, the Man in glory, is a blessing all believers have now, though known but little and enjoyed by few, but when known makes us conversant with the things of heaven, and draws our heart and affections from things here to Himself above. (See 1. Cor. 6:17.)
6. This union is effected by the Holy Ghost, who also makes the body of each believer His temple (see 1 Cor. 6:19); and being in us, is the power of our worship, service, and testimony; sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts (Rom. 5:5), being also the power by which the flesh is kept under, and Christ manifested. How important, then, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. But He is very sensitive, and can easily be grieved, even by a thought, a word, or a look (see Eph. 4:30), and, as a consequence, we lose our joy and communion with God; but for our comfort let us remember that He can never leave us, for though David could and did pray, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me," it was at a time when He had not come to take up His abode upon the earth (see John 7:39), but merely came and went again; so David's prayer was quite consistent with that time, but entirely inconsistent now, for the Son of God has said (John 14:16), "He shall abide with you forever.”
But, further, the same Spirit has baptized all in whom He dwells into one body; so we are not now individual believers merely, as in other dispensations, but members one of another, and of that body of which Christ in glory is the Head (see Acts 9:5; 1 Cor. 12:13). May we walk in the practical recognition of this blessed truth.
7. Our hope is the Lord's coming for His saints, to perfect their salvation and introduce them into His Father's house on high (see John 14:2, 3).
This event is drawing near: evil is making rapid progress, but for us our Lord is coming first before He deals with the evil; and He is now patiently waiting at the right hand of God for that moment of deepest joy and interest both to Himself and us, when He shall descend into the air, and with a shout awaken His saints now sleeping in their graves, (and whose spirits have waited on high with Him, see Phil. 1:23; 2 Cor. 5:8), and that same voice which will vitalize the dust of His sleeping ones, every particle of which has been watched over by Him through successive ages, will also change the vile bodies of His living ones, transforming them in a moment into glorious conformity with Himself (see Phil. 3:20, 21), for God has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son (see Rom. 8:29), who became a man that He might by death and resurrection have the joy of having us with and like Himself throughout eternity's ages. (See Heb. 2:10-15; John 17:24; 1 John 3:2.)
Oh, the riches of the grace and glory of our God! May it be our aim to glorify Christ here below, getting more acquainted with His mind and will, walking in His steps, and awaiting patiently His coming which draweth nigh.
Unsaved reader, one word with you ere I close. You are missing joys and blessings incomparably superior to any of earth.—What have you? This passing world, a grave, a judgment, and then an eternity of woe unutterable. Terrible prospect! Stop, then, and consider; own thyself lost—wholly lost—and accept the Savior provided by God for sinners, and you will then have what time, nor death, nor the grave can ever rob you of Grace will be thy portion now, and glory thine in the future, for "He giveth grace and glory.”
"O Blessed Savior, Son of God!
Who halt redeem'd us with Thy blood
From guilt, and death, and shame;
With joy and praise, Thy people see
The crown of glory worn by Thee,
And worthy Thee proclaim.”
T. T. E.