An Extract.
I find Christ, as it regards my conscience, “inside the veil;” I find Christ, as it regards my heart, “outside the camp.”
It does not become us to take only the comfort which flows from our knowing Christ to be within the veil—the comfort His sacrifice gives us; I must seek practical identification with Him outside the camp. Christ within the veil tranquillizes my conscience; Christ outside the camp quickens, energizes my soul to run more devotedly the race set before me. “The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” (Hebrews 13:11-1311For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. 12Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. (Hebrews 13:11‑13).) No two points are morally more remote than inside the veil, and outside the camp, and yet they are brought together here. Inside the veil was the place where the Shekinah of God’s glory dwelt; outside the camp, the place where the sin-offering was burned. No place gives such an idea of distance from God as that. It is blessed to know that the Holy Ghost presents to me Jesus filling up all that is between these two points. I have nothing to do whatever with the camp. The camp was the place of ostensible profession—in type, the camp of Israel; in antitype, the city of Jerusalem. Why did Christ suffer without the gate? In order to show the setting aside of the mere machinery of Israel’s outward profession.
How can I be enjoying Christ if I am not walking in company with Him? We know that we cannot enjoy the company of a person unless we are where that person is. Where then is Christ? “Outside the camp.” “Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” This is not to go forth to men, or to opinions, to a church, or to a creed, but to Christ Himself. We are not of the world. Why? Because Christ is not of the world. The measure of our separation from the world is the measure of Christ’s separation. When the heart is filled with Christ, it can give up the world; there is no difficulty in doing it then. The men saying, “Give up this,” or “Give up that,” to one loving the world will be of no avail; what I have to do is to seek to minister to that soul more of Christ.... I am within the veil with Christ, outside the camp in the world, “bearing His reproach; “and whilst thus delivered from the profession around me that is not of Him, I am engaged in worship and doing good to all. In regard to my hope, it is not, as people say, the “holding the doctrine of the Second Advent,” but “waiting for God’s Son from heaven.” This is not a dead, dry doctrine. If we are really waiting for God’s Son from heaven, we shall be sitting loose to the world. I have Christ for my soul’s need, and I am only waiting for God’s Son from been, for Christ to come to take His Church unto Himself, that where He is, we may be also.