THE tradition of men is never faith; whether it be truth or error, it is never faith; it is natural, and belongs to man. Faith is the reception of a divine testimony by the soul, so that God Himself is believed; and, further, it is founded on His testimony alone. Man may be the instrument of leading me into truth—a signpost shows me the way—but I cannot believe man, that is, I cannot believe because man says it; I believe God. We have believed Satan when we were enjoying God’s blessings; now God calls upon us to believe Himself. Herein is the real return of the soul to God. If I believe because “the Church” has put its authority or its sanction on that which I believe, I am just simply saying that I do not believe God.
The Bible is the word of God. God has given a testimony carrying His authority with it, which testimony I am bound to believe; otherwise I despise God’s testimony. To believe because man says it is true, or because “the Church” says it is true, is to make God a liar; for when I had only what God said, I did not believe. It is well to look this distinctly and definitely in the face.
There are two things: (1) that which I believe—the fullness, riches, and perfection of Christ; and (2) the ground on which I believe it. Now as to the latter, if a person were to tell me something, in order really to believe that person’s testimony I must receive what he said, because he said it.
If I cannot believe God, why is it? My eyes are holden, I cannot believe when God speaks. He has not failed in giving the testimony. The only righteousness in regard of this is to believe what God says, because He says it; in other words, to believe God. To tell a person, “I will believe what you say when I get it sanctioned by another,” is to distrust him. To require “the Church’s” testimony to accredit God’s word is to disbelieve—to dishonor—God. In doing this, I am, as it respects moral position, infidel in regard to God.
But more: Christ is a heavenly Christ, He is not of this world. He was from heaven, and He has gone back to heaven. Hence all that is “after the rudiments of the world,” beautifully suited though it be to human nature, and calculated to make man pious, is not “after Christ.” That which has not been in heaven can only tell about heaven at second hand; all that is not simply Christ’s revelation of Himself does not belong to heaven. He says, “No man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” — who else could? And therefore, no matter what man tells me, or what men have said about heaven—be it what the ancients have said or what “the Church” has said, I cannot believe it. That which is “after the rudiments of the world,” is exactly opposed to heaven. The moment we get what is suited to the flesh, or makes a fair show in the flesh, it belongs to the world, it is not “after Christ.”
“For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (vs. 9).
There is here something exceedingly blessed. It is not a Pilate’s “What is truth?” nor yet a “seeking after God, if haply we might feel after Him, and find Him” (Paul’s expression in regard to the heathen), but, as John speaks—
That which is brought home to the senses of men. In place of working up the feelings to seek after something, God has come down to us, poor wretched creatures that we are. But God is there. He has come down to us in our sins and miseries bodily. I do not get a heap of stories, patched up nobody knows how, to act on my senses, and work on my imagination; it is the God who saves me. But He will be always God. There is not a trouble, there is not a distress, there is not a feeling in the heart of man that is not met in Christ (and, after all, we do want something to fill the heart, we are men, and we want what man wants), not as a doctrine merely, but bodily. We find in Him that which is to be found nowhere else. Let it be the most loving person possible, he has not loved me and died for me. But then I have not simply the love of a gracious person; there is in Him “all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” All flights of the imagination are checked, for I meet it in the Holy One, though I meet it in all my wants.
“And ye are complete in Him” (ver. 10).
Not only have I all I want, but I am all I need to be in Christ. I must appear before God, and have to say to God as a responsible being; looked at as what I am in myself, I am lost; in Christ, I am complete, as complete as Christ is, for I am complete in Him. There are these two sides; if God is manifested to us, we must also be manifested before God. Blessed be God! I have not anything to seek out of Christ as to completeness. And mark, it is not merely what there is, but what we have in Christ. Our hearts are so deceitful and treacherous, they do like to get in a little bit of their own. But let it be humility, or what else it may, there is no room found here for anything of self. In us, that is, in our flesh, dwells no good thing. There is neither righteousness nor holiness, nor humility out of Christ.
The Jews were looking to a variety of forms; we have all in Christ. A person talks to me about getting “absolution from a priest.” I do not want it; I had it years ago in Christ. Another says, “You will receive the Holy Ghost in this or that particular way.” I have received the Holy Ghost already. So, in regard to what the apostle speaks of here—
“In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” (vss. 11).
We have done with sin, we are dead to it in Christ. He goes on to show how—
“Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead” (vs. 12).
In Christ we have done with the flesh; it is not an effort to have done with it, we are dead. He does not say, “Die to the flesh” (neither does Scripture speak anywhere thus), nor yet “Die to sin.” Such an expression is in itself a clear proof that he who uses it does not know the gospel simply. But we do find it said—
“Mortify your members which are upon the earth,” &c. (chaps. 3:1-5).
This supposes us to be dead, and to have our life hid with Christ in God. Elsewhere the apostle says—
All that Christ is, and all that Christ has done, is mine in Him. It is all ascribed by God to me, as though it had happened to myself. Has He been put to death? so have I. Is He risen again? so am I; therefore I am able to “mortify,” &c. We cannot mix these two things (in our minds we often do, and hence confusion). Christ having died unto sin for me is my power for being dead practically to sin.
To make this clearer, if need be, see the argument of Romans 6—
“How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?... In that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body,” &c.
The moment the eye rests on Him, faith says, I am dead to sin. And mark how this is brought in. The faith is not in my being risen, but in Christ’s having been raised. This distinction is far from unimportant. Many a sincere soul is continually turning in upon itself to know if it be risen, but this is not “the faith of the operation of God.” Peter says—
So Paul,
“To whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,” &c.
My soul, knowing that all that is flesh is condemned, that there is no good thing in it, has given up seeking good from it; God has found plenty of evil, and I have done so too—He may have allowed me to struggle on in the hopeless endeavor to better it—but I look out of myself, and I see that God has raised Christ from the dead.
“What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:5-3).
My confidence is in this, that God has raised Christ from the dead, when He was there for me. But then, if this sets aside everything that I am in myself before God, it sets all aside for acceptance also. Am I saying, there is no good at all in my flesh, it must die, I cannot mend it? It is dead, the whole old thing gone; I am in heaven in Him, who has been raised from the dead, and now I have to “mortify,” &c.
“And you who were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (vs. 13).
Here comes in another blessed truth. Instead of its being a question as to the flesh getting better, not only is it condemned already, but we have been quickened together with Christ. This is no mere doctrine: Christ is our life. I am in this new man before God. And what has become of all my sins? They are gone. He has quickened me out of Christ’s grave, and they are left behind. Christ went down with my sins into the grave. They were put away on the cross— “He bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” and the grave is the expression of this. When He rose again they were all gone. What can give me such a sense of the heinousness, the hatefulness of my sins, as seeing Christ bearing them! But they are gone.
“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross” (vs. 14).
(To be concluded.)