Fellowship with Christ
Table of Contents
1. Association With Christ Jesus in His Death
All our blessing – all that God has to give, and all that we can receive – flows to us through association with the Christ of God, in His earth-rejected but heaven-honored position.
Rom. 6:5 “If we have been planted together in the likeness of His [Christ’s] death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”
The word together does not here refer to us merely (as though it were said, “we, all together, were planted,” etc., or, “we all were planted together “); but it refers to us together with Christ (as though it were said, we- believers-have been planted together with Christ, in the likeness of His death, etc.). It might be rendered, word for word, thus –
For if we have (or are) become co-planted (with Him) in the likeness of His death, we shall also be (in that) of His resurrection.
Adam (the first) transgressed in Eden; there was moral death in Paradise; as to the body, death was first seen outside of the garden; with transgression, man became exposed to wrath, to a wrath the full force of which is not seen until the second death.
Now, herein was the mercy of God shown; that when man, as such (all men), were lying under the just judgment against the sin of their forefather Adam – when each man had received from that head of the family the law of sin and death in his members – when each one was in himself a sinner, also in action, and many, also, were transgressors of the known will of God loving self, and hating God and one another – God gave His Son, in love, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but might have everlasting life. That Son of God went, as Son of man, to the cross, and there tasted – and oh! how fully – of the bitter wages of sin in His death upon the cross. Personally guiltless, not only innocent but incorruptibly pure, no penalty resting upon Him, He was treated as if He were the only one that had penalty resting upon Him – as if He were guilty. The cup was given into His hand to drink, the cup of wrath due to us alone, and He drank it in our stead. And now the way is open for God to act toward those who are personally guilty under penalty, as though they were guiltless under no penalty. This way He proposes to sinners. His love, and mercy and compassion, in having provided such a way, and the perfectness of the work, is found in the gospel.
In a field into which sin had entered, and death by sin – where the sentence of death lay upon all, for that all have sinned – where all are dead through the offense of their common source – all under a judgment of condemnation, death reigning over them, for that they are sinners and transgressors – none able to turn aside the penalty, none competent to bear it – into that field the doctrine of grace, through the Lord Jesus Christ, has been introduced “the free gift”, “the grace of God and the gift by grace”; “the free gift is of many offenses unto justification”; “they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Christ Jesus”; “by the righteousness of one (the free gift was) toward all men unto justification of life”; “by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous”; “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord”. Such are the expressions in which the blessed subject is presented to us in Romans 5.
To turn now to our portion of scripture in Romans 6.
In all religion which is based and built upon what a man, as a creature, can do, certain things are, for the time, taken for granted; a certain power is supposed to be in him – a certain goodness of will, at least, is admitted possibly to exist, otherwise, why and how should he trade on his own account with God? If he believed himself hopelessly ruined, to have no strength and no will for God, he would hardly attempt to utilize his time so as to prepare for death and for judgment. For it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment, is a truth which characterizes not only the reality of man’s position as a creature, but also all his thoughts of religion as a creature. As a fallen creature, he has to meet death and to stand in judgment. Contrasted with this is the religion of grace; in it death and the judgment are behind us, and not before us.
This changes everything; for it clearly connects the believer with a system in which a mere human creature, as such, has no place. As a creature, I go not beyond the range of creature thoughts and the ruin I am in; I think, to use my life that I may meet death and stand in judgment. But, as a believer, I have to do with the resurrection-power which raised Christ from the grave; and death and judgment are behind me, that I may be able to live in grace. To stand on both grounds at once, or to stand with a foot upon each, is impossible.
I – creature-life, death and judgment to come – all stand in contrast with Christ – once dead but now alive again for evermore, resurrection-power heaven and glory.
I do not think Christians have marked the contrast enough, or that they are adequately alive to the impossibility of one and the same person being at any given time upon the two grounds. The religion of nature supposes that I am alive; the religion of Christ that I am dead and buried. The religion of fallen human nature supposes I have more power now that I am fallen than man unfallen had i.e., that I can undo the fall from which my forefather kept not himself. The religion of grace settles that power is all in God and Christ. The former supposes I can stand before God in my sins to adjust my matters with Him; the latter declares that the Christ of God has adjusted everything before God, when He was forsaken on the cross, because He bore my burden, and paid the penalty due by me.
A man cannot be in Christ and out of Christ at the same time. If in Him, all is settled; if apart from Him, he is lost.
But as to the believer in Christ: “Shall we continue in sin?” says Paul. Away with the thought. If dead to it, how shall we live in it. We have become identified with Jesus Christ in His death, baptized into Jesus Christ – baptized into His death.
I – under sentence for Adam’s transgression, morally dead myself, a transgressor, also, and a sinner – had, in myself, nothing to expect but the penalty, the penal consequences of this state of sin. Christ endured the penalty; took, in the bitter cup, the penal consequences, the punishment due to me. Grace has identified me with Him – buried me, by baptism, into His death. The penalty paid, I am clear. I have been planted together in the likeness of His death. So identified with Him who died, that, as certainly as He was personally guiltless who was reckoned as guilty upon the cross, so all the I, that was most grievously guilty, is reckoned guiltless. Christ was the beloved Son in whom God was always well pleased. There was nothing in Him, or that He did, that could challenge anything but favor from God. His going to the cross, even, was obedience – “obedient unto death, the death of the cross”; “the cup which my Father path given, shall I not drink it”; “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O my God!” There was nothing that exposed Him to wrath, no penalty was due to Him; but He, the Just One, took up the penalty due to us. He would stand in our stead in the judgment. It is I, myself, not my actions done, or my thoughts and intentions even, which is in question. What a man is, the state of his being is infinitely worse than his actions. I was guilty, exposed to the wrath of God on account of what I was; but, through the death of the guiltless One, I am guiltless in God’s sight.
In that He died, He died unto sin once (6:10). There is but one sense in which it can be said of Christ that He died unto sin, and that one sense is penally, as bearing its penalty. We were morally dead and under sentence; He bore the sentence, and to those that believe there is an end of the whole matter. Adam’s judgment is passed and executed; the sentence against all our transgressions, sins, omissions, and commissions – and that, too, against the very root of all these, sin in our nature – is executed and past, and never can revive. What to man was impossible, what seemed, in the nature of things to be absurd, God has made true to faith. “I have to live so as to be able, if possible, to meet death, and then to stand before God in the judgment,” says thoughtful man outside of Eden. “God has put death and the judgment forever behind me,” says faith; “they are passed and not future to me, through the death of the Lord Jesus.”
Faith lets God be true, though every man be a liar; and, therefore, faith accredits God’s testimony. He that has faith is “dead to sin; he has been baptized into the death of Jesus Christ; buried with Him by baptism into death; planted together in the likeness of His death; the old man crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed; he that is dead is freed from sin,” etc. Yes, everything that man in nature – man in fallen nature – had to reckon with God about, thought that he had to settle with God, but which he never could have settled, has all been settled and reckoned for between God and Christ. in nature, death to a man is the doorway out of life – this life – into the world unseen; and the second death is the realizing fully what in God’s presence is the anguish prepared for the devil and his angels, whose slave man has been. In grace Christ’s death is, to faith, the answer, put into time that is passed, of all that was or that seemed to be against us; it is the doorway into life – doorway where all our guilt is left, for the judgment against us is there passed, – doorway into eternal life, where all is life, and love and favor.
In the latter part of Romans 5 Paul had shown the two headships that of Adam and that of Christ, and the contrast between the positions and portions of those to whom each was severally in headship before God. In Romans 6 he shows what is the passage from off the ground of Adam, on which all men are by birth, onto the ground of Christ, which pertains to those only who have faith and receive the grace which God presents to faith. Faith and confession unto salvation (says the word) identifies us with Christ; and with Christ, not only as one who has merits, and against whom, personally, no charge could stand, but with Christ, who has met and borne, in His own person, all the consequences justly due to all that we – looked at as part of a fallen race, as having the law of sin in us, as having done sin, and as having to meet death and judgment – were exposed to. Not one point or item which stood against us but what has been met; and more than this, for “I “the fallen creature I” is got rid of. Faith puts us on the other side of death and of judgment; that is no part of our portion, or inheritance, or lot, from Adam; but faith sets us in eternal life, and gives us heaven and glory. To nature and to common sense, as derived from Adam, the thing is impossible, unreasonable, absurd; and to nature it supposes a confusion of times past and to come. What! I, who am here, with death and the judgment before me, am to consider that death and the judgment are behind me! so might nature exclaim; and it might add, More easily might the sun stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in Ajalon (Josh. 10:12) – more readily should the shadow go backward ten degrees by which it had gone down (2 Kings 20:11, Isa. 28:8), than that thing be! But to faith it is not ONLY so. By faith, I can say I am not only dead and have passed the judgment, so that there can be naught against me, for who shall punish a dead man, who has been fully judged already; the justice of God, justice due to Christ who died for me, is my safety; but I am alive again for evermore, in a life which death cannot touch, which knows no grave, and is beyond judgment – yea, in which judgment is turned to victory.
This is reckoned, counted so of God, and therefore sure. Yes; but while that is true, and makes all sure to the faith which accredits God’s written word, there is more than the mere reckoning and counting to be thought of. For “the why” of this is revealed. God has given to us the Spirit of Him who being holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, Himself the Just One died for us, the unjust. That Spirit has communicated to us the divine nature, we are born of an incorruptible seed. And though the bodies in which we dwell are still unrenewed, they yet are redeemed; and the power that will change and renew them is in Him who sits at the right hand of God. The grace that made me one with Christ – the grace which gave Christ to be Head of His Body, the Church – the grace which sought to make its exceeding riches known in us, through the love of God, are the why and because of this reckoning, this counting.
I may remark, too, a difference, and to a conscience in God’s presence, and to a renewed man, it is a most important one the difference between, on the one hand, I, in nature, having to die when God’s providence brings the hour, and then to stand in judgment before the great white throne after the thousand years are ended: and, on the other, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ in securing a race for Him, having made good death and present acceptance to me, within the veil where Christ, earth-rejected, sits at His own right hand; and the means of this: the death upon the cross, under judgment, of the Son of Man, who was divinely perfect, yet took (proof of His perfection) my place and bore my judgment. Himself, the Judge of quick and dead, will never forget His judgment as borne by Himself for me.
The difference is immense; because it is between things being settled according to the claims of God as Creator over a creature, and the same thing being settled according to the right of God as Redeemer to make Himself a name in displaying the riches of His grace in saving rebels.
Faith knows that it is finished! Not only Christ’s death upon the cross, but ours also to guilt, and all penalty through Him. It is finished: the penalty is paid, the guilt is passed: we were guilty and under penalty, but we are so no longer, for the penalty is paid it is finished. With most Christians, the truth I speak of has not hold of their minds, and their minds have no hold of it.
When thinking of what they were by nature, they know, perhaps, that the mercy and compassion of God has found an answer to it all in Christ. But the thought of most minds is they were one with a Christ dying on the cross, rather than one with Christ who has died and is alive again for evermore. To their minds the sentence is not, as yet, seen as having been fully executed – and they never have settled peace. They want their old man, their original selves, to be still alive before God, though perhaps a-dying. Some think of this old man, this original self, as yet to be crucified, that then they may find acceptance; but of course they find not how to accomplish this; others, again, talk of it as being “a crucifying,” but that it will only die when body and soul are separated; of course peace is put off till death. Some, again, pray that we “may die” in Christ; so misapplying, to the question of their personal acceptance with God, verses which, in Scripture, apply to the walk of a person who is personally accepted. For instance, “I protest by your rejoicing, I die daily,” is often so applied: the verse means nothing of the sort, but quite another thing; even this, that Paul was heedless about guarding the life of his body in its present state, because its resurrection was assured; and, moreover, to him to live was Christ, and to die was gain. Then, again, two other verses are often thus most sadly misused, viz., Rom. 8:13, and Col. 3:5. In both of them, Paul speaks of the walk and work of accepted persons, and not of the work by which acceptance is gained.
In the first of these verses, remark, mortification of the deeds of the body, flows out of life in Christ, and is the pathway into life lit; in glory. To say that mortification of the deeds of the body gains life, is Romanism and legalism of the very coarsest kind. Again, as to Col. 3:5, the very perusal of the verse is enough: “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry” (vss. 3-5).
And observe WHAT the members spoken of are, fornication, uncleanness, etc. And (vs. 6) they are the things which draw down vengeance on the children of disobedience – the things which used to mark those to whom Paul wrote (vs. 7), but now were to mark them no longer. Again, do not many Christians really ignore the force of Christ’s death in judgment as their substitute, by a system which, while it recognizes Him alive to intercede for them, supposes their old guilty selves to be alive and recognized too as alive and guilty in God’s presence. While they are in holy intercourse with God and the Lamb, they have a blessed, present taste of guilt put away, or, rather, they forget all about it, and taste acceptance and security; but, when going through the routine of ordinary life, they are verily, in their own thoughts, guilty. The effect is, that instead of having been once for all cleared from all that belongs to Adam the first, and set free to walk in the power of a new life in Christ, habitual failure and sinning, and fresh application for pardon and peace and acceptance mark their state and course. The habit of sinning and failing thus gets justified. Adam is honored and nourished and reckoned to be alive, is carefully kept, and must be allowed to breathe and act while alive, according to his nature, that is, sin; and they think that this it is which constitutes a Christian life, even the constantly washing out, by fresh applications to the throne of mercy and the blood there, the soil that flows forth from ourselves. This is a practical denial of being dead with Christ, and leads to a sanction of sinning, and to a denial of the perfectness of the one offering once offered, the one purgation of sin once made. I never saw it exist where a clear view of the new life in Christ was seen; indeed it could not be in such case; nay, more, a clear view of new life in Christ cannot be sustained, unless our being dead as to all that we were according to Adam, has been seen: dead as to its penalty and lordship over us.
Believing in Christ, I am one with Him. One with Him who [not being unjust, but the alone Just One] died for me [who was unjust]; as before God I am to recognize that I am so indissolubly one with Christ in His death, through grace and divine power, that I am cleared from the Adam-standing, that God has nothing against me. I am clear upon the counts: 1. Of my being a descendant from the rebel Adam. 2. Of my having a nature prone to sin through the law of sin and death in the flesh. 3. Of the issues of this nature in me being not according to God, but contrary to Him. To each of these counts in the charge, I can say I was guilty, but am clear, as one that was guilty but has been cleared. I personally am accepted – I have for the acceptance of myself no pardon to ask – all that needed pardon in that sense is through Christ dead and buried. I do not in that sense need washing afresh, or that Christ should either die again or shed more blood, or offer His blood again, or apply His blood again; His hands, and feet, and side, and forehead, as well as His sitting at the right hand of God, tell me that all that is finished. I am free, therefore, to walk in a new life, even in the unmixed life which I have in Christ, who is in God. In Him surely there is no mixture of the old life of Adam, the rebel, and the new life of the Christ of God. Yes! it will be said, but as to practical failings Have you done with Adam? Have you not a law of sin and death in your members? What do you do with that?
My answer to such a question would be this – I can look at things –
1St, according to God, and according to God’s presence; or,
2nd, according to man and man’s presence; or,
3rd, according to what will be when God brings His own people home to His own presence.
1St. Of things according to God and God’s presence, I can know nothing whatsoever save from the Scripture. “It is written,” is the alone explanation of God’s thoughts, to those that have faith and are led by the Spirit. Now according to that word, I find that what Christ has done as to those that are united to Him, who once died though now He liveth for evermore, has cleared them personally and individually of all culpability. Who shall condemn – who shall lay anything to the charge of those whom God has justified by the death and resurrection of Christ. All that I, as from and of and in Adam, was, Christ took upon Himself, and what it was, was told out fully and once for all upon His cross; and the judgment thereon, borne by Him: all that He was and is, is mine in the power of the new life in which I am associated with Him. And more than this, for my security of being with Him and like Him, hereafter, is in Himself who is hidden in God; and the answer to all my wilderness-walk as a Christian here below, is found in Him as alive from the dead, an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2nd. According to man and man’s presence. My being personally without culpability before God, does not take the law of sin and death out of my members. Then I must sin still and be always failing, you will say.
Nay. It is left in me because of the good pleasure of. God, who, as the living God, has been pleased to undertake Himself to conduct His people through the wilderness. He wills that we should find grace to make choice of Him and His ways, in preference to ourselves and to our own ways; and He leaves us the full leisure to show whether we will identify ourselves with Him who first identified Himself with us; whether we will appropriate Him and His path, who has appropriated us to Himself. This, however, is in the government of God in time; of God governing the ways, and forming for eternity the characters of the people whom He has eternally saved. As according to man and in man’s presence, I desire to justify myself in my having hailed Jesus Christ as the alone Savior, and preferred righteousness which is of faith to that which is of works; I desire to prove that the works of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, are better than the works of the flesh under law; I desire (according to a new nature), to justify God and Christ and the Spirit of grace, against the world, Satan and the flesh. To me to live is Christ and to die is gain, for “in all things more than conquerors through Him that loved us” is not effaced from our banner. I do not, for a moment, suppose sin to be taken out of my body; it ought not to be; I, as a Christian, do not even wish it to be so while I am in the wilderness. God forbid. No: but being occupied with Christ on high, and Christ in the coming glory, I, yet not 1, but Christ that dwelleth in me, can keep it under. Keeping under his body and bringing it into subjection, Paul could do what Saul could not – appropriate his body and all its members unto the glory of God, and give himself to the service of Christ, in spite of Satan who, through lust and the course of the world, had once been his absolute master. Paul himself was, through grace, the master when walking near the Lord, and realized the sweetness of victory, not only over him who had been his master, and over circumstances, but over himself.
The power of this our life and walk here below, is not the death of Christ, though that puts us free. from the life of man and of earth, to live the life of Christ and of heaven upon earth; save for His death there would be no such freedom: but the power of our life and walk down here is in the living grace of a living Christ, Head over all things to His Church, which is His body; and Himself the great High Priest, the Captain of salvation. It is as alive from the dead that He guards us, and that if we do fail He restores, and that He washes all His people from the defilement of the wilderness as they pass through it. Instead of this, the wretched system, I refer to, practically denies this present grace of the living God, and in denying our death through Him that died, leaves us to go on sinning, and in uncertainty laboring for forgiveness; and it practically denies, too, the existence of a church militant upon earth, and the grace of God which., while it secured the salvation of Lot as well as of Abram, left it to each when saved, to show out his own walk and the experience consequent thereon in the wilderness.
3rd. As to what will be when God brings home His own people to His own presence. If God has already identified us that believe with His Christ, who is in Himself – if he permits us, down here, each in a little world of His own, to put down the evil and to take up the good in detail – a time is coming when we, whom He has redeemed, will meet Him in His own circumstances and glory. Faith desires that Christ’s personal presence should be the honored place of full fruition, and it alone – to be with Him, to see Him, to be like Him – waits; and faith would have it wait, until He has His full joy, and until He can receive His church and present her to Himself, a glorious church without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. I would not have it otherwise. In the wilderness, let me have the wilderness portion Christ has given and marked for me; let me suffer with Him; let me fill up that which remains of those sufferings of the Christ: if absent from the body and present with Himself in spirit patience and bliss will go together; as now patience and suffering go together; – but, only when He has His full joy, would I have mine, even at the second coming. But then He shall change this vile body, and fashion it like unto His own glorious body, by the mighty power whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.
As connected with the Lord’s government in the church (1 Cor. 11:27-34), and with the Father’s regulating of His family (1 John 2:1), a person who knows himself saved can most clearly, if and when he fails, make confession of failure, and ask not only for pardon as a servant or as a child, but also that the consequences of the failure be removed. But then remark, 1St, that no one but a person who knows himself to be already saved can think of his work as a servant, or of his walk as a child. If an unsaved man were to do so it would be self-righteousness, self-justification. He is not saved, his works are not, to his mind, fruits of the Spirit and of fellowship with Christ. What must I do to be saved? is really his question; self and not Christ is in question. It is monstrous to think of the works, whether they are good or bad, whether they can be accepted or not, before and in the presence of One who has condemned the very being himself whose works are in question. And according to John (3:18), man is under condemnation already. Man’s thoughts are, that a sinner must work, and a saint, if such can be found, must rest. God’s command is, that the sinner do rest from his own works, and that the saint do labor to bring forth fruit unto God. And so entirely distinct before God is the salvation of the soul and works, that the Scripture never refers to the works of an unsaved man, save to show that he is condemned; the tree is condemned, and the fruit proves it. It never speaks of a saved man, without supposing that there will be works, and fruit unto God, for God to examine. The tree was planted to bear fruit. He that is one with Christ is fruitful.
And, secondly, let men say what they like about their failing every day, and every hour, and in everything. It may be true, or it may not; it makes no difference to me; I have to follow (not them but) Paul, even as he followed Christ. Now I utterly deny that his life was a life of incessant failure. The even course of it justified his saying “To me, to live is Christ;” and again, “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death” (Phil. 1:20). He was in all things more than conqueror through Him that loved him, and may not, ought not we to follow him even as he followed Christ?
I know it is easy to excite the flesh to say, in self-confidence, “To me to live shall be Christ,” but I know also that the first step in the life of obedience, raises the question of how far do we know, practically, this death of which I speak: not dying, not willingness merely to suffer and purpose to deny oneself, but how far we have learned what it is to count ourselves already dead through Christ. So Paul saw and felt to be the case when he wrote to Timothy. It is a faithful saying: “For if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him” (2 Tim. 2:11).
Here it was not the value of association with Christ that had died (as in Rom. 6), so as to get judicially clear from all the penalties resting upon man as a creature, and as a descendant of Adam’s (in which light all judgment is past and none remains, save for us to judge ourselves in our walk); but it is the value of that association as setting one free from self that we may suffer for Christ and endure hardness as His good soldiers.
A man must be fully assured, through faith and the Spirit, that in God’s presence that he is dead judicially, in Christ – looked upon by God in this sense as dead – able to reckon himself as dead for him to be able to use that death against Satan, the world, and the flesh; to give – if I may be allowed the expression – by it the slip to himself and all that self furnishes as a handle to Satan, the world, or lust to lay hold of.
The way that Christ’s death is made of little effect by most Christians, the way that they have judaized it, out of its eternal value and the estimate heaven forms of it, and reduced it down to be a part of a human system of their own, borrowed from the law of fallen humanity and the elements of the world (both of which Marked Judaism), is a most solemn sin. The Colossians (who had been dead in their sins and in the uncircumcision of the flesh (Col. 2:13), that is morally dead, are thus charged: “Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” etc. (Col. 2:20). They would sanction worldliness and accredit their own flesh, if they did so. And he adds: “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). “Dead,” says he – most correctly – “seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds” (vs. 9). If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do?
He has so appropriated all that I was, as to bear the record of it in His own body; my soul knows those hands, those feet, that side, that forehead, but, blessed be God, I know them in Him who was dead but is alive again; I know them in Him who shall reign forever – as the Lamb that was dead, but is, alive again for evermore.
Reader! if God has shown you these things, may He add this grace, even that they act in power upon you, and that you find power to act upon them.
2. & 3. Crucified and Buried Together With Christ
2. Crucified Together With Christ
Though I have spoken, first of all, of association with Christ, as in His death, there is the association with Him, as on the cross; which, according to the order of the subjects, should naturally come before the other. Following, however, the order which the needs of conscience seemed to suggest, I have taken that first, which, as Scripture presents truth, ministers most directly to the soul’s liberty and peace.
The being, through the grace which identifies us with Him in death, “dead to sin,” – “baptized into His death,” – “buried with Him into death,” and as “dead – free from sin,” etc., changes the whole standing of a soul. It takes it clean off one foundation, and sets it upon altogether another; takes it out of one place which has a character, judgment and experiences proper to it, and sets it in an altogether other place, having a character, judgment, and experiences, which are in contrast with those of the former place, and which are peculiar to itself.
Israel in Egypt, and Israel out of Egypt, were strongly in contrast. Egypt was the iron furnace, the house of bondage, the land of captivity – a doomed place, under God’s judgment; and though it might have its leeks and melons, and cucumbers, it had, also, its tale of bricks, and its treasure cities to be built by Israel’s toil. There, too, Israel was a nation of slaves, thrust aside as unfit to associate with the lords of the earth – the murderers of their male children. Outside of Egypt, they were the Lord’s freed ones – bound for a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of rest, and a place of blessing. And they pitched their tents around the tent of Jehovah of hosts, the king of the whole earth, possessor of heaven and earth. The purpose of the Lord concerning them, had ever been the same; but the positions are two, and contrasted. First, the providence of God lets them sink down to the standing of a nation in slavery, in Egypt; but then the God of providence takes that same people to be as His own firstborn Son, and overthrows the power of their oppressor. It was their passage through the Red Sea which definitively marked the redemption of the chosen ones; for the return of the waters which destroyed the pursuer, shut them effectually out of Egypt, and with God in the wilderness. The positions are two, and easily distinguished, the one from the other.
The positions, also, are two, and contra-distinguished, of a man when trying to bring a clean thing out of himself, who is unclean, and of the same party when the death of Christ has been made his. He was an outcast from Eden; member of a race under judgment; himself so far wrecked and ruined, as that he thought himself competent to find out God; and, as a sinner, to stand in His presence, and to settle matters with Him for death and judgment to come, and to bring life, by his own power, where death reigned. His standing ground was human nature as a creature. But he has heard that Christ died, the just One for the unjust; and that faith identifies the sinner with Him who died under the penalty due to sinners. All that he had, and all that he was, has found its answer, and its end, in the death of Christ. Divine, indissoluble association of the old Me and all that it had or was, with the death of Christ, the Son of Man under judgment for me, is the goal, the end of that Me. “I [yet not I (that ended in the death of the Son of Man under judgment)], yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me – “live.”
The unbelieving believers of this day, know little of the death of Christ in this way, as the Red Sea between God’s Israel in the wilderness and Egypt. They have forgotten that it was “when He had by Himself purged our sins,” that, then (and not till then), He “sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” They have let slip that “we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all;” that this One, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever (as to sacrificial offering), “sat down on the right hand of God;” he rested from all further offering, and sat down: “For by one offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” Surely, if, instead of looking to the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man; and judging themselves and their feelings, according to what is found in God’s display of mercy in the heavens, if I say any are absorbed in what passes within themselves, and so let slip the display of mercy in the heavens; substituting for God’s dealings in mercy, God’s conduct with His saved people in government, there is great danger and just cause for us to stand in doubt of them. However unintentionally on their parts, they yet do, practically, use the death of Christ as the means to get themselves into a place of judgment, and out of the place of liberty and peace on the other side of the judgment.
As to the bearing upon the believer, through grace, of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have it explained in Rom. 6:6, and Gal. 2:20.
As we shall see, the thought presented is not that of our bearing the cross today (though that, in another connection, as saved people, may elsewhere be taught), but that which is presented to us, is God’s estimate of “our old man;” God’s treatment of it, once for all, when the Just One once stood before Him as representing the many unjust, and bore our judgment for us.
“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified (or has been crucified) with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Rom. 6:6).
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
The cross was a wantonly cruel punishment; and when God gave laws to His people Israel, He appointed another mode of putting a sinner to death, and branded the cross by saying, “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Deut. 21:23). How marvelously had He, in grace, thus anticipated a way for His own mercy to flow forth in to a rebellious people. We may see this in Gal. 3:10-13: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” All that are of law are under the curse, because it curses all that keep it not, and none can keep it: but Christ bore the curse in His own body on the tree. But then, if He who merited everything good when He was our substitute in the judgment was so treated, we – the old man – (i.e. what we were, and what our body is), got there expressed upon it God’s estimate of it He treated it, when we were represented by His Son, in a way to mark His estimate of it, that is, of us according to our Adam connection. Crucifixion and death are not necessarily identical; a man might be saved from death, though he had been put to open shame before God and man, and been nailed to a cross; so, Christ was not only nailed to the cross, and had experiences when there, as if, instead of being the faithful Prophet, Priest and King whom God delighted to honor, He had been one whose sins and iniquities were more in number than the hairs of His head, and that He could not look up – His cry before He died was, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” – but, besides this, He gave His life a ransom for us.
God’s estimate of our old man, of the “I” that was crucified together with Christ is pretty plain; and it is a good thing for those whose tastes and minds are being formed in their communion with God, to see His estimate of what they were when He found them. A little more disgust and nausea with our own old selves, and with man in himself, would not be at all an evil thing in us. God’s treatment of our representative, in spite of all His personal perfectness, shewed His estimate of me, and that may suffice to form and fix mine.
There is a needs be that a believer should have the same thoughts as God has about his old man his former self. God has presented His thoughts in no ambiguous mode of expression; they have been strongly expressed: but, if strongly expressed, what considerateness is found in God’s mode of expressing them. God’s own Son crucified, that on Him, when bearing the judgment due to us, in self-devoted love to us, those thoughts of God concerning what we were by nature might be seen. And let it be observed, that as God does, to our comfort and salvation, reckon that our old man was crucified with Christ, so He calls upon us also to reckon it so.
“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin” (Rom. 6:6,11).
Paul knew the power of this taking God at His word; and what strength the faith by which he said, I am crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20), gave him!
Instead of this simplicity and firmness of faith, which in Paul reckoned that to be true which God declared, and in spite of experience and feelings, accredited God’s declaration, and, therefore, acted upon it, we are apt to change everything. Paul took God’s view of things and acted upon it – upon God’s view of things – that “our old man is crucified together with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Paul reckoned that God was true in this and acted thereupon. He reckoned himself to have been “crucified” and “to be dead, indeed, unto sin,” and acted accordingly: for he knew who had said: “For sin shall not have dominion over you.” Instead of like faith hereunto, we find that but few receive and hold fast what God has said about the old man having been crucified, and being dead even so far as it bears upon justification of themselves; and still fewer hold it as to the principle of sin in them.
Now the hard thing is not for the results of faith to flow from faith; for the results of faith flowed from faith as naturally in Paul’s case as the results of unbelief, nowadays, naturally flow from unbelief. Paul reckoned himself as crucified and dead, because God said that He reckoned him, through Christ, to be so – and sin had not dominion over Paul. Christians, now-a-days, own the cross and death of Christ as the alone portal of rest, but they do not reckon that as to the penalty due and the power of sin in them they are dead through Christ’s crucifixion and death, and so they go on in doubt and sinning. The difficulty is not in the connection between faith and good works, or between unbelief and bad works; that is natural and easy enough in both cases. No: the difficulties are here rather, to let God be true and every man a liar; to believe God and trust ourselves implicitly to Him and His hand.
What a difference between the being crucified with Christ [as (in Matt. 27:44; Mark 13:32; John 19:32) we read of two thieves who were crucified on Calvary, when the Lord was crucified] and this being crucified together with Christ, through grace (Rom. 6:6, Gal. 2:20).
In the former case (just as in the crucifixions of the Romanist, and other carnal religions, which propose to punish men’s bodies for the sins of their souls) all the pain falls upon sinful flesh; in the latter case, it all fell, and fell in times that are past – the reward justly due to us upon the sinless Jesus, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree.
So far on Rom. 6:6, and Gal. 2:20; and on the believer being one, who is to reckon that his old man and former self, are reckoned by God as crucified together with Christ Jesus.
The cross of Christ has branded me (in all that I was as a fallen man) as with a stigma; but then His death has freed me, at once, from the penalty due to sin, and from the liberty to go on sinning. May we act accordingly!
3. Buried Together with Him
Rom. 2:4 & Col. 2:12
Therefore we are buried together with Him, by baptism into death.
Buried together with Him in baptism.
That which is buried, is put away out of sight. God has, in His grace, revealed, and faith has received, the testimony that all that we were has been put away out of sight, through association with the Lord who died. I, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me, was Paul’s word when he was speaking of the energy that was active in him as apostle. But, previously to this being true of him, as Paul, the case of Saul had had to be met. He had had to say, previously, as speaking of that, “I am (or have been) crucified with Christ;” that was the fate and end of him as Saul. The light of a living Christ, risen and ascended, had broken in upon his soul, and he learned that grace looked upon all that had been Saul, all that was of Saul, as so identified with that Christ, that the end of it, in death and judgment, was reckoned of God to be therein Christ crucified. If God reckoned it so, so would he; and so, “I am (or have been) crucified together with Christ.” But if the chapter about Saul contained that blessed truth, the chapter about Paul went on with a “nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” But there was this one most gracious provision to be noted, as to the Saul, not moribund, but defunct to be noticed, to the praise of the grace that saw that God’s glory required it, and for the comfort of the party thus found and blessed – the dead was buried also out of sight, through God’s grace through Christ – buried together with Him by baptism. “To bury our dead out of our sight,” is perfect in its own needed time and place.
Abram and Isaac, and Jacob and Joseph, felt this; and, by faith, saw God in connection with their burial-place. God foresaw the tomb where the body of our Lord should lay, as we see in Isa. 53. Devout men also carried Stephen to his burial; and Divine wisdom and grace had provided a grave for the “I” who was Saul the persecutor, and for the “I” wheresoever found dead in trespasses and sins, that finds grace unto eternal life. The law could curse such an one – could pierce through with its thunderbolts – could show that there was life in no one who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, and that moral death reigned in each and in all of them, but Moses could neither kill nor bring to an end the life of such a one as Saul, nor give him a new life. Christ secured to him the full benefits of death – made over His own death in all its fullness to him – shared with him the cross in all its fruit – and declares Himself the burial-place. Buried together with Him by baptism into death – buried together with Him in baptism.
All these things are of faith; and, therefore, are made good to individuals by faith, and enjoyed by individuals, through faith. It may be true of each individual member of a family, or of a community, whether the family have but three members, as a man, his wife and a child, or whether the community be as numerous as is the church of God. But these things are not true of the family, or of any community, as such. Of no family, of no community, as such, can it be said, it is “crucified, dead, and buried in Christ.” To say that the Church is dead, crucified, and buried with Christ, would be senseless as a statement; and, if it meant anything, must mean something very wide of what would be truth. Of every member in the church, it is true, however, as to what he was; and God reckons each one that believes, to be, as to the old man, crucified, dead, and buried, together with Christ; and the Word bids us, also, to reckon that His measure and estimate of the self in us, as thus formed in Christ Jesus – the crucified.
“To be as God, knowing good and evil,” is the practical folly of our fallen selves; the cross for His Christ, the equivalent, according to God, of this folly in us. So, when He dealt to Christ, according to His estimate of us, did He act, so has He branded, as with a stigma, ourselves and our self-complacent wisdom, and love of power.
So much then as to the “I” which was, and was looked upon as standing upon its own foundation as a creature, upon the merits and being of what is and is found in and of ourselves before God. Through grace God has said of all that, “crucified together with Christ, dead together with him, buried together with him.” God’s estimate of what each of us was, God’s judgment of it, and God’s putting of it, as it were, out of sight, are presented to us in the crucifixion, death and burial of the Lord. What was true of us morally, was visited on Him penally. God so identifies, so reckons us (in all that we were and had of our own) one together with Christ in His crucifixion, death and burial, that we can and are bound, as believers, to reckon that it is finished. God, who calleth those things which be not as though they were (Rom. 4.17), is He with whom we have to do. He has reckoned it thus. Who will say unto Him, What doest thou? or, What hast thou done? Are His rights limited? Is His power straitened, that He should have no title to do as seemeth Him good, no power to make good what He wills? Nay, rather hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good? But for His grace in reckoning each one that believes one, according to all that he had or is, one with Christ, Christ would never have been crucified, never have died, or been buried. But He has been crucified, dead and buried; and faith says, “And I am crucified, dead, and buried together with Him.”
Divine grace is wondrous in power and in wisdom. It has made death and judgment, which are in prospect before man in the avenue of human life, to be in retrospect behind the believer in the course of grace. Grace, too, has known how to substitute the death of the only sinless and the only just one, and His judgment on the cross, who is to be judge of quick and dead, in the place of the death of the sinner that believeth, and in place of the judgment of the self-accused culprit. Grace, too, has not only thus met the anticipations of the sinner that believes, but it has also, in the one same deliverance through the crucifixion, death and burial together with Christ, cleared out all old family scores and debts. There was a reckoning to come in judgment, because of the rebellion of the ancestral head of the family; another, because of a nature in corruption come down from him – tried, as it has been, in every varied way by God since Adam fell, and always yet showing itself rebellious. Grace has met and canceled all that: for if the penalty borne by the Son of Man on the cross, was borne because He was identified with some whose case challenged judgment, substituted for those in the judgment, all has been met, and faith can say, “I reckon myself (all that I was, as a mere creature, descended from Adam) crucified, dead and buried; and there is an end of the whole matter, for me, at least, among men, because God has said it is the end of the whole matter with Him for whosoever believeth.”
Unless a man reckon himself crucified, dead and buried together with Christ, where is his faith – where is his apprehension of what God reckons as to everyone that believeth? I press this, first, because I know from Scripture and from experience too the needs of the soul and of conscience of the poor sinner before God. There is no measure of self, that is, no divine and perfect measure – such as can satisfy the soul in God’s presence, because it has satisfied God Himself – save the cross of Christ Jesus, no end of self save His death, no burial-place for self unless it be Himself; and, secondly, because unless a man has said “dead,” how can he say, “I am alive again”? This brings us to the close of the first part of our subject.
I would desire to challenge my own conscience, and that of my reader, with the question: How far does conscience, in the secret solitude of God’s presence – there, where it is thinking of righteousness, temperance and eternal judgment to come – know these things to be real and existent, according to God’s thoughts of us and our own thoughts of ourselves?
4. Quickened Together With Christ
In the three articles which preceded this one, we have looked at that which the Holy Spirit teaches us in Scripture as to the provision, made by God, for meeting all the evil of our old former selves, of ourselves looked at in fallen nature, and according to our descent from Adam. In Christ there was Life, and Christ’s work was such, that by it God could meet (meet and set aside) all the consequences of that which He finds to be in us by nature. Crucified together with Christ; dead together with Christ; buried together with Christ, are three most precious benefits to us of the humiliation of the Lord. What an epitaph, worthy for the God of all grace to put over Saul the persecutor, and such like, when, through grace, they believe, “Crucified, dead and buried together with Christ.” What other remedy, other refuge was, is, can there be none for a lost son or daughter of Adam than is here presented? But God thought not to meet us in our evil only, and to deliver us from its awful consequences and results – the love that looked upon us when we were in our sins (and when we were children of wrath looked upon us and thought to interpose between us and the fruits of our sins, by the work of Christ), that love had a length and a breadth about it which could not measure itself out fully in the limits of our misery, but having loved us, in spite of what we were, and fully met all the evil at its own cost, that love has taken an arena for itself which is vast enough for it to show its full measure in. The Son of God associated Himself, as Son of Man, with all the circumstances of our misery and was put to shame in our stead upon the cross; died in our stead thereon and was buried. This was His downward path: obedient unto death, the death of the cross. “He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and He was buried” (1 Cor. 15:3,4). But He also “rose again from the dead,” etc., and, as we shall see, has associated us with Him in all the stages of His upward course of honor and blessing. He, associating Himself with us, had to suffer for us: He, associating us with Himself, in that which followed His suffering for us (as substituted for us), how rich are the blessings which are ours in Him! These we will now turn to consider.
4. Quickened Together With Christ
But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ” (Eph. 2:4-5).
“ And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, path he quickened together with Christ” (Col. 2.13).
Observe, first, what we were, as set forth in these two contexts – dead in trespasses and sins, having walked in time past according to the course of this world, – which is characterized thus; as being according to the prince of the power of the air,-the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, – among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Observe it. Death in trespasses and: sins; a walk according to the age of this world (at enmity with God and the Father); an age energized by Satan, whose sway is over rebels; the habitual bearing characterized by lusts of the flesh, desires of the flesh and of the mind, children of wrath. These were our spots where grace found us, if we can credit Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. And the picture is not more favorably drawn when he writes to the Colossians, whether Jew or Gentile be looked at. But, where no answer could be found in such a state of things, when it was looked at in the presence of God – there God showed an answer in Himself. He was rich in mercy and in power too. If the object which He looked upon was the very contrast of all that He loved and delighted in in Christ Jesus, He could yet show compassion and mercy – mercy and compassion – to what was in contrast with Himself and with His own moral beauty as expressed in Christ Jesus. He could save the sinner, yet, in the very act which justified Him in doing so, He would give the perfect expression of His own power and of His mercy toward the sinner, and yet of His hatred against the sin. His Son, His only begotten Son, as Son of Man, should take the place penally due to the sinner, and bear the perfect judgment due to sin in His own body on the tree. Substituted for the sinner, He (the just one in place and instead of the many unjust) bore sin in His own body on the tree. His doing so was the expression of His perfect sympathy with the Divine and heavenly counsel of His Father’s mercy. He became obedient unto death, the death of the cross. The judgment is Past; gone right through by Him, all alone – all that God thought, felt, knew, to be due to sin in His presence. He who passed through those sorrows (which were justly due to us, but would have sunk us into hell for eternity), is now alive again. For, if Divine justice perfectly expressed its claims against me and my sin and sinfulness when Christ stood to be judged in my stead, Divine justice had also to express itself, if it would be clear, as to both the personal and the essential glory of Him who could do such a work – God raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God. He “raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under His feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:20-23); “God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 11:9-11).
The head of all principality and power (Col. 2:10). Yes, so it is: He who was the Man of sorrows is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, crowned with honor and glory; and, as Lord of all and appointed Judge of quick and dead, He knows how to call a poor sinner, a Saul of Tarsus, or, a John of Bedford, and to set before him and in him the contrast between.
“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many: and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation.”
He knows, right well, how to set His own wondrous death and sufferings before the soul of a poor sinner who deserves eternal judgment, and, Himself the appointed judge to point out how grace provided Himself as a victim, that whosoever believeth might, accepting the judgment He bore to have been in place of their own, escape the judgment themselves. And what will the poor sinner say? Is God indeed willing to reckon that the Judge has borne the prisoner’s penalty; is He, the Judge, waiting, as in an acceptable time, to see what effect such a message has upon the wretched lost one’s heart? O the news is but too good! though, blessed be his name, not more good than true. It is finished! I bow to the blessed word of God’s grace, through Christ, proclaimed to the chiefest of sinners. Through grace it has reached me; through grace it has bowed down my soul. Be it so; let God be just and the justifier of me a sinner. Let Him have the honor of having reckoned all my sins to Jesus; let Him have the glory of having found the way, through that Son, of reckoning me crucified together with Him, dead together with Him, buried together with Him. God thus sets honor upon the work of His Son, done for us: the work by which He meets and through which He moves out of the way all that belonged to us as in fallen human nature.
The work of Christ while upon earth was for us, and is reckoned to us. He, the Son of Man, the Lamb of God was crucified, died and was buried. God reckons that the all that a Saul of Tarsus, a John of Bedford, and such like, had and were, meets its answer in the crucifixion, death and burial of the Lord Jesus; that is, when they, chiefest of sinners, come to believe. Yet it is reckoned so. But those parts of the blessing which follow are not merely reckoned, but have a real, essential portion in them. Quickened together with Christ, is more than what is reckoned merely. Christ, in all His perfectness, was crucified, died and was buried. God reckons to me in all my imperfectness and positive evil, the full benefit of this. He, Christ, the Just One, endured all that, according to God’s good pleasure, for and instead of me, an unjust one. God so far counts it to me, that it is His epitaph for me, according to what I was. But this epitaph, or inscription on the tomb and final resting-place of the old man in me, is still a perfect Christ – perfect though He bear (display of His perfectness) the marks of the judgment which He received once for me. He, in the richest grace, was stigmatized in my stead. Yet the I, that deserved to be stigmatized of God, am not actually in Him. What God reckons, faith reckons also; and so, reckoning ourselves to be penally dead to sin, we reckon that we have ceased from (and not only have to cease from), acting in sin. Now in some sense there is a contrast to this in what follows; for “LIFE” is a very positive, actual thing. And life is not merely reckoned to us, but has been absolutely given to us that believe and is positively possessed in Christ, and enjoyed by us in ourselves. A clear view of this difference is important. Let us pause upon it for a moment.
To Christ all that was due to us, as sinners, has been reckoned; and He has borne the punishment of it, and still retains the marks of the judgment so borne. Now just as we see on the walls of chapels and churches, sometimes a tablet erected in memory of some one that fell in a foreign land, and whose body still rests in that foreign land; even so, in one point of view, may the tokens of the passion which still remain, and may be seen by faith in the person of the Lord, be looked at. My wicked self is not in Him. The memory of all my guilt, all that God had against me, did once find its final resting-place in the person of Christ when He drank the cup of wrath upon the cross. And when I now, by faith, look up to Him, I see in Him the record, the remembrances of what He bore in my stead. This, while the question is of how I, a guilty creature in myself can find peace with God, is of all importance. The Just One, who is to judge all, bore on the cross the judgment due to me the unjust. I do not fear or doubt, whether He will or will not remember His own sufferings, whereon He has made my soul to rest. But this is not all. Not only is the penalty and power and being of the old man thus met, but another, a new man, having a being and power and liberty, is introduced to supplant the old man. And this is a positive thing, and a new thing altogether. Adam, as set in the Garden of Eden, had not that which the weakest believer in Christ now has: “Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever (1 Peter 1.23), “The word of the Lord ... the word which by the Gospel is preached” (vs. 25), is the instrumental means of communicating this, but the thing communicated is a new thing itself. Christ is the Giver – the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” – such a portion is not of human nature, but of God. Well now, when we come to the Scriptures what do we find as to this Life? First, if Adam was a living soul, Christ is a life-giving Spirit: “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Then, again, not only is His glory thus described: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made,” but also another glory is His: “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4). “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:3-4). “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5.11). I cite these passages as showing that “life” is, to us that believe, not merely moral order restored in the elements of the old man, but that it points to something which not only fallen but, which unfallen humanity, as first set in the Garden of Eden, did not possess; to something which fits us, not only for heaven, its native place, but for “fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:4). Such a fellowship is ours. But many are the lessons Scripture gives us in details connected with the subject.
Our attention is called to much, if we can taste and see it, in these words, “Quickened together with Christ.” I have heard expositions of this expression (which while they contained much truth in them, and blessed truth too), were not expositions of what our text contains. For instance, “Quickened together with Christ,” does not mean that as He was quickened who lay dead and buried in the grave, in the garden, so our souls which were morally dead become morally alive if we have believed. That, if we substituted “spiritually, as well as morally, “alive,” for “morally alive,” would be true; but it clearly would give no stress to the words together with. And such a truth would have been better expressed by, “have been quickened in soul, as Christ was in body.” The text really leads back to the hour in which Christ was quickened, and points out a special glory as attaching to him when so quickened, and a glory which connects itself now with the believer. Having laid down His life as a substitute for sinners, He took it again as the second Adam, life-giving Spirit, Head of a race. In redemption nothing is before God, or will be found to abide, save what comes forth from Christ. He is the Rock. He alone. He was smitten in death. In life – after death – a life which was in itself beyond death, and was shown to be so by His passing through death – the life-giving waters flowed forth, token of the Life which was in Him, which He was. It was necessary for Divine glory and for the conscience of the sinner, that the insults to God offered by sin, and the sin itself should be fully met by Him who alone could meet it. This he did by His death. But everything as to sin, past, present or to come, having had provision made for it in His death, His life anew was with the avowal of Headship. No life ever flowed save from Him. Whence else could it flow? Quickened together with Christ! Then I am to go back in thought, as to this life which I know I have in the Son, to Him in whom is life; and to go back to Him, not only as one of whom this was true as the Word of God, but as the one of whom this is declared by Scripture to be shown out as true – in the very hour when he was quickened as Son of Man, who was dead but could see no corruption. A simple view of this changes everything to a soul that believes; because it brings the mind down upon the very point of time and circumstances in time which God had arranged as the testimony to man. He knew who His Son was, and what His Son was and would do: He needed not, in His infiniteness, in order that He might see what He could know and understand, the developed accomplishment of His plans and counsels. But, in grace, He has presented, in time and in circumstances which are suited to man, great overt facts, such as appeal to man as man, and such as man, when under grace and in the light, can understand. The crucifixion, the death, the burial of the Christ were awful overt acts. Wrought by man and in grace and mercy’s sake permitted by God, and endured by the Christ for our sakes, they, first, told out man’s wickedness, and the end thereof to the believer through God’s grace. The quickening, raising up, elevation and glorification of Christ are great overt facts also, acts wrought by God to the confusion of sinful man, and for the salvation of the believer. And they tell out (oh how blessedly) the wellspring of God’s providing, full of every blessing.
Have I eternal life? Yes, in the Son. How do I know it? First, because God identifies faith and life together inseparably; and, second, I, through faith, know those things which the word declares cannot be known save where there is life – Divine life. In the Son and from the Son is this life. But to what point, to what circumstances does the word of God point me as the birth-place, as the scene of the coming forth into light, first, of this my life? To the quickening and raising from the dead of the God-honored, though man-rejected, Christ of God. He was quickened, and He was quickened as a Head. Directly I believe and understand the word – the tomb of Christ, bursts into light, not now closed and dark as the resting-place of Him that was buried, but open and full of light (for the Son of God, the Word, and the Jesus of Nazareth were there, just proved to be but one and the same) – that that is the scene to which the Word leads me back. I fear few of us go back simply enough to that scene, as the scene from which our new life has its date and the manifestation of its origin. Man (we ourselves according to what we were) would not have Him on any terms. God would have Him, and would have Him as the second Adam – with Headship and relationship to man found upon Him both for Heaven and for earth. I need not say my old man was not quickened – it was crucified, dead and buried together with Him. No, but God communicates a new nature to me, the Divine nature; and gave with it, power to become a son of God, power to enter, not only into the enjoyment of the things and circumstances of God, but into His own thoughts and affections, and to enter into them, according to the mode of the revelation of them, as displayed by God manifest in the flesh – by the Son of Man; by Him who though God over all blessed forever and Jehovah’s fellow was once, in deed and in truth, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief – crucified through weakness.
Quickened together with Christ – gives me three vivid truths. First, the source of life, presented according to the form and circumstances in which there was to be communication of life. Second, that the prominent leading feature in the scene is the quickening of Christ Jesus from the grave. In time, in weight of importance, in every respect, when God speaks, Christ must have the pre-eminence, the first place – it must be so. Third, that there was a unity, a something which God and the Spirit of God would not break into two things, in the life so communicated, in the communication of life – first, to the Christ as Son of Man awaking from the grave into which He had gone in order to clear us from guilt; and, second, to the believer cleared from guilt; a life in us unto God..
The Son of Man was to be three days in the heart of the earth. See corruption He could not – to know any moral change in Him also was impossible likewise. But He had power to lay down His life (and He did so) and power to take it again (and He did so); for such commandment He had received of the Father. He laid down His life in our stead. He took it up again and made us partakers of it.
That the old man and the new man are not merely different states of one and the same being at different times, is clear; for, first, they co-exist – the old man and the new are both in me a believer; and, second, they are in contrast; the old has no power to know and love God – the new nature, given us of God, loves God – the former can never rise higher than the living soul – the second has been brought into existence in us by Christ.
The expressions, “being in the flesh,” and “being in the Spirit” (Rom. 8:9), refer to standing. We are not in the flesh [our standing is not according to the flesh] but in the Spirit [our standing is according to Spirit], if so be that the Spirit of Christ dwell in us. But, then, though our standing be before God, according to Spirit, this, from the context, clearly does not put the flesh, the old man, etc., out of us. It is still in us, but, our standing being before God, according to a relationship formed with Christ by faith, through the Spirit, we are not under guilt, and we are debtors to act against the old nature, from which we received no benefit, and, according to the new nature which has given us, through faith, relationship to, and standing with, Christ. The doctrine of Scripture is very simple, and clear, and plain, though we, from want of simplicity in ourselves, often find it very difficult.
With God there is no difficulty in the perfect Son of God and the Son of Man (in all His perfectness) being one, for God was manifest in the flesh. With Him also there is no difficulty in that blessed One, as Son of Man, life-giving Spirit, communicating a new nature, the Divine nature, under certain conditions to a poor sinner; no difficulty to Him to provide that which enables both that nature as an incorruptible seed remaining in a poor sinner, or the Spirit of God ministering to it – while sin remains in the body of the sinner. The cross of Christ met the difficulty in one form; the intercession and ministry of the high priest does so in another, and the power of Christ will in a third. But that nature, introduced into us by Christ risen from the grave, through faith, by the Word, can and will supplant, supplant with all its own superiority of nature and character, the old nature; and in the end, finally, when we have seen the Christ, it will leave no trace behind in us of the old nature at all. If, by a constant change, through the acting of natural life, etc., in my natural body, it is, as is said, gradually changed in all its particles; yet I remain ever the same: I see no difficulty, even to my own mind, to comprehend that a new nature, of a higher order, may have been given to me – a nature introducing other objects, motives, affections and desires; and that this co-existing for a time in me may produce conflict for a time; and yet, in the issue, when I shall have seen Christ, may be so perfected, as to its sole possession of me, in body as well as soul and spirit, as that no element of the old nature, in its former state, should remain; and yet identity and individuality shall be fully preserved. I do not say this as having any theory to establish, but as an answer to questions and difficulties which have been raised by some who (purposing to remain, and to retain their position as merely good men), have refused the testimony of the Word about the Divine nature, with a – How can these things be? I receive what Scripture says, because God says it; but, of a truth, I cannot see any greater difficulties in these things than those difficulties which are found in truths which are in the field of nature and providence; nor so great as human sense and pride would find in the higher subjects of revelation, such as the incarnation, the atonement, redemption, etc.
According to 1 John 1:1-3, eternal life which was with the Father, was manifested in Christ. But the Son of Man had power to lay down His life and power to take it again (John 10:18). It is important to note the difference between eternal life in the Son of God (as in 1 John 5:11, together with, John 1:4, in Him [the Word] was life) – and the Son of Man having power to lay down His life, to give His life a ransom for many, and power to take His life again for their blessing. The Son of God (the only begotten Son) was given of God; but the Son of Man was lifted up on the cross. Eternal life was in the Son, in the Word; and was manifested to us in the Son of Man; the life of this man Jesus could be laid down – it was laid down as a ransom for our sins: it could be taken again – it was taken again—and, moreover, the having life and the circumstances of it were different to the Son of Man before death and after resurrection. His birth, as a babe, was, as seed of the woman, by the overshadowing of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. Such was the Son of Man, the seed of the woman as the Man of sorrows. Therefore that Holy Thing that was born of her, was called Son of the Highest – thus did He become a man, the Son of man, the Seed of the woman, the Man of sorrows. But having laid down His life, Himself giving it up when man with wicked hands was crucifying and slaying Him – His taking life anew was without any such intervention as was found in His birth. It was an act that lay outside of the precincts of the life of Adam the first, who, had he been obedient, would never have died, could never have been in a position to experience resurrection. Not so with Christ – Christ had power to lay down His life and power to take His life again; He was quickened of God: but in taking a life beyond the precincts and sphere of Adam the first, He took it as to form and circumstances, according to the precincts and sphere in which He took it; that is in the precincts and sphere of eternal redemption.
Revealing Himself to Saul, He revealed a glory in Himself, who is Son of God and Son of Man and upon the throne of the Father – a glory which communicates an incorruptible seed to every one into whom it shines. Now this blessing is from Him as Son of Man risen from among the dead, and gone up to the throne of the Father; but seated and owned there as Son of Man. Many lose themselves in thought here, by not seeing that the glory of the Son to usward is to act as “the Second Adam the life-giving Spirit.” Now the incorruptible seed which I receive, is received from the Son Himself – it is fitted, in the order in which it is given (as given from Him who bore my judgment before He took the formal place of being Quickener, and is now waiting at God’s right hand until the time come for Him to be displayed as the Power of God), to meet every difficulty connected with me as a mere man in ruin and in ruined circumstances; to meet, I say, all the questions arising from the form and mode of life of ruined man. It is a life which is in itself as fitted to enter into God’s things and man’s, as is the life of the Son of Man, who is now glorified upon the throne of the Father with the glory which as Son of God He had with God before the world was. It is His life in me, even as He Himself is my life. He as my life and His life in me, is both according to Himself, and not according to my fallen ruined self, and it is according to Him, according to what He now is risen from the dead among whom He lay by reason of what I was and, in my ruined nature, still am. This new nature is in us in contrast with the old. The former will supplant the latter. There may, there must, be conflict now between the two. I, a creature, upon the ground and under the condition of creatureship, having to do with God as Creator in a ruined world, where Satan knows how to use the flesh against God; and the new nature, put into me by the Spirit of Christ through faith, having a world of its own, and motives and objects peculiar to itself, cannot but be in conflict. But the former may be reckoned by us dead, because God reckons it so as to them that believe, and we may walk in newness of life. The old is not turned into the new; nor does the new (like leaven) work out to fill the old. The old has yet to be changed. Mercy and grace would not suffice, that is, without Divine power, and that wisdom which knows how to change this body of humiliation that it may be fashioned like unto His (Christ’s) body of glory.
There are two errors to be guarded against on this subject at the present time, if we would hold the truth with soundness. For the truth of Scripture seems to lie on this subject between two extremes which error has marked for itself.
On the one hand, the religion of the schools has worn down the statements of Scripture – so that the blessed truth of being quickened together with Christ, is reduced to a mere humanizing of fallen nature. In this theory, the new birth is but a putting right of the old nature; and the most that is aimed at, or thought of, is to recover in heart, mind and life, that which Adam possessed in Eden. According to it, redemption may be redemption from sin and hell, but it is not redemption unto fellowship with God through the Divine nature given to us of God by faith.
On the other hand, there is another error, most fearful, which, if it breaks through the trammels of system, breaks out into the wildest fanaticism. According to it the redeemed are to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent: and instead of one God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) there are to be God’s many. For each of the redeemed is to be God; Omnipotent; Omniscient, Omnipresent. Alas! what is man? Corruptor of everything he touches. Our privilege, our portion, our blessing, as redeemed, is neither according to the Eden that is passed, nor according to the glory proper to and sustainable only by God. The Son of God, He is God, essentially and eternally god, and is as such Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent. But He has wrought a salvation as Son of Man, and, according to the glory of that name, as the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven, He has opened a place, and a sphere, and a glory fitted for the nature which as such He has communicated to us – a nature which, while able to taste the things, thoughts, feelings of God Himself, ever owns Him from whom it has flowed to us, as God over all blessed forever, and ourselves the recipients and partakers of His grace as, however near to Himself, absolutely and eternally dependent upon Him as worshippers and servants. If we have life, eternal life, it is according to its avowed, displayed source, viz. the quickening of the Christ, Son of Man from heaven – from the grave: and the saint has this word for his shelter – Quickened together with Christ.
5. Life With Christ
In the last article on this subject, we looked at some of the testimony, given by the Holy Spirit in Scripture, as to the believer having been quickened together with Christ. By the passages then cited we found ourselves more especially led to consider the act and moment of the Christ’s taking His life again as the act and moment in the which the birth place (as it were) of that life which we, believers, have, in and from Christ, is marked out for us. Indeed, the wording of those passages does, in measure, limit the thoughts of the mind to the taking-up of the life. But there are other passages which refer to that same life, passages in which there is no limitation of thought to the taking-up of the life – passages in which reference is made rather to the possession of the life itself, than to the taking of it up.
What I mean will appear, at once, to the most simple minds, if the difference of the two verbs in Greek, συζωοποιεω and συζαω, which are correctly rendered in English by their equivalents “to quicken (or make alive) together with,” and “to live together with,” be considered.
God quickened us (or made us alive) together with Christ, is what we saw in Eph. 2:3 and Col. 2:13: God was the gracious actor; His Christ, the one in whom it was formally wrought for us, when He took His life again. Such was the teaching of our last article. We do possess life already in Christ and shall shortly be manifested as ourselves possessing that life when He is manifested in life; such is the teaching of the passages to which we now turn. Not only quickened together with Him, but also so manifestly partakers of His life now, that we know that when He is made manifest in life to all, and when He reigns over all, then we also shall be made manifest in life together with Him (for we do already partake His life, and know that we do) and shall reign with Him. To these passages, less restricted than those of our last article, we now turn, viz.:
Rom. 6:8. “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”
And, 2 Tim. 2:11. “It is a faithful saying: for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him.”
The doctrine of baptism, Christian baptism, is that God has provided a burial-place for the old man in us; He can reckon the old man of them that believe, to be crucified, dead and buried together with Christ. The act of Christian baptism is the individual believer’s setting to his own seal to the truth of this divine doctrine – his declaration, that he reckons, through grace, that the sepulture which God proposes altogether suffices. For the believer can trust God, who, having raised His Son from the dead, gave Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God. He, therefore, counts or reckons upon that being buried together with Christ, by baptism, into His death (Rom. 6:1-14). But if faith can reckon that the old man died together with Christ, because God says, that He so reckons it, faith is occupied also with another life, “We believe that we shall also live together with Him.” The first great point to mark is, that there is another life besides the life of Adam the first. If all that we were, or had of our own, from the first Adam, is reckoned to have died with Christ, we are not without life, for, secondly, Christ’s life, taken by Him in resurrection, is given, freely given, to us, as the whole chapter (Rom. 6) shows. Observe, the question is not merely about our future existence in another world than this – that is true, indeed – but that is not the great point here; but rather our present possession of a life, now together with Christ-the life which He took when He arose from the grave, a life upon the certainty of our present possession of which the apostle could rest our obligation to live to God, that is his subject. And, let the reader mark here, thirdly, some of the essential characteristics of it, as named in this context. It is “eternal life” (Rom. 5:21); it is that by means of which we can “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4); it secures to us “the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom. 6:5); it is life “together with Christ” (Rom. 6:8); a life over which “death path no dominion” (Rom. 6:9); a life by the which we are “alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11); “alive from the dead,” and our “members instruments of righteousness unto God” (Rom. 6:13); “under grace” (Rom. 6:14).
We see, then, first, that if grace puts its sentence upon the life of nature in us, upon the life of Adam the first, it gives us, at once, another spring. Second, that this new life in us is the life of Christ, the Christ that rose from the grave; and, third, that it is to be judged of and thought of according to its fountain-head and source – the Christ who is in God. It is eternal life – has a new path for itself according to the glory of the risen One, for it is a life of fellowship with Him, a life beyond the power of death, a life unto God from amid the dead, a life of practical godliness under grace.
Let it be observed that there are three distinct statements as to the life. First, In the Son of God, as the Word was life (John 1:4). Second, the Prince of Life who was killed (Acts 3:15) had eternal life (compare John 5:26-27); and, third, the eternal life is given to us in the Son (1 John 5:11-12).
The first of these passages refers the glory of the life which is to be given to us, to the Son as the Word; and its context refers every other glory of God which has ever been displayed to the Son, as the Word of God; the second asserts, that this life was in the man Jesus, who was crucified; the third presents us with a risen and ascended Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, now in glory, as the one in whom this life is now presented to us. It is important to mark this distinction on many accounts. For instance, by the observing it, we are guarded, on the one hand, from supposing that our fellowship is association with the Son of God in His character of the Word; from the folly of expecting to sit upon the throne of God; to be clothed with Deity; to be omniscient, omnipresent, and such like absurdities; and, secondly, we are kept from the thought that our association with Him is according to what He was while He was upon, Jewish grounds, and had not as yet made atonement, which leads into bondage and legality of spirit; and, thirdly, we are shut up by it to the truth of association with a risen and ascended man in heaven, who is in heaven and not upon earth, sits as Son of Man upon the Father’s throne, and sits there as the one who is past the judgment which he bore for our sakes, and is not only Head of His body the Church, but, also, is the One in whom our life is. Unless this point be clearly apprehended, I do not think the Christian will be free from what he ought to be free from, or free for and to that, to and for which he ought to be free. I shall, therefore, rest upon this a little, and call attention to it by citing a few verses which show what is the position and what the placing of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He is spoken of, in Scripture, as our life.
First. The doctrine as taught by the Lord: John 14:19-20: “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more, but ye see me: because I live ye shall live also, at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me and I in you.”
Second. The realization of this by the apostles and early Christians: Col. 3:1-4: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.”
The whole Epistle to the Ephesians, also, looks at the Church as being in Christ, and having its life there, in Him, in heaven (read Ephesians 1, 2, 3).
Third. We may remark the same thing, where the Spirit of God is arguing out God’s way of blessing to be only in and through Christ, in Rom. 5 and 6. Take, for instance, these verses: Rom. 5:10: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life;” and (Rom. 5:17) “shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”
Romans 6:4. “We are buried with Him (Christ) by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Rom. 6:23: “The wages of sin is death; kit the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 8:2,6,10, bears the same testimony. Here the topic is what the life of the Christian here below should be, a life flowing out of a salvation which had just been shown to be union in life with the Christ who had passed through death.
Take, again, the very form of the gospel as made known to Saul – of Christ, as the Savior and salvation of Paul.
We can truly cite “I was found of them that sought me not. I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me” (Rom. 10:20). It was the ascended and the glorified Christ, who said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me,” etc. (Acts 9) And one end of this we find named in 1 Tim. 1:16, “Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting.”
Take, again, the gospel as formally stated by Paul. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:3-6).
With this position of Christ clearly, 2 Tim. 1:1 and 10 must be connected, and also 1 John 1:2; 5:11-12; and not with Him when on the earth previous to His suffering.
I now turn to my second text.
2 Tim. 2:11. “It is a faithful saying: for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him.
Some of the essential characteristics of the life we have from, and with, the Christ, were noticed above, as found in Rom. 5 and 6. That it is “eternal;” gives power “to walk with God;” secures to us the similitude of Christ’s resurrection; is a life over which death has no dominion, is life together with Christ; a life unto God from among the dead, etc. In the portion in which it is found in the Epistle to the Romans the how we are saved, is the subject under consideration. In Paul’s Epistle to Timothy, the walk here below, which becomes such a life is rather the topic; and accordingly the force of this context seems to me to be just this: you must make up your mind, if the life of Christ is indeed your portion, to have experiences here below, similar to those which He had. Paul’s effort was to tighten the girdle of Timothy a little unto patience in suffering: so it seems to me. “Be strong in the grace that is in Jesus Christ” (ver. 1); “Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (ver. 3); “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life;” “be a soldier” (ver. 4); “Strive for masteries... lawfully” (ver. 5); are all of them expressions which mark the servant’s position and portion. And then he adds, “Consider what I say: and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my Gospel. Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. It is a faithful saying: for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him: if we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim. 2:7-13).
If Christ was raised from the dead; if Paul also preached the Gospel of Christ raised FROM THE DEAD (that is, of a Christ who had suffered unto death) what had Timothy, what have we to expect, here below, if made one with Christ (He the Head, and we members, and hereafter to be displayed as such, alive and reigning with Him), what have we to expect, in and from this world, save suffering?
Such, I take it, is the thought of the apostle. Clearly we who, through grace, died together with Him, have already a life in and from Him. Its manifestation, hereafter, will be in glory; for in heaven, and before God, what, but that which is Christ’s will shine, and how brightly will every expression of His life then shine! But now that same life which, hereafter, in God’s presence, will tell itself out in bright glory; now, in the presence of a godless world, and before the flesh and Satan tells itself out, as did Christ’s, in suffering.
I speak not of his sufferings on the cross, when making atonement for us, but of His sufferings as the Son and servant of God in His life on earth. Conflict with Satan; opposition to the world; a course of holy walk; testimony for God; sympathy with His disciples, and compassion towards a world dead in trespasses and sins, could give but sorrow and suffering to such a One as the Christ of God. We have life in and from Him; and, therefore, in whatever measure His life be developed and manifested in us, that life which is to be fully displayed in us when we reign with Him, in that same measure will there be, without an effort on our parts, approximation to, and a tasting of, His portion, who was the “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” all His life through, from the cradle to the cross; that cross where He was altogether alone, and none with Him; sorrow was His portion – perfect sorrow – sorrow to a degree, such as there is none to be likened to it. In our measure (oh how small a one it is, yet, in our measure, because we have His life, and are in the same world He was, a world, too, now declared to be enmity against God) we have sorrow and suffering. May we gird up the loins of our minds and be sober, enduring unto the end.
Life in the Son as the word; a life lived by Him upon the very earth we are upon; a life given as a ransom for us, and now taken by Him again, and displaying itself in Him to faith; made ours for entire liberty, privilege and service, now and as the power of fellowship, with Him in all His sufferings (save that of atonement, in which He alone suffered, and we are freely make partakers of what He did for us) have just been briefly looked at. May the saints ponder these things. That life we shall hereafter have to look at, as it is to be displayed in glory; but the two thoughts which have here been more particularly rested upon, are the essential qualities of His life, as His and (through grace) ours, and the necessary consequence of this, while we are on the earth, of suffering.
The importance which attaches to this part of our subject, will unfold as we proceed. But, clearly, if our gospel is the gospel of life, eternal life in the Son, the life of which we have been speaking is of all-absorbing interest: and so, also, in handling the subject of “Fellowship with Christ,” what immense place must the life in which we participate have! the life which is, in us, the power of fellowship with Himself first, and then with Him in the portion into which, through grace, He brings us. To a simple mind, this would suffice; but (so little simple are we when we are occupied with the things of God and of heaven, and not with the things of ourselves and earth, that) I shall venture to present a thought, or two, which may help some minds.
First, look back into the times which Genesis 1:1 reveals to us, and see the infinite God in action, calling into existence what He wills, with almighty power and wisdom and goodness; look, now, into Eden, as revealed in Gen. 2 The circumstances – the Being, and attributes and Actions of the infinite God. How different is this from the circumstances – the being, attributes and actions of the finite creature in Genesis 2. Fitness for the enjoyment of the possession of Eden, supposed the possession of a being, heart and mind similar to Adam’s. So that when he first looked around Eden, he saw there was no help meet for him. Eve was the complement of Adam in this respect; complement to himself for himself, and for the then scene of blessing: and mark, too, how infinite the distance was between the infinite God and His creatures. From the highest created angel, down to the lowest creature, there may be gradational steps, for all I know. From man, lord of creation, down to the lowest creature, there seems to have been a string of creatures gradually decreasing in power; and no break so mighty in the many-linked chain, as that between human reason, with its power to own God as the giver, and the very lowest instinct, or (lower still) lowest proof of life in any sense. But that break is not infinite. But the distance between infinite and finite, is infinite; or the infinite God would not be infinite, and man finite. Now mark the strange prospect which is before us: the Son of God is heir of all things, but He is to take the inheritance as Son of man (Heb. 1:2, and 8). Now, if Son of man possessing, at God’s hand, heaven and earth, and see Him in the new Jerusalem above, in heaven, with the Church His bride, I can see somewhat of the sort of life, mind, heart, habits, those must have who are really to enjoy such a position, and such a scene, with Him, and for Him, and for His glory. The life of God would not have done for Adam in the garden of Eden; he had been made to fill a scene fitted for a living soul; the life of Adam would not do for the new Jerusalem. Fitness for fellowship with Christ, there to be His joy, as well as to find all our joy in God and the Lamb there, supposes participation by us, fellowship with Him, according to the life which He will then and there display in glory; and (mark it) it is not creation, but redemption glory; and in heaven, not upon earth. The infinitely blessed God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit; heaven (as well as earth) re-arranged and arranged according to a new order; and the Son of God, as son of man, the center of the whole scene of glory, the church with Him, object of His love, sharer of the glory then, as she even already is of the life of her exalted Head; and, therefore, now of His suffering.
The living-soul life of Creation’s fairest scene would not do for participation in The Almighty Quickener’s higher scene, divine and heavenly as it is, of His redemption-glory. The second Adam, therefore, is a life-giving spirit; and we have eternal life in Him, and derived from Him, that we may be able to taste, and share, and enjoy, and do honor to heavenly courts above.
“Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath, will he give for his life” (Job 2:4), was the estimate which Satan formed of man; yea, and that if thou “but put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, he will curse thee to thy face.” Man, in his own power, cannot stand – human purpose will go but a little way in following Christ. “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice” (John 13:38). But Paul’s strength was not in the flesh, but in the spirit; and the power on which he counted, when he thus wrote, was that of which our Lord spake to Peter. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake He, signifying by what death He should glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Follow me” (John 21:18-19).
The point, however, which I more especially wished to notice, was the difference between Paul’s willingness to die and to live with the Corinthians, according to the life of his own body, and his being dead with Christ, and living together with Him in the spirit. In the former case, he had a life which he was willing and ready to lay down, to pour out, to make a libation of to God, if the life which the disciples had, needed it in any way. He would that his life should be preserved or sacrificed, according as the preservation or the sacrifice of life seemed most expedient. In the second case, Christ had penally died, because he, Paul, was morally dead; he was counted dead; counted himself so: but He had life in common with Christ, who was risen from the grave; and this life was eternal life; a life which he, Paul, never could lay aside, which never could see death; the power and worth of which would only come out the more, if he had to lay down his bodily life, and to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord.)
Napoleon (the first) spent his life in efforts to throw down all that belonged not to him, and to gather it up again for himself. Wellington’s public course, as soldier, was not marked thus, by selfish lawlessness, but as a servant of the king, under whom God’s providence had cast his lot. He labored, as a servant, to counterwork the enemies of his king and country. In their service his mortal life was carried in his hand, ever ready, for their benefit, to be laid down. Paul, in the power of a new eternal life given to him, held his mortal life as ever ready to be laid down, if the Christ, whom he served, could be served thereby, even in the needs and wants of His feeblest members here below. But the new life was the medium through which his object was seen and sought after. Jesus, in heaven above, the Lord of all, Himself the center and end of all the divine counsels, was He in whom the Spirit had revealed to Paul, what the fountain-spring of his new life was. Christian you have to live here below, as being yourself, already, an integral part of that glory, which has yet to be revealed to mortal eyes, though known now to faith: as being yourself, already, one connected with, and knowing yourself to be connected with, that same Jesus, Lord of all, who sits in heaven, center and end of all God’s counsels, thoughts, desires, and plans. Have you realized this? Are you living in the power of such a life at this present time? The eternal life, which will be displayed in glory hereafter, is now connected, now connects itself, has now (properly) no connection with anything looked at as apart from, and not a subject of interest to, Jesus, sitting as Lord, at the right hand of the Father.
6. Raised Up Together With Christ
Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 2:12; 3:1.
The English verb, “to raise up” [like the Greek verb, ἐγειρω], does not necessarily give the idea of resurrection. The first idea which the word suggests is that of causing to rise; and the word would, in its own self, very well suit itself in to a vast variety of circumstances. For instance, we find classical Greeks using the word when they want to say “rouse up the sleepers”; “arouse the mind”; “stir up the fight”; “wake up – the flame, the song,” etc.; “raise from a sick bed,” “raise a building,” etc.; and in passive, “awake from sleep”; “wake,” (be awake so as to) “watch.”
Resurrection is so essentially a Bible and a Gospel idea and truth, that we should never think of finding it among the writings of the Greek historians and poets. On the other hand, it (resurrection) is so fundamentally doctrine of the Gospel, that we are not surprised to find that the hearts of Christians (as those who know that the Lord is risen, and that all their good is with Him and in resurrection) are unconsciously apt to twist every passage which can be so twisted, and make it refer to resurrection. Some of the passages in which this word occurs have, I judge, been thus twisted; for while the word is used, in the New Testament, for resurrection, that is not its primary sense. We find it translated variously; thus in –
Matt. 2:13. Arise and take the young child.
Matt. 3: 9. To raise up children unto Abraham.
Matt. 8:15. she arose (from sickness), and ministered unto them.
Matt. 8:25. awoke him, saying, Lord, save us.
Matt. 11:11. There hath not risen a greater than John.
Matt. 12:11. lay hold on it and lift it out?
Matt. 24: 7. nation shall rise against nation.
Matt. 24:11. many false prophets shall rise.
Luke 1:69. Hath raised up an horn of salvation.
Three passages which appear to me to have been wrongly pressed into the service of resurrection are Acts 5:30, Acts 13:23 and Col. 3:1. Acts 5:30: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (ver. 31). The expression raised up, here refers, I believe, to the Lord’s appearance in humiliation, and thus presents what the sin of the Jews was. Jesus was raised up “a horn of salvation” (Luke 1:69); you murdered Him; God raised Him from the dead. A concise but expressive statement of the outline of the facts; and, as a statement, much more natural, as well as more full, than to suppose that the raising up, instead of referring to, God’s causing the Lord to appear, means merely His resurrection.
Acts 13:23, I read as having the same sense as the preceding verse (viz., 22); “He raised up unto them David to be their king” ... ” Of this man’s seed hath God, according to His promise, raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus. When John had first preached, before His coming, etc. And, I think, any one reading carefully the verses 24-30, will see the reasonableness of this. First, a Savior raised up; then John’s preaching and course; then the conduct of the dwellers at Jerusalem referred to; then the Lord’s death and burial (ver. 29); and then (ver. 30) His resurrection – “But God raised Him from the dead.”
Col. 3:1, refers neither to the Lord’s being raised up “a horn of salvation,” nor to His being raised up “from the dead,” but to our being raised up from earth to heaven with Him – “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” This we shall look at more in detail presently. But, and let it be remarked, the term raised up suits the Lord as a Savior, whether displayed in incarnation, in resurrection, or in ascension.
Attention may here, well enough, be called to the difference between the various displays of Resurrection-power. Some have been raised again from the dead to the same life which they had previously to their death, as Lazarus, the widow of Nain’s son; then there is the first resurrection (at the commencement of, or just preceding the setting up of the millennium), of those that live and reign with Christ a thousand years; and, again, there is the general resurrection, when all who have not been previously raised from the dead will be raised. But all these displays of Resurrection-power connect themselves with the Lord Jesus as the alone one that could say; “I am the Resurrection” (John 11). It being written that the wages of sin is death, and again, that he that hath the power of death is the devil (Heb. 2), it is plain that none but God – who fixed the wages of sin as death, and who is stronger and mightier than he who has, as executioner, the power of death – can reverse the power of death; and the power to do so rests in Christ as “the Resurrection.” But, blessed be God! there is another glory which is connected, in the same context, with that title of the Resurrection! even this glory of being “the Life” – “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” By Resurrection-power we are brought up out of the grave according to what we were, essentially and before God, when we went down into it. And they who go down into it, never having been made partakers of the blessing of being quickened together with Christ, will be raised in the same state as they were in when they went down into the grave. In this way, there is an evident connection between the personal glory of the Son of God, because He is Son of man, and all men.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” This (in John 11) gives the blessed connection between Resurrection and Life in Him for the believer [it was spoken to Martha, a true disciple] and the believer; but it leaves the unbeliever unnoticed. When, on the other hand, He was speaking to the opposing Jews (in chap. 5:19-30), He states it thus – “As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” Observe it: the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, and so the Son quickeneth whom, He will; and all judgment is committed into His hand. This judgment He seems to exercise variously; as thus, first, He tests men by His word, and where that word’s quickening power is made manifest, the creature’s ruin is judged and set aside; thus – “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself” (ver. 24-26). When God will bless any man, He must needs make nothing of what the man is; He makes him over, in the most thorough way possible, to Christ, for an integral part of His glory. A man’s rights are met in hell, if a man be a slave of Satan; God’s rights and Christ’s worthiness can alone account for my being in heaven. In going to his own place, a Judas will awfully find the just sentence of God against his own cherishing of fellowship with Satan! He will find out himself there sure enough, and his own just recognition. For man has lost his own inheritance through sin: the lake of fire and brimstone was prepared – not for man, but for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). On the other hand, glory in the heavens is prepared for the Christ of God. In either place, we must be parties of secondary importance. But how much more so in the heavens than in hell, I need not say. But what I wanted to press was the fact, that redemption, as having been communicated to us, is found, by us, to be not only the expression of God’s estimate of the worthiness and power of Christ, but the most thorough judgment of all that we were; so much so, that a soul will never really get separate from itself, able to judge itself, to loathe itself, save by the knowledge of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.. I would that we all knew a little more of this self-loathing. And then our Lord went on, after thus showing how all the poor lost sinner’s springs were in Him the Savior, to speak of the wicked. He hath “authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which ALL that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of Who shall stand on his own works for foundation and be saved? And, let it be remarked, this is one result of His being Son of man. All men shall, therefore, rise from the grave. Some, first, to speak of quickening virtues found in Him the Son, and, through grace, tasted by themselves – themselves made subject to them:-raised to speak and to declare that they had known what it was to be quickened together with Him from the grave; and the works of such will bear witness, and get a reward, too, in the resurrection. Then, last, all shall be raised; and they, too, shall reap the reward of the root they grew upon, and of their separation from the alone Giver of new life (God’s life) to the soul; but their works shall not stand in judgment. The root, the tree, and fruit go together; whether Christ or Adam be in question. May we remember it well.
There is one matter to notice here briefly, the transmutation of those saints who are alive when the Lord comes; their change at His coming without seeing death. It may be seen in 1 Thess. 4:16-17 and Phil. 3:20-21. “Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.” The thought is unutterably precious, that the moment we that remain see Him Himself, virtue will come out of Himself to change these bodies of humiliation, and to fashion them like unto His own body in glory.
I need hardly say that the perfect difference between the Raiser and the raised (or the changed) must never be forgotten. All the virtue and the power are His, and His alone, though they may display themselves, through grace, upon us. Nevertheless, it is too sweet to the heart for me to pass by recalling it, that there is but ONE (our Lord and our God) of whom it can be said, He is “the Resurrection and the Life”; but ONE that had power Himself to lay down His life, and Himself to take it again; but ONE of whom it could be said, He was declared to be the Son of God, with power by the resurrection of the dead (ones); but ONE who can quicken now whom He will, and at whose voice all that are in the graves shall hereafter come forth. His glory and His honor are our highest blessing; and sweet is it to those that have known Him as their Eternal Lover, to think of the glory that awaits them-not as that which will fully and perfectly minister to their own enjoyment, but as that which His love will work in them – expression at once of His own innate glory, of God’s choice of them, and of His desire to have them perfectly fitted for companionship with Him and for the presence of God. Oh, how little do our poor, yet blessed, richly blessed, souls think of Christ and His Love! And yet we are loved by Him, notwithstanding all, and made to know the divine character of His love, which rejoices in giving, giving freely, to those on whom it rests.
Hath Raised Us Up Together
I turn now to my texts. Eph. 2:6. “Hath raised us up together.” First let us read the context. We “were by nature the children of wrath,” even as others. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved); and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (ver. 3-6).
Some have noticed, as though it were the reason of the word together (“raised up together”), the union in the Church of those who had been separated upon earth into, Jews and Gentiles. That the heavenly body, the Church, contains those who were once Gentiles, as well as those who were once Jews, is a fact. But this is NOT at all the scope of the apostle’s meaning. And, let it be remarked, that men are not together, in the Church, as Jews and Gentiles; as such they were separated, by God Himself, the one from the other; but they who were such are together, in the Church, as members of the body of Christ. But surely, my fellowship with a Paul in heaven is not the wonder (though, truly, to be there at all, and to be seen to be there, and that, too, in happy association with other men, is most blessed); but the wonder, in this context, is that which lies at the entrance of each soul into the place and position of this fellowship one with the other, namely, individual fellowship with Christ the Head. I am a member of Christ; He put off all that rested in nature in and upon me when it was reckoned to Him. Therefore He was crucified, dead, and was buried; and I am reckoned, and reckon myself, through faith, clear from it all, as reckoned of God, crucified, dead, and buried together with Him. But He has also made me one spirit with Himself; and, through a divine grace, which is boundlessly great, I share certain things together with Himself. The word leads me back to His taking of His life again, as the Son of man in the grave, that I may understand how, having been quickened – made alive – together with Him, I am free among the dead. And the life which I have is a life together with Him. He the Head, and I but a member. It is true that the blessing which I have in Him, I have in common with all the other members of His body; but the power which enables me, even, to have heart-room for a Paul is found in my known conscious possession of blessings together with Christ. Yea; and it is because He finds His interest in all His members that ours too can flow out freely to them. For the consciousness of community of blessing among the members does not suffice as power to any individual member to act consistently therewith; he needs the love of Christ shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit given to him, and communion with the heart of the Lord Jesus.
I fully admit, first, that God’s dealings for the earth had divided (since the days of Abraham, if not even before, viz., from the days of the sons of Noah) the Jew from the Gentile; and, secondly, that this is an order of things which not only existed, while things were left in the hand of man to try and to prove him, as from Noah to Christ, but which will exist when the Son of man comes forth out of heaven to bless man, and to take the government of the earth into His own hands; for the Jews and the Gentiles and the extern nations will then still each have blessings distinctive to itself; and, thirdly, that the Church, as being not for the earth but for the heavens – not a part of God’s governmental ways for earth, but part of His counsel of grace and for heaven – sets (as other counsels for heaven do also) this separation of classes aside, though it may sanction other classification. I say I admit all this; but I deny that this is the great wonder of the “together with” in the passage before us. To the unconverted Jew, it was scandal to think even of a Gentile dog being associated with him; to the unconverted Gentile, the narrow bigotry of the Jew was contemptible folly; to the converted man, whether Jew or Gentile, a new and a wonderful scene was opened – Heaven. And a truth, marvelous beyond all others, was propounded; that God has made him that believeth to be vitally one with the earth-rejected, man-despised, but heaven-owned and God-honored Jesus of Nazareth. Separation of Jew from Gentile was, is, and will be for the earth; but heaven neither Jew nor Gentile looked for. The wonder to a Paul was not that one, once a worshipper of Diana, the great goddess of the Ephesians, should be counted fit company for him, a Pharisee, who had thought he did God’s service (not only in trying to blot out the name of Jesus of Nazareth from the earth, but also) in trying to destroy the Church, the counsel of God most dear to Him about Christ; but the wonder was this, that vital union, fellowship of life, should be to him with the same Christ Jesus whom he had persecuted, and this, too, in heaven, where Christ sits at the right hand of the Majesty in the highest. A tenure of blessing and a place of blessing, as open to Gentile as to Jew; and a blessing, too, so entirely divine and unhuman, so entirely heavenly and unearthly, that none could communicate even a right thought about it save God the Holy Spirit.
May the believer in Christ never forget that heaven is his home, his native place; and that this is the case just because he is one spirit with the Lord Jesus the Christ, partaker of the divine nature, as made one with the Heavenly Christ, and, therefore, to count upon sharing all things together with Him as the Christ.
But to proceed. We have already looked, 1St, at the being made alive together with the Christ. He that had laid down His life as a ransom and for an atonement, took His life as Son of man again in the grave. And the apostle’s subject of prayer is still a good subject of prayer; that we may know “what is the exceeding greatness of His [His refers here to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ] power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:19-20). All things put under Him, and He given to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
And secondly, at the life as so given being the life of the Christ Himself – a life which, if it now identifies us consciously with God, and brings us here below into conflict with everything within us and around us which is in conflict with God, will yet, in a little while, be openly displayed in its own proper sphere, in us in heaven, and be the power of our association with Him then in glory. We have now to consider what the force of the expression in Eph. 2:6, of our being raised up together with Christ, is. First. It refers clearly to something which naturally comes in, so far as the Christ is concerned, between His taking of His life again, while His body was still in the grave, and His sitting down in heavenly places. Two acts of His necessarily come in, perhaps, in this place: the one, His leaving the tomb, as in the act of manifesting His resurrection from among the dead; the other, His ascension. Indeed, I need not say perhaps, for so much stress is laid upon His resurrection, apart from His ascension, and such entirely different scriptures and truths are connected with these two acts of the Lord, that it is quite clear God meant us to mark the difference of the two. For instance, it was said – “Must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection?” so says Peter (Acts 1:22). And this is confirmed by Paul, where he says (1 Cor. 15:3-7) – “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of “whom the greater part remain unto, this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, He was seen of James; then of all the apostles.” The importance of this evidence as to the resurrection of the Lord follows afterward – “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain” and “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (ver. 14, 17). The very doctrine of the forgiveness of sins – of forgiveness of sins to anyone, anywhere – hangs upon the reality of Christ’s resurrection. To us also righteousness “shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:24-25). “The answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:22). Without this, it is clear there could not be blessing in the presence of God for anyone, nor such a thing as a good conscience. Whether the question be about conscience in a Christian; in the remnants from among the Jews and the Gentiles who get into heaven, though they yet form not there parts of the Church; or in the Jew or the Gentile, or the outside worshipper. The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was God’s way, both of being just while justifying a sinner of any class, and of making a good conscience in every believer. Sin was against God. If God appointed that the consequences of man’s sin should come upon His Son as Son of man – He must die. He died, and rose and revived. God’s way was, thenceforth, open to meet man where and how He pleased, but so (as He counted) alone, and so, as each accepted sinner – wherever his assigned place of meeting God, whatever the distinctive feature of blessing which grace may assign to him when he does so meet God – so, I say, will each accepted sinner find. An arisen Christ alone can be God’s channel to the conscience of a sinner, or a true answer of the conscience; and this simply because in this One alone, so regarded, does the conscience find, as God’s answer to it, the very answer which God has provided for the claims of His own character. That which has satisfied God may well satisfy me.
But I left out, intentionally, Paul’s reference to himself as one of the witnesses of the resurrection. “And last of all was he seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.” Now when Christ was seen by Paul, it was not merely in resurrection. Arisen from the grave, His gospel was to begin at Jerusalem. When Jerusalem would not have it, it sounded out through Judea and Samaria. And, when Stephen was stoned, heaven opened upon him, and there was a blessed intercourse between Jesus standing on the right hand of God and the martyr. But Saul, ringleader of the persecution against the Church, saw, then, naught, heard and understood naught. But a little further on in the history, the arisen and ascended Jesus calls him by name. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” etc. That the ascension-glory took a most distinctive place in Paul’s mind, and held a most peculiar place in his ministry, is plain. See, for instance, as to the place it had in his mind, the stress he lays upon it, in Acts 22:6-11, when he spake to the people in the Hebrew tongue; and again, in Acts 26:12-18, when he spake in the presence of Agrippa. These portions, compared with the account of his conversion in Acts 9:3-9, are very interesting. And to see the place which the ascension had in his doctrine, one has only to turn to his statement of his gospel in 2 Cor. 4:3-6, to the opening of his letter to the Galatians, 1:11-16, to the tenor and contents of his letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, to be fully persuaded of it..
But, further, the whole of the distinctive position of the Church, the whole of the doctrine which is distinctively directive to each individual believer now, is found in this ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mercy in God may be thought of by a poor sinner now (after a fashion which would have been correct enough in patriarchal days; that is, mercy without its way of flowing forth being explained); but God’s mercy shown before us is the mercy and compassion of God, which, having substituted the Christ, the Just One, in place of the many unjust, declares that it delights to flow forth with all its blessings through a Christ that is now upon the throne of the Majesty in the highest. We can only meet God in the place where Christ is presented as meeting us; to us that meeting-place is in the holiest within the veil; to the Jew it will be in the land; and the character of conscience is according to the place of meeting: the light is fuller within the veil, and the conscience is of a higher temper, even as the truth presented to us is the more overt in its expression, and even as the power given is of the highest order. For conscience needs, in order to meet God, that which God needs in order to meet it, and conscience needs a power accordingly. There is but one blood of atonement; there is but one Spirit to apply it: that’s clear. But if any would argue thence that because, as regarding himself, relatively to himself, every man that is saved is saved by the Spirit and through the blood alone, that, therefore, as regarding God, relatively to God, each saved sinner must be equally near as another, they utterly mistake. Mercy and compassion were native to God alone; they flow forth as He will; they apply themselves to whom He will; they form classes, too, and put a soul in one class or a soul in another, as God saw meet from before the foundation of the world. A saint to be in the New Jerusalem, to form part of the Bride of Christ, needs a conscience and a spiritual power more than a saint would who had to be part of the kingdom of Israel – to form part of the people of the Lord on earth. Now, escape from the ruin round about us will never be made good to a soul which does not know an ascended Lord. Such a soul is without that form of truth which is distinctive to the economy, and must be without that intelligence and that power which a man needs who has to walk as one risen together with Christ; and, therefore, his citizenship being in heaven, having to seek and to mind things which are in heaven. But of this more in detail hereafter.
To which, then, of the two things which intervened between Christ’s quickening in the grave and His sitting down in the heavenly places. (viz., His coming forth out of the grave and His ascending up into heaven) does this expression, “raised us up together” (Eph. 2:6), apply?
I may say in reply, that, first, in point of truth, I do not see that it matters much, if at all, which way it be rendered; for rendered either way, it is one step of two between the “being quickened together with Christ,” and the “being seated together with Him in heavenly places.” Second. The more common, and, therefore, perhaps, the more natural way to render it, is as referring to the first of the two steps. Observe it. Between the communication of life and the being seated in heaven, two things are supposed: First, a coining out of the grave (wherein life was received) up among men – to the region of man, so to speak; and second, a going up from among men into heaven.
I admit that the first of these, in reality, attaches itself to the preceding step; and, if you please, that resurrection involves two things: the communication of life anew; and the manifestation of life, if just dead and not buried, or the bringing up of the person from the grave, if he be buried as well as dead. Still they are not really one and the same thing; and, in the case of the blessed Lord, very distinguishable are His taking His life in the grave, with all the truth that it involves as to God, and Himself and the Spirit and the spiritual world too, and His being seen and known among men as risen, and tarrying among His disciples for a season ere He went up. In dealing with individual souls, in a cloudy and dark day, the distinction may be helpful; ‘tis one that the account in Acts 9 of Paul’s conversion warrants, and it may be traced dispensationally (according to the analogy of the faith) in the Church’s entrance into glory and the earth’s future blessing. Paul was quickened before he took his place with disciples – before he could show that which they could accredit that he lived unto God.
I do not press the analogy of the faith, though, to my own mind, it is always confirmatory and important (if anyone has ability from God to trace analogies); but the Church will be in glory ere manifested in glory, the Jewish and the Gentile remnants will each have life ere it is seen by man to be in life; so the Jewish nation will have life ere that life has become so outwardly manifested as for them to get the fruits of it in outward blessing.
On the individual believer, however, I would here press the thought, that “the life of God” (as Paul speaks in Eph. 4:18), if it belongs to those that have known (or rather been known of) Christ, shows itself in those that have heard Him and been taught by Him, “as the truth is in Jesus.” Is our gospel, wherein we glory, the gospel of life – eternal life, in and through Jesus Christ our Lord; so then is our testimony the testimony of life – eternal life. If we are hidden in Christ in God, He is to be displayed in us in the world. Paul not only knew Christ as Life – his life, and that he, Paul, had eternal life in Christ, but he walked also here below so of that he could say, “We are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences” (2 Cor. 5.11). And the manner and mode of this manifestation he sets forth. It was, not only in appearance, but in heart; but then it was not only in heart, but in appearance also. His life had motives, ends and objects: a peculiar view, too, proper to it, which gave it its character before God, and led to a testimony such as the Corinthians could read. Self was neither his end, nor his starting-point, nor his spring of energy, as, alas, it so often is with professing Christians now-a-days. I, I, I, I, I, I, I – a perfect number in egotism – is a sorrowful thing in a Christian. Paul’s Christian life was not such. “For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause” (ver. 13). God alone was the one to whom he lived; but God had objects of His affection down here; and so the divinely led man had to seek the interests of those whose interests the God, that led him captive in His cords of love, sought. Then follows the account of what it was that told so much on his own heart and mind (happy man that he was). “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (ver. 14-15, etc.). What a contrast between this mode of life and the mode of life of so many: “do this and do that”; “do not do this, and do not do that.” The man of the world’s actions are the index of that which rules within; and if the Christian man’s actions are the index of what rules within, then the life of the worldly man and the life of the Christian will be very unlike the one to the other.
Myself, this life, earth, circumstances and Satan, are in the inside of the worldling’s life; Christ, eternity, heaven, redeeming love, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are all that the Christian’s inward life knows. Do Christians, real Christians, sufficiently feel this? What are good works in a clock, if it have no hands whereby to indicate the good time it keeps. Reader! What art thou left down here upon earth for? Eternal redemption and it perfect salvation are thine; and such a seal is set upon thee for security, that none can take thy blessing from thee. Why, then, art thou left here? Surely, to be a witness, in the power of thy life as well as of thy lips, for the Lord Jesus; if so be we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
It is touching to see how to the Christ, alive again from the dead (there not only descended angels from above to greet Him, but), there flowed to His own heart and mind thoughts of the needs-be of His presenting Himself before His Father as Son of man, and thoughts of each one of His people. To each of them He might have taken a different way of introducing Himself – His way did vary much in the many cases which we read of; but the disciples He had left as sheep that were scattered (because He, the Shepherd, was smitten) must be gathered together again – they were His Father’s sheep; and then He goes on high, Himself to become the subject, in a new position, of the testimony of His disciples to the world;-Himself gone on high at once to secure His disciples’ best interests, to send them down, also, the Holy Spirit; and, while remaining there and caring for His own which are in the world, forming them, and directing and aiding them in their service – Himself the subject of their preaching, as well as the joy of their hearts. Oh, how little do we live in the power of the heavenly calling and fellowship of the mystery of Christ and the Church! The Lord look upon us to renew the power of these things in us, and may we mark it well, that Christ, alive again from the grave, had things to do proper to the life, as so taken up by Him anew; and may we go and do likewise.
Buried with Him ... Risen With Him
Our next verse is Col. 2:12, “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.” Many expressions in this context, as well as the general drift of it, conduce to prove that resurrection is the simple meaning of it. For instance, the last clause is conclusive proof thereof; “God, who hath raised him (Christ) from the dead.” The grand object is – not the Christ going up into heaven, from the earth, or Christ seen displayed’ in heaven, but the resurrection of Christ from among the dead. “God raised Him from the dead.” It is His rising from the grave where He was buried when He had died for our sins; His coming forth from that grave to be seen of His disciples, to be preached of to His enemies; and this is not only the grand subject of the verse, but it is the one that rules the whole verse, for that which is declared in the last clause, to have been made good in Him, in that He was as a man in overt action raised from the dead, is declared to be true of us that believe in Him; God looking upon us and judging according to the spirit of Christ which He has given to us, judges of us that we being one spirit with the Lord, are risen together with Him. This is true to all those that believe in Him that raised Christ from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.
The bodies of those that believe, if they have been laid in the dust, will rise as His body rose; rise at His coming, and be raised by the power of Himself then present to do so; but those bodies will rise because they belong to souls that have been quickened, who, if absent from the body, are present with the Lord. The spirit of Stephen, of Paul, of Peter, are with the Lord; their bodies are in the dust. God does, in counsel and thought, connect the dust of those bodies – of those earthen vessels, with the souls which His Son quickened, and, hereafter, the bodies shall rise in proof thereof. But when these men – Stephen, Paul, Peter, etc., were alive upon earth, they, having believed in Christ, had been quickened by Him as the One that rose from the grave and were looked upon by God as vitally one with His Christ, and He could say to them (not as yet of their bodies, but of themselves) – Ye are risen together with Him whom I raised from among the dead. That Christ was arisen from among the dead was an overt fact when Paul wrote to the Colossians; so was it an overt fact, at that self-same time, that Paul and these Colossians had received the Spirit of Christ, and were judged of God (not as if their standing was according to the flesh and nature, as derived from Adam the first, to clear them of that) – all its consequences had been reckoned to Christ, and He had, therefore, been crucified, had died, and been buried; they were to reckon these things true of themselves, for God did so of a truth, but as having, a standing before Him according to the Spirit and grace. This Spirit had freely flowed down from Christ when He had taken His life again – had freely been given to them. Its starting point was the Christ Jesus taking life again in the grave; but it was life, eternal life, life divine though in man; and was looked upon by God, as it was found in them, not as something that would lie still in the tomb, though not of it, but as something that would prove itself as that which was arisen from out of the grave and from among the dead. And we may remark here, that, in unison with this thought, is the verse just before it. We “are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh” (ver. 11); which circumcision (it is the only circumcision we know as being Christ for us), is thus explained (Phil. 3:3), “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
The context of the verse before us seems to me to contain two parts; First, the doctrine of the clearing out of the new man from the shell and husks of the old; and second, The building up of the new man; the two together making up the being “complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power,” spoken of in verse 10.
On the first part, I would just notice, further, the pointed and distinct way in which our deliverance, the Christ penally dead but arisen, and ourselves once morally dead are brought together in verses 12 and 13.
“We risen with Him” – “whom God hath raised from the dead”: ye who “were dead in your sins... quickened together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses”; and then he adds, as bearing upon the Jew, and all the ordinances nailed “to his cross” (ver. 14).
How far do we test our lives and walk here below by the question: Are they in harmony with the life we have in common with the Christ arisen from the dead. He is the same before death and after; but His position is different. When on earth He was the servant of God among Israel upon earth – a people owned of God, and to be blessed upon earth; and His outward life flowed forth, not only in zeal for God, but in zeal for His House upon earth, and for His people upon earth too. The temple He did honor so far as it was open to Him; the king’s house was shut against Him, another possessed it. Yet He was the Shepherd of Israel, and His sympathies flowed out toward them. Such is not the case now; He has been put to death, and since His resurrection from among the dead, has been rejected afresh by Israel, now identifying Himself with nothing but a pilgrim and stranger band in its tarrying the little while upon earth until He comes again.
To be called to a walk upon earth, consistent with the truth that God looks upon us and judges of us as men whom he has made to be one Spirit with His Son who is arisen from the dead is a marvelous calling. It is freedom before God; freedom from all the elements of natural as well as earthly religion; freedom unto God; freedom to suffer and to do His will, though in a body of sin and death – an evil world, under Satan all around, until the glory come.
If Ye Be Risen With Christ, Seek Those Things Which Are Above
We come now to our third and last text upon this most interesting subject. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right-hand of God” (Col. 3:1). “Set your affection on things above not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:2-4).
The Christ is looked at, here, not only as arisen from the grave but as gone up from the earth to heaven. “He was carried up into heaven” (as we read in Luke 24:51). “And while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly towards heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:10-11). Such is the doctrine of Scripture. The grace of His shewing Himself alive to the disciples upon earth – “being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3) must not be forgotten; nor the entire distinctness of the ascension, as a doctrine, from the doctrine of the resurrection of the Lord. In our verse He is pointed out as sitting at the right-hand of God – after having ascended. And the exhortation to us is to set our “affection on things above (that is in heaven) not on things on the earth.” A natural consequence enough, if, indeed, we realize that we are risen together with Him; for the place into which we are risen is the place where the subjects of our interest will be found; our proper circumstances so to speak. And then, as giving weight to the word just spoken, he reminds them, “For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.” This is the present blessing we have, “We are dead,” and “our life is hid with Christ in God.” The security of the manna in the golden-pot, inside the ark, shut in by God, who dwells between the Cherubim, is a poor expression of that security which is ours if our life is hid with Christ in God. It is life, eternal life; it is life inseparable from Christ; and Christ rests, not only in a seat of power in heaven, but is in God. We have to seek the things which are above. That is for the present our proper occupation. And it is an occupation in which the Spirit will have some upon earth to be occupied with until that time. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory. It is Faith which owns Him as our life”; the eye sees it not; soon He shall take the place in which we shall see him for ourselves, and then what but to be seen together with Him in glory.
I may just remark that the apostle’s use of the little word “if” (ver. 1), “If ye then be risen together with Christ” does not convey, is not meant to convey, any uncertainty; as though Paul doubted, as though he sanctioned their doubting, as though he even supposed they doubted whether or not they were in Christ, and risen together with Him. The whole scope of the apostle’s argument goes upon the fact that there was no doubt whatever about it-to faith the thing was clear and sure; He had left Judaism by reason thereof; he was proving that these Colossians were in danger of Judaizing, because they did not retain the fact before them; and in Colossians 2 and 3 he thrusts this blessed grace of God before them, that they may find the power of seeking the things which were above.
Some will say, “but we are down here” – “our bodies are on earth”, and what then? May not God look at us, not according to what we are in the flesh, but according to what we are in the spirit, as partakers of a new life in Christ, a life which enables us to know that God identifies us, and looks upon us as one spirit with Him who sits at His right-hand; or, may not God, having made this good for a Paul, for poor Colossians, call upon them to walk by the faith of it? He certainly has done so; and faith, in us as certainly as it knows what He has done, takes up His word, His thought, and counts it true and to be but the expression of that which has more of substantive truth and eternal reality in it, than all that which Satan sets man’s flesh on to say in opposition. It is a sorrowful thing to see Christians pleading experience and feeling and sense as to what they are in themselves, and as to what the world around them is, and as to what power Satan has over them; and refusing to take God’s estimate of the world, the flesh and Satan; and so not finding a practical refuge in Christ for themselves; and in Him, too, that new life, new in nature a life in Christ; of Christ arisen from the grave; and after that gone up into heaven.
On the expression, “Seek those things which are above,” I would say a few words. And first, as to the definiteness of the place spoken of by the Spirit here; nothing could be more marked; “things which are above.” Where? “Where Christ sitteth on the right-hand of God.” Now, to many minds this is all in the clouds, very vague indeed. So, at least, many have said. But just let us remark, in this very epistle, how Paul, walking by faith, as a man that was risen together with Christ, saw glory upon glory, in Christ, by which he could answer (with divine perfectness in his case, as one inspired while so writing), all the sophism and all the vain deceits of the adversary. In Christ’s light he saw light; and saw glory upon glory in the Christ; and saw offices and relationships in Him too, which not only gave a light in which he could walk as a living man, so as to avoid pits, and snares, and traps, into which others might fall; but also which gave a nourishment and a strength to his soul, as well as a healthy occupation to it which some of these Colossians were in need of. Oh if Christians now had the eyes of their understandings riveted upon the Christ of God – upon Him who is not only now to be seen by faith, crowned with honor and glory (as in Hebrews and the Apocalypse), but in whom there plays all that liveliness of affection to the adopted children of His Father – and ten thousand bright and beauteous graces as well as glories if these things might, indeed, be so with us, what a change in the life and in the testimony of many! Natural religion will carry its string of beads to count its prayers upon; does spiritual religion find nothing in Christ to answer thereunto? Yes; he links together glory upon glory, and grace upon grace, to be told over in praise before God. And what a halo of light, bright, but soft and beauteous, is seen around Him, by those that know Him in heaven. May God revive and restore the heart of His people to spiritual, heavenly worship. If silence becomes us as to ourselves, surely there is much to be said for and about the blessed Lord Jesus.
The exhortation is double, first, “Seek them,” those things which are above; and, then, secondly, “set your minds on them,” on things above.
There is something worthy of remarking upon in the graciousness of the introduction of the truth of ver. 3 here: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” It meets man both ways – little faith, or fleshliness, or worldly – mindedness, might object. “How can I do this”? The answer is, “Ye are dead.” Weakness and conscious littleness on the other side is drawn on with the counter statements, which must ever be precious to every saint, “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” How that word meets every temper in the soul. “Your life is hid with Christ in God.”
In conclusion, it is clear that fellowship with Christ in life is not all that God has given to us; or all that God has made to be a matter of responsibility to us. Nor, again, would the life, being the life of Christ as risen from the dead, suffice – for as such He will rule over the Jews, and have the Gentiles under His power; yea, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea under the power of the Christ, as having life in Himself; as being in a position in which to communicate it and fellowship with Himself to poor sinners – He being arisen from the grave. It is not until we come to His ascension, and His place taken in the heavenlies, that we get to that which, as connected with the life taken anew by the Lord, marks off the distinctive position of the believer, while He, as Son of man sits at the right hand of the Father. There is no unearthiness, no unworldliness, like that which flows from affections formed and trained for the divine and heavenly glory of the Son of Man; affections fed by fellowship with Him whose thoughts were the first in all these things. The discontentment of an ugly temper, which is satisfied with nothing, may make us complain of the wilderness; the sorrows of the passage through it may make us groan; and God’s chastenings too for our practical inconsistencies may do as much; but none of these things will give groans like unto those which a home-sick soul, a heaven-filled heart will have, a soul which is too much occupied with Christ in God, and the glory to come, to have much time or thought to give either to itself or to the experiences of the wilderness. Christ felt the wilderness and the trials which man put upon Him as well as Satan in this way, for His soul was blessedly filled with the glory He had come from; with the Father ever looking upon Him; and with that Father’s house and kingdom of glory He was to open to us. May we know these things; seek them and set the mind upon them.
7. Sitting Together With Chris in Heavenly Places
“And made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6).
The words, made sit together, are here the rendering into English of a compound verb, which is made up of a preposition, expressing “together with,” and a verb signifying to seat, set, make sit. This verb, in its uncompounded form, is that which is used to mark the position of the blessed Lord Jesus since His ascension into heaven. We will turn to some of the places of its occurrence; for instance –
First: Eph. 1:20, “He [the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory] .... raised Him from the dead, and set Him [or made him sit] at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:20-23). The context which I have quoted shows here, that “recognition in glory” is the leading idea of the whole portion. The Lord Jesus Christ took a servant’s place. As Son of Man He could say, “My God,” to Him to whom we through grace, say “Our God” (John 20.17). Here the action is from God Himself as such: the God of our Lord Jesus Christ – the Father of Glory, has acted towards Him in a way to mark His estimate of Him, and hath declared it in the Word to us, that we, having the eyes of our understanding enlightened, as well as being endowed with the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, might know these things about the Christ.
The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, hath made Him (who said of Himself, when upon earth, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head”), to sit down at His own right hand in heaven; and hath heaped upon Him there titles of honor and glory. The making Him sit at His own right hand, marks in this place, the character of the Divine recognition of His worthiness who is so placed – the conferring upon Him the honor that is due. That the word, “seated,” “made sit,” suggests naturally enough the idea of personal rest, is true, as we shall see shortly from other passages in which it is used; but, then it is used here in connection with the thought of glory, and in those other passages as connected with the taking of a position which supposed a certain work or character of service ended. And this makes an important difference. Very similar to this in some respects is,
second: Heb. 1:3, “God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down [took His seat] on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:1-3).
It is to be remarked, that the action here is on the part of the Son: not viewed in that character of glory attaching to Him as the Son of the Father, but in that which He has as Son of God. Having made by Himself purgation of sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. It is there we see Him, crowned with honor and glory. Office and service are in this passage not at all the question – but rather the glorious position and honor taken by Himself and recognized as justly His by God, and owned with joy to be His by those who have faith. He is at rest in glory; His humiliation ended and in contrast with it, glory in the Majesty of the highest taken by Himself; owned by God to be His, in that He has crowned Him with honor and glory; but, if thus personally glorified, He there waits, amid the glory proper to Himself which he alone from among men could occupy, until He can take that glory which He can share with His people. He sits at that right hand until the time come for His taking the kingdom. His position is looked at as in glory in chapters 1 and 2, and having glories many connected with it; but the idea of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, is not introduced until the third chapter. This is to be noticed, the rather because, afterward, the same idea of His session is introduced again, after various functions which connect themselves with worship have been treated of (see chap. 10). Government and worship are two truths inseparable from the thoughts when God, known as He is now, is revealed. In Hebrews 1 and 2 many allusions are made to government as to man under God’s direction. With Heb. 3 truth about worship begins, and in Heb. 8:1, we find the supremacy of Christ in the connection noticed.
We will turn now to this passage. “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum. We have such a high priest, who is set [or seated] on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.” Both these passages (Heb. 1:3 and 8:1) ascribe the highest place to the Christ, but the former refers rather to dominion, and the latter to worship. Both tell of the pre-eminence of His glory.
Again, in another passage the stress is not laid upon the glory in which He sits, nor upon that which attaches to Him who sits, but there is a contrast marked between the position of standing and sitting. Under the law “every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:11-12).
The many priests, typical, all of them, of THE ONE which was to come; daily ministering and oftentimes offering one sacrifice and only one; standing too to do the work seated because the work was ended; these are the points set in contrast. The Levitical priest necessarily had to repeat the sacrifice, because the tabernacle was on earth, and merely served the glory of God as King of Israel, and the needs of that people, and was done in a cycle of time which was limited to a year. Christ shed His blood on earth but presented Himself, in the power of the blood, in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man; His work served the glory of God, as God, for eternity, and also the needs of all that believe, whether heaven or earth be the place in which they are met by God; and His work was done in God’s own eternity. “Forever sat down on the right hand of God,” may very well apply to the work which is the subject of the passage, which does not treat of the place where Christ’s ultimate glory is to be, nor of what is His present service, but of the value of the atonement offered on that great day of atonement in which He presided. The work was done, ended forever; and, as to it, He sat down. Most reasonably, too, because by that “one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). Now if I, by faith in the blood, am sanctified, I am by that one offering perfected forever; my conscience has for its answer before God, that which God has done in order to justify Himself in acting in mercy as on the throne of heaven; Christ, who has the full understanding of God’s estimate of things, and of the correctness thereof also, could not assert there was need still of sacrifice without disparaging His own work and God’s estimate of it; and the soul’s estimate (that it needs nothing further as to sacrifice) is thus shown to be correct.
Again; where the subject is (not the completeness and sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice, once and only once offered), but the sympathies of Christ towards His suffering, faithful witness (as in Acts 7:55-56), there the Lord Jesus is represented (not as sitting down, but) as standing up.
“He [Stephen] being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And said Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.”
On the other hand, again, where not sympathy with sufferers, still in the wilderness, is the subject, but ceasing (not from priestly offering – because Himself was the only one that could be offered and had been offered and accepted,) but from His sufferings as Man of Sorrows, is the topic, we find rest marked by the word sitting.
“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith: who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:1-2). Truly He is in glory; but it is a glory the rest of which is set in contrast with the path – way of sorrow which led to it, and the which we now have to tread. A verse similar in some respects is Rev. 3:21. “To Him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set [or seated] with my Father on His throne.” A rest in glory, ordained in love, is the conqueror’s prize, or one of the many prizes with the thoughts of which our Lord cheers our hearts.
“Installment in office” seems the force of the word as used in Rev. 20:4. “I saw thrones, and they sat upon them,” etc. Kings and priests they were before this – and had known it. Welcomed to His presence they had been – glory had begun – but the being seated upon the thrones and reigning with Him now began.
From these blessed verses, some correct idea may easily be gleaned of what the spirit of God’s thoughts are, as connected with the session of Christ at the right hand of God. “The Christ” as a Jewish hope for the earth was to be a king and to have subjects; but the Lord Jesus, as such, was rejected; and in the writings of Paul to the Ephesians, we find who “the Christ” is who is heaven-welcomed, when He was earth-rejected. He was given to be Head over all things to His Church, which is (as the body, with its many members, is to the head) – needful to make up the perfect man. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, knows us as members of His body, as one Spirit with the Lord. And, accordingly, not only is no separation possible between the Head and the members, but the member is, necessarily and always, looked upon by God as a member and seen as a member of the body of which Christ is Head. Did He take His life again? We were quickened together with Him. Did He leave the grave and show Himself alive again? We have life together with Him. Is He ascended up on high? We are ascended up together with Him. Has God seated Him at His own right hand in heavenly places? God sees us as seated or made to sit together with Him in the heavenly places likewise. More blessed, far more blessed, than the glory, or the privilege, or the honor, is this grand truth of our identification, in the divine mind, with the person of Christ Himself. He the Head – we but members (it is true); but what union, what fellowship, is like the union, the fellowship of life – one life in common! And, as, we have a life, His own life, so entirely in fellowship, so inseparably in union with the Christ who is sitting on high in the heavenly places, that God speaks about us (feeble yet rich) as having been made to sit together with Christ in heavenly places. It is an accident, a passing accident, that our bodies are still down here: let the Christ but rise up from the Father’s throne (His Father’s and ours) and we are found body, soul and spirit there where we now are; that is now through the life which is in the Christ who is there, and in us who are down here. It is an anomalous, abnormal, state of things for a man to have his body upon earth, but to have a divine and heavenly life flowing through him from heaven and back to heaven. This life is an eternal reality, the Head and Source of it is Christ, and the vital union which we have with Him is a much more real and powerful and important thing than the accident of our bodies being down here. I find that many really overlook the unity of the life of the Christ and His members; they may think of a store of life in Him in God for them; they may admit that He has given to them eternal life; that the Spirit dwells in them to nourish an incorruptible seed, etc.; but the UNITY OF LIFE between themselves and the Christ they do not see or own; and, therefore, they cannot act on and from it. All of those in whom the Spirit of God and of Christ dwells are, really, vitally one with the Christ who is on high. The union is in the Spirit, but it actually exists and is known to us to exist – and it is a union which excludes forever the idea of separation between the Head and members. To see it and to enjoy it and the grace which has made it ours, gives intelligence to the mind and warmth to the affections of the believer, such as naught else can; an intelligence and affection such as are needful for the heavenly walk here below of any who are sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty.
I have sometimes thought that there is no part of the doctrine of the fellowship of the believer with Christ, which shows the reality of its being a fellowship in life, so markedly as the passage before us, and others like it, which show the recognition by God of our union with His Son as the Christ, in the interval which takes place between Christ’s rejection by man, and His taking possession of the glory which is yet to be conferred upon Him. The Son of God, “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. 2:6); As Son of the Father we read of Him: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (John 1:18). Divine glory was proper to Him. He had glory with the Father before the world was (John 17:5). When He became Son of Man, in grace and mercy He became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, that so (for so alone it could be), He might share the titles of glory pertaining to the Son of Man, with others from among men. His work on earth finished, but the earthly people not being ready to receive the blessing, yea rejecting it, He went on high, and took His seat there on the throne of the Majesty in the Highest; glorified as Son of Man with the glory which He had as Son of God with the Father before the world was.
It is not that there is more than one power of blessing, permanent, lasting blessing, whether for Jew, Gentile or the Church of God. But that which, according to divine wisdom, gives its characteristic form and limit to the power when in action in those that are blessed, is the relationship in which the various parties (all partakers of one power) stand in Christ, and this relationship is connected with the place in which they meet God and the Lord. So seemed it meet to divine wisdom. We meet God in Christ on the throne, and know that which God has been pleased to reveal in the unveiled face of His Son, earth-rejected, but seated upon the throne of God, and in the glory which He had with the Father, as Son of God, before the world was. But He is not there without our being recognized as being there, even there in Him: made us sit together with Him in the heavenly places. This marks, to me at least, how dear to the mind of God and the Father the thought – the truth – of the vital union of Christ and the Church is; for when He is marking the Christ’s presence with Himself during the now, nearly, two thousand years of His sitting there as Son of Man, we are made by God to be sitting together in Him. Our minds may more readily lay hold of the thoughts, “crucified together with,” “dead together with,” “buried together with;” because the first thoughts which such doctrines communicate to us are of liberation from ruin; or, again, we may find in “quickened together with,” “having life together with,” “raised up together with,” “ascended together with” – that which, while it speaks of life, as the others do of freedom from death, present actions more connected with the movements of the Christ in doing work given to Him to do.
But in this His present position, there is something very peculiar; – it is an ad interim position – His highest personal glory is recognized. None but He could sit where He does; to share that part of the glory of God, as He does, He must be God; and He is there as Son of Man, in a certain sense abnormally, for the throne of God and the Father are not the spheres of the display of His glory as Son of Man: yet most blessed is He there, and His having been there so long recognized in that glory as Son of Man, will cast a peculiar light on all the glory that is yet to come. For God will associate Himself with the Son of Man in His special glory, even as He has associated the Son of Man with the fullness of His Divine and Fatherly glory. But then, what a marvelous place this is for Him to recognize the unity of the Church with the Son of Man in – seated together with Him in heavenly places. The thought, the plan, the accomplishment of this marvelous work of the Church, the Bride of Christ, is all divine. And, blessed be God! there is divine power ready to make it known to us to make it enjoyed by us – power sufficient to clear out room for God and this blessing even in this poor heart of mine – power and readiness to make the cup flow over on every side with the blessing given.
This may be a good place to introduce some passages of Scripture, in which the most intimate and blessed associations are presented as resulting to the believer, through that root of all his blessedness, viz., association and vital union with the Christ of God. And the rather, do I introduce these passages here, because they show at once the marvelous delight which God has in the Church, and, consequent thereon, the marvelous privileges He had, of His own rich and boundless grace, prepared for her even from before the foundation of the world.
The passages to which I refer are these –
1. 1 Cor. 3:9: “We are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.”
Who then was Paul; who was Apollos? Servants by whose instrumentality the Gospel was preached which these Corinthians had believed. But He about whom the Gospel was, even the God of Mercy and Compassion, who had placed all His glory in the cross of the Christ – He it was, and He alone, who chose the messengers of His Gospel and went with them, “even as the Lord gave to every man.” And more than this; for He not only went with them, but caused all the blessing which attended their service. A Paul might plant, an Apollos might water, but it was God alone that gave the increase. “Neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” He is All. It is all one who plants and who waters, and yet every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. “For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” What honor will not grace, free grace, put upon its servants: God has a tillage – God has a building. Does God use any man in connection with His tillage, with His building? He useth them not as dead tools, but as quickened saints, made willing in the day of His power. In that tillage, in that building, all is of God; and God is the all – for blessing. Yet He puts this honor upon His servants to enable them to say, “We are laborers together with God.” What is the energy of an Alexander, of a Caesar, of a Napoleon, compared to that energy which wrought in a Paul, in an Apollos? What the prize of present self-exaltation for a moment which the former sought, compared with the present exaltation which leads on to a “forever of blessedness,” which the latter possessed. The presence of God, of God in power working, may well prostrate every soul before it, must prostrate every soul that knows what it is; but if, on the one hand, it prostrates self with an “it is not anything” (ver. 7); on the other hand, how does it exalt the servants in giving them power to say, “We are laborers together with God.” Such things were never said, save of a people who were one spirit with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The word here used is the noun συνεργος, or co-laborer; one associated in work with another. It is the very same word as is found in Rom. 16:3, 9, 11. The leading subject of a context always, however, of course has to be borne in mind. In the passages already looked at, God is the All, though in grace He may be pleased to energize and work through man; and because a man’s affections, thoughts and energy are thus through grace energized by God – what the man was in Himself is counted dead and buried – and he living; yet not he, but Christ living in him – therefore God speaks of such as workers together with Him. In the passages which follow, all that are such are looked upon as fellow-laborers the one of the other. Thus:
Rom. 16:3: “Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus.”
Rom. 16:9: “Salute Urbane, our helper in Christ.”
Rom. 16:21: “Timotheus my work-fellow, and Lucius salute you.”
May our hearts not only know fellowship with a Paul in his labors, and the sufferings which are connected with it, but also the fellowship of that Almighty grace with all the blessing and liberty which are connected with it, and which formed to Paul the basis and root of his very life, as well as of all the proceeds of it.
2. My next passage is 2 Cor. 6:1, “We then, as workers together with Him, beseech ... that you receive not the grace of God in vain” [or as a vain, light, empty thing].
Here the word used is the verb, which corresponds to the substantive, which is used in the last cited passages. The two passages are very similar, yet there is a difference: in that which we have looked at, the field of labor is the Church which is upon earth; Paul might plant, as a master builder lay the foundation of churches; Apollos might water them. Neither Paul nor Apollos were anything, but God was the Blesser. Yet He that was the Blesser called those through whose labors He wrought His fellow-workers. What ineffable grace! In this passage: The Lord, before whose judgment man shall stand (2 Cor. 6:10), has provided a Gospel of good tidings of great joy. That Gospel had made. Paul manifest before God (ver. 11), and manifest also before those among whom he labored. And what had it manifested? That if Paul was beside himself it was to God (ver. 13); if sober, he was so for the sake of those among whom he labored. For the love of Christ led him captive in its blessed constraint; a love which declared, that as Christ had died, so all that believed in Him were dead together with Him; and that His object in doing this for all His people was, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again. This set Paul altogether in another system of things than that of this world; and, consequently, he knew no man after the flesh; Christ he had known after the Spirit, all things took their place accordingly. If any man were in Christ, he was a new creature; old things were passed away; a new order of things was introduced – not yet in glory, but yet in the principle of all true glory and blessedness. All things are of Him who, first, has reconciled us to Himself, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and who, thereupon, has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. Such was His love. Not merely to make us new creatures, but to give us to know all things to be of Him who hath reconciled us to Himself; and having done so, has identified us with the work in which He, in His love, is occupied – a work which our own salvation, position of blessing, new life and privileges have made dear to us – viz., the announcing of His own character and Gospel. It is not, merely, that we are called to plead with poor sinners, “Why will ye die?” “We beseech you receive not the grace of God in vain,” etc., etc. (as in ver. 1, which is our text); but more than this, we are associated by God with Himself as the One who is revealing Himself; who has committed the word of reconciliation to us who have tasted it, for ourselves know the mercy of God; the work by which that mercy opened a way for itself to us, and for us to it; we have tasted the suitability of it to ourselves and to poor sinners; we know, too, how God delights in it (2 Cor. 6:18-21), and who, if He bids us, invite and bid those whom we may meet, is Himself standing to welcome those that come. For He saith, “I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee; behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” Context is always the safest medium in which to look at a text. And while these two texts are verbally very similar, the light of the respective contexts gives a difference. In the former, the writer speaks as laboring in the Church upon earth; in the latter, as laboring in the light of the throne of the Lord of Judgment, and as proclaiming His mercy and the glad tidings, that “He who knew no sin [the Judge] had been made sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” In this service he was associated by grace with the work, and with all the affection, too, of God.
Mark 16:19-20, “So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word with signs following.”
Rom. 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”
James 2:22, “Seest thou how faith wrought with His works.”
The faith was the energizing power – the works the fruit of it. All these passages give the idea and sense of co-operation – working together within the fullest sense in which the subjects of them admit; and thus they confirm what has been just said.
3. I turn now to Eph. 2:19, in which we get another kind of intimate and blessed association referred to; and it also is one of the blessed consequences of this our fellowship together with Christ. “Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” The “ye” refers to the believing Ephesians, who had been, however, heathens, and as such had not had, like the Jews, any place in connection with God in the world – without God in the world. For this expression does not mean that they had been godless, and in the wickedness of the world as individuals; that, alas! many of the Jews were also but that the Gentiles, as such, had no religious connection marked out for them with the only thing which was recognized before God as religious upon earth, viz., the Jew. Such they had been. With Jewish worship they had had nothing to do. But now, since they believed in the Christ risen and ascended, they had a most special connection as such with God in heaven; they were among His heavenly holy ones, of His household (inmates of His house), this they had found, as we have seen, through and in the Christ, each one for him- self had found it, each one been found of God – there was fellowship in the citizenship of all such, whether they had been drawn off Jewish or off Gentile ground. They were fellow-citizens of (co-citizens with) the holy ones (of heaven), and parts of God’s family. “Our free-citizenship is in heaven” 3:19).
It is only when the scope of the Epistle to the Ephesians is weighed, and the peculiarity of its blessings, as contrasted with all earthly blessing, is considered, that the amazing blessedness of this portion of being co-citizens with the holy ones of heaven and of the household of God will be seen. But this rank, this fellowship, is to each of us but one of the many blessings resulting from our association in life with the Son of Man. They that are so have, most surely, their greatest of blessings in the association which they have with Himself – that is in life and in association, as of a member with the Head, of all that is His; it brings them, into certain privileged associations in service, through the purest grace, with God; but it sets them also, as here, all of them, in most blessed association the one with the other, in a freedom of the city which is in heaven, and in the liberty of the Father’s house, too. And so entirely are these things linked together in one, in the Spirit’s mind, that no sooner has the apostle named this privilege of being “fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,” than he immediately goes on to speak of being “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord .... builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
4. There is another verse in which a somewhat similar kind of blessing is referred to, which we will now look at –
“That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the Gospel” (Eph. 3:6). All is in Christ; all our blessings of whatsoever kind have their root and source in Christ. Nothing which has not Him for its root is blessing, or could be given to us by God as if it were counted by Him as fit to be a blessing to us.
The participation here looked at is in three things: First, a place in the expectation of the inheritance; Second, a place in the body; and third, a place in the good promise – all three belonged to as many of these poor Ephesians (Gentiles though they had been) as believed – a place in common with those from among the Jews also who had believed, but the place was in Christ and in Him alone, and “in Him” was the participation found; for the inheritance was His; He also was Head of His body the Church; and in Him alone any promise could stand true; and all were yea and amen in Him, to the glory of God by us. He who had been a Gentile idolater might meet in Christ, one who had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees; but in Christ the old history of each lost its place of pre-eminence; once in Christ, and you are there where all is governed, and arranges itself according to a new order, even according to God’s delight in Christ, who is the Heir; the Head of the body, the Church; and His are all the promises of God. Some, in handling this verse, have made so much of the union of believers from among the Jews and the Gentiles, that they have overlooked the questions of “union in what?” and “union in whom?”
In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek; they that are in Him are a heavenly people; they are, through grace, all fellow-heirs, the one with the other, in that inheritance which is due to Him in whom they are; together they form a body, each one a member in particular of the body (and so they are united one to the other) of which He is the Head; even as each of them has shared, like all the rest, in the promise. Various as the privileges are in which they have community, one with the other, those privileges are one and all in Christ, and Christ is the alone way into the possession of them.
The following passages naturally connect themselves with the subject, and show, in a striking way, the nature of the tie which binds the members together, after first uniting them to the head.
Eph. 2:20-21, “Jesus Christ Himself being the chief, corner-stone: in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.”
Eph. 4:15-16, “Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together .... maketh increase of the body,” etc.
In both of which passages, the word which expresses the joining together in one, is συναρμολογουμενος.
In the passages in Ephesians, this intimacy of adaptation of the parts one to the other, to accomplish a common end, is evident. First, in the building, Christ is the chief corner-stone, elect, precious, of a holy temple to the Lord; and then each stone which is in Him is adjusted and nicely made to fit in to its own reserved, prepared place for the accomplishment of this common end. Secondly, in the body, Christ is the Head; each member in particular is a member of Christ, and as such has a place nicely suited to it in the body, in which it gets relationship with other members. But no member can speak of being member of another member; that would be to make that other member head, and to displace Christ, as did some at Corinth. The body is the body of Christ, and each one a member in particular; and because a member in particular of that body of which Christ is Head, having both responsibility as such towards the other members, and also, what is far better, having the privilege to be used as such by the Head for the blessing of the rest of the members.
Exact adaptation to places so near to Christ, when the temple (habitation of God), and when the body of the Christ are in question, is a precious privilege. In both cases, it is not by might, nor by power, but by the Lord’s Spirit; and unites – if forever – to scenes in which God and the Lamb will be the glory, yet unites us (men who believe in Christ during the days of His rejection) in one bundle of life, in the which not our individuality, but Christ’s (as a man – a heavenly man) will have all the pre-eminence.
Then, again, we have the word συμβιβάζω used as in Eph. 4:16, and Col. 2:2,19.
“From whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:16).
“I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you ... and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ” (Col. 2:1-2).
“The Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God” (Col. 2:19).
The compacting, the knitting together is, in each case, by the power of the life of that body, the Head of which Christ is. Paul, looked at as an individual, was but a member in particular; so was Apollos, and so was Cephas. But the power of the Life which united them to the Head, gave them, subordinate always to Him, a power of fellowship – a compacting, a knitting, together the one with the other.
In our day vital union with the Christ has been too much considered as a high doctrine, the doctrine of the elder classes in the school of God. Alas! where recovered as the doctrine of the family of God as such, it has, in more cases than one, been so corrupted as that, while the fellowship of the members has been held to, it has not been kept subordinate to the Headship of Christ. And so the most precious truth has been turned against the Lord as the Former and Giver of it.
Hitherto we have seen three great and distinct things. First, God reckoning; Second, God communicating; Third, the position in blessedness (before God, and in the mutual bearing of the parts one with the other), of that in which the blessing of God has, in these last days, presented itself.
1.God reckoning. He reckoned unto Christ all that we were as men, descended from Adam, and all that we had done; visited it all on Him; and received as a ransom His life, given as Son of Man. He reckons these three things to be true of us who believe; and bids us to reckon them so concerning ourselves and to act thereon.
2. God communicating. The Son of Man taking life in the grave, is the fountain whence divine life flows to us; but, if divine, it is yet divine life derived and suited to man; it is life together with the Christ, the life in which He rose up out of the grave and, after showing Himself on earth, ascended up into heaven.
3. The position in blessedness of that in which the blessing of God now presents itself.
In heaven we sit together with Christ – in heavenly places. Upon earth we are recognized as associated with the work which God is doing; as thoroughly identified with the city and house of God, and with the body and members of which Christ is Head: thoroughly so, because we are identified with these things in the power of a life which is Christ, a life which is hid with Christ in God – our eternal life.
In what follows, we shall have to look (fourth) at what results from all this. Being made one with the Christ, already one with Him, two things naturally result. One, now we have to suffer with Him; and, two, we must hereafter be glorified together. Various kinds of suffering now may be ours, as various kinds of suffering were His; the glory, too, may be looked at in a different way, in different Scriptures, as we shall see it is: but this must never be forgotten. As to all our pilgrimage and strangership here below (with all the vast variety of ways in which we may be called to suffer, from the world, the flesh and the devil); and as to all the life of honor and power hereafter; yet it must be remembered, that both the one and the other are to us the results – necessary and inseparable results from vital union with the Christ of God. He took out of the way all that God had against us; He introduces us into that place, and those things into connection with us, which could enable God not only to have nothing to say against us, but to be able to delight in us; and all, in the power of that blessing which Himself had given as in Christ, to undertake to lead us to His own home, forming and fashioning our hearts, and teaching us His ways in contrast with our own, all through our wilderness pilgrimage. All the wrath due to us fell on the Christ – and it is finished. The cross has settled the whole question of God’s wrath against ourselves who believe – Christ bore it all, and I that believe shall bear none; in Christ, too, the whole question of the acceptability and the character of the acceptability has been settled – He is risen and ascended; God has conferred every honor upon Him which even He had to give – conferred it upon Him as Jesus who died, the Just One for the unjust, and thus, the righteousness of God in Christ is inseparable from the full acceptance of the believer. The believer is accepted in (graced in) the Beloved. But the same grace which has linked us up to God by and in the Christ – has been pleased to link us up also with the fortunes of the Christ, both in this world and in that which is to come. In our next paper we shall, therefore, have to enter upon these results of the life so enjoyed by us already: viz.,” that if so be we suffer now, we shall be glorified hereafter.”
8. Suffering Together With Christ
Three passages in Scripture may serve as introduction for our meditation –
Rom. 8:17: “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him [εἴπερ συμπάσχομεν], that we may also be glorified together.”
2 Tim. 1:8: “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions [συγκακοπάθησον] of the Gospel according to the power of God.”
2 Tim. 2:12: “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him” [εἰ ὑπομένομεν καὶ συμβασιλεύσομεν].
The last of these passages (2 Tim. 2:12) connects and contrasts endurance, or patience, or the abiding under trial NOW, with the FUTURE sharing of Christ’s dominion. Now, PATIENCE; then, DOMINION together with Christ. It is more specific in its statement than either of the other two: “Endurance, NOW; Dominion, THEN.”
The second (2 Tim. 1:8) connects the suffering of afflictions (or the suffering of evil trials) with the work of the testimony of Paul, and invites others to share the trials. It naturally recalls to mind a well-known text in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which presents us with another witness, who lived in other days (Heb. 11:24-26): “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with [συγκακουχεῖσθαι] the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.” In Egypt, honorable place; to be called son of Pharaoh’s daughter; and treasures enough there to minister unto such the pleasures of sin for a season. But the faith which revealed God unto Moses, made Moses choose rather the afflictions of the people of God and the reproach of Christ. What had God and Egypt, or God and the house of Pharaoh, and the wealth of that house, in common? Nothing; and Moses knew this, and acted accordingly. The world of today is, according to God’s word, to us Christians what Egypt was to Moses. Are our moral estimate of it, and our conduct towards it, similar to Moses’s towards Egypt? [Reader, is your choice and is your taste practically the same as it was with Moses?] Whatever patience, whatever afflictions attend now those who preach the Gospel, in all such, faith will claim its share.
But it is not, merely, that we must be patient while we wait for the kingdom which is ours, or that there are certain afflictions which naturally attend the labor which is given to the Lord’s servant to do: the position he is set in, the people he is connected with, the work of testimony, will all bring sorrow now, ‘tis true. But the teaching is wider in its scope still in our first text –
For if we suffer together with Christ, brings before us the Son of man.
It was a free grace gift to the Philippians that Paul spoke of (Phil. 1:29): “Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ., not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake; having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.” But then he goes on (in Phil. 2), to show them that there was yet more which was open to them to take up, even the acting as those who had the mind of Christ. For he was one who could say of himself, through grace, “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the Church” (Col. 1:24).
The cross – that Christ had borne all alone; there He had taken to Himself alone all the wrath due to the sinner. But the cross was not all of the afflictions of Christ; there was that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for us also; and when we consider that “the sufferings of Christ” were testified of by prophets, by the Spirit, at a time when the revelation of what man was, was more the object of God’s dealings than now, that, man having proved himself irremediably bad by his rejection of the Son of God’s love, God is showing His own love towards man as a sinner. When we consider this, I say, we must not be surprised to find those sufferings of Christ, which were experienced at man’s hand, and as fruits of man’s condition, largely unfolded in the Old Testament. In many of these, the Apostle had his part, and bore, through grace, his share. Jealous against those who wished to avoid sharing these sufferings of Christ, he was fierce and altogether intolerant of those who pretended to set aside the wrath of God against sin in any other way than by the Cross of Christ, endured by Him alone on Calvary. No Apostle ever madly dreamed of himself sharing the wrath of God due to sin, which had been borne already by Christ the Just One, in place of the many unjust.
In the first eight Psalms I find no reference to the sufferings of atonement; but I cannot read those Psalms without those sufferings of Christ, in which the servant of God could share, being brought before me.
The perfection of the Blessed One, spoken of in Psa. 1, is thus laid down – “His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth He meditate day and night.” But what the effect of that upon Himself, when the scene around presented nothing but the counsel of the ungodly, the way of sinners, the seat of the scornful? Isolation to one that loves communion; rejection to a heart whose affections are diffusive; sympathy with and dependence upon the Lord in such a scene – in a place loved of the Lord, but among a people who had no heart for the Lord – are all causes of suffering. But to be possessed by the word of God; to find its indwelling to be the very mark of one’s course, and to know the sorrowful bearing of it upon those who shut it out, because of its contrast to their own plans, ways, and established purposes is deep sorrow to one who knows who and what God is, and sees who and what man is, to oppose himself to God. Now in all this, that which was fully developed in the Christ may be shared by all that ever had the spirit and faith of the Lord’s elect.
In Psa. 2 we see that not only is man individually wicked, but that there is a power, governing the world as a whole, which leads to the thorough rejection from the earth both of Christ and those that are His.
The Lord Jesus tasted this fully and all alone; but Peter, James, and John tasted it together, when, as in Acts 4, they quote, as applying to both Christ’s rejection and their own position, the close of Psa. 2. The world knows us not, because it knew Him not.
In Psa. 3 we find one with nothing but multitudes of difficulties before and around him, and no answer to any one of them save in the Lord. Who tasted this fully, save the Christ? Whoever really walked with God, and has not, according to the measure of his faith, tasted it and its affliction?
It is a blessed thing, not without sweetness, though bitter be mingled with the sweet, when, amid the thousands and tens of thousands of trials, the soul’s energy is roused, as in Psa. 4, by the sense of the contrast between its own integrity God-ward and the thorough corruption in wickedness of all around it; and this character of suffering has its own character of comfort – a character as peculiar to it as hope is the characteristic comfort of the state described in Psa. 1; waiting, of that of Psa. 2; strengthening of oneself in God, of that of Psa. 3
Appeal to God against the wicked characterizes Psa. 5, as patience under discipline and correction does Psa. 6, and appeal for judgment upon the enemy, Psa. 7.
The mind of Christ can be little known, if His sorrow as to the wickedness of the wicked round about Him is not known. His heart can have been but little revealed to us, if His sorrow as to the state of the nation Israel, brought low by discipline and correction, on account of its careless walk with God, has never been seen by us. How could He be indeed the Son, the Servant of God – the One on whom all the duties of the kingly, prophetic and priestly offices of that nation devolved – and not feel sorrow at the discipline under which the nation was? And His hard words against the harder hearts of that generation of vipers-His weeping over Jerusalem, that stoned the prophets, etc., it was all a service of suffering to Him – a service in which, at however great a distance from Himself as to measure, yet a service of suffering, which Paul shared with his Master. “If so be we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together,” is applicable to all this.
Psa. 8 is a psalm of glory; but as chap. 2 of Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians teaches us, the glory due to the Son of man had a pathway of suffering and sorrow into it. He who was, according to Divine counsel, to be the center of a new system as Son of man, had to stoop to a path of suffering service, and to be obedient unto death – the death of the cross, ere He was to be highly exalted, and a name above every name given to Him, and be placed as Son of man at the Father’s right hand. The cross is not looked at in Phil. 2 as the expression either of God’s love to man in providing a Lamb, or of Christ’s love to man in giving Himself, the Just One, in place of the many unjust; but as the expression of the perfection of His obedience – obedient unto death, the death of the cross. Blessed be God, we know that there, and there alone, that one thing without which God could not be just while justifying the sinner – without the knowledge of which no soul can ever have peacefully to do with God was found; but the object of the passage is not to show this, but another truth. And we neither honor God’s word, nor show a sound mind, when we, however unintentionally, force passages to other than their simple meaning. Now the meaning of Phil. 2, as well as the object of the Apostle in his writing it, is to press practical conformity on the mind and conduct of the disciple, and not to show the enquirer where peace is to be found. And surely they who have known themselves so blessed with Christ, through grace, and have tried to exhibit the mind and walk of their Master, have known that it is a path of suffering, subjection and of self-sacrifice.
The Old Testament believer must have found in the Psalms (not all that we find, but) a plain testimony that, independent of all blessings of God for a people on the earth, the household of faith, who always, somehow or the other, got tried, had to do with God in heaven. The pathway of their faith was always one of suffering.
These few remarks may suffice as to the fact of there being sufferings, quite separate from those of sin-bearing, or even of testimony, to the blessed Lord. If we stand upon the work He wrought in suffering upon the cross, we may share in His sufferings, in testimony, etc., and so only.
The life of the blessed Lord upon earth divides itself into three parts.
There is, first, His private life, from the birth to His public showing unto Israel; there is, second. His public life as a witness for God unto Israel; and there is, third, that part, alone, and in some sense, apart from the rest, in which He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree.
A soul, taught of God, will have learned the difference for itself of the three, though it may never have marked off for itself the lines of distinction. The question of how God can receive a sinner, of how a sinner can go to God, cannot be seen save by the Cross, where all God’s wrath went over Him who was the substitute. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. I have no idea of myself enduring the wrath of God, or any part of it, as of God against a creature: it would be to me eternal misery and ruin. God saw no way of introducing, and of making effective, his mercy to a creature, found on the ground of rebellion, save the Cross of Christ. And faith knows no other settlement of the question of man’s guilt than this, that the whole penalty of it was borne by Christ – the just one in place of the many unjust.
That Christ suffered, in his life, for righteousness’ sake; suffered as a righteous one, and as a righteous witness for all God’s claims, and for pressing upon man his responsibility to God, cannot be denied. And so will those that are one with Him have to suffer. It would be impossible to hold the word of righteousness, and to urge God’s righteous claims as Creator, God of providence, and God of government, and to urge man’s responsibility to meet these claims in such a world as this, and not to suffer for it. But while Christ suffered for righteousness’ sake perfectly – as some have done, and others now do, imperfectly – he introduced, so to speak, a new kind of suffering – for in Him first was presented openly God dealing in grace – “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” It was not that responsibility in man ceased, but a new element was introduced which had in itself an entirely new character. Man had owed God for this and for that which God had vested in men. Creation, providence, government, all of them not only gave streams of blessing to man, but by those very streams made man responsible. But when Christ came, though he might and did recall all that blessing and responsibility to man’s mind, He came into a ruined system as a Savior in grace, and this was quite another thing. If Israel would not own Jehovah dwelling between the cherubims, and so be kept from famine, hunger, sickness and oppression, would they own Jehovah coming, as Son of Man, into the ruin which their sins had caused – a feeder of the hungry, a restorer of the sick, a Savior for the poor and the meek.
Such was the new position taken by God in Christ; everything due by man to God was pressed by Christ, but Himself was there the answer in grace to all the need. When he acts in righteousness, and sustains that righteousness with power, judgment will be revealed. But He acted in righteousness owned every claim of God – owned every debt of man – but stood in meekness and lowliness, offering Himself to meet all the claims, all the debts, and to do so at His own cost. He was thus thrust from the wall continually, and He bore it all in gentle meekness and patience.
The Apostles, and Paul especially, never for a moment thought of denying the righteous claims of God, or the responsibility of man as to creation, providence, and government – and they all suffered for it; but the great characteristic of their suffering, together with Christ, was that they were witnesses of mercy and grace from God to man, through Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, in resurrection. The very place that resurrection held as connected with their testimony – “Jesus and the Resurrection” – told how they had to hold themselves as sheep for the slaughter.
It is impossible to be possessed by the word of the Lord and not to suffer; and the word of Christ is inseparable from sufferings for grace’s sake. I find many overlook the difference of suffering for righteousness’ sake and suffering for the sake of grace.
But further, in the passage before us (Rom. 8:17) the suffering is clearly defined by the context. The question here is not about suffering for righteousness’ sake, in any sense: neither in the sense that Abel did, who was slain because his own works were good, and he was hated by his murderer, whose works were evil; nor in the sense in which Jeremiah, and other of the prophets, suffered for a righteous testimony for God against an unrighteous people; neither, indeed, is the suffering in this passage limited to the sufferings which attend service and testimony, as connected with grace, as contrasted with righteousness. But the context defines a certain position, now the position of the possessors of faith; which position has privileges, power, hopes and sufferings, connected with it. And most highly blessed as the position, the privileges, the possession of the power, and the enjoyment of the hopes so spoken of – they cannot be separated from a present suffering. Christ tasted death fully, and realized resurrection fully too to open that position. And though he has left no wrath for our souls to taste, and is Himself the resurrection and the life to us: yet does He give us to know practically the principles of death and resurrection; and that not only as perfectly set before us in principle, as realized by and in Himself, but because thus made true to us in the spirit, He adds to each member that has partaken in the blessing an experimental tasting of death and resurrection in themselves, and in their course through their circumstances.
Inseparable association with Himself, as the first-born among many brethren, is a preliminary to the suffering together with Him. He is in heaven now as Son of Man; but has there a heart to be touched with all that touches God and his people down here in the wilderness. If we want to have His standard of a walk in the wilderness, we have it perfectly given in His life when here below. But life, and the power to walk with Him, and (according to the measure of our faith) as He walked, begins to us only in our knowledge of Him gone on High, and remaining there for a season for our sake. And the power of continuance in this life is in communion with Him in heaven. In our introduction to Him there, and in our communion with Him there, we found, in the one, the beginning of power; and, in the other, the brook by the way to renew our power of being here below in affection, feeling, and thought, the present expressors of the mind of Christ, who is in heaven. Oh how fallen is all now-a-days Where are they who are practically showing out grace reigning through righteousness, as the witness of their present enjoyed association with the Son of Man in heaven. “If so be we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”
In a world, the foundations of which are out of course, where the power of evil is dominant, and ourselves in bodies of sin and death; suffering is sure to be man’s portion. The “sorrows of humanity” are not, however, the sufferings with Christ. The worldling shares them with us. And the only way in which we can have them connected with Christ is, if recognizing that all things are to us of Him, who hath reconciled us unto Himself, we bear them in Christ’s strength, and for His sake. In bearing them as a Christian, in the strength of Christ, there is a Christian’s reward. Another kind of suffering there is, also, in which, though its sorrow come to us from our being true to God’s claims, and true in recognizing our own responsibilities as creatures, we cannot be said to “suffer as a Christian,” as Peter says (1Peter 4:16).
A broken limb, a fever, penury, may be common to me and to my unconverted neighbor – He may repine and I may find in each such sorrow, an occasion of patience, courage, and endurance, as becomes a Christian. Again, in many a question of governments, of commerce, etc., the fear of God, and respect to the just claims of man, will distinguish the consistent Christian from the worldling. But in neither of these two cases does the trial spring from the position in which the faith of Christ has set us; in neither case would a spirit-led heavenly-minded Christian act differently than would a righteous Jew, whose hopes and thoughts went not beyond the earth.
But there are sufferings which grow up out of faith in an earth-rejected and heaven-honored Christ, who, from heaven, has revealed Himself, through faith. Christ has His sympathies and His feelings about things down here, and has a path of sorrow, of death, and resurrection, for His chosen flock to pass through. The sufferings of that path, grow up out of fellowship in life with Christ, and are the expression of intelligence in His mind, and of sympathy with His heart. Such are the sufferings, together with Christ, which we are considering.
Pilgrimage and strangership here below; the exercise of heart and mind as seeking His honor among His people; the sorrows of the failure of the testimony, and of the weak state of the flock, with all the suffering that comes out of the holding the position of being one, practically one, one in heart and mind, one in interests and in feelings (alas! how little do we attain to it) with a heaven-honored Christ, who is ever seen to us by faith, while we are in the place where and whence He was rejected, and which, as a place, knows us not, because it knew Him not; these are the sort of sorrows which are meant by suffering as a Christian. His anointing is upon us, and we are one with Him; and we must needs suffer, as ourselves dying daily, if the life of Christ is to be made manifest in us.
All God’s counsels turn around the Anointed One, so to speak. Because the Son of Man is on high, creatorial, providential and dispensational, purposes all stand fast, and can be acted upon or towards by God: I cannot doubt but that, because Messiah is on high, Israel is remembered on high; because the Messiah, who is the head of government and worship upon earth, is on high, therefore, also, the nations, as they are, and the nations as they shall be, are thought of and acted towards. But then the spiritual heavenly believer, while his faith sees all this, and finds joy as to Christ, and rest as to himself in it, knows that the range of life, and of the positive action of the Spirit in life, and as the Comforter or Paraclete is circumscribed. The Lord Jesus has a present testimony connected with His present place, and the Paraclete, has a present work connected with the present faith. God made us what we are, and God found us where we were, and God sees us where we are; but that which is of us while it may be, and is, the occasion for God and Christ to be recognized and honored by us, is a very different thing from that which flows out of the anointing; which is connected with the Person of the Anointed One who is in heaven, and which we have to live out, and act out, and own here, according to the mind of. Christ, and by the Spirit. This, in every part of it, is connected with divine and heavenly grace; but to us, if living in it, with suffering. Not only did the Son of God learn obedience as Son of man, by the things which He suffered, but, further, it was impossible for the life of God to be perfectly displayed in such a world as this, save amid sufferings. Mercy needs circumstances of need and want in which to show itself. And mercy cannot see such circumstances without a correct, and to itself, a sad, estimate of them in themselves, and of the sin which has produced them.
Man may see affliction, and may try to alleviate it, without our hearts really tasting the bitterness, not of those in the circumstances only, but of what caused the circumstances. It was never so with Christ; is never so with the spirit-led man, so far as he is really taught of God. And who can see what the fallen state of the church is, what the triumph of evil, what the supremely good opinion man has of himself is now, and see it with eyes enlightened by the glory of Christ, and with affection quickened towards Christ by the Spirit, and not find a world of woe for him, as a Christian, as one who cares for God and His Christ, as one who enters into and sympathizes with Christ in His thoughts, and feelings, and desires, for the glory of God, and the blessing of the people of God down here on earth. Such is the fellowship of his sufferings. To enter into His sympathies – to sympathize with Him, and to live out that sympathy, is “suffering together with Christ.”
9. Glorified and Reigning Together With Christ
There is sufficient connection between these two thoughts – Dominion and Glory – to incline the mind to look at them together. Let it, however, be remembered, that the Holy Spirit has not, in writing Scripture, been pleased to handle truths by subjects – taking (as man would have done) one topic after another, until all were severally considered; and giving each in a way as abstract, and, as internally perfect in itself, as possible. A creed or a confession made by man may so give us truth, or its skeleton, on dissection. What God reveals comes, on the contrary, instinct with Divine power and full of vital energy, and comes in the power of the associations which belong to it. Forgetfulness, or neglect of this, will lead to weakness and feebleness in the faith.
A. Glorified Together With Him
In Rom. 8:17, we read, ἱνα καὶ συνδοξασθώμεν, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together [with Him].”
The person of the Christ, as he now is in Heaven, is the very center and regulator of the truth, given to us in this chapter: Christ up there; Christ in and before God – the present object of the faithful, as being witnessed of to them by the Holy Spirit and their present position and standing; their privileges, experiences, calling and hopes – all according to this blessed truth that they are looked upon by God as one with the Christ. Led by, as subjected to, the Spirit of God, they are sons of God, They know it, for the spirit which they have received is according to that position; it is not a spirit of bondage again to fear, but of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba! and the Holy Spirit bears witness, according to the word, to the same truth of the position of sons, which belongs to the new nature divinely given to us.
In the Epistles of Paul to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, the blessings of believers are often presented to us, according to the law of the relationship which exists – first, between Christ as the Head of a body, and the members of that body; and second, between Christ, as the second man, and His bride; blessings according to positions taken by the Son as the Christ and assigned to us. In the Epistle to the Romans, we are looked at more in our individuality of being: consequently, the whole question of sin in man, and in the individual, is more gone into in the Epistle to the Romans than in that to the Ephesians, and the blessing is according to a place assigned to us by God in His Family, as placed there around the Christ, who is His Son. The nature given to us, and the place. assigned to us in this new nature, correspond. We “were by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3); we have been made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Having the divine nature, we are (as we see in Rom. 8) sons of God. For the Spirit of Christ (ver. 9-10), “the Spirit of God who raised up Jesus from the dead,” as given to us to lead us, is the Spirit of sonship. We are sons of God (ver. 14); and we know the blessed position in which grace has thus set us, for we “have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.” The position assigned to us is according to the nature given to us.
The blessing of this gift to us, as is shown in Rom. 8, is manifold. In it are found, through faith in the work of Christ: first, complete deliverance from all that was against; and second, complete introduction into a new world and life – a life, according to which (walking in the light of that other world into which we are brought) we can live to God, and serve Him in the spirit – though the body be dead because of sin. And what a blessedness to be a son of God; a son of God according to the pattern of the Christ. Not a son, as was Adam by creation; nor as was Israel, in the governmental arrangements of God upon earth; but a son by grace, through adoption, enabled, through ability given to us, to know that He, who is the God and Father of our Lord. Jesus Christ, is also our God and Father; and able to say to Him in the energy and according to the new nature, Abba! Father. But, then, not only does the heart, instinct with the new nature, turn and say, in its confiding, happy, though peaceful joy...Abba! but “the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (ver. 16). Yes; the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the word, and all His divine actings as a living person toward us (in the care which, as the Paraclete, He has over us) all bear witness that He recognizes and owns us as the children of God. But what a place of holy safety, happy privilege, and amazing honor is this! We are already sons of God; already been called and named sons of God; and we know it; and we have hearts to enjoy it; and a sure witness greater than ourselves (through whom is the word, and from whom is every action, and impulse and regulation of blessing) is acting as God the Comforter (or rather Paraclete, Guardian) towards us, caring for us all through our course, as those whose names are inscribed in the Book of Life, and whom He knows to be near to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ. A relationship is above all its consequences, and contains more in it than all its consequences. To be a child of God, and to know it; to be owned now in such relationship, not only by God and by Christ in heaven, but by the Spirit of God in the word and in all His personal and individual dealings towards me now, is a blessing which links me up to the living God in all the affections of His heart as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and this is a most precious joy to the heart. But the blessing stops not there. When God’s fountain is open, His streams well forth, and each blessing has a tale of eternal fullness to tell; blessing from God never comes alone. So we read, ver. 17, “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” Such are the hopes which are inseparable from the adopted children. They belong to – they are called now to love as members in – a family which has a bright tomorrow. Redemption has an inheritance for Christ with God. He waits, who is the heir, for the inheritance – ‘tis God’s inheritance as connected with redemption; ‘tis ours, also, who, as now sons, have the hopes of the family of God – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. Men have to wait until their fathers, loved in nature, are dead ere they can inherit, and many a heart would rather be without the inheritance and keep the parent. But when God takes in possession, together with His Christ, redemption-glory – we as sons shall be there, and we know that Himself now looks forward to it, for He has bidden us rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and more than this, He, the Christ, has given to us the glory which was given unto Him. Surely, apart from the inheritance itself and the mode of taking it, as associate with Christ, there is food divine in the love which thus gilds the Christian’s horizon for him; If children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Indeed, that the association of us with Himself and with His Christ, is the very object of this portion, is plain. For He goes on: “if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together” – Christ and no separation from Christ. Our hearts may well humble themselves as to the little practical association which we realize, in suffering together with Christ. The Lord Himself show us mercy in this respect, and gives us of that moral glory which filled His Son and may fill us, as it has done many Christians even to the overflowing their small vessels; but that moral glory and character never can be, and shine out in a world like this, without suffering. The unselfishness of enlightened love, which seeks not its own but God’s, and seeks, as to man, his blessing in that which is God’s, cannot be here below without suffering. Let no one deceive himself as to this.
But, further, as the suffering together with Him now is the result of association in life with Him, for the life is not in harmony with the state either of our bodies or of the world around us; so, when the Lord of Life has displaced Satan from his usurped position, He will so change our bodies and bring them also into a sphere where all will be in accordance with Himself, and that life which we now possess, as that the glory of it then, shall be as natural a result of its being there, as sorrow now is of our being here. The life has its own moral glory peculiar to itself; of sympathy with God, and devotion to Him and His plans and. ways. Shown it was perfectly in Christ, in humiliation; shown it will be, too, in all the eternal fullness of its source in Him, in redemption-glory. It is in us, and its moral glory can now be displayed in the fellowship of His mind here below; its native, intrinsic, moral glory will have a bright outshining hereafter; but the sweetest part of the portion to come will still be in that it is together with.
The glory here spoken of may, of course, be at first in connection with the kingdom; but it is separable from the kingdom; for it outlasts it, and it is of wider scope. It is the display in glory of association with the Lord.
It is “the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18), as the Lord Himself said elsewhere – “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23). It is “the manifestation of the sons of God” (ver. 19) – “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (ver. 21). And on this bright hour, God has hung the hopes of creation (ver. 20), though no heart has the hope, sentiently and with intelligence, save the us, who, having received the first fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. This hope in the heart, divinely sustained, being in accordance with that for which creation is kept by God, marks the character of our association, and the intelligence of the association, with the Christ which grace has given to us. We know with certainty of a glory, not yet seen, that is coming; and, therefore, “do we with patience wait for it” (ver. 25).
And then (ver. 26) the Spirit goes on to show the results of this present association in life with the Christ; association, which leads now to sorrow in the flesh and from the world, as also it gives the assurance of a future revelation in glory. But it has a heavenly side, which even now, at the present, is replete with blessing. For God ministers to us amid all our present infirmities, and they may be but the occasion of letting us into the exceeding grace of God. We have infirmities, weaknesses; and we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. This would be sorrowful, if the instruction stopped here. But it goes on to show how the Spirit, and Christ, and God, use the very present infirmities in us poor yet blessed ones, as the means to display the riches of grace. “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26-27). And thus our very infirmities, instead of discouraging us, lead us to a better realizing of the unsearchable preciousness of that life given to us, which is unsearchable by human ken in its sympathies now, in the range of its glory hereafter; and which, just when we realize infirmities, is the means of making us realize dependence, and the near, close watchfulness of God. We know also (ver. 28) our connection with the counsels of God, as turning all to our blessing, because (ver. 29) the end of that counsel is the glory of His Son as to be (not alone in redemption-glory, but) surrounded by many.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did’ foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:28-29). Chief in joy He shall yet be, whose sorrows were beyond those of all others. But the counsel and the plan divine are, that He shall then not be alone in His joy and glory, but surrounded by many brethren. And so we read (ver. 30), “Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.”
The concluding part of the chapter, in like manner, leads the mind not to dominion, but to association with Christ according to the mind of God. “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who (can be) against us? Be that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:31-39).
Faith may scan the wondrous, vast revelation which is here given. Surely, yea, most surely does it portray the blessedness of association with God and His Son, which is ours, as possessing the Spirit of Christ Jesus. He who sets our infirmities before us, to make us know our blessedness, here to silence us in wonder, causes the vision of His plan, and works and care to pass before us; while His Spirit moves our hearts within to say, What shall we say to these things?
B. If We Suffer, We Shall Also Reign With Him. 2 Tim. 2:12.
Moral character, relationship and external manifestation hang together naturally and necessarily before God, whether in good or in evil. He that has usurped power in this world has a character (as of a liar and a murderer from the beginning), and all that is opposed to God may cluster round him and be under his sway. In man’s day He may make darkness to pass for light, and light to pass for darkness; but a day is coming, even the day of the Lord and of God, when all shall be seen in its true color, and be manifested accordingly. The Prince of Life, on the other hand, has a moral character of His own in the perfection of sympathy with, and subjection to, all the good pleasure of God, He has relationships of the most blessed kind; and a time is coming in which not only shall He be owned, as now, on the Father’s throne, though hidden there, but shall stand forth confessed as the Champion and the Victor, whom God delights to honor. His taking His power and reigning will be still in Servant-character. It is well, with such hearts as we have, to recall this to mind; for many a one looks forward to the day of power, without remembering that in that day the gift of power to us will not be the letting of self loose, but the expression of perfect exemption from all selfishness and self-seeking. The power of that day is the power of God and of the Lamb.
As in the Epistle to the Romans, the being glorified together with Christ brings out the blessedness of our association with Him, in all with which He will stand connected in that coming day; so, this passage (2 Tim. 2:12) brings out the truth, most important in its place, that, if now we are associates of Christ’s, realizing our weakness, and suffering from a rude rough world around, as was Timothy, that the time draws near when power, and power of dominion, shall be ours. “We shall reign together with Him.” For He that has loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, has made us unto God and His Father kings and priests; and we shall reign together with Him (Rev. 1:6). When He comes to put down His enemies, He will bring us with Him (Rev. 2:26-27). While He is putting them down, we shall be with Him (1 Cor. 15).
And when He reigns, we shall reign together with Him (Rev. 1:6; Rev. 21). As a stimulant to patient endurance under suffering, and to hardy, courageous warfare, nothing is better than for the soul, amid its sufferings, to bethink itself of the glory and power which awaits it. Only, as has been said before, let the thought of its being fellowship together with the Christ, whether in the suffering or in the glory, be that on which we are set. If we be in association with Him, no burden of sorrow, weakness, anguish or suffering will be found too much for us, for He bears the burden of our load; and if our prospect is association with Him in glory and dominion, there is no fear of the heart’s getting elated or puffed up. The glory is His, and our share of it, though it be an exceeding and eternal weight of glory, is His free gift to us; and the very greatness of it will, even in anticipation, if His person and presence is borne in mind, only humble our souls. Who or what am I, or what have I, or what can I do or be, that the Lord of all glory should have told me plainly, that when He takes His dominion and glory, and reigns, He means me to be there, as a sharer of that dominion and that glory together with Him?
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