It is quite possible to take up the heavenly standing of a believer in a legal way and to demand of the soul, as it were, that the truth be accepted, and when this is the case, Christ is dissociated from the doctrine, and self, though it may not be verbally, is allowed a place. An analogous series of mental work follows in those who have a partial knowledge of Ephesian truth without the soul having been rendered receptive by the Holy Spirit.
It is impossible to learn Christ legally. Doctrines, separated from Christ, only wither the vitality of the soul. And the higher the truth, the more sorrowful will be the results when it is pressed legally. A man, who has the doctrine of the heavenly standing of believers but has not apprehended Christ where He is, will be in danger of far worse elation than a simply self-righteous person. How often we hear of the heavenly places spoken of by the believer without mentioning that it is in Christ that we are in the heavenly places! It is easy for the soul to boast or be occupied with the standing in heaven, even to the leaving out of “in Christ.” “I am a heavenly man” may mean, I am nothing but I am in Christ in heaven, or it may mean, I am one who has attained to what others have not.
State and Standing
No doubt there is often a confusion between the heavenly standing of the believer and his state in relation to that standing. The standing is unchanging; the state is just where the soul is. But a man, who thinks that he has reached a heavenly state because he has been taught his heavenly standing, makes a grave mistake. Indeed, he is in imminent peril of boasting in the doctrine, or in himself as knowing it. When this is the case, there is a peculiar way of looking down upon other believers, a tone of soul which seems to say, “I am a superior person.” It is a chip off the old block of Phariseeism: “This people who [know] not the law.”
Freedom from self-occupation needs to result in occupation with Christ, otherwise there will not be holiness. In a similar way, persons who have their eyes opened as to the believer’s heavenly standing, simply because they know the standing, imagine themselves practically heavenly. It is a very great mistake indeed, and if this confusion between standing and state be allowed to remain in the soul, anything but holiness will be the result.
Practical Christianity
The neglect of “pure religion” is not infrequently to be traced in such cases (James 1:2727Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27)). Such simple acts of practical Christianity as visiting the sick, caring for the poor, and, in some cases, even the gospel to sinners are regarded as inferior occupations unsuited to the “heavenly” atmosphere. It seems to be forgotten that there are chapters 46 in the Ephesians and that to be heavenly is downright practical in the home, in the relationships of life, and in Christian warfare.
Humility never advertises itself. It is utterly hateful to read a man’s statement of himself. Humility is one of the first blossoms of grace in the soul.
Unbalance
The believer, to whom God has given for his soul an apprehension of Christ where He is and the knowledge that Christians are seated in Christ in the heavenly places will not wish to read only one set of portions from the Word of God. He will surely seek to be acquainted with the whole counsel of God. It is always a dangerous thing when only favorite scriptures are read; it shows clearly that a mind so acting is unbalanced. God has given to us the whole of His Word, and we need every verse of it, and surely none require the exhortations of Scripture more than those who rejoice, and rejoice before God, in heavenly truths, as we see evidenced by the concluding chapters of the epistles to the Colossians and the Ephesians.
Holiness
Holiness is the very yearning of divine life. God has mercifully delivered many from trying in the flesh to imitate Christ; He has shown what self is and its judicial end in the cross of Christ, and that His people are to reckon themselves to be dead unto sin. God has done more: He has opened the minds of many to the knowledge of a risen Christ, and that to His likeness all His own shall be conformed. The path of holiness is walking as Christ walked, being Christ-like on this earth, and the really heavenly man will be known by his ways.
H. F. Witherby, adapted from
The Bible Treasury, 12:272