PSALM. 16
This Psalm depicts Christ as the dependent devoted man. Dependent, obedient, taking no place with God, but before Him as responsible as man upon earth, and looking towards the place of perfect blessedness as man with God, by being in His presence, which would be fullness of joy for Him, a place which, when having His nature, we can have with Christ. It is man, partaker of the divine nature, for so only it could be, but having God for His object, His confidence, as alone having authority over Him, entirely dependent on God, and perfect in faith in Him. This could only be in One personally partaker of the divine nature, God Himself in man as Christ was, or derivatively, as in one born of God. The divine presence in Him is viewed here in its effect in His absolute perfection as man. He is walking as man morally in view of God. He had said to Jehovah, " Thou art my Lord," that is "I am subservient to Thee." He had taken a place, while never ceasing to be God, (and which Godhead alone could fulfill the conditions of,) outside Godhead, but in which as man to satisfy God, to glorify God in an earth of apostacy and sin.
Jehovah was the portion of His cup. Nearer than all circumstances which otherwise could have pressed upon His heart as man-and which he fully felt. So truly was Jehovah the great circumstance and substance of His life in and through everything, that He could only wish that His joy might be fulfilled in His disciples. But then it was Jehovah only, and therein His perfection; the world a dry and thirsty land, where no water was; but Jehovah's favor was better than life; and was His life, practically, through a world where all was felt, but felt with Jehovah realized, Jehovah and His favor, the life of His soul, between Hint and all. So the Christian, forsaken, perhaps, and imprisoned, " Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again, I say, rejoice." Nature has circumstances between itself and God; faith has God between the heart and circumstances. And what a difference! No peace like the peace which hiding in the tabernacle from the provokings of all men gives. But this is a divine life passing through the world. " Delight thyself in the Lord, He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Faith leans on Jehovah, on the Father's love and Jesus.
For the securing infallible happiness and peace we need not look to circumstances, save to pass through them with Him. This was perfect, in Christ; He had only this, nor looked for aught else. We see it brightly manifested in Paul. In principle it is the path of every Christian, and some time or other he is exercised in it. The life of faith is this: God Himself the portion of our inheritance and our cup; He maintaineth our lot.
The lines fallen in pleasant places, I believe to be His joy as man in God, and in what was before God. In what follows we have the active expression of this life, in reference to God. " I will bless Jehovah who giveth me counsel." We need in divine life the positive instruction of wisdom, counsel; wisdom, a divine clue and direction in the confusion of evil in this world-to be wise concerning that which is good. " Not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time," "not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is." Jehovah gives counsel, So "if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to every man liberally and upbraideth not."
There is the immense privilege of the positive direction and guidance of God—the interest He feels in guiding the godly man aright, in the true path suited to God Himself—across the wilderness where there is no way. So Christ walked. So He guides His sheep, going before them; and now we are led of the Spirit of God, as ourselves sons of God. It is the divine path of wisdom, which the vulture's eye bath not seen; the path of man, but of man with the life of God, going towards the presence of God and the incorruptible inheritance. God gives counsel for it. I repeat He is interested in the guidance of the man of God, and the soul blesses Him. In this path Christ trod. The written word is the great means of this, still there is the direct action of God in us by His Spirit. But there is also intelligence. “My reins also instruct me in the night seasons." The divine life is intelligent life. We can be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." Thus, when removed from external influences, the secret workings and thoughts of the heart show what is suited to the path and way of God in the world. In Christ this was perfect, in us in the measure of our spirituality; but that to which, the Christian has to give much heed, that he neglect not the holy suggestions and conclusions of the divinely-instructed life when freed from the influence of surrounding circumstances. It may seem folly, but if found in humbly waiting on God, will in the end prove His wisdom. And the controlling judgment of God's word which overrules the whole divine life is there to judge false pretensions. To this the divine life is always absolutely subject. Christ, who was this life, yea, was the Word and Wisdom, yet always wholly honored the written word as the guidance and authority of God for man.
But guidance by the Lord is not quite all the practical process of the exercise of divine life. It looks entirely to the Lord, "I have set (says Christ, walking as man on the earth,) Jehovah always before me." He kept Him always in view. How our hearts have to own that this is not always so! How withdrawn from all evil-how powerful morally in the midst of this world should we be were it always so 1 There is nothing in this world like the dignity of a man always walking with God. What absence of self, what renouncement of all evil, what singleness of eye, and hence bright and earnest activity of purpose when the Lord is the only object before the soul! I say the Lord, for no other such object can command and sanctify the heart-all would go against duty to Him. He alone can make the whole heart full of light when duty and purpose go together and are but one. Indeed this is what James calls " the perfect law of liberty," perfect obedience, yet perfect purpose of heart. As Jesus says, " that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do." We say, as Christians, Christ is all, and he that loves Him, keeps His commandments. Thus Jesus set Jehovah always before His face. This is man's perfection as man. This is the measure of our spirituality, the constancy and purity with which we do this. But if Jesus did this, surely Jehovah would not fail Him nor us. So walking, He maintains the saint in the path which is His own. I set Jehovah always before my face, He is on my right hand, so that I shall not fall. This is known by faith. He may let us suffer for righteousness' sake—Christ did so—be put to death —Christ was—but not a hair of our head can He let fall to the ground, nor fail in making us enter into life according to the path in which we walk, but here it is 'Confidence in Jehovah Himself. Faith in walking in the path of man according to God's will, and towards God solely as the sanctifying end and object, knows that God is at its hand. Jehovah will secure. How or through what, is not the question. What strength this gives in passing through a world where all is against us, and what sanctifying power it has! There is no motive, no resource but Jehovah, which could satisfy any other craving, or by which the heart desires to secure itself, in seeking aught else. Hence, come what would Christ waited patiently for Jehovah, looked for no other deliverer. Nor have we to seek any other, and this makes the way perfect. We turn not aside to make the path easier.
Christ trod this path, only perfectly apart from sin, and only with God, doing His will, showed this path of life in man, then, having died to sin, (in the full result of this life in its own place, where no evil is,) lives to God. He did so, by faith, when down on earth always, but as man, in a world apart from God, and taking the word as His guide, living by every word that came out of the mouth of God, as we have to do. The resurrection demonstrated the perfectness of a life which was always according to the Spirit of holiness; but now He lives in it in its own place, and this is what, though through death, in an undiscontinued life He anticipates. "In thy presence is fullness of joy." This, alway His delight, was now His perfect enjoyment, and " at thy right hand." (Divine power had brought Him to this place of power and acceptance—the witness of His being perfectly acceptable to God.) "Are pleasures for evermore."
Such is life as life with God-life shown as man in this world. Life before God, and looking ever at Him. A life which, though free from sin, neither innocent nor sinful man could know; which, in fact, had not to be lived in Paradise, which could not be lived as belonging to the world, but which was lived to God through it: setting Jehovah always before it as its object.
Such is the life we have to live. " I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
In this world there is no other for a man. A life which has no object but the Lord Himself. This is a wonderful point—not one object in the world at all. For otherwise, it is not faith, but sight, or lust. Innocent man had no object; he enjoyed in peace God's goodness. Man departed from God—had many objects; but all these separate his heart from God and end in death. But the new life which comes down from the Father looks up with desire to its source and becomes the nature in man which tends towards God—has the Son of God for its object. As Paul says, " that I may win Christ." This life has no portion in this world at all; and, as life in man, looks to God, leans on God, and seeks no other assurance or prop, obeys God, and can live only by faith.
This life, of man Christ led and filled the whole career of. Out of this Satan wanted Him to come in the wilderness, and have a will, Make the stones bread, distrust, try if the Lord would fulfill His promise or fail Him, have another object-the kingdoms of the world. This last destroyed the very nature of the life, and Satan is openly detected and dismissed. Christ would not come out of man's dependent, obedient place of unquestioning trust in Jehovah. His path here was with the excellent of the earth, perfect in the life which was come down from heaven, but which was lived on earth, looking up to heaven.
Whatever our privileges in union with Christ, it is all important to live in the fear and faith of God, according to the life of Christ, It is not man's responsibility without law, or under law as a child of Adam; it is all over with us on that ground. It is the responsibility of the new life of faith, which is a pilgrim and a stranger here, a life come down from heaven. " God bath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son: he that hath the Son hath life," but a life which man lives in passing through this world, but wholly out of it in its object-a life of faith which finds in God's presence fullness of joy.
We have to remember that the development of this life in us is not, as in the Psalm, in connection with the name of Jehovah, but with the full revelation of the Father and the Son.
This Psalm, gives, us the inward spiritual life of Christ, and so ours, ending in the highest joy of God's presence.