From the beginning man, trusting the enemy rather than God, was alienated from God; and the two questions, Where art thou? (Gen. 3) and What hast thou done? (Gen. 4) showed where man was as the consequence. Responsibility put fully to the test up to the rejection of Christ. Then, God glorified in righteousness, His love, and the counsels of His grace from before the foundation of the world have been manifested. This puts the gospel in a very special place, and then shows the connection of responsibility and sovereign grace with great distinctiveness.
Moreover there is no longer any veil over the glory of God. His wrath is revealed from heaven; but also the glory of God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, witness that all the sins of those who behold it exist no longer before God. All that God is morally is fully revealed and established. We know Him according to that glory, and our relationships with God our standing before Him are founded on it. We are transformed from glory to glory according to that image, for we can look upon it. It is the proof of our redemption, and that our sins no longer subsist before God. We are also renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created us; we are created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth; for according to that glory He shined in our hearts in order to show out the glory of Christ in the world. We are like a lantern: the light is within, but it is to shine without: dull glass (the flesh in us interferes) will prevent the light from shining as it should. Thus that which is given us becomes inward exercise. The treasure is in an earthen vessel; and it is necessary this latter be only a vessel—that we should be dead, in order that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
It is not only a communication of what is in Christ, as knowledge; but if it is real, we drink of that which makes the river. It is a communication of that which exercises the soul, makes it grow, and judges the flesh in everything, in order that we may not mar the testimony which is thus committed to us. In Christ Himself the life was the light of men; and the light that we receive must become life in us, the formation of Christ in us, and the flesh be subjected to death. “Death worketh in us” says Paul, “but life in you.”
This is the history of ministry, of true ministry. What we communicate is our own; it enlightens us, but works in us morally. The glory of Christ is realized in us; and all that does not suit Him is judged. Now flesh never suits Him. The death of Christ put an end to all that was Paul. Thus the life of Christ acted from him in others, and nothing but that. This is saying a great deal. In this respect there may he progress. For as to my position before God, I reckon that I am dead; in order to live, death works in me. There is the vessel, but it must be only a vessel, and the life of Christ acting in it and by it. If the vessel acts, it spoils all. In reality we live; but we must always bear about death, in order that the glory of Christ, the image of God, may shine for others. But all the glory of God is revealed; there is no longer any veil over it on God's side, if it be veiled, the veil is on man's heart through unbelief. Truth of all importance! Under the law man could not go in; nor did God come out. Now He has come out, but humbling Himself to bring grace. Then, the work of redemption accomplished, He has gone in, and there is no veil over the glory.
Responsibility there must be and always ought to be. But the first man was the responsible man, and his story ended at the cross, though each has to learn it personally. Our standing is in the second, Who charged Himself with our failures in responsibility (Himself perfect in every trial in it), but laid the ground of perfect acceptance before God. Lost on the ground of the first, we are before God on the ground of the finished work of the second man; not children of Adam as to our place, but children of God, and made the righteousness of God in Christ. Before the cross and up to it, responsibility was developed; after it righteousness was revealed, and the original purpose of God, which was in the last Adam, could then be brought out. This opens what was purely of God, which we have mainly in Ephesians, though elsewhere: and conduct is the display of the divine nature as in Christ. This last is a blessed part of it. The study of what He is, is surely the food of the soul: His Person, His work, may carry us deeper in the apprehension of what God is, for it was met there; and we worship and praise. But with Him we can walk, and know and learn that none is so gracious as He. What will it not be to see Him as He is. J. N. D.