Psalms 8
TO answer this question, may I ask your attention to a few scriptures? You will notice that when the work accomplished by our “Redeemer” is spoken of, that though the death, the cross, the blood of Jesus are used to express it, they are not confounded as synonymous, but are accurately employed by the Holy Spirit.
For instance, in Romans we read of our being “dead to sin,” “dead to the law.” Why? Because the death of Christ, followed, of course, by the resurrection, settles this question (see Romans 6:3,8-113Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? (Romans 6:3)
8Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:8‑11)). If you desire to be acquainted with God’s thought of being in Christ, read the words He has selected on this subject between chapters 5:11 and 8:4. These, obeyed from the heart, will give you an intelligence of His ways that you have possibly lacked since you professed your faith in Jesus as your Savior.
In the Epistle to the Galatians, where resurrection is only once mentioned, and that in the first verse, we find apostolic instructions with regard to “deliverance from this present evil world” (ch. 1:4), and note that in this epistle from beginning to end the cross is before us.
Now the cross, according to 1 Corinthians 1, is the balance of the sanctuary whereby all things must be weighed by those who are waiting for the coming of our Lord, and who have been called by God into the fellowship of His Son. By it the wisdom and the strength of man are found to be vain; for it still pleases God, by the foolishness of the preaching of the cross, to show that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God stronger than men. So that we may well inquire with the Psalmist, “What is man?” and recall the “cease ye from man” of Isaiah 2:2222Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? (Isaiah 2:22).
An important challenge to the man “in Christ” is given by the writer of Galatians when he calls attention to the source of his authority, “Neither of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from among the dead.”
The word “bewitched” in chapter 3 is another challenge to those who have had the cross brought before them in the simplicity and extent of apostolic ministry, and then turned to the law.
In chapter 4 we are taken to the earthly metropolis, Jerusalem. We cannot forget that God’s politics, as given through Daniel the prophet, will end in the judgment of the kingdoms of this age, but the present purpose of God, based upon the resurrection and ascension of Christ, is that we may be lifted up from the earthly to the heavenly Jerusalem, here said to be “our mother,” and in contrast with which he shows us the bondage of the earthly under the system of the law given through Moses. Practical deliverance from this bondage is seen to be in the power of the Cross (ch. 5 11-24, 6:14).
From history we know that when this epistle was written Jerusalem was soon to be destroyed by the Romans. As a fact, too, the Jewish nation had been subjected to the Gentiles ever since the day when Nebuchadnezzar burned the temple and carried the elect nation captive to Babylon; but we still await the accomplishment of this king’s vision (Dan. 2), when the stone cut out from the mountain without hands shall strike the feet of the image, and all the Gentile powers represented by it — Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, and Roman — shall come to destruction.
The Jew accentuated the motto of the Roman Empire when they chose Barabbas instead of Christ, and afterward said, “We have no king but Caesar.”
The city that refused and hated Christ who wept over her, “loves death” (Prov. 8:3636But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death. (Proverbs 8:36)), as in effect they themselves declared — “His blood be on us and on our children.” This city is last seen at its old practices in Revelation 11:8-108And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. 9And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. 10And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. (Revelation 11:8‑10), and lest we should by the lapse of time forget, it is added in verse 8, “Where our Lord was crucified.”
The cross in this connection cannot be confined to what John Bunyan truly expresses as the experience of those who at the cross of Christ see no more than the bundle of their sins going into the grave of Jesus, for the Philippians are solemnly warned against being “enemies of the cross of Christ.” This comes after the description of the experiences of one who has allowed himself there to be set aside, and has nothing, and seeks nothing, apart from Christ. How appropriate here is the expression, “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:2020For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (Philippians 3:20)).
The apostle John says, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” To one who deliberately chooses the world, it would be useless to address this paper, for “he who is convinced against his will, remains of the same opinion still,” but for the household of God, their citizenship ought to be a simple matter; and if any of these be otherwise minded, may we not find comfort from the apostle’s word in Philippians 3:1515Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. (Philippians 3:15), that “God will reveal even this unto them.”
When the Spirit speaks through Peter, to whom our Lord had entrusted the keys of the kingdom of the heavens in its present “mysterious” form, we find he refers to the blood. On his nation’s birthday the blood had been the separating line between those saved and those judged. The history given in Exodus 12 is surely a figure of what we now possess, as delivered from the cruel oppression of this world’s taskmaster.
The apostle sets forth God’s present ways in government, showing how we, who have to suffer now for righteousness’ sake, as well as for Christ’s name’s sake, can pray in the Spirit for the “powers that be” and not content ourselves with prayers formed according to our varied wills. “The end of all things is at hand,” he says: “be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer” (ch. 4:7).
“Behold he prayeth” was a word understood by Ananias when our Lord spoke to him of one who had doubtless often said prayers after the manner of the scribes (Luke 21:42).
Let us not forget the apostolic injunction in Timothy 2:1-6, where we may learn how one of the household of God can prevail by prayer like Abraham, and accomplish more than he could by activity like that of just Lot, who, we are told, “was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.”
How is it with you, dear reader? Are you “in Adam” or “in Christ”?
“Stand fast in Christ, ah yet again
He teacheth all the band;
If human efforts are in vain,
In Christ it is we stand”
H. T.
Berthorpe, Compton, Guildford.