J.
N. Darby
HOW TO GET PEACE*
How
can I get peace with God? He has "made peace by
the blood of the cross." I
do not deny that; I believe it; but I have not
peace; and how can I have that peace myself? "Being justified by faith, we have peace
with God." Well,
I know it is so written, but I have not peace;
that I know: I wish I had, and I sometimes think I
do not believe at all. I see you happy; and how is
that happiness of soul to be had? You do not then think it presumptuous to
be at peace with God in the assurance of His favour,
and thus of our own salvation? I
think it would be in me; but I see it in
scripture, and therefore it must be right; and I
see a few who enjoy the divine favour, in whom one
sees it is real. But I do not know how to get
this. It leaves me distressed if I think of it,
though I get on from day to day as other
Christians do; but when this question is raised, I
know I am not at peace, nor assured of divine
favour resting upon me, as I see you and others
enjoying it. And it is a serious thing, because if
"being justified by faith, we have peace with
God," as you say, and as I know scripture says, I
have not peace with God; and how, then, can I be
justified? You have not the true knowledge of
justification by faith. I do not say you are not
justified in God's sight, but your conscience has not
possession of it. The Reformers, all of them, went
further than I do. They all held that if a man had not
the assurance of his own salvation he was not
justified at all. Now, whoever believes in the Son of
God is, in God's sight, justified from all things. But
till he sees this as taught of God, till he apprehends
the value of Christ's work, he has no consciousness of
it in his own soul, and, of course, if in earnest, as
you are, he has not peace; nor is his peace solidly
established till he knows he is in Christ, as well as
that Christ died for him; and the Christian's getting
on, as you say, day by day, is a false and hollow
thing, which must some time or other be broken up. It
is that which often causes distress on death-beds. And
the character of Christian activity is sadly
deteriorated and made a business of, a kind of means
of getting happy, not work in the power of the Spirit,
by a soul at peace. If a person is really serious, and walks
before God, he cannot rest in spirit till he be at
peace with Him, and the deeper all these exercises are
the better. But He has made peace by the blood of the
cross. All these exercises are merely bringing up the
weeds to the surface, as ploughing and harrowing a
field. They are useful in this way, and necessary; but
they are not the crop which faith in the finished work
of Christ produces. His work is finished. He "appeared
once in the end of the world to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself;" and He "finished the work which
his Father gave him to do." That work, which puts away
our sin, is complete and accepted of God. If you come
to God by Him, if your sins are not all put away by
it, completely and for ever, they never can be, for He
cannot die again; and all by the "one sacrifice," or
else, as the apostle reasons in Hebrews 9, "he must
often have suffered." I
see this more clearly, and that it is a perfect,
finished work, done once for all. What do you want, then, still, in order
to have peace? Well,
that
is what I want to see clearly. I am anxious, before we speak of your
state and hindrances, to have the work itself clearly
brought before our minds. Who did this work? Why,
Christ, of course. What part had you in completing it? None. None, surely, unless we say your sins.
And to what state of your soul does it apply —a godly
or an ungodly state? Well,
must
not I be holy? Surely, "without holiness no man shall
see the Lord." But do you see how quickly, and with
the instinct of self-righteousness, you turn from
Christ's work to your own holiness —to what you are?
It is curious-the quicksightedness of man to what
makes nothing of him and his self-approbation. Your
desire of holiness, however, is the desire of the new
man. Were you indifferent to it, one's work would be
to seek to awaken your conscience, not to talk of
peace: rather, perhaps, to break up false peace. But
we are now inquiring how an anxious soul can find
peace. Quite
so.
I am sadly indifferent sometimes, and that is one
thing that troubles me; but I have not peace, and
I would give anything for it. I do not doubt such indifference retards,
in a certain sense, your finding it, but we have
humbly to learn what we are; the gain of a few dollars
would give more earnestness to many a soul. But I
repeat my question —Does this work of Christ apply
simply to your ungodliness or godliness, or to an
improved state at least? Why,
simply, of course, to my ungodliness. Undoubtedly. Consequently not to your
holiness, if there were any, nor to an improved state.
Yet, what are you looking for to get peace? Is it not
an improved state of soul? Why,
yes. Then you are on the wrong road, for that
by which Christ "has made peace" applies to your
ungodliness. Your desire is right, but you are putting
the cart before the horse, as men speak —you are
looking for holiness to get Christ, instead of looking
to have Christ to get holiness. But
I do hope for His help in order to get it. That I can believe, but you are looking
for His help, not to His work or blood-shedding for
peace. You want righteousness not help. We need His
help every moment when we are justified. He is the
Author of every good thought in us before. But that is
not peace, nor His blood-shedding, nor righteousness.
Yet this search is not without its fruit for all that,
because it leads you to see that you cannot thus find
what you seek for. You will neither find holiness
thus, nor peace by it. But, finding that you cannot
and that when "to will is present" you do not find
"how to perform that which is good," will lead you,
through grace, knowing that there is no good in you,
to that which does give peace —Christ's work— and not
your state and the work of grace in you. That work God
works; but it is not to lead us to look at it as the
way of peace, but through it and out of ourselves,
simply and wholly, to Christ's work and His acceptance
before God. But come now, where are you before God? I do
not know. That is just what troubles me. Are you lost? I
hope not. Of course we are lost by nature; but I
hope there is a work of grace in me, though I
sometimes doubt it. Suppose you stood before God now, and
your case had to be decided, where would you be, had
it, as it must in judgment, to be decided by your
works? Have you confidence? I
hope it would be right: I cannot help thinking
there is a work of grace in me; but I cannot think
of judgment without fear. I trust there is a work of grace in you
—do not doubt it; but here is the turning-point of our
inquiry: What you want is, to be in God's presence,
and know there, if God enters into judgment with you
(as it must then be in righteousness and in respect of
your state and works), that you are simply lost! Now
you are a sinner, and a sinner cannot subsist before
God in judgment at all. It is not help you want here;
that is, if actually in God's presence, but
righteousness, and that you have not got; I mean as to
your own faith and conscience, through and in which we
possess it. Righteousness can alone suffice before
God; and now the righteousness of God, for we have
none, and only this is to be found. Nor does the work
of grace in us produce this. It is by faith, through
the work of Christ, and in Him we possess it; through
Him God justifies the ungodly. The case of the prodigal son will
illustrate this. There was a work of God in him; he
came to himself, found himself perishing, and set out
towards his father. When setting out he acknowledges
his sins, adding "make me as one of thy hired
servants." There was uprightness, a sense of divine
goodness, and a sense of sin, and he was drawing
conclusions as to what he might hope for when he met
his father; and so are you. He had what the world of
Christians call humility and a humble hope; was
drawing conclusions just as you are, which proved
—what?— that he had never met his father. He could not
reason as to how he would be received when he did meet
him, if he had met him. It is the position of one who
had never met God, though God had wrought in him. When
he did meet his father, not a word of making him like
"the hired servants" is to be found. There was the
confession of sin fully, and his previous experience
had brought him in his rags to his father, in his sins
(not loving them, but in them and confessing them).
The effect of the previous process was that he then
met God, as to his conscience, in his sins, and that
was all; and had his father on his neck —grace
reigned— and had the best robe, Christ, the
righteousness of God, which no progress had given him,
of which he had nothing before. It was a new thing
conferred on him. When in God's presence, we need Christ,
not progress; righteousness and justification through
Him, not help or improvement. God has helped us, or we
should not have been there. There has been progress,
but the progress has been to bring us into God's
presence, not to judge of the progress and hope
because of it, but to judge of sin in His sight and
know He can have none of it, and to find Christ our
perfect acceptance in His sight instead of ourselves
—Christ, who has borne our sins— Christ, who is our
righteousness, perfect, absolute, and eternal. It is
not in looking at our progress that we find peace.
Were it so, we should have to say, "Therefore being
justified by experience, we have peace with God;" but
that the word of God never says. True progress as to
this is our being brought into God's presence as mere
and wholly lost sinners, confessing our sins, and that
"in us, that is, in our flesh, there is no good
thing;" and thus the consciousness that we are lost as
a present thing. It is not a question what we shall be, or
how we shall be judged to be in the day of judgment,
but the discovery of what we are —our actual sins and
our sinful nature— which is the real plague of an
upright soul, and getting Christ instead of these
—"the best robe," instead of our "rags," when in God's
presence in them. We have found Christ and believed in
Him. He has been the propitiation for our sins,
bearing them in His own body on the tree; and, having
Christ, He is our righteousness; God condemned sin in
the flesh, when He was an offering for it (Rom. 8: 3),
and we are not "in the flesh," but "in Christ."
Instead of Adam and his sins, that is, ourselves, we
have Christ and the value of His work. This is true of every one that believes
in Him, comes to God by Him. Were we as simple as
scripture, it would be seen in a moment. But we are
not, and we have to be cured of the self-righteousness
of our hearts, and, as mere sinners before God, find
that God in love has taken up the question of our sins
and our evil nature, has anticipated the day of
judgment, and settled the question for every one that
comes to God by Him, "once for all," and for ever, on
the cross, has dealt with the sins which I should have
had to answer for in the day of judgment; and dealt
with them in putting them away according to His own
righteousness, and that there our fullest form of sin
in flesh against God, that is, enmity against God, met
with God dealing with sin, in grace to us, but in
judgment against it. Sin and God met on the cross,
when Christ was made sin for us, and by His death we
have died to it, and are the fruit of the travail of
His soul before God. He has borne the sins of many,
and appeared to put away sin —has glorified God about
it in righteousness in that momentous hour. He took
what I had earned; I get the fruit of what He has
done. Practically speaking, I come to God like
Abel, with that sacrifice in my hand; God must own its
value; I have the testimony that I am righteous: the
witness is borne to my gifts; my acceptance is
according to the value of Christ's sacrifice in God's
sight; coming with that is confession of righteous
exclusion in myself, not of improvement in state; I
come with Christ in my hand, so to speak, my slain
Lamb, and the testimony is to my gift. God looks at
that when I thus come by it, not at my state, which,
so coming, is confessedly that of a sinner, and only a
sinner, as to his own title, shut out from God. But
must I not accept Christ? Ah, how "I" gets through the blessedest
testimonies of God's ways towards us in grace. I say,
here is Christ on God's part for you —God's Lamb. You
answer —"But must not I?" I am not surprised. It is no
reproach I make; it is human nature, my nature in the
flesh; but know that in "I" there is no good thing.
But tell me, would you not be glad to have Him? Surely
I
should. Then your real question is, not about
accepting Him, but whether God has really presented
Him to you, and eternal life in Him. A simple soul
would say, "Accept! I am only too thankful to have
Him!" but as all are not simple, one word on this
also. If you have offended some one grievously, and a
friend seeks to offer him satisfaction, who is to
accept it? Why,
the offended person, of course. Surely. And who was offended by your
sins? Why,
God, of course. And who must accept the satisfaction? Why,
God must. That is it. Do you believe He has
accepted it? Undoubtedly
I
do. And is— Satisfied. And are not you? Oh!
I see it now. Christ has done the whole work, and
God has accepted it, and there can be no more
question as to my guilt or righteousness. He is
the latter for me before God. It is wonderful! and
yet so simple! But why did I not see it? how very
stupid! That is faith in Christ's work, not our
accepting it, gladly as we do, not believing God has.
You have no need to enquire now whether you believe.
The object is before your soul, seen by it: what God
has revealed is known in seeing it thus by faith. You
are assured of that, not of your own state. As you see
the lamp before you and know it, not by knowing the
state of your eye; you know the state of your eye by
seeing it. But you say, How stupid I was. It is ever
so. But allow me to ask you what you were looking for?
—Christ, or holiness in yourself and a better state of
soul? Well,
holiness
and a better state of soul. No wonder you did not see Christ then.
Now this is what God calls submitting to God's
righteousness, finding a righteousness which is
neither of nor in ourselves, but finding Christ before
God, and the proud will, through grace, submitting to
be saved by that which is not of or in ourselves. It
is Christ instead of self, instead of our place in the
flesh. Had you obtained peace in the way you sought
it, you would have been satisfied with whom? Myself. Just so. And what would that have been?
Nothing real indeed, and shutting out Christ if it
were, save as a help; shutting Him out as
righteousness and peace. And as an upright soul taught
really of God cannot be satisfied with itself, it
remains, though confidingly in love if walking with
God, yet without peace for years perhaps, till it does
submit to God's righteousness. And now note another
point: for the soul at peace with God can now
contemplate Christ to learn. He has not only borne our
sins, and died to sin, and closed the whole history of
the old man in death for those who believe, they
having been crucified with Him; but He has glorified
God in this work (John 12: 31, 33; 17: 4, 5), and so
obtained a place for man in the glory of God, and a
place of present positive acceptance, according to the
nature and favour of God whom He has glorified; and
that is our place before God. It is not only that the
old man and his sins are all put out of God's sight,
but we are in Christ before God; and this we have the
consciousness of by the Holy Ghost given to us (John
14: 20), accepted in the Beloved, divine favour
resting on us as on Him. And thus too He dwells in us;
and this leads unto true practical holiness. We are
sanctified, set apart, to God by His blood; but we are
so in possessing His life, or Him as our life, and the
Holy Ghost; and these, or, if you please, He Himself
becomes the measure of our walk and relationship with
God. We are not our own, but bought with a price, and
nothing inconsistent with His blood, and the price of
it, and its power in our hearts, becomes a Christian. This was beautifully expressed in the Old
Testament in figures. When a leper was cleansed,
besides the sacrifice, the blood was put on the tips
of his ear, his thumb, and his great toe. Every
thought, every act, all in our walk which cannot pass
the test of that blood, is excluded from the
Christian's thoughts and walk. And how glad he is to
be freed from this world and the body of sin
practically, and have that precious blood as the
motive, measure, and security for it; that whatever
grieves the Holy Spirit of God, by which we are sealed
when thus sprinkled, is unsuited to a Christian,
seeing he dwells in Him. And that precious blood and
the love Christ shewed in shedding it become the
motive, and the Holy Ghost the power of, devotedness
and love in walking as Christ walked. If we are in
Christ, Christ is in us; and we know it by the
Comforter given (John 14); and we are the epistle of
Christ in this world: the life of Jesus is to be
manifested in our mortal body. But
your standard is very high. It is simply what scripture gives. "He
that saith he abideth in him ought to . . . walk even
as he walked." God Himself is set before us as the
model, Christ being the expression of what is divine
in a man. "Be ye followers of God as dear children,
and walk in love, as Christ has loved us and given
himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for
a sweet smelling savour." Nor is there any limit.
"Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life
for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the
brethren." "Now are ye light in the Lord, walk as
children of light." But you may remark here that there
is nothing legal, nothing by which we are seeking to
make our case good with God. Many would say that
complete grace and assurance leaves liberty to do as
we like; that, if we are completely saved, what are
the motives or need of any works? It is a dreadful
principle. As if we have no motive but "getting saved"
to work by, none but legal bondage and obligations;
and if we are saved, all motive is gone. Have the
angels no motive? It is an utter blundering mistake,
such as we could not make in human things. What should
we think of the sense of one who told us, that a man's
children were exempt from obligation because they were
certainly and always his children? I should say that
they were always and certainly under obligation,
because they were always and certainly his children,
and that if they were not, the obligation ceased. That
is clear enough, though I never thought of it. But
you do not mean to say that we were under no
obligation before we were children of God? I do not, but we were not under that
obligation. You cannot be under the obligation of
living as a Christian till you are one. We were under
the obligation of living as men ought to live, as men
in the flesh before God; and of that the law was the
perfect measure. But upon that ground we were wholly
lost, as we have seen. Now we are completely saved,
who through grace believe, and are all the children of
God by faith in Christ Jesus. And our duties are the
duties of God's children. Duties always flow, and
right affections too, from the relationships we are
in, and the consciousness of the relationship is the
spring and character of the duty; though our
forgetting it does not alter the obligation. And so
scripture always speaks, "Be ye followers of God as
dear children." "Put on therefore, as the elect of
God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy." Right
affections and duties flow from the place we are
already in, and are never the means of getting into
it. We enjoy it when we walk in it; rather we enjoy
the light and favour of God, communion with Him in it.
But, note, failure in faithfulness does not lead to
doubt the relationship, but, because we are in it, to
blame ourselves for inconsistency with it. Here the
advocacy of Christ comes in and other truths, which I
cannot enter into now, though most precious in their
place. Only remark that that advocacy is not the means
of our obtaining righteousness, but is founded on it
and Christ's having made the propitiation for our
sins. Nor do we go to Him that He may advocate, but He
goes for us because we have sinned. Christ had prayed
for Peter before he had even committed the sin, and
just for what was needed; not that he might not be
sifted; he wanted that; but that his faith might not
fail when he was sifted. Ah, if we knew how to trust
Him! See how, in the midst of His enemies, He looked
at Peter at the very right moment to break his heart! How
simple things are when we take the word; and how
it changes all your thoughts of God. One is
altogether in a new state! True indeed, and this leads to two other
points I wished to advert to. We have looked at
Christ's work as satisfying, yea, glorifying God,
because we had to see how righteousness was to be had.
But we must remember it was God's sovereign love which
gave Christ, and the same love in which He offered
Himself for us. It is not for us righteousness reigns;
that will indeed be true hereafter, when judgment
returns to righteousness, when God will come and judge
the earth. But for us grace reigns, sovereign
goodness, God Himself, through righteousness, a divine
righteousness, as we have seen, which gives us a place
in glory in God's presence according to the acceptance
of Christ, and like Him. It is sovereign grace which
gives a sinner a place with the Son of God, conformed
to His image. Yet it is righteous; for His blood and
work fully and necessarily claim such a place, as we
have seen in John 13 and 17. And now "we joy in God
himself through our Lord Jesus Christ." We know Him as
love (and this love as the sum of all our joy and
blessing), yet in righteousness in Christ, for we are
made the righteousness of God in Him. We know God in
love, and are reconciled to Him. It is a blessed
place, a place of holy affections and peaceful rest.
We have communion with the Father and with His Son
Jesus Christ. What is communion? Why,
common thoughts and joys and feelings. Think of that —with the Father and with
His Son Jesus Christ! That
is wonderful. I hardly get into that. Well, we have to seek that Christ may
dwell in our hearts by faith, being rooted and
grounded in love, that we may comprehend. Yet if the
Holy Ghost who dwells in us is the source of our
thoughts and joys and feelings, they cannot be
discordant, though we may be poor feeble creatures,
with those of the Father and the Son. Does not the
Christian's heart delight in Christ, in His words, His
obedience, His holiness, His sacrifice of Himself to
the Father's will? and does not the Father delight in
it? we indeed most poorly and feebly, He infinitely;
but the object is one. He is chosen of God and
precious, and to them that believe He is precious. I
go no farther than to cite this as an illustration.
This is a matter of your daily life and diligence of
heart; but you can understand that what comes from the
Holy Ghost must conform to the mind of the Father and
the Son. That
is evident, but it is so new to me; I am brought
into such a different world! If this be true,
where are we all? I leave you to ponder over this, and to
search the word whether these things are so; whether
scripture, which fully recognizes our passing through
exercises of soul as coming to it, ever looks at the
Christian otherwise than as forgiven, and accepted in
the Beloved, and knowing it as one who has "not
received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but the
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." But
if I receive this, there is a passage which I
don't understand. We are told to "examine
ourselves whether we are in the faith," and what
you have said, it seems to me, sets this aside. We are told no such thing. Many a sincere
soul is honestly doing it, and we all pass naturally
through it. But
it is there in scripture. The words are part of a sentence in 2
Corinthians 13: 3, 5. But the beginning of the
sentence is this: "Since ye seek a proof of Christ
speaking in me," . . . then a parenthesis . . .
"examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith." It
is a taunt. The Corinthians had called in question
Christ's speaking in Paul, and the reality of his
apostleship, as you may see all through both epistles.
And he says, as a final argument, "You had better
examine yourselves; how came you to be Christians?"
for he had been the means of their conversion. Hence
he adds, "Know ye not your own selves that Christ
dwells in you, except ye be reprobates?" How came He
there? He appeals to their certainty to prove his
apostleship to their shame: but this is no direction
to examine whether one is in the faith. It is all well
to examine whether we are walking up to it; but that
is a very different thing. A child does right to do
that as to his conduct as such; it would be sad work
for him to do the other and examine if he were a
child. The consciousness, and the never failing
consciousness of a relationship, is a different thing
from consistency with it; and we must not confound the
two. The loss of the consciousness of the relationship
(which, however, I do not think takes place when once
really possessed, unless in cases of divine discipline
for sins) destroys the grounds of duty and the
possibility of affections according to it. Look at the
passage. I
see it plain enough. There is nothing to complete
the passage, "Since ye seek a proof of Christ
speaking in me," if we do not connect this with
it. And, in any case, the force of the apostle's
reasoning is clear, and he appeals to their
certainty —"Know ye not?" This last would have no
sense, if they were to examine as a duty if it was
so. But where had we got to with scripture? Rather, where had we got to without it?
You don't read and search as you ought. Do so, and the
truth will be clear to you: only, surely, we need
God's grace and looking to Him, that we may receive
the "sincere milk of the word as new born babes." I have yet one point I wish very briefly
to notice, to clear up our minds on the subject we are
enquiring into. In receiving Christ we receive life.
"This is the record," says John, "that God hath given
to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He
that hath the Son hath life." Between this life and
the flesh there is no common thought. If we do not
realize redemption, our being quickened (not taking us
from under the law and the sense of our own
responsibility) puts us in misery of heart at finding
sin in us, as in Romans 7. If we do know redemption,
and have been sealed by the Spirit, still "the flesh
lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh;" they are contrary as ever one to the other.
But if led of the Spirit, we are not under the law.
Now you have been trying to draw hopeful conclusions
from finding signs of life in yourself; having only a
general apprehension, which always accompanies true
conversion, of the goodness of God, strengthened by
the knowledge that Christ died. But all this reasoning
about yourself was in no way faith in redemption. It
left you still, though with better hope, in view of
judgment; or, at least, if when looking at the cross
you saw that there was there what you needed as a
sinner, you still looked for something better in
yourself, you could not say you possessed what you
needed in the cross —yea, were the fruit of it, as to
your state before God; and when you turned to the
judgment, your state would stand you in no good stead
there. Life is not redemption. Both belong to the
believer, but they are different things. You were
looking for proofs of life, concluding that, if they
were there, you could pass in the judgment; and then
perhaps in a vague way you brought in Christ to boot! I
think you have described my case pretty nearly. Now when persons live close with God in
simplicity of heart, the sense of goodness in God
predominates, and there is the savour of piety; but
when they do not, there is uneasiness and
restlessness; the accusing conscience predominates,
and they are unhappy, if not dismally afraid. But in
neither case is redemption really known; it is not
known that Christ has taken our place in judgment, and
given us His in glory: only we must wait for the
adoption itself, the redemption of the body. The way
in which scripture unites these two truths is in the
resurrection of Christ. This is the power of life, and
the seal of the acceptance of His work —His coming
fully up out of the consequences of our sin into
another state. So we in Him. We were dead in sin,
exposed to judgment, and under death; Christ comes
down from heaven, accomplishing in dying the work of
putting our sins away; and we are dead with Him; and
then He and we with Him are raised, consequent on the
completed work, and God's acceptance of it. He has
quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all
trespasses. It is life, whose full divine power is
shewn in resurrection; it is not only eternal life
communicated, but deliverance out of the state we were
in, and our entrance into another; not outwardly of
course yet, but really by the possession of this life.
Redemption means, though by price, a deliverance out
of the state I was in, and bringing me into another
and a free one. Hence we talk of the redemption of the
body, which we have not yet. Life does not by itself
give this: through it we feel the burden of the old
state we are in; but when we find that we are redeemed
also, we know that we have been brought, at the cost
of Christ's death, out of the old Adam state we were
in, into Christ. Hence we have "boldness in the day of
judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world." I
cannot follow quite the course of scripture
thoughts you give. I must learn these things; but
I see the difference between redemption and life,
though we have both in Christ now. He has died and
is risen. I suppose I had life before; but I have,
in a measure, now understood redemption too. Yes, you were of course redeemed. And
surely God had wrought in you in grace, as you said;
but, as already said, you were looking at this in view
of a God of judgment, with glimpses of divine love,
but had not faith in accomplished redemption. See how
the reasoning of the apostle applies to this in Romans
5: 19: "By one man's obedience many shall be made
(constituted) righteous." "Then," says the flesh, "I
may live in sin." What is the answer? No, you ought
not! This would be to put you back under the claims of
law, and so destroy again what is taught of Christ's
obedience. In no wise: "How can we that are dead to
sin live in it?" You have been baptized to Christ's
death, and are a Christian by having part in His
death. How, if you have died with Him to sin, can you
live in it? We are now free to give ourselves to God,
as those that are alive from the dead. Well,
while
the old foundations remain, it makes a new thing
of the whole matter. It is not the same way of
putting Christianity at all. I have to realize it,
though I am quite different as to my ground of
peace already; or, rather, I have one, and had not
before. But I see it is in scripture, and I must
search that out.
The truth is, the great body of true
sincere Christians are as those without, hoping it
will be all right when they get in; instead of being
within and shewing what is there to the world, as the
epistle of Christ. But
you would make us all out-and-out Christians,
dead, as you say, to the world and everything.
Surely. "A double-minded man is unstable
in all his ways." It is the single eye which causes
the whole body to be full of light. We are not our
own. The new man cannot have his objects here; his
service he has: so had Christ; in nothing did He have
His objects. We are crucified to the world, and the
world to us; and so we have crucified the flesh with
its affections and lusts. Only remember, that the
flesh lusts against the Spirit, and that this needs
vigilance, "working out," as to the passage of the
wilderness, "your salvation with fear and trembling:"
not because your place is uncertain, but because God
does "work in you to will and to do:" and it is a
serious thing to maintain God's cause when the flesh
is in us, and Satan disposes of the world to hinder
and deceive us. But do not be discouraged, for God
works in you; greater is He that is in us than he that
is in the world. You cannot be in wilderness
difficulties unless you have been redeemed out of It
is true. Do not suppose I want to make
difficulties: but there is still a question I have
to ask; I wish to get clear on these points. We
have been taught to rely on God's promises and
trust them for our salvation; it is the language
we constantly hear, and I do not see, if your view
be right, how exactly to connect it with trusting
in the promises for salvation; and surely we
should do that. The answer is very simple, and I am glad
you put the question. It is just these points we have
to inquire into. Trusting God's promises is clearly
right: that is certain; and there are most precious
promises too. But tell me, is it a promise that Christ
shall come and die and rise again? No:
He is come, and has died, and is risen, and is at
God's right hand. This then cannot be a promise, because it
is an accomplished fact. For Abraham it was a promise,
and he did right to believe it as such. To us it is an
accomplished fact, and we must believe it as such. And
so scripture speaks. He believed that that which God
had promised He was able also to perform. But we
believe that what by its efficacy saves us He has
performed. It would be unbelief to treat it yet as a
promise; and so it is written —"You to whom it shall
be imputed, believing on him who hath raised up Jesus
Christ from the dead." You will find both passages
together, speaking of this very point, at the end of
Romans 4. As to help on our journey onward, there are
many and cherished promises. "I will never leave thee
nor forsake thee." "God will not suffer us to be
tempted above that we are able to bear." "No man shall
pluck his sheep out of his hand." "Who will also
confirm you to the end, that ye may be blameless in
the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." I might cite many
others of the greatest comfort and value to us in our
difficulties on the way. But the work in which I have
to believe as justifying me and reconciling me to God,
as alone and perfectly putting away my sins and
redeeming me to God, is not a promise; nor can it be
looked at as such. It is an accomplished fact, a work
already accepted of God. I
see it clearly; indeed, nothing can be simpler and
plainer the moment it is before you. What
justifies before God is not a promise at all, but
an accomplished fact. I had never noticed that
passage in Romans 4. It is very plain. How
carelessly one reads scripture. But indeed, the
truth of what you say is evident on the face of
it. Allow me, as we have touched this point,
to draw your attention to another thing in the form in
which the work and testimony of grace is put. You may
remark that in the passage in Romans 4 it is said, not
"believe on Christ," however true that remains, but
"on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead."
So Peter, "who by him do believe in God who raised him
up from the dead and gave him glory." So the Lord
Himself as to His coming into the world, "He that
heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me."
We know God Himself only really, by knowing Him
through Christ. If I know Him thus, I know Him as God
our Saviour; as one who has not spared His Son for me:
as one who, when Christ was dead as having taken our
sins, raised Him from the dead. In a word, I not only
believe in Christ, but in Him who has given Christ and
owned His work; who has given glory to man in Him; as
a God who has come to save, not as one who is waiting
to judge me. I believe in Him by Christ. When You
make a Christian a wonderful person in the world;
but we are very weak for such a place. I could never make him in my words what
God has made him in His. As to weakness, the more we
feel it, the better. Christ's strength is made perfect
in our weakness. © SEDIN 2004
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