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Our Lord Jesus Christ loves you.
286775 Posts in 27568 Topics by 3790 Members
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16  Theology / Bible Study / Self Interest vs. His Interest on: August 05, 2013, 06:05:58 PM
The same power that took man away from innocence is active still to move man away from the blessings of grace.  You can see in the early chapter of Acts how quickly selfishness and self-interest came in to divert souls, and the same thing has continued to work wherever the Light of Christian blessing has gone.  Where the truth of Christianity has come people are not so much diverted by violence as by self-interest.

Those who are invited to the great supper—a supper figurative of the festivity of heavenly grace—would not come because they were held by their own interests, not wrong things.  The wrong was that they attached more importance to their own interests than to the feast of heavenly grace.  This is the great snare of multitudes in Christendom, and the form in which the power of evil holds them.  “All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.”  If our own interests become dominant with us we shall most surely be diverted from all that is established in a risen and glorified Lord Jesus Christ.

Every blessing now is in connection with the Lord Jesus at the right hand of the Father.  It is a great thing to have the consciousness that we are bound up with Him there in heavenly glory, and to know that we can follow Him into the sphere of resurrection and ascension and participate in all that constitutes His life to that blessed circle of love and glory where He lives unto the Father.  If we apprehend this we shall not be deceived and intoxicated by what goes on in a condemned world.

In resting in the Father’s presence we are taken out of our own interests, like John who only thought of himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”  It is a blessed thing to abide in the consciousness of the love of the Lord Jesus—then we are protected from evil, and from the snares and wiles of Satan.  To “continue in the Son and the Father” is the safeguard against all seductions.

Some think they must know errors and heresies in order to avoid them.  Do you think the Father wants us to be acquainted with what is evil in that way?  Not at all.  We do need to explore and know all the evil; we cannot afford to waste our time in this way.  If we occupy ourselves with evil we shall in some way be colored by it.  The greatest thing is to be hidden with Him.  In this day of religious evil the only true preservation is to be kept abiding in the Lord Jesus above.

All too many do not care to go beyond the thought of forgiveness, and a godly walk in the world, but it is the Father’s pleasure to bring us as priests into His presence.  In approaching Him we get the knowledge of His mind and heart, and then there is edification.  This is a great comfort.  All too few enter into the privilege of priestly approach, but those who do are fitted to edify the whole company.  Thus all are helped on in the same direction.  One may be used to present the Father’s blessed things in such a way that all are attracted and encouraged to draw near with true hearts.

If we approach the Father it is entirely apart from all the imperfections of the flesh (sinful nature or “old man,” not the physical body—NC).  We approach in all the sweet and perfection of the Lord Jesus.  “They shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.”  It is as we are identified in affection with the perfections and acceptance of the Lord Jesus that we can approach for fellowship and worship. 

–C A Coates
17  Theology / Bible Study / “The End Of The Lord” on: August 04, 2013, 09:12:50 AM
We are all prone to forget the weighty fact that “God trieth the righteous.”  He withdraweth not His eyes from them.”  We are in our Father’s hands and under His eye continually.  We are the objects of His deep, tender and unchanging love; but we are also the subjects of His wise moral government.  His dealings with us are varied.  They are sometimes corrective; always instructive.

We may be bent on some course of our own, the end of which would be moral ruin.  The Father intervenes and withdraws us from our purpose.  He dashes into fragments our air-built castles, dissipates our golden dreams and interrupts our darling scheme on which our hearts were set, and which would have proved to be certain destruction.  “Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living” (Job 33:29, 30).

In turning for a moment to Hebrews 12:3-12, we find much vital instruction on the subject of our Father’s dealing with His beloved people.  Here are presented three distinct ways in which we may meet His chastening hand.  We may “despise” it, as though his hand and His voice were not in it; we may “faint” under it, as though it were intolerable and not the precious fruit of His love; or lastly, we may be “exercised” by it and thus reap in due time, “the peaceable fruit of righteousness.”

Now if Job had only seized the great fact that God was dealing with him; that He was trying him for his ultimate good; that He was using circumstances, people, the Sabeans, Satan himself, as His instruments; that all his trials, his losses, his bereavements, his sufferings, were but God’s marvelous agency in bringing about His wise and gracious end; that He would assuredly perfect that which concerned His dear and much-loved servant, because His mercy endureth forever; in a word, had Job only lost sight of all second causes, and fixed his thoughts upon the living God alone, and accepted all from His loving hand, he would have more speedily reached the divine solution of all his difficulties.

But it is precisely here that we are all apt to break down.  We get occupied with men and things; we view them in reference to ourselves.  We do not walk with our Father through, or rather above, the circumstances; but on the contrary, we allow the circumstances to get power over us.  In place of keeping our Father between us and our (His) circumstances, we permit these latter to get between us and the Father.  Thus we lose the realization of His presence, and the light of His countenance; the holy calmness of being in His loving hand, and under His fatherly eye.

Hence we become fretful, impatient, irritable and fault-finding.  We get out of fellowship (but never out of union—NC) with our Father, thoroughly astray, judging everyone except ourselves, until at length He takes us in hand and by His own direct and powerful ministry, brings us back to Himself in true brokenness of heart and humbleness of mind.  This is “the end of the Lord.”  “Behold, we count them happy who endure.  Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy” (James 5:11).

--C H Mackintosh
18  Theology / Bible Study / Born To Endure on: July 31, 2013, 09:20:15 AM
That which we most dread—weakness and failure—are the very means by which our Father turns us from self-reliance to full dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

“Walking in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, He leads up our hearts to where we are in the Lord Jesus.  The new man finds delight in Him, and nowhere else.  The Spirit is the living link between us and the Son in glory.  He causes us to gaze upon Him, and we become changed into the same image, from glory to glory.  This is true Christianity—the heart drawn off things here and lovingly occupied with the One who is our Christian life.”

“As the believer grows, and his path becomes more involved, he is taught more about the Holy Spirit’s ministry, for he needs this doctrine increasingly for his comfort and rest in trial.  His faith is not so strong and unwavering as he imagined; the ardor of his love soon vanishes; the power of sin, which at first he fancied was utterly broken, makes itself felt again, prayer becomes languid and joy seems to have taken flight.

“In other words, the Father leads him into the valley, and lest he should make an idol of his faith, and a well-spring of a cistern, he is taught something of himself.  Who does not know of this second stage of the Christian life, at first so painful, so humiliating, and filling the soul with perplexity?  It is thus that we learn that the Spirit who has renewed our spirit must also sustain our new life; that we depend entirely on divine grace and strength, not merely to bring us to the Lord Jesus, but to keep us abiding in Him where He is.”

Who does not know of this second stage of the Christian life, at first so painful, so humiliating, and filling the soul with perplexity?  It is thus that we learn that the Spirit who has renewed our spirit must also sustain our new life; that we depend entirely on divine grace and strength, not merely to bring us to the Lord Jesus, but to keep us abiding in Him where He is.”

-A M
19  Theology / Bible Study / “The Process of Growth” on: July 29, 2013, 09:14:42 AM
Many have an erroneous idea of what “chastening” means.  We think, perhaps, that it represents God as having a big stick in His hand and knocking us about all the time.  You have only to make a mistake and down comes the big stick!  That, of course, is a wrong conception of our Father, and is not what the word means at all.  The word “chastening” just simply means “child training.”

It is not a sign of love for your child if you never train him.  While training does, of course, mean correction, and sometimes using a stick, the idea is to do everything necessary to make that child a responsible man or woman.  It is a poor kind of adult who can never take any responsibility, whom you can never be sure of, who is not reliable and who always has to be told what to do and what not to do.  The idea of son-ship in the Father’s mind is to have people who are absolutely reliable and responsible, who know in their hearts what is right and what is wrong (Heb 5:14—NC), and do not have to be constantly told.

Chastening, or child-training, has to do with son-ship (or daughter-ship—NC).  We should always look at our difficulties in the light of this!  It often seems that the life of the believer is more trying than any other life, and more troubles (though we need not to allow problems to become troubles—John 14:1—NC) come to us than others.  Our Father does not excuse His children from troubles, but, whether we recognize it or not, and whether we like it or not, these difficulties and troubles which come to us are to train us for something and to develop in us the spirit of son-ship; that is, to develop our spiritual intelligence and ability. 

“Christ in you” is unto our being “conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom 8:29).  It is to work in us that which has been perfected by Him.  It is the whole realm of our being made Christ-like, having all the faculties and features of the Lord Jesus, which are resident in the new life received at new birth, brought to maturity.  Every spiritual virtue will be nurtured and developed; love, meekness, fondness, gentleness, intelligence, etc. so that we are not just theoretical Christians, but real ones, spiritually responsible and accountable.

This, however, necessitates much discipline; what is called “chastening.”  This discipline, or child-training, employs many forms of adversity and trial, has the effect of bringing to light what we really are in ourselves, and it is an ugly picture.  Our own features do not improve as we go on.  We know ever more what poor, wretched, and deplorable creatures we are, and—but for the grace of God—hopeless.  But something is being done deep down which will show itself in due time to the glory of our Father.

We are born of God, and are sons in the Son by right of our birth from above; but how true it is that the course of our spiritual experience seems to be deeper and ever deeper baptisms of death—His death—in order that more and more of the power of His resurrection may be known by us and manifested in us (Phil 3:10—NC).  There seems to be cycles, or tides, of death and life, and while each cycle or tide seems to compass our end more completely or to leave us at lower ebb that ever, there comes with ever-increasing fullness an uprising of spiritual life and knowledge.  Thus while the death overpowers “the old man,” we live increasingly by the life, “the new man,” upon which—and upon which alone—the seal of God rests.

-T Austin Sparks




20  Theology / Bible Study / “Exclusive Source” on: July 25, 2013, 02:08:18 PM
When our desires guide us to think on righteousness and holiness, from who is it to be sought?  In the one and only place it exists—the Lord Jesus Christ!  Yes, and from where is it to be sought?  In His saints, because it is where He is via His Holy Spirit.  This is to understand that there abides no righteousness or holiness directly within the believer, but only vicariously so. Which exercises faith the most—to believe that Christ’s righteousness alone suffices or that sufficiency is an admixture of man’s and Christ’s righteousness? 

Holiness and righteousness abide in a single degree and they do not admit in variations or measures.  Thus, I believe the precious words, “Be ye holy; for I am holy” contain more of a proclamation element declaring one so (i.e. “let there be light”), than that of a command because no creature can be holy according to His requirement, and therefore fellowship (“partakers”—2 Pet 1:4) must be by imputation and never impartation, and only pride will tend you toward the latter which is similar to Satan’s pride.

The believer is not righteous and holy but he is called righteous and holy because they indirectly abide within him—via a Second Party.  Keeping one’s self in remembrance that all is vicarious will avoid much disappointment which comes from expecting godliness from that which “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom 8:7—old man).  This will result in a much needed and longed-for “rest”; for the unsaved need deliverance from sin, and the saved needs deliverance from sin’s weight (Heb 12:1).   What we do not “cast” on Him (1 Pet 5:7) we unnecessarily carry, which “heavy ladens” us (Matt 11:28). 

-NC

“Exclusive Source”

Salvation is a deliverance wrought by the divine work on the Cross, so as to bring us out of one position into another.  It is true we are morally changed, but we want more than that—though whoever has got that will surly have all the rest.  But supposing I have the new life, with its desires after holiness, what is the effect?  It gives me the consciousness of all the sin that is in me.  I want to be righteous, but then I see that I am not righteous; and I bow under the power of indwelling sin and of the knowledge of such holiness which I have learnt to desire, only to find out that I have not got it.

I say what is the good of my knowing holiness in this way, if I have not got it?  It is no comfort to me.  Here we have been speaking of God’s righteousness; but when I look, I find I have no righteousness.  Where can I find a resting-place for my spirit in such a state as this?  It is impossible; and the very effect of having this new life, with all its holy affections and desires after the Lord Jesus, brings me to the discovery of the lack of what this new life cannot itself impart.  I have got the hungers of this new life—all its holy and righteous desires; but the thing yearned for I have not got.

It is the desire of my new life, Oh that I could be righteous; but then I am not righteous.  In that way the Father meets us with a positive salvation.  He meets us and quickens us into the desire and want of holiness, giving us a new life and nature capable of enjoying it when we get it.  But that is not all.  When I have got that life, have I got the thing I want? No.  I strive, and think, oh, if I could get more of this holiness, but still I have got it.  I may hate the sin, but the sin is there that I hate.

I may long to be with my Father, to be forever in the light of His countenance, but then I see that I have got sin, and know that the light of His countenance cannot shine upon my sin; I want a righteousness fit for His presence, and I have not got it.  It is thus God meets us at the Cross.  He not only gives the life and nature that we want, but He gives us the thing that we want.  And not only so, but in Christ He gives us both the perfect object and life.

We have borne the image of the first Adam in all the consequences of his sin and ruin, and we shall bear the image of the Last Adam.  But the Father lays down first this great truth for our hearts, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.”  It is what we are now!  There I find what my heart as quickened by God wants; and I learn what blessedness is in Christ, by whom the Father has revealed it to us.  He has given us a righteousness in the Lord Jesus, who is the blessed accepted Man in the presence of the Father.

Now, as regards my soul and eternal life, the Father has come and brought us into this position, making the Lord Jesus to be my righteousness and life.  He has brought me in, in faith and in truth of my new life, into this wondrous position in Christ.  The realization of it is another thing, and may be hindered through failure or infirmity.  You begin to search, perhaps in yourself, and find such and such a thought contrary to Christ.  But I say that is the old man.  If you take yourself by yourself, there is not righteousness before God, and therefore you cannot stand an instant in the Father’s sight.  I must look at the Lord Jesus to see what I am, and I say, “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.”  And this is what I am in the presence of my Father.  There is no veil: we are to walk in the light, as God is in the light.

–J N Darby

21  Theology / Bible Study / Growth Spurts on: July 23, 2013, 10:56:14 AM
“Regeneration is a birth: the center and root of the personality, the spirit, has been re-created and taken possession of by the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:17).  But time is required for that center to extend through all the circumference of our being.  It is akin to a seed: the life of the Lord Jesus within must grow; and it would be against the laws of nature and grace alike if we expected from the babe in Christ the strength that can only be found in the young man, or the rich experience and stability of the fathers.  Even where in the new convert there is great singleness of heart and faith, with true love and devotion to the Savior, time is needed for a deeper knowledge of the old man and sin, for a spiritual insight into what the Father’s will and grace are.” –AM

“The process of conformity to the Lord Jesus’ image is going on day by day in the growing believer’s life.  It is a progression from obedience to obedience, from righteousness to righteousness, and from love to love (2 Cor 3:18).  As the maturing one gets a larger vision of his perfect Pattern through the study of God’s Word, he takes higher ground along the line of that blessed revelation, so that his life is a progressive growing up into the Lord Jesus in all things” (Eph 4:15). –RP

“The more the believer abounds in the riches of the Father’s grace, the more unsearchable and inexhaustible he finds them to be.  The spiritual man never stops growing, because he is always reaching upward to that still higher height that is just beyond.” –RP
22  Theology / Bible Study / “The Grand Difference” on: July 22, 2013, 12:48:36 PM
To fail to differentiate between dispensations is a normative within contemporary Christendom but I believe to fail to seek understanding in this area is to miss a great mass of spiritual growth doctrine available to the Word-hungry believer.

Presently, many do not realize God’s work of division between unbelieving Israel (consisting only of Jewish nationality) and that of the Church (the believer of all nationalities).  When God united Himself with Israel it was for eternity and even though their (unbelieving Jew) fellowship is presently broken, He is remaining faithful to His Abrahamic promise to save many of them (Rom 11:26; Jer 31:31-34).
 
It is my personal belief that due to Israel’s unbelief before they see the Lord Jesus Christ, theirs will be of a lesser blessing (new Earth?) than that of those who believe in this life (new Heaven?); “Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

I do not expect many to understand, be familiar or even desire this dispensational issue and after nearly twenty years of study and research in this area, I find the knowledge of this remains well in excess of its understanding.

-NC
 

“The Grand Difference”

The Old Testament, speaking broadly, is occupied with the promise and prophecy of the advent of the Messiah Who would come to the chosen people of Israel as their Prophet, and King, and exalt the seed of Abraham above all the nations of the earth.  The blessings which the saints of old were taught to expect were of an earthly nature.  The daughter of Zion was to look for the coming of her King Who would reign in righteousness.  The oppressor should be broken in pieces, and their enemies made to lick the dust of the earth.

Peace should flow like a river, and the earth be full of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea.  Long life and prosperous days should be the happy portion of every subject of the glorious kingdom of David’s Lord.  In short, the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament is brought forward as the earthly ruler and the executor of divine justice in the earth, especially in connection with the nation of Israel.  Accordingly the blessings of the people assume an earthly and national character in perfect accord with these promises.

Now just as the hopes of Israel derived their points of distinction from Messiah the Prince coming to reign here below, so the hopes and calling of the Church received their distinctive marks from the position now assumed by the Lord Jesus Christ on high.  This establishes the widest possible difference between Israel and the Church.  The difference is that betwixt earthly and heavenly, carnal and spiritual blessing.  Where we look in the Old Testament we find the same kind of anticipations.  In Egypt and the wilderness, they look for the land of promise with a bountiful basket and store.  In Canaan when groaning under the idolatrous rule of apostate kings, or when weeping by the rivers of Babylon, the faithful long for the Redeemer to come to Zion, Who shall bless every man under his own vine and his own pomegranate tree.

But the New Testament sanctions no such expectations for the Christian.  The Jew was entitled to hope for blessing here of a worldly nature; but the believer’s blessings are heavenly and spiritual, enjoyed by faith alone.  They take their character from the risen and glorified Lord Jesus Christ at the Father’s right hand; and from Him, not as the king of Israel and the ruler of the nations, but as the glorified Head and Life of the Church.

Because a thing is in the Bible it does not warrant the conclusion that it is God’s will for the Christian: we must seek rightly to divide the Word of Truth.  What was formerly right for the Jews is for us nothing but the elements of the world.  These forms pointed to a reality that is now come; the Body is of the Lord Jesus.  The blessed portion of the Christian is that he has died even to the best things of the world, and is now alive to spiritual things in the presence of the Father.

In the Old Testament we get the earthly or millennial family represented by the congregation of Israel, for whom the two goats were offered (Lev 16:8), and the heavenly family, the Church, by Aaron and his sons, whose offering was a bullock (Lev 8:6-14).  In the one case, that of the earthly or millennial family, the law will be written in their hearts (Jer 31:33), the inclination to do evil will be superseded.  In the other family, the heavenly, that is, Christian, the Lord Jesus is written in their hearts by the Holy Spirit; a great and important distinction, and indicating that the Christian’s blessings are in association with the Lord Jesus who has gone within the veil.

-W J Hocking   
23  Theology / Bible Study / Re: “Trial By Grace” on: July 18, 2013, 01:58:35 PM
I'm not a Calvinist, so we can agree to disagree. I believe that ANYBODY can be saved and that Jesus Christ died on the cross for all of mankind.

I understand and appreciate your reply, as I'm sure there are many doctrines of Scripture which many believers differ in belief.
24  Theology / Bible Study / Re: “Trial By Grace” on: July 18, 2013, 08:05:10 AM
Here's my understanding of 2 Peter 3:9:

"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise"; He is diligent (not slack) concerning the promise of His return.

"as some men count slackness"; some were doubting His promise concerning His return (v 4).

"but is longsuffering to us-ward"; that is, towards the elect who are predestined for eternal life, for the remnant will perish (consisting of the generality of mankind--Matt 7:13, 14).

"not willing that any should perish"; any of the elect.

"but that all should come to repentance"; all--meaning the remnant of the elect who have yet to enter regeneration through repentance.
25  Theology / Bible Study / Re: “Trial By Grace” on: July 17, 2013, 04:28:28 PM
Amen! - Thank you Lord for your grace.

Amen to your amen Brother!  Presently I'm in the study of God's grace and am attempting to determine why He would call some and not others in "drawing" souls to Christ, as we know that this drawing is required for salvation. 

Presently my understanding is that He would not be unjust in drawing nobody, but out of His grace He is doing so, and His choices were made from eternity past, before anyone did any good or bad.  Since Scripture is not clear concerning His reason, I'm presently satisfied with the fact that we probably are not to know why.
26  Theology / Bible Study / “Trial By Grace” on: July 17, 2013, 11:24:19 AM
“And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness….Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor 12:9, 10).

The thorn in the flesh was a heavy trial for Paul.  It was not sent because of personal failure, but because of the abundance of revelation given to him—it was a preventative.  There was danger lest the flesh should boast, and God gives him a thorn.  Paul prayed thrice for its removal.  The Father tells him that His grace is sufficient, there is no need to remove it, and moreover his infirmity was but an occasion for the power of Christ to rest upon him.  Then he glories in that which he has prayed to be taken away.  The Lord Jesus was exalted and Paul was content.  Here is the “moral fruit,” the Father’s object in sending the thorn: no failure and needed chastening here, but a lesson of grace to an honored servant of Christ.

The trials of saints, as they come from the Father, are generally, if not always, immediately connected with the position grace gives.  The Father in His sovereignty calls His saints to fill various places of service, some to rule and authority. Some to teaching or preaching, others may only know the place of suffering and weeping.  Nevertheless all are for the carrying out of one great purpose, the accomplishment of one will, a whole in which each saint however humble has his part.

The Father has a niche in His temple for each, a place assigned by grace.  It is there each is tested.  But if grace appoints the place, it is always there to maintain saints in it.  Often the trial is allowed through our want of faith to hide the grace, and then we complain and murmur.  “But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor 10:13).  He always provides the necessary grace.

There are other trials which have their root in unfaithfulness.  The Father permits such, but does not directly send them, and surely controls and guides to a gracious result, for His mercy endureth forever.  Such trials become rods in His child-training hand.  But when He sends trials to a faithful saint it is for the purpose of proving faith, which is more precious that of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, and of giving lessons in the school of faith.

The fruitful branch is purged that it may bring forth more fruit.  More and better fruit is the Father’s object.  Hidden things may be in the heart of the faithful, unknown and therefore unjudged.  The trial is sent to disclose the hidden thing that it may be purged away.  Not all trials are chastenings.  We should gravely err if we judged every suffering saint to be under discipline through failure.  Where there is faithfulness we often see what appears to be heaviest trials but in truth it is for the display of the sustaining power of grace that others may see and learn.
–R Beacon
27  Theology / Bible Study / “Cross Deliverance” on: July 15, 2013, 04:14:31 PM
There is no strength or power in ourselves against “the law of sin which is in our members” (Rom 7:23).  The Father has lefts us much dependent on the Lord Jesus’ work on the Cross for our deliverance as for our forgiveness!  It is wholly because we died with Him on the Cross, both to sin and to the whole legal principle, that sin’s power for those in Christ is broken.

“I thank God (for deliverance) through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:25).  The answer to Paul’s self-despairing question, “Who shall deliver me?” is a revelation, even identification with Christ in His death!  For just as the sinner struggles in vain to find forgiveness and peace, until he looks outside himself to Him who made peace by the Blood of His Cross, just so does the quickened soul, struggling unto despair to find victory over sin by self-effort, look outside himself to the risen Lord Jesus—in whom he is, and in whom he died to sin and to the law!

Paul was not delivered from the reign of sin by Christ, but through Him; not by anything He then or at that time did for him, but through the realization of the fact that he had died with Christ on the Cross to this hated indwelling sin, and law of sin; and to God’s Law, which gave sin its power.  “The strength of sin is the law’ (1 Cor 15:56).

The sinner is not forgiven by what Christ now does, but by faith in what He did do at the Cross, for the word of the Cross is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18).  Just so, the believer is not delivered by what Christ does for him now; but in the revelation to the soul of identification with Christ’s death unto sin and the law on the Cross: for again, the word of the Cross is the power of God!

It will be by the Holy Spirit that this deliverance is wrought in us; as we shall see in Romans Eight.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, and by “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” is God’s order.  To sum up Paul’s great discoveries in this struggle of Romans Seven: That sin dwelt in him—though he delighted in God’s Law.  That his will was powerless against it.  That the sinful self was not his real self.  And that there was deliverance through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ah, what relief to Paul’s soul—probably out yonder alone in Arabia, struggling more and more in vain to compel the flesh to obey the Law. To have revealed to his weary soul the second glorious truth of the Gospel—that he had died with Christ, to sin, and to Law which sin had used as its power.

And now the conclusion—which is the actual text of Romans Seven.  “So then I of myself with the mind”—this is the real new-creation self, which the Apostle has over and over said that “sin that dwelleth in Him” was not!  “With the mind”—all the spiritual faculties included, indeed, the soul-faculties of reason, imagination, sensibility—which even now are “being renewed” by the Holy spirit, day by day.

“Am subject to God’s Law” (or will)—all new creatures can say, “But with the flesh sin’s law.”  He saw it at last, and bowed to it—that all he was by the flesh, by nature, was irrevocably committed to sin. So he gave up—to see himself wholly in Christ (who now lived in him) and to walk not by the Law, even in the supposed powers of the quickened life—but by the Spirit only; in whose power alone the Christian life is to be lived.  “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2).

- Wm R Newell


(Miles J Stanford, “Position Papers,” Vol. Two, pg. 360, mjsbooks.com)
28  Theology / Bible Study / “Personal Poverty” on: July 12, 2013, 09:52:48 AM
“It is during the time of our being broken that we learn that His promises concerning us cannot be broken.” –MS

“It is more than comforting to realize that it is those who have plumbed the depths of failure to whom the Father invariably gives the call to shepherd others.  This is not a call to the gifted, the highly trained, or the polished as such.  Without a bitter realization of their own inadequacy and poverty they are quite unfitted to bear the burdens of spiritual ministry.

“It takes a man who has discovered something of the measure of his own weakness to be patient with the foibles of other.  Such a man also has a firsthand knowledge of the loving care of the Chief Shepherd, and His ability to heal one who has come humbly to trust Him and Him alone.  Therefore he does not easily despair of others, but looks beyond sinfulness, willfulness, and stupidity, to the might of unchanging love.  The Lord Jesus does not give the charge, ‘Be a shepherd to My lambs . . . to My sheep,’ on hearing Peter’s self-confident affirmation of undying loyalty, but He gives it after he has utterly failed to keep his vows, and has wept bitterly in the streets of Jerusalem.”
–JCM

“As to Simon Peter, we not only see him restored to the work to which he was called at the first, but to something even higher.  ‘Feed My lambs—shepherd My sheep’—is the new commission given to the man who had denied his Lord with an oath.  ‘When thou art restored, strengthen thy brethren.’  There is nothing in all this world nearer and dearer to the heart of the Lord Jesus than His sheep, His lambs: and hence He could not have given Peter a more affecting proof of His confidence than by committing to his care the dearest objects of His deep and tender love.” –CHM
29  Theology / Bible Study / “Grace, Mercy and Peace” on: July 10, 2013, 02:53:41 PM
The primary significance concerning the life of the believer is not him in Christ, but Christ in him!  It is not the life of the believer that produces the doing of “the will of God” (1 John 2:17), but the life of Christ within the believer—“through the Spirit” (1 Pet 1:22 KJV); and it is not the life of the Holy Spirit that He imparts and utilizes but it is “Christ, who is our life” (Col 3:4). 

Our position (un-hinderingly heavenly bound) in Christ always takes precedence over our condition on the earth (irrevocably regenerated—Rom 11:29, NKJ, despite the presence and effects of the Adamic nature) and this truth is why we are to “think on these things” (Phil 4:8 ) and not on what we are in our “old man,” which “is crucified” (Rom 6:6). –NC


“Grace, Mercy and Peace”

The Lord Jesus, as our High Priest, is not compassed about with infirmity.  Mark the consequences of that: His being in heaven, He brings all the perfectness of the thoughts and feeling of the place He is in to bear upon us.  I have these infirmities and difficulties, and He helps me into all the perfectness of the heavenly places where He is.  That is just what I want.  He can show a path, and feel what a path is of passing through this world, and bear the hearts down here clear up to heaven.

People often think of priesthood as a means of getting justified; but then God has the character of a judge in their eyes.  They are afraid to go straight to Him, and, not knowing grace and redemption, they think of enlisting Christ on their behalf.  This is all wrong.  Many a soul has done it in ignorance and infirmity, and God meets it there, but it is to mistake our position as Christians.

Does the intercession of the Lord Jesus depend upon our going to get it?  It is when I have gotten out of fellowship with the Father—when not going to Him—that I have an advocate with the Father.  The Lord Jesus prayed for Peter before He committed the sin.  It is His living grace in all our need—His thought for us, or we should never be brought back.  It was when Peter had committed the sin that He looked on him.

Even when we have committed faults, His grace thus comes in.  It is in heaven He is doing it; then how can we have aught to say to Him if we have not righteousness?  The reason I can go in is because my justification is settled.  He has given me title of going into heaven in virtue of what He is, “Jesus Christ, the righteous” and what He has done on the Cross on my behalf.

Our place is in the light as God is in the light—sitting in heavenly places in Christ.  Our walk on earth is not always up to this (to say the least).  Our title is always the same, but our walk is not.  Then what is to be done?  I am within the veil, and not in a condition to go there at all.  The priesthood of the Lord Jesus is there to reconcile the discrepancy between our position in heaven, and our condition down here.  The Lord Jesus is the righteous One; and the righteousness I have in Him is the title I have to the presence of my Father.  The priestly intercession restores me to the communion of the place where I am in righteousness.  It is immediately connected with the perfectness of His own walk down here and the place where He now is.

Satan came to Him, when here, and found nothing.  He ought to find nothing in us, but he does.  I do not want to spare the flesh; then there is the Word of God for that.  “Come boldly to the throne of grace.”  This is going straight to the Father, not to a priest.  It is to the “throne of grace.”  We want mercy; we are poor weak things, and need mercy; in failure we need mercy; as pilgrims we are always needing mercy.

What mercy was shown the Israelites in the wilderness!  God even cared for the clothes on their backs!  Think of the mercy that would not let their feet swell in that torrid desert.  Then, when they wanted a way, Oh! says God, I will go before with the ark to provide a way.  Just like us on the way to heaven.  We are as grasshoppers, they say; but the real question is, what our Father is!

- H H Snell
30  Theology / Bible Study / Great Price Pearls Devotional on: June 28, 2013, 01:38:40 PM
“A believer may know that he is positionally free, and yet have to mourn the fact that his experience is that of a wretched captive (Rom 7:24).  The freedom is so entirely in Christ Jesus, and the maintenance of the living union with Him is so distinctly and entirely the work of divine power, that it is only as we see that the Spirit dwells within us for this very purpose, and know how to accept and yield to His working it, that we can really stand in the liberty with which Christ has made us free.” –AM

“There is no strength or power in ourselves against the law of sin which is in our members (Rom 7:23).  The Father has left us as much dependent upon the Lord Jesus’ work for our deliverance from the power of sin as for our forgiveness!  It is wholly because we died with Him on the Cross, both to sin and to the whole legal principle, that sin’s power for those in the Lord Jesus is broken.” –WRN

“Have we not often sought, by earnest thought, to enter more deeply into the significance of the Cross?  Have we not, as we got a glimpse of some aspect of its glory, gone from book to book to discover what it really means?  Have not some given up hope that words like ‘I have been crucified with Christ,’ ‘the world crucified to me,’ ‘baptized into His death,’ ‘dead into sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus’ should have become truly intelligible and helpful?  Is not the reason of all this that we want to grasp the hidden wisdom of the Father with our mind alone, forgetting that the Holy Spirit intends to work it into the heart and inner life also?” –AM

(Miles J Stanford, None But The Hungry Heart, pg.109, mjsbooks.com)
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