Table of Contents

Assembly Principles

Editor's Introduction

ASSEMBLY PRINCIPLES

God reveals truth to us so that we may obey it .

A considerable part of God's truth deals with The Church of God and we must obey this part as much as any other part of the Bible

We do not need to go outside of the Bible for any detail of the truth that demands our obedience. All truth is found in the Holy Scriptures.

The Biblical truth as to The Church of God mostly falls under two headings: The

Both the

and the

express what the Church is in actual, practical fact on the earth, and not as a mystical and theoretical idea for heaven .

The truth as to the Body of Christ puts special emphasis on the supremacy of Christ as head and on the pervading energy of the Holy Spirit as power with the consequent unity, love and spiritual growth of the body.

The truth as to the House of God puts special emphasis on the presence of God by His Spirit in the Church and consequently on the Order, Godliness and Holiness that befits His dwelling place, for the House must conform to Him Whose House it is.

When we see the truth of the Church as presented in Scripture and we think about putting it into practice, we become aware that the present general condition of Christendom (professing-christianity) is a total denial of these church truths.

These things being so, are we still obliged to put the truth of the Church into practice? Wouldn't it be better to simply

hold the truth and avoid all further complications by just staying where we happen to be in our church-connections?

Can the truth of the Church be practiced under present conditions? How is it possible today?

Have we Scriptural authority to withdraw from Church-organizations unless they advocate or tolerate fundamentally false doctrines?

Separation from evil and from evil men is always the duty of all who fear the Lord and Who Name His Name .

Verses 14 and 15

Verses 16-18

Verse 19

Verse 20

Verse 21

Verse 22

Verses 23-26

Believers who go forth to Christ without the camp and who also purge themselves from false teachers and their teachings, must now gather according to all the truth of the Church, while always remembering that they are only a few of those who belong to it.

For some time now, believers have endeavoured to gather together in the above ways. But experience has shown them that certain dangers constantly threaten to turn them from the truth. Some of these dangers are:

Sectarianism

Laxity of Principle and of Practice

Ecclesiastical Assumption

Ecclesiastical Independency

Extravagant, Unscriptural Discipline

Lax Discipline

Those who have endeavoured to gather on scriptural ground have failed and divisions have resulted. These divisions have hidden the outward expression of the truth of the Church and have consequently given rise to questions about "a circle of meetings." What is the truth as to a circle-of-meetings?

Point One

Point Two

Point Three

Point Four

Point Five

Point Six

Point Seven

Point Eight

A final point should be raised due to the rise of Eclecticism. Among the ancient Greek philosophers the

were those who refused to subscribe to any recognized philosophic system but preferred to select certain ideas from various systems and then weld these selected ideas into systems of their own. We will use this word to describe Christians who pick out and bring together the most

to form a select company. Is it Scriptural to gather out a select company of more desirable and spiritual people from the less desirable and less spiritual people?

Closing Remarks

"The Administration of the Mystery."

The Approaching Advent of Christ

(1) Some general observations.

2ND PAPER: The principles of interpretation which are at stake.

3rd Paper: Resurrection in the Old Testament.

4th Paper: Resurrection in the New Testament.

Paper No. 5 Resurrection in the Apocalypse. and 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 - 5: 11.

Paper No. 6. 2 Thessalonians 2, and some final considerations.

Dangers that Threaten

1. Deception.

2. Defection.

3. Division.

4. Disintegration.

The introduction of the world and its principles

5. Diversion.

6. Dissension.

"A Little Maid;"

or, Faithfulness in Obscurity.

2 Kings 5: 2-4.

"A people prepared for the Lord."

"A worm" yet "Jehovah of Hosts."

Absolute Dominion

Abundant Life

All Prayer at All Seasons

Alliances which should be avoided

Are we responding?

Both "Arm" and "Servant"

"As at the first"

The Assets of the Christian Life

Confusion and the Call of God.

Backsliding - With a Word to Christian Workers

The First Class.

The Second Class.

The Third Class.

"Be not deceived"

"Begin to possess."

Benevolent Rule

How do we regard the Bible?

"Blood" and "Water." What do they mean?

The Modern Brambles

God it was,

God it was,

Will ALL the Saints be caught up when the Lord comes?

Will

the Saints be caught up when the Lord comes?

"They that are Christ's"

"The Redemption of our body."

"A glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."

"In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump."

Christ "formed in you."

Christ is all

Christ: The Divine Resource

What is the Christian Calling?

Christian Conflict

Christ: Sacrifice, Blesser, Centre, Builder, Leader, Judge, Administrator

John 1: 29-51.

Getting Ready for the Climax

The Closing Messages

"Come on" and "Get out."

"Come on"-"Get out"

The Coming of the Kingdom

The Coming of the Kingdom.

2 Peter 1: 1-11, 16-19.

A Seeming Contradiction

"Count it all joy."

A Danger to be Avoided

The Day of Manifestation

"Dead to the law."

The Death of the Lord

The Declarations of God as to the Person of Christ

At His Birth.

As He Enters Millennial Glory.

In View of Death.

In Resurrection.

As Received into Glory.

Democracy in the Light of Scripture

Man's Diplomacy and God's Discipline

Disappointment and its Cure

Disentanglement

Disobedience leads to Disaster

Displacement

A Door of Hope

Effective Service

"Elect . . . unto obedience"

"The election of grace."

Encouragement for Parents

"The end of the Lord."

had now acquired by direct

"Enriched in Him"

Eternal Life or Idols

Evil Men, Silly Women, and the Man of God

"And to exalt the lamb."

"Faith" - some "better thing."

Faith saves.

Faith sees,

Faith suffers.

"The fear of the Lord."

Getting and Giving

"We glory in tribulations."

God with us, for us, in us

Godliness

Grace, Guidance, and Government

"This grace wherein we stand."

A Great Contrast

The Great Illusion Dispelled

"Great things for thyself"

Are you Growing in Grace?

WHAT IS GROWTH?

ARE YOU GROWING?

IN WHAT DO WE GROW?

HOW DO WE GROW?

SAVIOUR, — TO DELIVER.

LORD, — TO COMMAND.

AN OBJECT, — TO CONTROL.

HIGH PRIEST, — TO SUSTAIN.

THE HEAD, — TO DIRECT.

Coincidence, or the Hand of God?

"He condemned the world."

"He looked for a city."

"He pleased God."

Hearkening to James

The Heart of the Lord

Heavenly Things Introduced

"High time to wake out of sleep."

His Last Request

"His steps" and "Following his steps."

The Hope that Purifies

1 John 3: 1-3.

The Hope, and its Effects

The House of the Lord

Psalms 23-29.

How do we regard the Bible?

They are NOT true to the facts as stated by Scripture.

not

"O fools, and slow of heart to believe ALL that the prophets have spoken."

"Beginning at Moses and ALL the prophets He expounded unto them in ALL the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

"ALL things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me."

How do you look at life?

How to "run well"

A GOOD START

You

CONFESSION

THE FIRST FALL

OLD ASSOCIATIONS

FALSE TEACHERS

HOBBIES

Let us lay aside every weight,

and

pockets

THE CHRISTIAN'S SUPPORT

THE CHRISTIAN'S POWER

THE CHRISTIAN'S GUIDE

Read consecutively;

Read also comprehensively;

Search the Scriptures,

THE CHRISTIAN'S RESOURCE

Don't forget intercession, i.e.,

THE CHRISTIAN'S COMPANY

THE CHRISTIAN'S SERVICE

Human Nature

hold it truth,

"In my name"

Intelligent Service

Just After Conversion

Keeping the Unity of the Spirit.

1. The murmuring of the Grecians.

The work at Samaria.

The conversion of Cornelius.

The controversy as to the Law.

In the Kingdom of God

Romans 12. 1-11.

The Kingdom of Heaven. Law and Grace

The Knowledge of God

Psalm 84.

Free-hearted Liberality

Liberty, Responsibility, Fraternity

Romans 14: 1 — Romans 15: 7.

The Life of Faith

Life: Lost or Kept

John 12: 24-26.

"The Lord is risen indeed."

The Lord's Yoke

Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30.

Be a Man of Purpose

That I may know

That I may

From Man's Wretchedness to God's Greatness

Psalm 77.

Mental and Spiritual Difficulties.

The Cure.

"A more excellent sacrifice."

Modern Mystical Teachings and the Word of God.

Note to the Reader

The Features that Characterize Mystical Teachings.

2.

The Eclipse of Objective Realities by One-Sided Subjective Impressions corresponding therewith.

3.

Belittling of Scripture in Favour of the Conceptions

and Impressions of “Spiritual Men”

4.

The Consequent Glorifying of a Priestly Caste, who come

between an ordinary saint and the Lord.

5.

As a Further Consequence a Vein of Self-occupation

runs through all their Utterances.

6.

Speaking according to the Light derived from the work within them, rather than from the Light of Scripture without, many Fanciful and Extravagant Ideas are produced, and some that are Fundamentally False.

7.

A Brief Survey of the Teaching as a Whole, and of the

Positive Testimony of the WORD OF GOD

"New things do I declare"

No Compromise

1 Kings 13: 1-19; 23-25; 30-32.

"No profit" - "Great gain"

"Not by works of righteousness."

Man's Patchwork and Christ's Seamless Robe.

I hope so

Not Miracles, But Truth

Notes on Galatians

Galatians 1.

Galatians 2.

Galatians 3.

Galatians 4.

Galatians 5.

Galatians 6.

"The obedience of faith"

Romans 1: 5

Obeying the Truth

Galatians 3: 1

"Of God and not of us."

One Loaf: One Body

Outward Circumstances and Inward Grace

Overcoming

"Patience and comfort of the sscriptures"

A Pattern Ministry

Acts 20: 19-27.

"A place for the Lord."

The Primitive Church

Acts 11: 19-26; Acts 15: 1-11, 28-29

Christ: the Prince of Peace

Propitiation

Questions as to Prayer

Renunciation and Communion

The Result of the Ministry

What is Righteousness?

Root, as well as Shoot

Royal Service

2 Kings 5: 1-4; John 6: 5-9.

Safeguards for the Soul

The Secret of the Dispensation

Serving and Waiting

1 Thessalonians 1: 9, 10.

Shakings - "Yet once more"

A Significant Injunction

Are we obeying them?

Signs and Wonders

Sin in the Flesh Condemned

"The Son of God is come."

1 John 5: 20-21.

Sovereignty and Responsibility

Sowing and Reaping

Spiritual Growth

1 John 1: 1-4; 1 John 2: 12-29.

Standing, State, and Service

"Stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding."

"The sufferings of this present time"

Tarry One for Another

"Ten times better"

Testings and Trials

1 Peter 1: 3 - 9

The Perfect Day

Proverbs 4: 18.

The Second Established

Three Apostolic Principles

Liberty

Responsibility

Fraternity

Three Divinely Established Principles

Liberty

Responsibility

Fraternity

Three Parallel Lines

Four Types in Genesis

Four Types in Israel's Journey

The Seventh from Adam

The Two Headships

The Word and the Throne

Hebrews 4: 11-16.

The Word and the Touch

The World: Our Position and Attitude in it

John 17.

"They howled upon their beds."

"Things which become sound doctrine"

Soberly."

spiritual hygiene

sobriety.

"Righteously."

"Godly."

What thoughts should govern my heart when sitting before the Lord to remember Him?

"The trial of your faith."

1 Peter 1: 3-9.

The True Grace of God

True Greatness

"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

Truth is the Test

The Ups and Downs of Life

The Upward Way

"A very small thing."

Warning and Rebuke

Luke 22: 31-34; Luke 10: 38-42.

What is the Cross?

What Manner of Persons?

"Wherefore then didst thou not obey?"

Why Christ died for us

Will He really return?

Witness. Leader. Commander

The Work of the Spirit

Exodus 32: 16; 2 Corinthians 3: 1-3.

The Work of the Lord in the World

Acts 1: 6-8

The World

FBHOLE - Articles and Booklets

F. B. Hole

This document may be found online at www.stempublishing.com

You are welcome to freely access and use this material for personal study or sending to other Bible students, compiling extracts for notes etc, but please do not republish without permission.

With the prayerful desire that the Lord Jesus Christ will use this God-given ministry in this form for His glory and the blessing of many in these last days before His coming. © Les Hodgett (contact@stempublishing.com) (2011)

Assembly Principles

Assembly Principles

F. B. Hole.

Editor's Introduction

Mr. Frank B. Hole's Assembly Principles has been chosen as Volume Four of the Christian Update Series because of its logical, complete and unique approach to the truth of the Assembly — the true Church of God composed of all believers of this dispensation.

The truth of the Assembly as presented in Scripture is almost lost today as far as the masses of God's dear people are concerned. Believers are so caught up in the various denominations — the churches-of-men — that the truth of the Assembly as God sees it and as given in His Word seems out of place and even strange.

Even those of us who have some knowledge of the Assembly tend to slip into thoughts and practices that are not supported by Scripture. We need to have our thoughts brought into line with God's thoughts about His Assembly and I believe that this pamphlet by Mr. Hole will help us to clearly see God's thoughts, as well as to help others learn the basic truth of the Assembly.

Mr. Hole was born in England about 1880. For many years before his death in 1964, he was a well-known, beloved and respected Bible-teacher among the English assemblies. During his lifetime, Mr. Hole wrote a number of pamphlets such as Assembly Principles (which was first published about 1920). He also wrote three well-known books, The Great Salvation, Foundations of Faith and Outlines of Truth. The Great Salvation is Vol. 5 of the Christian Update Series. Foundations of Faith and Outlines of Truth, the Lord willing will be the subject of future volumes.

Mr. Hole uses the word church and assembly interchangeably, which might cause some confusion. The Greek word ecclesia is used in the New Testament to describe both the true universal Church of God, comprised of all believers, and also the local church or assembly. The word means called out ones. The English word assembly is thus a better translation of ecclesia than is the word church. But as long as we know its true meaning, either church or assembly can be used without problems. The main problem with the word church is that people get it mixed up with some church-building or some denomination (the Baptist church, etc.). Neither of these is a correct use of ecclesia.

I pray that the Lord will further use this 1977 edited edition of Assembly Principles to help many of the Lord's dear people to more clearly see both the truth of the true Assembly (Church) and whether or not their own Church-position is pleasing to God as a part of His Assembly.

All Scripture-quotations are from the New Scofield Reference Bible. Old word-endings have been updated to their modern equivalents. Also, the old-English pronouns thee, thou, thine have been updated to their modern equivalents except where reference is to Persons of the Godhead.

Every effort has been made to include many references throughout the pamphlet. Therefore, please read this pamphlet with an open Bible. You don't want to get Mr. Hole's or my opinion about the Bible but the clear truth of Scripture which can only be obtained by making sure that everything that you read is solidly backed up by the Word of God as revealed to you through prayer and study by the Holy Spirit.

Roger P. Daniel

ASSEMBLY PRINCIPLES

The question of what ground we should meet on in our church-gatherings was very important to many Christians of the past century. At the same time, that part of the Word of God which gives God's thoughts and purposes concerning the Church became remarkably clear to them and they obeyed the truth that they discovered. But as a result of the failure that marks all that is entrusted to man's responsibility, many of these early truths have been lost to many. Thus, today, the same question is being asked with added urgency. Therefore, we will attempt to answer it again in what follows.

Our answer must still be the old one. We should meet on the ground of the whole revealed truth as to the Church of God, whether considered in its universal or local aspect. These are easy words to read but not as easy to put into practice. Therefore, we propose to investigate the matter step by step, dividing what we have to say into clearly marked sections.

God reveals truth to us so that we may obey it .

God does not reveal truth to us to satisfy our curiosity or to give us topics for discussion or even to simply enlighten our minds but that we, being enlightened, may obey what we learn. If the gospel is preached, it is "for obedience to the faith" (Rom. 1: 5). If the mystery of the Church is revealed, it is "for the obedience of faith" (Rom. 16: 26). If believers turn aside to law after making a start in grace, the question asked is "who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth" (Gal. 5: 7)?

This fact should solemnize us. We thus can understand why our Lord said, "Take heed, therefore, how you hear, for whosoever has to him shall be given; and whosoever has not, from him shall be taken even that which he seems to have" (Luke 8: 18). There is a feeling of exhilaration as the truth of Scripture opens out to our minds, but such exhilaration tones down into sober and even deep exercise when we face the responsibility of a walk that expresses the truth in practice. Truth may be as sweet as honey to our mouth but when digested, the power and even the bitterness of it are felt (Rev. 10: 9-10).

A considerable part of God's truth deals with The Church of God and we must obey this part as much as any other part of the Bible

Much Biblical truth deals with us as individuals and we stand singly (but not alone) in many relationships. For instance, each of us is a child of God although we also are part of the family of God. A time came in the ways of God when all His children were brought into a new unity. The unknowing prophecy of Caiaphas (John 11: 51-52) spoke of it. He prophesied that "Jesus should die for that nation and not for that nation only but that also He should gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad." This gathering together took place by the coming of the Holy Spirit shortly after the ascension of Jesus (Acts 1 and 2).

The Church of God was thus formed. We were brought into it by the reception of the Spirit of God and thus belong to the Church whether we realize it or not. The New Testament epistles unfold to us the Church's calling, privileges, order and our responsibilities attaching to it. That calling, those principles, its order and its responsibilities must be answered to in a practical way by each of us. No epistle is simply an exposition (a giving) of truth. Every epistle applies the truth expounded and brings it home in a practical way. In some cases, much more is said by way of practical instruction in the light of the truth than in the giving of the truth itself.

We are a part of this wonderful corporation, the Church of God. Therefore, we should diligently seek to learn about that to which we belong and then obey the truth as to it.

We do not need to go outside of the Bible for any detail of the truth that demands our obedience. All truth is found in the Holy Scriptures.

Regardless of what some "churches" may say, the Bible says that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine . . . for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3: 16-17). The Bible is fully sufficient to perfect (completely equip) believers who are even so spiritually advanced as to be called "men of God." Had the verse stopped at the perfecting of the man of God, men could have argued that Scripture perfects as to broad doctrines but not to the details of practical conduct. But no, Scripture completely equips the man of God in a detailed way unto all good works. It covers all work that God can call "good."

This is very important because some would set up standards for the Church of God that go beyond anything stated in Scripture. But even a love which is more loving than the love commanded in Scripture, or a holiness more holy than the holiness commanded in Scripture is neither true love nor true holiness.

The Biblical truth as to The Church of God mostly falls under two headings: The

Body-of-Christ and The House-of-God.

The first of these two headings is completely a New Testament idea; the second finds a place in the Old Testament. The first mention of the house of God is in Gen. 28: 17, although that house was not even typically (in picture form) established among men on earth until redemption was typically accomplished (Ex. 15: 2, 13, Ex. 25: 8). From the moment that the children of Israel were redeemed as a nation, the house of God was found in their midst and when the house ceased to be in their midst, their national existence ceased. Then, shortly before the Roman armies destroyed the house of God (the temple) on Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, God formed His house in a new way altogether. Believers in Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit, became as living stones, "built up a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2: 5). They (Jew and Gentiles) were "builded together for a habitation of God through the (Holy) Spirit" (Eph. 2: 22).

The house of God now involves a nearness to and an intimacy with God not possible in earlier times. We read, "You are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God" (Eph. 2: 19). Those who are of the house are also of the household of God, and by His Spirit, God now dwells in His house in a more intimate and vital way than was ever possible before.

In Old Testament times, there was no thought of the body of Christ because Christ was not yet revealed. However, Christ has now come and having died and risen, the Holy Spirit came and baptized believing Jews and Gentiles into one body — the body of Christ. Previously, the Lord Jesus could say "A body has Thou prepared Me" (Heb. 10: 5) and He suffered in that sacred body. There was "the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once" (Heb. 10: 10). Now, He sits in heaven in a spiritual body, and the only body that He acknowledges here on earth is the ONE BODY produced by the baptism of the one Spirit Who came from Himself, its glorified Head. In that body, Christ is to be displayed in His moral features in this world.

Both the

Body-of-Christ

and the

House-of-God

express what the Church is in actual, practical fact on the earth, and not as a mystical and theoretical idea for heaven .

We commonly hear or read the phrases the mystical body of Christ and the invisible Church. Those who use these words may mean what is right but the phrases are misleading since they obscure or deny the truth that the body of Christ is actual fact. It exists on earth today as much as in the apostolic age although its manifestation is marred by the intrusion of man's will and ways. It is true that the body of Christ can not be pointed to in concrete form as in the time of the apostles (when it was also one in practice), and thus must be abstractly thought of by us. But, these thoughts must be formed by what we find in Scripture since truth which can only be perceived in an abstract way is as true and real as truth which can be seen in concrete form. Consequently, Church-truth is intended to regulate our relationships with the Lord Jesus, with God and with our fellow saints here in the world.

The truth as to the Body of Christ puts special emphasis on the supremacy of Christ as head and on the pervading energy of the Holy Spirit as power with the consequent unity, love and spiritual growth of the body.

The above is evident in the verses where the body of Christ is mentioned. The first passage is Rom. 12. Here, the truth of the body is only briefly alluded to, to emphasize the variety of spiritual gift found among its members.

In 1 Cor. 12, the body of Christ is explained in detail. By the illustration and analogy of the human body, the Church is shown to be an organic unity composed of various members. It was formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Those brought into it were submerged as to their human characteristics (whether natural or social) and consequently made one in the all-pervading energy of the one Holy Spirit. Of course, those thus formed into unity also remain individuals. Thus, the gift of the Holy Spirit also means an individual "drinking into" the one Spirit so that each member is possessed and controlled by the one Spirit Who animates the whole. Thus, in 1 Cor. 12, we see the Holy Spirit manifested in the Body. The various gifts are manifestations of the Spirit (v. 7).

But the Holy Spirit Who brings all this to pass is the Spirit of and from the ascended Christ. The body, therefore, is Christ's (v. 12, 27) and He rules in it. In the age to come (the Millennium) His administration as Lord will cover the whole earth. However, at present, the Church is the sphere of His rule as far as the earth is concerned. The will of God is found in the Church on earth (v. 5).

The practical application of Christ's rule in the Church is seen in the care, consideration and sympathy seen in the latter part of 1 Corinthians 11, in the love of 1 Corinthians 13 and in the directions of 1 Corinthians 14 which regulate the use of gift in the assembly. 1 Corinthians 12 gives us the power of the Lord and of the Holy Spirit residing in the Assembly. 1 Corinthians 13 gives us the love ruling the body and chapter 14 gives us the sound mind regulating the body (See 2 Tim. 1: 7). All this sets before us the divinely functioning body of Christ here on earth.

Ephesians, we have the body of Christ viewed in the height of its privilege according to the eternal purpose of God. The Cross is the basis of its formation (Eph. 2: 16). Its function is to be "the fullness of Him Who fills all in all" (Eph. 1: 23), i.e., to be Christ's complement or counterpart — that in which He is fully expressed. The height of the Church's privilege will be publicly displayed when Christ is manifested as "Head over all things, to the Church" (Eph. 1: 22). There was a type (picture) of this when Adam was set as head over the animal creation and when he also became head to Eve (being made of his body), as sharing in his dominion.

In Eph. 4: 2-3, 15-16, we get more practical applications of these truths. It says, "with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Hence, we will grow up "into Him in all things, Who is the Head, even Christ," and the body making increase "unto the edifying (building up) of itself in love."

Lastly in Colossians, the body is only briefly spoken of since the great theme of Colossians is the glory of the Head. However, the responsibility of each member to "hold the Head" is insisted on (Col. 2: 19). We also see the Apostle Paul, a member of the body, rejoicing in sufferings for the sake of the body (Col. 1: 24) and we find the gracious and beautiful features of Christ, culminating in love and peace, coming out in the saints.

Thus, the truth of the body of Christ includes all saints. There is absolute unity in union with and in subjection to Christ so that He as Head, is expressed in His body.

The truth as to the House of God puts special emphasis on the presence of God by His Spirit in the Church and consequently on the Order, Godliness and Holiness that befits His dwelling place, for the House must conform to Him Whose House it is.

The above can be seen from the verses where the house aspect of the Church is presented to us. Two expressions are used: house and temple. There is a shade of difference between them but both present the same general idea and thus have a similar practical meaning.

In 1 Cor. 3, the saints are "the temple of God" because the Spirit of God dwells in them collectively. Consequently, holiness is imperative (v. 16-17). This thought of holiness is greatly expanded in 2 Cor. 6: 14 to 2 Cor. 7: 1. These verses demand holiness with no unequal yoke — a definite separation from the defiling world, without even touching the unclean thing. This involves the refusal of all filthiness of both flesh and spirit.

In the closing verses of Eph. 2, the one adjective used in regard to the temple, is holy.

In 1 Tim. 3: 15, the Church is called "the house of God . . . the pillar and ground of the truth," and the whole epistle is full of instruction as to the order and godliness which becomes those who are of it. The character of God should be seen in those who comprise His house.

Lastly, in 1 Peter 2: 5, the house is called "a spiritual house," comprised of all those who, having come to the Living Stone, are living stones themselves. Each is a Peter (a little stone) built upon the Rock (Christ).

The truth of the house of God excludes all evil that would defame the character of, or compromise the holiness of Him Whose house it is. The exclusion may even have to involve sinning people as shown in 1 Cor. 5 (which follows the truth as to the temple of God in 1 Cor. 3). The same thing of a practical-action-following-a-truth is seen in 2 Tim. 2: 15-22, which follows the truth of the house of God given in the first epistle: only here in Timothy, the practical action is in purging oneself out from evil associations rather than purging out the evil-doer.

When we see the truth of the Church as presented in Scripture and we think about putting it into practice, we become aware that the present general condition of Christendom (professing-christianity) is a total denial of these church truths.

Certain things are obviously not according to Scripture, such as the multiplied denominations which deny the unity of the Church, the deliberate union of state-churches with the world, the complete setting aside of the Lord so that man closes up the Bible and then claims to create saints and release souls from purgatory (as seen in the Roman Catholic religion) and the almost total lack of discipline so that every kind of doctrinal and moral evil goes on under the cover of nominal Christianity.

Other things are not so obvious. The distinctive sin of this present dispensation has been the practical ignoring and consequent setting aside of the presence and operations of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Christian services are conducted in ways that show complete disbelief in His presence in the Church (while perhaps admitting that He is present in individuals). For instance, one man is appointed as the mouthpiece for the congregation. By such actions, 1 Cor. 12 and 1 Cor. 14 are reduced to dead words. The effects of redemption on our approach-to-God are denied by the building of holy places on earth with altars and priests who serve a laity or common-people who are shut out from God and often kept in greater ignorance than was the average Jew before Christ came. Human order and arrangements have displaced the simplicity of the divine order which was established by the apostles at the beginning of the Church. To human thinking, this human order may be very orderly and a deterrent to any disorder which might result from an attempt to follow what the apostles established but all order which is not divine order, is disorder.

Most denominations and churches are based on certain truths (baptism, for instance) or on certain views-of-truth or as identified with godly men of past times. Consequently, these churches lack a divine inclusiveness since they only seek believers who share their views or who become followers of the leader in question. These churches also lack a divine exclusiveness because they are generally so zealous to build up their system that false teaching and other unfaithfulness to Christ and to His truth are often treated with an easy going tolerance.

These things being so, are we still obliged to put the truth of the Church into practice? Wouldn't it be better to simply

mentally

hold the truth and avoid all further complications by just staying where we happen to be in our church-connections?

The Scriptural answer to these questions is yes to the first and no to the second. The epistles which contemplate days of difficulty do not for one moment suppose that the truth has become a matter of mere theory, divorced from any practical expression of it.

For instance in 2 Tim. 3: 16-17, Paul speaks of the profitableness of Scripture, not only for doctrine but for correction and instruction in righteousness. If any think that both the correction and the instruction apply only to the mind, we point them to the next verse (17) where the object of all the correction and instruction is plainly declared to be "that the man of God may be completely furnished unto all good works." This is extremely practical: it involves our actions!

In 2 John and 3 John, John says much about the believer's walk. He speaks of walking in truth and after His commandments. To walk in something is to put that thing into practice. God emphasizes this point just when anti-Christian teachers were becoming common and Diotrephes was asserting himself and causing confusion in the Church.

The fact is this: The more that confusion and defection spread, the more important it is to walk in the truth — to put all the truth into practice, even if only a few will do it.

Can the truth of the Church be practiced under present conditions? How is it possible today?

It would be impossible to walk into any building where religious services were being performed according to a liturgy (a formal order of service) or by an ordained minister and try to gather according to the principles laid down by the Holy Spirit in 1 Cor. 12 and 14. Any who attempted it would be considered disorderly. The only way to practice the truth as to the Church is by ceasing to practice what is not the truth. This can only be done by withdrawing from all that has no approval from Scripture. Being free from disobedience, we then can be obedient. Thus, we must first cease to do evil and then learn to do good. Any attempt to go on with both would be a great disservice to the cause of truth. It would say, in effect, that there is no basic, real difference between what is purely human and what is divine and, consequently, we can go on with either or both.

Some argue that withdrawing from evil only ends in making one more sect. But there is nothing sectarian in meeting in the way that is obeying the truth. (A sect is a group of persons adhering to a particular man-made religious belief, Ed.)

Have we Scriptural authority to withdraw from Church-organizations unless they advocate or tolerate fundamentally false doctrines?

Let me answer with a question. Is a human organization or system, introduced into God's order for His Church, sufficiently evil that we must forsake it even if it costs much to do so?

Many of today's religious systems contain a very pretentious form of infidelity based on great claims of scholarship, called modernism. But, there are a large number of smaller and more or less independent organizations that stand on the basis of sound (correct) foundation-truth although ignoring the order of the Church as presented in Scripture. Those supporting these organizations are generally earnest and godly people. Should we stand apart from such organizations?

First of all, the intrusion of any human system or organization into the divine order, to where the divine order is eventually obliterated, is a very grievous sin! It is not a sin to be attached to any one individual since it has crept in slowly: still it is a serious evil. It is a striking fact that at the close of a long passage on the divine order for the actual assembling of the church in 1 Cor. 14, Paul warns, "If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord" (14: 37). In this way, the Holy Spirit anticipated the careless tendencies that invariably come out whenever carnality (natural human, worldly ways) prevails, which tendencies are prominent today.

When spiritual power is low and worldly principles come into the Church, the tendency is to find divine order irksome because it makes certain demands on a good spiritual condition — a condition not present. It also exposes the worldly-weakness which is present. So, the strong temptation is to be careless as to the instructions of Scripture: useful on many occasions, interesting, instructive but optional — something that may be obeyed, not something that must be obeyed. All this, however, is entirely swept away by the fact that these instructions are "the commandments of the Lord." We thus are not at liberty to alter them according to our tastes and feelings:

As an analogy, think of what was instituted in connection with the Law of Moses which only gave "the example and shadow of heavenly things" (Heb. 8: 5). When Moses was about to make the tabernacle, God told him to "make all things according to the pattern shown to you in the mount" (Heb. 8: 5). Moses strictly followed God's pattern. Later, when the permanent house was to be built in Jerusalem, "David gave to Solomon, his son, . . . the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit . . . all this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing" (1 Chron. 28: 11-19). Again, every detail was divinely ordered in writing. In the New Testament, we have in writing the divine instructions as to the order of God's spiritual house. Are we given any more liberty to tamper with these instructions than was allowed of old as to the instructions for the material, earthly-house? Certainly not!

At a later date, the Jews added to the divine regulations for the material-house. What was the result? The Lord Jesus, when He visited it, said, "It is written, My house is the house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves" (Luke 19: 46). They also tampered with the divine Word generally. Consequently, the Lord accused them of "making the Word of God of no effect through your traditions which you have delivered; and many such things you do" (Mark 7: 13). The strong language used by the Lord on these occasions shows us how He felt about these sins.

Next, let's look at the plain Scriptural instructions as to the believer's position in relation to a system of outward religion.

The epistle to the Hebrews was written just before the whole Jewish religious economy was swept away by the destruction of Jerusalem. In Hebrews, the Holy Spirit encourages the Jewish believers by showing them that the former system of visible religious symbols (Judaism), instituted in connection with the Law, was only a system of shadows. They who had turned to Christ possessed the realities by faith. The Holy Spirit ends with a call to them to cut their last links with the worn out system of earthly-religion and then He sets before them the Christ Who "suffered outside the gate." The Holy Spirit's exhortation is, "Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him (Christ) outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13: 12-13).

We are to go forth to Christ outside of the camp, not outside of the city. Hebrews consistently refers to the order of things connected with Israel's wilderness journey — the tabernacle and the camp. Hebrews views Christians as a company with heavenly associations and on their way to a heavenly rest but still in wilderness-conditions on the earth. Israel's wilderness circumstances were typical of our present journey. Further, in the wilderness tabernacle, God set forth His purpose to dwell in the midst of a redeemed people and to gather that people around Himself. Thus the camp was Israel, in an orderly manner, surrounding the dwelling place of God — Israel viewed religiously.

When the book of Hebrews was written, the Shekinah-cloud which had been the glory of Israel's camp, had long since departed. Yet, the camp — Judaism, Israel's religious system — still remained. However, it had sealed its doom by crucifying Jesus outside the gate. The time had thus come for every true Jewish believer to cut his last link with that system of earthly religion even though at its beginning, it was divinely-instituted. There was now nothing left but "weak and beggarly (worthless) elements" (Gal. 4: 9).

Thus, if in the first century of Christianity, it was God's will that believers who had been inside a divinely-begun earthly religious system should cut their last links with it and go outside of it to Christ, it can not be God's will today for believers to remain inside earthly religious systems which are purely human in their origin and never were at any time instituted by God!

Christ is thus outside of any religious system of human origin (although, of course, He may be much loved by, and be very near to many dear saints who remain entangled in the human system). Thus, we have divine authority to withdraw from any religious organization of human origin so that we may walk according to the divine order as laid down in Scripture.

Separation from evil and from evil men is always the duty of all who fear the Lord and Who Name His Name .

This fact is powerfully stated with full apostolic authority in 2 Tim. 2: 14 to 3: 5 where separation is commanded six times under six different terms, as follows:

· Shun profane and vain babblings (2 Tim. 2: 16)

· Depart from iniquity (2 Tim. 2: 19)

· Purge himself out from these (2 Tim. 2: 21)

· Flee also youthful lusts (2 Tim. 2: 22)

· Avoid foolish and unlearned questions (2 Tim. 2: 23)

· Turn away from such (2 Tim. 3: 5)

If something is presented to you and you shun, depart from, purge yourself from, flee from, avoid, and turn away from it, you have certainly adopted an attitude of uncompromising separation.

Let's open our Bibles and look at this passage in 2 Timothy 2 in detail.

Verses 14 and 15

Paul tells Timothy to remind believers of the truth and to charge them not to argue over points of no profit and which merely have the effect of mentally overturning the hearers. Then Timothy's personal aim should be to be a skilful workman in God's service, handling the word of God with understanding and accuracy.

Verses 16-18

Timothy was also to avoid an even worse evil — profane (common), worthless talking that leads to more ungodliness and spreads like gangrene or cancer. Such evil talk will increase in both intensity and extent if allowed to go on unchecked. So that no one could mistake what he was talking about, Paul names two men who were leaders in this profane babbling — Hymenaeus and Philetus. They were saying that the resurrection was already past. Paul points out the seriousness of this error: some had listened to it and their faith was overthrown. The error was fundamental and subversive to the faith of those who accepted it.

Verse 19

In contrast to false human teaching, the firm foundation of God stands sure. Everything that is really founded by God is immovable. God's foundation has a two-fold seal: the first is connected with God's sovereignty and omniscience (all power) which guarantees the eternal security of His own, and the second is connected with the responsibility of all who profess subjection to Christ as Lord to depart from iniquity.

All the above is stated in general terms but there appears to be an allusion to Korah, Dathan and Abiram in Num. 16. They rose up against the Word of God as presented by Moses and Aaron and overthrew the allegiance of some. The Lord's message on that occasion also was two-folded: "Tomorrow, the Lord will show who are His" (v. 5) and "Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men" (v. 26).

Thus, this Old Testament passage throws light on our subject passage. However, our verse simply states general principles; yet the believer is always to depart from iniquity. Iniquity takes different forms so the necessary "departing" may be accomplished in different Scriptural ways but the believer is never to go on with any kind of evil. He is to depart from it in all its forms.

Verse 20

Having clearly laid down the general principles governing the believer's attitude towards all evil, Paul now illustrates the matter. In a large house, there are many vessels made from various materials and used in many different ways. Some are made from gold and silver; others from wood and earth. Some are for honourable use and others for dishonourable use. The picture is of the (professing) Church which has become like a great house containing men like Hymenaeus and Philetus — men who were like vessels put to dishonourable use.

Verse 21

Paul now applies the general principle of verse 19 to the case of Hymenaeus and Philetus given in verses 17-18; an application made in the light of the illustration of the great house given in verse 20. Let's look at verse 21 in detail.

"If a man." These words show that Paul had the application of the illustration before him regarding the sad condition then being manifested in the Church. The term "a man" is used because, even though the command applies to all, the responsibility rests upon each individual believer to personally obey God.

"Purge Himself from." The Greek word translated "purge" means to purify or to cleanse-out. Its only other occurrence is in 1 Cor. 5: 7 where it is translated "purge out" and applies to the normal work of purging evil out of the Church. Here in 2 Timothy, we see the abnormal work of a man purging himself out of an association which has become dominated by evil.

"From these." We believe that "these" refers to Hymenaeus, Philetus and their associates. However, if any believe that "these" refers to the vessels-to-dishonour of the previous verse, the meaning is unchanged for the dishonourable vessels simply illustrate these sinning men.

The rest of verse 21 clearly adopts the language of the illustration in v. 20. A believer who faithfully clears himself from all fellowship and complicity with the teachers of fundamentally false doctrine is like a vessel to honour, sanctified and useful to the Master and prepared for every good work.

Verse 22

"Flee also youthful lusts" is another application of the general principle "to depart from iniquity." But this exhortation demands personal holiness, without which, separation from evil men would be mere hypocrisy. The phrase "youthful lusts" is used because Timothy was a young man. Of course, we are to flee from all sinful lusts and then follow (or pursue) "righteousness, faith, love, peace." The world is full of sin, spiritual blindness, hatred and strife, and the saint is to wear the above four-fold character of Christ in the midst of it. Moreover, these good things are to be pursued in a practical way "with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart."

"With" means companionship, not isolation. To "call on the Lord" means to profess subjection to Him. To do this "out of a pure (or purged) heart" (essentially the same word as "purge" in v. 21 ) means to sincerely do it with the whole-man purged from evil by both personal holiness and holiness in associations.

Notice that we are not told to follow with all who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. That would be impossible under present conditions. Many godly Christians who fit this description might, for instance, decline the company of others equally fitting the description due to prejudice or wrong or incomplete information. However, we can "follow . . . with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart" — as many as are available; and truly, the more who are available, the more we shall rejoice.

Verses 23-26

These verses show that the saint who obeys the above instructions must avoid foolish questions that cause strife. At the same time, he must expect opposition and then meet it in the lowly spirit of Christ so that he can be used for the blessing and recovery of the opposers.

Even though the Holy Spirit took the opportunity created by the false teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus to give these instructions, it appears that the evil hadn't reached the stage that compelled Timothy to withdraw from the mass of professed believers. Rather, it appears that the evil was met by the energy of the Holy Spirit and that some were recovered "out of the snare of the devil" (2 Tim. 2: 26), while the false teachers, repulsed in their efforts, "went out from (them)" (1 John 2: 19). However, the God-given instructions remain and the time has long since come when withdrawal has become necessary. In fact, to pursue union at the expense of truth is treason against the Lord because no union which involves complicity with evil is of God. God's unity is found only in separation from evil.

Remember that the above separation is an individual responsibility even though the individual who faithfully obeys God in this, is led in v. 22 to expect to find associates in the position he thus takes up.

Believers who go forth to Christ without the camp and who also purge themselves from false teachers and their teachings, must now gather according to all the truth of the Church, while always remembering that they are only a few of those who belong to it.

Believers who have separated from evil have done so as the result of individual exercise and action but they are not left to proceed alone as if everything of a corporate nature had ceased to be. The body-of-Christ and the house-of-God are still realities and believers today are as much as ever members of that body and living stones in that house. Hence, the privileges and responsibilities which are attached to the body and the house are theirs as much as ever.

When purged and separated believers gather together, they should gather just according to what they are and then act as directed by the Word of God. They should do this even if they are only two or three and all the other Christians in their locality remain in "the camp" or in complicity with evil. Christ is still their heavenly Head and He can be counted on for direction. The Holy Spirit is still here and He can safely be counted on for power. Further, the Bible can still be counted on for instruction.

Consequently, separated believers can still enjoy a measure of fellowship according to the apostolic pattern. They can rejoice to look upon other believers simply as members of the body of Christ and can receive according to the Word all who desire to be received, providing they are not disqualified by evil practice, evil doctrine or evil associations. Every sect receives saints who are formally-prepared to "join" them, but to receive saints simply because they are members of Christ (and are not Scripturally-disqualified) is to receive people according to the truth.

However, one part of the apostolic pattern is no longer available. This is the official appointment of elders and deacons for rule and service in the assembly. We today lack apostolic authority to appoint them. But officially appointed elders are not essential for an assembly. Evidently, there were none at Thessalonica when Paul wrote this second epistle to them. He said, "We beseech you, brethren, to know those who labour among you and are over you in the Lord" (1 Thess. 5: 12-13). The meaning of "know" is recognize. This instruction would only be possible if real elders existed but were without official appointment. Even today, elders may be known where they exist. Note that in 1 Corinthians (the epistle of assembly-order), bishops or elders are not even mentioned. Further, in correcting the disorders at Corinth, Paul never once even suggests that elders should be appointed.

For some time now, believers have endeavoured to gather together in the above ways. But experience has shown them that certain dangers constantly threaten to turn them from the truth. Some of these dangers are:

Sectarianism

It is very easy to slip into sectarianism (the adherence to a particular set of views and qualifications for membership). Those who have sought to gather in the Scriptural way have necessarily found themselves outside of today's religious organizations and, consequently, externally separated from the great mass of their fellow-believers who adhere to such organizations. How easy then to become entirely separated from them in heart and affection! How easy to lapse into becoming a select community, compact and self-contained and with no interest in anything lying outside the community boundaries!

This danger of sectarianism has been increased by the great knowledge of Scripture so graciously given to those who have gathered in practical obedience to the Word of God. Consequently, the natural tendency has been to use this great knowledge in the same way as the early Corinthians believers used (or abused) their gifts. They used their gifts for themselves instead of for the profit of the whole body. Great Scriptural knowledge may be misused in the same way: to give credit and distinction to the community possessing it instead of using it for the good of all saints. Then, such knowledge becomes the badge of a sect and the community becomes sectarian and light becomes darkness. Then light (or what passes for being the light at any given time) becomes the test-of-communion, and willingness to become a member of the community is the all-important thing. Then, all thought of receiving saints (not disqualified by evil behaviour, doctrine or association, or complicity with either) simply as members of Christ is ruled out and we find ourselves back on sectarian ground, only with much more exactness in our mode of meeting and in our Scriptural knowledge, but for that very reason, the more condemned by our sectarianism!

Saints who gather in obedience to the truth are often accused of being a mere sect and a small one at that! Being only a very small part of the Church, they may find it impossible to refute the charge. But, let them flee from sectarianism both in their spirit and in the principle of their gathering, regardless of what others accuse them of.

Laxity of Principle and of Practice

This laxity is the opposite danger to the one we have been considering. Sectarianism is the special danger to those who are rigid, narrow and intellectual whereas laxity is the danger of those with large, universal ideals, and kind and generous hearts. The first type of person tends to preserve the truth and maintain holiness by exclusion of all but the most select while the second type of person tends to promote love, harmony and union by an easy-going tolerance of wrong things.

Such laxity is fatal to true assembly practice because it seriously weakens the taking up of the place with Christ "outside the camp" since it compromises and hangs on to the outskirts of the camp for the sake of gaining more people. Further, laxity weakens or destroys a clear and uncompromising rejection of both fundamentally unsound teaching and separation from those who spread it (2 Tim. 2: 15-26, 2 John 7-11). Laxity allows undue tolerance and thus (while ultimately taking action against glaring evil) allows evil to be present in a modified or disguised form.

When laxity is allowed, the way is paved for abandoning a walk according to truth, not by one decisive step but by slow stages. History furnishes us with many illustrations of how laxity works. Whenever the Church has been confronted with fundamental evil, some have strongly met it without compromise but others have pleaded for tolerance and compromise and when their pleas where heeded, many were led away from the truth.

Ecclesiastical Assumption

The danger of ecclesiastical-assumption (church-authority) is mainly an out-growth of sectarianism. Unmindful of the fallen state of the professing church, people may assume authority for which no divine authorization exists — authority that is perhaps honestly felt to be necessary to preserve the community in its proper form. Decisions and actions of an assembly-character, even though hastily conceived and executed under personal or party pressure, may be given great sanctity and made the subject of extravagant claims. Authority may be established in certain localities or in certain cliques and thus a system of central-oversight, metropolitanism, bureaucratic-control (or whatever else you may call it), may gradually creep in and then pity the individual saint who has the rashness to question what is arranged or decided under such conditions!

Ecclesiastical Independency

The pendulum may swing to the opposite extreme, away from the high claims of ecclesiastical-assumption. To avoid the evils connected with ecclesiastical assumption, the system of independency may be restored to. In independency, each meeting becomes a self-contained unity, standing on its own basis, independent of any other gathering. The Church as the body of Christ, the house of God, a unity composed of all saints everywhere, outside of all questions of locality, is entirely overlooked or is treated only as an ideal, thus not demanding a practice in accordance therewith. But to adopt an order of things that gives us a number of independent local assemblies, whether closely affiliated or not, so that the largest possible measure of personal freedom is allowed, is to practice something that falls far short of Scripture!

Extravagant, Unscriptural Discipline

Extravagant discipline is the natural outcome of sectarianism and ecclesiastical assumption. A sectarian position nearly always calls forth an outburst of zeal in its defence. No spirit is fiercer than party-spirit and under its influence, the most extreme defence-measures are adopted. Even in the days of the apostles, the Church was threatened by all kinds of internal evil. Consequently, God gave clear and detailed disciplinary instructions by His apostles. Now, it may have the appearance of great holiness and zeal to enforce more severe discipline than required by Scripture, but it is really only presumption and self-will, as if we were wiser than God. The substitution of stern discipline for pastoral care and faithful dealing in love (which things tax our spiritual powers) has been a major cause of grievous failure.

Lax Discipline

Lax, careless discipline is the natural outgrowth of general laxity and independency. If universality is all-important, one must be very tolerant. If the independent, self-contained local assembly is before the mind, then any discipline is limited to that local community and even that discipline may easily be rendered useless by the contrary action of another nearby independent assembly. When Paul wrote the Corinthians and urgently called for severe discipline (1 Cor. 5), he addressed his letter to "the church of God which is at Corinth . . . with all who in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. 1: 2). The local assembly at Corinth was primarily responsible for the discipline but the whole Church was implicated in it. Therefore, if the saints who seek to gather on assembly-ground and to walk in the light of the truth are called on to use discipline, they act according to this Scripture.

If saints are outside human religious organizations and are walking separate from evil and are practicing truth and walking according to the truth of the Church as found in Scripture, we believe that they will be approved of God as to the position they take since they are meeting on divine ground. In all the above, however, don't ever let it be forgotten that our personal moral and spiritual condition is the most important thing. Correct ecclesiastical position without a correct spiritual condition is as sad a sight as can be imagined. If the condition is wrong, the correct position will also soon be lost. Thus, above everything else, let us seek practical godliness, unworldliness, communion with God and devotion to Christand His interests. Only these things will make correct position a witness to the truth and something for the glory of God.

Those who have endeavoured to gather on scriptural ground have failed and divisions have resulted. These divisions have hidden the outward expression of the truth of the Church and have consequently given rise to questions about "a circle of meetings." What is the truth as to a circle-of-meetings?

We must first understand how things were at the beginning of the Church. There were only three things that had a definite status (or standing) — only three distinct, Scriptural entities. These were:

1. The individual saint.

2. The various local assemblies at Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, etc. These local assemblies each bore the character of Christ's body. Paul told the Corinthians (1 Cor. 12: 27, JND), "Now, you are Christ's body; " not "the body" as in the King James translation. The whole Church is the body but each assembly bears the character of the body in its own locality. Each local assembly also has its own state (condition) and responsibility before the Lord and may be scrutinized by Him separately from other local assemblies (Rev. 1: 11-3: 22). In short, each local assembly has a definite status of its own.

3. The whole Church on earth at any given moment, which is the one body of Christ, animated by the one Holy Spirit (Eph. 4: 4).

In what follows, we will refer to these three things as the individual saint the local assembly and the whole Church. Let's now look at a number of points to help answer the above question.

Point One

At the beginning of the Church, when things were still according to the divine Mind, there was no other entity which had any Scriptural status in between the individual saint and the local assembly. The attempt to create smaller circles than the local assembly at Corinth ("I am of Paul, etc.) was sternly rebuked (1 Cor. 1: 11-13, 1 Cor. 3: 1-8). There were assemblies in the homes of different saints (Rom. 16: 5, Col. 4: 15, etc.). We don't know whether these were the local assemblies in their localities or simply a number of saints in some part of a large city meeting thus for conveniences' sake. Maybe those praying in the "house of Mary" (Acts 12: 12) were such an assembly but, if so, it had no status except as being a part of "the church (or assembly) which was in Jerusalem" (Acts 11: 22).

Neither was there anything which had a definite Scriptural status of its own in between the local assembly and the whole Church. We do read of the "churches of Galatia" and of "the churches (or possibly "church") . . . throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria" (Acts 9: 31) — the church or churches within certain geographic limits. But there is no such things as "the church of Galatia" which might serve as a precedent for state-churches such as the church-of-England.

Point Two

When we look at things today, it isn't too hard to find the individual saint. However, both the local assembly and the whole Church have receded (outwardly) into the realm of abstract-truth. They can not be found in any definite, clear form that can be seen and appealed to.

In the early 1800's, many Christians around the world withdrew from various unscriptural religious and worldly connections to meet as members of Christ's body on the simple ground of the Church of God and its original principles. As a result, there could be seen in various places a definite meeting together of saints who were gathered and formed according to the Scriptural principles of the local assembly. Yet, they were by no means THE local assembly in their various localities since most believers in those localities were not gathered with them.

As these local meetings grew in number, they got in touch and sought to enjoy practical fellowship with each other according to the pattern of the apostolic Church. They commended to each other by letter, etc. Thus, just as there were saints meeting locally and acting according to the principles of the local assembly (although not THE local assembly), saints also had fellowship with each other world-wide and were thus acting according to the principles of the whole Church, although not the whole Church.

Things continued this way for some time. Then Satan worked, and division resulted with its effect of scattering, both as regard to the local meeting walking according to the truth of the local assembly and in regard to the large number of saints walking according to the truth of the whole Church.

Due to the confusion and distress caused by division, some Christians now condemn the thought of saints attempting to walk in the light of the truth of the whole Church. They regard such an attempt as merely maintaining a circle of meetings. At the same time, they approve of and support their local meeting, even though that meeting is far from being THE local assembly since it is only one of several other meetings in the same locality, each having little or no practical fellowship with each other because of the divisions which have occurred. They then claim that since there is no Scriptural entity in between the local assembly and the whole Church, the remedy for our difficulties is to abandon any idea of a circle larger than the little circle of a local meeting. As to anything larger, each meeting and each individual in a meeting must be free to form their own "fellowship" or "circle" as they judge right before the Lord.

It is true that there is nothing Scriptural in between the local assembly and the whole Church if the term "the local assembly" means not some little meeting but THE local assembly which, however, has no definite form today. Of course, it is equally true that there is no Scriptural entity in between the individual believer and THE local assembly (but those who advocate the idea that we are considering never stress this fact). But, why not be consistent? The reasoning that forbids saints from having any clearly-recognized fellowship generally with others throughout the world, so that they may walk together according to the truth of the whole Church, is equally valid against a few saints attempting to enjoy any clearly-recognized fellowship locally so as to walk according to the truth of THE local assembly. Thus, the reasoning that we are considering would force the conclusion that the whole movement of the early 1800's was a mistake and thus not approved by God.

If we have no authority to walk according to the truth of the whole Church, what authority have we for meeting according to the truth of THE local assembly? Remember that the local assembly today, we may say, is accidental not essential: it is provisional in view of the present condition of the Church.* At the Rapture, every local assembly will instantly cease to be and only the whole Church, comprising all saints from Pentecost to that moment, will remain. The whole Church is the abiding thing that is connected with the eternal purposes of God.

Editor's Note: This accidental-essential statement simply shows the situation as it presently exists with the breakdown that has come in the Church's profession (which Mr. Hole calls accidental). This breakdown is not according to the perfect and flawless aspect of the Church (which Mr. Hole calls essential) as seen through God's eyes.

Point Three

Some may ask whether Matt. 18: 20 is Scriptural authority for a local meeting of saints which may not include all those in the locality. We thankfully believe so. Although this passage is not primarily prophetic of the last days, yet the Lord so framed His words that they give even two or three authority to gather unto His Name in the days of ruin that have come in during His absence.

With equal thankfulness, we believe that 2 Tim. 2: 22 is the Scriptural authority for the purged-saint to walk with like-minded saints in a general way. That passage is not in a local setting. It was not written to a local assembly but to a gifted servant of Christ. Of course, Timothy must have been in some locality but he did not have a local office (such as an elder) but was a man endowed with gift (which is universal and not local). The "great house" of 2 Tim. 2: 20 illustrates what the professing church (Christendom) was fast becoming. Hence, the whole passage, including v. 22, must be read in a universal sense. Note however that in both Matthew 18 and 2 Tim. 2, a condition is found. In Matthew, it is "unto My Name" and in Timothy, it is "out of a pure heart." These clauses are designed to cause exercise-of-heart-and-conscience.

Point Four

We may also be asked whether we claim that all those saints with whom we enjoy fellowship possess that pure heart and whether all outside lack it, and whether we claim that only those who meet with us locally, gather to His Name. We make no such claims but rather make it our aim to personally meet both conditions while awaiting the coming day-of-review when the Lord will determine the measure in which we have succeeded in our aim. Neither question should frighten us from making it our aim to walk according to the truth of both the local assembly and the whole Church.

Point Five

We may also be asked to give a clear "Yes" or "No" answer to whether we believe in a circle-of-meetings. Our answer is "No" because we believe in something far greater than a circle-of-meetings — the true Church of God.

Paul's labours in the first century produced what had the appearance of being a-circle-of-Christian-assemblies, yet it was not that because it was more than that: he was being used to bring the body of Christ into clear evidence.

The labours of godly men in the early 1800's also produced what had the appearance of being just a little circle of meetings, yet it was not that because they believed that they were being used by God to lead some saints back into practical obedience to the truth of the Church, both in its local and general aspects. Since then, much confusion and division has occurred but we do not desire any different or lesser aim today. Our desire is to walk according to that truth and not to form or maintain a mere circle of meetings.

Point Six

If we now look at those who claim to have completely abandoned the idea of a circle-of-meetings (in favour of independency, etc.) what do we find? We find that, in practice, they can not get away from some kind of a circle. There are so many and such a variety of meetings that however highly-inclusive a believer may be, he can not possibly embrace them all and thus has to be content with a circle of some kind. What they have abandoned is the idea of collectively settling questions of fellowship in favour of settling them individually. Whether saints meeting here or there should be recognized as gathering in the truth and thus fellowship with, is, they judge, an individual decision no matter how conflicting the consequent decisions may be. In abandoning a circle of meetings, they are abandoning any attempt to obey and practice the truth as to the whole Assembly.

Editor's Note: You may be confused by the seeming contradiction between points 5 and 6. Points looks at a circle from the abstract, theoretical, doctrinal side. We do not find a circle in Scripture: only THE local assembly and the whole Church. Thus, our thoughts and aims should not be restricted to some circle. But, as seen in Point 6, because all saints won't walk the Scriptural pathway or don't agree with us on something, there are those who are with us and those who aren't. Thus, even though it should not — must not — be our aim, we can not in practice get away from the fact of a circle-of-meetings.

Point Seven

We are keenly aware that there is considerable ground for someone saying that we have so deteriorated from the understanding and practice of the truth that we all have become only just so many circle-of-meetings — just warring factions, each contending for its own view-point-of-truth or its own ecclesiastical actions and decisions. If that were true, the path of faith would be quite clear. A person would have to stand outside of all parties of this sort.

In 1 Corinthians, where the schools-of-opinion were all inside the one assembly, those who are approved would be those who, while excluding evil-doers (as in 1 Cor. 5), moved freely among all saints, entirely above and outside all parties. But today, the situation is much more serious because the internal divisions of Corinth have now become open splits which, if not approved by the Lord, are very serious sin. Thus, today to move among all would be to condone all the sin which they represent.

We do not believe that all have fallen so low that there is nothing left but warring factions. The considerable exercise that exists in many hearts towards others testifies otherwise. But, if we did think so, we could not adopt the remedy of "intercircle-ism" (like today's inter-denominationalism). If we have become entangled in what has become only a circle-of-meetings, let us abandon the circle with repentance (for repentance always opens "a door of hope") (Rev. 2: 5, 16, 21, Rev. 3: 3, 19) but do not abandon the aim of walking according to the truth of the whole Church in favour of everyone doing, in fellowship-matters, that which is right in his own eyes.

Point Eight

Lastly, we realize that many things in general have cast much discredit on the truth of the Church and on any attempt to practice this truth. Consequently, there is an increasing tendency for believers to gather together outside of organized denominations, in little groups, often due to the labours of some earnest evangelist. These meetings have links with whatever body of Christians the evangelist is connected with but such links are often weak in the early history of the meeting. We believe, if the opening occurs for it, that special service may be rendered to such believers in instructing them so they may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. But any servant who values fellowship should be careful to act as far as possible in agreement with those with whom he is walking.

A final point should be raised due to the rise of Eclecticism. Among the ancient Greek philosophers the

Eclectics

were those who refused to subscribe to any recognized philosophic system but preferred to select certain ideas from various systems and then weld these selected ideas into systems of their own. We will use this word to describe Christians who pick out and bring together the most

desirable persons

to form a select company. Is it Scriptural to gather out a select company of more desirable and spiritual people from the less desirable and less spiritual people?

Anyone who is well-informed about the Spirit-led divine movement that began in the early 1800's (which we have mentioned several times) knows that it resulted in the clear recovery and teaching of the truth as to the nature, character, present privileges, responsibility and future destiny of the Church of God. Also, saints were gathered out from many unscriptural systems so that they might assemble in practical recognition of, and in obedience to the truth thus recovered. If any argue that it was the aim of these brethren to gather together all the most select and spiritual to be found in Christendom into one body, their contention must fail in the presence of the still-available abundant writings of that period.

Editor's Note: This godly movement that began world-wide in the early-to-mid 1800's became known as the brethren-movement and it rapidly grew. The writings of its God-gifted and godly men such as J. N. Darby, William Kelly, C. H. Macintosh, F. W. Grant, etc; are still widely circulated and read even in denominational circles. Even though often called Plymouth Brethren, these brethren (small "b") refuse any titles or names that are not true of all believers. They simply consider themselves to be brethren in Christ who are gathered to the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 18: 20) and who are seeking to obey the truth of the Church and the truths of the entire Word of God.

But, what does the Bible say? We believe that Scripture indicates that the only path approved by God for the last days of any dispensation is to return as far as possible to the original principles and practices which characterized the dispensation at its beginning. The history of past dispensations illustrates this principle, as we will see. God always sets up that which is according to His Mind. Hence, any deviation from His principles involves their corruption. On the other hand, man's inventions begin crude and are improved by change.

Thousands of years ago, God made His Mind known through Moses and all was perfect as far as it went. Israel, however, constantly disobeyed. Many prophets were sent to recall them to the things that God had established at the beginning. For instance, Jeremiah prophesied, "Thus said the Lord, Stand in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way, and walk in it and you shall find rest for your souls" (Jer. 6: 16). But Israel refused and consequently went into Babylonian captivity.

Later, under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, many Jews returned to the land. The Persian King Cyrus opened the door for any Jew by saying, "Who is there among you of all His people? His God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem" (Ezra 1: 3). Now, this proclamation had a selective effect. Those "whose spirit God had raised" (Ezra 1: 5) were the ones who responded and went up. Undoubtedly these were the most godly Jews but the movement was not deliberately eclectic but simply a return to the land and to the knowledge and practice of the Law as given through Moses (Neh. 8: 1-13, Neh. 9: 3, Neh. 10: 29).

The returned-remnant soon spiritually deteriorated in a subtle way. They did not return to idolatry or disregard the "letter" of the Law. Rather, while venerating the letter, they evaded the spirit of the Law. They became filled with a proud self-satisfaction at possessing the Law. This deplorable state was exposed by the prophet Malachi. Even then, there were a few who "feared the Lord" (Mal. 3: 16). These were a remnant within the remnant but God told them to "remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statues and ordinances" (Mal. 4: 4). This remnant-of-a-remnant was referred back to all the words of God originally given through Moses and reminded that all the Word was for all the people of God and not only for themselves.

This was the last word from God in the old dispensation. From it, it is clear that the path-of-God's-will at the end of a dispensation involves a return to the principles that marked it at the beginning, even if only a few will do it.

The same thing is found in the New Testament, specially in the closing epistles of Paul, Peter and John. Among Paul's farewell instructions to Timothy was, "Keep by the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted" (2 Tim. 1: 14, JND). He also tells Timothy that all Scripture is our only safeguard (2 Tim. 3: 16-17). Peter writes, "I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Saviour" (2 Peter 3: 1-2).

John speaks of "that which was from the beginning" and says, "Let that therefore abide in you which you have heard from the beginning. If that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue in the Son and in the Father" (1 John 2: 24). He also warns, saying, "Whosoever goes forward and abides not in the doctrine of the Christ, has not God" (2 John 9, JND).

In general, it will be the more enlightened and the more godly saints who will discern and respond to God's original will and purpose for His Church. Those who will discern and obey the instructions of 2 Tim. 2: 16-26 will undoubtedly be among the most spiritually-minded believers but that is incidental and not the essential feature of such a movement. The basis of the movement of the early 1800's was and is separation unto righteousness, faith, love, peace, in association with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Righteousness begins by giving God and His Word their proper place of supremacy and authority. Faith embraces all the revealed will and counsel of God. Thus, the movement we are discussing is not basically an attempt to weld together a certain spiritual class of believers (although such may occur in practice). It is a movement according to the holiness of God so that there may be something definite that can be seen and appealed to. Its scope-of-obedience is to the whole revealed Word of God, and such obedience is practical righteousness.

In view of all the above, when meeting with a few saints to the Lord's Name, are we to regard ourselves as an eclectic company banded together by loyalty to certain religious procedures or decisions, or to a testimony that we believe has been entrusted to us, or by a superior mental condition which we think has made us more spiritual than others? Or do we meet as a few saints who value the Lord's Name and desire to acknowledge His authority and desire to walk in practical obedience to the whole truth, thus taking true assembly-ground while awaiting His return?

Now this is not a question of mere theological or academic interest. Very important practical issues depend on it. Our behaviour and actions of an assembly-character are much influenced by our answer. Misunderstandings on this point have been the cause of many sad mistakes in the past.

The matter of discipline well-illustrates the differences between the two positions in the above question. There is considerable instruction on discipline in the Epistles where discipline of varying degrees of severity is commanded, culminating as a last resort in some cases in excommunication (which is really the admission that all proper discipline has failed to stop the evil).

From the beginning of the Church's history, there has been weakness in its midst. The epistles show us that the churches founded by Paul were not models of all that an assembly should be but contained many "babes," many who were "carnal," many whose hands were hanging down and whose knees were feeble and whose feet were likely to be "turned out of the way." Also, there were "unprofitable and vain talkers," men who preached Christ "of envy and strife'" and even Judaizing-teachers who tried to bring saints back into the bondage of the Law and of Judaism. Thus, it is not surprising that today, whenever saints gather together on assembly ground, a similar state of affairs is soon manifested in their midst. What is to be done?

The answer is simple for those who stand on eclectic-ground. Anyone who doesn't agree with their eclectic-association is thus undesirable and to be put out if possible. For instance, a brother can not agree with a certain ecclesiastical action or decision and he protests against it. As a result, he can not be allowed to remain in fellowship even though, having relieved his conscience by his protest, he is prepared to do so. Or someone else is unable to accept some much-advocated teaching as a sound and balanced setting forth of Scriptural truth. Since the eclectic-association is committed to this teaching, there can be no rest until he is removed from the "within" to the "without." Thus, excommunication, whether directly or by many underhanded and devious ways, becomes the remedy for all ills in an eclectic-system. If you are not completely of their system, you place is outside. This is both extremely simple and has the outward appearance of great holiness. It calls for no exercise. It doesn't try anyone's patience. There is no expression of the grace of Christ. It appeals to man's sense of his own importance and it allows freedom to the will of everyone who is a part of the eclectic-system. It is therefore not surprising that eclecticism has become well established in many minds and that some seem incapable of appreciating anything else.

However, the question is not so easy for those standing on assembly-ground. The very basis of their position is that the principles of the assembly are to govern them. Now, the assembly is the place where the Lord administrates and the Holy Spirit operates (1 Cor. 12: 4-11). It is the place where the inspired Word of God rules and directs. In Acts 15: 13-29, (JND) we read, "Simon has related . . . with this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written . . . wherefore I judge . . . it seemed good to us, having arrived at a common judgment." The assembly is the place where God's will as expressed in His Word is the only thing that counts. Hence, it is never permissible to enforce a discipline that is more rigorous than Scripture directs. The question is not "What suits our company?" but "what is suitable for the house of God to which we belong and what is according to the principles in which we desire to walk?" That question can only be answered in the light of the Word of God.

All this calls for much exercise so that Scripture may be rightly applied. Our patience will often be tried because we will find cases for which we have no clear Scriptural instructions. We will then have to wait in prayer on the Lord so that His will may be known, rather than taking the law into our own hands and acting without Him. Grace will continually be called for. All will be made to feel their own nothingness and mere self-will will be rebuked. After all, authority to use discipline in God's house only comes from God Himself. As gathered unto the Lord's Name, we have authority (Matt. 18: 18-20) but we can only act in His Name when we are directed by His Word.

Eclecticism has often rushed in and acted where those who tremble at God's Word have feared to tread beca use they didn't have authority to do so. The eclectic-company or its cause had to be defended so they felt that drastic action was needed and if they had no authorization from the Lord, they used some passage with remote or obscure application to the case. Thus, again and again, that which has been called the discipline-of-God's-house has only been used to support personal or party ends — a very grievous sin! By such acts, eclecticism betrays itself as being just plain sectarianism in a very pretentious disguise.

Closing Remarks

When saints, however few or weak, really gather on the ground of God's Assembly, they walk according to the holiness of God's house as given in His Word. Yet, they never disconnect their hearts and affections from the whole Church of God. They acknowledge Christ as their Head above and the Holy Spirit as their Power here on earth. They know that they never need to go beyond the instructions of the Word to preserve that which is of Him (2 Tim. 3: 16-17). In fact, they are not greatly occupied with "saving" a cause or "the testimony" because they understand that the Lord knows how to maintain to the end His own cause and to preserve His own testimony. Their concern is to obey the whole Word of God. By such obedience, they insure salvation for both themselves and for those who may hear them (1 Tim. 4: 15-16).

Like the Psalmist, we do well if we can say, "Lord, my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself in great matters or in things too high for me" (Ps. 131: 1). There are great matters which are far too high for us and which the Lord holds in His own hands. He carries on His own work. He directs His testimony and preserves it when necessary. He orders and controls His servants. However, when well-meaning men attempt to do these things which they were never asked to do, they usually end up by failing in what God did intend them to do!

God wants us to do the less-pretentious but more practical work of walking in obedience to His revealed Mind. We are left here to obey the truth which is a sufficiently great and high matter for us. All truth has come out in Christ: He is the truth. All truth is revealed for us in Scripture, so the Word is truth. The Holy Spirit is given to us so we may know and obey the truth: He is the Spirit of truth. Thus, may we have enough grace to direct our spiritual energy in this direction of obeying the truth!

F. B. Hole. (edited).

1977 edition.

"The Administration of the Mystery."

"The Administration of the Mystery."

F. B. Hole.

"By revelation the mystery has been made known to me .... that they who are of the nations should be joint heirs, and a joint body, and joint partakers of His promise in Christ Jesus by the glad tidings; of which I am become minister .... to announce among the nations the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ, and to enlighten all with the knowledge of what is the administration of the mystery hidden throughout the ages in God" (Eph. 3: 3-9. Darby's New Translation).

In the above passage the Apostle Paul clearly states that he was called to be minister of "the mystery" in a twofold way.

Firstly, it was given to him to announce among the nations, or Gentiles, "the unsearchable riches of the Christ." This he did by word of mouth in the days of his free and unfettered service, and when a prisoner, the gist of this ministry was committed to writing "in few words," or "briefly," but under the direct inspiration of the Spirit of God; and thus it comes to pass that we have it today. If Ephesians 1: 1 - 4: 16, be studied, it will be noticed how rich is the unfolding of all that is wrought, and found, and established in Christ according to the eternal purpose of God; and into all these riches, utterly beyond our ability to track out, we who are from among the Gentiles have been brought. The early part of Ephesians, then, is the great unfolding of "the unsearchable riches of the Christ;" supplemented by the Epistle to the Colossians, which more particularly emphasizes the unsearchable greatness of Christ Himself, who is the Head of the body, the church.

Secondly, it was given to him to enlighten all as to "the administration of the mystery." The word here translated "administration" means, "the law, or arrangement, of a house," and is the one from which we have got our word "economy." The Gospel having gone out by God's command among the nations, and having resulted in the introduction of "they who are of the nations" into the body of Christ and the house of God, an entirely new situation had been created. A new "economy," or "house-law," or "administration," had to be established, entirely fresh arrangements had to prevail in the church, which was God's house now that the temple in Jerusalem had been set aside, and it was Paul's business to make plain to all what this new administration was.

Now though the Apostle mentions this fact in the Epistle to the Ephesians, he does not appear to enlarge upon it in that epistle: we must turn rather to the two Epistles to the Corinthians, supplemented by the two Epistles to Timothy, though these were addressed to an individual and not a church. We also get glimpses of Paul establishing the new administration in the Acts of the Apostles, and glimpses too in other of his epistles.

We do not now propose to deal with "the unsearchable riches of the Christ," as unfolded in Ephesians, since we believe that amongst those Christians, who are likely to read this paper, there would be little if any difference of thought as to these happy themes. There we should be dealing with the great eternal thoughts of God for Christ and the church, and that work which is wholly His in bringing into existence and maintaining the church as a present existing thing — His house, and the body of Christ. It is when we come to the "administration" which is to prevail in the church during its sojourn in the world, that the difficulties begin. Ephesians 3: 2 states that this administration (in A.V. "dispensation," but it is the same word) was committed to Paul in the first place: then he was to enlighten all concerning it, so that it should be observed and carried out in all church affairs. Clearly then, here is something in which men have to take a part. We are to carry things out according to the will of the Lord, and if we do so, and as far as we do so, the church becomes to angelic beings a display of the manifold wisdom of God. But, alas! as soon as we come to things in which we have a hand, as lying within the sphere of our responsibility, failure supervenes and difficulties multiply.

There are those of course who brush aside Paul's administration. Though believers in Christ, they think that Paul's instructions in church matters are not of binding importance in the twentieth century, whatever they may have been in the first. We are confident that our readers are not among these. Nor are they, we trust, amongst those who, whilst accepting Paul's inspired instructions, hold themselves free to add a little from other sources, as they think may be needed; as though Scripture were not enough. Scripture is enough, as is made very manifest in 2 Timothy 3: 16, 17. If Scripture suffices to furnish the man of God fully and completely to every good work, there is no work that is good — whether in the church, or outside it in the world — that is not covered by Scripture. We need nothing beside.

The epistles to the Corinthians — and those to Timothy also — witness very strikingly to the fact that God not only knows how to make the wrath of man to praise Him, but also how to make the sin and folly and disorder of His saints to work out for spiritual instruction to multitudes. At the time Paul wrote his first letter there was at Corinth a very serious state of disorder. Many of them were but recently converted out of heathenism; they were but babes, and sad to say their state was "carnal;" hence evil of a very shocking order was in their midst, and their very assemblings together were occasions not for the better but for the worse; their proceedings being full of disorder. This led Paul to lay before them the essential features of the administration that was to rule in their midst.

Bad as was the case of incest amongst them, it was not this which had the first place in the mind of the Spirit of God, but the state of division that characterized them. The former was like a horrible growth which could be removed by a suitable operation, but the latter was a deep-seated disease which, unless checked, would vitiate and deny the whole character of the church of God.

The "divisions," which are mentioned in 1 Cor. 1: 10, were schisms or parties which had been formed inside the church at Corinth. They are referred to again in chapter 11: 18, where we find that they were of so definite a character as to be visible when they came together in assembly; though, as verse 20 shows, they were still coming together in one place. These schisms led to "contentions" (1 Cor. 1: 11), and what lay behind all were "heresies" (1 Cor. 11: 19), which were among them. These heresies were strong opinions, upon which may be founded a faction or a sect. The heretic of Titus 3: 1, was an opinionative person who creates or fosters a faction. Paul was prepared to give at least partial credence to the reports of the divisions at Corinth since he knew that, owing to their carnal state, there were bound to be these opinionative factions in their midst.

In 1 Cor. 11: 19 then, great stress must be laid on the words, "among you," which refer us back to 1 Cor. 3: 3. In that verse he had said, "Whereas there is among you envying and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" — thus reasoning back from their carnal actions to their carnal state. In 1 Cor. 11: 19 he reasons forward from their state to their actions. Knowing them to be carnal and walking as men, he knew that they would certainly fall victims to the inveterate tendency of the human mind to form its strong opinions, and the factions founded on those opinions, ending in the schisms and divisions. He knew too that God would overrule their folly, and take occasion to make manifest those that were approved of Him, walking according to the Spirit and not as men; and consequently eschewing the whole of this divisive business.

At Corinth these factions and parties were crystallised around men, and thus it has ever been. In the light of 1 Cor. 4: 6, we may assume that the real transgressors were local leaders and that delicacy of Christian feeling led the Apostle to use his own name together with those of Apollos and Cephas, instead of the names of the actual men. The names he does use are quite significant, for in regard to the Corinthians Paul had been the evangelist, Apollos the teacher, and Cephas was called to a pastoral ministry, as John 21 shows. It is almost inevitable that some will prefer the earnest evangelist, some the eloquent, clear-headed teacher, and others the kindly pastor. The trouble comes when the men who possess these gifts become so magnified in people's eyes that they are made into leaders of parties. Hence the powerful ministry of the truth as to the cross of Christ, which fills the latter part of 1 Cor. 1, and the equally powerful ministry of truth concerning the Spirit which fills 1 Cor. 2. The cross of Christ demonstrates the folly and nothingness of man, and puts him out. The Holy Spirit brings in Christ, who is the power and wisdom of God.

But what about those who were saying, "and I of Christ"? Were they the approved ones of 1 Cor. 11: 19 — those who were refusing men's ways, and walking in the Spirit? Clearly they were not, for the Apostle censures them with the others. Further, he immediately asks, "Is Christ divided?" — which infers that this is just what they were doing. They were dividing Christ, for their "I" was only the "I" of a faction. Now it is quite true that all the saints are "of Christ," or "Christ's." The last verse of 1 Cor. 3 says so, for the same expression is used there; only it is "ye," and that meant the whole church at Corinth, and not a faction merely. This saying, "I of Christ" was really worse than saying, I of Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas.

Many years ago a well-known servant of God made a pronouncement to the effect that he would belong to no party, not even to one formed to defend the truth. He had ample warrant for it in this which is before us. The truth of the church cannot be maintained by forming a party to defend it, since the forming of the party is itself a denial of the truth of the church. It is very easy to forget this.

When we come to 1 Cor. 5, we have the aggravated case of immorality that had so far been permitted at Corinth. The Divine administration demands that such an one be put away from amongst the saints, as also such evil-doers as are mentioned in 1 Cor. 5: 11. In 1 Cor. 6 there is a stern rebuking of the saints carrying their disagreements and judgments before the world, and in this connection a further list of proscribed evils is given in 1 Cor. 6: 9 and 10. All such people are to be outside the church of God. The administration thus laid down is very plain, and has simply to be obeyed by us.

In 1 Cor. 8, 9 and 10, Paul enlightens us as to the administration concerning certain practical matters which aroused contention in the early church. The mystery, as we saw in Ephesians 3, has to do with Gentiles being joint heirs, a joint body and joint partakers through the Gospel; and the bringing in of Gentiles created immense difficulties. The Jewish mind was essentially legal and narrow as the result of centuries spent under the law as their schoolmaster, shut up from any spiritual contact with the nations. The Gentile mind was broad and easy-going, unhampered by the small enactments which bound the Jew. Peace could only be expected in the early church as the mind of God superseded the minds of both Jew and Gentile. There is ample evidence here, and in the Epistle to the Romans and elsewhere, that even in the brightest, apostolic days there was plenty of imperfection in the church, and many difficulties arising out of this very matter.

How are these matters administered? Not by the laying down of a few plain rules, which do not call for the exercise of conscience and grace and spiritual judgment. We read in 1 Cor. 8, and it seems as if Paul rather brushes aside idols, and the whole question of meats offered to idols, as being a matter of little moment, save as regard the consciences of any who may be weak. We turn to 1 Cor. 10, and it seems that after all idols are very important since demonic powers lie behind them, and in eating their meats we may partake of the table of demons, and provoke the Lord to jealousy. Then we go back to 1 Cor. 9, and we find Paul himself varying his procedure; becoming a Jew to gain the Jews, as without law to gain those without law. Paul was a Jew, yet so truly was he now Christian that he had to become as a Jew. And when he became as without law, he was tall the time thoroughly subject to Christ.

What then does all this mean? It evidently means that it pleases God that in the church there shall be a number of things as to which no rules are given, but the saints are left to be tested and exercised by them. As they are exercised they grow, and become "of full age . . . their senses exercised to discern both good and evil" (Heb. 5: 14). Should I eat, or should I not eat? Or again, that feast spoken of in 1 Cor. 10: 27; should I go, or should I not go? How easy to have issued the command, "Under no circumstances go to any feast where there is the smallest chance of the host furnishing you with meat which has been offered to idols." But the command was not issued. Of course I may not be disposed to go, but if I am disposed, I am left at liberty to go, with the instruction to consider the conscientious feelings of others, if they express them.

So as to Paul's service. He acts as under law to God, being "legitimately subject to Christ" — such is the force of that important little parenthesis in verse 21 — and there we must leave him. All the saints of his day may not have agreed with all the restrictions he thought fit to observe, when going after the Jews; and it is quite certain that all did not agree with the liberties he permitted himself, when going after the souls of the Gentiles. The administration of the mystery does not demand that we force him, or that he force us, into an exact and prescribed mould: it rather demands that we do nothing of the kind.

In 1 Cor. 11 the administration of the Lord's supper is laid down, and as to this we need not now speak particularly. In 1 Cor. 12 - 14, we have the Lord's administration as to the order to be observed when the church comes together in assembly, and the character which should be stamped upon such gatherings. When the church is thus convoked the Lord is supreme, and the Spirit of God is the power for all that is rightly done, and consequently love is the all-pervading spirit, when things are as they should be. It will be noticed that in 1 Cor. 14 all ordinary assembly activities are mentioned, prophesying, praying blessing God, giving of thanks, the giving out and singing of psalms or hymns. All is to be in the grace and energy of the Spirit of God. Even a hymn will not be right, save as given out and sung in the grace which He supplies.

This chapter does not end without a statement to the effect that, "the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord" (verse 37). This covers doubtless all the administration laid down in the epistle, and not only this chapter. But it does quite definitely cover this chapter. Even in the order of church assemblies the Lord administrates and we are not left to our own devices. Men have adopted their own devices and ignored the Divine administration. Almost worse, it looks today as if many, who formerly observed it, are abandoning it in favour of fresh devices. Let us see that we do not act thus.

We do not pursue the theme further, save to point out one further item which is emphasised in 2 Corinthians 6: 11 - 7: 1. By the time he wrote his second letter Paul's anxieties as to the Corinthians were largely relieved, and consequently his heart was enlarged toward them and his mouth opened to speak to them yet more plainly. In this powerful passage as to separation from the world he went down to the root of things, for worldly alliances lay at the foundation of most of the evils he had to deal with in his earlier letter, if not all of them.

"Be not diversely yoked with unbelievers" (New Translation). The reference is to Deuteronomy 22: 10. The ox and the ass are not merely creatures of different habits, but of different natures. To have them in the same field may be all right, but to yoke them together is to subject them to an unnatural strain. The believer and the unbeliever are of totally different nature and character, as verses 14-16 make so plain. They exist side by side in the same world, but there is to be no yoking together, for the church is entirely distinct from the world. They are distinct and apart in the mind of God, and are to be so in life and practical ways.

Without a doubt this was the point of failure and weakness at Corinth: equally without a doubt it is the point of failure and weakness to-day. We may often spend our strength combating details of wrong surface behaviour, while leaving this deep-seated matter untouched; and hence very little good of a permanent sort is accomplished.

Much might be said as to administrative details laid down in the Epistles to Timothy, but we confine ourselves to the important point which comes before us in 2 Timothy 2: 16-26. Here very strict separation is enjoined as to those whose teachings are of so false a character as to overthrow the faith of those who imbibe them, and which will spread like a gangrene. Paul writes to an individual believer and he is to "shun," "depart," "purge himself from," and "turn away" from such. We think it goes without saying that if such is to be the attitude of the individual saint towards the teacher of fundamentally false doctrine, the false teacher of this stamp is not to be tolerated in the bosom of the church of God.

Disciplinary action may be taken in the church of God which falls short of the above, action which does not involve the offender being put into the outside place. Such discipline we have enjoined in 1 Thessalonians 5, and 2 Thessalonians 3.

We call attention to these things because those saints, who to-day aim at walking in communion according to the truth of the church, and in the observance of the principles established by the Lord's administration, are again and again confronted by difficult situations. There is not so much difficulty usually when matters of downright immorality or fundamentally false doctrine are involved. There is much more difficulty over matters of discipline, of reception, and of service.

We cannot expect to be without difficulties. The New Testament bears ample witness to the fact that difficulties abounded in the Apostolic age, so we need not be surprised at having plenty to-day. As we have already noticed, at the beginning a great many sprang from clashes between Jew and Gentile in the church of God. For ourselves today such clashes would be very infrequent, we suppose; yet very frequently there are clashes between what we may call, the Jewish mind and the Gentile mind. Some of us are so constituted naturally that matters of church order greatly appeal to us. We love correctness, exactitude and discipline. Numbers do not greatly appeal to us: we might rather favour a smaller number, as likely to be people of a better quality and more select and spiritual.

Others of us, however, look upon this kind of thing as petty and narrow-minded. We favour more that which is large-hearted and evangelical, and are inclined to think that there can be too much insistence on points of exact order, until things pass from what is Scriptural to what is merely traditional. We should agree of course that we must refuse both those guilty of immoral behaviour and those holding fundamentally false doctrine, and their wilful associates; but apart from that we should be more easy-going in our judgments.

There being this state of things, what can be done about it? We know what has been done in the past, and the way in which those past actions have aggravated our difficulties. We know too that some are inclined to do over again what has been done in the past. Suffer then this word of admonition.

The tendency of the Jewish mind is towards division. This comes out plainly in Galatians 2: 12. It was Peter who, under the influence of certain who came from James, "withdrew and separated himself," from the Gentiles, and not vice versa. Its tendency also is toward "judging another man's servant," Romans 14 shows this, as it also shows that the tendency of the Gentile mind is to "despise him that eateth not," because of his Jewish scruples, and to hold him at arm's length; or if receiving him, to receive him only "to doubtful disputations," that is, to argue with him, as though he must be made to drop his notions and think just as one does oneself. If these tendencies, on either side, are given free play, we come under condemnation, as not acting according to the administration which we have received through Paul.

Some to-day seem to say, "We are confident that the things we advocate are right, and we believe we should withdraw and separate ourselves from all that disregards them." That is of course exactly what has been done in the past, and it is tantamount to saying, "We feel we must have a separate group of those who are quite agreed on these points." In the past some who have committed themselves to that kind of thing have gone as far as to say that they alone really had the presence of Christ in their midst when assembled together; that is, they have formally taken the ground of "I am of Christ," the ground so scathingly denounced by the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 1. Others would not go quite as far as saying that, but they still advocate the idea of having a group which is purged of any holding ideas or following practices which they believe to be wrong. Only recently we heard of one, who withdrew from a certain meeting to throw in his lot with another body of Christians, giving as his reason for so doing, that he knew he had rather the legal type of mind, so he thought he would be happier with those who ran on those lines. He wished to be in a group of like-minded people. It was a case of "Birds of a feather flock together." The only question we ask is, Does the administration of the mystery through Paul demand, or even countenance, action such as this?

It certainly does not. Rather it decidedly negatives it. It is indeed troublesome when there are persons of different minds and opinions about, but the divine way of meeting the difficulty is not to form a party to oppose them, and so almost force them into being an opposite party. Such action is only repeating the error which prevailed at Corinth, because they were carnal and walked as men. It is indeed exactly what men do when cleavages appear in their clubs or political parties, but so it is not to be amongst the saints of God. There are great spiritual resources available for us in Christ and in the Spirit of God — resources of grace and brotherly kindness, of prayerful entreaty and the use of the Scriptures — of which the men of the world know nothing. We need to be thoroughly right ourselves in order to use these resources aright. Let us seek grace to use them, instead of flying to expedients which have no authority in the Word.

We have to remember that we are not under the law, but under grace. For this reason it is unsafe to attempt to use Old Testament laws as a guide to church action. It has been done too frequently in the past, especially when there was a complete lack of New Testament authority for the action proposed. This has gone so far in certain quarters that not many years ago an address was given on Numbers 15: 32-36; and the application made was that a certain brother had allowed to appear in print certain teachings which, while quite orthodox, contradicted what had been said by leaders. Consequently he had broken the sabbath of rest which had been prevailing in their party, and the call was issued that he be stoned to death; i.e., excommunicated. To be consistent the lecturer might have quoted Psalm 137: 9, and applied it to their worldly foes. He would probably have shrunk from doing that. Let us see that we do not invoke the spirit of the law, either towards the world or in the church.

There is much more that might be said as to the administrative side of the mystery. We have made no attempt to cover the whole ground, but have rather touched upon certain points that have a special bearing upon matters that at the present time confront us in rather an acute form, and which are always with us in the background, even if not prominently pressed to the front.

We do press upon our brethren the fact that when differences arise as to matters of reception and church order and service, the procedure of withdrawing and separating to form a fresh community or party, which is to be free of the thoughts or practices objected to, is not what the truth of Scripture as to the church demands. It is rather just that which it condemns.

We again say that we shall not maintain the truth of the church by doing in practice that which contradicts it.

We ask our brethren to carefully ponder these things.

The Approaching Advent of Christ

The Approaching Advent of Christ.

(A review of a book by the Rev. A. Reese, bearing this title).

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 30, 1938, page 13 etc.)

(1) Some general observations.

We have before us a very substantial volume of 328 pages, recently published. Its object is to demolish the belief of a very considerable number of Christians that there is a clear line of demarcation to be observed in Scripture between the coming of the Lord for His saints and His coming with them, that the removal of the saints, and of the Holy Ghost who indwells them, will withdraw the one power capable of restraining the development of the apostasy and the unveiling of the man of sin that men the great tribulation will supervene, having the special character of wrath poured out governmentally from heaven, and to be ended by the appearing of Christ with His saints in His power and glory. If this be a correct reading of the New Testament scriptures, it follows of course that though the church is to expect tribulation all through its earthly course it is not destined to pass through the great tribulation. In the book before us this belief is strenuously combatted from Scripture and denied. It is even derided as "fantastic innovations on the faith," "extravagant and impracticable delusions" (p. 272).

Our first observation is that we are not surprised that such a book has appeared. A century has now passed since expectations of the coming of the Lord specially began to stir the hearts of many Christians, and during that time many differences of thought as to various details connected with it have come to light.

And not only this; many extravagant and even fanatical ideas connected with the fixing of dates have been mooted, only to be disproved and demolished by the efflux of time. It is contemplated in 2 Peter 2: 2, that one effect of the bringing in of teaching and prophecy which is false is the discrediting of truth — "the way of truth shall be evil spoken of." The unbeliever may well turn round and taunt us all with having involved the subject of the Second Advent in a welter of confusion. We have to confess with sorrow that we have never read any book in our life in which that confusion was so paraded before the public eye as in this; and as we closed it we realized that this fresh book had made the whole subject rather worse confounded.

In the second place, we are struck with the overpowering place which human writings have in this book, and presumably therefore in the mind of the author. The writers that he disagrees with are very freely quoted, and scriptures are freely quoted to disprove what they say, yet they are hardly ever used without an appeal to an imposing array of authors with whom he agrees mainly, if not altogether. The ordinary Christian who is not a trained theologian may frequently find himself in the trying position of being mentally buried under a shower of quotations which falls upon him like leaves in autumn. Some idea of this feature may be gained when we say that the book ends with a list of "Authors and others quoted or referred to," and a number of references stand against many of the names. We have run our eye over this list and make the number of authors to be 364, and the number of references 881 — on an average, nearly three references to some human opinion on every page of text. There is also furnished a list of "Publications quoted or referred to," and of these we make the number to be 244. The lists are very imposing. Very few, if any, can have devoured such a mass of literature bearing upon this subject as the author of this book. Whether he has really digested all that he has devoured is of course another matter. At any rate it must be confessed that he stands like a giant, clad from head to foot in warlike array, and the present writer feels an insignificant stripling before him.

Thirdly, we observe that in the main the book is out to destroy, and we consider the author a very able and skilled controversialist. By far the most telling part of his book, in our judgment, is the way in which he displays, and sets off one against the other, the differences in matters of details that have existed between those whom he designates, "Darbyists." Many of those whom he designates thus had nothing to do with the late J. N. Darby, and would be strongly opposed to his teaching in many things. Yet they happen to agree with him on this point of prophetic interpretation, and so his name is called upon them. This is quite a useful device from a controversial point of view, for it helps to accentuate the differences in the mind of the reader, and to make it look as though these differences were inherent in the teaching which is attacked, instead of lying, as largely they did, in differences of thought as to other parts of the truth. It must be remembered also that the authors criticized cover the period of a century, during which time differences as to details easily develop.

There is a fourth observation which we have to make, viz., the author gives us in very meagre outline the exact scheme of prophetic interpretation which he favours. In this of course he again proves his controversial skill. Having quoted very copiously from the writings of those he denounces, accentuating their differences, he refrains from anything but the barest outline of his own position. He does make it quite clear that he recognizes that Scripture speaks of Christ coming for His saints as well as coming with His saints. He says, for instance, "The Coming for the saints and the Coming with the saints take place at the same crisis; the day of the resurrection and transfiguration of the holy dead, and of the renewal of Israel" (p. 133). He gives us very little that is positive beyond that, and so is relieved of the trouble of having to explain or defend the implications of his own system when under the searchlight of Scripture.

Yet, even in the brief statement just quoted things are said which raise inevitable questions. For instance, this "crisis," this "day" —  does he mean a day of 24 hours such as we are accustomed to? Judging from the way he argues as to the phrase, "the last day," in John 6, and such expressions as "the day of Christ," "the day of the Lord," we rather think he does. Yet we are not quite sure, for we did not notice a clear and unequivocal statement, on the point, though of course amongst the mass of quotations and footnotes there may have been something which we overlooked. If he does mean 24 hours, there are many awkward questions raised by such a scripture as Zechariah 12 - 14, with its repeated affirmations as to the happenings "in that day." Should he after all admit that the "day" is a period longer than 24 hours, a good many of his own reasonings would lose much of their force.

Here and there in the book we notice details of his own system of interpretation just creeping out. For instance: —

(1) In a footnote to page 239 he explains his view of the significance of the phrase, "coming . . . with all His saints" (1 Thess. 3: 13). This he says, "almost certainly refers to the Lord's arrival with the spirits of the holy dead." Obviously the phrase would present some difficulty to anyone believing that the Lord is going to come both for and with His saints at the same moment. He adds, "It is wrong to assert that previously raised and raptured saints are now coming out of heaven." Until we read that we had supposed that he contended for the raising of the dead saints, the changing of the living saints, the catching away of both to meet the Lord, and then all coming with Him — the whole process to be but a matter of minutes or even seconds. Now we find it a bit difficult to know just what he does mean. We should find it easier to fit in this bringing of the spirits of the holy dead with His coming for His saints. Anyhow, he is quite sure that our understanding of the passage is wrong, and almost certain that "all His saints" means such of His saints as may be dead. We presume he would give the same interpretation to verse 14 of chapter 4. But would he to such scriptures as Jude 14, and Revelation 19: 14?

(2) On pages 244-248, verses 6 and 7 of 2 Thessalonians 2 are discussed, and he gives us an idiomatic translation and a paraphrase; "simply to get all the light possible on a confessedly obscure passage, which ought never to serve as a pillar for a doctrine," as he tells us. He asks who this person may be that restrains, and brushes aside the answer that it is the Holy Spirit in the church. He asks, "If the Holy Spirit was in Paul's mind why did he need to hesitate mentioning the subject?" We should say that he did not "hesitate" at all, nor did he "need" to hesitate. The opening words of verse 6 show why he did not give a full explanation. "Now ye know what withholdeth." The Thessalonians knew already, so further explanation they did not need. If we do not know, we have simply to confess ourselves to have fallen behind these first century Christians. However, the best interpretation, according to our author, is that the impersonal hindering power of verse 6 is the Roman Empire, and the personal hinderer of verse 7 a succession of Roman Emperors. So this is what he believes. But having read the early part of Daniel 7, it would seem to our simple minds that while this belief may not exactly involve Satan casting out Satan, it does involve Satan hindering Satan. And what Roman Emperor may be hindering to-day, is indeed beyond us!

(3) On page 294, he says, "there are many passages that presuppose the existence of a Jewish Christian Church in Palestine, at a past or future epoch of its history: a Church necessarily under the law of the land, yet rejoicing only in Christ as the Saviour and Shepherd of Israel." Again on page 297, "we see the Israelitish Church in Judaea in Matt. 24: 16, and Rev. 12." Now he will have nothing of a godly remnant of Israel being found on earth and bearing. witness in the last days. He has many a tilt at such a thought: on page 111, for instance, he speaks of "the semi-Christian, semi-converted Jewish Remnant of uncertain standing in the Last Days." And on the same page again, "the whole Remnant hypothesis is a veritable nose of wax to be turned and twisted as the difficulties dictate." This "Remnant" excites his special ire and ridicule, and he promises us ere long a whole book from the press, to refute the thought.

Imagine then our surprise when we reached pages 244 and 297. After all the scorn he has poured upon this poor "nose of wax" it really seems that he has caught hold of it himself and is twisting it in a new direction! The people are there right enough, yet if we speak of them as the Jewish Remnant we are propagating a fable: we are to call them "Jewish Christian Church," or "Israelitish Church." Not having read all the 364 authors that are quoted in this book we had not heard before of these people: nor have we seen any hint of such a "church" in the Scriptures, though we have read them for many years. On the other hand we have read Micah 5: 1 - 8, which speaks of "the remnant of Jacob" in the days when the true "Ruler in Israel" feeds in the name of the Lord and destroys the Assyrian.

(4) We are given an idea — somewhat vague — of how he would interpret Matthew 25: 31 - 46. On page 296 he calls it a "Parable," classing it with the parable of the Samaritan recorded in Luke 10. The attitude of "Darbyists" he claims is to revel in "the complicated, the uncommon and the marvellous." Hence. "the ordinary interpretation of the Good Samaritan, with its lesson of neighbourly concern and loving service for the wreckage of society, was too prosaic and humdrum; the presence of a Levite and a Priest passing coldly by on the other side of the road, was too great a temptation for Evangelicals to miss; they must make the Parable say that Sacerdotalism cannot save, and that the good Samaritan typifies the Saviour, who can. Sound truths these — but not taught and not implied in this parable. So also with the Parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matt. 24: 31  - 46; for one who comes to it to drink deeper of the Saviour's spirit of philanthropy toward the hungry, the sick, the ill-clad, and the imprisoned, a thousand come to it as a problem in dispensationalism, and we all want to fit it into our scheme of the End, and especially, to 'dish' the foes of Chiliasm."

As to his remarks on the parable of Luke 10, we merely say, by the way, that if he is correct we evidently ought to see in the parables of Luke 15, only amiable lessons to shepherds as to kindly care of sheep, to women as to carefulness over money and the removal of dust from homes, and to fathers as to the treatment of dissolute sons. What interests us more at the present moment is that he alleges the passage in Matthew 25 to be a parable to be treated in similar fashion. We presume our author is the one in a thousand who comes to it to drink in the philanthropy it teaches, and so it presents no problem, dispensational or prophetic, to him. For ourselves we are bold enough to assert that it is no parable at all, and that the sheep and goats are introduced in verses 32 and 33 just by way of illustration. When the Son of Man is come in His glory and the nations are gathered before Him for judgment He will act like a shepherd dividing sheep from goats. There are parables — those of the fig tree, the good-man of the house, the virgins, the lord and his servants — but verse 31 of chapter 25 picks up the thread of the prophecy from verse 31 of chapter 24.

The passage which he dismisses in this way is an important part of the Divine scheme of the end, and no thought of "the foes of Chiliasm" —  whoever they may be — has ever crossed our mind in reading it. He may say, "we all want, etc...." but we beg to dissent. We do not.

At any rate, the four cases cited give us some glimpse of his own treatment of some of the details involved in the discussion, and we do not find them above criticism by any means, but rather very feeble and mistaken.

Our fifth observation concerns the spirit that breathes through the book. As we do not agree with the main contentions of the writer, we found it a trying book to read owing to its rather contemptuous tone. In more places than one he complains of things written in a contemptuous spirit by some of those whom he opposes, notably W. Kelly and Sir R. Anderson. As to that we agree with him. We noticed it ourselves long ago when reading certain of their books, and deplored it. It has more than once detracted from one's enjoyment of their works. But the extraordinary thing is that having objected to it in their books, our author so freely indulges in the same thing himself. We append a few specimens:

"It is all consistent and ludicrous, because they began by accepting the absurdity that a cantankerous O.T. company in the straitjacket of the Imprecatory Psalms etc...." (p. 116).

". . theories that are blighting Bible study and Christian fellowship all over the world: theories and traditions that have cursed the movement from the beginning" (p. 116).

". . the subtleties, the distortions, and the errors that others wrote on their broad phylacteries" (p. 116).

"To anyone not infatuated with special theories the meaning . . . is as plain as a pikestaff" (p. 142).

"To refute such supreme rubbish requires either a volume or a page; we can only give it a page. ." (p. 207).

". . a prey to extravagant and impracticable delusions — borrowed from a pagan writer, Lucian of Samosata" (p. 271).

"Gentile conceits of the nineteenth century .... the Remnant fable, and the Secret-Rapture fable. . " (pp. 275, 276).

". . aggressive sophistry, and fantastic exegesis. ." (p. 287).

"But a blind man can see that the exact contrary is the truth. . ." (p. 44).

This last remark is in reference to a quotation he has just made from p. 456 of Kelly's Revelation (referring to Daniel 12. 2) to the effect that, "This resurrection, literal or figurative, is before the millennium, and after it is a time of greater trouble than Israel ever knew." So Kelly is to be convicted of being blinder than a blind man! Knowing that usually he was pretty quick sighted we turned up this reference and read the paragraph. Our author assumes that the "it" in this sentence refers to the resurrection; we judge that it refers to the millennium  -  "before the millennium, and after it." — for after comes the final rebellion and the great white throne. We strongly suspect that the blindness is not Kelly's. When authors look at things through the spectacles of contempt their own eyesight is often impaired.

Our last preliminary observation is that we agree with the author that very important principles of interpretation are involved in this discussion. This large and elaborate book is almost entirely occupied with controversy as to whether there is to be an interval between the Lord's coming for and with His saints, or not, and whether as a consequence the church is, or is not, to go through the great tribulation. It might seem to some a tremendous discussion over a comparatively small point. But it is not. Towards the end of the book, referring to the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6, he says, ". . as we survey the landscape of Darbyist interpretation, and especially of the judaising of much of our Lord's teaching in the interests of a theory, we say confidently to our readers: this is the decisive point!" (p. 275). We do not accept the innuendo that Darby first formed a theory as to the coming of the Lord and then shaped his teachings as to the Gospels in such a way as to support it; but we fully agree that the whole question of progressive revelation —  what we may call the progress of doctrine, from Old Testament to Gospels, from Gospels to Acts, from Acts to the Epistles and the Revelation — is concerned in it, and we believe that only as we discern this progression shall we rightly understand the place the Church occupies in God's plan, and so understand what is revealed as to the coming of the Lord, or even such a question as the right use of the Lord's prayer.

For this reason we purpose, if the Lord permit, reverting to the subject of this book, and in our next paper dealing with this important principle of interpretation, prophetic and otherwise.

2ND PAPER: The principles of interpretation which are at stake.

We hold it to be a fact of the first importance that God's dealings with men have varied from time to time, and that therefore we are to recognize clearly marked dispensations. Some epoch-making event has ushered in each fresh dispensation, such as the flood, the giving of the law at Sinai, the advent of Christ, the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Of these events the advent of Christ is by far the greatest, standing in a class by itself. Out of it sprang the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, as its immediate result and crown. In its ultimate result it will prove to be the basis of the second Advent and of the establishment of the glory.

It is also of great importance that we should clearly distinguish in our minds between the purpose of God and the ways of God; that is to say, between the great objectives which God ever had in view, even from the days of eternity, and the various movements that He makes through the ages calculated to thoroughly expose and meet the breakdown and sin of man, to utterly defeat the machinations of the devil, and ultimately to carry out what He purposes, in spite of all opposition. The dispensations to which we have referred are a part of His ways, and as we consider them we see that they are marked by orderly development and progress, not only in His dealings but also in the unfolding of His purpose. As they moved forward He made Himself known in a fuller way, and His purposes became more plain. The revelation of God reached its climax when Christ appeared, and the unfolding of the purpose of God reached its climax in the coming of the Holy Ghost and His ministry through the Apostles.

It will be well to develop these distinctions a little from the Scriptures themselves, and, in the first place, as to the revelation of God's Name.

To Moses God said, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by My name JEHOVAH was I not known to them" (Ex. 6: 3). In the earlier, patriarchal dispensation the name Jehovah was known, for we find Abraham and others using it, but they did not know Him by that name; that is, the real significance of it was not revealed to them. The significance of it did come to light when God put His hand to the bringing of Israel out of Egypt. Later in Israel's history we find the prophets speaking of God's relationship with His people under the figure of a father (Isa. 63: 16, 64: 8; Jer. 3: 19; etc.), yet there was a big step forward when Jesus began to speak to His disciples of "your Father which is in heaven," as we find in Matthew 5. 16, and onwards. There was again a big step forward when, risen from the dead, Jesus said to His disciples, " My Father, and your Father" (John 20: 17); and this thought is expanded in the Apostolic Writings, notably in such passages as Ephesians 1: 3, and 1 Peter 1: 3.

Then again there is a very definite development in the unfolding of God's purposes and ways, leading to an equally definite progress of doctrine, and this in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as in the transition from the Old to the New.

The giving of the law was a big step onwards in God's ways. It brought things to an issue in regard to human sin, showing it up as transgression, and shutting men up "unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed" (Gal. 3: 19 - 23). Then God made known His righteous demands, displayed His power in mighty acts, and gave to Moses some idea of what He was about. We read, "He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel" (Ps. 103: 7). The mass of the people saw what He did, but Moses was granted an insight into what He was about, that the people did not possess. Yet it does not say that Moses understood God's purpose — such as is unfolded in Ephesians 1: 9 - 14; that could not be made known in his day.

When Israel nationally had sadly failed God raised up many prophets, and made known by them things that were only hinted at in the time of Moses. The prophets testified against the nations, and against Israel in particular, and then they pointed forward to the advent of One in whom the name of the Lord should be magnified and glory established in the earth. This was another step forward.

We open the New Testament and find ourselves in Matthew's Gospel, which is the one in which we find the Lord linking His teaching with the Law and Prophets, and yet bringing in an entirely new note. We refer specially, of course, to chapters 5 - 7, in which He shows that God intends the law to aim not merely at the prohibited act but also at the inward disposition which prompts the act. This makes the law more potent than ever in bringing death home into the sensitive conscience (see Rom. 7: 9); but at the same time we find a new knowledge of God in His fatherly kindness and care from heaven, and thus the spirit of grace begins to appear.

But when we come to the farewell words of the Lord, as recorded in John 13 - 17, we find another big advance. In His discourse in the Upper Chamber, the Lord was speaking in view of all that He was to accomplish by death and resurrection within the next three days. We venture to say that the progress in the teaching between the "Sermon in the Upper Chamber" and the "Sermon on the Mount" is as pronounced as that between the "Sermon on the Mount" and the teaching given through Moses and the Prophets — if not more so. In the Mountain He was educating His disciples in view of their coming mission; not to the Gentiles, not even to the Samaritans, but to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 10: 5, 6). In the Upper Chamber He was instructing them in view of His approaching absence, when on the ground of His death and resurrection, they would find themselves in a new place with a new mission, which had "all nations" as its scope.

Moreover in that discourse in the Upper Chamber He spoke of the Holy Spirit who was soon to come, and in that connection He promised further development and progress in the teaching. His words were these, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth" (15: 12, 13). These are very important words. They show that truth is revealed as God's people are in a position and state to take it in; and that before redemption was accomplished and the Spirit given the disciples were not able to receive the truth which the Lord subsequently ministered through the Apostles by the Spirit. They also show that finality as to the revelation of truth is reached when the Spirit comes, since He guides into ALL truth. With this agrees the word of the Apostle Paul as to it being given to him "to fulfil [or, complete] the Word of God" (Col. 1: 25). He alludes not to the completing of the canon of Scripture — apparently John did that — but to the completing of the subjects of revelation, the whole circle of revealed truth.

Now if this progress of doctrine be borne in mind we shall be saved from the error of expecting to find the revelation of truth before its time. We shall find that what is revealed, and the way in which it is revealed, will exactly suit the people to whom it is revealed. We shall be delighted of course to find that when any given truth is revealed, there is nothing that contradicts it in what has previously been revealed. The earlier revelation will state the fact in broad outline with not much in the way of detail. The later revelation will fill in details and show us developments which nobody had expected, yet when we turn back to the earlier word we find there is nothing against them, and sometimes we can discern how room has been left for them. If this feature be really grasped we also shall be saved from the attempt to make the later revelation only say what has already been said in the earlier, or from the attempt to make the earlier instructions the measure and standard for those who belong to a later development or dispensation.

These are but brief remarks on a very important principle of interpretation, yet though brief they bear quite definitely on the way in which we shall approach this book on "The Approaching Advent of Christ." Its main, one might say its only, object is to prove that there is no interval of time between the coming of Christ for and with His saints, that they are for all practical purposes the same event, synchronizing with His glorious appearing to destroy His foes. The author asserts, and proves to his own satisfaction, that the Old Testament teaches that the resurrection of saints takes place at the day of the Lord, by which he means (we gather) the exact and literal day of Christ's appearing. He will allow of no further light on this point which might modify in some particulars what he thinks he finds in the Old Testament. He recognizes that there is such a thing as a fuller unfolding of an earlier revelation, but is so sure that the resurrection is located by the Old Testament at the appearing, that he judges the whole question in the light of that. The whole structure of his book is this; that he thinks he has established from certain passages in Isaiah and Daniel that the resurrection takes place on the exact day of Christ's glorious appearing, and this Old Testament revelation appears to him to be so clear that he must bring further New Testament revelations into line with it.

An example of what we mean is found on page 68 of his book. Discussing the passage in 1 Thessalonians 4, he claims that "Darbyists themselves furnish us with reasons that smash their central position." This is because, "They all admit, in the first place, that this resurrection in 1 Thess. 4 includes the resurrection of all the righteous dead since Abel." His comment is, "Very well then, this means that 1 Thess. 4 synchronizes with the resurrection in Isaiah 25: 8; 26: 19; Dan. 12: 1 - 3; 12 - 13; Matt. 13: 43; . . . And we have already proved that these passages clearly locate the resurrection of the saints in Israel at the commencement of the Messianic Kingdom, when Antichrist is destroyed, and Israel is converted by the appearing of Jehovah." He considers the Old Testament so clear on this subject that he can start there, and argue from what he thinks he finds. Our next paper D.V., will deal with these Old Testament passages. For the moment we content ourselves with saying that had he started with the clear light of the New Testament Epistles, especially with 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and viewed the earliest predictions in the light of the latest, he might have seen things differently.

We have now to ask a question which bears very directly upon the matters before us. It is this: — Do we find in the Old Testament any clear light upon the distinction between the coming of Christ to suffer in humiliation and His coming to reign in His glory? The present discussion turns upon the question, Will the Second Advent embrace two stages, with an interval between, or will it not? Discussions between God-fearing Israelites in the days of Malachi, when they had read the fourth chapter of his prophecy, might well have raged round the question, Will there be two Advents of the Messiah, with an interval between them?

There were a number of predictions concerning the humiliation, the sorrows, the death of the Messiah, though outnumbered by those speaking of His glory, His power, His discriminating judgment. What was the solution? We do not know that Jews debated the possibility of there being two Advents, though we have been given to understand that some held the theory of two Messiahs — a sorrowing One, and a triumphant One. But obviously on this point the Old Testament was indeterminate. Of course God could have made the point quite clear, if it had suited His ways to do so. He could have caused Malachi to write in his last chapter about "the tender mercy of our God; whereby the Day-spring from on high" should visit them rather than about the burning up of the wicked by the rising of "the Sun of righteousness," and to speak plainly about John the Baptist instead of giving a prediction about Elijah the prophet, which as subsequent events proved had a certain reference to him. But no, Malachi's closing note was a prediction as to the far-off coming to reign and not the near-approaching coming to suffer.

The astronomers tell us that not a few stars which are obviously one when viewed by the naked eye, are nevertheless obviously two when seen through a powerful telescope This may serve as an illustration of our point. Take the early part of Isaiah 61 for instance — the passage that the Lord began to read in the synagogue at Nazareth, as recorded in Luke 4. The saint of Old Testament times read it with the "naked eye," and saw one coming, which was to bring the good tidings and the liberty of the acceptable year of the Lord, and also the vengeance that would rid the land of its ashes and mourning. The "telescopic view" began to be apparent when our Lord stopped his reading in the middle of verse 2. There are two comings in that verse, and not one only. The case of Isaiah 61: 2 should warn us to be very careful how we handle the predictions of the Old Testament.

There is one other point in the book to which we make reference since it bears upon the particular theme of this short paper. Towards the end (pp. 273 - 276) the question comes up of the use by Christians of "the Lord's prayer." By the time these pages are reached Mr. Reese has warmed up to the controversy, and goes to the length of saying that Paul says that men, who teach such things as the "Darbyists" do, are deceivers. They are such as the Lord warned His disciples against in Matthew 24. They bring in "extravagant and impracticable delusions," and "in the interest of fantastic innovations on the faith, large portions of our Lord's teaching are pushed aside as inapplicable to, and even unsuitable for, Christians." Then he quotes two extracts from writers who contend that the prayer was not given to "Christians," and that those who use it "as a form" cannot know what it is "to ask the Father in the name of Christ," and having done so his comment is, "the above extracts illustrate the kind of browbeating and judaizing exegesis that is used to impose freak theories on the faithful."

Then he goes further and takes care that we shall realize how vitally the whole prophetic position that he contends for is bound up with the rightness or wrongness of one's understanding of dispensational matters. He says, "As we survey . . . Darbyist interpretation, and especially of the judaizing of much of our Lord's teaching in the interest of a theory, we say confidently to our readers: 'this is the decisive point'! " He adds, "Let the unwary Christian be once persuaded that the Lord's prayer is merely 'Jewish,' and for Jews; let him be off his guard here; let him only dally here with the word 'dispensational,' then the Four Gospels will go the same way as the Lord's prayer. And he will descend a slippery slope with no stop till he reaches an edifice called 'Dispensational House,' pleasant to look upon, but inside a house of bondage."

We are really thankful that Mr. Reese has spoken out so emphatically upon this point, for it greatly helps to show what is really at stake in this discussion about what may at first appear to be a mere detail of prophetic truth. He assures us in a footnote that he has "no quarrel with sane dispensational truth;" such as, of course, he himself would advocate. It is this "theory" that there is a definite difference to be observed between the position and state of the disciples before and after the death and resurrection of Christ, and the consequent coming of the Spirit, that rouses his ire, and which he regards as not "sane." We believe without a shadow of doubt that this difference exists, and we must accept with equanimity the epithet "insane" from his lips or pen, if he wishes to bestow it upon us. But we would enter our protest against the way in which he imputes wrong motives to those he attacks. Not for the first time in this volume does he assume that his opponents formed their "theory," and then set to work to "judaize much of our Lord's teaching," and formulate other ideas, in order to support their precious theory. We have no hesitation in affirming that in fact things worked the other way round. It was as dispensational distinctions became clear to them, and the respective callings of Israel and of the Church were discerned, that the views of prophecy were formed, which our author so scathingly attacks.

However, there his challenge stands, and we cheerfully accept it. In spite of all the wrath and sarcasm it will bring upon our heads we shall continue to affirm that the disciples as they followed the Lord during His sojourn on earth were not "Christians," in the proper significance of the word. They were not the Church, though they were an important part of the nucleus of which the Church was formed at the Day of Pentecost. All through the centuries there had been found "an afflicted and poor people" who "trust in the name of the Lord," called, "the remnant of Israel" (Zeph. 3: 12, 13). The disciples were distinguished representatives of that remnant, who recognized the Messiah and responded to His call when He came. He knew what He was going to make of them after He had accomplished redemption: they did not. Without a doubt He educated them during His ministry for the place they were presently to occupy, though it seems that they never understood His words in any full or proper sense. This failure to understand is specially marked in John's Gospel. The words, "These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they. . ." (John 12: 16), were written in regard to acts, but they apply equally to the teachings. When Jesus was glorified then the Spirit was given; and then the Church began its existence, and then they possessed the capacity to understand.

Matthew's Gospel specially links on the ministry of the Lord with what went before, so it is the first of the Gospels. John's links His ministry with what was to follow, so it is the last of the four. Matthew's indicates the dispensational changes that were beginning to take place, and when we have passed the middle of it we find the Lord announcing His purpose to build His Church in terms that show it to be a yet future thing.

This dispensational change, brought actually to pass at the Day of Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2, we most definitely assert, and Mr. Reese as definitely denies it. We think he has failed to discern a very important feature which must affect injuriously his whole conception of truth concerning the hour in which we live. He thinks we have conjured up an imaginary distinction, and he showers a lot of rather hard adjectives on all our heads — "aggressive sophistry," "Gentile conceits," "wild notion," "the Remnant fable, and the Secret-Rapture fable," "the distortion of history," "the totally unchristian sitting-in-judgment on the whole Christendom," "a Christian who plays fast and loose with the Lord's teaching, accepting it for himself in homeopathic doses, and calling the rest 'Jewish,' in order to bolster up a set of Remnant theories that are a travesty of Scripture teaching," are all found in one of his paragraphs. He may have been provoked to this kind of thing by some remarks in the pages of two or three of those whom he opposes, but we have no thought or even desire to compete with him in this type of argument. He shall have a monopoly of it, as far as we are concerned. We content ourselves in saying that we judge that he fails to see distinctions that are really there.

Each of our readers must judge for himself whether Acts 2 records a great dispensational landmark, or whether it does not. A great deal that is decisive in this controversy hangs on the answer that is given to this.

The last remark we make in this paper is that some of the remarks quoted above are a travesty of what we believe. The author groups together such a variety of teachers under the heading of "Darbyists," that it is quite possible that amongst them someone can be found to come under his strictures. For ourselves we thankfully accept our Lord's teachings in the Gospels in large allopathic doses, though we note, in view of the dispensational change at Pentecost, where the full Christianity of the Spirit's day would introduce modifications. The Lord's prayer will serve very well to illustrate what we mean. There appear to be seven petitions in Matthew 6: 9 - 13, and though we do not use it as a form, each petition of the seven we can and do use, though with slight modifications. For instance, the disciples were penniless men following a penniless Master, so their request about the daily bread had in it a note that is absent in our case. There are requests that very frequently spring from our lips that are totally absent in this prayer. We should address God as our God and Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ, because those words of His, recorded in John 20: 17, were spoken some time after He gave them the prayer. Again we should proffer our requests in His name, because of what He also said at a later date, as recorded in John 16: 23, 24. All this may be anathema -to Mr. Reese, but we believe it to be simply a proper understanding of the progress of doctrine in the New Testament.

In a similar way we read the Sermon on the Mount. We take it home to ourselves and find it very searching for our consciences. But, at the same time, we do not shut our eyes to the fact that in it the Lord was instructing His disciples in the principles of His kingdom, just as in chapters 8 and 9 He displayed before their eyes the power of His kingdom. There is in it one remark which gives an intimation that they were to inherit things in heaven (6: 20); but that is all. The unfolding of the results of the work of the Cross, and of the heavenly calling is not yet.

And in just the same way we read the prophetic discourse later in the Gospel. The Lord was addressing His disciples in their then state and position. They were not yet baptized by the one Spirit into the one body and hence the Lord did not address them as being what, in point of fact at that moment, they were not. Presently they did become that, and then things were made known to them that concerned the position into which they had been brought.

Our readers must judge as to these things. Mr. Reese may denounce what we have just said in strong language. We believe it to be important truth, and a key that unlocks a right understanding of both the purposes and ways of God.

3rd Paper: Resurrection in the Old Testament.

The second chapter of this book is entitled, "The resurrection of the saints in the Old Testament." It deals particularly with four passages which in the opinion of Mr. Reese definitely locate the resurrection at the exact moment of the appearing of the Lord; and as it is admitted on all hands that the "Rapture" takes place at the time of the resurrection of life, he considers that having established this point his opponents are defeated, his case is won. From the point of view of his argument it is the most important chapter in his book, for he closes it with the remark, "These conclusions are fatal to the new theories of the Second Advent;" and in later chapters, as we pointed out in our last paper, he argues from what he believes he has established in his second chapter. Just as a mathematician, such as old Euclid, states a proposition, proves it, and then uses it in subsequent propositions, either to advance his reasoning or to exclude some contrary line of reasoning, so apparently Mr. Reese uses this second chapter of his. We must therefore examine it.

The first passage is Isaiah 26: 19, which he quotes in the Revised Version, as being clearer than the Authorized. Darby's New Translation is very close to the Revised in this verse. This verse contains, he claims, "the first clear statement of a resurrection." His two points are (1) this is the resurrection of saints, as unfolded for instance in 1 Corinthians 15; (2) "this resurrection is to take place at the Day of the Lord, when Jehovah shall come, and Israel shall be reconciled to Him .... Here we have the Coming of the Lord, the conversion of Israel, the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom, and the sidereal signs in heaven that immediately precede them. Living Israel is restored, and the sleeping saints are brought to life, at the beginning of the Messianic Reign, not some years or decades before, as the new theories require." He is referring of course to the whole of chapters 24 - 26.

Now in these three chapters we have a glowing account of how Jehovah will intervene at the end of this age for the deliverance of the godly in Israel, and the judgment of all His foes and theirs. Jehovah will reign in glory before His ancients in Jerusalem, and that, we know in the added light of the New Testament, will be the Messianic reign of Christ, though no allusion to the Messiah appears in the passage. All, however, is stated in language of a poetic and figurative sort, and there is no attempt to place different details in their exact chronological order: for instance, Jehovah reigns in the last verse of chapter 24, the great feast for the peoples is in chapter 25, and after that comes the mention of resurrection, and not until verse 20 of ch. 26 is there mention of the "indignation" which describes, we believe, the great tribulation. There is nothing chronological in all this. Yet Mr. Reese believes he can see such an exact chronology as precludes the thought of there being a few years or decades between the resurrection and the Lord's appearing. The order of these predicted events may be pretty clear if we are permitted to read into them the added light of the New Testament; but this is interpreting the Old in the light of the New: a thoroughly sound procedure, but not what Mr. Reese does here.

We join issue entirely, then, with our Author on this point, and assert that there is nothing in the passage that fixes the accomplishment of this 19th verse at the exact day of Christ's appearing. We fully agree that "This resurrection is to take place at the Day of the Lord, when Jehovah shall come," inasmuch as "the Day of Jehovah" in the Old Testament signifies the coming period when He will assert His rights in judgment and also His supremacy in the earth, and not merely the exact day, or even hour, of His public manifestation, as the arguments of this book would demand. We ask our readers to specially note this point, and judge as to it, for we shall have exactly the same remark to make as to all the other Old Testament passages that he quotes.

But now we have to assert, in answer to his first point, that when we read, "Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead" R.V.), the words are used in a figurative sense exactly as similar expressions are used in Ezekiel 37: 1 - 14. Mr. Reese states that the explanation which "Darbyists" give of this passage is "a flat denial that a bodily resurrection is referred to"; he quotes Kelly as saying, "It is no question of bodily health, but of national revival." This he denounces pretty vigorously, calling it "spiritualizing." He argues, if we may spiritualize this passage from the Old Testament, then, "it is clearly the hollowest inconsistency to cavil at those whose explain away the resurrection in the New." He claims that in this verse, "Phrases are used, one after another, that preclude all possibility of spiritualizing." He asserts that, "Throughout the whole Bible we meet with no passage that gives, in the same compass, so unequivocal a testimony to the doctrine of a bodily resurrection." This assertion we simply do not believe. John 5: 28, 29 contradicts it. Our Lord's words recorded there are far clearer, more decisive and explicit; and hardly more in number.

Now it so happens that there is no dispute as to the general significance of the passage in Ezekiel 37. It is admitted that it predicts the resuscitation of Israel from their "graves" among the nations. Mr. Reese says, "It is fitting to admit that here we have the idea of resurrection used in a symbolical way." But he proceeds to say, "Seizing hold of this case of a figurative resurrection in Ezekiel 37, Kelly and others seek to justify their spiritualizing the resurrection in Isaiah 26: 19, and Daniel 12: 2, 3 . . . Now I have already shown that the principle of spiritualizing, Daniel 12: 2, 3, originated with that mad Porphyry; ...." (p. 50). It appears that Ezekiel is interpreted as being figurative and symbolic by almost all commentators, both Jewish and Christian, and Mr. Reese does not attempt to controvert their position. He attempts to show that in Isaiah 26 the language used, and the context, is such as demands a literal understanding of the words. The careful reader of his book will also notice that whilst he uses the words figurative and symbolic to describe the interpretation of the passage where we all agree, when it is a case of passages as to which we do not agree, his opponents are spiritualizing, like the mad Porphyry!

Mr. Reese gives certain reasons which show, he thinks, that Ezekiel 37 is to be understood in a figurative sense; whereas he claims that Isaiah 26: 19 must be literal. He takes four statements of that verse and says, "If terms such as these do not signify a literal resurrection from the dead, what terms can?" We might request him to read verse 13 of Ezekiel 37, and then ask him precisely the same question. The fact is that both passages use the language of resurrection, and only the context, and the whole drift of prophetic testimony in the Old Testament, will enable us to discern what is the significance of the words.

Let Isaiah 26 be carefully read. It opens with a song of salvation and perfect peace for those who trust in Jehovah, the Rock of Ages; and it proceeds to speak of the judgments which must be executed in the earth before the salvation and peace of the millennial era shall be enjoyed by the godly. Verses 12 - 15 are the acknowledgment that all has been wrought by the hand of God, whether in destroying those — whether men or nations — that held dominion over Israel as lords, during these many centuries, or in blessing and multiplying Israel itself. Verse 16 speaks of how Israel turns to God in her distress. Verses 17 and 18 give us the voice of the godly in Israel acknowledging their complete impotence and ineffectiveness; they have accomplished nothing. Verse 19 is the Divine answer, guaranteeing that all shall be accomplished by the resurrection power of God. The dead shall live. "My dead bodies," that is, those whom God can really claim as His in a spiritual, and not merely natural, sense are to arise. Those who are dwelling in the dust of the nations, buried among them, are to rise and sing, according to verse 1 of the chapter. It will be the time of "dew," that is, the beginning of a new day for them. The earth will "cast forth" the dead, indicating the energy with which the Gentile world will help to restore the godly in that day. The whole passage gives us in the figurative language of Old Testament prophecy that truth that is indicated in Romans 11: 11 - 15, particularly in this, that the receiving again of Israel into favour is going to be "life from the dead." A work will be accomplished in resurrection power when scattered Israel is raised up and restored, though they are not literally raised from the dead, and of this work Isaiah 26: 19 speaks.

We notice that when on page 36 our Author summarizes the verse under four statements he omits the fifth thing, viz., "thy dew is as the dew of herbs." But then he had just stated, "Phrases are used, one after another, that preclude all possibility of spiritualizing," and to have put that fifth thing in would have sadly spoiled his sweeping statement! It is a statement that can only be understood in a figurative sense, as also is the case with the statements of verses 17 and 18, and also verse 20. The drift of the passage seems to us most evidently to be that, when God intervenes in His judgment, Israel's enemies will perish and disappear for ever, and they will be recovered from "all the ends of the earth," and at last made to live in a real sense.

Regarding this passage our answer, then, is that in spite of the vigour of his language we do not think Mr. Reese has made out his case for an interpretation entirely differing from that which is acknowledged in the case of Ezekiel 37; and secondly, that if he had made out his case as to this, there is nothing in the passage that authorizes him to locate the predicted happening at the exact moment of Christ's appearing.

One other argument as to this verse we might notice. It occurs in his paragraph at the bottom of page 37 and top of 38, and is to the effect that the resurrection contemplated cannot be figurative, signifying "the national revival of Israel," because that means the people in the land and in league with the coming Prince according to Daniel 9: 24, whereas the resurrection of the verse is after the tribulation and consequent upon the coming of Jehovah. We do not accept his confident location of the resurrection of this verse at that exact moment, but also we do not believe that any regathering into the land on the part of the Jew, out of which springs their league with the coming Prince, is any work of God at all, though permitted by Him. Here we rather think that Mr. Reese has misunderstood those whom he opposes. If Ezekiel 36: 24 - 27 be read, it will be seen that when God regathers His people it will be in connection with an inward and spiritual work, which in New Testament language is a "new birth." The preliminary gathering of the Jews into Palestine, which results in apostasy, Antichrist, and the great tribulation, is not what we have in mind at all, but rather that ultimate regathering which is distinctly a work of God and involves His Spirit operating in their hearts, such as is predicted in Ezekiel 11: 17 - 21; 36: 24 - 28; 37: 12 - 14; and many other passages. As far as we are concerned therefore his argument here is of no force, and we doubt if it is to many of those whom he classes together as "Darbyists." A similar remark might be made as to other arguments which he brings forward.

The second scripture adduced is one in the same prophecy, verses 7 and 8 of chapter 25. His argument is the same — Here is the resurrection of the saints, located at the exact moment of the appearing of Jehovah, that is Christ. We again affirm that no such exact location is possible from the terms of this prophecy, and at the same time are glad to discover the resurrection in the words, "He will swallow up death in victory," in the light of 1 Corinthians 15: 54. The Apostle's use of this quotation is worthy of our close attention, being very instructive. The Revised Version, which Mr. Reese quotes, has "for ever," instead of "in victory," and Darby's version has those words in the margin. If they are accepted it only adds point to what we have to say.

The words as they stand in verse 8 are not very explicit. We need the added light of the New Testament to be sure what they exactly signify, and when we do get that light the words are not quoted as though the resurrection of 1 Corinthians 15 exhaustively fulfilled them. For a full explanation of this remark we must refer our readers to a footnote to Matthew 2: 23, which occurs in Darby's New Translation (large edition with full notes). The gist of that note is that three different words are used in connection with quotations from the Old Testament, each with its own distinct significance — "in order that" it might be fulfilled — "so that" it might be fulfilled — "then" was fulfilled. The first signifies, the object of the prophecy: the second, not simply its object, but an event within its scope and intention: the third, merely a case in point, where what happened was an illustration of what was said in the prophecy. This footnote is very illuminating in regard to many passages. Now the word used in 1 Corinthians 15: 54 is the third. The Holy Spirit shows us through the Apostle Paul that the resurrection of the saints is a case in point, illustrating what is meant by "He will swallow up death for ever." It illustrates but does not exhaust, for death will not disappear for ever until the eternal state is reached.

"In victory" is the New Testament paraphrase of the Old Testament "for ever." So the resurrection is clearly an event which illustrates what the prophecy means, as being a case in point. In the light of this we need have no wonder that no exact chronological order is given in Isaiah 25. The swallowing up of death for ever indicates Divine action over a wide range of time which cannot be located in one point of time, as Mr. Reese would have us believe.

The third scripture adduced by our Author is Daniel 12: 2. As to it he argues in just the same way, and this time it does seem pretty evident that this "awaking" of the "sleepers" in the "dust of the earth" does occur at the time that Daniel's people are delivered, so that it tells in his favour if a literal resurrection be meant. But is it meant?

We have no hesitation in saying that here again we have just the same figurative language as is used in the other prophecies. The words sleep and awake are figurative, and may represent death and resurrection, and on the other hand they may not. The dust of the earth must be literal to suit Mr. Reese, but it is not literal in such a passage as Isaiah 51: 21 - 52: 6. This particular scripture should be carefully considered at this point as it gives us very similar thoughts to Daniel 12, couched in very similar figures. Jerusalem and Zion — representing the true Israel of God's election — is to awake and shake herself from the dust. She had laid her body "as the ground and as the street," in days when she sojourned in Egypt, and was oppressed by Assyria. Daniel sees them awaking from the dust of other oppressing nations that have risen since the days of Egypt and Assyria, but awaking to be brought under God's discriminating judgment, as a result of which some go into the everlasting life of the millennial age and some go down to condemnation, just as we find in the parable of the sheep and goats, in Matthew 25.

Mr. Reese admits, "That the idea of resurrection may be used in a figurative sense is not at all unreasonable," yet he affirms that such terms as are used here must have a literal meaning. His main contention against a figurative sense seems to be that the whole teaching of Scripture is that Israel is to be gathered to Palestine before the time of trouble starts, and that as Daniel 12: 1 - 3, if taken figuratively would indicate a gathering after the time of trouble, the figurative interpretation must be abandoned. This argument of-his on pages 43 and 44, is but a repetition of that already noticed on pages 37 and 38. Our reply therefore is just the same. A considerable number of unbelieving Jews will be in the land under Antichrist at the time of the tribulation, but the great awaking and regathering of Israel, when God really puts the godly and the meek into possession of the earth, will be after the tribulation. All the rebels will then be gone. Ezekiel 20: 33 - 38 is very explicit to this. We judge that Mr. Reese misunderstands the prophetic testimony as to this point.

It may be fitting just here to remark that we think he equally misunderstands the way in which the term, "Remnant," is used by those whom he opposes. We cannot of course speak for the rather heterogenous crowd whom he classes together as "Darbyists," but we are sure that Darby himself used the term as indicating the godly few of Israel as distinguished from the unbelieving mass, as we have it in Isaiah 10: 20 - 22; Jeremiah 23: 3; Zephaniah 3: 11 - 13; — "a remnant according to the election of grace" (Rom. 11: 5). In this sense we ourselves should use the term in speaking of the remnant of prophecy, and not as merely indicating a remainder apart from any question of spiritual condition. Mr. Reese's "Remnant . . . consists of those who escape uninjured his italics! the desolations of the last days" (p. 39). Their physical escape? not their spiritual escape, is what characterizes them in his thoughts.

Misunderstanding matters thus, he finds amusement in some of the statements he opposes. Says he, "To speak of a martyred 'Remnant' is a ludicrous contradiction in terms . . . They will not die. .And we do not usually speak of drowned 'survivors' of a shipwreck. Just as incongruous is it to speak of a martyred 'Remnant.' This is the first of several fictions." The godly who will "not worship the image of the beast" (Rev. 13: 15), and are killed, we should call the "martyred remnant," and identify them with the "saints of the Most High" whom the king "shall wear out," according to Daniel 7: 25, and this in spite of it appearing funny to Mr. Reese — and perhaps many of those who read his book, and know very little of the authors he attacks, may join in his mirth! His strictures appear to us, not funny, but certainly rather strange and somewhat sad, seeing that a writer who has devoured such an astonishing mass of literature for and against these views might be expected to understand more accurately what he assails.

There is one more remark that must be made before we leave the opening verses of Daniel 12. It is this, if a literal resurrection is predicted here, then taking the passage, as it stands in both the Authorized and the Revised Versions, a general resurrection is indicated, some to life and some to judgment. This does not suit Mr. Reese, so he proposes other translations backed by the opinions of a few Jewish Rabbis, which he thinks obviate the difficulty. This difficulty is one which, if sustained, would be pretty fatal to his view. His method of meeting it by appealing to special and little known translations is a distinct weakening of his case.

The fourth scripture he brings forward is Daniel 12: 13, and his point is that Daniel was to rest in the grave until the resurrection which is to be "at the end of the days." To this phrase he gives the meaning of, "the exact moment of the public appearing of Christ." Our assertion is that no such exact meaning is either stated or implied.

On these four passages Mr. Reese bases his case as deduced from the Old Testament. He acknowledges that the resurrection implied in Ezekiel 37, and Hosea 6: 2, is figurative and not literal. Thus far we have followed him in the attack which he has launched' over the ground which he has himself chosen: we conclude by travelling on to ground which he has not traversed and which, though found in the New Testament, is very pertinent to the discussion in hand. Will our readers consider very carefully these two final considerations.

First: the question as to resurrection was submitted to our Lord Himself by the Sadducees, He settled it by appealing to Old Testament scripture, and His reply reduced them to silence. The record of it is in Matthew 22: 23 - 33, Mark 12: 18 - 27; Luke 20: 27 - 38, — three times repeated, so Mr. Reese cannot have been ignorant of it. Since He has settled where resurrection is to be found in the Old Testament, why did Mr. Reese discuss the whole question, in a chapter by itself, without making so much as one reference to what He said? In the 18 pages of his second chapter we are well-nigh smothered with the opinions of human writers, but the great pronouncement of Omniscience on the point is completely ignored! This seems to us unpardonable, though by no means inexplicable, for the pronouncement tells so heavily against him.

More than once in this second chapter our Author links together "the Sadducees and the Darbyists." He admits that the "Darbyists . . . believe in the resurrection," but asserts that if they be permitted, "like the Sadducees'' to interpret these four passages in the light of Ezekiel 37, "then we shall have no texts on the resurrection left to us" (p. 50). Having our Lord's words in the Gospels in mind, we could hardly believe our eyes when we read this: but there it is!

In reply to the question of the Sadducees, the Lord Jesus found the resurrection in an Old Testament passage which evidently they had never thought of — one too which their opponents., the Pharisees, had never thought of — and it left them stunned and speechless. He said not one word of Mr. Reese's four passages. He did not find the resurrection there! This is a very very awkward fact for Mr. Reese, and for his interpretation of those four passages. It goes a long way to undermine his interpretation, and it appears, by his own showing to leave him with no text for resurrection in the Old Testament. It leaves us however quite undisturbed. We are content to find the resurrection where the Lord found it.

As we remarked, Mr. Reese claims that "These conclusions are fatal to the new theories of the Second Advent." We really think that we might now rejoin, "Our Lord's pronouncement is fatal to his exegesis of the four passages." But before closing we must give what we understand by His pronouncement — though with extreme brevity.

His argument as to Exodus 3: 6, turned upon the fact that God pronounced Himself to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, centuries after they were dead to the world of men. Though in the unseen world, they were alive to Him; and the unseen world being an intermediate and not a final state, there must be a final state, and that involves resurrection. Now the Sadducees' question, based upon the story about the woman with many successive husbands, showed that they conceived of resurrection as being simply a reviving and restoration to life on earth under the conditions familiar to us, and evidently the Pharisees had no understanding of the resurrection which enabled them to counter their argument. Had they only known, how effectively they might have defeated their opponents when they produced their favourite argument, by saying, "Your whole conception of resurrection is erroneous. It does not involve a mere resuscitation for earth, but means transference to another region altogether, where different conditions prevail."

It was our Lord who spoke of "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead" (Luke 20: 35). The Pharisees could not have given that crushing answer. Why not? Because no CLEAR LIGHT as to either "that world," nor as to "the resurrection from the dead," that introduces to it, is found in the Old Testament — not even in Mr. Reese's four passages.

This brings us to the second of our two final considerations — "Our Saviour Jesus Christ . . hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality [incorruptibility] to light through the gospel" (2 Tim. 1: 10). Without any question "incorruptibility" is the correct word here, and the passage shows that there was no real bringing to light of that world of incorruption into which resurrection will introduce us, until Christ had appeared, and annulled the power of death by His dying and rising again.

The conclusion, then, is irresistible that we must not expect to find in the Old Testament clear and explicit statements as to resurrection: we must not do exactly what, in point of fact, Mr. Reese has done in his second chapter. He must have read this verse in Timothy, as well as the three passages in the Gospels: did he not realize their significance? We cannot tell; but we can see that, having ignored the warning light they give, he has tried to read into the Old Testament what is not there, and involved himself and all who follow him, in confused and mistaken exegesis. We close the chapter wondering if also in Mr. Reese's mind resurrection only involves being raised up again to live on earth. He is so busy attacking other people that he has no time to tell us his own thoughts in a very explicit way. From other remarks he makes, we hardly think it can be so; yet if it were, he is really nearer to the Sadducees than the "Darbyists" that he condemns.

Mr. Reese is so sure of his interpretations of these Old Testament passages that, in the beginning of his next chapter, he claims they are so subversive of "the new theories of the Advent" that "we should be warranted in claiming a verdict on the main issue" on the ground of these "four unambiguous texts;" but he continues, "nevertheless it is desirable to examine the teaching of the N.T. as well." We shall certainly, if God permit, go forward into the New Testament in a future paper, since all the light we want is there. But our readers can observe for themselves, from the N.T. passages we have cited, that Mr. Reese's view-point as to the matter at issue in the O.T. is not that of the Lord Jesus, nor of His servant the Apostle Paul.

4th Paper: Resurrection in the New Testament.

Three chapters in this book are devoted to the resurrection of the saints in the New Testament: chapter 3 dealing with the Gospels; chapter 4 with St. Paul's Epistles; chapter 5 with the Apocalypse. The sixth chapter is devoted to the parable of the Tares and the Wheat. We may attempt a brief review of three of these chapters in this article.

In the Gospels four passages are adduced, as proving that the Lord will come for His saints and with His saints at the same moment, no interval being between; that moment being the very day when He is manifested in His glory.

(1) John 6: 39 - 54; 11: 24; where five times over we get resurrection "at the last day." Mr. Reese contends that here we have indicated, "the closing day of the age that precedes the Messianic Kingdom of glory" (p. 54), which agrees with what he thinks he has found in the Old Testament. In his mind apparently "the closing day" is a literal day of 24 hours, for he goes on to argue against those who believe "that the expression 'last day' refers not to a literal day, but to the last period of God's dealings with men in time; that is, to the age of the kingdom, which follows this present age, and will extend to the Last Judgment, when the rest of the dead are raised" (p. 55).

Now that is exactly what we do believe; and in very definite proof of it we should quote John 12: 48, where for the sixth time we get the expression, "the last day." Mr. Reese only alludes to this verse in a footnote, where he dismisses it because in it "nothing is said of resurrection. It refers to the generation of unbelievers who survive to the advent, which is viewed as near." That is, he contends, if we understand him aright, that we must narrow down the Lord's words to mean that only such unbelievers as may happen to be on earth at the Advent will be judged by the Lord's words at the moment of His manifestation. This narrowed meaning enables him to give to the expression in this verse also the force of the last day of 24 hours.

So, according to Mr. Reese, this great and unqualified pronouncement of our Lord is to be qualified in our minds in this peculiar way. We are to brush aside every other application but that! Since however we are not concerned to support Mr. Reese's views we decline to do it. We assert on the contrary that every word of our Lord is characterized not by narrowness but by breadth of application, and this is specially true of His great sayings recorded in John's Gospel. Chapter 12: 48 deals with the one who "rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words." Chapter 5: 24 deals with, "he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me." We should as much think of limiting the "shall not come into condemnation" and "everlasting life" of the one verse to a special few believers, as we Should think — under the misguidance of Mr. Reese — of limiting the judgment of the other verse to unbelievers who survive to the Advent. No: we decline to do it in either case.

Declining to do it, it becomes obvious at once that the expression "last day" does refer to an extended period of time. It includes the judgment of the ungodly as well as the resurrection of the saints. So these texts in John yield no proof of what is alleged.

(2) Luke 20: 34 - 36; where we read of "that age, and the resurrection from the dead" (R.V.). His point is, "first, the Messianic Age, then the resurrection. The resurrection of the just is the first result of the Messianic reign" (p. 57). If it could be shown that here our Lord was engaged in a controversy in which matters of chronology were concerned, his argument would have a fairly substantial basis. It was not so however. What was involved was the ignorance prevailing as to the new order of things into which resurrection would introduce the saint. Those accounted worthy to attain that age, by passing through earth's troubles without dying, will enjoy the new conditions on earth. The disciples and others believed that. But they did not know that those worthy to attain that age and the resurrection would be brought into a heavenly sphere and into new conditions of bodily existence. That was the Lord's statement and not the assertion of a nice chronological point. That age has a heavenly side to it as well as an earthly; that was the point of instruction. Hence the order was very natural — "that age, and the resurrection." First that of which they had a little understanding; then that of which they had no understanding. Rising from (i.e. from amongst) the dead was a mystery to them, as Mark 9. 10 plainly shows.

(3) Matthew 13: 43, where "the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Mr. Reese informs us that, "the Lord is expounding Daniel [12: 3], and setting forth the transfiguration of the risen saints at the resurrection" (p. 58). "It is to take place at that time, that is, at the time when notorious sinners and stumbling blocks are rooted out of the kingdom (vv. 41, 42); the transfiguration of the risen saints takes place simultaneously with the destruction of the ungodly at the Advent. We are not to suppose that the saints had been transfigured a generation before and concealed in heaven" (p. 59).

Simultaneously, did you notice? As with the Old Testament passages, so here, he is hunting for chronological evidence, and thinks he has picked up the scent. We have no hesitation in saying that matters of greater moment than an exact chronology were occupying the Lord when He spoke this parable. But even from this chronological standpoint his argument entirely hangs upon the three expressions, "the harvest," "the time of harvest," and "the end of this age." If they mean a day of 24 hours in which, as in a flash, all the ungodly are destroyed and the saints are raised, then there is some point in his argument. That they do not mean such a day is very evident if we consult other scriptures which deal with the end of the age. Read Zechariah, chapters 12, 13 and 14, and note the variety of things that are to take place "in that day." It will be a period, though a short period, as we are glad to learn from Romans 9: 28 — for "a short work will the Lord make upon the earth," when it is a question of judgment. This being the case, there is really nothing in Mr. Reese's arguments on this point.

However, he feels the passage to be so important that he devotes a whole chapter to it, in which he quotes many authorities for and against small details, as to how exactly the tares are bound in bundles for burning and the wheat gathered into the barn. The fact is that the parable tells us nothing as to these details, and if we try to read them into it we very easily overshoot the mark, and press the parable beyond its just limits. The rapture of the saints had not been revealed when the parable was spoken, and hence it is not specifically referred to. The Lord spoke in general terms of the great disentanglement which is only to take place at the end of the age. Then, and not till then, will "the children of the wicked one" be cast into the fire, and "the children of the kingdom" shine forth. Not a word is said in the parable as to resurrection. In the light of subsequent revelation we are sure that the risen saints will shine forth in their heavenly condition, but a multitude will enter the kingdom on its earthly side without dying at all, and these will shine forth also. The passage is quite indecisive as to the point that is at issue. It cannot be quoted to prove an interval between the coming of the Lord for His saints and with them. Neither can it rightly be quoted against it.

There is just one point in this special chapter that we might refer to. On pages 99 and 100 he quotes certain arguments from B. W. Newton's Second Coming, in which he asserts that if we say that the saints are to be removed from the earth before Antichrist is revealed then the tares must be removed too before he appears. This assertion assumes that both operations take place together in a day of 24 hours, as our Author maintains. With this assumption fixed in his mind, Mr. Newton asserts that if we say the saints are to be removed from earth before Antichrist is revealed, "we must say that Antichrist is to be revealed after Christendom has ceased to exist, and after the age of evil in which he is to act is ended. Will anyone, on reflection, assert this?" We hardly need a moment's reflection to reply that we do not assert it, nor do we believe that any "Darbyist" ever asserted such a self-evident absurdity. We only assert that "the harvest" is a period, and not a literal day.

Mr. Newton knew of this assertion for he added a footnote saying, "Some have endeavoured to avoid the force of this argument by suggesting that the words, 'end of age' may mean an indefinitely lengthened period. But no period can be more definitely marked .... Is Antichrist to arise after this?" Where we have inserted the dots Mr. Newton printed verses 39 - 42 of Matthew 13, beginning with the words, "THE HARVEST is the end of the age." He speaks of the harvest as a period, but "definitely marked," instead of being "indefinitely lengthened." If Mr. Newton's argument is to have full force the harvest ought to be comprised in a literal day. We are quite content with his calling it a period. The harvest is that; but even in Palestine, with its seasons much more regular than ours, it is not a definite period, from the chronological standpoint: its beginning and its duration vary from year to year. Now it is exactly from the chronological standpoint that we are discussing things. The harvest of Scripture is, we claim, a somewhat indefinite period, like the harvests of this world. During the harvest both wheat and tares are dealt with, but not on exactly the same day or even year.

Having thus quoted Mr. Newton, ending up with his question, "Is Antichrist to arise after this?" Mr. Reese says, "To this awkward question no reply has been given, for none is possible." It is possible, we suppose, that in all the hundreds of books which Mr. Reese has read no one notices these remarks of Mr. Newton's, but if, because of this, he wishes to predict that no reply can or will be given, he merely proves himself an inaccurate foreteller. Mr. Newton virtually supplied us with the answer himself. The harvest is a period and not a literal day — the thing is so obvious.

(4) Luke 14: 14, 15; where the Lord speaks of being "recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Mr. Reese claims that the fact that this recompensing at the resurrection is connected in the next verse with the kingdom, means that the resurrection occurs just as the kingdom begins. Believing, as we do, that the saints will be rewarded in connection with the kingdom, but that first they have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that He may award them their places in the kingdom, we also think of the kingdom in connection with any recompense that is given. There is nothing in this passage to help the special view that Mr. Reese advocates, or to hurt ours.

In the chapter dealing with the Epistles of Paul four passages only are cited — we must remember that the point discussed is, for the moment, only the resurrection of saints, not the full truth of the coming of the Lord. The passages are: Romans 11: 15; 1 Corinthians 15: 50 - 54, 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 - 18 (R.V.), 1 Corinthians 15: 21 - 26. The third of these passages is of such importance that we reserve it for a later paper. On the other three a few remarks as to Mr. Reese's exegesis may be made.

(1) "Life from the dead" in this passage is said to be the resurrection of saints which synchronizes with the conversion of Israel. As to this we merely remark that the receiving of Israel back into Divine favour is going to be an event of a resurrection character, as Ezekiel 37 has shown us. That in the brief "end of the age" period we shall have both the literal resurrection of saints and the figurative resurrection of Israel we fully believe. Mr. Reese may read into this passage the view that he attempts to support; but it is not there otherwise.

(2) The verses towards the end of 1 Corinthians 15 are referred to for the one purpose of discovering some "clue to guide us in our inquiry concerning the time of the resurrection." This clue he finds in verse 54. The resurrection will take place when Isaiah 25: 8. is fulfilled. Now that verse in Isaiah he has already considered, and he concluded that it fixed the resurrection at the exact moment of the Advent of Jehovah and the establishment of the kingdom. From the Old Testament he now proceeds to reason as to the New.

Here is a case illustrating what we said in our last paper. Assuming he has proved his earlier proposition, he now uses it to advance his reasoning or exclude some contrary line of reasoning in the later Scripture. He says, "What do we find' Why, that the resurrection of the saints, and the victory over death, synchronise with the inauguration of the Theocratic Kingdom, the coming of Jehovah, and the conversion of living Israel." (p. 63). Believing, as we showed last time, that his exegesis of Isaiah 25: 8 is mistaken in important details, we find that his "clue" does not lead him to the point he wishes. His argument we regard as valueless.

On page 65 he quotes a passage from Darby's Second Coming, in which he believes he catches him tripping, and making admissions which contradict his own teaching and support Mr. Reese's thoughts. In this passage Mr. Darby points out the connection between the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 and in Isaiah 25. He is showing that the Advent must be pre-millennial, and he says the resurrection "takes place at this time which we call the millennium: when the Jews being restored to their place on earth, there is that era of blessedness among nations which is commonly called the millennium . . . And thus it appears that the time when this resurrection takes place is the time when the Lord restores Israel, when He establishes Israel's place in Zion, and takes away the veil from off the face of all nations." Mr. Reese's comment is, "Sound doctrine! Yet every word of it is a complete refutation of theories telling us that the resurrection does not synchronise with the millennium and the conversion of Israel, but precedes them by a period . . ." Mr. Reese also quotes Kelly and Trotter as writing in similar strain.

At first sight all this might sound conclusive and even crushing. We read it again more carefully, and at once perceive that the fallacy does not lie with Darby or his friends, but with our Author's use of the word synchronise. Darby's paragraph he says, refutes the idea that "the resurrection does not synchronise with the millennium;" that is, Darby teaches in this passage that it does synchronise. We have read the passage and find that is just what Darby does not say. He says, "at this time," "the time," by which he means, the period when this age is closing and the millennium about to begin, as distinguished from the period when the millennium is closing and the eternal state about to begin. It is Mr. Reese and not Darby who is so intent upon an exact chronology, and the bringing of events into one day. It looks as if he is so intent that he cannot avoid reading his own chronological thoughts into Darby's words. Now you can soon demolish your opponents if you are permitted to interpret the terms they use in the light of your own thoughts instead of their thoughts, as revealed in the context.

We have thought it worth while to refer to this as it is a sample of the kind of thing that we have elsewhere in this book, and so we ask our readers to be on their guard as they may read it. We now pass on to,

(3) The verses in the earlier part of 1 Corinthians 15, which are referred to because he thinks that the words, "they that are Christ's at His coming," are inconsistent with there being the resurrection of all the saints when Christ comes for them, followed by a supplementary raising of saints subsequently martyred under "the beast." We quite agree with Mr. Reese that here we have the three ranks, (1) Christ, the First-fruits. (2) The redeemed at His coming. (3) the end, when the rest of the dead are raised. Yet we believe that His coming is spoken of in a general way, without any attempt to differentiate between the two stages that mark it.

If we think of the first Advent we can discern different stages: for instance; His incarnation, when He came to Bethlehem; His coming forth in ministry, when He appeared in Galilee; His sacrificial work, when He died on the cross outside Jerusalem. Sometimes we distinguish between these different stages, and sometimes we do not, but just speak of His first Coming. The New Testament references to the second coming may be classified in just the same way. Sometimes it is distinctively His coming for His saints; sometimes distinctively His coming with them; sometimes His coming in a general way. The resurrection of life takes place at the second Advent. There is nothing here that either denies or affirms the particular point at issue between us.

Paper No. 5 Resurrection in the Apocalypse. and 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 - 5: 11.

In his chapter on the resurrection of the saints in the Apocalypse, Mr. Reese dwells upon two passages, chapters 11: 15-18 and 20: 46 (R.V.). These we must turn to for a moment.

(1) He is sure that the resurrection is indicated in chap. 11, particularly in verse 18, for several reasons (a) because it is the last trumpet, and in 1 Corinthians 15 we get "the last trump" mentioned: (b) because "the time of the dead to be judged," means "the righteous dead only," and so "the resurrection is unquestionably implied:" (c) because at that time "the reward is given to the prophets, the saints, and the godly: " (d) because at this time the coming of the Lord does take place, as evidenced by the omission of the words, "and art to come," in all the later versions — including Darby's. The words are not there "because God in Christ has now come: " (e) because the last trumpet brings the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom, according to the scriptures we have already had before us.

It is very evident that the seventh trumpet brings us to a climax in the ways of God. So far we are in agreement with our Author: but not much further, for he evidently reads the passage under the chronological obsession which controls his thoughts. He must still synchronize the resurrection and the exact beginning of the Kingdom. He must of course have read verse 7 of the previous chapter: but did he really take note of it? What does it say? Why, "In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished. . ." The ways of God, in His government of the earth, have been full of mystery, which will persist until "the days" when the seventh angel begins to sound his trumpet. In those days the mystery will vanish and His ways be brought to a triumphant conclusion. Our assertion is that "the days" must indicate not a precise and almost instantaneous occasion, as all Mr. Reese's arguments presuppose, but an indefinite period of time.

We further have to observe that there is no mention of the resurrection in the passage. Mr. Reese infers it from the words, "the time of the dead to be judged," since he understands these words as referring to the righteous dead only. Our reply is, that the words do not refer to the righteous dead at all. It is the time of judgment that is referred to, not the time of resurrection. The saint has to be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, as regards his works; but into judgment, properly speaking, the saint never comes  - as witness. John 5: 24.

Verse 17 views the Kingdom as an accomplished and existing fact. Again and again it is the language of prophecy to speak of things as accomplished, which in point of fact are not yet come. Directly the seventh angel sounds, the elders celebrate, as being already accomplished, the whole result of God intervening and assuming a control of the rebellious earth which He will never let go. Verse 18 summarizes those results.

He will deal with the angry nations in his wrath. The time of judgment is come, involving the judgment of the wicked dead who had opposed Him in earlier days; which judgment will take place at the end of the day of the Lord, and before the eternal state begins. The reward will be given, in the Kingdom, to the prophets and saints. All those who have destroyed the earth will be themselves destroyed, whether before the millennium, or after it, as we read in chapter 20: 9.

All these things come to pass in "the days" that are inaugurated by the blowing of the seventh trumpet. God moves in majesty to His great objectives without hurry. Mr. Reese may wish to compress things, in our thoughts, into a moment of time. That might have the advantage of bringing matters more within the compass of our little human minds; but it carries with it the terrible disadvantage of causing us to miss the breadth and fulness of the thoughts of God.

In discussing this passage, Mr. Reese again shows how he misunderstands the position he is attacking. He says, "according to the theory, the prophets, saints, and God-fearers are rewarded years even before the first trumpet sounds; according to Scripture, they are judged and rewarded at the time of the seventh trumpet. Could contradiction be more hopeless?" He makes this statement as to "the theory" because we hold that the "elders" represent the risen and glorified saints, and he thinks that their crowns and thrones must mean they are already rewarded in the kingdom. But we are already made "kings and priests unto God" (Rev. 1: 6), and the description of the elders in chapter 4 simply fits in with that. The kings and priests are now in heaven. It is the place they occupy according to the counsel and work of God, and not, as yet, the reward which will be theirs when the Kingdom is established. This consideration sweeps away all his strictures on Kelly (pp. 76, 77), as well as other remarks he makes. So also it is with his remarks on page 77, as to Luke 14: 14, fixing rewards at the resurrection. He claims we are "in open opposition to the words of Christ." We say that resurrection will bring us to heaven, and that there we shall at once stand before the judgment seat to receive the Lord's verdict as to our course on earth, and be apportioned such reward as He sees fit: then the public appearing when rewards will be enjoyed in the Kingdom. Mr. Reese insists on an interpretation to fit in with his obsession: recompense at the very instant of the resurrection. We are no more in opposition to these words than he is. We believe that "at" means "at that time, things being unfolded in orderly progression: " he believes it means "at that very instant of time." That is all.

(2) Revelation 20: 4 - 6 he quotes in the R.V., which differs very little from the A.V. If we understand Mr. Reese aright he sees in verse 4 three classes. (1) Those who sat upon the throne who are, "The whole body of saints who live to see the Parousia at this time; they are transferred from earth to occupy thrones in the kingly rule of Christ; it is the Rapture of the survivors in 1 Thessalonians 4: 17." (2) The souls of those beheaded, "for the testimony of Jesus, and for the Word of God," who are Christians, for, "Unnumbered multitudes throughout the Church's history, including Peter and Paul, have been slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God. It is here they rise." (3) Those who "worshipped not the beast," who are "those who fall in the last Great Tribulation." Class (2), he strongly insists, must include Christians, and he says, "The proof of this is simple: the Church herself is not raised until this very time."

So, in this verse Mr. Reese sees the resurrection of the Church; but as (l) is "the Rapture of the survivors," we are left with only (2) and (3) as giving us the resurrection of the Church, in the raising of the Christian martyrs, and those who fall in the Tribulation. What about the great mass of Christians, who do not live to the Advent, and neither qualify as martyrs nor fall in the Tribulation? — what about the nine out of every ten of whom the Church is composed? They do not appear here at all according to this interpretation.

And one other comment we have to make. In the preceding vision (19: 11 - 21) we have the appearing of Christ in His glory for the overthrow of His foes. This is "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints" (1 Thess. 3: 13). If Mr. Reese's explanation of this verse in chapter 20 be true, the Church is raised after the Advent, and does not come WITH Him after all.

Our conclusion is that Mr. Reese's exegesis here is an impossible one.

We come back to the explanation which Mr. Reese would call "Darbyist," viz., that here we see in (1) no resurrection at all, but the saints already raised, and who have come with Christ, taking their distinguished place in the Kingdom. Then, associated with them, two supplementary classes who are raised as the result of the glorious appearing: (2) those martyred for their witness in the last days, and (3) those who suffered for refusing the beast.

We now turn to the passage, in 1 Thessalonians, which we omitted last time; offering first a few remarks on earlier scriptures which refer to the coming of the Lord.

The prophets of the Old Testament have much to say about the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, with its results in the judgment of all the nations; but statements as to the actual coming of God Himself are not very frequent. Habakkuk 3: 3 - 6 bears witness that God is coming, and Zech. 14: 5 goes further in saying, "The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." Enoch had prophesied to the same effect in antediluvian days, though his words do not appear in Scripture until the last of the epistles is reached. No explanation is offered at the time of these predictions as to who these saints are or how they come to be with Him, so as to follow in His train. In Daniel 7: 9 - 14 a further fact comes to light, inasmuch as "One like the [or, a] Son of man" comes "with the clouds of heaven."

When we reach the Gospels, we find the Lord in His prophetic discourse (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) alluding to Daniel 7. The allusion is particularly clear in Matthew where He speaks of the appearing of "the sign of the Son of man in heaven." His appearing would be a sign which they would recognize, having heard about it through Daniel. In this discourse the Lord does not mention the saints who come with Him, nor of His removing saints to heaven: He speaks of the gathering together of the elect from the four-winds by means of angels, and also, in Matthew's Gospel, of the gathering together of all the nations that He may judge and discriminate between the sheep and the goats.

In John's Gospel however the truth concerning His coming is carried a distinct step forward. When Jesus gathered His disciples in the Upper Chamber, it was because He knew that "His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father," and His word to the disciples was, "In My Father's house are many mansions . . . I go to prepare a place for you." In following Him the disciples had lost any place they might have had on earth, and now they are promised a place in heaven. Then He added? "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

In our second paper we pointed out that though the Old Testament has so much to say as to the coming of Jehovah and of His Anointed, it gives us no clear declaration as to there being two Advents in view. The Lord Jesus, during His ministry, made this quite clear however. Those who- listened to the discourse recorded in Luke 12: 35-46, and especially to verse 40, heard words which indicated that He who had come once was coming again. But neither in that passage nor in His prophetic discourses recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, is anything said which shows that His coming would mean the transference of saints from a place on earth to a place in heaven. That transference is indicated for the first time, so far as we are aware, in John 14: 3. In His discourse in the Upper Chamber (John 13 - 17) the Lord addressed His disciples, not as representatives of the godly-remnant of Israel, but as the nucleus of the church which was about to come into being, since one of the characteristic features of John's Gospel is that Israel's national place is seen to be forfeited from the very outset (see 1: 11 - 13) and a new generation —  those born of God — comes into view. The promise of John 14: 3, we therefore believe, was given to the disciples as representing the church, which fifty days after was to begin its existence. Our place is in heaven in the immediate company of Christ, and He is coming personally to receive us to Himself in that place.

We rejoice greatly in this added light, but even so there are still details which have not been explicitly revealed. This the Lord Himself stated when, having predicted the almost immediate coming of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, He said, "He will show you things to come" (16: 13).

Amongst the earliest of the Epistles are Paul's to the Thessalonians. In these two a good deal of further light breaks forth by the teaching of the Spirit. We refer particularly to the passage, 4: 13 - 5: 11, in the first Epistle, and 1: 6 - 2: 17, in the Second. In the book we are reviewing a few verses from the earlier passage are considered in chapter 4, dealing with the resurrection of the saints in Paul's Epistles, and again more fully in chapter 11, entitled "The Parousia of the King," and there are a few references to this passage elsewhere. We confine ourselves in this paper to the passage in the first Epistle, giving a brief synopsis of it.

Some of the saints amongst them had died, and the Thessalonians were sorrowing about them unduly as the result of being ignorant "concerning them which are asleep," as to how exactly the coming of the Lord would affect them. To comfort their hearts the Apostle makes known to them what will happen when the Lord comes for His saints. They were quite aware there was to be "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints" (3: 13), for this had already been clearly predicted. But how were the saints to reach the heavens from which He was to come, so as to come with Him, and how would their loved dead be affected as to their prospects in that day? Verse 14 assures them that it is as certain that God will bring these, whom they had lost, with Jesus when He comes, as that Jesus Himself died and rose again. His death and resurrection indeed is the pledge of their future glory.

But what is the procedure to be in regard to these dead saints? Paul makes it known to them "by the word of the Lord"; which is, we believe, a formula indicating that what he now writes is not the reiteration of truth already revealed, but a fresh revelation from God. We repeatedly read of "the word of the Lord" coming to various prophets of the Old Testament.

The fresh revelation is that the Lord Himself is going to descend from heaven to the clouds with a shout and with manifestations of angelic power, and that at that moment the living saints will have no precedence over those asleep: that, as a matter of fact, the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then the living ones are to be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and in that way we all are to be with the Lord for ever. Two things are definitely settled by this revelation. First, that the coming of the Lord includes this action by which the saints are caught up to the heavens, so that they may come forth with Him in glory and take their allotted places in connection with His kingdom. In the light of other passages we have no hesitation in speaking of this as the preliminary action, in view of the saints subsequently coming forth with Christ in glory. But of course just that is strenuously denied by Mr. Reese. Second, it is settled that the dead saints will be considered first, when He comes for His saints, and they will come with Him in the day of His glory. Mr. Reese endeavours to whittle all this away by saying, "The only 'revelation' that he made there was concerning the relation of surviving to sleeping saints at the Advent, this and nothing else."

Chapter 5 reads straight on from chapter 4, but opens with a striking contrast. We must digress for a moment to remark that Mr. Reese claims that, "This passage causes great embarrassment to Darbyists, and they are reduced to unnatural explanations to square its teaching with their theories" (p. 157); and again, "The true significance of this section is obscured for Darbyists by the unfortunate break into chapters at this point" (p 158). It is a fact that the A.V. breaks into chapters at this point: so does the R.V. though, divided into paragraphs rather than verses, the break is less conspicuous. It is Darby's New Translation which reads straight on at this point. He prints verses 15 - 18 of chapter 4 in brackets, and inserts a small indication of the beginning of chapter 5: otherwise the whole passage from verse 13 of chapter 4, to verse 11 of chapter 5, is printed in one paragraph. Mr. Reese fills pages 159 —  162 with other versions and paraphrases of the passage — though only one of the five is anything like a real translation — yet nowhere does he print the passage without a break. No! it is precisely this Darby, who has laboured to emphasize that there is no break in the passage; and yet the "unfortunate break" has "obscured" the "true significance of this section" to Darbyists! He may say of the Darbyists that "the Secret Rapture delusion has blurred their vision," but it occurs to us that possibly his own vision is not of the very best. At all events, we warn our readers against the acceptance of his many sweeping and drastic assertions of which this is a sample, without checking the basis on which they rest.

The contrast we referred to lies between verse 13 of chapter 4, and verses 1 and 2 of chapter 5: between that which they did not know and that which they did know. The details which Paul revealed as to the coming for the saints had not been known to them, whereas concerning the times and seasons which culminate in the day of the Lord, there was no need for him to write: ye "know perfectly" is what he says. Now Daniel 2: 21 shows us that "the times and seasons" have to do with God's government of the earth, and Acts 1: 6, 7, that they have to do with the restoring of the kingdom to Israel. The Thessalonians were in no difficulty as to these times and seasons: all that they needed to know about them they knew perfectly. And yet, they were imperfectly instructed as to what is to happen at the resurrection and rapture of the saints. It is obvious then that in the mind of Paul — and therefore in the mind of the Spirit — the resurrection and rapture are no part of the times and seasons connected with the day of the Lord and the earthly kingdom. If they were a part, those words "know perfectly" could never have been written. This is a very important point, and we ask our readers' careful attention to it. Mr. Reese's whole case rests upon the resurrection, the rapture, the times and seasons, the day of the Lord, being but aspects or parts of one and the same thing.

That the saints, to whom Paul wrote, were disconnected from the earthly scene, to which the times and seasons refer, is also clearly seen in verses 4 and 5. The world was "in the night," but they were not in darkness. The world is "of the night" and "of darkness," but they were not, being "children of light" and "children of the day." They had a spiritual origin wholly distinct from the origin of the world, and so have we. They day of the Lord will fall suddenly with destructive force upon the world, but they and we are not appointed to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with Him. By the rapture, spoken of in verse 17 of the previous chapter, we shall escape the wrath and reach the Lord, to live together with Him for ever. This Mr. Reese strenuously denies. He prints the end of chapter 4 as being "Concerning the dead," and the early part of chapter 5 as being "Concerning the living." He carefully cuts the paragraph in two, printing one half on one page, and the other half on the next page. And on only the page before he has told us that the break at this point has obscured the significance of the section to Darbyists! We read the section in one paragraph, as Darby has printed it, and note that the living are mentioned in the end of chapter 4, as well as the dead. Mr. Reese's division of the section has no basis in fact. By dividing at all, he is merely doing the very thing himself that he has incorrectly accused his opponents of doing.

One word in this passage remains to be considered — the word, "wrath." We definitely hold it to be a word which covers the great tribulation. We may put it in another way by saying that though that terrible period will be marked by great human wickedness and great Satanic and demonic activity, all of which will bring tribulation in its train, yet the severest element of all will be the outpouring of the vials of God's wrath. It is this which will make it to be such a time of tribulation as never has been, and never will be again.

By saying this we expose ourselves to a considerable outpouring of sarcasm, and one might almost say wrath, on the part of Mr. Reese. In his concluding chapter he deals with this assertion (pp. 281 - 288) calling it the "trump card" of the Darbyists. We agree that it is a point of decisive importance, and for this reason possibly he becomes particularly angry in dealing with it and says a good many unjustifiable things. For instance: — Darbyists "spend an immensity of time . . . in pointing out that the Church by the blood of Jesus is delivered from the wrath to come . . . Why not . . . prove to us that the Great Tribulation is the wrath of God? This, however, is the last thing that Darbyists can be brought to do." Really? Possibly, however, Mr. Reese does not know "Darbyists" quite as well as he thinks he does!

He quotes Darby as remarking that only six texts deal with the Tribulation — (Jer. 30: 7; Dan. 12: 1; Matt. 24: 21; Mark 13: 19; Rev. 3: 10, 7: 14). He adds, "But I can suggest two others that they leave alone; and I do not wonder that Darby and Kelly should have omitted them, for they smash their whole case on the Great Tribulation. I refer to Rev. 13: 7 . . . And Rev. 12: 12 - 17 . . . According to Darby and his followers, the Great Tribulation is the wrath of God against the Jewish people for their rejection of Christ. According to Scripture, it is the Devil's wrath against the saints for their rejection of Antichrist, and adherence to Christ. Let the reader once see the Scripture truth on this point, and the whole Darbyist case will be exposed as a campaign of assumptions, mix-statements, and sentiment."

It is evident to us that, by his remark about the six texts, Darby did not mean that there were no allusions to the Great Tribulation in other passages, but simply that these six are where we find it explicitly stated. Mr. Reese suggests two other scriptures that allude to it; and we will suggest some more.

Our answer to these remarks can be given with brevity. The two scriptures which are adduced do not "smash their whole case," for the case is misunderstood — we do not wish to think it is wilfully misrepresented. The antithesis drawn, between God's wrath and the devil's wrath, does not exist in our minds. We admit both, and believe that both play their part in the tribulation. But we believe that as God in His greatness towers above Satan, so His wrath overshadows Satan's wrath, and is the element in the tribulation which makes it great, and unmatched in all time, either before or since. We entirely believe there will be saints on earth who will suffer at the hands of the devil and their fellow-men in that dreadful time. Mr. Reese contends that the tribulation is to be limited to that. We contend that it is not.

The tribulation is to be the time of Jacob's trouble, but it also is to "come upon all the world," so that every nation will be involved.

Psalm 2 is a prophecy. What does it say? That the kings of the earth and the rulers are going to concert together against Jehovah and His Anointed, and that Jehovah will "speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure." If men do not "kiss the Son," they will perish "when His wrath is kindled but a little."

Now read Isaiah 26: 20, 21, and then Zephaniah 2: 1 - 3. In these scriptures the "indignation" and the "anger" are from God, and not from the devil.

Wrath from God does lie in a special way upon blinded and unrepentant Israel. Luke 21: 23 speaks of it connected with the siege of Jerusalem under Titus; and in 1 Thessalonians 2: 16 Paul speaks of wrath having come upon them to the uttermost, twenty years or more before Jerusalem was destroyed. He meant evidently, not that the wrath was executed, but that it was irrevocably determined. That wrath, we believe, will reach its climax in the great tribulation.

We read Revelation 15, and 16, and note the details given as to the pouring out of "the vials of the wrath of God" on the earth. We discover that the fury of that wrath specially smites all that is subservient to the "beast" and the false prophet," those Satan-inspired men that head up the final revolt of apostate Christendom and Judaism. In these seven last plagues is "filled up the wrath of God." The words "great tribulation" do not occur here, but since it takes place at the time of the "beast," and since it is the worst hour in all the earth's troubled history, what can this filling up of the wrath of God be but the great tribulation? Tribulation engineered by Satan is bad enough, but that inflicted by God in His holy government of men and nations on earth is far worse. In the great tribulation both elements combine.

So we come back to 1 Thessalonians 5: 9, and rejoice in its significance. We repeat that the whole paragraph, one and undivided, tells us that saints will lose nothing by death before the Lord comes. They will be brought with Him when He appears in His glory, inasmuch as He is coming for all His saints, whether dead or living, and all shall together meet Him in the air and be for ever with Him. This happy event, as to certain details of which the Thessalonians had been ignorant, is not a part of the times and seasons and the day of the Lord, since as to that they had been perfectly informed. That day will come as a thief on the world, but the saints are entirely disconnected from the world, as having a new and distinct origin — children of light and of the day. That being so, they are to be distinct from the world in their ways and behaviour, and wear "the helmet of salvation" as a protection, knowing that God has not appointed them to the wrath which will reach its climax in the great tribulation, but to that salvation that will be theirs when Christ comes for them and they are raptured to heaven.

Such, we submit, is the plain sense of this important paragraph.

Paper No. 6. 2 Thessalonians 2, and some final considerations.

When Paul wrote his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, a fresh difficulty had been created in their minds owing to the persecution they were enduring, and the action of some unprincipled men who had gone so far as to forge a letter in Paul's name to support the idea that the day of the Lord was upon them. Had that been a fact, they would of course have already been virtually in the great tribulation. Paul begs them not to be for one moment shaken in their minds, and appeals to the truth he had established in his first Epistle, as to "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him" (2: 1).

As we saw in the first Epistle, so again here, Paul differentiates most clearly between, "our gathering together unto Him," and "the day of the Lord." He says, in effect, "You might have known that your sufferings cannot mean that the day of the Lord is present, by that which I have already told you as to our being, 'caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air'." Mr. Reese's book is written to convince us that the Lord will come for and with His saints at the same moment. Paul beseeches them by "the coming" that-they do not imagine that "the Day" is come. Mr. Reese is beseeching us to imagine that they are one and the same thing.

In chapter 1 of this second Epistle, the Apostle had shown them that the revelation of the Lord Jesus would bring trouble and overthrow upon those who were persecuting them, whilst they would enjoy perfect repose amidst the tremendous scenes of judgment. It does not say that they would enjoy rest for the first time at that exact moment, but that the day of the Lord will mean rest for the saint as distinguished from the tribulation of the world. So here are two good reasons that should prevent us interpreting our tribulations as meaning the onset of the day of the Lord: first, that Day means rest for us; second, there is the truth, already established, of His coming and our gathering to Him in the air.

Then there is a third good reason, unfolded in verses 3 - 14 of the second chapter. The Day will not come until the apostasy takes place and the revealing of the man of sin, and these two things will not take place until the power and Person, that act in restraint, are removed.

This predicted apostasy is not merely a time of coldness and defection in the church, such as has all too often been witnessed, but the total abandonment of the Christian faith, root and branch. This apostasy is coming, and there are very ominous signs of its approach. A few signs even appear in this book we are reviewing, since the Author in his eagerness to refute the "Darbyists" sometimes quotes from questionable writers: as, for instance, on page 253, where a number of erroneous ideas creep in, the worst being that Jesus on the throne of God "was, in fact, no longer merely a man." This obviously infers that on earth He had been merely a man, an idea which is consistent with Unitarianism, but which we altogether repudiate. In Christendom these signs are now multiplied, and it is of course the apostasy of Christendom which here is predicted. If only the true saints of God could be eliminated from the "churches" of our land the apostasy full-blown would be at once complete. We believe that no apostasy, in the proper sense of the word, can take place as long as the saints in their thousands are here, for they will never apostatize. We further believe that once the Lord has come and we have gathered unto Him, a veritable landslide of apostasy will strike Christendom at once.

The great Restrainer of verse 7, we believe to be the Holy Spirit, who came in a peculiar way at Pentecost, thus forming the church, and will, as regards this peculiar aspect of His presence, depart when the church goes. In our first paper we alluded to Mr. Reese's effort to find here allusion to Roman Emperors, as well as the Roman Empire. So we now content ourselves with saying that we are sure that no man, nor anything human, is great enough to restrain the power of darkness and of the devil. One who is God is needed for that.

Once the saints are gathered to Christ and the Restrainer gone, there will be this outburst of Satanic powers and deceits, and to all this God will add the blinding of men by an act of His government, sending a strong delusion. This act of God will play a part, by no means inconsiderable, in the great tribulation. In contrast to all this we are said to be chosen to salvation and called to obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here we again reach the point to which we were conducted in verses 9 and 10 of chapter 5 in the first Epistle. Not wrath but salvation is the church's portion.

This leads us to consider the Lord's promise to the church in Philadelphia, as recorded in Revelation 3: 10, "I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation." Mr. Reese spends pages over this passage commencing with page 199; his argument being that the preposition translated "from" does not necessarily mean "out of," so that it may merely mean preservation through the tribulation. Says he, "The preposition ek may possibly mean immunity from, but more probably it means out of in the sense of being 'brought safe out of'."

His reasonings as to ek are very much open to question, but we shall spend no time on them, since the falsity of his interpretation of the passage is better shown by emphasizing two words that he seems to practically ignore — "keep," and "hour." How can the promise mean "bring safe out of" when it does not say "Save from," but "Keep from." And not only keep out of tribulation, but out of "the hour of temptation;" that is, out of the period of time in which the trial takes place. He quotes Rev. 12: 6, 14, to prove that saints may be kept out of tribulation, while being still left on earth. Yes, but the Philadelphian church is to be kept out of the hour of world-wide trial. This cannot be by being placed in some earthly shelter while passing through the hour. Being kept out of, or from, the hour must mean being translated into a region outside every hour into which time is divided.

If any would say to us that this exemption is only promised to the Philadelphian church who had kept the word of Christ's patience, and therefore may only apply to saints of special devotedness, we should have to reply by pointing out that things promised to the seven churches must not be understood as special and exclusive to those to whom the promise is made. Verse 11 of chapter 2 is a very clear example. The saints at Smyrna are not the only ones to be exempted from the second death.

In Revelation 1: 19 we have a divinely given division of the book. John wrote "the things which are" in chapters 2 and 3; and the closing words of verse 1 of chapter 4 show us that at that point he begins the narration of "the things which shall be hereafter." This shows that church history ends with chapter 3, and that chapter 4 starts with a moment when church history is over. We did not notice any reference to this key verse (1: 19), which unlocks the whole book to our understanding, in the book we have been reviewing. Had our Author read Revelation in the light of this verse, he might have understood its contents more accurately.

In the light of this verse we are not at all surprised if we find saints from the earth amidst the heavenly scenes described in chapters 4 and 5. They are represented, we believe, by the twenty-four elders. This, of course, Mr. Reese will not have, and he claims that the idea of their representing the redeemed is "now abandoned by pretty well every expositor in America, England and Germany . . . . They are simply Angelic leaders in the worship of heaven" (p. 224). He also asks, "If the Twenty-four Elders represent the raptured saints in heaven before the Seventieth Week, why do we not see the saints themselves instead of twenty-four symbols?"

Well, and if they are angels, why do we not see angels (as so often in the book) instead of symbols? The answer to both questions would be the same. Because Revelation is a book of symbols. Spiritual discernment is needed, we know, in order to interpret the symbols aright.

Consider two or three facts. The word for elder is the ordinary word presbuteros, from which our word presbyter comes. A word very fitting in connection with men, but utterly incongruous in connection with angels. Our lives are measured by time, we speak of elder and younger, but in connection with angels all such ideas are out of the question. The symbol is congruous as regards men: wholly incongruous as regards angels. That is the first fact.

Their white robes and golden crowns proclaim them to be kings and priests, as we have already discovered the saints to be, in verse 6 of chapter 1. This is a second fact.

A third fact is that they are 24 in number. This was the number of the courses into which Israel's priesthood was divided, as recorded in 1 Chronicles 24: 1 - 19. In the 24 elders we have the priestly company complete in heaven.

Mr. Reese lays great stress on the fact that the R.V. and Darby's version omit the "us" and "we" from verses 9 and 10 of chapter 5. That is to say, the new song which they sing is impersonal. They celebrate the whole great redeeming work of God, rather than their own part in it. Mr. Reese deduces from this that they have no part in it. We deduce from it that the saints in their glorified condition are lifted right out of the smallest suspicion of a selfish view of things into the full apprehension of things as from God's standpoint. At last they know, even as they are known.

Our task now is nearly done. Although almost on every page there are matters as to which we should have to express some measure of dissent from our Author, there is much that can be left unmentioned. Just a few points however remain to be noticed.

Mr. Reese devotes one of his chapters to "The Parousia of the King," pp. 140 - 166. One of his great points is that modern researches have shown that "parousia" is a kingly word, since it was used "for the arrival of kings and rulers, or the visit following." From this, he claims, we must deduce that the coming of Christ as King must be understood wherever this word is used. So of course it must be, if parousia is used exclusively to indicate such kingly occasions. His reasoning falls to the ground however when we discover that the word is just the ordinary word for coming, and has no such exclusive use. To give one illustration: in 2 Corinthians 7: 6 Paul speaks of "the coming of Titus." The word used for his coming was parousia. Was Titus a king?

In this chapter too he has some very sarcastic things to say about "the secret rapture." He speaks of "the strange doctrine of a secret, invisible advent of Christ." In his first chapter, pp. 22, 23, he summarizes the teaching of his opponents as being that, "The Coming of Christ 'for the Church,' . . . will take place secretly: none of the unconverted will witness them." He then quotes a passage from C.H.M., in which he points out that only believers saw Jesus ascend into heaven, when the angels said He would so come in like manner; and from which he teaches that He will only be seen by His saints when He comes for them. Quotations from Kelly and Darby follow, to the same effect. But neither the words "secret" nor "in" visible" occur in these quotations. Further, having read right through his book, we did not notice any quotation from writers that he would designate "Darbyist," in which these words were used. They are Mr. Reese's words.

It is a fact that there is no record of any unbeliever seeing Christ in resurrection. As a Minister of the Gospel, Mr. Reese preaches the resurrection of our Lord from the dead. He is a consistent man, and no doubt makes it plain that he believes in "a secret, invisible" resurrection. It is also a fact that no unbeliever saw Him ascend into heaven. It was "a secret, invisible" ascension. If Mr. Reese admits the secrecy and invisibility of both His resurrection and ascension, we shall not object to his accusing us of saying that there will be a secret and invisible coming for His saints, as distinguished from His public appearing with His saints in glory. It would be no more "a strange doctrine," however, than the doctrine of His resurrection or His ascension.

Even so, we shall not use those two adjectives ourselves, as we do not think them exactly suitable to any one of three events. Invisible is definitely wrong, and secret not exactly right. We should prefer to speak of it as a private, family affair, in contradistinction from that which is public and for the world.

Before we close it is necessary to say that there is no dispute between us in regard to the glorious appearing of Christ. When He shall appear the saints shall appear with Him, and that will be the time of their public reward. This we most emphatically believe, but we do not allow all this to blind us to the fact that the coming with His saints is possible, because He first comes for them.

We also agree most fully that the glorious appearing is appealed to, in order that the life and service of the saints may be well pleasing to God. We are to keep every divine instruction "without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Tim. 6: 14). But this does not mean that His coming for us, when we shall see His face, is not to exert a like influence over us. It is to do so, for we read, "We shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (1 John 3: 2, 3).

One of Mr. Reese's concluding remarks is, "In the labyrinth of prophetic facts and theories I confidently recommend to the honest enquirer a shining clue that will not fail him: it is the resurrection of the saints: let him courageously and impartially examine the setting of Isaiah 25: 8; 26. 19; Dan. 12: 1 - 3,  13; Matt. 13: 43; and he will shed for ever the pleasing delusion that the saints are raised and raptured out of the world before the coming of Antichrist" (p. 294). Other scriptures are printed where we have inserted the dots, and every one of them we have considered. Having done so, we are confirmed in what we stated in our third paper, to the effect that Mr. Reese has begun at the wrong end: he has ignored the fact that life and incorruptibility have come to light through the gospel. His "shining clue" is not so shining as he thinks, for he picked it up in Old Testament twilight. Had he started under the bright shining of the New Testament sun, he might have seen things differently.

The normal course of things for us of a certainty is that we hear the gospel, we believe it and come into its blessings, we are brought into the church of God and begin to learn its character, its privileges, its destiny. Then, when instructed in Christian truth, we are put into a position to appreciate and properly understand things that were made known in earlier ages. If this be done there is not much difficulty in seeing the point of view taken in the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, to which Mr. Reese makes so many references. The idea of it being "Jewish" he abominates, and we grant at once that things of an extreme sort have been written on those lines which go beyond what is right. When all allowance for this has been made however, the internal evidence is clear that it was written for Jewish believers, and that it specially exhibits the dispensational changes that were impending, while treating the disciples as being just what they then were, representatives of the believing remnant, though soon to be incorporated into the church. Hence the commission recorded in chapter 28 is one which shows the activities of the disciples going out beyond the boundaries of Israel to all nations; and yet is couched in such terms as would make it applicable also to the activities of a similar believing remnant after the church is gone. Hence also we do not see a rapture to heaven in verse 31 of chapter 24, but a gathering together of the elect upon earth by angelic power.

Mr. Reese obviously does not see what we have just been saying, else he could not write as he does on p. 290 — "The co-relative term of 'Jew' is not 'Christian,' but 'Gentile': that a man may be both Jew and Christian, and both Gentile and Christian: but not both Jew and Gentile. So that when we say of the 'colouring' in Matthew 24: 'It is all Jewish,' we ought to mean 'it belongs to the land of Israel: it cannot possibly apply to Maori-land, New York, or Timbuktu'." Our reply is: a man may be both Jew and Christian, if we are permitted to mean a Jew nationally and a Christian spiritually. He cannot be a Jew spiritually and a Christian. We refer to 1 Corinthians 10: 32, where we read of "the Jews . . . the Gentiles . . . the church of God." Mr. Reese's correlative terms, Jew and Gentile, are all right for the Old Testament, and the very beginning of the New. But as the New progresses another factor comes into existence, a factor of an entirely spiritual nature. In these words of his, which we have just quoted, he clearly recognizes the national factor, and also certain geographical factors. We venture to submit that it is when we come to the spiritual factor that he goes astray.

If only our Author had some better and fuller understanding of the doctrine of the church, particularly as ministered through Paul; of that "dispensation" which has been made known "to fulfil [complete] the word of God" (Col. 1: 25), we believe that this book would never have been written.

Dangers that Threaten

Dangers that Threaten

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 19, 1927, page 19 etc.)

1. Deception.

The church of God has an unsleeping foe. In the very earliest moments of its history his attacks began, first by persecution from without, then, and more successfully, by seduction and corruption from within. At the beginning his attacks were in measure repulsed. Apostolic vigilance discovered his movements, apostolic energy under the Spirit's direction largely countered his devices. We may be very thankful that God permitted Satan's power to be so early manifested in this direction, for as a consequence we have unfolded in the epistles of the New Testament the divinely-given antidote to his devices, and the divine method of dealing with them.

It is a remarkable fact that both the Apostles Paul and John were taken up by the Spirit of God as vehicles of His testimony to seven assemblies. John writes to the seven assemblies of Asia in Rev. 2 and Rev. 3; Paul addresses letters to the Romans, Corinthians, the assemblies of Galatia, the Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians and Thessalonians. It is an even more remarkable fact that in each case five out of the seven assemblies had to be dealt with in correction. The epistles to Smyrna and Philadelphia alone, in Rev. 2 and 3, are not marked by reproof and correction. The epistles of Paul to the Romans and Ephesians alone are occupied with exposition of the truth followed by exhortations based upon it. The other epistles addressed to five churches clearly had correction in view though much truth is unfolded in them.

Of these Pauline epistles, the two to the Thessalonians are the last in the order of Scripture. If we allude to them first it is because they were written within a short time of the conversion of the Thessalonians, meeting a danger which threatened them when still but babes in Christ. In reading them, therefore, we are warned against snares that may beset us at the beginning of our Christian careers.

The devil particularly attacks the spiritual babe by false and even anti-christian teaching. This is made plain to us in 1 John 2: 18-27, and what John lays down in this passage is illustrated by the case of the Thessalonian saints. They were in danger of being deceived.

When Paul wrote his first letter they were suffering from self-deception through ignorance. When he wrote the second time they were being deceived by mischief-makers from elsewhere. In both cases deception was the trouble.

If a comprehensive view of the 4th and 5th chapters of the first epistle be taken it will be seen that a state of distress and restlessness prevailed amongst them. They needed to be quiet and to do their own business, for some were inclined to be unruly or disorderly (see 1 Thess. 4: 11; 1 Thess. 5: 14). Disquietude is the product of distress, and for that comfort is needed (see 1 Thess. 4: 18; 1 Thess. 5: 11, 14). They were in trouble about some of their number who had died, evidently imagining that this would in some way penalise them in regard to Christ's coming and kingdom. Their sorrow, however, was based upon an illusion. They were ignorant of truth which once known would remove all their difficulties and set the whole position and prospects of "them which are asleep" in their true light. The apostle proceeds to reveal to them what will come to pass at the coming of Christ for His saints, particularly as regards the sleeping saints. For certain details concerning the living we have to turn to 1 Cor. 15.

The tender love of the apostle for these young children of his in the faith, the solicitude for their welfare, the care for their souls, which breathe in every part of this epistle, are very beautiful. There was, of course, much excuse for their ignorant condition. But recently converted they could not be expected to know everything. The ignorance that so often marks the children of God to-day is less excusable, for the written revelation of God is complete. If we, who are not new converts but older Christians, with the New Testament, containing the full unfolding of the counsels of God, in our hands, are compelled by honesty to sing such lines as: —

"I am not skilled to understand

What God hath willed, what God hath planned" —

then we ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

What is wrong with us? Is it indifference  -  that we have no real interest in the things of God? Or, is it indolence  -  that though we have an interest, we allow the things of God to be crowded out instead of diligently pursuing them? Or what? If in difficulty by reason of cherishing delusions and deceptions, we certainly have the remedy to our hand in the written Word of God. Let it be studied in dependence upon the Spirit of God and a cure will be found.

When Paul wrote his second epistle further difficulties had been created. They were "shaken in mind" and troubled (2 Thess. 2: 2) by some who insisted that the "persecutions and tribulations " they were enduring meant that the day of Christ was "at hand" or "present." It was apparently claimed that their tribulations were a part of the great tribulation of prophecy. This deception evidently came from the devil, for the apostle writes of their being troubled "by spirit."

He writes, in fact, of the methods of deceit.

1. "By spirit." The Thessalonians received what purported to be a revelation given by the Spirit of God but which really came from a spirit of darkness, and they had not been able to "try the spirits," according to 1 Cor. 12: 1-3; 1 John 4: 1-6.

2. "By word." The same erroneous idea had also reached them by word of mouth through one or more men who were deceivers.

3. "By letter as from us." Those who were deceiving them even went to the length of writing what professed to be an epistle from Paul confirming their error. By this spurious document they hoped the more effectually to gain the ear of the Thessalonians.

If any be tempted to wonder what particular harm would be done to the Thessalonians by entertaining such ideas, they may find some enlightenment in 2 Thess. 3: 5 and 6.

To interpret the persecution and tribulation which they were enduring for Christ's sake as the throes of the great tribulation which has the character of wrath from the hand of God, would divert their hearts out of instead of into the love of God. It would then be a case of God counting them worthy of governmental wrath instead of His counting them "worthy of the kingdom" for which they were suffering (2 Thess. 1: 5). It would leave them also the prey to impatient longing instead of their hearts being directed into "the patience of Christ." Lastly it produced disorder which expressed itself in not working at all but acting as busybodies.

In the light of what has happened in our own day we need not be surprised at the infant assembly being troubled and deceived in this fashion. How many of the deceits of the twentieth century centre around the fact of the second advent and prophecy generally? Men are naturally curious as to what may be expected in the future, and credulous too. Hence, from the days of the Thessalonians until our own, matters concerning the coming of the Lord have provided a kind of hunting ground for those of speculative mind; and of these Satan is not slow to take advantage.

The Thessalonians were not free of blame in the matter themselves. Neither are we, if we too get deceived. The apostle had already instructed them that the day of Christ must be preceded by evil coming to a head in the form of a movement  -  a "falling away" or an "apostasy," which should be headed up in a man  -  the "man of sin," the "son of perdition"; and as neither of these had materialised the day of Christ could not be present. He could appeal to them and say, "Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?" Careful attention to instructions already given to them would have preserved them from being deceived.

But there was more than this. Since he had been with them he had written to them his first epistle, in which he had revealed to them the truth concerning the coming of the Lord for His saints and the way in which they would be "caught up together" to meet Him. To this he alludes in 2 Thess. 2: 1 speaking of it as "our gathering together unto Him." How could their tribulations be those connected with the day of Christ when it had been plainly revealed that the saints should be raptured to heaven? That rapture being in fulfilment of the word, "God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5: 9). By this fact so firmly established in his first epistle he beseeches them not to be betrayed into theories at variance with it. A young assembly has more truth to learn, but to be truth it must be consistent with the truth with which they started.

In 2 Thess. 2: 15 Paul alludes to these two ways in which the truth had reached them. They were to hold fast the "traditions" or doctrinal "instruction" which they had been taught, "whether by word" when he had been present with them, "or our epistle" when absent from them. They did not as yet know all the truth, but it was foolish of them to let what they did know be disturbed by what they did not know. Their safety lay in the Word of God received either orally through apostolic lips, or in writing through apostolic pens.

We have no apostolic lips to speak to us today, but the apostolic writings  -  the New Testament  -  we have, thank God! Here is our resource and our safeguard. The deceits of the present hour are legion, but there is no need that we fall under their power. If we do, it simply means that we are either ignorant of the Word of God, or that knowing it our eye is not single, our spiritual state is not according to God. If on the other hand "the word of God abideth" in us (1 John 2: 9)  -  which means that we not only know it but that by the Spirit of God it is operative and formative within us  -  we shall be preserved from the snares set by anti-christian teachings and indeed from all the deceptions which spring directly or indirectly from our great adversary, the devil.

2. Defection.

Galatians

The assemblies of Galatia had not been converted for very long when Paul had to write to them in the severe tone that marks his epistle. They were not, however, mere novices like the Thessalonians, and hence their case was a far graver one. To be deceived is indeed serious, but to start on the slippery incline of departure, which has as its end thorough-going defection, from the truth of the gospel, is far worse. And this was their plight, though evidently they were not conscious of it.

The trouble entered amongst them in a very insidious way. Men who posed as teachers appeared in their midst and sought to make them, though Gentiles, conform to Jewish usages, and in particular adopt the practice of circumcision. It is quite possible that they did not advocate it as being absolutely necessary to salvation, as had previously been done (see Acts 15: 1), but they evidently advocated law-keeping  -  of which circumcision was the symbol  -  as necessary to holiness of life, and also claimed the authority of the Jerusalem apostles as behind them. It is very instructive to see how Paul, inspired of God, treated the apparently trivial matter of these Gentile believers submitting to circumcision.

At the close of the epistle, the apostle plainly declares that, "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision" (Gal. 6: 15; see also Gal. 5: 6). The thing had lost all its force and significance for those in Christ Jesus, and hence, in a place where as yet circumcision had not been made a test question by Judaizing teachers, he had circumcised Timothy so that thereby he might have full access to Jews in his service, which would otherwise have been impossible since his father was a Greek and they knew it (see Acts 16: 1-3). When, however, he had previously gone up to Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts 15, about this very matter of circumcision   -  since the Judaizing teachers had made it a test question both at Jerusalem and Antioch  -  he took with him Titus, who was not, like Timothy, partly of Jewish blood, but wholly of Gentile blood, and stoutly refused to circumcise him under any consideration. This he relates fully to the Galatians in Gal. 2: 1-10.

Circumcision was thus being advocated as a sign of subjection to the law of Moses; if not as determining their standing before God as justified, at least as determining their place before Him in holiness. Consequently if one of these Gentile believers submitted to the rite, he thereby signified his adherence to the law and he became "a debtor to do the whole law" (Gal. 5: 3). James has informed us that "whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2: 10). Paul here enforces a corresponding fact, viz., that whosoever puts himself under the law as to one detail is considered by God to be under it in all its details. We cannot pick and choose out those of the law's commandments which we happen to like. We must be either under it all or not under it at all. Snap one link in a chain and the chain is broken. Attach a boat to but one link in a chain and to the whole chain it is made fast. The Galatians, therefore, in adopting circumcision, were being entangled in the "yoke of bondage" and Christ would profit them nothing; and if indeed Christ was "become of no effect" unto them they were "fallen from grace" (Gal. 5: 1-4).

To "fall from grace" has become in some quarters a rather hackneyed expression, and it has acquired a significance very different from that which it has in Scripture. The Galatians had not lapsed into the world, nor gone back as a washed sow to her wallowing in the mire, and so fallen out of the position in which God's grace had set them. On the contrary, they were adopting a rigid legalism and pursuing justification and holiness — not licence — by going over to law-keeping; and in so doing they were forsaking, in their own consciousness and experience, grace for law. In their own thoughts they no longer stood before God on the grace platform, but the law platform; they no longer viewed themselves as sons with the Spirit of God's Son in their hearts, but as servants under the regulations that prevail in the servants' hall (see Gal. 4: 1-7). The difference between these two platforms is so great that to step down from the one to the other amounts to a fall. Thus in their own state and experience they had fallen from grace. As to their standing before God in grace, of which Romans 5: 2 speaks, this standing was theirs unalterably in Christ, if indeed they were really the Lord's and so justified by faith.

In the light of this we may more fully appreciate the indignant outburst of the apostle in Galatians 1. They had been brought into the enjoyment of the grace of Christ by God Himself who had called them into it. They had now listened to "another gospel" which based itself upon circumcision, the symbol of law-keeping. To exchange Christ for the law of Moses, to embrace the demands of the law instead of the grace of Christ, and thus depart from the One who had called them out of the one and into the other, was such incredible folly that the apostle marvelled. They were like people "bewitched," and in Galatians 3: 1, he plainly calls them "foolish" or "senseless." Later on he has to say, "I stand in doubt of you" (Gal. 4: 20).

How would the Apostle Paul view Christendom to-day? How does modern Christianity stand in the light of this portion of the Word of God? At the doors of how many of us can similar folly be laid? Are any of us marked by defector from the truth of the gospel by reverting to the law as in any way determining our status before God?

These are searching questions, and we do well to ponder them. The matter of circumcision is hardly a live issue to-day: that of the Jewish sabbath is a very live issue, however, at least in some directions where subjection to it is much pressed. Inasmuch as the sabbath was given to Israel as "a sign" between Jehovah and them (see Ezek. 20: 12), it is equally with circumcision a symbol of law and law-keeping, and the inspired reasonings of the apostle as to the one would apply to the other; and other things there are of a yet more subtle nature. It is not very difficult to "fall from grace," in the Scriptural sense of the term, if we remember that the essential principle of law is that our standing before God is determined and regulated by what we are and do: whereas the essential principle of grace is that what God is and has done determines and regulates our standing as believers in His presence.

How did the apostle meet the state of defection that had developed amongst the Galatians? By bringing before them the truth, both as to the cross of Christ and as to the Spirit of God. In both cases the truth is set forth experimentally and not doctrinally. The truth of the cross is set before us doctrinally in Romans 6, but experimentally in Galatians 2: 19-21 and Galatians 6: 14, and consequently Paul writes there in a personal way, leaving the plural for the first person singular, for experience is of course an individual matter. The truth as to the Spirit of God is unfolded doctrinally in Romans 8, but experimentally and practically in Galatians 5: 16-26 and Galatians 6: 8.

1. THE CROSS OF CHRIST struck at the very roots of the ideas and practices which had started the Galatian defection, inasmuch as at the cross Christ died for us under the curse of the law which we had broken (Gal. 3: 13),and consequently we believers died representatively in Him beneath its sentence.

This the apostle takes up and applies to himself in an experimental way, saying, "I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ." For him, therefore, the condemning grasp of the law had been relaxed and that by the law's own act. He was legally dead to legality, in order that he might live unto God.

Let those words, "THAT I MIGHT LIVE UNTO GOD," be greatly stressed. Paul did not reckon himself to be dead to the law in order that he might live to himself and his own will, which would have been pure lawlessness, but that he might live with God Himself as the End and Object of his life. Formerly the law had controlled, or rather failed to control, him. Now God really did control him. While as yet God was only partially revealed as at Sinai, the law — holy, just and good — was set up as schoolmaster. Now that He is fully revealed in His Son we pass from under the control of law to the control of the One who gave it — which is infinitely higher and exerted upon the opposite principle of grace.

This life which is "unto God" can only be lived, says Paul, "by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me," for God is now known to us in His Son, and "faith's vision keen" alone makes Him to us "a living bright reality" and His love the moving and constraining force in our lives. We live unto God in the bright light of the Son of God and in the warmth of His love.

But all this, not apart from the cross. "I," says Paul, identifying himself with the Adamic life and nature of which he participated in common with the rest of us, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I" — the "I" here being just Paul himself, the person, the "ego," as we speak — "I live; yet not I" — here again Paul as the man who expressed the Adamic life and nature because participating in it — "but Christ liveth in me." Paul was living now in the life and nature of the Risen One who was the Object of his faith. The Cross severed him from the old life of Adam that he might live, even while here upon earth, in the life of Christ.

The law with all its demands, its ceremonies and its symbols, whether circumcision or sabbaths, addressed itself to the life of Adam. The cross of Christ has severed the believer from both the life of Adam and the law which applied to it. To go back to law in the principle of it, though apparently only taking up one of its symbols, is to do violence to the cross of Christ  - then, "Christ is dead in vain."

2. THE SPIRIT OF GOD is possessed by the believer as the directing power of his new life. Of old all our thoughts and actions were dominated by the flesh within us. We were sowing to the flesh and of the flesh reaping corruption. What is the remedy for this? Is it to sow to the law, and of the law reap bondage and condemnation? No.

It is to sow to the Spirit and "of the Spirit reap life everlasting" (Gal. 6: 8). If the cross puts the sentence of death upon the flesh, the energy of the old life, the Spirit indwells us as the energy of the new life. If we walk in the Spirit we do not fulfil the lust of the flesh (Gal. 5: 16). If we are led of the Spirit we are not under the law (Gal. 5: 18).

The expression "led of the Spirit" carries us back to the earlier passage, Galatians 3: 2 — Galatians 4: 7. Formerly the law took our hand and led us about as a schoolmaster or tutor. Now, redemption being accomplished, we are sons of full age, and the Spirit of God's Son is sent forth into our hearts saying, Abba, Father. The indwelling Spirit now fulfils the office formerly undertaken by the external law — only He does so with much greater fulness. We cannot be under the leadership of both at the same time.

We live in the Spirit (Gal. 5: 25). We are led of the Spirit. Now let us walk in the Spirit. Walking is the most normal and universal and healthy of all man's activities. It consequently signifies activity. All our activities are to be in the Spirit.

The truth thus presented in this inspired epistle completely met the Galatian defection. Let all that is implied by the cross of Christ and the gift of the Spirit be grasped, and defection from the truth of the gospel in all its forms will be met. The cross of Christ shuts out fallen man, his wisdom, his reasonings, his world. The Spirit brings God in, His purpose, His grace, His Christ, His Word.

Established in these things, Christ is formed in us (Gal. 4: 19) and we stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free (Gal. 5: 1). Consequently we do not remove from Him that called us into the grace of Christ.

3. Division.

1 Corinthians.

At this late hour in the church's history the state of division into which it has fallen is all too manifest. So manifest is it and so complete, that it might be thought that this particular evil could hardly go further than it has gone, and that to deal with the subject is a waste of time — a kind of shutting of the stable door after the horses are fled. We are assured, on the other hand, that however widespread may be the trouble it is one that never ceases to threaten the people of God, and that, therefore, the Scriptural sayings on the subject are always timely and to the point.

When the Apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians the divisions that existed among them were of an incipient nature and not as yet open and avowed breaches. Twice does the apostle speak of "divisions" (1 Cor. 1: 10; 1 Cor. 3: 3; 1 Cor. 11: 18). Once he uses the word "heresies" (1 Cor. 1: 19), and once he speaks of "contentions" (1 Cor. 1: 11). They were forming parties or schools of opinion —  which is what the word "heresies" means — and those, of course, gave rise to contentions and divisions. Yet the divisions were found amongst them when they came together "in the church" or "in assembly" (1 Cor. 11: 18), so that they evidently maintained outward unity, though these sad cleavages or rents were present.

It is worthy of note that the divided state of the Corinthians was brought under Paul's notice by a report which reached him, and that in taxing them with it he plainly stated who his informants were, and also was quite specific in the charge he brought against them. How often have reports concerning the low estate or wrongdoing of some of the saints of God been brought by their fellow-believers, who having poured forth their tale have at once tried to bind down the one who has listened to their complaint to absolute silence as to their names! They are wishing to bring the charge, but not willing to put their name to it, so that should it be unfounded or only partly correct their responsibility may not be brought home to them. It was not thus with these believers "of the house of Chloe."

Nor did the apostle permit the point of his charge to be lost in vague generalities of a sort that are fairly easy to establish and very difficult to deny. He made his charge quite clear. "Now this I say," or "But I speak of this," — that each of you say, "I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ." They were turning into party leaders men whom they esteemed to be great.

It was not that they were actually ranging themselves under the banners of Paul or Apollos or Peter, as 1 Cor. 4: 6 shows. With Christian delicacy the apostle avoided mentioning the real names of the men who were making themselves into, or being made by the Corinthians, into party leaders. He spoke "in a figure," and transferred the matter to himself and to Apollos, desiring that in that way they might learn the lesson not to be puffed up for one man against another. The men they were really puffed up for, were either men of note in their own local assembly, or possibly some of the false and Judaizing workers who got amongst them, as 2 Cor. 11 shows.

In their unconverted days the Corinthian believers had been familiar with the philosophies of the Grecian world and accustomed to range themselves under their leaders of thought into philosophic schools. They had boasted in all this human wisdom — "the wisdom of this world" and of "the princes of this world," for without a doubt many of the leaders of Greek thought were princes in the realm of intellect, as the Romans were princes in the arts of government. They committed the folly of importing these worldly ways into the midst of the church of God, and assuming that leading Christians were to be esteemed as princes in things religious — were to be followed and magnified into leaders of schools of religion.

Why did they think after this fashion? The apostle's diagnosis of their case is very simple, and stated with great plainness of speech: "Ye are yet carnal," he said. "Whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" (1 Cor. 3: 3). Spiritually they were still but babes, in an infantile condition, and they were fleshly and not of spiritual mind.

Before the eyes of the carnal believer man always looms as an imposing object. If he does not exactly see men as trees walking, he certainly sees them as of mountainous proportions, and hence in these early chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul proceeds to put man, together with his works and his wisdom, into his proper place of nothingness, by exalting Christ and His cross. When first he arrived at Corinth he was led of God to know nothing among them "save Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2: 2). That they needed at the outset, and that they needed still.

In the first nine verses of the Epistle he reminds them that Christ is all.

Upon what Name did they call? "Upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. 1: 2).

How had the grace of God reached them? It had been, he says, "given you by Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1: 4).

What was the character of the apostolic witness which had reached them? It was "the testimony of Christ" (1 Cor. 1: 6). What was their hope? "The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1: 7). And, what the character of the time for which they waited? It was "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."

What was their position on earth while waiting? They were "called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. 1: 9).

How high and holy the dignity and, privilege connected with a calling such as this! We have but to awake to it to become instantly conscious of what a poor and paltry thing it is to be of Paul or Apollos or Cephas. To say, "and I of Christ," in such circumstances — that is, to treat the Lord Himself as though He were to be ranked with His servants, as though He were but worthy to be a party leader in the church instead of being Head of the church — is even worse. It is to commit in principle Peter's mistake on the mount of transfiguration and to suggest erecting a tabernacle for Christ alongside tabernacles for Paul, Apollos and Peter.

Having set forth the paltriness of their divisions in the light of the incomparable glory of Christ, the apostle expounds the cross as the power and wisdom of God, which has "made foolish the wisdom of this world." Why had the Corinthian believers become enthusiastic partisans of one or another of the clever or gifted men who had been or still were amongst them? Because they intensely admired them. They were enamoured of the brilliant intellect of this one, or the flowing eloquence of that one, or the pushful energy of a third; instead of perceiving in them simply "ministers" or "servants" possessed it is true of differing qualities as also of differing gifts, but even these, "as the Lord gave to every man" (1 Cor. 3: 5). Hence, instead of glorifying the Lord who had gifted and enabled them, they glorified the servants who were but instruments or vessels, and it may be that they glorified clever men who could hardly be ranked as true servants of God at all. It was as though one should attribute all the virtue and glory to the jawbone of the ass instead of to the power of God that moved the mighty muscles of Samson's arm.

How often we are like these first century believers at Corinth! How little have we learned the grace and meaning of the cross of Christ from this standpoint, even though we rejoice in it as that which has wrought expiation for our sins. The very thought of "the cross" is that of a death under judgment, a death of shame; and we believe that almost invariably the passages in the Epistles that speak of the death of Christ as "the cross," contemplate it as that which puts under judgment and under the brand of shame.

Let us all make sure that by the help of God we understand this point. The Lord Jesus humbled Himself to death — "even the death of the cross." Stretched forth upon a Roman gibbet, lifted up from the earth, He was put publicly under MAN'S judgment and openly branded with shame. The thing was not done by the fools and degenerates of this world. It was "the princes of this world" — princes in authority and intellect and religion — that "crucified the Lord of Glory."

The central cross, then, lifted on high as an object of scorn, the LORD OF GLORY, who suffered Himself to be thus eclipsed — as we may speak — for a brief moment in the history of eternity. To all outward appearance He was judged and put to shame in man's rebellious and foolish little world. He was not really put to shame, but rather He was glorified, and God was glorified in Him, as never before. His own words in John 13: 31, anticipate this.

The cross then, as God saw it, as the holy angels saw it, as believers today see it, and as presently the whole universe shall see it, was not the putting to shame of Jesus under the judgment of the superior wisdom and power of the princes of this world, but the glorifying of the Son of man and the solemn putting of the princes, and their fancied wisdom and power, under a sentence of shame and judgment from GOD.

The cross was judgment indeed. But it was the judgment of this world. It was shame, indeed. But it was the wisdom of this world that was "made foolish" there. It was death — death dropping like a curtain and closing the story. But though the princes aimed to "destroy Jesus" (Matt. 27: 20), it was not Jesus who was destroyed. It was rather the fulfilment of that which had been written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent" (1 Cor. 1: 19).

We solemnly urge upon all our readers the question — Have you so learned the cross of Christ? If you have you will know well what "the offence of the cross" (Gal. 5: 11) means, and why there are to be found "enemies of the cross of Christ" (Phil. 3: 18), and why preaching the gospel "with wisdom of words" must help towards making the cross of Christ "of none effect" (1 Cor. 1: 17), since it would be tantamount to proclaiming with a flourish of worldly cleverness that which sets aside all worldly-cleverness. A truly stultifying procedure, since people always lay more stress on our practice than on the mere affirmation of principles.

The truth of the cross clearly shuts out man and his self-importance. Be it even Paul, or Apollos or Peter, all are swept away, and the divisions that would centre in them are excluded.

But if the cross shuts man out, the Spirit brings God in; and 1 Cor. 2 is the chapter of the Spirit of God.

The Corinthians might have thought that since Paul had come amongst them with nothing "save Jesus Christ and Him crucified," there was nothing further for them in the things of God. This was not so. These are "the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him" — the things which are to be ours as the fruit of the cross and according to the counsels of God. In these things are told out "the wisdom of God . . . the hidden wisdom," and hence they lie outside man's range altogether. Of them it is written, "Eye hath not seen" — so we cannot discover them by observation; "nor ear heard" — so we shall not find them in tradition; "neither have entered into the heart of man" — so there is no hope of arriving at them by a process of intuition. If we are to know them at all we are shut up to God.

Now God has acted. He has revealed them by His Spirit to the apostles and prophets (verse 10), and then empowered them to communicate what was revealed to them in words taught by the Holy Ghost (verse 13). Hence we have inspired communications. Thirdly, by the Spirit of God these things can be received or appropriated by the believer (verses 14, 15). Man in his unconverted condition — "the natural man" — cannot receive them at all.

All that we know, therefore, of the things of God we know not by observation, nor tradition, nor intuition which are purely human, but by revelations and inspiration, and appropriation, which are all by the Holy Spirit of God.

Let us only lay hold of the truth that centres in "the cross" and "the Spirit," and our souls are at once lifted from mere religion upon a human plane, which may have its great leaders. of thought and its schools of opinion and parties, into an order of things which is divine. We then begin to forsake the carnal for the spiritual and to get away from the spirit of division.

Division is nowhere in Scripture presented as an evidence of spirituality but always of carnality. "Ye are yet carnal," was the Apostle's indictment. How did he prove his charge? By simply saying, "whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walkas men?" (1 Cor. 3: 3). Similarly in Galatians 5: 20, "heresies" or "schools of opinion" are cited as amongst "the works of the flesh." If carnality prevails, divisions are sure to raise their ugly head. Hence, when the report of the divisions at Corinth reached Paul it did not take him by surprise. "I partly believe it," he writes, "for there must be also heresies [schools of opinion] among you" (1 Cor. 11: 18, 19). Emphasize that "you." There was no such "must" in the case of the faithful saints at Ephesus, or Colosse or Philippi. But amongst "you" — the carnal believers at Corinth — there are sure to be these "heresies" as the inevitable fruit of your carnal state. That God knows how to overrule even heresies and make them serve towards the making manifest of those who are approved of Himself — those not infected with the spirit of division — is no, excuse for the heresies or divisions.

4. Disintegration.

2 Corinthians.

The first Epistle which Paul wrote to the Corinthians evidently produced a very powerful effect upon them. The second Epistle makes this manifest. The evil-doer who had been in their midst had been excluded in a spirit of zealous repentance (2 Cor. 2: 6; 2 Cor. 7: 9-12)

Moreover they had been largely lifted out of the sectarian spirit that had threatened to engulf them. He writes of their being established in CHRIST (2 Cor. 1: 21), and "manifestly declared to be the Epistle of CHRIST" (2 Cor. 3: 3). Not Paul nor Apollos nor Peter was written on the fleshy tables of their heart, but Christ.

And, further, their intellectual doubts on the subject of the resurrection had been dispelled, for he says, "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God . . ." (2 Cor. 5: 1), referring to the resurrection body which awaits the saints.

Thus far all was well, and the Apostle rejoiced and told them about his gladness of heart in a strikingly beautiful passage (see 2 Cor. 7: 4-16); yet there were still things in their midst which caused him grave anxiety. With great warmth and tactfulness he acknowledges in the early part of the Epistle all that grace had wrought in their midst, and it is not until he reaches his farewell words that he plainly expresses his fears concerning them, and thereby indicates evils that were still at work among them.

He says, "I fear . . . lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults; and lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed" (12: 20 21). In his first Epistle he had laid certain definite charges at their door upon the evidence of reliable witnesses. In his second Epistle he writes with greater freedom of spirit, which he expresses in 2 Cor. 6: 11, and consequently he is bold to tell them what he feared concerning them.

The Apostle well knew the devices of Satan, as he tells us in the early part of the Epistle, and the subtle workings of the flesh. In reference to the shocking immorality exposed in the first Epistle, he had reminded them that "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Hence he deduced that the leaven of immorality had worked and that others besides the man who had been put away from their midst had been guilty, and he feared lest, their cases not having been specifically brought to light, repentance had not really been wrought in their hearts —  repentance to salvation from the evils that had overcome them.

Further, he knew that "false apostles, deceitful workers" had gained access into their midst, and he described the moral features of these men in 2 Cor. 11: 1 to 4, and 2 Cor. 11: 12 to 20. They appeared in the midst of the primitive assemblies as the very apostles of Christ, yet the effect of their teachings was to turn aside from the truth of the gospel (verse 4), and to corrupt from simplicity as to Christ (verse 3). Instead of condemning the flesh as a judged thing they gloried in it (verse 18) and they exercised, as might be expected, a highly fleshly "ministry" — exalting themselves, brow-beating the saints, devouring them by extracting money and possessions from them, and bringing them into spiritual bondage to their false teachings. All this verse 20 shows.

Inspired by the Spirit of God, Paul well knew what would be the effect of the mischievous activities of these men. Glorying in the flesh themselves, they would promote the activities of the flesh in all who fell under their influence, and thus fill the assembly with strife and confusion. No less than eight words are used in 2 Cor. 12: 20 to describe the conditions which the Apostle feared must prevail in their midst — words all of which portray the out-workings of the evil spirit of jealousy and envy.

Let us faithfully apply this warning portion of the Word of God to ourselves. It is true that men have always cultivated the flesh, but in our days the thing has been reduced to a fine art. Modern theories of education insist that the great thing is to instruct the rising generation in "self-expression," so that every ability and impulse may be developed and not restrained. This may mean the development of latent powers in the fields of art and science and invention. It certainly must mean a development of flesh in its most self-assertive and pugnacious form. Let the infection of these ideas spread in the church of God, and debates, envyings, wrath, strifes, back-bitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults, will be more than ever manifest; and the unedifying spectacle will be seen of even true believers filled with envyings of each other, puffed up in their mind, resulting in angry arguments, the whispering of stories to each other's discredit behind the backs and positive disorders.

When these things come to pass, a process of disintegration has set in, which, if not checked by the grace and power of God, must ultimately lead to dissolution.

Can we discern, in the case of the Corinthians, anything which predisposed them to fall victims to this particular danger? Is something of a fundamental nature disclosed to us which lay at the root of all these troubles? We believe that the passage, 2 Cor. 6: 11-18, supplies the answer. They were, alas! maintaining alliances with the world. They had not accepted as yet that clear-cut separation which took them out of the zone of the world's infection — if we may so speak. Maintaining alliance with the world-system, religious teachers who sprang from the world-system (for "religion" forms a well-recognized department of world order) found an easy means of slipping into their midst, and their teachings and influence promoted the very evils which are before us.

In this great passage the Spirit of God contrasts Christianity proper with the world. Both are set forth in their essential characters. The one is characteristically righteousness, light, Christ, a believer, the temple of God. The other, unrighteousness, darkness, Belial, an unbeliever, idols. No modifying circumstances are allowed to obscure the issue. It is true, alas I that Christianity is not always displayed according to its essential character. It is equally true that the world wears many dresses fair to behold and by no means always displays itself in its true guise. Still that is what the world-system is, and from it the believer is to be free.

It is unrighteousness, for it is wholly out of right relations with God, and consequently right relations as between man and man are absent too.

It is darkness, for the light of the knowledge of God is lost and unknown, and no mere light of science lit by man's devising — even if it be true science and not that "science, falsely so-called," which consists of speculations and guesses — can make up for the absence of the true sun from the firmament of man's mind.

Belial is the god or prince of this world, dominating, though secretly, its councils and its plans.

Unbelievers are the units that go to the making up of the world-system. The system itself had its rise in the minds of the unbelieving, and it now utterly dominates the mind of mankind wherein it had its birth. Unbelievers are the subjects of the kingdom dominated by Belial.

Idols are the many things, often trifling in themselves, which men pursue as objects of desire and which consequently usurp in their souls that place of supremacy which properly belongs to God alone. By means of idols Belial maintains his sway over the minds of unbelievers, blinding them to the "light of the glorious gospel of Christ" (2 Cor. 4: 4), keeping them in darkness and in unrighteousness as regards their relations with God.

With such a condition of things there can be no compromise without grave damage to the Christian. What fellowship, what communion, what concord, what part, what agreement can there be? None whatever, and if any be ever attempted it can only result in the introduction of infection from without into the assembly of God. It will also result in terrible loss of power to the assembly, since alliance with the world is like a breakdown of insulation in an electric plant. We have no need to wonder at the many ills that afflict the church of God to-day nor at the small measure of the energy of the Spirit available to counteract them.

The introduction of the world and its principles

, by unholy alliance with it, works disintegration in the church of God. What will act as an antidote to this state of things? The affirmation of truth, even heavenly truth as in 2 Cor. 3: 6 to 2 Cor. 5: 9; or of the searching truth of the judgment seat as in 2 Cor. 5: 10 and onwards, is not of itself enough. THERE MUST BE THE SEVERANCE OF THESE WORLD LINKS.

"Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." We come into contact with all sorts of men in our daily business or employment. Had we to be separate in that sense, then we "needs go out of the world" (1 Cor. 5: 10). We are not, however, to be unequally yoked with them. It is the "yoke" we have to beware of, for it is well-nigh impossible to be equally yoked with an unbeliever.

Are there any "yokes" today? Why, they simply abound. They are multiplying at a great rate. Societies, unions, federations, guilds, orders, sodalities, exist in appalling profusion, and — we write it with sorrow — the Christian who is not enmeshed by them is a rarity indeed. Here, lying right before our very eyes, is the thing that largely accounts for the sad disintegration and lack of power which are so manifest and so much deplored amongst Christians.

What are we going to do about it? There is only one thing to do — OBEY. "Come out . . . and touch not the unclean thing, SAITH THE LORD," and we must obey. No light as to the truth of God, no correct church position exempts us from the obligation of obedience.

Obedience, however, it will be urged, is certain to entail suffering and loss. Precisely: and hence those gracious words also covered by the "saith the Lord" — "I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." These words are not the declaration of relationship as are the words in John 20: 17, but rather the One who is our Father saying that if men refuse us He will receive us, if they would antagonise us, He will fulfil to us the Father's part. He will "father" us indeed. In the light of such promises we need not fear. We should rather be encouraged to "cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit" (2 Cor. 7: 1); seeing to it that we are not content with an outward separation, however necessary, but supplementing it with that cleansing of spirit which perfects holiness in the fear of God.

Shall we not, one and all, seek from God an enlargement, by obedience to this commandment from the mouth of the Lord? It would check disintegration. It would promote an integration that would be according to God.

5. Diversion.

Colossians.

The believers at Colosse were not babes in Christ like those at Thessalonica, nor were they in a carnal state like the Corinthians. On the contrary, the Apostle Paul could address them as "saints and faithful brethren in Christ," for "the word of the truth of the gospel" had come to them and brought forth fruit in them. They were marked by "faith in Christ Jesus" and "love . . . to all the saints." All this the apostle acknowledges in his opening words, and in Colossians 2 he supplements it by crediting them with "stedfastness" as to their faith in Christ and also with "order."

Among the Thessalonians there were those who walked in disorderly fashion as regards their personal lives and behaviour (see 2 Thess. 3: 6). Among the Corinthians there was much disorder in their assembly life and gatherings together, so that a long passage (1 Cor. 11: 17-14: 40) is taken up with instructions of a corrective nature, and even then the apostle has to say, "The rest will I set in order when I come" (1 Cor. 11: 34). The Colossians were in happy contrast to all this. They had received the instructions that relate to Christian life and activity, whether of a personal or assembly nature, and they were governed by them. Under the leadership of various able and gifted men Christians may have adopted in turn a dozen differing forms, all of which may appear very orderly, but which, nevertheless, would be every one of them but disorder because astray from the divine ordering. The Colossians, however, could be truly credited with "order" since they were obedient to the divine ordering.

All this was very good, and the Colossian believers as a result were a cause of much thanksgiving and joy to the apostle even though, having been converted through the instrumentality of others, they had not seen his face in the flesh. Their condition was a spiritual one, and we might almost speak of them as advanced Christians. Yet Paul's loving heart discerned a threatening danger even for them, and in Colossians 2: 8 to 23 he exposes it.

The danger was that of being diverted from Christ who is the all-supplying, all-sufficient Head of His body, the church. The subtle adversary aimed at bringing in that which would prevent them "holding the Head" — maintaining, that is, an intimate contact and communion with Him, so that He should be the Source and Governor of all our thoughts and ways. The Head securely "holds" us, the members of His body, but do we "hold" Him? The adversary knows well that if this diversion of the saints from Christ can be effected innumerable mischiefs, innumerable spiritual diseases, will arise.

And what was it that threatened to accomplish this serious diversion for the Colossians? The answer may be thought surprising, but this is it nevertheless — human intellect. The danger was consequently one that would especially threaten intelligent and advanced Christians, such as they were.

"Beware," said the apostle, "lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." The force of the word "spoil" is not to mar but to capture, i.e., to take as a spoil or prey. Nothing does more easily capture intellectual people than the philosophy of the world-teachers, because it is so very abstruse and involved. It represents the highest flights of the reflective and imaginative powers of the human intellect. Here, however, it is coupled with "vain" or "empty" deceit, which affords us a sure insight into what it really is according to the divine view.

Having surveyed very imperfectly some part of the material universe and observed or deduced what they believe to be the laws governing it, men love to speculate upon the mysteries of its origin and its character. They attempt the solution of a problem only knowing, and that imperfectly, some tiny fraction of the factors involved in it. Is it likely then that their philosophies will stand? Moreover, could they become possessed of ALL the facts governing the case their minds would break down under the weight of them, for only a mind equal to the mind of God would be capable of comprehending the inter-relation of all the facts and so drawing correct conclusions. What hope is there, then, in philosophy? It is only "after the tradition [or, teaching] of men, after the rudiments [or, elements] of the world," and we Christians should know something of what men and the world are. It is not "after Christ," and hence has the effect of diverting from Him.

The human intellect, however, works very busily in another sphere altogether. There is also the unseen universe — what we may call the sphere of religion — and subtle forces were at work here to divert the Colossians from Christ. There were those who would have ensnared them by a reversion to Judaism, judging them "in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." The substance, being available there must be great loss in turning back from it to that which is merely the shadow of it, and this loss is enhanced when the substance is "of Christ" — that which proceeds from and is identified with Him. Judaism, even a tinge of it brought into Christianity, diverts from Christ. This the adversary knew full well.

To many minds, however, it would appear a rather feeble and reactionary thing to hark back to Judaism. "What!" they would exclaim, "are we not capable of thinking for ourselves in things religious? Let us not be bound hand and foot by the past, but let us make our own independent advance. "They have done so with sad results, which call forth another apostolic warning, commencing with the words, "Let no man beguile you of your reward" (verse 18).

The passage extending from this verse to the end of the chapter is not an easy one. It is difficult even as to its translation, as may be seen if the New Translation by J. N. Darby (large edition with full footnotes) be consulted. Still it is quite clear that in it we are warned, firstly, against angel-olatry — including, of course, the worship of "saints" who after death are credited with angel-like existence and powers. Secondly, we are warned against ordinances connected with things that perish in their use, which may be imposed upon us after the commandments and doctrines of men. Thirdly, against asceticism, which, though it may appear a proceeding of much humility and denial of self, is really one which ministers to the satisfaction of the flesh in those who practise it. Indeed, this feature, the satisfaction of the FLESH, is what marks the whole movement, for the worship of angels, though apparently a very humble kind of thing, is really connected with being "puffed up" as to the "fleshly mind."

We have no hesitation in identifying the danger that is unmasked for us in Colossians 2: 18 to 23 as Ritualism; just as we have Judaism in Colossians 2: 16, and Rationalism in Colossians 2: 8. The Ritualistic error diverts from Christ as much as the other two, for those who are ensnared by it are "not holding the Head," who is Christ.

Thus far we have listened to the warnings of the apostle. We now turn to the great realities which he brought before them as being in the nature of an antidote.

These may be summarized under three heads: (1) The knowledge of Christ Himself personally. (2) The knowledge of "the mystery." (3) The understanding of the bearing and force of His death and resurrection. If we possess ourselves, through grace, of these three, we shall, indeed, "be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding" (Col. 1: 9).

On the one hand, the truth of the gospel is so divinely simple that the mind of a little child, illumined by the Holy Ghost, can sweetly take it in. On the other, the deep things of God, made known to us in Christianity, are of such scope and profundity as to overshadow the greatest human mind ever opened by the Spirit to receive them. Let us make no mistake about this. The truth revealed to us in Scripture will more than fill and satisfy the intellect of widest range and greatest powers, if that intellect is possessed by one who is self judged and under the control and teaching of the Holy Ghost. Taught by the Spirit — whatever be the range of our intellects — we have to cry with the apostle, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord?" For the truth is beyond us in its depth; yet we may lay hold of it with "spiritual understanding" as opposed to mere natural intelligence, and "in all wisdom" since it will be knowledge not merely theoretic but applied.

In Colossians 1: 13 to 22 CHRIST personally is presented with wonderful fulness. He is "the Son of God's love," "the image of the invisible God," "the Firstborn of every creature" because the Creator. He is the Former of all things, the One by whom they hang together. He is "the Head of the body the church," "the beginning, the firstborn from the dead," so that He holds the pre-eminent place in every sphere. On earth He accomplished redemption, and the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him to that end. Moreover, that which He was on earth He is to-day, for "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily " (Col. 2: 9), and consequently, we are "complete" or "filled full" in Him.

Our completeness in Christ is emphasized in connection with the danger of Rationalism. The fitness of this is evident. In order to be a rationalist you must enthrone the human intellect as supreme, and this must necessarily involve the dethronement of the mind of God as revealed in Christ. The rationalist is of necessity the enemy of Revelation, and the revelation of God in Christ is the total destruction of rationalism. Rationalism may admit a human "Jesus" as a great seer or prophet or thinker, but that is all. The knowledge of Christ as the One in whom the Godhead-fulness came into perfect display and revelation dispels the mists of rationalism for ever.

And for ourselves, Christians of the twentieth century, is there any danger from this direction? Most assuredly, — very much so. The so-called "modernism" is just religious rationalism, and it is spreading as a plague. It can, however, only infect those who have no active, vital faith in the Godhead-glory of Christ. The full knowledge of Christ as presented here lifts the soul entirely out of the range of the miasma of modernism.

Then, also, Paul sets before these Colossians "the mystery of God" — that particular part of truth which had been hidden from previous ages and generations, but which was now revealed as the crowning point of God's purposes and the completing of His word. In it (for so Colossians 2: 3 must be read) "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," since it was only when it came to light that the whole circle of God's thoughts and purposes came clearly into view.

A story has been told of the artist Turner standing with an art critic in his studio. The critic inspected one of his pictures, and confessed himself somewhat baffled, when Turner stepped forward and placed with his brush a single dot or splash of crimson on the canvas. The effect was extraordinary. It seemed to set everything in right perspective and make all intelligible and harmonious. So it was when the "mystery" or "secret" of God was revealed through Paul. Its effect at once was to make the whole scheme of God's will and counsel intelligible. His ways and dealings which had before seemed dark and mysterious were made plain. It became the key to unlock the knowledge of His will.

Apart from this, however, the mystery is of great excellence in itself. The apostle writes of "the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1: 27). It has its own peculiar "glory" and in that glory rich treasures are enfolded. One aspect only of the mystery is alluded to here and that the subjective. In Ephesians we have the mystery considered from an objective standpoint — the Gentiles, "fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel" (Col. 3: 6). An election of grace from amongst the Gentile nations brought jointly with an elect remnant from amongst Israel into heirship as regards the inheritance and into the same body, which is Christ's body, and into all that is promised in Christ. The character of both the inheritance and the body are developed in Ephesians 1 and 2.

The subjective counterpart to this is that Christ is in these elect Gentiles; the hope because the pledge of the day of glory when Christ will fill not merely Gentile believers but "all things" (see Eph. 4: 10). We are "in Christ," and that carries with it our fellow-heirship, our being of the same body, our joint-participation in His promise. Being of His body, Christ, the Head, is in us, and the more truly we hold the Head the more effectively will His life and character be seen in us. Christ in us, Gentiles, is a little sample and pledge of the coming day of glory when all things shall be headed up in Him, and He will fill all things over which He is Head. If we have the full assurance of understanding in the full knowledge of this, the stark-naked poverty of rationalism, whether as Modernism or in any other form, will be perfectly apparent to us. Neither shall we be enticed by ritualism. Who desires to traffic with angels or ordinances or ascetic practices when we are put into such intimate relations with the Head? Members of the Privy Council who have access to His Majesty's person and councils never betray any desire to interview and accept orders from the chauffeur who drives the royal motor-car or the footman who opens the door into the audience chamber. Why should they? It would be a strangely inverted procedure to do so. Not more inverted, however, than the procedure of the ritualist, who, overlooking the fact that as Man Christ is his Head, desires to place angels or ordinances between.

Thirdly, there is the bearing of the death and resurrection of Christ upon these matters. We believers are circumcised in His circumcision, that is, we have died with Christ. Thereby the flesh has been disowned (for Colossians 2: 11 should read "the putting off of the body of the flesh"). Thereby also "the handwriting of ordinances" has been abolished and principalities and powers have been spoiled. We have also been raised with Him, and this involves being quickened together with Him.

We are dead with Christ, and this being so, how can we be subject to the ritualistic ordinances, all of which recognize the flesh which the cross has disowned? We are risen with Christ, and this being so, how can we set our minds on things on the earth rather than on things above? How can we then be entrapped in a ritualistic system of religion which cultivates the flesh and occupies its votaries with earthly things?

If, then, we are to be preserved from the danger of being diverted from Him we must just have Himself abidingly before us. — CHRIST in the fulness of His personal and official glory; CHRIST as the One to be expressed in connection with the mystery of God; CHRIST once dead but now risen, our position in relation to all things being simply determined by His.

6. Dissension.

Philippians.

Of all the early churches, of which we have any notice in the Scriptures, not one appears to have been in a more healthy condition than that at Philippi. In the epistle that Paul wrote to them we do not find anything 'hat would lead us to infer that they excelled in intelligence and understanding, nor is there any unfolding of the counsel of God. The personal note is prominent right through the epistle, for what specially marked them was their wholehearted love for, and identification with, the apostle who at so great a risk to himself brought the gospel to them, as Acts 16 records.

Paul could thank God upon every remembrance of them. They had him in their hearts — as the marginal reading of Philippians 1: 7 puts it — and consequently from the first day until the time of writing their fellowship with Paul in the gospel had been marked. Their large-hearted liberality was Remarkable and exceptional as witnessed by Philippians 4: 10 to 18, and 2 Cor. 8: 1-5. This latter Scripture — where the apostle was writing about them to others — shows that they were then marked by four things: —

1. A great trial of affliction.

2. Abundance of spiritual joy.

3. Deep poverty.

4. Riches of liberality.

They gave to their power and even beyond their power, exceeding Paul's expectations. Moreover, they began with that which is greatest, giving their own selves to the Lord. It is easy to give of our substance without giving ourselves, whereas if we give ourselves to the Lord, our substance is necessarily surrendered also, to be used henceforth as He directs. This the Philippians did.

It is evident, therefore, that love of a divine sort was very active among the Philippians, both towards the apostle and towards all saints. That love was to "abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment" (Phil. 1: 9), for there is always room for enlargement in the divine nature; still, if love is the real measure of our spiritual stature, as 1 Cor. 13 indicates, then the Philippians were to be reckoned amongst the spiritually great. Paul himself called them his "joy and crown" (Phil. 4: 1).

Yet there was "a fly in the ointment" even with these devoted Christians. Dissension had sprung up between two sisters in their midst, and this threatened their peace and their joy, for it is a highly infectious complaint. Nothing is easier under these circumstances than for others to have their sympathies or prejudices awakened, so that they fly to arms and side with the contending parties; and so the whole assembly may be convulsed over something that in its beginning was a very trivial matter. For the moment it may be but a disagreement between Euodias and Syntyche, but who shall say whereto it may extend if not checked, so that they be "of the same mind in the Lord" (Phil. 4: 1-3).

Paul evidently felt how important it was that these excellent Christian women should be lifted out of their dispute, and he entreats one whom he calls a "true yoke-fellow" (probably Epaphroditus) to help them seeing that they were saints of no mean worth who had laboured with him, or shared his conflicts, in the gospel.

It looks, therefore, as if the dispute between them was not over some worldly matter, not a case of a quarrel based upon idle and foolish talkings, such as are at all times so common, but rather a disagreement over something connected with the Lord's interests and service. Now Paul himself had once been involved in a matter of this sort, as Acts 15: 37-40 tells us, and the contention between himself and Barnabas had been of so sharp a character as to divide them asunder as far as their future service was concerned. With this in mind we can understand how acutely he felt the situation at Philippi, and how urgently he desired that they might be of one mind in the Lord.

As a consequence of this the Epistle to the Philippians is pre-eminently the epistle of the mind. The very word itself occurs a number of times.

The first chapter might well be called the chapter of the devoted mind. In it Paul is led to speak of his own trying circumstances as a prisoner in Rome with his life hanging in the balance. He is, however, in no state of feverish anxiety to escape. He knew well, for he had already been caught up into the third heaven (see 2 Cor. 12: 1-7), that to depart and to be with Christ is very much better than the life of service here, yet he was well content to stay and toil on if thereby the Lord's interests in His saints should be served. He had before him one thing, and one thing only, that Christ should be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death. Such was his mind, a devoted mind indeed, and he exhorted the Philippians to the same when he urged them to "stand fast in one spirit with one mind [one soul] striving together for the faith of the gospel" (Phil. 1: 27).

The second chapter is clearly the chapter of the lowly mind. A great deal of the difficulty which comes in amongst Christians lies just here.

The apostle had just experienced most sweetly the "consolation in Christ," the "comfort of love," the "fellowship of the Spirit," the "bowels and mercies" found in the saints of God, in connection with the visit of Epaphroditus, bearing the gifts of the Philippian assembly. All this was a joy to him, but he tactfully intimates to them that one thing remained if they wished to fill the cup of his joy up to the brim. They must be "likeminded, having the same love." They must be "of one accord, of one mind" — or, more literally — "joined in soul, the one thing minding." Here we have that which lies behind the "one thing I do" of Phil. 3: 13, for the secret of doing one thing is minding or thinking one thing.

We all feel at once how desirable a thing this is. If we have any knowledge of ourselves and of the state of affairs generally among the people of God, we know that it is to all appearance an impossible thing. Yet there is a way by which it may be achieved, and verses 3 and 4 show us that way. Nothing is to be done in the spirit of contention or vainglory, but everything in that lowliness of mind which leads one to esteem others above themselves, and consider the things of others and not only the things of self.

The "one mind" of verse 2 is certainly to be achieved if the lowly mind of verse 3 is produced in us all. A difficulty, however, would still be felt if the lowly mind were to us only an abstract conception. We want it to be a living reality before our eyes, and we have it thus in Christ Jesus.

If there is to be only one mind, whose mind is that one mind to be? — "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

At first sight it would seem strange that to the carnal Corinthians the apostle should write "we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2: 16), whereas he exhorts the devoted Philippians to have in them the mind that was in Christ Jesus. The two Scriptures are, however, perfectly consistent, as the words used for "mind" differ. To the Corinthians he says, "we have the thinking faculty of Christ" — inasmuch as "we have received . . . the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." To the Philippians he says, "Let this way of thinking be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

And what was His way of thinking? The succeeding verses 6-8 present it to us — a passage wonderful beyond all words. The first man, Adam, conceived the idea of exalting himself in the scale of creation, to become even as gods: and he fell. The whole Adamic race inherits by nature that way of thinking. And here is Christ, who before incarnation was "in the form of God." It was to Him no unlawful thing to be equal with God for He was God, and therefore it was impossible for Him to be higher than He was. Before Him were only the two alternatives, of staying exactly where and as He was, or of coming in incarnation upon a downward path that would not stop short of the death of the cross. His way of thinking was to come down and humble Himself.

Adam's way of thinking has filled the earth with sin and strife, and there remains with us each the tendency to think as Adam, inasmuch as the flesh is still within us. Christ's way of thinking is life and peace, and having His nature, His Spirit, we have the capacity to think as He thinks. We infinitely prefer Christ to Adam. The contemplation of His mind fills us with adoration and worship. Let us then think as He thinks. With our present imperfections of understanding we might even then not see exactly eye to eye about everything but the element of dissension would be eliminated from our differences.

The third chapter is the chapter of the heavenly mind. The Christ, who in His downward path of humiliation is so excellent an Example to us, is glorified on high as an excellent Object before us, and the knowledge of Himself as in that glory is the thing to impart a heavenly direction and character to our lives and energy and decision on our way. Paul's first sight of the heavenly Christ on the road to Damascus led him to discard all his natural advantages as worthless (verse 7), and now writing long years after, with an enlarged experience of "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus" his Lord, coupled with suffering and loss for His sake, he more than ratifies his early decision (verse 8). He had but one desire — to reach Him in His resurrection glory even if it meant martyrdom to do so (verses 10, 11). He calls upon us all to follow him in this (verses 15, 16). If we are "thus minded" with him we, as well as Euodias and Syntyche, will find it more possible to be "of the same mind in the Lord."

The fourth chapter is the chapter of the contented mind. Paul himself in a Roman prison is no more disposed to grumble than when he first made the acquaintance of the Philippians and sang praises in their local jail. He had learned in whatsoever state he was to be content; but then he practised what he presses on the Philippians.

In verse 6 of this chapter he bids them to unburden their minds of care by freely making known their requests to God, with thanksgiving. This would keep or garrison their minds with peace. Then having unloaded their minds of care he bids them fill their minds up to the brim with all that is true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report, of virtue and of praise. "Think," he says, "on these things." One thing further remains, "Those things . . . do" (verse 9). Let all those lovely things that fill our minds work out into action and practice, and "the God of peace shall be with you"  - and with us. Dissension dies in the presence of the God of peace.

The choicest believers and the choicest assemblies have all too often been overcome by dissension. Let us therefore pay diligent heed to the remedy.

"A Little Maid;"

"A Little Maid;"

or, Faithfulness in Obscurity.

2 Kings 5: 2-4.

F. B. Hole.

Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol 3, 1911, pages 375-7.

There was nothing novel about the history of this little maid. Her lot was common to thousands in those hard cruel days of inter-tribal warfare. Uprooted violently from the midst of home and loved ones by the savage enemies of her country she found herself a humble captive in the house of the conquering general.

"The Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife."

There in few words you have her pitiful story from the pen of the inspired historian. She is not named. Who would expect her to be? A little slave in a foreign land, alone and friendless, one's only wonder would be that in the Book of books she should be mentioned at all.

It was, indeed, through an exclamation that fell from her lips that Naaman first heard of a cure for his leprosy. But even so, that fact would hardly seem to be of sufficient importance to merit such notice.

Yet it is noticed, and that in an emphatic way.

"And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy. And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel."

Her very words are carefully noted by the Spirit of God. They have an importance beyond that which appears at first sight.

Let us not be surprised at this. Have we not seen in Scripture again and again that it is the insignificant instruments that God uses, the unexpected servants by whom He does great things? And not only this; do we not find oftentimes the rarest qualities and graces expressing themselves in the poorest, the humblest, and most retired of His people?

We certainly do. One of the poets has told us that

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

We may well appropriate these beautiful lines to spiritual things, only remembering that no hidden flower that God cultivates in this desert-world wastes its sweetness. If such are not appreciated by men their sweetness is a joy to the heart of their Father and God.

Just such a flower as that was the little captive maid.

Quietly consider her story and see if three most excellent virtues do not lie enwrapped in it.

1. She was possessed with THE MOST SUBLIME CONFIDENCE IN GOD.

Without any misgiving she announces a fact "He would recover him of his leprosy."

How did she know it so positively? Who told her that?

She could not argue from precedent and say that what she had seen done once might be done again. There was no precedent to argue from! The cleansing of a leper was an unknown thing in the land of Israel in those days. For saying this we have the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Preaching in the synagogue at Nazareth He said:

"I tell you of a truth . . . many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian" (Luke 4: 25-7).

Here, then, is a very extraordinary thing! A young girl confidently asserts that if her heathen master, who had fought against and ravaged the people of God, will only go to the prophet of the great JEHOVAH, he shall be miraculously delivered from the grip of the most deadly of diseases; yet she can produce no tangible warrant for so asserting, she cannot even cite one case of a professed follower of Jehovah being so delivered. Which is it? Preposterous folly or sublime faith?

That must have been the question debated in the ranks of Israel when David descended into the valley of Elah to meet Goliath. The issue of the conflict soon decided the question for them. Men may hoot with derision while faith is calmly marching to her goal. They stand all amazed or shout with applause when her unexpected triumph is won.

So too with the little maid. Her words were amply vindicated in the end. The issue of them was crowned with success. It was not folly, it was faith.

Her faith in God was like a diamond of the finest water. It rested not upon human arguments. It found no support in human circumstances. It transcended human reason. It just soared aloft with eagle wings to lay hold upon GOD Himself, and there it rested. She evidently believed in the power and the compassions of God. From that she drew her inspiration, so that, laughing at the impossible, she was able to say, "It shall be done."

2. She manifested THE MOST SUBLIME COURAGE in TESTIMONY.

"Add to your faith virtue [or courage]" is an apostolic command (1 Peter 1: 5). This the little maid anticipated and obeyed. To have such confidence in the power and grace of God as to feel sure that, in the teeth of all experience and appearances, He will bless and deliver an enemy if only he seeks Him, is one thing. To boldly and confidently assert one's inward confidence and convictions is quite another.

Put yourself in the shoes of the little maid and think what it meant. In similar circumstances would you not have said:

1. "They have no confidence in Jehovah. My assertions will seem incredible. I shall but be laughed at for my words."

2. "May they not misinterpret my words and my motives? Will they not think it an artful scheme to decoy Naaman in a defenceless condition into the land of Israel that vengeance may be wreaked on him?"

3. "Supposing that for some obscure reason which I do not understand Jehovah is not pleased to cure Naaman, with what anger and rage he will return! How absurd he will look to the public! A great man fooled and sent on a wild-goose chase by a little girl! In such case he will wreak vengeance on me! My life will not be worth ten minutes' purchase! I quite believe God will cure him by His prophet, but —  No. It will be more prudent if I hold my tongue."

We could, in fact, have doubtless found many reasons why we should not take our courage with both hands and boldly declare that which we knew of God. The little maid was proof against such considerations.

What was it that nerved her for such bold witness? The answer seems to lie upon the surface of the scripture.

3. She was moved by THE MOST SUBLIME COMPASSION FOR THE LOST.

The manner and tone of her utterance shows it. Here is Naaman — the hereditary foe of her people, the indirect cause, at least, of her captivity, and the news filters down to her ears that he is a lost man, doomed to a loathsome death. Is she filled with ill-concealed satisfaction? Does she exult at the thought of a miserable end overtaking him? Not at all.

See her stand before her mistress. Note the tear-drop of pity in her eye. How those words spring from the tender fountain of her heart and burst the portals of her lips: "Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy." Coldness and cynicism were absent, warmth and the ring of reality were there!

Lifted above all petty motives of revenge, her compassion was no less sublime than the strength of her confidence in God or the courage with which she witnessed to Him. It was indeed more than sublime. It was positively divine. Like David's kindness to Mephibosheth (2 Sam. 9: 3), her kindness too "was the kindness of God." In words and behaviour she strikingly displayed the good and gracious character of the God she served.

Well done, little maid! In very trying circumstances you performed that most high and holy service of rightly representing Him with whose name you were identified. The greatest of God's servants cannot do more than this.

Your reward is on high. Naaman may have thanked you on his return or he may not. But even if no word nor look of recognition were ever given you by man, you did not "waste your sweetness on the desert air." The fragrance of your words and spirit was fully appreciated by your God, and you will hear from the lips of ANOTHER, Himself the perfect Servant, the words "Well done!" in that day.

* * * *

There is an application to the story of the little maid. It does not require great mental acuteness to see it. For himself or herself let each reader make it.

The day in which we live has its own peculiar testings, and, in spite of the thin veneer of Christianity which Christendom carries, never was living faith in God at a lower ebb. Yet God Himself stands revealed to faith in a way in which He did not in Naaman's day.

God perfectly revealed to us in Christ should certainly inspire us with the strongest confidence in Himself. The Holy Spirit given since the day of Pentecost to us as believers should fill us with courage, for "greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world" (1 John 4: 4); and further, God has said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me" (Heb. 13: 5, 6). Lastly we have been saved that we may be in communion with the mind of the Saviour and display His character before the world; putting on "as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies [bowels of compassion, N.T.], kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering" (Col. 3: 12).

Life's path for many of us may lead into shade and retirement. Let none of us lose heart because of obscurity. In your small corner you may brightly shine for Christ, since

"The God that lived in Naaman's time

Is just the same today!"

"A people prepared for the Lord."

"A people prepared for the Lord."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 255, also Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 1.)

The prepared people were very few numerically, and from a social and worldly standpoint were very insignificant, yet when the Lord Jesus Christ appeared in the humiliation which characterized His first advent they were there to greet Him.

It was particularly the office of John the Baptist to make ready that prepared people (Luke 1: 17). He was the chosen instrument of the Spirit of God, and by his preaching and the baptism of repentance things were brought to a climax, and godly souls marked by repentance and faith were manifested, just as also by his baptism the Messiah Himself was made manifest to Israel. Still, the process of preparation had been going on for long. The opening chapters of Luke give us a very attractive picture of some of these godly souls who had been prepared of God at a date nearly thirty years before John's preaching. The book of Malachi gives us a glimpse at a similar generation of faithful saints some three or four hundred years previously.

The Lord Jesus evidently appeared at an hour when the world was seething with unrest and when a general expectancy of some great event swayed the hearts of men. Scripture bears witness to this feature amongst the people of Israel (see Luke 3: 15). Secular history seems to indicate a corresponding condition in the heathen world. This latter is easily explained. The devil, though not omniscient, is very farsighted and is a close observer of the Divine Word and of the hearts and ways of men. He knew when Messiah was to appear according to Daniel 9: 26, even though saints neglected the sacred writings, and remained as a result in ignorance. He consequently agitated the minds of men, raising up false prophets and false "Christs" so as effectually to becloud the issue and confuse the inquiring mind. Moreover, he too had evidently been steadily working for centuries amongst the returned remnant of the chosen people, producing among them just that attitude of mind and that moral atmosphere that made the rejection of the Messiah when He appeared an absolute certainty. Just as there had been a work progressing in preparation for Christ, so had there been a work of preparation for Barabbas.

Now history has a remarkable way of repeating itself. This is not surprising when we remember that in all ages and under all circumstances man is just man, and God Himself immutably the same. Hence men are continually doing the same things and God is continually acting towards them according to the principles of His holy and righteous government; the consequence being the repetition which is so frequently noticed. In keeping with this we find indications in the New Testament that there is a similar work of preparation in progress for the now near-approaching second advent. The same two currents are running swiftly in the course of present history. We do not for the moment pursue this side of the subject, and only mention it in order that with greater interest we may follow the course of the two totally opposed currents as they flowed before the first advent, and be better able to appreciate the light which it all sheds upon the path of the saint to-day.

Let us then first turn our thoughts to Malachi, whose prophecies were uttered more than a century after the return of a remnant of the captivity to the land of their fathers under Zerubbabel, Nehemiah and Ezra. During these many years there had gradually supervened amongst them a haughty and self-satisfied spirit. They did not now drift off into idolatry as their fathers had done, but the devil darkened their thoughts by pride so that they were content to pursue the round of outward religious observances whilst their hearts were far from God. And not only this, but when the Lord remonstrated with them through the prophet and laid their sins at their door, they simply met such remonstrance with petulant and impertinent inquiries as to when they had ever been guilty of the sins alleged. They were utterly intolerant of criticism, and not prepared for one moment to admit that anything at all was amiss with them!

Note the following excerpts:-

"I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast Thou loved us?" (Mal. 1: 2).

"You, O priests, that despise My Name, and ye that say, Wherein have we despised Thy Name?" (Mal. 1: 6).

"Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee?" (Mal. 1: 7).

"And this have ye done again . . . insomuch that He regardeth not the offering any more . . . Yet ye say, Wherefore?" (Mal. 2: 13, 14).

"Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied Him?" (Mal. 2: 17).

"Return unto Me . . . saith the Lord of Hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?" (Mal. 3: 7).

"Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee?" (Mal. 3: 8).

"Your words have been stout against Me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against Thee?" (Mal. 3: 13).

These extracts show that already the mass of the people were developing the frame of mind so strikingly described by the Lord Jesus as being like the children of the market places who say, " We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented" (Matt. 11: 17). When the Lord declared His love for them, instead of rejoicing, they merely asked wherein He had loved them, inferring thereby that they did not accept His assurance, since they considered His dealings harsh and that they themselves were but victims — injured innocents, in fact. When He plainly laid their sins before them, instead of repenting they simply declined to admit that any such sins existed with them.

Moreover, in all the profanation of the things of God which marked those days, the priests were the ringleaders (Mal. 2: 1-10). Instead of leading the people to God, they "departed out of the way" themselves; they "caused many to stumble at the law," they "corrupted the covenant of Levi." Consequently no one would open the temple doors unless he made some profit by so doing, and the people were infected by the same spirit, and if they contemplated bringing an offering, they carefully looked over their flocks so as to bring to the Lord the most miserable specimen they could find! And all the while they considered themselves in the pride of their hearts as being quite above criticism, and the weight of public opinion was altogether in their favour, for, said the prophet, "Now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up." (Mal. 3: 15). Thus rolled on the current of religious iniquity that was to terminate in the cry, "Away with this Man, and release unto us Barabbas."

Another current, however, had begun to run its course, gaining its impulse from the Spirit of God. It appears to have been largely beneath the surface, and hence much less conspicuous, and to have had an appearance of but little strength, still it was there. "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another" (Mal. 3: 16). There began to be manifested a true remnant of God-fearing souls within the remnant of the nation that had returned from captivity.

Three things characterized these godly souls of Malachi's day:-

1. They "thought upon" Jehovah's Name (Mal. 3: 16). A person's "name" sets forth what he is, it expresses also his reputation. These God-fearing folk cared for Jehovah's reputation. They cared for what He was, and judged of things consequently not by the way those things affected themselves personally, but by the way they affected Jehovah's name and interests. In short, they reversed the popular order and set Jehovah's interests in the first place.

2. They "served" God (Mal. 3: 18). Their thoughts of Jehovah's Name found practical expression in service. They were not mere thinkers. This is a great point, for it is quite possible for the true saint whose mind is in the right direction to fall short of what is practical. To think without serving is nearly as bad and ineffectual as to serve without thinking.

3. They "spake often one to another" (Mal. 3: 16). Speech as well as thoughts and actions came under Divine control. The heart being full, the mouth spoke, and intercourse and fellowship together in the things of God were enjoyed. All this was pleasing and acceptable to God.

Thus far does Malachi carry us. The two currents are plainly discernible. The second current terminated in the great confession of Peter, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

We leave Malachi and come to New Testament times, only to meet with the two currents again. The early chapters of Matthew resume the history of the first: the early chapters of Luke that of the second.

In Matthew 2 the scenes are cast largely among the grandees of the day. We move in thought amongst venerable priests and scribes of the Sanhedrim, and in the court circles of the godless Herod. What do we find? We find a state of things, which, had not Malachi's prophecy prepared us, we should have deemed well-nigh incredible. The Messiah, the long-expected Deliverer is born, and Jerusalem knows nothing of it! The months roll by and still not the faintest inkling of the great event has reached the religious or civil authorities! Presently, wise men from the East, semi-pagans in all probability, arrive in Jerusalem with the tidings, and proceed to instruct the men who were supposed to be the link between God and the people. Malachi had said, "The priest's lips should keep knowledge . . . for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts" (Mal. 2: 7). Here, however, the priests had no knowledge to keep. Semi-pagans got the glad tidings of great joy before them and became the instructors of priestly ignorance. So long a time had elapsed between the Nativity and the news reaching the authorities, that Herod had to fix two years as the limit in his vain attempt to ensure that the Messiah should be slain. Thus did God pour contempt on all the priestly pride which Malachi had reproved.

And this is not all. Consider the effect of the news when it came to hand. "When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." That Herod should have been troubled is not surprising; he was an alien on the throne. But the leaders of the veritable people of God and the people themselves were troubled also. Instead of hailing His advent with great joy, they were filled with consternation. It seemed to them an intrusion, a disturbing factor in all their schemes. They were not prepared for God to thrust Himself into the midst of their concerns. The current of Satanic preparation for His coming had greatly increased in volume. If the cry of "Not this Man but Barabbas" appeared a probability in the light of Malachi's indictment, it is now a certainty, and inevitable.

We turn to the first and second chapters of Luke, and what a contrast we find ! Far from the ignoble strife of the madding crowd of Pharisaic and Sadducean religionists or the vicious courtesans of Herod and his court, were at least a few saints better known in heaven than on earth. Zacharias and Elisabeth, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, the nameless shepherds caring for the flocks by night, were representatives of a larger number. How strongly that other current beneath the surface is flowing! Here is a people in touch with heaven! "An angel of the Lord appears to this one. Gabriel visits another. On a third occasion the angel of the Lord with a multitude of the heavenly host comes into evidence. By a few the advent of the Messiah was known before ever He same. His approaching birth formed the theme of conversation between holy women. When the great event was an accomplished fact, hardly an hour passed before the God-fearing shepherds were apprised of the fact. They needed no wise men from the East to inform them that the King of the Jews was born.

In this people we see the three characteristics mentioned by Malachi. They thought upon Jehovah's Name, as evidenced in the inspired utterances of Mary and Zacharias. They served God and spake often one to another, as illustrated by Anna who "served God with fastings and prayers night and day," and who, having actually seen the child Jesus in the temple, "spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." The characteristics are not only there but intensified, indeed things come to light which surpass anything mentioned in Malachi, for in Simeon the Holy Spirit was working with singular energy. Though as yet the Spirit could not indwell, yet He was upon him. Through the Spirit he had a revelation, and by the Spirit he was guided into the temple at the exact moment to meet the child Jesus.

As a consequence Simeon was a prophet. His words to Mary, the mother of our Lord, show that he foresaw the rejection and death of the Messiah, and they breathe a remarkable spirit of devotion and love. Here was this aged saint who had spent a long life "waiting for the consolation of Israel," and now just before his eyes must close in death he is permitted to see as an infant the One who is the fulfilment of his hopes. The actual day of Messiah's manifestation to Israel he can never hope to see. Might he not very naturally have bewailed his hard lot in having to die just as the fulfilment of his hopes was in sight? Yet as a matter of fact he simply said, "Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace." Not only did he foresee the approaching tragedy of the Cross, but his heart's love centred in the Christ of God. If the Christ is to go, he is content to go. He has no wish to live if Jesus is to die!

Behold then a people prepared for the Lord morally: it remained for John the Baptist to baptise with the baptism of repentance and thus prepare them positionally. Just as in Matthew 2 we see Malachi's picture of the people reproduced in an accentuated form, so here is Malachi's picture of the remnant in an accentuated form, and they received the Christ with great joy. Simeon stands before us as a watcher for Christ; Anna as a witness to Christ. They were ready.

It is a thrilling story. How deep the interest, whether joyous or painful, according as we look on this side or on that! Yet our situation today is no less thrilling did we but know it. It is easy, however, to discourse upon what has been, or even upon what is yet to be, and alas! so difficult to realize and correctly estimate the situation that is.

We draw near to the close of the church's history. The coming of the Lord is nigh. The rolling tide of religious iniquity that is to terminate in apostasy, yearly grows in volume. More and more bold and blasphemous become the denials and negations of men who pose as religious leaders. More and more reckless and God-forgetting become the poor men and women of the world. And the saints? What of the saints of God? Is there a corresponding movement among them?

Let us narrow down this question to ourselves individually. If we do, it will certainly send us to our knees in the presence of God. The second coming is near. The two currents of which we have spoken are again plainly visible. Ask, Which of them bears me on its bosom? Am I amongst the watchers and the witnesses? Do I stand with loins girt and ready for the Lord?

"A worm" yet "Jehovah of Hosts."

"A worm" yet "Jehovah of Hosts."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 27, 1935, page 104.)

A series of great and wonderful contrasts is found in Psalms 22, 23 and 24. Psalm 22 divides very naturally into two parts, so that we have four sections in all; and the main contrast lies between the first part of Psalm 22, where the sufferings of Christ are prophetically set forth, and the remaining three parts, which furnish us with glimpses of glorious results which follow. One of the striking contrasts we have chosen as our title. The One, who speaks of Himself as a worm in the early part of Psalm 22, is discovered to be the Lord of hosts when we arrive at the end of Psalm 24.

The first part of Psalm 22 ends in the midst of verse 21. The colon which occurs there in our Authorized Version is supplanted by a full stop in Darby's New Translation, which renders it thus:-

"Save me from the lion's mouth. Yea; from the horns of the buffaloes hast thou answered me."

The first sentence of the verse is thus the last cry of the suffering Messiah. The second sentence is His first utterance of triumph as He comes forth in resurrection to declare Jehovah's Name unto His brethren.

In the first place, then, we have an amazing prophetic forecast of the atoning sufferings of Christ, when as the single grain of wheat He fell into the ground and died. Then we discover how great a harvest is to be reaped from that sowing. The latter part of Psalm 22 shows that Jehovah is to reap a satisfying harvest of praise and worship.

The prophetic forecast of the sufferings of the cross is given with great fulness, only equalled by Isaiah 53. We need not pause to points out how minutely all was fulfilled, as recorded in the four Gospels; and others have dwelt upon the marvel that all the physical horrors of death by crucifixion should be accurately described, centuries before that dreadful form of capital punishment had been invented. We will briefly trace the varied sufferings which combined in that dread hour. May we do so with reverent and adoring hearts.

He had to explore vast fields of suffering which came upon Him as the result of the activities of fallen men and of that malignant spirit of evil by whom men fell. Verses 6 to 8 present most graphically the reproach of men which came upon Him. This was we judge the least part of His sufferings, for Hebrews 12 tells us that He "endured the cross, despising the shame." Nothing cuts us more to the quick than reproach and shame amongst our fellows. But that is just because they are our fellows. He was infinitely above those who shamed Him. Both in His Deity, and in His spotless and incomparable Humanity He towered above them so that the taunts they flung were as nothing to Him. Yet on the other hand He keenly felt it all, for He had a keenness of sensibility of which we know nothing. He despised the shame, yet He felt it according to God.

Then in verses 12 and 13 we have the persecution of the Jews. The leaders of that people attacked Him with the strength and ferocity of bulls. The militant Pharisees were like strong bulls of Bashan, and, inasmuch as they were the special agents of Satan in the matter, they partook of his character. He bears the character of "a roaring lion."

Verses 14 and 15 portray His bodily sufferings. In these of course He was not unique. The two thieves crucified on either side must have shared them, as indeed all others who at any time have been executed in this terrible way. What was unique was His power of feeling, for in Him no sensibility had been blunted by sin; all was tuned to the highest pitch of perfection. And all ended in "the dust of death." The power of death is terrible indeed to us, it was far more so to Him, for He knew it right well as the original judgment of God imposed on man because of sin. As such He entered into it. He was brought there by God.

Then also there was the cruelty of the Gentiles, pictured in verses 16 to 18. It was the Roman soldiers who fulfilled these three verses. They were not marked by the ferocity of the bull, for they had no particular animus against the Lord; but there was an utter lack of decency and feeling. They were like the unclean dog, an assembly of evil-doers. All this He keenly felt.

And behind all this, behind the sword and the dog, lay the power of Satan. It is the devil who wields the power of death, according to Hebrews 2. 14; and so in going into death He was going into the very mouth of the lion. He came thus to grips with the devil in the very stronghold of his power. At this point we reach the end of the section which predicts His sufferings.

But in this brief survey of the sufferings we have thus far omitted that which is immeasurably first and chief of them all — that which is indeed the main theme of the passage. There were these minor ingredients in the cup of His sufferings, but the major ingredient was this — He was forsaken of God. The atonement that He made lay in this, that He bore the judgment of God against sin, even unto death. As bearing sin He was forsaken of God who is holy, and who yet is to inhabit the praises of Israel, and of many others besides.

This forsaking is, as we have said, the main theme. It fills the opening verses, and then the holy Sufferer recalls the way in which the fathers had been supported and delivered in their hours of need, which makes it all the more striking that He should be forsaken at this supreme moment. Then, in verse 11, it is again reverted to. He had been the dependent One from the very outset, never deviating from that attitude, so more than all He had the title to Divine support, all others having forsaken Him. This was the hour of trouble when most He needed the sunshine of the face of God.

Then follow verses 12 to 18, in which, as we have seen, the persecution of the Jews, His bodily sufferings, the power of death, the cruelty of the Gentiles, are all recounted. They are urged in verse 19 as furnishing potent reasons why He should enjoy the sustaining presence of God; so that again the fact of His being forsaken is reverted to.

When this is observed it at once becomes apparent that the fact of His being forsaken is the main theme. His other sufferings, great as they were, are only mentioned in order that the supreme sorrow of His being forsaken of God may be apprehended by us. The other sufferings, the reproach and persecution from both Jew and Gentile, even the power of Satan, were incidental. What was essential to His greet work of atonement was the fact that as made sin upon the cross He was forsaken of God, He died as the Victim. As our Psalm puts it, "THOU hast brought Me into the dust of death" — it is not viewed as the work of evil men. Isaiah 53 says, "THOU shalt make His soul an offering for sin." In both cases the act is an act of God. Men played their evil part, but the great transaction really lay between Him and God.

The sin of man created the necessity. The sin of both Jew and Gentile furnished the occasion. But the work itself was wholly divine. The Father had sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world, and the work lay wholly between the Sent One and Him who sent Him. We may well rejoice that this is so. It guarantees at once and for ever all that then was accomplished.

The grain of wheat having been sown, having fallen into the ground and died, the glorious harvest that is to be reaped, begins to appear. First comes the "much fruit" that is to appear for the pleasure of God Himself. Praise and worship is His rightful due, whether we consider Him as Elohim in creation, or as Jehovah in covenant faithfulness, or as Father revealed to us in the Son. That which is His due He is going to get.

In the latter part of Psalm 22 we find that He who suffered is to become the Master and Leader of the praise. It is true of course that apart from His atoning death there could have been no praise. It is equally true that, His death being accomplished, He came forth in resurrection to declare God's name, and thus start the praise, and also to take the lead in offering the praise for the word is, "in the midst . . . will I praise Thee," and yet again, "My praise shall be of Thee" (verses 22, 25). So that which was set forth typically in Asaph, Jeduthun, Heman, and "their brethren that were instructed in the songs of the Lord" (1 Chr. 25: 7), is seen antitypically in Christ, and His redeemed.

Verse 22 finds its fulfilment today, as Hebrews 2 indicates. He has declared God's name as Father to us, and in the midst of the assembly — of those called out for heavenly privilege and destiny — He leads the praise. The first notes of the song that will ultimately swell into the great universal orchestra of praise are struck in the assembly on earth today. It is indeed true that, "On earth the song begins," and the character of that song is very high, for it is in response to the declaration of the Father's name; though on the other hand it may be very feebly taken up by us, for the assembly on earth is in a condition of weakness.

After the assembly is gone from the earth there will still be found among various peoples those who fear the Lord, and more particularly so among the seed of Jacob or of Israel. These in their turn will praise and glorify Him, even amidst the afflictions that will come upon them. The Lord Jesus was pre-eminently the afflicted One, and they will find encouragement in the way in which He had been heard even from death itself. This verse 23 brings before us.

Yet again there is to be "the great congregation," when all Israel is saved according to Romans 11: 26. When at last He who once scattered Israel has gathered them as a born again people, redeemed, cleansed, re-united; then their great Messiah in His glory shall lead the praise of Jehovah, and incite their praises, as verse 25 indicates. Here is found the beginning of millennial praises, till all that seek the Lord shall praise Him, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship.

Not only will all that are blessed and enriched — spoken of as those who are "fat upon earth" — be worshipping at His feet, but those who go down to the dust will have to bow before Him. Here apparently we have an allusion to those who are spoken of as the "sheep" and the "goats" in Matthew 25: 31-46. Whichever way it is in that day, whether men are blessed or judged, they will have to acknowledge the Lord and yield glory to Him. Those who are truly "a seed" — the fruit and result of the travail of His soul — will serve Him and be reckoned as the new generation who enter into the enjoyment that God originally promised to His people. The old unbelieving generation (see Matt. 24: 34) will then have passed away, and to those yet to be born as the Millennial age runs its course will be told the story of the Saviour's sufferings, thus provoking further praise.

Thus we see the harvest of praise being reaped, beginning in the church of today and extending into the world to come.

Psalm 23 shows very plainly what a harvest of blessing we reap as the result of the death of Christ. He who died as the Victim on our behalf, lives in resurrection as the Shepherd of our souls. In having the living Shepherd we have everything. Not only is the wolf of "want" kept from our door, but we have satisfaction, and restoration, and righteousness, and comfort, and overflowing provision. There are found "goodness" and "mercy" like two faithful watch-dogs following all our steps, while before us stands the house of the Lord as our eternal dwelling-place.

Our path is not to be marked by the absence of trouble, as the Psalm plainly shows. On the contrary, there are enemies, there is evil, there is even death, for these are all mentioned. This world becomes to the saint " the valley of the shadow of death."

But here lies another striking contrast which we do well to remark. If we want to see death in all its force, death as the weighty judgment of God against sin, we have to turn to the early part of Psalm 22. Into the dust of DEATH was Jesus brought by God Himself when He stood in our place and bore our sin. Only the shadow of death is left for us. Of this fact we venture to make a twofold application. In the first place this world is for us shadowed by His death. Here He died; and this fact casts its shadow over the whole scene for every loyal heart that loves Him. In the second place, when the saint comes to the hour of dissolution and departure to be with Christ, he finds that he does not properly speaking see death at all. It is but the shadow of death that he has to face. Death itself was long ago faced by Christ on his behalf.

Psalm 23 is so well known, and so much has been said as to it, that we content ourselves with these few remarks; and turn to consider Psalm 24, which shows us that He who suffered is not forgotten when the results of His death are enumerated. He is to reap a harvest of great glory.

When at last the millennial day is reached the earth will be very manifestly the Lord's and the whole world be in subjection to Him. The hill of the Lord and His holy place will be elevated amongst men, and the question is raised as to who will be fit to ascend the one or to stand in the other. The answer is given in verses 4 and 5. The fitness required is moral fitness. Those holy places are reserved for the holy; those whose hands are clean, whose hearts are pure, who have eschewed all vanity and deceit. The godly, who will enter the millennial age, will be such in a general way. They will be the generation who seek the Lord, the seed who serve Him and are accounted a generation, as we saw in Psalm 22. But there is One who was all this, not merely in a general way but in an absolute way — intrinsically and perfectly and without any qualification whatever.

The Passover lambs and all other lambs used for sacrificial purposes, had to be without blemish. Their perfection qualified them to be so used. In this they were types. The Lord Jesus was the "Lamb without blemish and without spot." Had He not been He could not have suffered sacrificially on our behalf, as portrayed in Psalm 22. His perfection qualified Him to go down into death for us. It also qualified Him to go up into the hill of the Lord.

The last four verses of the Psalm picture Him as ascending into the hill of the Lord, and entering His holy place. The scene is one of millennial splendour, and the holy places as pictured by Ezekiel (Ezek. 40 to 48) pass before the prophetic view of the Psalmist. Not infrequently the passage is taken up by way of application rather than interpretation and made to refer to the entrance of our Lord into heavenly glory. This is quite permissible doubtless, for He has been glorified "straightway" in the presence of God, according to His own words in John 13: 32. Still the public glory which is yet to come is strictly speaking the point here. It is not enough that He should be glorified in private (as far as this world is concerned); glory of a public sort must also be His. And, more particularly, He must be abundantly glorified in the very scene of His public dishonour. When the gates and doors are lifted up, He shall enter, not only as the One in whom all moral perfection is found, but also as the King of glory.

But, "Who is this King of glory?" The question is repeated, and a two-fold answer is given.

First, He is, "Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle." He will come fresh from His victories — those victories foretold in Psalm 2, when He will have the kings of the earth and the rulers in derision, when He will break the rebellious nations with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. But then He who will ride in triumph to victory then, once suffered and was forsaken that He might win victory of another sort at the cross.

So we may make an application of these words, rather than interpretation, and speak of how once

By weakness and defeat

He won the meed and crown

Trod all our foes beneath His feet,

By being trodden down.

Because He proved Himself strong and mighty in this way He is to enter into His glory.

But there is the second answer. He is the Lord of hosts, for others are associated with Him. Revelation 19: 14 shows us that, when He shall come forth as a Warrior to judgment, there will be the armies of heaven who follow Him — His heavenly saints who are to wear His likeness and share His triumphs. In them, as in others besides, He will see the fruit of the travail of His soul.

We began by remarking that there were many contrasts in these Psalms, taking one of them as our title. We close by pointing out a few more. Once for Him it was all reproach, despising, scorn. Ultimately He is to appear as the King of Glory. Then He appeared as the dependent One, trusting on the Lord, and made to hope upon His mother's breasts. He shall yet be manifested as the Lord strong and mighty in battle. Then He was forsaken of God, and of men too for He had to say, "There is none to help." He shall then stand forth surrounded by the hosts of His redeemed, and He the Lord of hosts among them. Once He took the outside place of forsaking. Then the King of glory shall come in.

God shall be praised. Saints shall be shepherded. Last, but not least, Jesus shall be abundantly covered with glory. May God haste the day when the King of glory shall come in.

Absolute Dominion

Absolute Dominion.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 188.)

The lives of the patriarchs as recorded in Genesis are of great value to us, since they illustrate God's ways in grace and government with men of like passions to ourselves. Two of them are of much less interest than the others from this point of view, viz., Isaac and Joseph. Yet these are just the two that stand out pre-eminently as types of Christ; and the main object of the Holy Spirit's record of their history is evidently to give a foreshadowing of Christ in His sufferings and glory rather than to illustrate God's ways with His people.

Isaac is spoken of as the "only son" of Abraham, for Ishmael, the son after the flesh, did not count. Joseph was the beloved son of his father. "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children (Gen. 37: 3). The details we have of Isaac's life are mainly concerned with the events which typify Christ as the chosen Seed, in death and resurrection, and the way in which, as the Risen One, a bride of His own kindred is found for Him. (Gen. 22 and Gen. 24). We have much fuller details of Joseph than of Isaac, and all seem designed to show how the One who was cast down and sold by his brethren according to the flesh, and even abased among the Gentiles, is to be exalted to a place of absolute dominion amongst them, and become not only the nourisher of His brethren, but the Saviour of the world.

In Genesis 37 we see Joseph as the rejected one of his brethren. He suffers in passivity. In Genesis 39 we find him in Egypt and the hour of his activity is come. First of all he is active in the comparatively small and secluded sphere of Potiphar's house and possessions, and he at once comes before us as a man of skilful and powerful hands, so much so that his master, finding in him a treasure, allowed all that he had to be manipulated by him. The record runs:-  "His master saw . . . that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand . . . and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand . . . and he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and he knew not ought that he had, save the bread which he did eat."

Joseph was in humiliation and obscurity, yet his abilities could not be hid. The power of his hands was such that everything naturally fell into them and he became the overseer or administrator. Everything in Potiphar's house took its direction from him.

It is not difficult to trace an analogy between this and what marked our Lord Jesus Christ when He appeared in humiliation amongst men. He stepped into our little world with its limitation and obscurity. No sooner did He come forth to serve than His power became manifest. "He could not be hid" (Mark 7: 24), and wherever He went He proved Himself the Master of the situation and things simply lapsed into His hand. The Gospels are the record of this, particularly the Gospel of Mark.

In the case of Joseph it is emphasised that he was what he was by the blessing of Jehovah (Gen. 39: 3 and 5), and if the blessing of Jehovah was upon Potiphar's house it was "for Joseph's sake." So too with the Lord Jesus. He "went about doing good . . . for God was with Him" (Acts 10: 38), and the blessing of the Lord was manifested amongst men as never before: healing, deliverance from all kinds of evil, and spiritual life visited them, but it was "for Jesus' sake." It is noteworthy that though all Joseph's career was marked by Divine blessing it is at this point, when he was in servitude and obscurity, that it is mentioned, and that not once only but thrice. In the case of the Lord Jesus it was during the time of His lowly service in the restricted sphere of this world, that His mission and work had the appearance of failure. It was just then that He had to say in the words of the prophet, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God" (Isa. 49: 4). But Jehovah had just said, "Thou art My servant . . . in whom I will be glorified."

The career of Joseph in Potiphar's house, in spite of the blessing that attended it and the physical perfection that marked him — it says, "And Joseph was of a beautiful form and of a beautiful countenance" (Gen. 39: 6, N. Tr.) — was suddenly cut short, and as the victim of false accusation he was thrust into prison. The end of Genesis 39 tells us of the result of this apparently disastrous reverse. "The Lord was with Joseph . . . and the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that were in the prison: and whatsoever they did there, he was the doer of it."

Joseph was simply irresistible! Placed in servitude he became the factotum in the house of his master. Cast down into prison, his feet "hurt with fetters" since he was "laid in iron" (Ps. 105: 18), once more all things fall into his hands. The enchained prisoner becomes the ruler of the prison. The official keeper of the prison found in him such a treasure that he gave him full powers and "looked not to anything that was under his hand: because the Lord was with him, and that which he did the Lord made it to prosper."

From Joseph we turn to the One whom he prefigured, and surely our hearts are moved to worship. Our Lord Jesus Christ, too, had His career of service cut short. As a victim of false accusation He entered into the prison house of death and to all appearance its shackles were made fast upon Him. Yet He only entered into death and the grave to prove Himself once more the Master of the situation. Instead of being enslaved by them, He subdued them to Himself. The keys of death and hades passed into His hands. He led captivity captive, though this was not manifested until He ascended on high. We may truly say that whatsoever was done in that gloomy domain, "He was the doer of it"! not a soul there but has passed into His hands. "For to this end Christ . . . died . . . that He might be Lord . . . of the dead." (Rom. 14: 9). He has proved His power in the lowest and darkest place.

Reverting again to Joseph we learn how God in His own time publicly vindicated him. His powers could not be permanently hid, and in the hour when Egypt's potentate and wise men were alike troubled, and baffled, and helpless, he proved himself to be to Pharaoh both wisdom and power. He knew what was impending; he knew what to do, and he was the man to do it. That which had been true of him in his obscurity, and even in his abasement, was now true of him in his exaltation. Everything in Egypt's wide dominions lapsed into his hands, "and Pharaoh said unto Joseph, see, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt, and Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and PUT IT UPON JOSEPH'S HAND" (Gen. 41: 41, 42).

Joseph had now reached the zenith of his glory. According to his word all Egypt was ruled, and to him every knee had to bow. Pharaoh "made him Lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance; to bind his princes at his pleasure; and to teach his senators wisdom" (Ps. 105: 21, 22). His dominion thus was absolute, subject only to the king in his throne, and upon his hand there reposed the signet ring of authority and it became true again that "whatsoever they did there he was the doer of it." Wielding the executive power of the kingdom he subdued all things in the realm to Pharaoh, as Genesis 47: 13-26 shows.

How strikingly all this foreshadows the coming glory of Christ. Risen and ascended He is already glorified at the right hand of the Majesty on high, but that is a private thing, unknown by the world. The hour of His public glory approaches when He will come forth to this world as the great Administrator on God's behalf. All judgment will be committed to him; He will, as it were, hold the signet ring upon His hand, and not one executive act will take place without Him; the result of all being the subjugation of all things to Himself, so that ultimately God may be all in all. Then shall be fulfilled that other word in Isaiah 49, "Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to Him whom man despiseth, to Him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and He shall choose Thee."

Though the day of Christ's glory seems to tarry, we wait for it with confidence. It is the determinate counsel of God. Joseph's advancement and glory seemed to tarry long. All seemed failure and gloom, "Until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him" (Ps. 105: 19), then at one mighty bound he leapt from the prison to the throne. His mighty hands at last wielded the sceptre. All was of God for, as his father Jacob said in his prophetic blessing of his sons, "His bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands WERE MADE STRONG BY THE HANDS OF THE MIGHTY GOD OF JACOB" (Gen. 49: 24). We wait for Christ with a double assurance inasmuch as we are cognizant of His present glory in private at the Father's right hand. As we wait we can rejoice.

"Sing His blest triumphant rising,

Sing Him on the Father's throne

Sing, till heaven and earth surprising

Reigns the Nazarene alone!"

Abundant Life

Abundant Life

F. B. Hole.

Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 3, 1911, page 5.

The Lord Jesus came that we might have abundant life (John 10: 10). This is more than mere existence. We use the word "life" in two ways in ordinary conversation. You go, for instance, to visit a friend who is, you hear, far from well. In the hall a nurse in uniform meets you, and you are shocked to hear he is hanging between life and death. Just for a moment you are allowed to stand in the darkened room. There is the unconscious form of your friend. A medical man stands by the bedside feeling his pulse. "Doctor," you anxiously inquire, "is there life?" "Yes." "Is there any hope?" "Not much, but while there is life there is hope, you know."

Now let me stand by your side and, pointing to that scene, ask, "Is that LIFE?" What will you say? The word bears another sense now. If you went to the Royal Academy to see a picture by a foremost artist entitled "Life," what would you expect to see? An invalid reclining upon a couch? No. You would expect to see portrayed youth, vitality, vigour, enjoyment. A ruddy boy in the full glow of health bounding gleefully along the golden summer sands would be nearer the mark. You would say "That is LIFE!"

"I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly" (R.V.). Such is our portion. Not invalid life. Not existence merely. Thank God we have spiritual existence, but we have more. Spiritual vitality, spiritual vigour, spiritual enjoyment-these things are ours in the risen Shepherd who once in His goodness laid down His life for the sheep.

All Prayer at All Seasons

All Prayer at All Seasons.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 32, 1940, page 139.)

The rendering of Ephesians 6: 18 in Darby's New Translation is rather striking — "Praying at all seasons, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching unto this very thing with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." It throws up into relief the fourfold repetition of the little word, "all."

As one result of the fearful calamities which have smitten Europe during the past months there has sprung up some revival in the practice of prayer, for which we may well be thankful. It is to our shame however, in the light of the above scripture, that any revival should have been necessary. To the neglect of prayer much of our spiritual weakness and inefficiency is to be traced. In 2 Corinthians 10: 4, 5, Paul makes it plain that our warfare and its weapons are not carnal but spiritual: in Ephesians 6 he also shows this, but adds the fact that in the struggle there are involved against us evil powers of a spiritual nature who have access to heavenly places — the world-rulers of this darkness. Against these we can only stand if clothed with the whole armour of God, and if maintained in that continual dependence on God which expresses itself in prayer.

The degree in which we are conscious of this conflict depends upon the measure in which we enter into our heavenly position, as unfolded in the Epistle, and the measure of our identification with the work of setting forward the gospel, and also the "Mystery of the gospel." Paul was filled with ardent zeal for both and hence he was engaged in this conflict continually.

In all ordinary times of war among the nations Christians have been driven to their knees in prayer, but it would be hardly possible to treat such prayer conflicts as belonging to the kind contemplated in Ephesians 6. We believe however that the present war is an exception; and for this reason: that Hitler evidently acts under the direction of a familiar spirit. The British Ambassador in his book giving an account of his work in Germany up to September last, bears repeated witness to this speaking of "the Voice" that guides all his decisions. This at once accounts; for the demonic craft and skill that marks all his actions, and for the way in which all are directed against true saints of God, against the true gospel, and against the Jews. There is therefore a very definite spiritual side to the present terrible war, and saints do well to recognize it, and call very fervently upon God for the sustenance of His tried and oppressed saints, and the maintenance of the open door for the gospel, and for His hand to restrain the aggressor to this end. The demonic power in control can only be countered by the power of God. We recognize of course that it may not please God to act in restraint but to translate the church to heaven, thereby closing the gospel door, withdrawing His ambassadors, and declaring war on the rebellious earth.

But now look at our verse. The character of the prayer contemplated is this — "in the Spirit." It is to spring not from the flesh and its desires but from the Spirit and His desires. Now the Spirit indwells the saints in order that He may not only teach them but also control their thoughts and desires, moulding them in mind and heart after Christ. The flesh is still in us of course, and very easily we may be governed by it, so that our prayers become but a crying out for just the things which an ordinary unconverted person would cry out for under similar circumstances. Let us search our hearts as to this first point, lest our prayers become powerless by reason of their being but fleshly desires. If our minds are well furnished with the Word of God, which unfolds to us His purposes and ways, and well governed by the Spirit of God, so that the flesh in us is judged, we shall be able to pray in the Spirit. Our prayers then will bear the right character.

But this spiritual prayer may take varying forms; so the word is, "all prayer and supplication." God is our Father and we may freely approach Him with our requests. There are times when our feebleness and insufficiency is specially borne in upon us, and then we draw near with a special sense of abasement and peculiarly urgent desires — we become suppliants in our prayers. Then, this may mark us in our private prayers, or on public occasions when we assemble together. Even in private prayer differences may occur. Sometimes we may have a season of quiet, even a long one and sometimes our cry may be shot up to God like a flash of lightning, as was the case with Nehemiah, recorded in Neh. 2: 4. We are not to be satisfied with prayer of one special kind. We are to practice prayer in all its wide variety.

Having done so we are to watch unto the very things we have requested with all perseverance. Here are two tests and we shall find it spiritually very wholesome to apply them to ourselves carefully. When prayer is thoroughly real and fervent our souls are all alive on the matter, and we are bound to be in a watchful spirit so that we do not miss the answer, and while waiting for the answer we persevere with our request. If each brother in Christ who leads this paper would sit down and ask himself how many times he has been guilty of going to a prayer meeting and opening his mouth to ask for things of a general and indefinite nature — often at such great length as to weary all the others in the meeting  - so indefinite that half an hour afterwards he would be unable to remember himself what he had really been asking for, he might reach the conviction that he knew very little of what real prayer is. When a real burden is on our hearts it moves us, like Habakkuk, not only to cry out to the Lord but also to stand upon our watch to see what the answer is going to be.

Very often the answer does not come immediately. By delay God tests our sincerity. The more earnest and sincere and instructed our requests the more we shall persevere. A full measure of these excellent qualities will mean all perseverance. On this point we have the Lord's own teachings in Luke 11: 5-10; Luke 18: 1-8. The latter passage is specially to the point for us as it contemplates His second Advent and the trials of His saints just before He comes. God's elect, chosen for earthly blessing, will have a time of unparalleled tribulation, and He will bear long as to them, being slow to strike in final judgment. They will persist in their cries and eventually He will avenge them. All perseverance will mark them as it is to mark us; but in our case it is not a cry for vengeance, but supplication for all saints.

Nothing less than all saints is the scope indicated. The epistle has instructed us as to the place of privilege into which we, whether Jews or Gentiles, have been introduced. Both have been reconciled "unto God in one body by the cross" (Eph. 2: 16), and therefore a vital link exists between all saints, producing vital and mutual interest in one another. The fact that the scope includes all does not militate against prayer for each or any, as the next verse shows, where Paul desires their prayers for himself and his service. We pray of course more particularly for those that we know, while never allowing our thoughts to be narrowed below the limits of the whole church of God. This also is of much importance to us today, when over vast parts of the earth the saints are oppressed by tyrants, scattered, and often persecuted.

Lastly there is the time factor. So long as we are here we are to pray at all seasons. We are certain to pass through a variety of seasons. In the earliest days of the church there were times of persecution, but after a few years the record runs, "Then had the churches rest" (Acts 9: 31). So it seems to have been throughout, but there is far more danger of growing slack in prayer during times of rest than in times of trouble. In this favoured land we have now had an almost unprecedently long period of rest; and have we not grown slack? A season of dire stress is now upon us. Had we not grown so slack in times of outward prosperity, we should be more practised in prayer in these days of adversity.

There is no season which is not a season for prayer, since it is to be in all seasons. In seasons of sorrow, and seasons of joy; in seasons of spiritual revival, and seasons of spiritual deadness; in seasons of gain, and seasons of loss; in seasons when the cause of one's country seems to be crashing about one's ears, in seasons when its cause is prospering; in seasons of gathering into the church, in seasons when the saints are being scattered and oppressed, and doors for the gospel are closing. All seasons should call us to our knees in prayer. To prayer of this sort the Apostle Paul calls us in this verse.

This is a season of dire need. Let us heed his exhortation, and give ourselves to prayer.

Alliances which should be avoided

Alliances which should be avoided.

F. B. Hole.

An address given in Edinburgh on Wednesday, April 5th, 1922.

Scriptures read: — 2 Chronicles 18: 1-3; 2 Chronicles 19: 1-3; 2 Chronicles 20: 35-37.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 158.)

I have but a few words to say. I wish I could use a sledge hammer, though I am afraid I have only got the kind of hammer that is used to drive in tintacks; but if I had a sledge hammer, I would like to direct a mighty blow on the end of the shaft which I hope has been directed to your hearts and consciences by the Spirit of God. I verily believe that in these days, and probably in all the days of the Church's history, no greater havoc has been wrought amongst the people of God than by unholy alliances.

Some of us, who are easy-going, kindly, amiable folk, find it rather difficult sometimes to frame a certain little word, that without any question is the most difficult word for the great majority of people to pronounce, though it only consists of two letters. There are times in every man and woman's history when it costs them more to get that word out pat, and firm and distinct, than any other word in the dictionary, the little word "No."

Have you ever had a time in your history when that little word has trembled on your lips, and you felt as if you could not say it? It was the word that the Spirit of God indicated as the very word to be said. It was the very word evidently that Jehoshaphat ought to have said at this juncture, for he was grievously damaged by his alliances. Today there are excellent Christians, unimpeachable in their piety and in their individual lives, yet entrapped by the devil in unscriptural alliances. He knows that a direct temptation will probably fail, and therefore he works round and delivers a kind of flank attack by means of alliances that will lead them into a false position, rendering their testimony to the Lord practically null and void.

This excellent Jehoshaphat — a man in whom good things were found, for he took away the groves out of the land, he prepared his heart to seek God, and he cultivated individual piety — was weak, he easily yielded and he made affinity with Ahab. Now Ahab, you may remember, was very notorious amongst the Kings of Israel in this respect, that "there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up." Ahab was a man who was out and out for Baal, that is, for the devil, and Jehoshaphat made an alliance with this man.

Do we know anything in modern life amongst the people of God that answers to this picture? Alas, we do, and when we bring someone who is deeply offending in this matter face to face with the Word of God, what does he say? He probably replies, "I am doing it with the very best of motives; I want to help those people. How am I to do it except I get down alongside them?" The argument then is this, that if someone tumbles into a ditch, you tumble in after them in order to help them. Far better to see to it that you get your own feet on the solid rock, and then you may be able to lend a helping hand, but do not think you are going to help them out of the mud by jumping into the mud. That was Jehoshaphat's process, and it was a dreadful failure.

Now, what happened? Why, clearly enough Jehoshaphat did not help — the reverse was the way it worked. Instead of helping Ahab up, Ahab pulled him down. An unconverted man is a man with only the old fallen nature in him, and you, a child of God, have the divine nature. You may, if you ally yourself with him, put yourself in such a position that the old nature, still in you, is refreshed and revived, and leaping into fresh life, the result is that you fall to a very low level, and you dishonour the Lord. You cannot lift up that man into the life you enjoy, because to begin with he has not got the life that he may enjoy it. Listen to the words out of Jehoshaphat's own mouth; "I am as thou art." He did not say, "Thou hast become as I am, Ahab; I have lifted thee to a higher standard." No, but the very opposite.

God has set before us parables in nature, and there we may find an illustration. The time comes when you pick your apple trees, and you put the apples in a convenient storeroom, and a few days after you carefully look them over. You want to see if even one is showing signs of rottenness as it will have a bad effect on the others. Leave one rotten apple amongst forty good ones, and you will soon have forty-one bad ones; but does goodness work in that way? I have a whole cupboard full of rotten apples. Now, how delightful it would be if you could put just one good apple amongst the rotten apples and they all became good! The greengrocers would soon flourish if they could turn all their rotten apples into good ones by putting one good apple in their midst!

Now, do not ask me to believe, when I see a Christian allying himself with a lot of worldly people, who do not love the Lord, that he is going to make them all good. No, he will run a very serious risk of being himself contaminated; and not a risk merely, for if he persists in this disobedience to the Word of God, he is bound to be contaminated, and end by saying, "I am as thou art" — a terrible confession indeed.

To Jehoshaphat there came Jehu the prophet asking a pertinent question, "Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." To help a man onward seems kind, and kind it is, if he is on the right road, but not if he is on the wrong. Now you are not going to help any unconverted man by giving him a push on the wrong road. Fancy a Christian giving a helping hand to unconverted sinners on their way down to the pit! "Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?" Should you go and link yourself up with them and join in their enterprises and despise the line of demarcation that God has made? No, indeed; to do so is of the devil, and not of God. The Word of God calls for the Christian to stand in his own proper character as a child of light, and not a child of darkness. What a wonderful effect would be produced in the Church of God if these exhortations were attended to and Christians everywhere started purging themselves from unholy associations.

One word more. The third Scripture that I read emphasizes the fact that Jehoshaphat sinned in this manner more than once, and God came down in His government upon him. The word of Eliezer the prophet was very definite. He said, "Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works." Oh, how many of us are going to stand before the Lord at His judgment seat, when the day of review comes, and hear a word similar to that? Will it be true of any of us that the Lord will have to say, "You were very zealous in a way; you were very diligent; you ran far and you laboured, but because you linked yourself up with the world, because you were frequently compromising your true character by unworthy alliances, I have broken your works; they count for nothing in My presence"?

The only safe ground is the ground that the Word of God gives us. When you find that grave instruction in the Word of God: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," do not fall to arguing, and reason about it, but rather OBEY it, cost what it may.

Are we responding?

Are we responding?

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 10, 1918, page 99.)

Those who are best acquainted with Eastern life tell us that the parable of the virgins exactly represents marriage customs which prevail to this day.

The ten virgins "went forth to meet the Bridegroom." Such is their profession — the part they play in the ceremonies. Assembling at the bride's house they await the Bridegroom, who does not appear before midnight. Overcome with drowsiness they all slumber and sleep. At midnight the cry is raised, "Behold the Bridegroom; go ye out to meet him."

The virgins of the parable represent not the church in its corporate capacity but the saints in their individual capacity as disciples of an absent Lord. Their original place and profession was this: "they went forth to meet the Bridegroom." They were God's called out ones. Out of Judaism, out of heathenism, they went into the church's separate place: "to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven" (1 Thess. 1: 9, 10).

As time wore on they declined from this, however, and in the shelter of the house they lapsed into the unconscious and lifeless condition indicated by sleep.

The midnight cry and the words "go ye forth to meet Him" are a call to us to not only awake to the original hope of the church — the coming of the Lord, but to revert to the original position of the church — outside the world whether viewed in its carnality or its religious.

Both "Arm" and "Servant"

Both "Arm" and "Servant"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 36, 1948-50, page 166.)

In Isaiah 40-66 we have a series of prophecies concerning the Lord Jesus Christ of a very striking character, the most remarkable, we think, in the whole range of the Old Testament. In them He is presented to us in a twofold way: firstly, as " the Arm of the Lord" secondly, as "My Servant" that is "the Servant of the Lord."

As the "Arm" He is the mighty Executor of all Jehovah's pleasure whether in grace or in judgment. As the "Servant" He stoops to suffer in order that He may lay the righteous basis on which the structure of Jehovah's pleasure is to be reared. He was seen as the "Servant" at His first Advent. He will be manifested at His second Advent as the "Arm."

As Jehovah's "Arm" He is particularly referred to in Isa. 40: 9-11; Isa. 51: 4-16; Isa. 52: 13 — Isa. 53: 1; Isa. 59: 16; Isa. 63: 5 and 12.

Taking a rapid survey of these passages, we learn that by His "Arm" the Lord God is coming not in weakness but in strength, not to suffer but to rule and to give reward There will be reward in judgment for the wicked, but the same "Arm" will be gracious, acting in the tenderness of a shepherd for the smallest and weakest of the true sheep of the Lord.

Then again, on that "Arm" the godly may safely trust, for it will awake and put on strength as it did in the days of old, when it smote Egypt (Rahab) and divided the Red Sea. But now far greater purposes are in view, as enumerated in the latter part of verse 16 (Isa. 51: 16). The heavens are to be planted, the foundations of the earth are to be laid; Israel in Zion is to be acknowledged as God's people.

In the present age God is preparing to plant the heavens, by calling out saints, by forming the Church, which will have its seat in the heavens when the age of glory has arrived. Then God will set His hand to the laying of the foundations of the earth in a moral and governmental sense — in the sense indicated by the Psalmist, when he declared "all the foundations of the earth are out of course" (Ps. 82: 5)

So they are! That is just what is wrong in the earth today and a complete relaying of the foundations is needed. Recognizing this, many politicians want to smash everything up and begin all over again. Should they succeed, the result would be worse evil, for they have no use for "the Arm of the Lord," who alone can accomplish such a work that, instead of lawlessness and evil, righteousness shall reign. Then lastly Zion will be acknowledged and Israel find her proper place, so that righteousness indeed may reign. But to bring all this to pass God's holy "Arm" will act in drastic judgment as we see in Isaiah 59 and Isaiah 63.

But another line of things is presented to us when we consider the passages which deal with the "Servant" of the Lord — particularly Isa. 42, Isa. 49 and Isa. 53. There is now before us One who comes in lowly grace and humiliation, and suffering; who appears on the surface of things to fail in His mission, but who nevertheless will carry it to a triumphant issue.

He is introduced to us in Isaiah 42, and we are at once told that though He will not come like political agitators amongst men, and will not break bruised reeds nor quench smoking flax; that is, not deal in judgment with such false and offensive people as the Pharisees were (see, Matt. 12: 14-21); yet He will ultimately bring forth judgment unto truth, and that will be victory. It may look as if He fails, when He thus comes the first time in grace, but He will not fail, nor will He be discouraged. Moses failed, and Elijah was discouraged because he appeared to fail, but this Servant will accomplish His appointed task to perfection.

Now in Isaiah 49 the same feature appears, and we hear the Servant Himself speaking in prophetic strain. He says, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain." We turn to the Gospels and we see Him standing, the hour of His passion and death just ahead; and what was the apparent result of all His labours? Why, just a little handful of very humble folk: a few fishermen from Galilee's lake-side, a few women who followed Him, and here and there received Him into their homes. In high-class and intellectual circles they were conspiring to arrest Him. They could ask in contemptuous tones, "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?" There could be no doubt about it: on the surface His mission had failed.

But to all this the response of this perfect Servant was, "Yet surely My judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God." In Isaiah 53 we read, "He was taken from prison and from judgment," which in Acts 8 is rendered as, "In His humiliation His judgment was taken away." In condemning Him, men violated every principle of right judgment, but He was content to maintain silence before His judges and' remove His judgment to the highest Court in the universe. He knew that His vindication in the presence of Jehovah was sure.

Therefore was He able to say, "Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and My God shall be My strength." Let us take note of that! Man's thought and judgment is completely cancelled by God. The humbled Man — the discredited Prophet of Nazareth — as He trod His way to Calvary in the midst of the rabble throng, forsaken by His disciples, and the derision of men, was simply glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. He was about to lay the foundation for the superstructure of glory yet to be.

And we are permitted in this chapter to have a glimpse of the Divine purposes. To raise up Jacob's tribes and restore a godly remnant of Israel was a comparatively small matter. Wider and weightier things were in view. What were they? To be a light to the Gentiles and to be set as God's salvation to the ends of the earth. Ultimately Israel will be gathered, as we know, but here is predicted what God is doing today, and into this light and blessing have we been brought by the grace of God, for now is the accepted time and the day of salvation.

But we are not allowed to forget that this day of salvation is to be followed by the day of judgment, when the humbled Servant, once despised by men, shall be honoured and magnified. The great ones of the earth shall rise to their feet and do homage before Him.

This theme is renewed in the closing verses of Isaiah 52, which really are the opening verses of the great chapter — Isaiah 53. Jehovah's Servant is to be exalted and extolled and be very high, but the chapter proceeds to predict that He also is to be despised and rejected and brought very low. Now how are these two things to be reconciled? Gazing upon Him humbled and rejected, who is going to believe this unexpected report of His approaching exaltation and glory? Who perceives that the humbled "Servant" and the glorious "Arm" are one and the same Person?

This has never yet been perceived by Israel. Yet in their own history there was an incident that foreshadowed it. In Genesis 35 we read how the coming into the world of Benjamin was associated with death. Hence a double name was called upon him. "The son of my sorrow" and "the son of the right hand" were one and the same person. Who then sees the glorious Arm of Jehovah in the Man of sorrows and the grief-acquainted One? Do you? Do I? We answer, Yes, thank God, we do.

The rest of this marvellous chapter predicts how it all was to work out. Israel was indeed like dry ground — nothing fertile, nothing fresh, nothing living — but out of it sprang this root of all blessing, this tender plant. In the eyes of men He had no form nor comeliness — or lordliness — and hence He had not the kind of beauty that captures unconverted men. Many years ago now, the German Kaiser rode into Jerusalem in pomp, mounted on a white charger. That was the way to do it, if it is desired to impress men, and not riding an insignificant young donkey, as did our Lord.

Hence the men of His day hid as it were their faces from Him. They despised Him and thought His sorrows were an infliction from God because He was an impostor. But a day is coming when the day of atonement, spoken of in Leviticus 23: 27, will find its fulfilment, and there will be national repentance in Israel and much affliction of soul as the truth dawns upon them, and they exclaim: "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed."

We anticipate that time and appropriate these words as applying to ourselves, but that is because He has been set as a light to the Gentiles and God's salvation to the ends of the earth. We turn the "our" into "my," and the "we are" into "I am;" and we cannot be too simple about it. Like good old Dr. Valpy, of a century or more ago, who wrote as his dying confession simple lines which have been used since to the blessing of many:

"In peace let me resign my breath,

And Thy salvation see;

My sins deserve eternal death,

But Jesus died for me."

So do we say with all our hearts, for we are amongst the sheep that had gone astray.

As we read down the chapter we discover how the prophet foresaw His death and burial. It is a remarkable fact that in verse 9, the word is literally "deaths," rather than "death." Remembering that "Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more," this might seem extraordinary. But we are told that according to Hebrew idiom the plural was used to express greatness and majesty. The prophet foresaw a death of such majestic proportions — ten thousand times ten thousand deaths rolled into one — that he used the plural of majesty to express it under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. Such indeed it was, and Joseph of Arimathea was specially born into the world that the words, "He was with the rich in His death," might be fulfilled.

On that majestic death will hang for eternity the glory of God, and the blessing of the uncountable millions of the redeemed.

It was not what men did as regards His death that was of such supreme importance, but what Jehovah did, as verse 10 makes so plain. Men put Him to grief, but the marvellous thing is that Jehovah did it, making His soul an offering for sin. There was truly the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, as we read in Hebrews, but here is something even more profound, the depth of which we shall never fathom, but out of which flow glorious results.

He is to prolong His days in resurrection. And then He will "see His seed" — His spiritual progeny — who are, in the language of John 12, the "much fruit" produced by the dying of the single "corn of wheat." Moreover all the pleasure of Jehovah will prosper in His hand. In His risen glory He will bring to pass everything that is delightful to the heart of God.

In all this He will have His own peculiar joy. In accomplishing the pleasure of Jehovah, He will see the fruit of "the travail of His soul," and it will fill up the cup of His satisfaction to the brim. A very little will satisfy us, for we are creatures of small capacities, but it will take an infinity of joy to satisfy Him. It shall all be His in that day for which we long.

This we may speak of as His private portion. Verse 12 speaks of His public portion. These are those accounted great. The once despised Servant of Jehovah is to be amongst them — chief and foremost — for "the spoil" is His, and He divides it with those who have proved themselves strong in serving Him during the time of His rejection.

But we must not fail to notice the first word, "Therefore." When He comes forth thus in splendour, it is because of His previous suffering in humiliation. Men might think that His sufferings were wholly contradictory, excluding any hope of His glory; whereas they prove to be the imperishable foundation on which His glory securely rests for ever and ever.

No wonder that the first word of Isaiah 54 is "Sing." Barren Israel is to break forth into singing. In Isaiah 55 a Gospel call goes out to everyone that thirsts, and this includes Gentiles.

While we wait for the glorious consummation it is for us Christians to maintain the song, and sound out the Gospel invitation until He comes.

"As at the first"

"As at the first"

F. B. Hole

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 177.)

The of the early "Fathers" of the church are by no means to be relied on, but one of them spoke truly when he said that, whatever was first was pure; whatever was later was adulterated.

The Scriptures support this. To backsliding Israel God said, "I will . . . purely purge away thy dross . . . and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and they counsellors as at the beginning" (Isa. 1: 25, 26).

Again, we read as a matter of history that, "the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim" (2 Chr. 17: 3). David was the first king really chosen by God, who in spite of serious defects, adhered to the worship of God, and was not turned aside after the other gods, which later crept in amongst both the kings and the people. What was first in the history of God's dealings with Israel's kings was the purer thing.

We turn to the New Testament and descend to individuals of a very humble sort in 1 Timothy 5: 11. Here are certain "younger widows," amongst the professed believers, "having damnation," or better, "being guilty," because "they have cast off their first faith." They left a life of service for a life of ease, because the "faith," that made Christ a living, bright Reality to them, had sadly declined. Their " first faith " expressed itself in works of a devoted sort; later it was badly adulterated.

The same feature meets us in Revelation 2: 4. Here love and not faith is in question; and a church, and not individuals, is being scrutinized by the Lord. As the first century drew to its close the church at Ephesus had left its "first love," and this, as the next verse shows, had affected its works. They are therefore called upon to recognize how they had fallen and, repenting of it, to do "the first works."

If now we turn back to Jeremiah 2: 1-3 we find that a similar decline took place in Israel's history, though the word "first" does not actually occur there. The word of God to Israel was, "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals." When God redeemed Israel from Egypt, He espoused them to Himself; and the love of their espousals we find expressed in their triumphant song, recorded in Exodus 15. Then Israel was "holiness unto the Lord," giving, "the first fruits of his increase.'' What fearful declension had taken place by the time Jeremiah prophesied.

Turn where we will in the Scriptures, we find testimony to the fact that what is first is marked by purity and what is introduced later brings in adulteration.

The same thing is obviously true if, turning from Israel we look back over the history of Christendom. Just as God granted revival in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, so He did in the great spiritual movement which we call the Reformation. The spiritual impetus that marked its beginnings soon faded out, as it lapsed into political and even warlike actions. The same thing has to be said, though often differing much in details, about revivals that followed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In each case that which was at the first was a work of God, though committed into the hands of men; and that which was introduced later was not an advance or an improvement, but an adulteration.

What then is the call from our Lord, that reaches us as an admonition in these days, as we draw near to the coming of our Lord? We think that we might sum it up by saying, "First love;" "First works." These are the things set before us, as desired by our Lord, and as recorded and illustrated in the Scriptures. And the Scriptures themselves, we must remember, are the Divinely given record, that has reached us "from the beginning;" an expression that is found so frequently in John's first epistle.

Before the first century closed there arose the Gnostics — i.e. "The knowing Ones" — who claimed to give a more intellectual version of the faith than had been given by the "unlearned and ignorant men" (Acts 4: 13), as the Apostles were from a worldly standpoint. Thus they turned some aside. It was an adulteration, and hence John's repeated reference to what was "from the beginning." Nothing other or different from that is set before us in the Scriptures.

There are others today, sad to say, who imagine that what they have produced altering, or adding to, that which is from the beginning is an advance to higher things. In the light of God's word such things will prove to have only been an adulteration.

The Assets of the Christian Life

The Assets of the Christian Life.

F. B. Hole.

An address on Romans 5: 1-11 given in Edinburgh on Monday, April 3rd, 1922.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 126.)

In the business world at the present moment there is, I suppose, a very great deal of anxious drawing up of balance sheets. The slump in values has been so great that it is a very trying time for many business men. They have the assets side, and they have the liabilities which have to be faced, and many of them are pulling long faces over the amount of the liabilities. They are like not a few Christians who somehow seem to have the knack of always thinking of the responsibilities and obligations that rest upon them, and who unfortunately forget to bring into their account the great assets with which they have started.

Now I am sure that what we have before us in this 5th chapter of Romans is calculated to make us feel how immense are the assets that we possess. We observe, for instance, in the first two verses, three great items that we do well to carefully bring into our calculations. These two verses speak first of all of peace with God which is ours now.

What is said here is not exactly that peace has been made at the Cross. That, thank God, is a fact, and if you want to find it stated in Scripture you turn to the first chapter of the epistle to the Colossians, verses 19-21, and there you will read of the way in which God intervened that He might secure for Himself that which He desired, for the gratification of His great heart of love. Eventually He is going to reconcile unto Himself all things in heaven and on earth, and already He has reconciled us; but both the reconciliation that has reached us, believers, to-day, and that grand reconciliation of all things which is to come, find their basis in the blood of His cross. Oh, thanks be to God! whatever we know or don't know, whatever we feel or don't feel, the blood of His cross is a great accomplished fact, and the basis upon which the reconciliation rests is as sure as that God Himself is in heaven. The cross is an accomplished fact; the blood has been shed; so peace has been made.

Now what is said here in the beginning of the 5th of Romans is that we have it. Have you act it? This is a very pertinent question. My friend, have you got peace with God? Can you look up to God as one who has been brought, consciously brought, to Him, now through grace one of His children, and therefore turning to Him with filial reverence and joy, knowing there is not one outstanding question between your soul and Himself; not one cloud in your sky? Can you say, I know that since Christ has been delivered for my offences and raised again for my justification, there is absolutely not one disturbing element between my soul and God? A wonderful thing it is to see that this is proper Christian blessing, the first asset that we put down upon our balance sheet. Thus through our Lord Jesus Christ, the believer writes down "I have peace with God" — plenty of trouble in the world likely enough, but with God absolute peace.

Then it goes on to speak of the fact that it is by faith we have access, or entrance, into this grace, or favour, in which we stand. I wonder if this would be news to any young Christian here to-night — that you stand as fully and as securely in the favour of God as the apostles Paul or Peter. We can indeed go even further than that in the light of the truth set forth in the 6th verse of the 1st chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians: we are "accepted in the Beloved."

In the spring of the year they have, you know, certain functions at the palace in London. A "Drawing Room" is held for the ladies, and people are introduced to their Majesties, and the only way to be introduced into these Court circles is to have behind you powerful influence. You must be presented at Court by someone who already has a well-assured standing in those high circles. If Her Majesty Queen Alexandra, the Queen Mother, expressed a wish to present, perhaps without any evident cause, a very ordinary young lady with a very ordinary name, you may be perfectly certain she would get in. Why? Because of the acceptance in those circles of the one who presents her; and as the ushers open the door, and she enters the Royal circle, and kisses the Royal hands, she enters in the acceptance of the one who puts her name down on the Court sheets, and who is responsible for her. The King could not favour her perhaps in her own personal rights — she has none — but he favours her in the light of the fact that she stands in the acceptance of that august lady who is his mother.

This illustrates the wonderful fact that if anybody gets acceptance it is "in the Beloved"; and there is no other acceptance in which you can stand. People talk sentimentally of getting in at heaven's back door. Let me say there is no such place for you. You will either get into heaven through Christ, and stand in His favour, accepted in His acceptance, or you will not get in at all. We stand in the favour of God, and the favour in which we stand is the very acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. We have access by faith then into this favour in which we stand. Let us write that down as a very big asset. We walk the streets of Edinburgh and perhaps the wind blows keenly from the East, and we shiver and feel very uncomfortable and sorry for ourselves as regards our circumstances, but we are in the favour of God, and faith gives us access into it. We look at Christ who is our great Representative seated in glory, and we say to ourselves by faith, "His place is my place; His favour is my favour; the smile that rests, and worthily rests, upon Him, rests upon me." Do you think that is no asset to a Christian? A wonderful asset is this.

Then it proceeds, moreover, to say, "We . . . rejoice in hope of the glory of God" — that is our destiny, that is our future. What an asset it is to have a prospect. I wouldn't give much for the prospect of this world. I was recently telling some Christian young fellows in Scandinavia that they need not fret themselves because they belonged to the minor nations in Europe; the prospects as to future conflicts amongst the nations are far too dark, and the minor nations are less likely to be involved. Men are concerned about the development of chemical science. Alas! for human skill, human knowledge! They are digging the grave of this world by scientific inquiry. What are its prospects? Go and ask the politicians, and you will get some very grave looks. Ah, the Christian has prospects; glory is the prospect of the Christian: we are rejoicing "in hope of the glory of God."

Did you ever notice in this 5th chapter of Romans how the argument runs in connection with this word "rejoice"? Unfortunately the translators have used other words to represent the same Greek word. In this chapter the word "rejoice" in verse 2, the word "glory" in verse 3, and the word "joy" in verse 11 are all translations of the same word. The pity is they did not use one word and stick to it. Let us use throughout the first word, and we read that "we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and not only so but we rejoice in tribulations also."

Now at this point many of us at first sight might be inclined to disagree. "Paul," we might say, "this will not do. You must not write down our trials and tribulations amongst our assets. Why, they are to be put down upon the liability side of the account. These are the things that trouble us; these are the things that make demands upon us." Yet here is the apostle Paul writing down our tribulations on the asset side of the account. He writes them down as being something for us and not against us, and, thank God, he knew what he was writing about; he was writing under the inspiration of the Spirit of God.

He does not only write down tribulations on the asset side of the account, but he tells us why he does so. The reason why we rejoice in tribulations is that we know the healthful effect of tribulations upon our souls; we know what they work in our hearts. We rejoice in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience or endurance, and patience works experience. As we endure, so we gain true experience, doubtless of our own folly and frailty and foolishness and insufficiency, but coupled therewith true experience of the blessedness and sufficiency and all-satisfyingness of the Lord Jesus Christ — and to learn that lesson well is something that is well worth while.

He tells us further that experience works hope — not in this world, but in God. Experience in this world frequently works cynicism; very frequently it works a lot of sarcasm; it works, according to the Psalmist, the idea that all men are liars; we trust nobody. But Christian experience works hope. Why? Oh, because we have God before us; we begin to learn how God can extricate us from the muddles into which we get; we begin to learn how He can make things work together for good to those who love Him, and our very tribulations thus teach us what God is for us. We learn lessons here that we will never learn above.

Troubled Christian, will you take with you to-night this thought — though troubles throng in upon you, bereavement, sorrow, perplexity with yourself, so that you are often cast down, you have by these very things an opportunity of learning practically what the Lord Jesus Christ can be to you in a way you will never have an opportunity of learning in heaven. When you get to heaven with the golden years before you, and never a sorrow, never a testing, never a trial, you will look back and say, "Oh thanks, ten thousand thanks to God for giving me the opportunity of learning His grace, His love, His sufficiency, His tenderness as I learned them when I was tried and troubled upon earth." Oh, what wonders does tribulation often work in the soul of the believer — it does for him spiritually just what bodily exercise does for him physically.

There on an office stool sat a poor pasty-faced young gentleman who was hauled off it for the army. His poor mother felt like weeping when he was taken away. The drill sergeant took him in hand, and there he was racking his muscles and back, and jumping and twisting and turning and going through trials, sleeping in a very uncomfortable bed, and feeling himself often as if he could weep. But after three months of this tribulation he got off on three days' leave. He went home to see his mother. Why! the dear lady hardly knew him; he had put on inches round the chest, and had roses on his cheeks. He had fairly been transformed! The fact is, unpleasant though it was, the training did him a great deal of good physically, and it is just the same spiritually with you and me. In the light of that fact tribulation is an asset.

And another asset we have indicated in verse 11, and this is the crowning thing. As in verse 3, so again verse 11 opens with the words "And not only so." The argument is, we "rejoice in hope of the glory of God," "and not only so, but we rejoice in tribulations," "and not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Why, the crowning thing is this, not merely that we are justified; not merely that we have glory before us, but that we are brought to God, that we may know God and walk with God, and rejoice in God. God Himself becomes known, in all His love and power and sufficiency, by our souls. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to be a Christian with assets such as these.

Confusion and the Call of God.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 54.)

Of all the dividing lines which have crossed this world's history, the flood is by far the most prominent. If we view things from an ordinary physical standpoint, it will be exceeded doubtless by the mighty purging effects of judgment to be yet executed at the appearing of Christ in glory to usher in the kingdom of God, and if we view things from the moral and spiritual rather than the physical standpoint, the flood becomes relatively unimportant and the Cross of Christ stands out as the great dividing line. Until the present moment, however, it is the only upheaval affecting at one and the same moment and equally all the human race, and it divided between "the world that then was" and "the heavens and the earth which are now" (2 Peter 3: 6, 7).

Morally, however, men were the same after it as before it. The spirit of Lamech, the ante-diluvian, was soon reproduced in Nimrod the postdiluvian, and Cain's city of Enoch was succeeded by Nimrod's city of Babel. A godly seed, too, was still preserved, and the faith of Enoch, who was translated, found its counterpart in the faith of Abraham, who became a man of heavenly hopes and consequently a stranger and a pilgrim in the earth.

From dates and details given in Genesis 10 and 11 it would appear that only about a century elapsed from the time of the deluge before the building of Babel's tower and the resultant scattering of mankind into nations occurred. The eight souls that had been saved through the waters had by this time become a considerable band, and the rebel and independent nature of mankind came again strikingly into evidence. Genesis 11: 1-9 supplies us with such knowledge as we have of this great event.

These early post-diluvians said, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (verse 4). In these few words not only their activities but their thoughts and motives are revealed to us.

In the first place then we gather that, as at the outset, so now they distrusted the Word of God. At the outset God announced His judgment which would follow upon disobedience. Eve falling under Satanic influence did not believe that God would judge as He had said. Now God had announced that come what may He would not judge the world again by a flood consequent upon an interruption of the order of nature which He had established (See Gen. 8: 21, 22), and men did not believe that he would not, and consequently proposed to build a tower whose top should reach unto heaven.

By this proposition they virtually said — "Supposing that once more God interferes with our doings, and sends a flood of water rolling over our plain in the land of Shinar, let us take steps to circumvent His plans and frustrate His judgment." Unbelief thus was followed by rebellion against the anticipated judgment of God.

The tower, however, was not merely for such a contingency but was connected with their purpose to make themselves "a name," i.e., that their renown should be spread abroad in and dominate the earth. This brings us to the great feature which marked Babel at the outset, and which is stamped upon Babylon all through Scripture — the glorification of man. Clearly enough these early post-diluvians had no thought of God as the proper end and object of their existence, and hence they substituted themselves as such. It was "let us build US a tower," and "let us make US a name." Their course then is pretty plain. First unbelief, then rebellion against the feared judgment of God, followed by the setting up of themselves as the great centre-piece of the picture, so that everything on earth might contribute to their pleasure and glory.

All this leads to a fourth thing. These early pioneers were no barbarians, as the perpetrators of the great "higher critical" hoax would have us believe, but men of intellect and astute vision. The ante-diluvian age had been one of fierce and murderous individualism; theirs should be one of highly organized centralisation. The cut-throat policy, when every man's hand was against his neighbour, must cease. It must be replaced by the policy of men amicably combining to assert themselves and cast off the fear of God. Moreover, how could they, as individuals, achieve the mighty works they proposed? Only by combination, organization, and centralisation could they hope to build their colossal and magnificent tower. It was a work, we may safely say, which no twentieth century contractor would dare to tender for. They truly did not carry their project far, but the pyramids of Egypt, which apparently date back to centuries not long after the flood remain to show us what gigantic works were accomplished. So the days after the deluge became days not of the great and imposing "I," but of the glorified and magnificent "US."

Thus men began once more to lift themselves up in mind and achievement, and consequently the great JEHOVAH "came down." He saw their works and their projects. He recognized their unity expressed in the oneness of their language. He foresaw the possibilities and the ultimate results of this oneness, and from Him judgment proceeded — a judgment totally different from that which they had expected and were in process of arming themselves against. They were taken all unawares. By the simple act of confounding their language so that they did not understand one another's speech, their combination, organization, centralisation and their building enterprise instantly collapsed.

Their fear had been "lest we be scattered." One single act of Almighty power, and "from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." The thing was so patent that men themselves named the spot Babel, which means "confusion."

It strikes us as not a little significant that those who have studied the subject (see, for instance, Young's Analytical Concordance under Babel; Babylon) give a second meaning to the name, viz., Bab-il meaning "gate of God." It looks as if there is here one of those plays upon words which are common in Scripture, and employed to fix the reader's attention. Men thought it was "Bab-il" but it turned out to be "Babel." They dreamed that they were going through the golden gate to deity, in some shape or form; it may have been in making themselves gods. In result, however, they had to painfully learn that their bricks and bitumen were but a slimy gate to folly and confusion.

The confusion so plainly manifested was an act of God in government. As, however, is the case with God's judgments, it was exactly suited to the offence. Their thoughts, their actions, their tower and city all were confusion, . . . though from the human standpoint all seemed to be symmetry and order. The fact is that nothing is order outside of God's order. There may be extra-ordinary organization,and men may act with the unanimity and precision of a well-disciplined army, but if all this order is not of God and beneath His control it is pure confusion. Babel was pure confusion, and consequently CONFUSION was written upon it large by God Himself, in so plain a fashion that men have called the place Babel from that day to this.

Today the world is more closely following out the ideas which prevailed in primitive Babel than at any other time in its history. Never was so much stress laid on organization and order, and in the irony of God's government never was confusion more plainly stamped upon the whole fabric of civilisation. To show the way in which the principles set forth in Babylon are coming to a head today would be instructive, but we must not be tempted to digress.

A couple of centuries or so rolled, during which men learnt to accommodate themselves to the limitations imposed by diversity of speech and division into nations, whilst not abandoning the original principles of Babel, and then Abram was born of the stock of Shem, and Genesis 12 abruptly begins with the announcement, "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee . . . so Abram departed." The world having been judged as confusion, here we have the call of God; an altogether new departure in God's ways. The two features that mark every call of God come plainly into view.

The call of God firstly means separation. Abram had to go "out of . . . from . . . from . . . ." It entailed the snapping of links — links not only of a national sort but those social and even domestic in character. By this time the infection of idolatry had spread from Babel in many directions, and so we read, "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood [i.e., the river Euphrates] in old time, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods. And I took Abraham from the other side of the flood" (Joshua 24: 2, 3). Out of these idolatrous surroundings Abraham was called, and because of them the separation involved in the call was of a drastic and thorough nature. He who was eventually to be called "the friend of God" must not be left in any kind of friendship with the idolatrous world.

Just as the fact of Abraham's early surroundings being of an idolatrous nature is not mentioned in Genesis, so also no word is given to us there of the character in which God appeared to him when the call was given. We must go to the New Testament for this. Stephen commenced his final address with the statement, "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham." This great revelation was the starting point of his remarkable career.

Let us just visualise the situation. Abraham is dwelling in great Ur of the Chaldees. Archaeological discoveries make it plain that this was a splendid city of wealth and learning in those far-off days, a place where men were still making themselves "a name" and displaying their glory. In the midst of all this magnificence there appears before him the God of glory, i.e., God presented Himself to him characterized by the glory which is proper to Himself, clothed with that glory, if one may so speak.

How overwhelming must have been this revelation! What a revolution it must have wrought in Abraham's thoughts! How effectually it must have taken the glitter out of the glory of Ur! Here we have the secret of his remarkable life of pilgrimage and self-denial.

The separation of Abraham from his country, his kindred, and his father's house was not accomplished in a day. Years elapsed, and the final links were not broken until God further intervened and Terah his father died in Haran. Then Abraham stepped forth and turned his back upon the glories of the plains of Shinar for ever. He became the man of the tent and the altar. The tent proclaimed his dissociation from the mighty palaces as a pilgrim: the altar proclaimed his approach to and communion with God.

The call of God, then, not only meant separation but also designation. It meant that God called Abraham not only "from" but "unto." He was called "unto a land that I will show thee." To that land was he designated, and consequently that land is his. True, he never possessed it, not a square yard of it, save a few that he purchased with money as a burying-place for Sarah. Yet he will possess it all, taking it up in the coming age in the persons of his national seed, the elect Israel of God.

The land then was that to which Abraham was designated, and the knowledge of this was public property. But the God who appeared to him was more than the God of the land, or even than "the God of all the earth": He was the God of glory, and Hebrews 11 lets us into the knowledge of that which consequently Abraham had before the vision of his soul as a secret thing. "He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." He was amongst those who "declare plainly that they seek a country . . . they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city" (verses 10, 14, 16).

So after all Abraham had a city before him. Nimrod and his helpers started to build their city, the tower of which was intended to reach unto heaven — man ever attempts to work up to heaven and fails. Abraham had a heavenly city in view: God was its Builder and Maker not man, and consequently it has foundations which abide. The contrast was complete.

The object of the builders of Babel was to make themselves a name. To a certain extent they succeeded, for Nimrod "began to be a mighty one in the earth." The call of God carried Abraham into a path far removed from the prowess and renown of these famous men. He started on his pilgrimage, however, with the Divine promise, "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing"; and God has been as good as His word. Even today, when faith is still at a discount, the name of Abraham is venerated not only by Christian but by Jew and Mohammedan also. That, however, is a small thing, but how great is the honour that God Himself should speak of him as "Abraham my friend" (Isa. 41: 8). Here is true greatness, greatness which abides whilst Nimrod's tower and city are but a mass of shapeless ruins upon the plains of Mesopotamia and his rebel name is well-nigh forgotten.

Abraham became "the father of all them that believe" (Rom. 4: 11) and hence, as the next verse says, we are to  walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham." We, too, have received the call; for to those same Roman believers Paul wrote of his own apostleship as being "for obedience to the faith among all nations, for His name: among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ" (Rom. 1: 5, 6)

Our place then in the world is after the pattern of Abraham's. The heavenly hopes which were more or less secret in his day are clearly revealed to us and consequently the declared portion of our souls. The faith is preached amongst the nations, the effect of it where believed is to separate a people from the nations, but they are still for a time left among the nations, but responsible to walk among them as the called of Jesus Christ; for the way we know God is as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is even more wonderful and intimate than knowing Him as the God of glory.

Christian reader, what can the world offer us that is at all comparable with this?

Backsliding - With a Word to Christian Workers

Backsliding — With a Word to Christian Workers.

F. B. Hole.

Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 2, 1910 page 296.

A friend lately remarked in my hearing that there are villages and hamlets in the British Isles where it is not so easy to find a sinner. The population seems to be composed of true Christians on the one hand and backsliders on the other.

This may have been a somewhat exaggerated, if picturesque, way of putting the case; that a serious fact was enshrined in the statement does not however admit of any doubt. There are immense multitudes who have at some time or other registered a profession of religion or even of definite conversion, and yet to-day they are far — very far many of them — from the kingdom of God.

Why is this? What does it all mean? Can we discern anything which accounts for it? How should we diagnose the case?

It is impossible, of course, to diagnose every individual case, or indeed to diagnose with infallible accuracy any individual case. There are subtleties and intricacies in the soul of man that defy all save God alone. A divine plumb-line is needed if we would fathom the heart, and we possess it not. "The Lord knoweth them that are His." Still, while avoiding the error of announcing even our judgments with an air of papal infallibility, let us not fail to observe the clear distinctions which Scripture makes in regard to this subject.

Taking the Bible into our hands we find that backsliders are divided into three classes:

(1) The apostate backslider.

(2) The ordinary unconverted backslider.

(3) The believing backslider.

The First Class.

Hebrews 6: 4-8) describes the first class. Every Jew who had embraced Christianity had thereby found an entrance into a most privileged circle, and became a partaker of many striking benefits, irrespective of whether at the bottom he was really converted or not. It was possible that under stress of persecution and trouble some might wish to shake off allegiance to Christ and return to their Judaism, and in these verses the Spirit of God warns such of the consequences. In order to be properly reinstated amongst their former Jewish associates they would have to "crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame."

This is to "fall away" indeed! To fall from the profession of Christianity right away until the depth of apostasy is reached. This is backsliding in its most aggravated form, so aggravated as to be possible only to an unconverted person and to be worthy of the most tremendous and unsparing judgment. It is IMPOSSIBLE to renew such to repentance. Their doom is irrevocably fixed.

Has this a present application? Is backsliding of this terrible character possible to-day? We certainly believe it is. When in South Africa some years ago a friend wished us to visit the Mohammedan mosque in a certain town. Permission could easily be obtained, he said, for an Englishman held a leading place in connection with it. On inquiry we were informed that he had definitely abandoned Christ for Mohammed, and the Bible for the Koran. The light, the heavenly gift, the Holy Ghost, the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come are found exclusively in the Christian circle. Out of that into the darkness he had plunged.

That such cases are rare we may earnestly hope and believe, nevertheless they are possible. Let us therefore hold aloft the warning beacon of Hebrews 6 as much as ever.

The Second Class.

In the parable of the sower (Luke 8: 6, 13) we find the second class, to which the great majority of backsliders belong. The gospel seed is sown on the rock covered with a fine layer of soil. There is apparent result almost immediately, but there being no depth there is no root, and hence nothing permanent is done.

Upon the surface of this the meaning lies. What untold thousands have at some time or other come beneath the sound of the gospel and its influences. They have been moved and have professed conversion. A little while and they have slidden back into the world, and their profession is seen to be empty and worthless. They fall away.

Do not confound this class with that first named. Those fall from the profession of the Christian religion to apostasy. These from profession of definite conversion to worldliness and indifference.

That this kind of backslider would inevitably appear in connection with the work of the gospel was recognized by our Lord Jesus Christ in this parable; but the terrible degree to which this kind of backsliding has prevailed in this our day should really alarm us, and lead to many heart-searchings as to what it all means. Its sorrowful effects are upon us on every hand. Such people are themselves doubly hard to win, and are the greatest possible stumbling-blocks to others.

Upon all Christian workers we would seriously and affectionately urge that there has been far too much slipshod and sometimes almost flippant evangelism. We have sought to influence people far too much by that which is merely human, by sentimental hymns, charming singing, eloquent speaking, pathetic incidents, and the like; we have far too little relied upon that which is divine. We have thereby produced an unnecessarily large crop of "stony ground hearers."

In the first century designing men, Pharisees and scribes, knew how to twist about the indifferent Jewish multitude until they all cried out as with one voice, "Not this Man, but Barabbas." If, in the twentieth century, we use the latest and most approved modern methods of evangelism to prevail upon the multitudes to signify their acceptance of Christ, what have we gained? Nothing, except there be those really "pricked in the heart" by the mighty convicting power of the Holy Spirit, as were the three thousand on the day of Pentecost. Nothing, and worse than nothing, for we have gained the harm and loss of poor souls, hurried into a false position which they soon fall from to their own discomfort and the discredit of the gospel.

Let us eschew everything that would lead to these disastrous results, regardless of the effect on our own reputation, for success in the work of the Lord. Never daub the wall with untempered mortar, saying, Peace! peace! when there is no peace. Never hurry a soul into confession. Never treat sin lightly. Preach truth as well as grace. Emphasize repentance. Neither count your chickens before they are hatched, nor break the shell to hatch them. If you do they will not be strong.

Backsliders of this class are not hopeless. They may be restored, but the only restoration possible is sound and thorough-going conversion to God.

The Third Class.

The third class of backslider is described in 2 Peter 1: 8-10. Read the verses carefully and note that we do not here read of "falling away." It says, "If ye do these things ye shall never fall." The believer may fall, though he does not fall away. Fall from what? From communion with God, from the pursuit of the excellent Christian graces described in 2 Peter 1: 5, 6, 7. Fall to what? To spiritual blindness, to insensibility and forgetfulness of the wonderful cleansing and forgiveness that grace has made his own. It does not say that such a backsliding believer is no longer purged from his sins, but that he has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins (2 Peter 1: 9).

These lines will meet the eye of some fallen and distressed believer. Your cry is, What shall I do? Confess your sin and backsliding to God. Forgiveness and cleansing, according to 1 John 1: 9, will be yours. The cure for you is confession, so that the obstruction may be removed, and then the diligent pursuit of that which is good (2 Peter 1: 10).

Notice, in conclusion, that in the life of the Lord Jesus we are provided with an example and illustration of each class of backslider. The apostate backslider answering to Hebrews 6 was Judas Iscariot. He plunged in one reckless moment from his position of outward privilege and friendship to the depths of apostate treachery; and as a hopeless wreck he passed into perdition.

The professed believers of John 2: 23, 24 illustrate the second class. There was no real work with them and Jesus knew it. A little later (John 6: 66) and they had gone back to the world where they had been before.

Peter himself is the example of the third. How fitting that he should allude to such backsliding in his epistle. By confession he was recovered and restored.

Are you a backslider, my reader? If so, return to the Lord, return by way of conversion or confession, just as suits your case, but RETURN!

Or are you a servant of the Lord Jesus — a worker in the harvest field? Then we beseech you to seriously and prayerfully set your face against unreality in the work of the Lord, to eschew all mere surface work, that there may be some recovery from the epidemic of backsliding which has become such a scandal in the church of God.

"Be not deceived"

"Be not deceived"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 65.)

The warnings against deception that are found in the New Testament Epistles are indeed remarkable. We might have imagined that Christians of the first century, many of whom were converted under apostolic preaching, would have been proof against it; but such evidently was not the case. We of the twentieth century are doubtless more liable to it than they were, so we shall be wise to take notice of the apostolic warnings against it.

Deception may often assail us from without, for Satan is the great deceiver, and he has plenty of agents in this world of fallen men. Yet the most seductive sort are those that are generated within ourselves. We find such words, for instance, as, "Let no man deceive you," occurring both in Ephesians 5: 6, and, 2 Thessalonians 2: 3; though the former were believers of a maturer and more instructed sort, while the latter were comparatively babes in Christ. On the other hand, we find such warnings as, "Let no man deceive himself," and on several occasions, "Be not deceived," where the inference is, we judge, that the trouble was generated from within. In this paper we confine ourselves to the various forms of self-deception.

If we turn to 1 Corinthians 3: 18, we get the words we have just quoted. When, pursuing his evangelistic labours, Paul reached Corinth, he was well aware that as a Greek city many of the inhabitants were well saturated with Athenian philosophy and learning. Hence he approached them after the fashion he described in 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5; and hence, taught of God, he discerned in the infatuation for leading men of gift, that had come over them all — described in 1 Corinthians 1: 12 — a reversion to their old ideas, exalting human intellect and wisdom. They were deceiving themselves as to its real nature and true value.

Paul's words are drastic indeed! "If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world [age], let him become a fool, that he may be wise." None too drastic however in the light of what follows; for he had to say, "the wisdom of this world [kosmos] is foolishness with God." Now "kosmos" signifies the world as an ordered system, and in the ordering of the system all human wisdom has been engaged. Well, what a mess the world is in! Out of it there will be no emergence until Divine power, exercised in Divine wisdom, steps in.

We have to remember that knowledge and wisdom are different things. The area covered by the former has vastly increased in our day as compared with the first century, yet the Apostle could write, "We all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity [love] edifieth [buildeth up]" (1 Cor. 8: 1). With knowledge of a genuine sort there is nothing wrong, but the men, who acquire the knowledge, being fallen sinners, are puffed up by it to their own undoing; since wisdom is the ability to apply and rightly use the knowledge one has acquired. That ability fallen man has not.

An able Christian writer coined an apt phrase when he wrote of "Mr. Worldly Wiseman." The man of the world, who is accounted wise, is one who possesses the practical sense that enables him to use his knowledge for his own profit, advancement or exaltation, and sometimes for the advancement of the whole human race, according to worldly standards. And besides this wisdom of a practical sort there is that of a theoretical and philosophic kind, for which Athens was famous; so that they, "spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing" (Acts 17: 21). As to God and His things they had no real knowledge, hence their wisdom was completely astray.

In the eyes of these ancient philosophers, whether Athenian or Corinthian, the Gospel that Paul preached was foolishness. In the eyes of God their learned thinkings and talkings were folly and ignorance. The stranger standing by as a listener on Mars Hill, might have said, "Just fancy this man talking to these learned men about, the unknown God, whom they ignorantly worshipped, and about these times of their ignorance!" But such was the case, and because of it Paul had to remind us that the man, who would be accounted wise by worldly standards, must become what the same standards would consider a fool, if he would be really wise according to God. And ultimately only the Divine wisdom is going to prevail and stand.

In its essential features the modern world is no different from the ancient world, and therefore the Apostle's warning applies equally to us. On the surface things have developed in such a surprising fashion that we may easily be deceived into thinking that the "things of God," which display His wisdom, and which have been revealed and communicated to us, as stated in 1 Corinthians 2, must be modified somewhat to bring them into line with the wisdom of the world.

Against such deception we are warned, and it may help us if we remember two statements previously made by Paul. (1) God has said, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing, the understanding of the prudent." (2) "The princes of this world . . . come to naught." The wise leaders of this world and their wisdom are both coming to NOTHING. So let us not be deceived.

The believers living in the intellectual city of Corinth were evidently specially liable to deception, for in later chapters we twice find the Apostle writing, "Be not deceived." (1 Cor. 6: 9, and 1 Cor. 15: 33), and each time matters of morality are in question. It is sadly possible for men of high philosophic thought and utterance to be quite dissolute in their lives. Men of evil and immoral life abounded in their city but such had no part in the kingdom of God; and in such lives many of the saints in Corinth had been involved, though now they were washed, sanctified and justified. No amount of specious talk was to blind their minds as to the purity of God's kingdom.

And further, they were not to deceive themselves as to the source from which such evils flowed  -  "Evil communications corrupt good manners." We are told that Paul quoted this striking sentence of five words from a Greek author, who would be well known at Corinth, Menander by name. It may well have been so, for heathen authors sometimes state what is true enough, and it is easy to forget that evil teachings produce evil lives in those who imbibe the teachings. If professing Christians at Corinth, or elsewhere, embrace philosophic notions, which affirm there is no resurrection, or at least none that affects the body, there will soon be mischievous results.

It is quite common today to hear people state that it does not really matter what we believe: all that matters is the living of a good and decent life. This assertion simply means that doctrine is really of no consequence; whereas it is of all importance. The man of the world in his business affairs knows this right enough. If in his business he gets wrong advice, and so believes the state of the market to be what it is not, his affairs will soon go awry. If a saint accepts false teaching, his life will soon manifest its evil effects.

So this warning is very important today, since false doctrine is abroad and knocking at our doors, so to speak, more than ever. To be sound in the faith of Christ is of first importance. Let us not deceive ourselves as to this.

We pass now to Galatians 6: 7, where again we get the admonition, "Be not deceived." And as the point here is the order that God has instituted in His holy government, both in natural things surrounding us, and in the moral affairs of our lives, we are told that even if we do deceive ourselves we shall not be able to mock God by altering the results. In nature every seed produces, "after his kind," as is repeated ten times in Genesis 1. The Galatian saints were warned that the same law would operate as to their daily conduct, just as also it does with us today.

Though, as born of God, we have a new nature, the old nature — the flesh — is still in us. We pass through our lives like a man walking through a field with two baskets of seed. The basket on his left has in it the things of the flesh. That on his right has in it the things of the Spirit. Everything practically depends upon his action. Into which basket does he dip his hand to scatter seed? Whatever he may think, he will reap according to what he sows, for he cannot mock God by altering or evading His law.

Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that we can indulge the flesh and yet reap spiritual good and blessing. That will only be reached as we cultivate the things of the Spirit of God. It would be a profitable and healthy thing for each of us, when confronted with some trying and unlooked for event, to ask ourselves, Has there been on my part some sowing to the flesh, which has produced this distressing harvest? At any rate, if we do not deceive ourselves on this point, we shall live our lives with care and sobriety and in the spirit of self-judgment, and reap life everlasting as the result.

Very closely connected with this is the warning given to us by the Apostle James in verse 22 of his first chapter, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." It is very evident that the individual, who likes merely to listen to nice sermons and unfoldings of truth, without any concern as to his life being governed by what he hears, is not likely to deceive anyone else. Even the unbelievers with whom he comes into contact, will soon detect how unreal he is. But he may sadly deceive himself.

Is this warning needed today? Let us hang our heads in shame and confess with sorrow that it is. Needed specially, we judge, by many of us, who have been privileged to hear and to read many valuable and enlightening unfoldings of the truth of God. How far has the truth that we know worked itself out into expression in our lives? Have we ever heard the ironic remark made, that some Christians are marked by "high talk and low walk"? Could such a thing be justly said of ourselves? God forbid that it should be!

We must not deceive ourselves on this point. Truth is made known to us that it may exert its governing effect on our lives. The Pauline epistles, for instance, not only expound truth but in their later chapters apply the truth stated, so that it may govern our lives. In Romans, for instance, the first eight chapters expound the Gospel, but in chapters 12-15, we are instructed in the kind of life that the Gospel demands. The same is true of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the truth as to the Church, its nature and privileges is unfolded. From Ephesians 4: 17, the truth revealed is applied to the behaviour of those who compose the church.

It is an ever-present danger confronting the intellectual and well-instructed believer, that he should be content to become a kind of philosophic theologian, well versed in the higher details of the faith, and its heavenly privileges, without concerning himself as to the manner of life which such heavenly truth demands. We all need to utter as a prayer what some of us have before now sung as a hymn:-

O make us each more holy,

In spirit, pure and meek;

More like to heavenly citizens,

As more of heaven we speak.

Lastly we may glance at 1 John 1: 8, where we read, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." The Apostle wrote these words about 60 years after the coming of the Spirit of God, at a time when many false notions were found amongst professing Christians, and as a consequence false claims were being made. Notice how we get three times in 1 John 1, the words, "If we say . . . ", and again three times in the early part of 1 John 2, the words, "He that saith ...." These claims had to be tested.

The true saint is born of God, and if we read carefully the verses 1 John 2: 28 - 1 John 3: 9, it is evident that thereby we possess a new nature which is sinless. Yet, while we are still in our present mortal bodies, we have the flesh, with all its sinful tendencies, still in us. In very easy, yet subtle ways, the flesh works, and hence, "In many things we offend all" (James 3: 2), and this confession is followed by an allusion to what we say, for an idle word can so swiftly escape our lips; indeed the wise man of the Old Testament has told us that, "the thought of foolishness is sin" (Prov. 24: 9).

The entertaining of a foolish thought, to say nothing of the utterance of an idle word, proves that sinful flesh is still in us. To persuade ourselves into thinking otherwise would prove that we are deceiving ourselves as to the true nature of sin, regarding it only as the committing of outward acts of reprehensible or immoral nature. The holiness to which we are called goes far deeper than merely the avoiding of wrongful outward acts.

He who is not deceived as to this, will confess his sins into the ear of the Father, who is faithful and just, in the light of the work of the Son, to forgive and to cleanse; as the next verse says. Tenderness of conscience and integrity of heart will preserve us from self-deception in this matter.

And the same things, coupled with humble observance of, and subjection to, the Word of God, will deliver us from all the deceptions we have had before us.

"Begin to possess."

"Begin to possess."

F. B. Hole.

Edification Vol 8, 1934 page 292.

In the Gospel God has made Himself known to us as a Giver. He gave His Son. Faith, too, is His gift, as well as all those mighty spiritual blessings to which faith introduces us. Then He gave us His Holy Spirit, "that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God" (1 Cor. 2: 12). The "things" are given, and given freely; but we are to "know" them by the Spirit; not merely know about them, but know them in their spiritual reality.

First of all faith lays firmly hold upon the fact that they are really ours. The divine "deed of gift" has been duly executed, as attested in Holy Scripture. Having laid hold upon this fact, we must now proceed to lay hold upon the things themselves by the Holy Ghost who is given to us. We must begin to possess our possessions.

All this is presented to us pictorially in the Old Testament record concerning Israel. They had the land of promise by deed of gift from God, but they had to put in their claim for it in the presence of hostile powers; and only bit by bit did they actually take possession. In Deuteronomy 2, we read how Moses brought home to Israel their responsibility as to this.

Put together two verses in that chapter and the point will become very clear:

"Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle" (ver. 24).

"And the Lord said unto me, Behold I have begun to give Sihon and his land before thee: begin to possess, that thou mayest inherit his land" (ver. 31).

So two things are quite definite. First, God had given. Second, He had also begun to give. The superficial reader might feel inclined to demur at this, and at least demand that, if both statements are to be accepted, they must stand in reversed order: viz., first, He began to give; second, He had fully given. The Scriptural order is however the right one. First He gives so that the title deeds are ours. Then He begins to give practically and in detail, as we begin to possess.

Now the exhortation, "Begin to possess," was twice repeated. There are two reasons why we should bestir ourselves and begin to possess our possessions; and they are illustrated here.

The first is that the title deeds are ours. They really are. If they were not, our beginning to possess would be utterly unwarranted; a mere lawless grabbing at what did not belong to us. And like all such lawless proceedings it would ultimately land us in disaster. Being ours by Divine gift, our beginning to possess is not a defiant trespass, but the calm assurance of faith. It is the right and proper response to the Divine gift.

You have, let us suppose, a friend whom you love and highly esteem. Longing to express your feelings, you scrape your hard earned pence together for a long time and finally present her with an expensive and beautiful dress. You are so pleased to give it! A fortnight later however, calling unexpectedly to see her you discern the beautiful dress fluttering on a scarecrow, erected to keep the birds off her kitchen garden! Now, how do you feel? Pained and mortified almost beyond expression! You expected the gift to be used and enjoyed by the recipient. You thought she would really possess herself of it, and not relegate it to the scrap heap.

Has God given these wonderful things to us in order that we may misuse them, or even keep them unused, like a dress carefully secreted in a draw, until such time as the age to come dawns? To ask such a question is to answer it. God has given the things to us; but we are to begin to possess them.

The second reason why we should bestir ourselves and begin to possess is, that God Himself begins to give as we begin to possess. The fact is that if He did not begin to work with us, in order to give us a practical entrance to our possessions we should never gain any foothold in them at all.

In Numbers 14, we read how God said that because of their unbelief, He would not begin to give the land to Israel for another forty years. Nevertheless the people insisted that they would begin to possess. "Lo, we be here, and will go up," they said. The rejoinder of Moses was, "Go not up, for the Lord is not among you." Yet they would not listen but presumed to go up and as a consequence were utterly smitten. At that time, though the title deeds were already theirs, God has not "begun to give" the inheritance to them and hence their attempt to "begin to possess" was absolutely futile.

When Moses spoke, as recorded in Deuteronomy 2, the hour for action had struck. God has begun to give in a practical way, and they were to begin to possess.

Now these things are written for our instruction. What about these things that are freely given to us of God? They are ours, and now is the time for us really to possess ourselves of them. This is shown by the fact that God has given to us His Spirit that we may know them in realized and happy possession. Are we laying hold upon them? Are we giving ourselves to the study of the Word of God which reveals them to us, and playing in the Holy Ghost so that we may be built up and established in them?

What hinders us in this? Just our natural lethargy coupled with love of the world. Verse 31, already quoted, is followed by verses 32 and 33, which say:

"Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people to fight at Jahaz, and the Lord our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people."

Immediately we begin to possess opposition springs up. The old powers do not yield without a struggle. It is a stern business. It means saying, "No," to many things which are not the things freely given to us of God. It means exercise and conflict and trouble. But it is well worth it. The joy of victory follows: the joy of really possessing a little bit more of that which is ours by an incontestable title, as given of God.

Do not be content with knowing that there are things which are freely given to you of God. Do not even be content to know about them. Aim at really knowing them by the Spirit given to you. Go in for the joy and satisfaction of realized possession.

Benevolent Rule

Benevolent Rule.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 207.)

At the present moment no one "can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. 12: 3). The dying thief needed an eye illumined by the Spirit of God to discern, in the thorn-crowned Man on the centre cross, the Lord of glory. The princes of this world did not recognize the Lord of Glory, but the thief did and he said, "Lord; remember me when Thou camest into Thy kingdom." Jesus is no longer on the cross, but He is still rejected of the world, and it is only by the Holy Ghost that His lordship is recognized and confessed.

When we speak of lordship, what is it that we mean? The meaning of the term can be briefly summarized in four words. It means in the first place absolute dominion, and in the second place benevolent rule. He who exercises lordship wields absolute authority, and his will is law to those beneath him; but at the same time he exercises that authority with benevolence for the good of those beneath his sway, otherwise he is not so much a lord as a tyrant. We speak of lordship as it is according to God, and as it will be realized in the Lord Jesus Christ, and as it was typically set forth in the history of Joseph.

When the skill and power of Joseph's hands had carried him to the top, and within them lay the destinies of his brethren, and of all Egypt, then there came out the tender compassions of his heart, which expressed themselves in his tears. In Genesis 39 to 41 Joseph's hands are prominent. Genesis 42 to 50. Joseph's tears. In these latter chapters it is recorded that Joseph wept no less than eight times, viz.: Gen. 42: 24; Gen. 43: 30; Gen. 45: 2, 14, 15; Gen. 46: 29; Gen. 50: 1, 17.

It is not a little remarkable that there is no mention of Joseph weeping in his earlier years. We could have well understood it characterizing those days, when we remember the seas of sorrow and affliction through which he passed, and which well might have wrung tears from his eyes. His hard-hearted brethren even had to confess "we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear" (Gen. 42: 21). They saw the anguish of his soul, but as far as the record goes they never saw his tears.

How reminiscent is this of that other expression in Isaiah 53, "the travail of His soul" — the soul of Jehovah's perfect Servant, who, though the Man of Sorrows on earth, and acquainted with grief, is yet to be "exalted and extolled, and be very high." In the days of His sojourn and suffering on earth He wept, but never for Himself. When going forth to crucifixion others bewailed and lamented Him, but He said, "Weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves."

Joseph wept in the days of his glory and power, in the day when he was dealing in sternness with his brethren. Yet it was a skilful sternness he exercised toward them, its object being that they might be convicted of their sin, and humbled, and brought to self-judgment and repentance. This inward heart work was an absolute necessity. To have laden them with the corn of Egypt, leaving their hearts untouched, would have been a calamity. Their stomachs would have been satisfied, but their hearts left unreached and unaltered. This was not Joseph's way. Absolute dominion was now his, but this power he would use not for their destruction but for their good both spiritually and physically.

The first time Joseph wept was when he perceived the first awakenings of conscience in the way of self-judgment in his brethren. They spoke among themselves, never recognizing Joseph in Egypt's splendid governor, nor suspecting that he understood their speech. "We are verily GUILTY concerning our brother" he heard them say. Joseph "turned himself about from them and wept." They were tears of love and thankfulness, for he saw that his dealings were beginning to take effect, and raise in their minds questions as to the past that were bound to be raised ere his brethren could be happy in his presence.

A second time did Joseph weep when Benjamin his own full brother appeared. The tears sprang out of a sense of relationship. Of that relationship Benjamin was as yet all unconscious, but Joseph knew and was moved beyond words. "His bowels," we read, "did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there." Still as yet the work of conviction and repentance in his brethren had not reached sufficient depth for that relationship to be declared, so "he washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself." Thus he exercised patience in his dealings with them.

We are living in the hour which is characterized by "the patience of the Christ" (2 Thess. 3: 5, N. Tr.). He is exalted on high, and as the Lord over all He is rich unto all that call upon Him, whether Jew or Gentile. His brethren after the flesh, the Jews, are, however, still in unbelief and unconscious of His glory. Surely His bowels do yearn upon them, and some little reflection of that yearning we find in the Apostle Paul in Rom. 9: 1-5; yet the time has not come for the expression of His love and the acknowledgment of the relationship that exists. There must be a deep work of conviction and self-judgment first.

The next three occasions of Joseph's weeping are all found in Genesis 45. In the latter part of Genesis 44 we have Judah's touching speech on behalf of Benjamin. It revealed a great change in the disposition of the brethren. The old hatred against Joseph was gone, and in its place was a genuine care for Benjamin; the former indifference to the feelings of Jacob their father had been changed into the utmost solicitude on his behalf; instead of the spirit that would callously sacrifice Joseph, behold Judah prepared to sacrifice himself! The chastening of God had already had a profound effect, and the hour had arrived when at last Joseph's love could burst its barriers and declare itself.

"Then Joseph could not refrain himself . . . and he wept aloud . . . and he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept . . . moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them." Here we have the full and unhindered expression of Joseph's love, and in response thereto the repentance of his brethren reached its proper depth; "His brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence." Thus it will be in the coming time. The preliminary dealings of God with the children of Israel will produce a certain measure of conviction in their hearts, but it is when, according to Zechariah 12: 10, "they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced" that "they shall mourn . . . as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness . . . as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." Then "the spirit of grace and of supplications" shall be poured upon them. Yet, even so, what will be their feelings compared with those of the One whom they have pierced?

In Genesis 45 we do not read much of the tears of the brethren of Joseph. "Benjamin wept upon his neck," we read in verse 14, but that is all. As a matter of fact, Benjamin had of all of them the least reason to weep, for he was hardly implicated in their great sin. No, the great point is not the repentance of the brethren, but the magnanimous love of Joseph. He was saviour, for as he says, "God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance." He was also lord, for he added, "and He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt."

Joseph was lord. His dominion was absolute in that great domain. His dreams were verified. The other sheaves made obeisance to his sheaf; sun, moon, and eleven stars made obeisance to him. His brethren had said! "Let us . . . cast him into some pit . . . and we will see what will become of his dreams." Well, they had now seen!

But now that such power was in his hands, what use did he make of it? His word to his father, and brethren, and all their households was, "Come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land" (Gen. 45: 18). As exalted he was the minister of their blessing.

"Come unto me . . . and I will give you rest" were the words of the Lord Jesus, and as the context shows that rest is in the knowledge of the Father, of His love and purposes. It is available for our hearts today. Presently He will bring rest to a weary earth after the execution of the inevitable judgments of God. He will fill the earth with rest and contentment when the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Then He will minister to His people the good of the millennial earth, just as He now ministers to His saints of the good of heaven.

Our title to the heavenly things made known in the gospel is sure and without a flaw. It rests upon His atoning blood. We need, however, not only a flawless title, but to enter upon the good of the wealthy portion that is ours. It is to be ours in present enjoyment, by faith and the work of the Spirit of God.

After Genesis 45 we read three times of Joseph weeping. Once when meeting his aged father Jacob, once at his father's death, and lastly after his father's death, when his brethren revealed the fact that even yet they had not grasped the fulness of his grace and kindness toward them. It became manifest that all the time they had accepted his favour with a "perhaps" in their minds.

Said they, "Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him." Hence the message which they sent, as if to influence Joseph's unwilling mind by the memory of their father's wishes on their behalf. There was on the surface the appearance of humility in their attitude, yet it was really but unbelief — unbelief not in the absoluteness of Joseph's dominion, but rather in the benevolence of his rule, as though his kindness had been but a mask worn to please the aged father. This cut Joseph to the quick, and "Joseph wept when they spake unto him."

Yet his attitude towards them did not change in the presence of this display of unbelief. His answer was, "Fear ye not; I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them." The benevolence of his rule was a reality whether they fully relied upon it, or whether they did not. The littleness of their faith in no way altered the largeness of his heart.

Hudson Taylor, in addressing a large audience, once quoted the well-known lines of Miss Havergal:-

"They, who trust Him wholly

Find Him wholly true."

Having repeated them, he paused a moment, and then quietly added, "Yes, and there is one thing more wonderful than that even — they, who do NOT trust Him wholly, find Him wholly true." Many of us are like Joseph's brethren and do not altogether and wholly repose in His love and faithfulness, yet is He just as wholly true to us as He is to those rarer souls who trust Him with quite unshaken confidence.

Divine love is like a spring which bubbles up in some heat-bound plain because its source is in distant mountains with their eternal snows. In the fiercest drought it is unchanged, gushing forth the same as ever. Of such a spring we may say what Tennyson made the language of his brook:-

"For men may come, and men may go

But I go on for ever."

The love of God which has been expressed in Christ flows forth upon us, yet its source is not in us but in God Himself.

How great the soul-liberty which lies in the knowledge of this fact!

How do we regard the Bible?

How do we regard the Bible?

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 3.)

In the age-long conflict between the truth of God and the lie of the devil, between faith and unbelief, the attitude which we adopt towards the Holy Scriptures is decisive — decisive as regards ourselves.

It is not at all decisive as regards God and His truth and the Book in which that truth is enshrined. You and I may regard the Bible in any light we please: the Bible and the God of the Bible are quite unmoved by our thoughts or words. If an airman attempts to fly over the Himalayas and, regarding Everest's mighty mass as an illusion, steers straight into it, he will not move Everest an inch. He will move himself and his machine in very disconcerting fashion, and the way he regarded the mountain will prove quite decisive to him and to the result of his flight.

Ever since the Bible reached completion in the apostolic age it has been the object of continual attacks. For long it was removed from the common people and buried in monasteries and the like. Since the Reformation it has been widely circulated and bitterly denied and criticised. more recent times the mode of attack has varied, and the fashionable thing, especially in religious circles, now seems to be to eulogise it to the skies as literature, and as a repository of beautiful religious conceptions, and a story of religious progress, whilst assiduously impeaching its real veracity and undermining its authority as the Word of God.

We have just received a four-page pamphlet bearing the same title as this article, which summarises the teachings of modern religious infidelity in small compass. We notice it here because it bears the imprint of the Social Problems Committee of the United Free Church of Scotland, and hence goes forth under the sanction of a substantial religious organization that once would have prided itself upon its orthodoxy.

No reader of this magazine is likely at first sight to find much fault with its opening words: —

"We Christians love our Bible. As life goes on most of us come to love it more and more. We go to it in sorrow and find comfort. We go to it in perplexity and find light. We go to it when we are weary and find inspiration. It never fails us. It is out of our own experience that we call it 'The word of Life.'"

Here are some quite nice sentiments, and our author undertakes to express them on behalf of Christians generally. He writes, you notice, not "some of us," not even "we Christians of the United Free Church of Scotland," but "we Christians" — speaking thus for the Church universal. We love our Bible, he avers, because of certain benefits it gives, — comfort, light, and inspiration — he does not state that we love it because it is true. He does not believe that it is true, as we shall soon see.

Comfort, light, and inspiration are quite good and desirable things if they are true and proceed from TRUTH. If not, they are but destructive opiates to the soul. How would this do for the opening of a pamphlet advocating Spiritism?

"We spiritists love our seances. As life goes on most of us come to love them more and more. We go to them in sorrow and find comfort. We go to them in perplexity and find light. We go to them when we are weary and find inspiration. They never fail us."

At this point many would wish to interrupt and observe that possibly spiritists do find what they claim in their seances, but that the supreme test is not as to the subjective effect produced in the devotees of any cult, but as to the truth or falsity of the cult to which they are devoted. Exactly! But that only proves how poor and lame a beginning the pamphlet in question makes. Our author affirms the comforting and soothing properties of the Bible. We agree, but we affirm further that if this be the test, there are a score of false cults which, once implicitly believed, have remarkable powers of inspiration and soothing properties in the highest degree, and we ask — why applaud the Bible and reject them?

To such a question we should give immediate answer — because the Bible is true and they are false. Our author, however, has no such logical reason for his choice, since for him the Bible also cannot be said to be true.

Having reminded us that a great many people do not find the Bible helps them in the way he has described, but that, on the contrary, "a great deal of it has simply bored them," that it seems to them "childish," or "contradictory and incredible," he gives us what he calls "blunt answers to blunt questions."

"Do we hold that every word in the Bible is true? No! we do not. Do we accept the views of the Bible on scientific questions? No, we do not. Do we approve all the moral sentiments expressed in the Bible? No! certainly not. Do we regard the Bible as infallible history? No. Do we agree with all the Opinions of St. Paul? No! we do not."

Our author here is not alluding to the fact that here and there, in Scripture, we have words and sentiments of evil men and even of Satan recorded; and that obviously such words and sentiments are not to be accepted as of God. No. He just means what he says, that "we Christians" do not believe the Bible to be true and thoroughly trustworthy either as to its words, its views, its moral sentiments, its histories, or its opinions; and, if so, it is not easy to see that there is left any respect at all in which it can be said to be true.

Thus he asserts. But is his assertion correct? By no means. There are Christians by tens of thousands who utterly repudiate such unbelief on the one hand and such a weak and illogical position on the other. How comes he, then, to make such assertions in the name of "we Christians" generally? Because either he ignores the fact that there are Christians for whom he does not speak, or else he treats such as differ from him as no Christians at all.

Leaving that aside, however, let us address ourselves to the main question. Ought we or ought we not to accept the Bible in its words, its views, its moral sentiments, its histories, and its opinions, and we would add, its assumptions, as true? Let us allow the Bible to propound to us concerning itself the very question that the Living Word addressed to His critics, "Which of you convinceth Me of sin? and if I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" (John 8: 46).

Take that tremendous Bible assumption, "Thus saith the Lord," repeated over and over again. Now, did the Lord say or did HE not say? If He did say, then to treat any thing He said after the fashion of our author is sheer blasphemy, and if He did not say, then to talk about anyone deriving comfort or inspiration from such deceitful utterances is to advocate a very silly form of sentimental, not to say, immoral, religion. Nor would it improve the position to urge that the men who prefaced their writings with "Thus saith the Lord" and its many similar variant forms were good men who genuinely imagined they had a divine commission; for it is not the good men but their bad writings that our author would have us derive our comfort from.

Now what underlies the sad unbelief expressed in this pamphlet? Our author strokes us with a velvet paw, yet a sharp claw which scratches lies beneath the velvet!

We have no hesitation in saying —  the steady refusal to see anything in the Bible beyond a purely human literature; the acknowledgment of nothing in the nature of a revelation from God, but only the history of the evolution of religious ideas in the minds of successive generations of men. Here are the words:-

"What, then, is the Bible to us?

"It is simply the story of how through long centuries men gradually worked their way from primitive religious ideas, and very primitive moral ideas, up to the loftiest heights of spiritual perception which the race has yet attained.

"The story is told us in very varied ways. The Bible is really a literature and not a book. It contains historical records, laws, poems, visions, books of teachings, proverbs and prophecies. Some of it is very dry; other parts of it are the most beautiful pieces of writing the world has produced.

"But the essential point about it all is that as we read it we can trace the great progress referred to. Israel began with what we should call pagan ideas about God. They believed in many gods, and about their own special god they believed some very strange things. They held him capable of such feelings as jealousy and the desire for revenge. They believed he could be pleased by animal sacrifices. They thought He eared only for one nation and could take pleasure in seeing others massacred. And yet, slowly and surely, such thoughts were left behind. Slowly they learnt that God is holy, and thinks not as a man thinks. Slowly they learnt to fill out the idea of His righteousness with ever nobler content. They rose to a belief in His mercy, and then in His love. They received the greatest of all evangelical thoughts and came to know that God suffers with and for His children. And as this progress went on they discarded their earlier ideas. Many of the earlier conceptions in the Bible stand condemned by the later teaching of the Bible itself. It can, therefore, only be used rightly by those who receive its final and greatest teachings, and use these as a standard for judging all the rest."

Having read these statements which purport to be an instruction as to the true character and value of Old Testament Scripture, we have just our one question to ask as to them. ARE THEY TRUE?

They are NOT true to the facts as stated by Scripture. That can easily be verified. Israel did not begin with pagan ideas of God, if the Bible account of their beginnings is to be relied upon. Israel himself and his immediate descendants began with the knowledge of the true and only God. At a later stage in Egypt they evidently caught the infection of Egyptian idolatry to a considerable extent. From this, they were again to some degree extricated by the wonders of Sinai and the law then given. Their subsequent history was the exact opposite to the picture drawn by our author. Not a steady upward evolution of religious ideas, but a steady degradation to the depths of polytheism {until the Babylonian captivity, only relieved by the faithful intervention of prophets sent by the Lord. And after the captivity, though they avoided idolatry, they degraded religion into a mere matter of ceremonies and pharisaic observances that was sternly denounced by our Lord. This, we repeat, is simply beyond all contradiction the plain testimony of the Bible. The only increasing light to which it bears witness is the increasing clearness of prophetic testimony to the Coming One which culminated in the COMING ONE Himself, the SENT ONE of the New Testament  - the Lord Jesus.

Whence, then, did our author get all these assertions as to what Israel thought and how their ideas were evolved? Is there some other history of the chosen race extant, a history of such unimpeachable accuracy that he feels himself authorized entirely to rewrite their story? If there were, it would be honest of him to denounce our Bible as a fraud, and to say "We Christians despise our Bible": it would not be honest for him to attempt to twist the words of the poor old discredited Bible to mean what they manifestly do not mean. There is, however, no such other history. Whence, then, come the ideas he foists upon the Bible? They represent the account of things now fashionable in speculative circles where evolution is still the rage. There is no other history. There is no proof. Our author just moves with the times and advocates the latest craze in evolutionary philosophy. He tells us he loves the Bible, but he loves his philosophic notions more, and in their favour he "handles the word of God deceitfully," and thus "corrupts the word of God" (2 Cor. 4: 2; 2: 17).

To him, of course, it is not the Word of God. He speaks of it, did you notice, as "writing" which "the world has produced."

He is pleased, however, quite to approve of "Jesus." Here are his words:-

"The summit of all this progress is reached when we come to the person and teaching of Jesus. It is to that that all the earlier parts lead up. In Jesus we have the perfect revelation at last. He is all the best we ever dreamed that God might be. He is the final and complete picture of what God is. His teaching is the final word about the will of God for man. He satisfies perfectly man's craving for knowledge about God. And, therefore, the book that tells us about Him must necessarily be mankind's most sacred possession."

Quite a number of these statements are true, and yet the whole passage exemplifies how truth may be used to decorate falsehood. The main idea is that "Jesus" is the summit of human progress. The race had been striving upwards, and its dreams of goodness were consequently in advance of anything yet attained, when, lo! as the fruit of this evolution there appeared "Jesus" and fulfilled our dreams — "He is all the best we ever dreamed that God might be." Now for our question — Is this a FACT?

Not if the Gospels be true. Their history shows us that instead of the Lord Jesus Christ appearing as the summit of human progress, fulfilling human dreams of goodness, in which case He would have been rapturously acclaimed by all the leaders of this evolutionary progress, if not by the common people, He came fulfilling Isaiah's word, "when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him," and He was rejected.

Has our author access to some other "Life of Jesus" more authentic than the Gospels that he thus dares to rewrite the story? He has not. There is no other authentic history. He either is unable to read the sober objective facts of the Gospels without importing into them a strain of romance from his own subjective consciousness, or he so completely disbelieves their veracity that he feels quite at liberty thus fundamentally to alter the story. His "Jesus" is largely a figment of his imagination, and we compliment him upon the degree of intellectual honesty displayed in the fact that not once in the pamphlet does he speak of Him as his LORD.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect and final revelation of God, because He is God. He is not the fairest and most perfect expression of the genius of Adam's race, but the last Adam, the Lord from heaven, the Head of a new race (see 1 Cor. 15: 45-49).

This quotation from the Epistles will not count for much with our author of course. In his paper he proceeds to explain to us that the Old Testament, though hardly needed by us, has at least some value, as an interesting story of the preparation for Christ. So, too, the Epistles "are of value because they fill out our knowledge of Christ;" but he does not regard them as authoritative. St. Paul, for instance, "has written the greatest things that ever were written about the Christian religion," yet "he writes theology sometimes," "he expresses opinions now and then." "His is not the last word about Christian morality." If that be so, we clearly need not pay much attention to what he says. We may accept what we like and discard what we like, and this is what our author does.

The Apostle John declares otherwise. Speaking of the false spirits in the world — the spirit of antichrist — he says, "We [the inspired apostles] are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error" (1 John 4: 6). The spirit of truth hears, and bows to the apostolic word. The spirit of error does not. Which spirit pervades the pamphlet we have before us? The issue is pretty plain. Our author considers the apostolic epistles quite open to question in many parts; the verses quoted from John's writing would, of course, be to him just John's opinions; he would regard John as "writing theology," and so we need not follow him. On the other hand, judged by that sentence of the Word of God through John, our author is deluded by "the spirit of error."

Now what is the upshot of this way of regarding the Bible? A closing quotation shall tell us: —

From all this it must be plain that the Bible which Christians love so much, and which proves so invaluable for life, is not the whole Bible. It is the greatest thoughts of the Bible which feed our souls and refresh our spirits.

"Possibly the amount of Scripture which is thus living, and which actually operates in the lives of some Christians might turn out to be little more than a tenth of the whole. But it remains true that in and through this book simple people find God, and learn year after year more of God.

"Probably every reader makes his own Bible. The parts that do not grip him he passes by. Certain books become so thumbed and worn that they can hardly be read. Others remain clean and white year after year."

A few more lines follow, containing a pleasing sentiment or two about the Bible, and the pamphlet thus closes as it opened, bestowing its blessing upon the venerable Book!

But we are left, if the pamphlet be true, with about one-tenth of the Bible's contents of any real use, and which can be said to be living. The remaining nine-tenths is dead. Nor are we given any assurance as to which tenth is the living part. We are just left at liberty to make our own Bible. So "we Christians" who "love our Bibles" are left each loving a different "Bible" --each loving what is in part totally condemned by the majority of other "Christians." We are thus presented with the melancholy spectacle of "Christians" every one of whom on a majority vote of other Christians would be condemned as foolishly credulous. This being so, who would not be an out-an-out infidel?

We do not know whether the author includes Luke 24. in his "Bible." He professes admiration for the "Jesus" of the Gospels; though why he should it is hard to tell, since we owe the very Gospels to the apostles or men under apostolic influence, and if such are not to be relied upon in their epistles, why trust them as to "Jesus" in the Gospels? Have we left anything reliable at all as to Him?

It may be, however, that he does include Luke 24 in his "Bible" which is one-tenth of our Bible. If so, we hope he may some day read that chapter, and note what our Lord Jesus said when He was raised from the dead: —

"O fools, and slow of heart to believe ALL that the prophets have spoken."

"Beginning at Moses and ALL the prophets He expounded unto them in ALL the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

"These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that ALL things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me."

The issue between this Lord Jesus and the writer of the deceitful pamphlet is complete. He tells us, speaking of Paul, that "where he does not simply interpret Jesus we feel that we need not follow him. We follow Jesus." The case supposed never arose with Paul's writings, for he always did " follow Jesus." It arises, however, in most glaring fashion with the writer of this pamphlet. We thank him for his kind assurance that we need not follow him. We certainly will not; and neither, we trust, will anybody else, and least of all any reader of Scripture Truth.

Had the pamphlet been openly and honestly infidel we should hardly have noticed it in these pages. Its danger lies not in its negations but in its smooth professions of admiration. The "Jesus" of the author's imagination is eulogised in order the better to deny to the Bible its true character as A REVELATION FROM GOD. Did not the kiss of Judas prove of old a more effective weapon than the swords and staves of the multitude?

We welcome the opportunity, at the start of another year, to make once more manifest our glad and humble acceptance of the whole Bible as the inspired word of God.

"Blood" and "Water." What do they mean?

"Blood" and "Water." What do they mean?

F. B. Hole.

It is an historic fact recorded by the Apostle John (19: 34) that a soldier with a spear pierced the side of the dead Christ, and "forthwith came there out blood and water." From the solemn way in which the Apostle pauses to attest this fact as a personal eyewitness (John 19: 35) we might naturally conclude that he attached some very special importance to it, even if no further reference to it were made.

We are not, however, left to surmise, as in his first Epistle the same Apostle returns to the subject and supplements the historic record of his Gospel with instruction as to the bearing of the fact. He says, "This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood" (1 John 5: 6). And further, in 1 John 5: 8 he speaks of the Spirit and the water and the blood as the three witnesses to the Son of God.

The meaning of these words is not by any means apparent at first sight. Two things, however, do lie upon the surface.

1. Both blood and water are connected with the DEATH of Christ.

2. Though connected they are distinct, so distinct that they can be cited separately as witnesses. They must, therefore, be carefully distinguished in our thoughts.

We find in the Scriptures that cleansing is connected with both blood and water, e.g.:

"The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1: 7).

"That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word" (Eph. 5: 26).

Now let us seek to rightly distinguish between the two cleansings referred to. Speaking in a broad sense, we may say that they connect themselves with the two great effects of sin, viz. its guilt and its defiling power.

The Blood sets before us the death of Christ in atonement for our sins, thus cancelling our guilt and bringing us forgiveness. We are thereby cleansed judicially.

The water indicates the same death, but rather as that by which our sinful state has been dealt with in judgment and ended, so as to deliver us from the old condition and associations of life in which once we lived.

Thereby we are cleansed morally and the power of sin over us is broken.

Toplady was surely right when he sang:

"Let the water and the blood,

From Thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse me from its guilt and power."

The virtue and power of the blood of Christ are set before us in Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 10; indeed, the efficacy of that Blood in contrast with the inefficacy of the blood of bulls and of goats is the great theme of those chapters. We find there:

1. The Blood of Christ purges, or cleanses the sinner's conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9: 14).

2. It has removed the transgressions of saints of old which had been for centuries accumulating under the first Covenant, i. e. the Law (Hebrews 9: 15).

3. It has ratified a new covenant of grace (Hebrews 9: 15-18).

4, It has removed the believer's sins and laid the basis for the putting away of sin in its totality (Hebrews 9: 22 and 26).

5. It has so completely done so for faith that ONCE purged, the believer's conscience is cleared for ever as far as the judicial question of his sins is concerned (Hebrews 10: 2).

6. It therefore gives the believer boldness to enter into the very presence of God (Hebrews 10: 19).

7. It has once and for ever sanctified, set apart the believer for God (Hebrews 10: 10 and Hebrews 10: 29).

Bear in mind that the great subject here is the believer's access to God in virtue of the blood of Christ. His judicial clearance is perfect by that one offering, and never needs to be repeated. Hence the word which characterizes these chapters is "one," "once" (see Hebrews 9: 12, 26, 28; Hebrews 10: 2, 10, 12, 14). Seven times over it is repeated, lest we should overlook the sufficiency and the singular glory that is connected with the precious blood of Christ.

But though judicial cleansing by Blood is the great theme of these chapters, the need for moral cleansing is not forgotten. We draw near to God having not only "our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience," but "our bodies washed with pure water" (Hebrews 10: 22). This is doubtless an allusion to the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priestly office recorded in Exodus 29. They were washed with water (Ex. 29: 4) as well as sprinkled with blood (Ex. 29: 20). They had the shadow, we have the substance — THE DEATH OF CHRIST. It acts in both directions, as BLOOD cleansing us judicially and giving us a perfect standing before God, as WATER cleansing us morally, by cutting us off from the old life in which once we lived, and bringing us into the new.

In the very nature of things this moral cleansing by water needs to be kept up; the idea of repetition is therefore appropriate enough here. We find it if we refer to the type. Aaron and his sons were bathed with water from head to foot at their consecration, as we have seen; that was not repeated, but nevertheless a laver was provided (Ex. 30: 17-21), and there the priests washed their hands and feet. The instructions were most explicit: "When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water, that they die not."

When we turn from type to antitype the same thought appears. In the upper chamber in Jerusalem, probably just before He instituted His supper, the Lord Jesus girded Himself, and, pouring water into a basin, began to wash His disciples' feet (John 13). Peter's reluctance brings forth the truth that such washing is necessary if communion with the Lord in His heavenly position was to be enjoyed. "If I wash thee not thou hast no part with Me" (John 13: 8). His rapid change to enthusiastic haste leads the Lord to say: "He that is washed (i.e. bathed) needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit" (John 13: 10),

Here the twofold way in which cleansing by water is presented in Scripture is very carefully distinguished. Once for all we have been "bathed." The death of Christ has cleansed us from the old life, but for all that we need the constant application of that death to our souls day by day, moment by moment. We cannot approach the sanctuary nor enjoy "part with" Christ without it.

With these thoughts before us we may perhaps return to the words quoted at the beginning from 1 John 5, and find a greater depth of meaning in them.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came by water and blood; by both these things was His coming characterized. The Spirit of God specially guards this point, saying: "Not by water only, but by water and blood." Why so? May not one reason be that there has

always been a tendency — now fast growing and ripening into apostasy — to teach that Christ did come by water only? He came, so it is now widely said, to cleanse man morally by setting before him the highest ideals, and living out those ideals Himself as an incentive to others. He came by such means to make at-one-ment between God and man. Such is their theory. The idea of atonement they scornfully reject.

Foreseeing this dark and deadly error, the Spirit says, "not by water only, but by water and blood." Not by moral cleansing only, but by moral cleansing AND expiation for sin, and it is the Spirit that bears witness and "the Spirit is truth."

And so the three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, remain: the Spirit the living, acting, speaking Witness; the water and the blood two silent witnesses, like mighty pillars rearing their heads into heaven's blue dome through eternal ages; and all three agree in one. They testify that He who came in this way is the Son of God, the fountain of eternal life, and that in Him eternal life is ours, who believe on the name of the Son of God.

Thanks be to God, we may fervently exclaim, that when upon the cross a soldier with a spear pierced his side "forthwith came there out blood AND water!"

Has not the life-work of Christ, the mocking and scourging He suffered at men's hands, some part in His atonement made for sins?

None whatever. Scripture plainly says, "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2: 25). Nothing short of death is the wages of sin. Hence all that He did and suffered in His wonderful life wrought no atonement for sin. It is sometimes urged that the passage which says "by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous" (Rom. 5: 19) teaches otherwise, but a careful reading of the whole passage, Rom. 5: 12 to 21, shows that really it exactly confirms the scripture quoted from Peter. Paul was contrasting the two Heads, Adam and Christ — the sin of the one with its attendant  train of disaster, the righteous ness, the obedience of the Other with its attendant  train of blessing. It is a question of the "one offence" and the "one righteousness" (Rom. 5: 18, margin). Christ's ONE righteousness was obedience even unto His DEATH.

But though Christ's life-work and sufferings had no part in His atonement for sin, they were indeed His qualification as man, so to die. Just as no beast under the Law was eligible as a sacrifice for sin except it was "without blemish," so He could not have suffered as a sacrifice apart from the perfect life that He lived.

If the Blood cleanses us from all sin, what need is there for the water?

Let us answer that question by asking another. Is it not true that men as much need cleansing from the love of sin as from the condemnation of sin? There is great need for the "water." That we should hate sin as God hates it is very necessary.

To be bathed all over as were the priests at the start means that, being made possessors of a new life, we abhor and forsake the old life, seeing that Christ's death was necessary to put away all that we were. His death was ours.

Moreover, that daily cleansing of which the laver speaks. Do we not need it in this defiling world? Is there not much about us personally that needs removing, to say nothing of the subtle influences of this world which often insensibly affect us? Every Christian with a sensitive conscience will surely agree that there is.

Is it not scriptural, then, to speak of being repeatedly washed in the blood for daily cleansing? It says "cleanseth" in 1 John 1: 7.

Nowhere in Scripture do we find the idea of daily recurrence for cleansing to the blood of Christ. The argument inferred from the use of the word "cleanseth" in 1 John 1: 7 is not admissible. True, the word is in the present tense, but it is used simply to point out the inherent property of the precious blood. We so use the present tense in ordinary conversation. For instance, the other day a man brought a sack of quicklime into my yard and deposited it in a quiet corner out of harm's way, remarking, "It will be all right there, the rain will soon settle it. Water slakes lime, you know."

What did he mean? Not that the water was going to slake that lime repeatedly, almost every day, for lime can be slaked but once; he just referred to the well-known property of water in regard to lime, a property that holds good at all times and everywhere.

It is thus that the Apostle speaks in 1 John 1: 7.

But Scripture does speak, as we have seen, of our repeatedly being washed in the water; and to insist on this clear distinction is not mere theological accuracy of a technical sort. To teach that we must have repeated recurrence to the blood for fresh applications thereof does great harm in a twofold way. First it dishonours the blood of Christ, almost putting it back on to the level of the blood of Jewish sacrifices offered under the Law; and second, it repeatedly puts back the saint into the place of the sinner to go through the cleansing and justifying process over and over again.

The truth is that "by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10: 14). Let us hold fast to that.

Tell us a little more about this daily cleansing by water. How do we get it?

By the Word. The water and the Word are  clearly  connected  in  such  a passage  as  "That He  might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word" (Eph. 5: 26).

The Word of God it is which brings home to our souls the death of Christ in its power and wealth of spiritual meaning. Sin in its true hideousness stands revealed, and our affections are cleansed thereby. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to Thy word" (Ps. 119: 9). We often overlook this cleansing effect of God's Word, while eager, it may be, for a better textual acquaintance with it.

A believer once lamented to an old saint of ripe experience the difficulty she had in remembering the points of Christian teaching to which she listened. He bade her go with the sieve she held in her hand to the pump hard by and bring him a sieve full of water. She thought it a strange request, but complied, and by the time she reached him every drop was lost. He bade her do it again, again, and yet again. She affirmed it to be a useless task, when he explained his parable by pointing out that if not one drop of water had been permanently retained, at any rate the sieve was MUCH CLEANER for the process!

Let us dwell much upon the Word of God. We may never become deeply versed in scriptural lore — that is a secondary consideration — our lives and ways will at all events be cleansed thereby.

In John 3 we read of being born of water; is there a connection between that and what we are speaking of, or does it refer to baptism?

It links itself with that of which we are speaking. By the water of the Word applied in the power of the Holy Spirit of God we are born again — made to possess a new life and nature which carries with it the condemnation of the old. It is typified by the bathing of the priests from head to foot (see Ex. 19: 4 and John 13: 10).

It does not refer to baptism. A quiet consideration of the passage makes this manifest. Notice (1) the Lord only speaks of one new birth. This new birth (2) is said to be "of water and of the Spirit." The water the instrument, the Spirit the Power, and (3) it is expressly declared by the Lord to be in its nature indefinable and completely uncontrolled by man (v. 8). Baptism is easily definable and completely controlled by man, and therefore NOT that of which this passage speaks.

Is it only when we sin that we need the water?

We do need it when we sin, but even apart from actual sins, being in a world of defilement, we need it if we would worship, hold communion with, or serve God. Read Numbers 19, and you will find in type the water as purification from sin; then turn to Exodus 30: 17-21, and in type you have water removing every earthly defilement in view of drawing near to God in the sanctuary without reference to actual sins. In the New Testament John 13 is more connected with the latter aspect than the former.

How dependent we are upon not only the Blood, but the Water!

The Modern Brambles

The Modern Brambles.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 32, 1940, page 176.)

When we distinguish between God's ways in grace and His ways in government, we are not guilty of making a distinction without a difference. They differ widely.

Take as an example the case of the Apostle Paul. God's grace met him when he was in the flood-tide of his wicked opposition to Christ and His saints, he was saved, blessed and transformed. But this did not stop the working of God's righteous government on the earth, and many of his subsequent sufferings in the cause of Christ exactly suited his own previous misdeeds. He who "haling men and women, committed them to prison," had his full share of imprisonment in due season. He instigated the stoning of Stephen, and presently got stoned himself.

We needed the New Testament to give us the full revelation of the grace of God, but the Old Testament is of great value as giving us a large unfolding of the working of God's government. Observing His ways in the past, we are enlightened and warned as to what may be expected in the present; and we discover how amazingly apposite are these ancient histories. The Bible is indeed an up-to-date book.

The history of Abimelech, the ruthless and unscrupulous usurper in Israel, is given us in Judges 9. If you have not read that chapter recently, do so now and refresh your memory as to the details. Then specially notice the sarcastic parable which Jotham shouted from the top of Mount Gerizim, which, incidentally, is the first parable put on record. See if it does not strikingly fit the usurpers and tyrants with which Europe is cursed at the present moment: then consider if it does not furnish us with a forecast of what their end is going to be.

The parable concerned four "trees"; the olive, fig, vine and the bramble, or thorn-bush; each of which in turn was invited to become king over the trees. The olive had its fatness whereby both God and man were honoured. The fig-tree had its sweetness and good fruit. The vine had its wine which cheered God and man. Each had their own place in the scheme of creation and had no wish to be other than they were. The bramble had neither beauty nor utility: it was chiefly noted for its thorns, which displayed the curse resting on the vegetable creation as the fruit of man's sin, according to Genesis 3. 18. It was quite willing to accept promotion and lord it over others.

In verse 15 we see Jotham as a master of sarcasm and a man of prophetic vision. The shadow of a bramble! Anything less protective in the heat of Palestine can hardly be imagined. And the bramble invited them to trust in that with the alternative of being devoured! The cedars of Lebanon were to fall before the bramble's fire! In saying that, an element of prophecy appears, for the men of Shechem and others began by putting their trust in the wicked upstart Abimelech, but very soon an evil spirit sprang up between the two parties, which ended in fire from Abimelech consuming the men of Shechem and their tower, and Abimelech himself, being destroyed.

Over three millenniums have passed and again we see a large part of the earth falling under the domination of brambles — not one but three of them. Each is proceeding in the same fashion; not merely inviting but demanding that the peoples who are smaller numerically shall put their trust in their shadows. Some have reluctantly acquiesced and others have been violently assaulted and forced there. On the surface their actions look marvellously successful. Cedars of Lebanon have been devoured in the fires which have proceeded from the brambles.

But what was the end of the story recorded in Judges 9? Fire came out from Abimelech and devoured the men of Shechem; but when he thought to do the same to the men of Thebez instead of fire coming out from him a piece of a broken millstone came down from a woman of Thebez and dealt him a death-blow. The last two verses of the chapter point out that God's hand in government was behind the whole thing. The men of Shechem had been wicked accomplices in the murder of Gideon's sons, and God used Abimelech to chastise them as they deserved. Thus God made the wrath of Abimelech to praise the justice of Divine retribution, but when he essayed to go beyond this God restrained the remainder of his wrath and brought upon him the miserable destruction which he so richly deserved. Jotham's parable not only contained a prophecy but a curse, which was fulfilled.

God it was,

who sent the evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem.

God it was,

who rendered again thewickedness of Abimelech. God, who rendered upon the heads of the men of Shechem all their evil. And we may ask in the words of Scripture, "Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?" Indeed He is not: He is very righteous. The modernistic teachings of these later days has produced a degenerate and effeminate religiosity which winces at the bare idea of God exerting His holy government in executing justice. He goes on executing it all the same; and before long we may witness further striking expressions of it.

When fire goes forth from brambles even cedars of Lebanon may be devoured; but when fire breaks out in the thorn-bushes themselves they soon disappear in smoke. Thus it has been, and without a doubt thus it again will be. When it will be, we do not know; but we do know that God is still on the throne and His government is inexorable. We wait for Him, and while we wait we have His word:

"Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth" (Ps. 46. 10).

Will ALL the Saints be caught up when the Lord comes?

Will

ALL

the Saints be caught up when the Lord comes?

F. B. Hole.

We answer this question with a decided YES. In doing so, however, we are quite aware that not a few earnest believers would reply NO, and that this contrary assertion is made with Scripture quotations alleged to support it, and urged with a large degree of argumentative skill.

Controversy, however, is not the object of this paper, but rather a simple declaration of some reasons for the faith that is in us in relation to this matter.

Everywhere and increasingly the children of God are ranging themselves on the side of those who believe that Christ is coming and coming soon; so that the expectation of a near fulfilment of 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18 is very general. It is not surprising, therefore, that the question before us should be eagerly debated; it is obviously of burning importance in view of the imminence of our Lord's return.

The Scripture already alluded to is the special passage which brings before us this tremendous event, and the three distinct actions of which it is composed are clearly discernible.

1st. "THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God."

2nd. "And THE DEAD IN CHRIST SHALL RISE FIRST."

3rd. "Then WE WHICH ARE ALIVE AND REMAIN SHALL BE CAUGHT UP together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."

The delightful result and conclusion of this threefold action is given us in the words, " And so shall we ever be with the Lord."

The three actions are perfectly clear. DESCENSION. RESURRECTION. TRANSLATION.

The three parties to this great threefold operation are equally clear and explicitly stated. We have:-

The descent of the LORD HIMSELF.

The resurrection of the DEAD IN CHRIST.

The translation of WE WHICH ARE ALIVE AND REMAIN together with the dead in Christ.

There is no reservation, no qualifying condition, no thought of some inner selection in any of the three.

The Lord Himself. — Not an emanation from Himself, not a putting forth of His power as apart from His presence; not a deputation of angelic beings, nor even the archangel himself.

The dead in Christ. — Not some of the dead in Christ; not the dead in Christ who are of the church as distinct from saints, who lived before Christ came; not the dead of outstanding faithfulness, the "Elijahs" of history as distinguished from the "seven thousand" whose faithfulness consisted in the negative virtue of not bowing the knee to Baal.

"We which are alive and remain" — Not some of use presumably a very few; not those of us who are overcomers according to Revelation 2 and 3; not those who are "watching," and "looking for Christ." The "WE" is the Christian "we" qualified and limited by the one and only condition, not that we watch and serve, but that we are alive and remain.*

{*Let no one overlook the importance of watching and serving and overcoming. We emphasise these things later. We speak here simply of what this Scripture says, and what it does not say.}

Bearing these simple and obvious facts in mind we venture to characterise the importation of any such qualifications and reservations into the passage as a bold and questionable proceeding — a contention only to be allowed hearing if it could be proved that a further and later revelation from the Lord to His apostle exists which shows clearly that the passage is to be read in any such limited manner. Other Scriptures allude to the "Rapture," i.e. the catching away of the saints, but this is the one passage that fully unfolds it, and we start therefore by observing that it contains no hint of a partial or selective rapture. Those to be rapt are described in terms which embrace all Christians.

Let us now apply another test to this question. There are, as we have stated, other Scriptures which allude to the coming of the Lord for His people, as distinguished from His coming with them in glory — such as John 14: 3, 1 Corinthians 15: 23, and 51, 52. There are also other parts of the truth of God which bear upon it so that it becomes a case of fitting in what one has learned as to the Rapture with other truth clearly revealed. God's truth is like a complete and perfect arch in which each stone is of such a shape that it corresponds to, and fits in with its fellows on either side. Now what is the correct shape for that stone in the arch of truth that we call "the Rapture?" Should it be cut down to narrow limits and confined to a select number of very faithful believers who attain to a standard of holiness, the degree of which is known only to God? Or does it stand connected with God's grace rather than our faithfulness and therefore carry the expansiveness of that grace imprinted upon it, and embrace all the children of God?

We will summarise our answers to these questions under four heads.

"They that are Christ's"

First then let us turn to 1 Corinthians 15: 23, 24. The great theme of this chapter is resurrection and not rapture, but since, as we have seen in 1 Thessalonians 4, the resurrection of the saints — the first resurrection — is but preliminary to rapture, this verse bears very evidently upon our theme.

The apostle here bases his reasoning upon the great established fact of the resurrection of Christ. He shows it to be a fact carrying within itself a pledge of the future resurrection of men, but every man in his own order.

He enumerates the order.

1. CHRIST, the firstfruits.

2. "They that are Christ's," at His coming.

3. "Then the end" — when death the last enemy shall be destroyed. In connection with the resurrection of the wicked dead matters are left indefinite, as in this passage the resurrection of the saints is the great theme.

The description of those who stand in the second order or rank, is however, quite definite and clear, They are described as those that are "Christ's."

Our first observation is that here again there is no hint of anything partial. At His coming those who are His shall be raised, no more and no less. No select and therefore partial resurrection is taught here.

But further, reading this verse in the light of the context, and especially of verses 45 to 49 of the chapter, we gather that there is more in the expression "they that are Christ's" than the thought of possession. There is also the thought of community or oneness of life and nature.

Read verses 45 to 49 very carefully. Adam and Christ are contrasted. The first Adam a living soul but natural and earthy. As fallen he reproduces himself in many generations but always according to that original law of creation expressed in those words ten times repeated in Genesis 1 "after his kind." There is no evolution to a higher and different order. The twentieth century man is but Adam the first, after his kind, a living soul but natural and earthly still.

Christ, the last Adam, is "a quickening, [i.e. a life giving] spirit" He is spiritual, the Lord from heaven and consequently heavenly, and those who are of Him are after His kind. There is — Oh wondrous truth! — community of life and nature. They, too, are heavenly, and in resurrection at His coming are to bear the image of the spiritual and heavenly Man.

In the light of this, what a wealth of meaning is enfolded in that last clause of verse 23. When Christ comes He will raise those that belong to Him, not merely because they are His possession, but because also they are of His life and nature. He possesses much, the angels of His might, for instance, of which this latter statement could not be made.

Consider yet a little further what this means. In a corner of a large engineering workshop there lies. let us suppose, a considerable heap of metal filings. Several barrow loads have been flung there in a haphazard way, regardless of their nature, and the result is that filings of steel and lead lie thoroughly mixed. Who now can disentangle them? If even a dozen men were set to work with their fingers it would prove a hopeless and heart-breaking task.

But stay, there is a very simple method of disentanglement. Let that powerful electric magnet travel in the direction of the heap until it is directly over it. You know what will happen. The steel filings feeling the force of its attraction will be suddenly quickened and raised to the magnet. The lead filings will remain on the earth inert as before.

But suppose that in the course of weeks the heap has often been saturated with water — what then? Why then, the water which may have washed the lead filings until they shine more brightly has rusted the steel until they do not shine at all. Now then, will the process with the magnet be altered or reversed? Will bright lead filings be attracted and the more rusty steel ones left behind? Not at all. There is a certain oneness or affinity of nature between the magnet and the steel which no superficial rustiness can eradicate and between the magnet and the lead there is a total lack of such affinity for which no brightness can compensate. Nature, and not surface condition is the decisive factor.

"They that are Christ's at His coming." He, the heavenly Magnet, will exert His resurrection power and they who are of Himself, of His life and nature and therefore His possession, will hear His voice and rise to be with Him for ever. Each of the rising millions will be "true steel" if we may so say, though not by any means all will have escaped contracting a good bit of the rust of this defiling world while passing through it. No worldling will be there. Lead-like, they will remain unmoved until "the end." They belong to the third rank or order and not to the second.

We affirm then that this short sentence in 1 Corinthians 15: 23, involves the resurrection of all Christ's at His coming, and that the supposition of a partial rapture violates this marvellous revelation of community of life and nature between Christ and His own as given in verses 45 to 49.

To avoid misunderstanding we again remark that the statement of verse 23 is made of resurrection and not rapture, but inasmuch as the rapture of the saints is the act which puts the final touches to God's resurrection plan they cannot be disconnected. Nor can it be seriously maintained that at His coming the Lord will deal with His living saints upon principles diametrically opposed to those which operate as regards the sleeping saints. If there is a selection of the one there must be a selection of the other or vice versa

"The Redemption of our body."

In the second place we may cite certain Scriptures which refer to the coming of the Lord for His saints without explicitly mentioning the rapture. The allusions they make to this great event are however of great value in helping to determine its nature. Such Scriptures are Romans 8: 23; Romans 13: 11; Ephesians 1: 13, 14; Ephesians 4: 30; 1 Thessalonians 5: 8-10: 2 Thessalonians 2: 13; 1 Peter 1: 5, 13.

Let these passages be carefully read with their context and it will be seen:-

1st. That each contains an allusion to the coming of the Lord as the hope of the saint and the grand terminus to which he is moving.

2nd. That the character imprinted upon the coming of the Lord in its relation to believers is not that of judgment, or law, or merit, but is expressed in such words as "redemption" "salvation" and "grace."

This is a point of primary importance and is therefore worthy of careful examination. The first of the above Scriptures may be taken as representative of the others. "We," i.e. the children of God having the first-fruits of the Spirit, "even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."

The allusion to the coming of our Lord in this passage is quite unmistakable. The earlier part of the epistle has laid the foundation for it. The Christian is discovered to be a man who is justified from his guilt, and also freed from the dominion of sin and from condemnation by the cross of Christ, which dissociated him from Adam that he might be in Christ; and the Spirit of Christ is seen to be in him.

As regards his soul, his spirit, a full redemption has reached him, what remains then but that at the coming of the Lord his body too shall be redeemed, that set free, spirit, soul, and body, he may step into "the liberty of the glory of the sons of God." This redemption will be effected by the changing of our bodies of humiliation and their fashioning like Christ's body of glory (see Phil. 3: 20, 21.) In reading these two verses note that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplishes this great work when He comes from heaven, not as Judge, nor Arbitrator, but as Saviour.

Now, let us emphasise that word REDEMPTION. It gives us in one word the character which everywhere in Scripture is stamped upon the coming of the Lord for His people. Subsequent to that coming there is the judgment seat of Christ and His glorious appearing. Responsibility, reward or loss, and judgment are as clearly stamped upon these. This is a distinction ever to be borne in mind.

Now, we assert, without fear of contradiction, that redemption is everywhere in Scripture connected with mercy and not with merit. It has to do with the grace of God and not with the faithfulness of man.

It is therefore a fact of decisive importance that what will reach the saints at the coming of the Lord for them, according to 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17, is the redemption of their bodies. It renders it perfectly certain that the raising of dead saints, the changing of living saints and the rapture of both classes to be for ever with the Lord is an act of grace and not an act of judgment. No wonder that when contemplating the rising apostasy of the last time Jude should speak of the Lord's coming, the true avenue of escape for the saints, as mercy. "Looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Verse 21.)

It remains now to apply the foregoing facts to the question before us. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes as Saviour to redeem the bodies of His saints, will this crowning mercy extend to all, or only to a few of greater watchfulness or higher attainments than the rest? Which shape is to be given to this "Rapture" stone in the arch of divine Revelation if it is to agree with this truth? Is it possible that God extends to us redemption, as to our souls on the ground of His grace, and then as to our bodies awards it on the ground of our deserts? — so that failure as to watchfulness and the like may defer the redemption of our bodies for ages and until occasions of which Scripture gives no hint.

We reply unhesitatingly. — It is not possible. To teach a partial or selective rapture on the ground of our faithfulness is to teach that God begins redemption on the "grace" principle and finishes it on the "works" principle, and such teaching is in its essence the error of the Galatian believers.* We may well ask the question of such teachers that Paul asked of these: — "Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal. 3: 3)

{*That we have not stated the case unfairly in the above statements is evidenced by the fact that a leading exponent of selective rapture uses such words as these: — "Rapture is a judgment act.... That cannot fall in the Day of Grace which withdraws from the world the witnesses to grace, it is not the last act in 'this Day,' but the first in 'that Day': rapture falls in the sphere of judgment, and so is a reward according to works, not a privilege attached to grace." (Rapture by D. M. Panton. Italics the author's)}

"A glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."

Thus far we have considered the question from a more or less individualistic point of view, let us now in the third place, consider the matter, as we are entitled to, in connection with that which God has established of a corporate nature; i.e. the church. Each believer should recognize that beyond the privileges and responsibilities that are his in his individual capacity there lies the fact that he is a part of a corporate body established by the Lord Himself, with privileges and responsibilities in that corporate capacity. The epistle which most dwells upon this side of the truth is that to the Ephesians.

The Ephesian epistle has a good deal to say to us concerning "the church": that is, the assembly of the called-out-ones, — those called out of the world for Christ between the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit baptized believers into one body, and the Rapture which terminates the present period. The church in the epistle is spoken of under the figure of a temple, a building fitly framed together (Eph. 2: 20-22); a body, which is the body of Christ (Eph. 1: 22-23; Eph. 3: 12-16); and a bride or wife (Eph. 5: 25-27.)

Here, then, the believer is considered as a little part of a great whole; and that whole not a mere collection of units, an organization, but rather an organism.

Consider this matter attentively, for it is to be feared that in regard to it many Christians indulge in loose and careless thinking, — if indeed they think of it at all. The church then is a body of an organic nature so that the human body can be referred to as a figure of it.

Permit an illustration. A schoolboy returns from his games swinging a bag of marbles. They are many in number, and different in size and quality. Most are of the commonest kind, some are of brightly coloured glass, here and there is one cut from bloodstone, and one perhaps, his chiefest treasure, is an agate. The capacious bag keeps all together and forms them into a certain artificial "unity." By all too many Christians the church is conceived of as an organization by which the diverse mass of individual believers is held together, after the pattern of that bag of marbles.

The divine thought is very different. The church is a building "fitly framed together"; every part interlocked and in structural connection. It is a body "fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth." Here the figure is even stronger. It is not merely structural unity but organic unity; just as the same life-blood flows through every part of the human body and the one head is the; seat of all direction and control. Finally the church is to be presented by Christ to Himself as a bride to her husband, "a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." After the rapture, and after the saints have individually passed before the judgment seat, this presentation will take place preliminary to the appearing in glory. (See Rev. 19: 6-9).

How does the idea of a partial and selective rapture fit in with this great truth? Not at all. It would be consistent enough if the church were like that bag of marbles. It were easy enough for the little lad to insert his hand and snatch forth the agate, the bloodstones, or even the glass marbles and leave the poor common ones behind; but to remove the strongest or most ornamental of the "living stones" from the structure, or the most vigorous and useful members from the body, leaving behind in either case but a mutilated wreck, is an unthinkable procedure, even if we had not the clear assurance already quoted that when Christ presents the church to Himself it will be whole, complete, and without blemish.

It will have no spot, i.e. no defect of any sort. No wrinkle, i.e. no sign of age or decadence, "nor any such thing," i.e. no other defect of any imaginable nature. Could language be stronger or more sweeping? How impossible to make it agree with the idea that only select individuals of the many composing the church are to be rapt by the Lord into His presence when He comes. In that case He would indeed present to Himself mutilated fragments rather than a church without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.

We believe then, that the truth as to the church forbids the reading into 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17, of any such qualifications as the theory of a selective rapture demands.

"In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump."

In the fourth place let us return to 1 Corinthians 15: 50-52. They immediately follow and are closely connected with the verses concerning the earthly race of the first Adam and the heavenly race of the last Adam to which attention has already been drawn.

This is a passage of the utmost importance to our subject, for firstly it states with great exactness the procedure in connection with the first resurrection; and secondly it explicitly refers to that procedure in relation to the living saints, supplying a detail of which no mention is made in 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17, viz., that we, the living shall be changed into bodies of glory before being caught up to be with the Lord. This change from a "flesh and blood" condition into a condition of incorruption and immortality is the main theme of the passage.

Bear in mind the context: — Christ risen is the pledge of all resurrection (1 Cor. 15: 20.) At Christ's coming those who are Christ's will be raised (1 Cor. 15: 23). They will be raised in bodies of incorruption, glory and power, in spiritual bodies (1 Cor. 15: 35-44.) They will bear the image of the heavenly Man, "the Lord from heaven" inasmuch as they are of His lineage, partaking of His life and nature (1 Cor. 15: 45-49.) Now if "we," the living saints, are to share in the incorruptible kingdom of God which will be the portion of the raised saints, something is necessary. Hence the revelation of the secret of 1 Cor. 15: 51, 52.

"Behold I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

We quote the words in full, for the passage is one and indivisible though its continuity is somewhat broken by its being divided in our Bible into two verses at a point where a comma occurs.

In it, a few important things stand out plainly: —

1. The "we" is used in the broadest Christian sense.

2. We shall all be changed not merely a select few.

3. We shall all be changed instantaneously — in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.

4. We shall all be changed instantaneously on the sane occasion — i.e. the last trump.

Here, then, we have as clear a pronouncement as possible on this momentous question. The rapture, i.e. the act of the catching up of the saints in their changed condition is not mentioned. But the fact that it is the change preparatory to the rapture makes it certain that what is stated here of the change is equally true of the rapture. And what is revealed to us is that ALL the living saints will be INSTANTANEOUSLY changed into glorified bodies WHEN A CERTAIN DEFINITE POINT OF TIME — THE LAST TRUMP IS REACHED They will NOT be changed and raptured in detachments.

That definite point of time will be the moment of manifested victory — a victory given to us even now, not through our faithfulness, but through our Lord Jesus Christ. It will be reached then on the same ground — not as 'a reward for supreme faithfulness and watchfulness and therefore the portion of a few, but as a display of the grace and power of the Lord Jesus.

This Scripture, we repeat, clearly negatives any idea of successive and partial changes and raptures such as is taught to-day.

*****

Let us now summarise what we have gathered from Scripture.

1. Rapture is not a judgment act but the crowning act of grace. It is the finishing touch of the great redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

2. By it the Lord from heaven will take to Himself His heavenly ones, — those who are His, of His nature, and this does not allow of the thought of a selection being made.*

*It is a fact that after the rapture the Spirit of God will raise up other saints, some will suffer martyrdom and be subsequently raised. (see Rev. 20: 4.) This does not in the least militate against what we assert, viz., that when Christ comes He catches up all those who are His up to that moment.

3. The rapture is not exactly the rapture of the church, for all believers from the beginning will doubtless be included, yet the church will be rapt. It is a living organism and to suppose that only some members will be taken, does violence to this truth of Scripture.

4. In the great Scriptures which refer to the coming of the Lord for His people such as John 14: 3; 1 Thessalonians 4: 15-17; 1 Thessalonians 5: 9, 10; 2 Thessalonians 2: 1; no hint is given of any such partial rapture as is suggested, and one such scripture — 1 Corinthians 15: 51, 52 — as we have seen explicitly and formally denies it.

*****

We are quite aware that there are Scriptures which at first sight may seem to deny what we have advanced. The same thing could be said of practically every truth of Scripture. A passage or passages can be produced which if superficially read seem to deny it. Such a passage in connection with our subject is Hebrews 9: 27, 28. He appears the second time unto salvation to "them that look for Him." The context however shows that here the allusion is to the High Priest of Israel gone within the Holiest with the blood of sacrifice, and the people without looking for His reappearance which would give them the assurance that atonement had been made. Everywhere in Hebrews we find these allusions to, and contrasts with, Old Testament types. This Scripture does not refer in any exclusive or even definite way to the rapture It deals with His appearing in general terms such as will cover the godly remnant of Israel, who will await Christ when the church is gone. It is true of course that every Christian looks for Christ, though often with but little intelligence as to His coming.

Other passages may be cited from the Gospels, Matthew 24, 25, and the like. It is asserted for instance that the foolish virgins of the latter chapter figure unwatchful Christians who are left behind. That this is not so, verse 12 proves. The Lord answers, not "I used to know you but I have forgotten you" as Arminian theories might suggest: nor "I know you but on account of your unwatchfulness I decline for the present to recognize you," as these partial rapture theories would suggest — but simply "I know you not." They were never, properly speaking, His; for of His own He says, "I know them." (see John 10: 27.) The foolish virgins had an outward profession but no real link with the Lord —  they were mere professors.

Indeed nearly every Scripture brought to support the theory of selective rapture and to disprove the rapture of all the saints in such a pamphlet as that mentioned in the footnote to page 11 is dealt with on the erroneous principle of fastening upon real believers the solemn warnings and threatenings urged against mere professors of Christ's name.

As was the Old Testament type (see Ex. 12: 38; Num. 11: 4) so also was the New Testament antitype. Early in the church's history "the mixed multitude" became all too manifest, and so in the New Testament epistles we have many a searching question and warning designed to act as a home thrust to the conscience of any mere professor; — for instance, 1 Corinthians and Hebrews both refer to Israel, with her multitudes falling in the wilderness through unbelief, as a warning of what might happen to those in outward relationship with God if vital faith be lacking. (See 1 Cor. 10: and Heb. 3, 4) If people take up Christian ground God accepts them at their own valuation for the purposes of His holy judgment, and condemns them out of their own mouth like the wicked servant of Luke 19: 22.

This is a key to the understanding of much Scripture and needless confusion is introduced if it be not discerned.

*****

Lastly, let us emphasize that there is a consideration of great gravity for every true believer connected with the judgment seat of Christ and the millennial kingdom beyond. If the rapture is the closing and crowning act of divine grace, it nevertheless directly leads to each individual saint standing before the judgment seat of Christ, — which is the terminus and grand reckoning place of his responsibility — and ultimately to the kingdom, which is the place and season when and where the decisions of that judgment seat will be displayed. At that judgment seat we shall "receive the things done in the body" (2 Cor. 5: 10), which may mean receiving a reward or suffering loss (1 Cor. 3: 14, 15.) Into that kingdom we may gain an abundant entrance or the reverse (2 Peter 1: 11.)

How will it fare with us each in that day? The answer depends entirely upon the character of our lives here, upon our service and suffering for Christ and the measure in which our characters are formed after Himself.

This searching theme is beyond the scope of the present paper. We mention it as a necessary counterbalance to our minds in considering that which is wholly of grace. We need to hold the whole truth in an even balance.

The desires and intentions of many of those who diligently teach a selective and partial rapture we believe to be of the best. Feeling keenly the low practical condition of most of God's children they desire some startling truth to shake them out of their present apathy, and almost terrify them into lives of devotion and zeal and watchfulness; and in that which they advance they believe they have found the needed goad.

But have they? NO. The truth concerning the judgment seat of Christ and the coming kingdom if kept in its proper connection is indeed a mighty incentive to devotedness, but it is not and cannot be its main motive. Much less can such a mistaken view of the rapture be anything of the kind. The only possible foundation upon which Christian devotedness can rest is GRACE. Grace alone furnishes motive power. Not law, nor fear of incurring penalties, but grace teaches us how to live. As Titus 2: 11-13, puts it, "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."

By the grace then that has saved you, Christian reader — the grace that will put the top stone to the work by landing you in glory with and like Christ at the blessed moment of rapture, we call upon you to awake from sleep and lethargy, and like Caleb, wholly follow your Lord. As an added incentive we remind you that your whole career here is to be scrutinised before the judgment seat with corresponding reward or loss in the coming kingdom. You have but one life to live! Be in earnest.

But let grace be the meat and drink of your heart that you may, like Elijah, have strength for your pilgrimage way to the appointed meeting place. Depend upon it, if when our Lord Jesus Christ appears in glory He comes "with ALL His saints" (1 Thess. 3: 13), He will not catch up less than ALL when previously He comes for them.

Christ "formed in you."

Christ "formed in you."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 17, 1925, page 184.)

A servant of God like the Apostle Paul, who combined in himself both the evangelist and the shepherd of souls, could not rest content with the outward profession of conversion or the outward assumption of the Christian place, no matter how many such professions there were. Nothing but inward reality would satisfy him. The churches of Galatia had their origin in the enthusiastic reception they gave to Paul and his message. In his epistle to them he does not deny their profession nor their church position, but he does express grave apprehension as to them, and an anxiety so acute as to be comparable to birth-pangs, because as yet he could not recognize that Christ was found in them and consequently he had to say, "I stand in doubt of you" (Gal. 4: 19, 20).

We call attention to this because the tendency to rest content with mere profession is very strong at the present day. It is good when souls profess faith in Christ, and thereby take the place of being "in Christ" — whether they realize the meaning of that term or not. What the true servant of Christ longs for, however, is to find Christ formed in ours, for then he knows they are in Christ, and all doubt of them is removed from his mind.

In the latter part of Romans 5 we have man's need, and the Divine intervention in view of man's need considered from the standpoint, not of offences, but of nature and heredity. Adam was, as we may call him, the old fountain-head of humanity, and alas! that fountain and the stream which has proceeded from it are hopelessly defiled and corrupt. God has intervened by raising up a new fountain-head in Christ, once obedient unto death and now risen from the dead. Here all is perfection and by the full gift of grace the believer comes under this new Headship and partakes of this new source of life. We have not read far into Romans 6 before we meet with the expression "in Christ Jesus" for the first time in the epistle as applied to ourselves. We are to reckon ourselves "dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6: 11, N.T.). We have "eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6: 23, N.T.), and "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8: 1).

Just as in connection with the dispensational ways of God, Gentiles who by nature are like wild olive branches have been "grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree" (Rom. 9: 24), so, in connection with God's eternal purpose have we believers, who were but sinners, whether Jews or Gentiles, been grafted into Christ, and now stand in Christ. In nature the good is always grafted into the worthless stock, in grace, whether it be a question of God's ways or of His vital and eternal purpose, the thing works in the contrary direction. We who believe are of God in Christ Jesus. (See 1 Cor. 1: 30) By a Divine act of infinite favour we find ourselves to be partakers in the very life and nature of Christ. From Him we derive and in Him we stand.

We are not, however, in Christ apart from the Spirit of God. If Romans 8: 1 speaks of us as "in Christ Jesus," verse 2 speaks of the spirit as "the spirit of life in Christ Jesus," and He indwells us so that He may extend His "law" or control over us, thus liberating us from the control which formerly sin and death exerted within us. As the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus He brings that blessed life into evidence in the saint. As the Spirit of Christ He forms Christ in us; and this is the subjective counterpart to being in Christ.

By way of illustration consider again the matter of grafting. If in nature it were possible to work it in this contrary direction so that a branch of wild olive were grafted into the good olive tree to partake of its root and fatness, what would be the effect? Surely this, that the erstwhile wild olive branch would begin to put forth good and cultivated berries. Thus, and only thus, would it prove to the gardener the reality and effectiveness of the grafting operation. The reality of the branch being in the good olive would be attested by the good olive, in the visible shape of its good fruit, being formed in it.

Now it was just here that the trouble lay with the Galatians. The true gospel had been preached amongst them, for Paul was the preacher. They had ostensibly received it and were professedly in Christ, but instead of Christ being so definitely formed in then that they were zealous for Him, they were desiring to be under law, and the apostle who was their spiritual mother was thrown again into birth-pangs of soul on their account.

What would be Paul's state of mind if he stood in the midst of professing Christians today? What travail would be his! But Paul is not here. Would it not be well then if we each endured a little travail over this question? — and possibly each endured it over his own case. Self-examination, when it has become a chronic habit, is not good; yet there are moments in all our histories when it is very profitable as leading to self-judgment. If self be judged, then Christ alone fills the vision of the soul. The spirit of self-judgment consequently is always good.

The assembly at Corinth was in a poor condition. In his first epistle Paul plainly tells them that they were carnal. In his second he indicates that they were worldly (see 1 Cor. 6: 11-18). It was to such believers that he said, "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me . . . examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates" (2 Cor. 13: 4, 5). That which is by profession the church today is swamped in carnality and worldliness. Would not the apostle then say just the same thing to us today?

In writing to the Galatians he speaks of himself thus: — "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2: 20). So Paul was a shining example of that which he desired so earnestly in the Galatians. Later on in the epistle, too, he details for us "the fruit of the Spirit," as "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. 5: 22, 23). These nine features set before us the life of Christ. They preach to us Christ characteristically — the fruit of the Spirit and the outward result of Christ formed in us.

Let each of us earnestly consider these things for, in a day of much outward profession, inward reality is of all importance.

Christ is all

Christ is all.

Genesis 3: 14-15: Genesis 49: 22-24: Numbers 24: 15-17.

Bangor, July 26th, 1936.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 28, 1936, page 217.)

We all know that the Old Testament is the preparation for the New; so we only have to open the Old Testament at the book of Genesis and begin at the beginning to discover the first of the great prophecies concerning the coming of that mighty Personage, who is the foundation of everything and round whom everything revolves.

In these few verses in Genesis 3 we have Him first as the Seed and, remarkably enough, as the Seed of the woman, and not of the man. We read on through Genesis and we don't get many definite predictions until we come to chapter 49. True we find Him in "the seed" of Abram. The apostle Paul in the epistle to the Galatians is at pains to point out that he does not say "seeds" as of many but "Seed" as of one, and that One is Christ. This, of course, springs out of the fact that He was the seed of the woman, for the woman — Mary — was descended from Abram. This first great prediction of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ did not fall from mortal lips. Afterwards God did speak to men by prophets, but this most fundamental of all the great predictions came from the lips of the Lord God Himself, and was uttered not to man primarily, though we are permitted to hear it, but to the great adversary, Satan, under the form of the serpent. He said, "I will put enmity . . . between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This word concerning the Seed of the woman is the great fundamental prediction of the coming of Christ.

When we get to the end of Genesis, many things have happened to the race. Israel has been called, and Joseph has acted as a shepherd, since Israel himself and his descendants are now brought down into Egypt under his sheltering hand. In the fires of Egypt they were to be welded together as a nation. Seventeen years after their arrival Israel died and blessed his sons. Now we know from Hebrews 11 that Jacob's last hours were his brightest. It was when he came to the finish that at last the power of the flesh in him was subdued, and the fire of faith that had been continually damped down by the world all his life burned with great brightness. So now he speaks as a man of faith, and when he comes to bless Joseph, he throws in that remarkable little parenthesis, printed as you notice in brackets "from thence," not from Jacob, but from the mighty God of Jacob, "is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel." So we discover that the Lord Jesus Christ is in view. He is the Seed, the Shepherd and the Stone. Genesis has been called, and very rightly, the seed plot of the Bible, and there you have three seed thoughts, which are marvellously developed as we go through the Scriptures.

Then I pass on to the book of Numbers. Of course, there are types of Christ in Exodus and Leviticus. There are many things that speak of Christ, but I am thinking of the definite predictions of His coming. So we come to Balaam who was, as we know, a false man at the bottom, but who was laid hold of by the Holy Ghost. God imposed Himself upon Balaam so that he found it impossible to get in touch with the dark spirits of evil with whom habitually he had intercourse. He no longer sought these enchantments to use against Israel. God took hold of him and he was made to say things which were the Word of God. God can use a donkey, Balaam's ass, or man, worse than the donkey, Balaam himself. And poor Balaam knew that though he would see Him he would not be nigh Him, yet he had to speak of His coming as the Star and the Sceptre. He is the Seed, the Shepherd, the Stone, the Star and the Sceptre; the five-fold presentation of the blessed Saviour whom we know.

Now let us for a few moments consider these things in detail. As I was saying, the Seed is evidently the most fundamental of all. You see, God had no doubts or misapprehensions from the outset. He knew exactly the extent of the tragedy that sin had brought into the world. Adam transgressed, sin entered, and sin wholly corrupts that into which it enters. The first man and all his race was corrupted by the entrance of sin; so from the outset God made it very plain that a wholly new and original Seed must be introduced if the day was to be retrieved. Another Seed is necessary who should become the new Fountain-head of life and fertility for man — a Man of another order, a Man of another kind. A new Man is going to appear on the scene in due season as the seed of the woman. He came; and just because He was the seed of the virgin He was not of the first Adam's race. As Son of God, He was able to step in and achieve the victory when the first man had fallen.

Now we thank God that we can come in as of that Seed. When you get to Psalm 22 you find it ending with the words, "A seed shall serve Him." Well, that is what perverse man has not done. He has always gone in independence of God, instead of serving God. The natural bent of mankind is to act like a wild ass — kick over the traces — do what he likes. In the Psalm you have, "God is not in all his thoughts"; which means, if you could get all his thoughts together and examine them, you would not find one thought of God. You can see it in the world around. Man is in his thoughts, and nations, and money and pleasure. But God? — No, not God! Now there comes on the scene One who is altogether devoted to the will of God, who has God in all His thoughts. He sets the Lord, as Psalm 16 says, always before Him, and has Jehovah at His right hand so He is not to be moved. And it is not surprising, of course, that the One, who is characterised by such things, ends up at the right hand of God Himself. He was, indeed, Man of such a kind that the only possible place for Him was the right hand of Jehovah, the seat of the Majesty in the heavens. This One is the Seed of the woman, and He bruised the serpent's head. That, of course, means the end of the serpent's influence. He smites him in the very seat of his intelligence, though He did it, as the prophecy indicates, at personal cost to Himself — the bruising of His heel.

But then we know the Lord Jesus Christ in other ways. Now the Shepherd speaks of control and attraction. The eastern shepherd goes before his sheep, exerts an influence over them, exercises control upon them. Thank God we know Jesus as the Shepherd. We have come to know His Shepherd care. We can add many details, can we not? to that which Jacob was able to express. Yes, the Shepherd has come and we know Him and we have come, blessed be God, under His mighty guiding hand. It is very evident that the people of God are like sheep; they need the Shepherd. The Shepherd has arrived.

From another standpoint we need the Stone. Now a stone may speak of many things but it certainly speaks of stability. Men build their houses, make their erections, but sooner or later it all comes down. God is going to have His erection. God is the Builder and He has found His Stone. In the Old Testament that thought is greatly developed. You may remember Psalm 118. Isaiah too speaks of the Stone. We read of the sure foundation stone in Isaiah 28. In Psalm 118 we get that great word about the Stone which the builders refused having become the very Head Stone of the corner. The Lord Jesus Christ was God's Stone. Coming from thence, He was the Stone of Israel.

But He was a stone of such a character and shape that He did not, He could not, fit into men's building, experiment as they might. The Pharisees and others who were the national builders, busy with their religious systems, would have been glad to have had someone who could do marvellous works of power. If only He would have joined with them in a mutual admiration society, and patted them on the back and let them pat Him on the back, they would have been glad. And if He had so acted as to ensure that religious power and authority and prestige should still belong to them; why, they would have worked Him in. He would have been received with acclamation. But no! He was not a stone of that sort. He could not be worked into man's corrupt, tumble down, ramshackle building, and they rejected Him. But in spite of their refusal He is the Stone of Israel, the great Foundation upon whom everything rests. We can say with very glad hearts, And the Foundation for us also. In Genesis these things stand in a setting that relates to the earth and to Israel. As we go further on we see they have an application to ourselves. In Ephesians 2, and elsewhere, we find He is the chief corner Stone of the Church edifice — that which God is building today.

When we get to the times of Balaam, although God can look upon Israel from the top of the rocks, from His own standpoint, and see them and speak of them according to His own thoughts, yet as a matter of fact the horrible perverseness of poor Israel has become manifest. What hope, we may ask, can there be if, God having called out a people to represent Him before the poor nations sunken in idolatry, they turn out like this. They were to be the centre around which God will gather the other nations for the ordering of the earth. If there is to be a settled condition of things on earth we must have Israel in the right place, the central place among the nations of the earth, and the nations blessed in and through Israel. But look what Israel is! How perverse, how bent upon going in exactly the other way to the way in which God would lead them! What is going to be done with a people like that? Why, all through the wilderness they had been running after other gods whenever they had the smallest opportunity. They had said, No, to every thought of God on their behalf. Well, through the lips of Balaam comes this wonderful word that even yet there will arise out of that people the Star and the Sceptre. The Star speaks of hope, and the Sceptre speaks of rule and government. Where is our hope? We answer, In the Lord Jesus Christ. You may say, you are not telling us anything we don't know. I am not indeed, but do we KNOW this as we should?

This prediction of Balaam's may have led the wise men of the East to associate our Lord with the star when He came the first time. That may have been, but it is very certain that the thought of the star is taken up in the New Testament, and the Lord Jesus Christ does present Himself to us in the closing chapter of the Bible as "the bright and morning Star." He is the One who cannot be obscured by the clouds of this world, if the faith of His people is kept simple and centred in Him. He is the Star of hope for our hearts to-day, and looking abroad in the earth we can see today, perhaps more than in any other period of the world's history, that it badly needs a righteous sceptre. Psalm 45 tells us He will wield the sceptre. But here He is spoken of as being the Sceptre. Of course, the Shepherd speaks of rule, the kindly rule of the One who cares for the sheep. But when you think of the Sceptre it is the rule of power, because the prophet goes on to say, He "shall smite;" He "shall destroy." You and I may not be much concerned about the corners of Moab or the children of Sheth, but we know the earth is full of confusion and that men seem to be bent on making things worse confounded. Thank God, we know the One who is the Sceptre and in whose hands will repose all rule and all dominion, and it is necessary that as the Sceptre He should smite. Judgment will follow just as and where it is deserved. The future, my friends, is in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Man of the coming day.

Now I particularly wanted to say these things to you for this reason — the tendency of our hearts is always to turn from Him to something or somebody else; so having pointed out these scriptures my little message this afternoon must be this: Remember that it has never been supposed from the outset that there is hope or help or deliverance or blessing anywhere else but in Christ. A great many people are looking back to Pentecost, or back to the Reformation, or back to a hundred years ago. I will not name more precisely the revival which I believe God did very graciously grant one hundred years ago, for immediately God gives a gracious reviving the tendency is to forget the Reviver and be occupied with the revival. Now there is nothing in any revival, except there has been revived something concerning Christ.

When the Holy Ghost came at Pentecost He came as the Spirit of Christ. He came from the exalted Head. He was like the holy ointment that flowed from the head to the skirts of Aaron's garments as Psalm 133 speaks. Everyone of the priestly family came under the anointing as the Man of God's purpose the great Head went into glory and took His seat. The might and power of His Name was brought by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and the theme of the apostles was not the Holy Ghost, but the Christ who had died and rose again. The living Christ became a great reality and a mighty work of God took place. Then there have been granted occasions when through mercy there has been some reviving of this: the Reformation, for instance. Though with many imperfections — there is no perfection outside of Christ — the faith of godly men laid hold of something of Christ, and laying hold of Him He wrought in their hearts and moved men. Each revival was wonderful and most blessed, until the minds of folk generally slipped away from the One who is the great Fountain-Head of all blessing and they became occupied with the glorious condition of things produced down here — the revival and the work. Then immediately things began to wilt and fade.

That is why, my friends, whether young or old, we need continually to be recalled to the fact that there is really no hope anywhere but in Christ. It has often been said the Church is never the subject of prophecy, I suppose, for a very good reason: the Church, after all, is only that which takes its origin from Christ. All prophecy centres not in the Church but in Him. He is the Fountain-Head. There is no hope in the Church, or the brethren, or in the revival, in you, or in me, or in the most gifted man that ever lived. All centres in Christ, and the one thing that will help us, young or old, is this, freshly getting our hearts set on Christ, freshly getting our souls suffused with the glory and excellence of Christ, freshly laying hold of the fact that there has never yet been a situation, and never will be, which He is not equal to meeting.

The New Translation renders Acts 13: 36, "David after he had in his own age served the will of God." That is the utmost any one of us can do. It is impossible to foretell the details of the future. My business is to do the little bit allotted to me in the present as I may be enabled by His grace. I do it very imperfectly, as I can see, but the great Head on high has resources which are everlasting. To carry on His work through the years — that is His business. He will carry things through. It is getting a long time ago since as a youth I first came into a little meeting. I am glad not sorry it was a feeble concern, because I never got the idea that the movement was a prosperous thing. Still, even so, I did get an impression that here was something stable, a kind of institution for all time. I have had to unlearn that impression. There is no hope, never has been any hope, we never ought to have had an atom of hope, in men, or brethren, or movements, or reformation, or revivals. If God gives us revival we thank Him, it is all His mercy. But let us never get away from this, everything is centred in Christ, hanging on Him, and it always was so. It has never been supposed from the outset that there is any hope but in Him. He is the First, the original, as the Seed, He is the Shepherd, the Stone, the Star, and as the Sceptre He will be the Last.

We have a Master on high, we belong to the risen Head, we are linked with Him, and our hopes are in Him, and He is the Master of the situation, the Star of hope. We are waiting for Him, and He will wield the sceptre and this rebellious earth will quieten into peace beneath His righteous sway. Fix your heart on Him, and you will find that you have got a Resource that will carry you through.

Christ: The Divine Resource

Christ: The Divine Resource.

Frank B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth, 1914, Vol. 6, page 132.)

In all the long history of the conflict of good and evils never once has God been taken by surprise. In the pages of the Old Testament we trace the progress of that conflict over the space of four thousand years, during which period to all appearances every fresh joining of battle resulted in the worsting of good through the general failure of the persons or the people who were taken up by God as His servants and warriors. So universal was this failure that by the time the days of Malachi were reached it seemed as though good would have to retire from the unequal contest to make room for an outpouring of resistless judgment by which the evil might be swept away. Hence the closing words of the Old Testament, "lest I come and smite the earth with a curse  (Mal. 4: 6).

The New Testament, however, opens with the reappearance of good livingly personified in Jesus, and at once the tide of battle was turned, and through lowliness and humility, even unto the suffering of death, was the impregnable position of REDEMPTION taken up. There mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kissed each other; and from thence will they ultimately go forth to final victory.

All through the black night of defeat, which the Old Testament so faithfully chronicles, the children of faith were cheered by the twinkling star-light of Messianic promise, and as the centuries slowly passed, these promises concerning THE CHRIST not only increased in number but became clearer and more definite in outline, so that such a record as Hebrews 11 presents became a possibility. Of such it could be said, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." If they were so animated and affected by what they dimly saw, shall not we who live in the sunshine of New Testament revelation — we "whose souls are lighted by wisdom from on high" — shall not we gain fresh strength and courage by seeing the way in which God Himself always fell back upon His Resource in Christ: the way in which every fresh disaster encountered in the long-drawn-out testing of the first man only served to throw into fresh relief the excellency and stability and triumph that should be found when there should be revealed the "second Man," the Lord out of heaven.

Though Messianic predictions and allusions, in type and song and prophecy, lie scattered over Old Testament pages much as the stars of heaven besprinkle the black face of the night sky, yet all are not of the same distinct and important type; just as, to pursue the analogy, all stars are not of the first magnitude. One striking fact, however, will be noticed; several of the greatest prophecies, true stars of the first magnitude, shone forth in moments of great crisis, when some cherished thought of God, entrusted for a moment to some representative of the "first man," had failed. Let us briefly trace a few examples.

The greatest of all Old Testament crises was the fall of Adam as recorded in the early chapters of Genesis. In this first man was expressed the original thought of God for man; so much so that, set in innocence as head of creation, he becomes a type of Christ, just as when fallen he becomes His greatest contrasts This splendid creature, the intelligent head of creation, its connecting link with the Creator, became the object of the malignant attack of evil, through Satan its originator. The deceiver began by casting doubt upon the word of God; this accomplished, he easily sowed seeds of distrust of God, which soon bore heir sad fruit in an open act of rebellion against God. Thus was the wreck of the first creation accomplished in the ruin of its head. The top link — connecting the chain of creation with its Creator — being snapped, the whole chain fell away.

This was a crisis indeed! The fall being an accomplished fact, a whole train of dire results was set in motion, and of these we read in Genesis 3: 14-19, first in regard to the serpent, then the woman, and then the man. In all those solemn words which fell from the lips of the Lord God there is only one ray of hope. No word was said as to the recovery or re-instatement of Adam; no hope held out that in future ages, by means of education and progress, the results of that day might be reversed. In the beginning of His pronouncement, however, the Lord God did predict the appearance of the Seed of the woman, saying, "It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel" (ver. 15).

This first prophecy of the coming Messiah was not entrusted to human lips, as were subsequent ones; it was uttered directly by God Himself. At least four of the great facts of the gospel may be discerned enfolded in its words.

1. The coming Deliverer should be Man. He should be "her Seed."

2. He should be a Man of a unique kind, and not one born according to the ordinary laws of human generation. God spoke not of "their seed," or "his seed," but of "her Seed." In these words were involved the truth of the "virgin birth," at which modern scepticism so ostentatiously stumbles.

3. The coming Man should enter the arena of conflict, and, turning the tables, should vanquish the victor. In bruising  - or crushing — the serpent's head, He would smite him a death-blow in the very centre of his intelligence and power.

4. This great coming victory should not be achieved without personal loss and suffering to the Victor. In the bruising of the heel of the Seed of the woman we have one of those marvellous germ-thoughts of which Genesis is full: when expanded in New Testament light it presents to us the picture of the rejected Man of sorrows overthrowing the powers of darkness by dying.

". . . the Conqueror slain,

Slain in His victory!"

No second man appeared until Christ came. Every man that trod the earth between was but Adam reproduced in the second, third, or fortieth generation, as the case might be. Only in the Messiah was this sad succession, with its accompanying entail of sin and death, broken. He was truly Man, but of another order to that of Adam, miraculously born of the virgin under the power of the Holy Ghost.

To the appearing of this Man, who is the Son of God, did the Lord God look on that fatal day of defeat and ruin. He was uplifted as the Divine Resource; and thus there blazed forth upon the darkened sky the first star of promise for the encouragement of faith.

There is no record in Genesis of any further prophecy during the ante-diluvian age, but when that dispensation had reached its close in the judgment of the flood, and a fresh period had started, marked by the establishment of government in the earth by Noah, then in connection with a fresh crisis a fresh prophecy was given. The new regime had not long prevailed when there arose in the earth a Satan-inspired system of idolatry. The first home of this frightful curse appears to have been in the Babylonian region. Its nature seems to have been the deifying of dead heroes, or rather the worshipping of Satan and his demons under cover of deified heroes. The subtle craft underlying the mythology of the Babylonian idolatry, and all the other national systems of idolatry derived from it, such as the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman, was seen in this: that it kept in the background the dark and mysterious figure of a great and powerful god who acted as father, whilst it put in the foreground a goddess with her son, who became the great objects of veneration. This would lead one to suppose that if no one else had understood the prophecy of Genesis 3: 15, Satan had done so; and that he prepared in advance to discount the coming of the real Deliverer by this wretched parody.

The plague of this idolatry had overspread the earth, when, out of its very home and hotbed, Abraham was called that he might become the depository of earthly blessing; and when he had proved the reality of his faith in connection with the offering up of Isaac, there was made to him a further promise in connection with his Seed, of whom Isaac, dead and risen in figure, was a type. It was said, "In thy Seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 22: 18).

Reading this in connection with the context, it is evident that "the Seed of Abraham" presents to us Christ as having died and risen again, so that through Him, and in Him, the blessing of God might overspread all nations. This was the resource of God just when the devil's curse of idolatry had overspread all the nations so recently formed at the tower of Babel. Notice, too, that previously it was the crushing of the former victor; now it is the blessing of those formerly vanquished. Thus it was that another star of hope shed its beams above the dark horizon.

From this point, the call of Abraham, the divine plan unfolded with greater rapidity. There sprang up from his descendants Israel, the chosen people, who were constituted a nation when delivered from Egypt under the leadership of Moses, the apostle of the law-system. They were to be entirely separated from the surrounding nations sunken in idolatry, in order that they might be God's witness-bearers in the earth.

At the beginning of their history the fortunes of that nation were largely bound up with the individual faith and energy of Moses himself, although the priesthood was almost immediately established. This was specially true after the incident of the golden calf, when both priest and people so lamentably failed. From that point more than ever did Moses, "faithful in all God's house," stand forth as a contrast to the rest. Numbers 12 makes very plain his special place as the great prophet of God, by whom the Lord spake, and to whom He spake "mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches" (vers. 2, 8). At a later stage in Israel's history, in the declining days of the kings, the prophets again became the chief link between the people and God, but never did they have such a place of prominence as belonged to Moses, the greatest of them all.

And Moses failed! Angered beyond endurance by the irritating perversity of that stiff-necked people, the meekest man in the earth spoke unadvisedly with his lips. How grievous a sin this was may be easily seen if we remember that these hot and scorching words of anger flowed as a torrent from the mouth that had been specially set apart to convey to the people the veritable words of God upon which they might hang their souls. Another cherished thought of God had apparently come to grief, for the prophetic office, in its highest Old Testament expression, had broken down by reason of the weakness of the best of men. This was another crisis of the first magnitude.

Then it was that another great prophecy of Scripture was given. The passage that records it — Deuteronomy 18: 15-19 — makes it plain that Moses received the communication from the lips of God as far back as the days of Sinai, at the start of the forty years of wandering; the public announcement of it was, however, delayed until, at the end of the forty years, he had to ascend Nebo to die because of his sin.

How suitable was this! How hearts must have quailed at the prospect; even those of men of faith, such as Joshua and Caleb! With what thrilling power, then, must have come the revelation of the divine words:

"I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put My words in His mouth; and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him."

"It is well," they must have said; "so God is not defeated, after all."

Thus, though the sun of Moses, obscured by failure, set while yet it was high day, as far as his natural strength was concerned, there arose upon the world this fresh star of promise concerning another PROPHET who should be the perfect exponent of the mind of God, and through whose lips there should flow nothing but the clear waters of the truth. And that Prophet was CHRIST.

As we have already noticed, the failure of the priestly office in Aaron even antedated that of the prophetic office in Moses; nevertheless, for some time after his death it seems to have maintained its importance, and been the main link between Israel and God. As an institution it persisted, of course, to the time of Christ; but under Eli and his sons it reached the lowest point of degradation, and from that point its importance declined.

The sin of Eli's sons marked another of those crises of which we have spoken. Another of these divinely-established offices had failed, and fallen into disrepute in man's hands. Rottenness and corruption had invaded it to such an extent that instead of the lips of these young men "keeping knowledge," so that men "should seek the law at His mouth" (see Mal. 2: 7), their sin was "very great before the Lord: for men abhorred the offering of the Lord" (1 Sam. 2: 17). Another of these great thoughts of God was apparently to fall to the ground.

Again, however, the Lord intervened with a new message which is recorded in the same chapter, verses 27-36. An unnamed man of God appeared with a message of judgment for Eli. God would smite his unruly house with such a curse that both the ears of all who heard it should tingle. And yet at the close of this terrible message there came a gleam of light, for he proceeded to say:

"I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind: and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed forever." (ver. 35).

So, after all, deep though the dishonour, the priesthood should not perish for ever. Another should take it up in faithfulness as pronounced as the previous unfaithfulness. Another should carry out the office according to God's mind, and be established for ever. Another star of hope shone forth for the encouragement of the faith that watched through the ever-darkening night. God was not defeated, for He had in reserve One who should be not only prophet but priest. In due time there would come the faithful priest: and that priest is CHRIST.

Subsequent to the days of Eli the kingdom was established in the midst of Israel, and after Saul the wilful king had been removed, David the man after God's heart was set up. Once again the story of failure repeated itself. The seeds of decay were sown right at the beginning. David grievously broke down, and the evil rapidly reproduced itself in his house. Another great crisis arose as once more in connection with this fresh departure all appeared to be lost.

But as before, the Divine Resource was speedily unveiled. As David at the end of his career surveyed the condition of his house with its incipient ruin, his soul was strangely moved, and he took up his lyre for the last time. The Spirit of the Lord spake by him, and this is what He said:

''The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain" (2 Sam. 23: 3, 4).

After David's death, oppression and injustice came in like a flood, but for the comfort of each believing heart another star of hope had risen, by the revelation once again of the Resource of God. There would be another King, marked by absolute justice and the fear of God, and beneath His beneficent sway the earth would rejoice, being brought into the light of a new and cloudless day.

Again we may say with rejoicing all was not lost: kingly dominion shall not be for ever a ghastly failure. The true, the righteous King will come. He will be CHRIST.

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And we, upon whom the ends of the ages are come, shall not we too rejoice in the contemplation of these things? We live in days that witness the breakup and dissolution of many things; some of them doubtless but human institutions which need not be deplored; others have their roots in that which is divine, and our hearts might rightly be depressed did we not know that Christ is the Resource of God. Nothing shall fail. All shall be carried to a triumphant issue. He who has become the second Man, He who has died and risen again, He who has assumed the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, will never fail nor be discouraged.

Let us remember that man is nothing, nor was he ever anything; CHRIST IS EVERYTHING. Let none of us then glory in man. We are in Christ Jesus, who of God is made everything to us in order that we might from henceforth and for ever glory in the Lord.

What is the Christian Calling?

What is the Christian Calling?

F. B. Hole.

One of the most impressive exhortations left us by the Apostle Paul in the pages of Holy Scripture reads as follows:-"I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation [calling] wherewith ye are called " (Eph. 4: 1). In every age the call of God has been the governing factor in the life of every saint, who has been consistent with it. It is to be so today for us who are Christians, and therefore it is our solemn responsibility to learn from the apostolic writings what is the nature of the calling, wherewith God has called us and, having discovered it, to walk in consistency with it. We propose to enquire what the Christian calling is, inasmuch as we know that, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance " (Rom. 11: 29); that is, God never "repents," or "changes His purpose." What He purposes, and establishes in His calling, always stands for ever.

The first occasion when God's call appears is in Genesis 12: 1, where we read that, "The Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee." The New Testament comment on this is, "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out . . . he went out . . . " (Heb. 11: 8). Here at once we find a leading feature, which marks the call of God right through Scripture, whatever the nature of the call may be. It involves for those who are called a separation from the mass of mankind. This is so, whether God calls an individual, severing him from country and kindred and father's house, or whether He calls a nation, or still later an assembly composed of individuals, called out from all the nations.

Out of this call of Abraham there sprang the call of Israel as a nation, which separated them not only from Egypt but from all other peoples. The prophet declared, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt" (Hosea 11: 1). Though the ultimate reference was to the Lord Jesus, as we see in Matthew 2: 15, the more immediate reference was to that nation, as we see if we turn to Exodus 4: 22, 23. And further we have the prophecy of Balaam, when he said, "The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations" (Num. 23: 9).

In spite of Israel's unfaithfulness and apostasy, out of that nation according to the flesh sprang the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet they rejected Him, and this opened the way for the revelation of another calling on God's part. We have been called, "with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (2 Tim. 1: 9), though it had lain in God's mind undisclosed, and was not revealed until Christ, having died, was risen and ascended to heaven, and the Holy Spirit was shed forth.

This calling is the calling of the church, of which we form a part, and if our minds lay hold of the fact that our calling antedates the beginning of the world, we shall at once be prepared for the discovery that it carries us beyond and outside of the world, and the whole order of the material creation, into a heavenly position and destiny. The calling antedated the present creation, and will reach full fruition when this creation has ceased to be. It is this calling that we now propose to consider in its Scriptural setting.

The church of God being composed of individual saints, the call of God necessarily reaches each one, and is made good in each one of us, separately. We must consider it first from this individual standpoint, while ever remembering that the call of the individual is not to be divorced from that to which the church is called as a corporate entity, since we read, "Ye are called in one body" (Col. 3: 15). If we are to obey the apostolic injunction to walk worthy of the calling, we must certainly understand what our calling is. The Apostle had unfolded it in the first three chapters of the Ephesian epistle.

His first prayer for the Ephesian saints was, "that ye may know what is the hope of His calling" (Eph. 1: 18) and this evidently refers to what he had indicated earlier in the chapter: that God the Father has "blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" and "predestinated us unto the adoption of children [unto sonship] by Jesus Christ to Himself." These marvellous words indicate what is the call, as regards the relationship, the place or sphere, and the endowment that it involves.

The relationship, to which we are called, may be stated in the one word, "sonship." What this means is elaborated for us in Galatians 3: 23-Galatians 4: 7, where the present relationship of the Christian as a son is contrasted with the place of Israel under the law, when the saint was like a child under age, and therefore under the schoolmaster, differing nothing from a servant. Our sonship is the fruit of the appearing of the Son of God, and His work, redeeming us not only from the curse of the broken law but also from the whole law-system. The work of Christ has been followed by the sending forth of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, so that we may know the relationship, and brought into it, have the capacity to respond to God as our Father.

We must never overlook the fact that not only are we in the relationship of sons "by Jesus Christ to Himself," but we are there as "accepted in the Beloved." It is not only BY Him but IN Him, as the infinitely acceptable One. We participate in His life and nature, and hence sonship not only implies intelligence in the knowledge of God and His things, as we see in Galatians, but also love. This we see in Ephesians 1, for our ultimate destiny is to be "holy and without blame before Him in love." Even today we stand holy and blameless before Him, cleared judicially from all that formerly attached to us, and the love of God the Father toward us is as real and strong as ever it will be. But in the coming age what is true of us now judicially will be true of us absolutely and for ever.

The place or sphere to which we are called is not any spot upon the earth, for our blessings are "spiritual" and said to be, "in heavenly places in Christ." Our calling is "high," or, "on high," according to Philippians 3: 14, and elsewhere we are said to be, "partakers of the heavenly calling" (Heb. 3: 1). In contrast with this Abraham was called, "unto a land that I will show thee" (Gen. 12: 1). To that land were also the children of Israel called, when they were brought out of Egypt; a land which was said by God to be "flowing with milk and honey" (Ex. 3: 17). The call of God to Israel will be verified in the millennial age, but the calling of the church envisages another sphere altogether. Even to Israel Jehovah had said, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are . . . My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55: 9). And we may apply such words to ourselves with a fulness of meaning that Israel can never experience.

The endowment connected with the heavenly calling is stated as, "all spiritual blessings . . . in Christ." We thankfully acknowledge that material blessings are conferred upon us. We commonly speak of them as mercies from the hand of God, and recognize that they indeed are many, but they are not all, for in the millennial age they will be showered upon the saved of earth far more lavishly than on us now. But, on the other hand, the spiritual blessings of the Christian calling are granted on such a scale as to be not merely many but all. And they are all in Christ, and ours as those who participate in Him. We may evidently say that not a spiritual blessing exists but it is conferred upon us by God Himself. Let us pause and think of this amazing fact, and we shall at once begin to see why later in Ephesians the Apostle wrote of "the unsearchable riches of Christ."

Another feature there is, which emphasizes the strong difference that exists between the calling of Israel as a nation and the calling of the church. Every individual who was included in the former owed his inclusion to natural birth. If a man or woman was born of the stock of Israel, he or she was in it, irrespective of their spiritual state. Multitudes, as we know, had no faith, and perished in the wilderness.

But no one is embraced in the Christian calling apart from being redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, and born again by the living and abiding word of God, as is stated in 1 Peter 1: 13 and 1 Peter 1: 23. Only thus do we come into the "spiritual house," and "holy priesthood," of 1 Peter 2: 5. And again, reverting to the Epistle to the Ephesians, we find ourselves included as those who are "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2: 10). Nothing short of this Divinely-wrought, new creation work has given us our part in it.

This verse in Ephesians, to which we have just referred, leads us on to the consideration of the corporate calling of the church, which of course is intimately connected with the calling of the individual. The verse stands indeed as a preliminary statement to the remarkable unfolding of "the vocation wherewith ye are called," which we find in Eph. 2: 10-22. Let us endeavour to summarize its notable features as revealed there.

The first thing that we observe is that the Apostle had specially before him those who had been called from among the Gentiles, whose plight without Christ, without hope, without God, he describes in Eph. 2: 11 and Eph. 2: 12. They had been "afar off" from God, but now in Christ they had been "made nigh" by His blood.

Ephesians 2: 14 brings before us those whom God had called by the Gospel from among the Jews, as well as those called from among the Gentiles. For a moment they stand before our minds as two distinct companies, but this is only that we may understand that God has, "made both one," since the middle wall that separated has been broken down in the death of Christ. So the calling of the church involves our being "made one," as well as our being "made nigh."

Yes, we may say, that is clear, but what is the character of the oneness? Is the Gentile in some way to be lifted to the level of the Jew? Or, is the Jew to be lowered to a Gentile level? The answer is, Neither the one nor the other. God has of the two made, "one new man." The word "make," in Eph. 2: 15, is the translation of the Greek word for "create." As in Eph. 2: 10, so here again, we have a work of new creation. Those called, whether Jew or Gentile, are the subjects of this new creation work, and in it-that is, "in Christ Jesus"-there is neither Jew nor Gentile. The old antagonisms disappear; the old man, that displayed them, is displaced, and only the new man in Christ remains. Thus peace is made.

In all these statements God's work is contemplated in an abstract way; that is, in its essential nature, excluding from our minds for the moment the complications introduced by failure in ourselves. Only by excluding them thus, can we gain an understanding of what God's work is in its intrinsic perfection. In the age to come we shall no longer have the flesh in us, and then its perfection will be fully displayed.

But there is more stated in Eph. 2: 16. Not only are we made nigh, and made one, and made new, but also made "one body," reconciled to God by the cross of Christ. Now the word, "body" introduces the fact of organic union in relation to Christ. It is a living organism. Had we Eph. 2: 14 only, we might have said, Yes, though formerly some of us were Jews and some Gentiles, we are now one. But, one what? One nation? One community? One federation? No, one body, and that implies unity, though in surprising diversity. "One body" is a figure of speech used to set forth the close and living nature of the unity that exists, no matter how diverse the individual members that compose it.

In Eph. 2: 18 the word "one" occurs for the fourth time. We are qualified and empowered to enter the Father's presence by the possession of "one Spirit"- the Holy Spirit of God. Israel of old knew God as Jehovah, but had no real access to Him. We, who enter into the church's calling, know Him as Father, and have holy liberty of approach. We could not know Him as Father and yet be barred from His presence, or the standard of His Fatherhood would fall below that of merely human fatherhood. The human father who could not be approached by his children would not be considered much of a father! We may draw near with assurance since God is our Father. But we must certainly approach with reverence, remembering that our Father is God.

In the light of the foregoing the great facts of the church's calling, mentioned in the four verses that close this chapter, are to be understood. Though once as Gentiles we were, "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel," we are now "no more strangers and foreigners." We are "fellow citizens," not with the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but rather "with the saints." We are "of the household," not of Abraham, or even of Moses and Aaron, but rather "of God." The thought of the Spirit of God moves on in an ascending scale; from the negative to the positive, and then on the positive side from association with the saints to being not merely in the kingdom but the very household of God.

But even this is not all, for the Spirit passes from the household to the house, whilst the church in its final completeness is to be the "holy temple in the Lord"-the shrine in which God will dwell. Then also at the present time it is God's dwelling-place by His Spirit. As a building it is "fitly framed together" (Eph. 2: 21), and so grows to its final completion. As one body, the church is "fitly joined together" (Eph. 4: 16), and so grows up in all things to its "Head, even, Christ."

At this point we may digress for a moment to observe that the church is presented to us in three aspects. First, as the sum total of all the saints, called of God and indwelt by the Spirit, between the day of Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2, and the predicted rapture of the saints, as in 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17. In this aspect we view it in the widest and largest way-the church in its completeness, as it exists today in the mind of God, and as it will be seen in the age to come. Examples of this are found in such passages as Matthew 16: 18; Ephesians 1: 22, 23; Ephesians 5: 27.

But second, as the sum total of the saints on earth today, or at any given moment. Examples of this are found in 1 Corinthians 12: 12, 13, 28; Ephesians 2: 22; 1 Timothy 3: 15. If the first of these Scriptures be considered, it becomes evident that the various gifts-including healings and tongues-are not set in the completed church in glory, for such things are not needed there, but the church as it exists at present on earth. Nor is it only the local church at Corinth that is contemplated, for all these gifts, including apostles and prophets, were not set there. If the other two Scriptures be read it is surely clear that the "habitation of God," in which Timothy was to behave himself rightly refers to the church on earth as a whole in its then present condition, and not to a separate local assembly, as though God had hundreds of "houses," scattered over Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, etc.

Then third, there is of course the local church in a given locality, as we see in Acts 9: 31, and such local churches have their own history and responsibility, as shown in Revelation 2 & 3.

But to return, the exhortation that with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering and forbearance, we should endeavour "to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4: 2, 3), is given in the light of the truth we have been briefly considering. This exhortation bears upon the present, internal condition of the church on the earth, and is of the gravest importance. The value and weight of the church's witness largely depends on how we respond to it. The breakdown and failure, that has been so conspicuous here, goes a long way to explain the feebleness of our witness.

But now, in the light of the foregoing, we raise the question-What is the church's witness? A correct answer to this question will help to determine the course and witness of each individual Christian, since for practical purposes the witness of the church depends on the life and witness of the individuals who compose it.

Before coming down to more particular details, we need an answer on broad and general lines, and this we find in the Epistle to the Ephesians. In Eph. 2: 7, "the ages to come," are before us, when the church will be the witness of "the exceeding riches of His grace." The grace of God will shine forth in those ages in connection with all His dealings with Israel and the nations, as well as with the saints of pre-Christian days. But to see the surpassing display of grace, men and angels will turn their eyes to the glorified church. Let us never forget that! We are surely right then in assuming that grace must characterize the witness of those who themselves are the recipients of grace in such surpassing measure.

A second answer is found in Ephesians 3: 10, where the church's witness is considered, not in relation to the ages to come but "now." The heavenly principalities and powers read in it "the manifold wisdom of God." If we mentally survey the practical state of the church today, we may wonder how the holy angels can see it! But we must remember two things. First, that they are deathless creatures and, though much failure is before their eyes today, they saw the church as it was Divinely instituted, and in the days of its first love before the failure began. Second, the wisdom of God being "manifold," they see fresh aspects of it in the way God deals with the failure displayed by us, and carries out His purpose in spite of it. The breakdown of the church in its responsibility will give occasion for the display of that manifold wisdom, which will ultimately triumph, in presenting the saints "faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 24). However defective our witness may be, there is going ultimately to be in the church an abundant witness to the surpassing grace and manifold wisdom of our God, and to the exceeding joy of our Saviour in the full fruition of His work.

These things being so, our witness to the grace of God is very simple. The words of our Lord were, "witnesses unto Me" (Acts 1: 8), and He said this just as He, the rejected One of earth, was about to ascend into the heavens. In keeping with this Paul wrote "Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ" (2 Cor. 3: 3). In spite of their glaring defects, the saints of the Corinthian assembly were Christ's letter to the world, seeing He was absent in heaven.

It is very evident therefore that our business as Christians is not only to testify of the grace of God, but also to set forth Christ in the way we live, and to serve His interests while He is still the rejected One. In the age to come God is going to "judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17: 31). Referring to that age, Paul wrote, "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?" (1 Cor. 6: 2). When He reigns we are to reign with Him. When He judges, we shall judge. But judging, which involves the public administration of that which is just, is emphatically not our business today.

When a British sovereign is crowned, the peers and peeresses, who have a right to be present in Westminster Abbey, bring their coronets with them. But they do not put them on till the crown is placed upon the sovereign's head. Today a good many Christians seem anxious to put on their coronets before the Saviour is manifested, crowned with His many crowns. Previously Paul had written to the Corinthians, "Ye have reigned as kings without us [the Apostles]: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you" (1 Cor. 4: 8).

So it is not our business to rule the world, or even to attempt to improve the world. The Lord Jesus Christ alone can set the world right, and if we attempt to do it before the time, we only display our folly, for it is impossible to impose Christian behaviour on those who are not Christian in any vital sense. Only the true believer possesses the divine nature, from which such behaviour would flow.

The programme of God for the present time is, "to take out of them [the Gentiles] a people for His name" (Acts 15: 14), not to educate nor to legislate the Gentiles into better social schemes. We very much fear that at the present time, even when the Gospel is faithfully and happily preached, there is a tendency to over-stress its social implications, and throw into the background the eternal issues that hang upon its acceptance or its rejection. It is quite true that the evangelical revival in Britain of two hundred years ago led to a considerable betterment in the social conditions of the country, but that was only a by-product of the work. The main result was that many thousands were taken out of the nation for His name, and added to the church; saved from their sins and from an eternity of woe.

It is a great mistake to magnify the secondary into the prominence of the primary; to treat the by-product as though it were the main thing. It is even a mistake to stress what the Gospel does now for the believer in such a way as to omit reference to what it does for eternity. We heard recently of a meeting for foreign students in London, when the speaker-a very true servant of our Lord-spent practically all his time in relating what the believer gets in the present-the happiness, the altered life, etc. When he had finished, an Indian student got up to claim that Hinduism if properly understood, produced altered lives, as witness, Gandhi, and others. Other students of other persuasions made similar claims, and the meeting ended in a very inconclusive fashion. If the speaker, while not omitting the mention of the present blessings of the Gospel, had given substantial place to its effects for eternity, stressing the claims of God in righteousness, and sin, and judgment, and heaven and hell, he would have travelled on to ground where would-be opponents could not so easily have followed.

Let us not forget the teaching of our Lord in Luke 12: 13-21. The man who interrupted His discourse, raised a point of social equity. The answer he got diverted his mind, and everybody else's, from the social side of things to the eternal issues. Covetousness was at the bottom of the business, and what would be the good of the inheritance to either brother, if he had to die that night? Death dissipates present gain. Over-concentration on the present is folly in view of eternity.

Our true witness in the first place is to be concerned to produce the fruits of the divine nature ourselves. And then, if we labour in the Gospel, and do so according to God's present plan, we shall have the joy of being used and of seeing fruit, not only for time but also for eternity.

If we spend time and effort in what is not God's plan, we shall not have fruit to show before the judgment seat of Christ. We beg our brethren to consider these things very carefully, for we fear that many are wasting their time trying to do what they are not told to do.

Then again, if Ephesians 4: 11-16 be attentively read, we see that the gifts that come from the ascended Christ, together with that which every joint of the body supplies, are to be, "for the perfecting of the saints," and, "for the edifying of the body of Christ," and for, "increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." They are not given in order that this gifted man may gather a few saints round himself, and perfect them in his particular line of teaching; or that another may labour merely to edify and increase a group, that he regards as specially favoured or specially correct. Obviously no servant of God can do more than contact and help a few; not even the Apostle Paul could contact all. Yet the few that are contacted should be served as members of the body of Christ, and not as merely connected with the servant himself in some lesser way.

We urge that we should never forget that our calling is the church's calling, and that we keep before us nothing less than, or other than that. The words of the Lord Jesus were, "I will build My church" (Matt. 16: 18). Only what He builds is going to stand to the day of eternity. Men have built what they call churches. They have instituted religious unions, societies, guilds, missions, in almost endless variety and with greatly differing characters. Sad to say, the very best of them are often vitiated as the years pass, inasmuch as corruption has permeated the professing church. None of them possess permanence. When the Lord calls His saints to meet Him in the air, no trace of them will be found in His presence, though the wreckage of some may be left on earth. In His presence will be found complete and glorious the elect church for whom He died: that, and only that.

If God's object becomes our objective, and we serve in subjection to His word, we shall not live our lives in vain. We grant at once that God's object is high and beyond all our natural thoughts, and that therefore we often fall far short of it in our character, our behaviour, our worship, and our service for the name of the Lord. But though we fail, let us keep the right thing before us, rather than be deflected from it to something more according to our own thoughts, and therefore less according to the Word of God.

We remember hearing that in a certain shooting match a first-rate marksman put every one of his bullets on the bull's-eye of a target, and yet when his score was announced, it did not amount to a single point. It was-0. And why? Because he had been firing at the wrong target! Accept this incident as a parable, remembering that it is better to be a poor marksman firing at the right target than a first-class shot firing at the wrong one! Better serve what is the will of God for the moment, even imperfectly, than accomplish what is not His will with apparent efficiency and success.

Let us seek grace to have our lives and our service ordered in keeping with the calling of the church. And let us each remember that we have to give account of ourselves to God at the judgment seat of Christ.

Christian Conflict

Christian Conflict.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 36.)

There has been so much controversy and fighting amongst believers, carried on in a not very becoming spirit, that to many Christians the whole idea of conflict has become highly objectionable, and the natural swing of the pendulum has carried them into a mental attitude which comes perilously near to being that of "peace at any price." Others again there are, who though unwilling to definitely compromise with evil and therefore prepared to separate from it in the last resort, yet cannot bring themselves to resist it in any way that would involve conflict and fighting in the cause of truth.

There are of course some Christians of a combative spirit. Being naturally pugnacious they do not need to be urged to fight, they only need to be urged to fight a good fight, and to let it be the fight of faith. The rest of us, however, are more in danger of displaying the spirit of fear, rather than that of power and love and of a sound mind, and consequently of being ashamed of the testimony of our Lord; we need, as a result, to remember that we are each called to be "a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

There is no escaping conflict while we are in this world. The situation is such that in one way or another we are bound to meet it, even though we diligently avoid it. We may indeed borrow the figure which the prophet Amos used in connection with the day of the Lord and say that it is, "As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him." The more we scheme to escape fightings without, the more likely we are to fall victims to the conflict produced by uneasy misgivings and fears within.

One distinction must be clearly drawn at the outset; there is much conflict experienced by Christians which is by no means proper Christian conflict. Proper Christian conflict is described in such Scriptures as Ephesians 6, and 2 Corinthians 10, with sundry allusions to it in other of Paul's epistles. What is described in Romans 7 and Galatians 5 is conflict truly, and of a sort that no Christian can well escape, yet it is of a preparatory nature, as being fitted to qualify the believer who goes through it and learns the lessons that it is designed to teach, to take up the wars of the Lord as a good soldier of Christ.

Romans 7 gives us the earliest experience that can be spoken of as conflict. It is an old saying that it takes two to make a quarrel, and what that chapter details for us is an experience that must be utterly unknown until the renewed mind, the "inward man" is possessed. As born of the flesh we are flesh and nothing else, and consequently the reign of flesh is absolute and undisputed; it is only when born again that we possess the "inward man" of which Romans 7: 22 speaks, and conflict becomes a possibility. True, the conflict described in that chapter is a very one-sided affair. The victory seems to lie wholly with the flesh, for the cry is, "The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do," and consequently, "I am carnal, sold under sin." Had it been "The evil which I would not, that I sometimes do," or even, "that I frequently do," it would have left room for an occasional gleam of victory. As it is, the gloom of defeat is unrelieved. The "inward man" is there, but in practice is overwhelmed by the flesh. The "law of the mind" is subjugated and rendered impotent by "the law of sin which is in the members."

If we ask — what has produced this distressing experience? the answer is — the law. The chapter opens with a statement as to the law, and the relation to it of both the Jew and the Christian. It goes on to detail the practical workings of the law upon the renewed mind, and one of its most significant features is the omission of all reference to the Spirit of God. Now it is not God's purpose or desire that anyone should remain permanently in this distressing condition of impotence and defeat. Hence Romans 8 follows, and this chapter begins with Christ and the Spirit of God. The law is only mentioned in verse 3 to be dismissed as supplanted by God's own act in and through the death of Christ, and the rest of that wonderful chapter is simply full of the Spirit of God, the varied capacities He fills, and His many activities.

The two chapters, then, are in sharpest contrast — Romans 7, the action of the law upon the renewed mind, only making it acutely conscious of impotence and defeat; Romans 8, the action of the Spirit of God, making it conscious of liberty, life, relationship, coming glory and present omnipotent love which leads to believers being not only victorious, but "more than conquerors."

Still, even so, the conflict described is in the main an internal one, preparatory to the believer being able and fit to enter into the conflict which is properly Christian. It is, so to speak, the clearing up of a condition of civil war and internal strife. Only when that is settled can the wars of the Lord be entered upon by any of us.

Galatians 5 has the same internal conflict in view, but approaches the subject from a different angle. If Romans 7 is the flesh versus the inward man instructed and enlightened by the law, Galatians 5 is the flesh versus the Spirit, and the position is exactly reversed. The renewed mind, directed and urged forward by the law, is no match for the flesh; but the flesh is no match for the Spirit. Still, by the possession of the Spirit the personality and individual responsibility of the believer is not suppressed. He has to walk in the Spirit, and then, and only then, he does not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Then it is that he does not do the things that otherwise he would.

When we turn to Ephesians 6 we have a conflict contemplated which is distinctively Christian. The Ephesian epistle sets forth the Christian calling and the church's place according to the splendour of the thoughts and purposes of God. All is made known to us that we may be in the power and strength of these great realities, and thus live our lives in this world, and fulfil our various earthly relationships and responsibility according to them. When the apostle reaches the final point in his epistle (Eph. 6: 10), he assumes that his readers are standing in the full power and enjoyment of these realities, and instructs them as to the whole armour of God which they must take and wear if they are to stand.

The greatest possible testimony in this world is the saint standing in the full consciousness and enjoyment of the calling and the purposes of God. Hence the devil and his agents always make the most strenuous efforts to dislodge such an one from the spiritual condition which alone makes the position an effective testimony. His efforts consequently are directed against the truth, the righteousness, the peace, the faith, the practical salvation, the Word of God, and the prayers which are the preserving elements of Christian life; and to maintain these seven things, and wear them as the armour of the soul, needs no small measure of diligence and watchfulness.

Jude, in his epistle, exhorts us to "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints," and he does not close his brief word without intimating in verses 20 and 21 that our spiritual condition must be sound if we are to earnestly contend aright. Our contention, however, and the conflict it may entail — which is obviously one branch of proper Christian conflict — is carried out in the world of men. The conflict of Ephesians 6 lies behind all that. It takes place not in the visible world of men, but in the unseen realm of spirit. " Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against principalities, against authorities, against the universal lords of this darkness, against spiritual power of wickedness in the heavenlies. For this reason take to you the panoply of God ...." (Eph. 6: 12, 13, N.T.).

We know but little about these great spiritual forces of evil which are at the disposal of Satan. We are permitted to get an occasional glimpse of their activities in Scripture, as, for instance, in Daniel, where we see them engaged in endeavouring to thwart God's purposes in regard to Israel. It is probable, too — alas! — that we know still less as to any actual conflict with them, inasmuch as we are so little, if at all, in the spiritual condition, coupled with the knowledge of the full Christian position, which makes it worth while to them to attack us. Still they exist, and doubtless are the originators of many of those trying, yet obscure trials and testings, which can only be met by having on the whole armour of God.

If any of our readers find the contemplation of conflict such as this rather terrifying, we would like to reassure and encourage them by mentioning a fact which is not apparent in our authorised translation. The Greek word translated "rulers . . . of this world" ("universal lords," N.Tr.) is kosmokrator, world-ruler. These evil spiritual beings bear rule, but their power is restricted to the limits of the kosmos or world-order which has been affected by sin. In 2 Corinthians 6: 18 we have God assuring any of His saints, who may suffer by reason of faithfulness in separating from the world, of His Fatherly grace and protection, and He presents Himself as the Almighty, the pantokrator = the Ruler of all things. We shall not tremble before the rulers of the world-order if we realize that we are under the protection of the Ruler of all things.

Another phase of proper Christian conflict comes before us in 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5. The conflict of Ephesians 6 is, as we have seen, mainly defensive: the only offensive weapon named being the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. Here the conflict is essentially of the aggressive, offensive order, and there are weapons: the word is plural, for there are more than one. These weapons are effectual to "the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations [or, reasonings, margin] and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Here is a task which involves conflict indeed! To pull down strongholds of stone or iron is easy compared with dismantling strongholds of unbelief and of the powers of darkness, and casting down the vain reasonings of darkened yet proud and self-satisfied minds, so that the whole soul and mind, and every thought in that mind, is in subjection to God with a glad and ready obedience like the obedience of Christ.

Is this the objective of Christian warfare? Does the servant of Christ go forth into the world with the Word of God with such a task before him? Then we instinctively and at once feel that nothing but superhuman and miraculous power can avail. To pit mere human eloquence, or learning, or skill, or intellect against such strongholds; to attempt to wheedle men round the corner of their rebellion and self-will by those arts and sciences which appeal solely to the sentiments and emotions, is worse folly than that of attacking Gibraltar with a pea-shooter. Nothing but the power of God will do.

Yet the power of God works through His people to this end, and through weapons which are not carnal but mighty through God. What are these weapons? Well, see the apostles in Acts 6! Well clad in that spiritual armour which enabled them to turn aside the attempt of the "world rulers of this darkness" to divert them from their true service to "serving tables," they address themselves to their proper business saying, "We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word." The ministry of the Word, or as 1 Corinthians 1: 18-21 puts it, "the preaching" — "the preaching of the cross," is one great spiritual weapon. Prayer is another.

When it is a question of the Word as the link between our souls and God the order is, first the Word of God and then prayer. He must speak to us before we speak to Him. When it is the Word flowing as testimony from us to men, the order is, first prayer and then the ministry of the Word, for we must begin by recognizing our absolute dependence on God, and speak to Him before we speak for Him.

Neither prayer nor the ministry of the Word, if carried out after the apostolic pattern (see 1 Cor. 2: 1-5), would strike the man of the world as powerful weapons. As a man after the flesh he would only appreciate fleshly weapons, and if religiously inclined, he would wish to enlist, in the good cause of bettering humanity, all the usual agencies which experience has shown to exert an influence on men's minds. His human weapons will produce human results which doubtless often carry with them a certain amount of human benefit. Spiritual weapons alone produce spiritual results. If we use these which God has appointed, then they become "mighty through God" to accomplish Divine results. The spiritual weapons we have named are not of course the only ones. In Matthew 17: 20, 21, for instance, the Lord Himself mentions faith and fasting in addition to prayer, as spiritual weapons.

It is of course very much easier to use a carnal weapon, if we happen to possess it, than a spiritual one. If a man is naturally brilliant and consequently able to wield "excellency of speech or of wisdom," he will find it far easier to move people by an oration sparkling with gems of rhetoric or knowledge, than to be a vessel of God's power through faith and prayer and fasting; and he may even deceive himself into counting all the surface results of the former methods as genuine! Yet only that which is wrought by the power of God abides.

Many of our readers may entirely agree with us that it is very easy to pick up carnal weapons and use them in connection with the work of the Gospel, since they are so lavishly used in Christendom to-day, and heartily applaud our calling attention to it in these pages. Yet we would remind them — and, indeed, all of us — that it is just as important to use spiritual weapons only in seeking the edification and perfection of believers, and in the necessary conflicts for the maintenance of the truth. We have before now seen well-instructed Christians use very carnal weapons in the endeavour to stop their less-instructed brethren using carnal weapons in their Gospel work! This will not do.

We have been set free from servitude to sin that we may be servants of God. Then let us remember in the conflicts that His service engenders that not only must the power be that of His Spirit, but the weapons we use such as are in keeping with His Spirit and sanctioned by His Word.

Christ: Sacrifice, Blesser, Centre, Builder, Leader, Judge, Administrator

Christ: Sacrifice, Blesser, Centre, Builder, Leader, Judge, Administrator.

F. B. Hole.

John 1: 29-51.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 20, 1928, page 66.)

The first chapter of John's Gospel presents to us the Lord Jesus in the most exalted way. We are permitted to travel back in our minds to the most remote moment that we can possibly conceive of, the moment when there began to be the beginning of everything that has had a beginning, and we discover that He whom we know as our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Himself, was there then — the Word who was God, and who was with God. Then He became flesh and tabernacled among us so that those who loved Him might behold His glory and afterwards be able to write and say, "We have heard . . . we have seen with our eyes . . . we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life " (1 John 1). He became audible, visible, tangible, even to men like ourselves, and He brought us the wonderful light of God, which shines for us today. He is the true Light.

The Lord Jesus then, a Man, has appeared amongst us and what wonderful things we have in Him! To begin with, in the verse that I first read, we discover that Jesus, the Word, who became flesh amongst us, is the Lamb of God for the bearing away of the sin of the world. He is presented to us as the great SACRIFICE for sin.

I can well imagine that everybody here is thinking, "Well, we do certainly know something about that; we should not be Christians at all if we did not know the Lord Jesus in that capacity." Still we must remember that the fact is stated in John 1: 29, in all its greatness as God sees it. The point is not merely the taking away of your sins, or my sins, but the fact that He is the great taker-away of sin. In virtue of His sacrifice as the Lamb, God is going ultimately to take away the last vestige of sin and all its results from that great universe which will lie through eternal days beneath His smile.

We pass a little further down the chapter and we discover that He who is the taker-away of sin by becoming the Lamb of sacrifice, is also the BLESSER. He is the One who baptises with the Holy Ghost, and thus, you see, He is not merely going to take away all the evil, but He is going to bring in all the blessing. He will flood the whole scene with the mighty energy of the Spirit of God. A day is coming when this baptism of the Spirit will affect all things here below, for in the bright millennial age God is going to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. We Christians through infinite grace anticipate that day, for our sins have been forgiven and we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The joys which, thanks be to God, fill the hearts of Christians, are joys which are theirs in virtue of the indwelling Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus is He who has ministered them to us by His Spirit. He has already given the Holy Ghost to us.

Then we read further in the chapter and discover that He who is the Sacrifice and the Blesser, is the God-appointed CENTRE of attraction for all God's people.

When Jesus called Peter and Andrew and John and James and they followed Him, as recorded in Matt. 4, it was not the first introduction of these disciples to our Lord. These things happened after John was cast into prison; the things recorded in John 1 happened before that event, and were the very start of that sweet and blessed companionship and communion that was known by these disciples with the Lord Jesus Christ here upon earth. He was set before them by John's remark, "Behold the Lamb of God," and hearing it they left John and followed Jesus. They instinctively discovered that here, not in John the Baptist, great man though he was, but here in the Lord Jesus, the Word become flesh, was the One worthy to be the great attractive centre for all the people of God. They left John, they followed Jesus, and when challenged by Him they said, Lord, our desire is to know where dwellest Thou? He said unto them, "Come and see"; they came and saw where He dwelt and abode with Him.

Come now, my friends, have you discovered that the Lord Jesus is the great attractive centre for the people of God; that God's thought plainly expressed at the beginning and to be realized on a grand scale at the end is to make His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the One to whom we are all united and all attracted? He is the all-important and all-sufficient Centre of God's people.

Here we have the beginning, and we might well envy Andrew. We do not know very much about him, for he was not a shining light like his brother Peter whom he afterwards brought to the Lord, yet Andrew has a distinction that is not Peter's. Andrew and another, whoever he may be, possibly the writer of this Gospel, had a great distinction. When we get to those great scenes in glory and the Lord Jesus Christ comes forth in the midst of all the mighty host of His redeemed church, Andrew will be able to say, "Lord, of all the thousands of thousands here to-day, I was the first. It was given to me first of all these countless millions to make the discovery that it is not John the Baptist, and it is not the ancient prophets, and it is not Moses, and it is not Elijah, and it is not my brother Peter, and it is not myself; it is Thyself Lord Jesus, THOU art the attractive Centre, and Thou alone." I hope we have all made this discovery, humbly following in the footsteps of Andrew in that respect.

Christ is the Centre, but when you come to verse 42, you discover from His own words, although He put it in what we might call a somewhat cryptic way, that He is the great BUILDER of that which is going to stand untouched by all the ravages of time. When Peter was brought to Him by Andrew, the Lord Jesus forestalled him, and indicating His divine omniscience, He said in effect, "I know who you are; you are Simon, the son of Jonas, and now I rename you, thereby establishing My ownership, and I call you Cephas, and that means a stone." Possibly Peter thought, What a strange name! Not until the time came recorded in Matthew 16. did Peter get an inkling of what it really signified. Jesus then said, "Thou art Peter," that means a stone — a little piece of stone — and then He said, speaking of Himself, the Son of the Living God, "Upon this rock I will build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." I am going to use a very homely phrase, but use it with reverence, Peter was just a chip of the block. He was not the block, for Christ Himself was the Rock. In John 1 the Lord Jesus was virtually saying to Peter, "Whatever you know or do not know, whatever you realize or do not realize, no matter what you are conscious of or what you are not conscious of, coming to Me I annex you for My structure, My building."

The world we live in is like a large ant heap. Oh! what busy builders are the ants, especially when the spring comes, but then that thoughtless cow plants her ugly hoof straight into the middle of the ant hill and there is great consternation. Poor little ants! Why, my dear friends, that has been the history of the world again and again; nations have sprung at each others' throats and the ant hill has been greatly disturbed and the builders have been destroyed. You may even build your "churches," but man himself will knock down what man himself has made and time will make ravages upon all that man builds. Oh! Christian, wake up to it! Christ is the Builder and in the mighty energy of His Holy Spirit He is making more Peters — and there are a good many Peters through grace here tonight — more stones, and yet more stones. Thus quietly, and as silently as Solomon's temple was constructed, He is building. He is the Builder and that which He builds in the energy of His Spirit is the thing that is going to stand, when all man's little "churches" and his best "societies" have died a natural, or it may be an unnatural, death. That which Christ constructs is the thing that counts, for it is the thing that will stand to eternity.

So do not be downhearted if something is going wrong in some little society of your choice, because the sun will not suffer eclipse if it goes wrong. That which is for Christ and His glory, according to the purpose of God, is never going to be eclipsed, for it will never fail. Christ is the Builder.

The next verse tells us Christ is the LEADER. We had such a wonderful leader for our cause, but he is gone — some may say. The trouble is the years roll on and the leaders go, but Christ said, "Follow Me," as He is our Leader, and He abides for ever.

In verse 47 we discover that Christ is not only the Leader but the JUDGE. When Nathanael came into His presence the Lord showed him that He knew everything about him by saying, "Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile." That is not equivalent to saying "In whom is no sin." Guile is sin it is true, yet there is much sin that is not guile. Guile is hypocrisy, vain pretence, unreality, lack of uprightness and honesty. Nathanael was a man who though a sinner was honest. Beneath the fig tree he had doubtless been confessing his sins to God, and Jesus, knowing that, said, "Here is a true Israelite who is without hypocrisy and not like the rest carrying on their religious ceremonials to keep up appearances." The mass were making believe that all was going on quite well though they had not got the beautiful glory cloud, for the divine presence had left them. Still they kept up a round of religious observances when God was not there, and the power was gone and it was an empty shell without a kernel. Nathanael was not like that; I hope we are not like that. Now the Lord Jesus showed Himself to be the Critic and the all-discerning Judge, and if He approves, well you really need not be much concerned that men blame you.

In the last verse of the chapter we discover that not only is He the Centre of attraction and the Builder and the Leader and the Judge, but He is the great ADMINISTRATOR of the coming age.

A day is coming and our eyes, blessed be God, shall see it, when the Lord Jesus Christ as Son of man shall take the central place in God's mighty universe, angels ascending to him from beneath and descending on Him from above. Angels are now the servants of One who is a Man — "For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come," but unto MAN. The prophet had said, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him or the Son of man that Thou visitest him?" Jesus said, "Verily verily I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." You shall see the Son of man at the central exchange of divine authority; His word is law, His angels do His bidding in all quarters of His universe.

What did He say? In regard to the gathering work that had already commenced in a small way with Andrew and Peter, Philip and Nathanael, and that was going to proceed and enlarge, He said to Nathanael, "Thou shalt see greater things than these." Well, blessed be God, so we shall. Could you gather all the children of God in Newcastle together what a large meeting we should have, much larger than this. Could we gather all the children of God in England together — let them roll up in their tens of thousands — what a gathering we should have! Yet it would be a very small affair compared with what is coming. We are going to see greater things than these. We are going to see Christ in His central place of authority, administering in power, and all things subject to Him, and the whole church of God associated with Him in His glory.

Somebody may be saying, "What is the practical good of talking about these things while our surrounding conditions are so distressful?" Why, just this, what we want, is to encourage you to get into real personal, spiritual, prayerful contact, by faith for yourself, with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The state of public religion in this land of ours for many a long day has been feeble, because so much of it has been of a secondhand type. The attitude of so many has been, "Let the minister do it for me, let the priest do it for me. Do we not support them, and do they not carry on our religious matters with God?" Perhaps surreptitiously you rather like it so, because such an arrangement does not put demands upon you. Christian! Christian! you are Christ's one — the very meaning of your name — and you have to do with your Lord. You have to get into contact with Christ, and that is the end of the meetings that we have been holding to-day.

We aim at persuading you to a little soul concern on this matter. You young Christians, every one of you, see to it that you are concerned not to indulge in a kind of secondhand religion, but to have personal dealings with your Lord. In faith seek it and it will be yours. Knock at this door and it shall be opened, and you will have the privilege of personal heart contact with, and knowledge of, the Lord Jesus Christ, and when you enjoy that, then you will be able to go on.

You will be in touch with the one great Centre, and the great Builder Himself, and this is the secret of being carried through.

Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oct. 26th, 1927.

Getting Ready for the Climax

Getting Ready for the Climax.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 271.)

Looking abroad over the earth today we cannot fail to be impressed with the extraordinary spirit of unrest that prevails. It has permeated everywhere so thoroughly that no circle, whether national, racial, social, intellectual or religious has escaped its influence, and the most unthinking pleasure-lover that lives quite recognizes its existence. Many explanations of it are offered; the most popular being that of the intellectuals and leaders of modern thought, and of the false religious teachers, who assert that it is the sign of human progress and betterment; that it is the birth-pangs of a new age wherein a better order of man shall appear as the refined product of evolutionary forces, so that we may shortly expect the much-talked-of "superman" to materialise.

True Christians, on the other hand, are awakening to the fact that this unrest and these agitations are but the preliminary tremors that will usher in that hour when the Lord shall "shake, not the earth only, but also heaven." There is, consequently, amongst them also a movement, and an awakening to the coming of the Lord.

Now, just as we have in Scripture the historic record of how a remnant of Israel was prepared of God to welcome and receive the Lord Jesus when first He came, and also how the mass of the nation was hardened by pride, and, consequently, rejected Him and preferred Barabbas, so we find in the New Testament a prophetic record of how saints are to be prepared for His second coming, and of how the world is being prepared for the acceptance of Satan's counterfeit when he appears. We will refer to a few passages in the order in which they occur.

First, then, Matthew 25. In the parable of the Ten Virgins we have an undeniable reference to the Second Advent, and to the proper attitude which becomes the saints left on earth to await the Bridegroom. They are represented as "virgins," for the saint is properly speaking one who is separated from the world and uncontaminated by its corruptions and defilements; further, they are virgins who "went forth to meet the Bridegroom," that is, they publicly took the separate place with the Bridegroom in view. How fully this was verified in the early Christians may be seen in the opening chapters of the Acts, and in 1 Thessalonians 1. The Bridegroom tarried, however, and sleep supervened with all.

Then came an awakening. The cry at midnight was, "Behold the Bridegroom!" and, consequently, "Go ye out to meet Him." This resulted in the virgins arising, and trimming their lamps. The foolish discover their fatal lack too late. The wise are ready and go in. Here we have a prophetic sketch of what is in process of fulfilment, as we believe, in our own days. The expectation of the Lord's return has been revived, and He Himself has been set forth as the Object, and rallying Centre before the hearts of His saints, and there has been a reverting to the original position of the saints as a people separated from the world, and, consequently, a disentanglement is being effected; the wise are being disentangled from the foolish.

Here, then, in our first Scripture, we have the whole case in general outline. Two currents flowing in opposite directions are discernible, the one towards apostasy and doom, the other towards faithfulness and glory. In the one case we see represented that which is outward and nominal, profession without reality in the absence of the Spirit of God. In the other we see that which is real, as possessing the Spirit of God, awakened from former lethargy and insensibility to alertness and expectancy, and characterized by the three features already pointed out, but which we recapitulate if thereby they may be more deeply impressed on all our hearts.

1. Christ, the Bridegroom, is by the Spirit's cry again set forth as the supreme Object. His coming is once more regarded as imminent, and therefore a matter of lively expectation. He becomes to faith the rallying Centre; "to meet Him," and no other, is now their supreme desire.

2. The Spirit's cry is, "go ye out to meet Him." As originally they "went forth" before the lapse occurred, so now they must "go out." They must revert to the position held at the beginning. No matter how comfortable and apparently sensible many of the arrangements they made for their period of peaceful slumber, all must be discarded for that which God originally appointed.

3. Christ, as supreme Object and Hope and rallying Centre, involves a work of separation and disentanglement. The line of cleavage became perfectly clear before the Bridegroom came. It was consummated and made irrevocable at His coming.

To some of our readers the above will seem commonplace enough as being merely a repetition of what they have long been instructed in and held; to others it may appear novel and open to question. To the latter we merely say, Search into Scripture further with us and see if it be not in accord with its general drift and tenor. On the former, however, we have to urge that their very familiarity with the truth of it may be their undoing. If those called out at the beginning lapsed into sleep is it impossible that we should do so? To ask the question is to answer it. The whole point here is one of the affections and heart-faithfulness. True, the separate position was taken, but as the fruit of revived affections and expectations. Is it worth anything, even if outwardly maintained, should those affections and expectations with any one of us once more lapse into slumber? We think not.

Here, as we have said, all is presented to us in a general outline. Nothing is said enabling us to judge of the exact mode of the separation effected, nor as to what are its boundaries, if we may so speak. For all such details we must go elsewhere, and particularly to the epistles of Paul to Timothy.

Before these epistles, however, come those to the Thessalonians, and in 2 Thess. 2 we have remarkable light as to the way the climax of evil will be reached after the fulfilment of 1 Thess. 4: 13-17, which is referred to in 2 Thess. 2: 1 as "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" and "our gathering together unto Him." Three things stand out very clearly in that chapter, which we will summarize as follows:-

1. Intense human activity, bringing man to a climax. There is to be "a falling away" — an apostasy. This means great activity in the region of mind. The thinking of religious mankind will be subverted. There is to be a perfect landslide in religious thought, obliterating all the old landmarks. Or if, perchance, old terms are retained, they will be emptied of all their old meaning and given new values totally destructive of the old, — just as in a landslide trees and other objects are sometimes retained upright and alive, but totally uprooted and removed from the old positions. Further, this great movement is going to produce a man, as so often before in the world's history, and in this "man of sin," this lawless one, human wickedness will, in that hour, find its highest expression.

2. Intense Satanic activity, bringing the powers of darkness to a climax. The coming of that wicked one is to be "after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders." The forces of spiritual wickedness will then be let loose on the earth, and hence "all deceivableness of unrighteousness" will be exerted towards "them that perish: because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved." Miraculous powers are, indeed, to be again manifested in connection with religious professions and claims, but they will proceed from Satan, and be used to blind his dupes effectually.

3. A Divine fiat on God's part, putting His seal upon man's climax unto its destruction. What men will proudly regard as the enduring monument raised to celebrate man's glory, turns out to be the dirty sepulchre wherein it is to go to corruption, and God puts His seal upon that sepulchre by the sending forth of "strong delusion" as an act of His holy government, and no man can roll away the stone when once that is done.

What a climax! What a picture! Let us gaze at it steadily until its reality sinks into our souls. We shall then turn away from it burdened on the one hand with desire and compassion for souls who may yet be rescued from the burning, yet, on the other, full of rejoicing that our links with it are cut. We shall sing with new emphasis,

"O worldly pomp and glory,

Your charms are spread in vain!

I've heard a sweeter story!

I've found a truer gain!"

even if it be the pomp and glory of the religious world that is in question.

Judging from the conditions which are now rapidly coming to a head in Christendom, the climax cannot be far off. Man's mental activity grows fast and furious. It seems to be well-nigh a point of honour with each oncoming generation to overturn and discard the ideas of the previous generation. The landslide has pretty clearly commenced, and Satan's interference is becoming a commonplace under the influence of spiritism and kindred cults. Let the saints be raptured to heaven and all would come to a head in an incredibly short space of time, and the God-sent delusion drop like a funeral pall over the minds of apostate men.

In 2 Timothy 2: 15 to 2 Timothy 4: 5 we have a wonderful passage giving us light as to the development of evil in the sphere of Christian profession, and the path of a faithful believer, up to even "the last days." Here we trace the course of the two currents leading up to the climax. In 2 Timothy 3: 1-5 we see what will characterise the mass of Christendom just before the rapture of the saints. The form of godliness is retained. Its power is not only absent but denied; they are "lovers of their own selves," "lovers of money" — for so the word "covetous" may be translated — "lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God."

The path of a faithful believer is simple and clear. First, again, comes separation unto the Lord, 2 Timothy 2. There is disentanglement. As disentangled the believer is left as "the servant of the Lord," who in all his service must display the character of his Master. He must always remember that he is not a lord but a servant of THE LORD, and meekness becomes a servant. Further, he suffers persecution and stands irrevocably on "the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture." He accepts all Scripture as God-breathed, and as sufficient to furnish throughout the man of God, and not merely the ordinary believer. The opening of 2 Timothy 4 makes it evident that not only does the faithful believer take his stand on Scripture, but he propagates it. He preaches "the Word." Note carefully the inferences that lie just here. If all Scripture is given that the man of God may be "throughly furnished unto all good works," then, firstly, no part of Scripture can be safely disregarded; and, secondly, no work — not even a so-called "Christian work" — is a good work if it is not directly or indirectly sanctioned by Scripture Further, the course of the apostle's revelations as to the last days, and his instructions to Timothy, show that to his mind the acceptance of "all Scripture" provided a perfect criterion and test. In the light of this, the attitude towards Scripture, of any would-be teacher, is final and conclusive; we need not trouble to investigate his further credentials if he fails on this point.

The course of the one current then runs from the profane and vain babblings of the time of Hymenaeus and Philetus to the perilous times of the last days, the heaping to themselves false teachers, having itching ears, and turning to fables — all this ready for the terrible drama of 2 Thessalonians 2. The course of the other current is marked by "the vessel unto honour," "the servant of the Lord," living "godly in Christ Jesus" and suffering persecution, abiding in the things learned with all Scripture as the rock beneath one's feet, and, finally, preaching "the word." This leads up to "that day" and "the crown of righteousness."

If we turn from Paul to Peter and read 2 Peter 2 and 2 Peter 3, we find the same features under different forms. There are the false teachers, who, like the false prophets of old, privily bring in "damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them," and thus drag souls with them in the current of evil. They in so doing "promise them liberty" — this is exactly the great cry today, people are being "liberated" from bondage to "old religious ideas" and from "bibliolatry," the term they use for acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God — but really they engulf them in the corruptions of the world like dogs returning to their own vomit, or washed sows returning to their wallowing in the mire. They end by scoffing at the bare idea of a returning Christ, on the ground of the uniform and unvarying course of nature. This is, remarkably enough, exactly the ground now taken by the modern "scientific" scoffer; he believes in slow and orderly evolution, and denies the possibility of any catastrophic intervention of God.

On the other hand, Peter tells us of the "holy prophets," and bids us be mindful of their words and also of the words spoken by "the apostles of the Lord and Saviour" — in other words mindful of both Old and New Testament Scriptures. He points out that, knowing the truth and warned beforehand of what is impending, we should be marked by "holy" or "separate" conversation and godliness, and thus continue growing "in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

Finally, turning for a moment to John's writings, we find in Revelation 2 and 3 the prophetic addresses to the seven churches. The closing phases of the Church's history are Philadelphia and Laodicea. The very names are significant — "Love of the brethren," and "Rights of the people," respectively.

It is by love of the brethren that we show that we are born of God and have passed from death unto life, and also manifest our love to God Himself; and the "Philadelphia" of Rev. 3 bears the features that mark Divine life, and also the features that characterize faithfulness. Christ's word is kept; His Name is not denied; the word of His patience is kept. Translation to glory out of the hour of earth's great tribulation is the end.

At the present moment "the rights of the people" loom largely in all directions. and are now well established in the region of religion. We are in the age of "democratised Christianity." Political democracy finds all its authority in the will of the people. In that sphere there are no fixed standards of right and wrong. If the majority of the people want it, be it betting, intoxicants, opium, war, or anything else, it is politically right. If they do not want it, be it the Bible in the schools, liberty for the preaching of Christ, temperance, peace, or anything else, it is politically wrong. Even so also then in democratised Christianity, man and his will is everything. God and His Christ, and their word, are nothing.

In Laodicea Christ is outside, and supreme self-satisfaction is within. In reality there is nothing but wretchedness, misery, poverty, blindness, and nakedness. All is indifference and nauseating, and the end will be utter rejection at the hands of Christ. He will spue it out of His mouth.

With "Philadelphia" translated and "Laodicea" spued out, all will be ready for the apostasy and the man of sin as we have seen in 2 Thessalonians 2.

As another year reaches its close the sky of Christendom is dark and darkening. Are we downhearted? No, thank God, for "the path of the just is as the shining light [the light of dawn] that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov. 4: 18). We are not going back, not even back to Pentecost, but on to glory! Only let us beware of that swiftly flowing current which is getting Christendom ready for antichrist and his delusions. Let us rather joyfully go in that other current which finds its impulse in the Spirit of God, which is marked by fidelity to the Word of God and single-eyed obedience to it, which eventuates in love of the brethren, keeping Christ's Word and not denying His Name. And if yet we wait a while for His coming let us keep the word of His patience by faithfully following the rejected One in full identification with His interests and in true separation to Him from this present evil world.

The Closing Messages

The Closing Messages.

Notes of an address on Malachi 4: 1-6; Revelation 22: 8-21.

F. B. Hole

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 34, 1942-4, page 243.)

There is always something peculiarly arresting in last words, and I have just read, firstly, the last words which God gave through the Old Testament prophets, and secondly the last words which have come to us in the closing prophetic message of the New Testament.

Malachi prophesied over four centuries before Christ came, and then followed a period of silence on the part of heaven. We today are living in a long period which has been spoken of as the Silence of God. Men are mightily perplexed because God seems to have retired into His heaven, and shut the brazen gates. The world is being convulsed and yet there does not seem to be any utterance from the Divine lips. Heaven has been silent, but for a very good reason. God has spoken in His Son and fully offered all He has to say in the way of grace. The only thing that remains is for God to speak in His wrath, and vex the nations in His sore displeasure. Unconverted people blame God and ask, Why does He not do something? But if He did, they would be overwhelmed in condemnation. Having said all He has to say in grace, He is silent until He speaks again in judgment.

In the Old Testament we have the record of how God raised up Moses and the prophets and through them formulated His holy demands upon men, and upon Israel in particular. In the New we have the revelation of grace and salvation in Christ. The contrast between the closing messages of the one and the other is very instructive and helpful.

Yet, while there are striking contrasts, we notice that certain things mark them both. For instance, the coming of the Lord is mentioned in both. In the Old, He is the Sun of righteousness; in the New, the bright Morning Star. When He arises as the Sun, it will be with healing in His wings. Many people today are emphatic on the healing power of sunlight, and I dare say they are right. When Jesus comes in His glory He will bring healing for the godly and those who fear His Name, as stated in verse 2. For the ungodly, as stated in verse 1, that day will burn as an oven. As you know, there are regions, such as Mesopotamia, where the sun can beat down with terrible heat, and the temperature sometimes rise to 120 degrees in the shade. So when Jesus comes as the Sun of righteousness it will be a burning oven for the wicked, who will be as stubble, though it will be healing for His saints. God will draw the line in that day between those that fear His Name and those that fear Him not. The coming of the Lord is equally spoken of in Revelation 22, though from a different aspect, and the line of demarcation between the godly and the ungodly is just as clearly drawn, particularly in verse 11.

Another thing that characterizes both endings is this: very great emphasis is laid upon the Word of God. In Malachi it is seen in verse 4. "Remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments." There were those that feared the Lord and thought upon His Name, and that spoke often one to the other, and these were the people upon whom the Lord set His eye. Here are the last words of instruction for these godly folk, left now for 400 years until the Day-spring from on high should visit them. Says the prophet, Remember the law given through Moses in all its parts, without omitting any details, and not some of it only: remember too it is for all Israel, and, therefore, for everyone who is of Israel. His message if summarized might read, All the Word of God for all the people of God.

These godly folk might have been tempted to think that the law had changed somewhat with the times. Their nation had been carried into captivity and they were grandchildren or great-grandchildren of those who came back in detachments under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah and other leaders whom God raised up. There they were, a comparatively broken and humble people in the land. They might easily have said, We hardly need to be concerned about all the law. Surely we need not bother our heads about this or that. We can slacken things a little bit there, and tighten up a little bit here. The prophet says, No! Remember the original word God gave you in all its details. It is all for you. It gives you light and guidance as to the mind of God even if the mass of your nation is still in the lands of their captivity.

I think I can see an analogy between our position today and that of these people. Truly there have been immense changes in the world since the days of the Apostles but the New Testament has not changed. There is still all the Word of God for all the saints of God. There is no presumption in each of us saying, I am one of the saints of God, therefore, it is for me. Shall we slacken a little here, or tighten a little there? We shall suffer spiritually of we do, since it is not for us to tamper with the Word of God. You may depend upon it that God who gave the original revelation and instructions through the Apostles, knew all about the history of the church as it would develop in the next twenty centuries. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14: 37, "If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord." Hence they stand for all of us today.

Now I turn to the passage in Revelation. Let me point out that again the Word of the Lord is greatly emphasized. In verse 7 we have, "Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book." No doubt primarily the book of Revelation, but equally one cannot doubt it was God's design that Revelation should stand as the conclusion to the New Testament, and, therefore, that pronouncement applies secondarily to all Scripture, the New Testament in particular.

What sayings they are! What wonderful unfoldings! Not as previously God formulating His law, testing us by it and bringing home to us thereby our sinfulness and need, but sayings which reveal what He has made known and accomplished in Christ — the Second Man and Last Adam. The first man fell in a garden of delights when everything was to his advantage. The Second stood in a wilderness, and in the face of every disadvantage. Then in the sayings of this book God unfolds the glorious consequences that flow from the triumph of Christ.

Blessed are we if we keep. How do we keep? Only by obeying, by putting into practice. We may store things mentally, and some of us do keep a crowd of things in our heads, yet we do not really have anything until we have used it in a practical and experimental way. A striking little verse has told us,

"For we must give, if we would keep

That good thing from above.

Ceasing to give, we cease to have;

Such is the law of love. "

I may borrow those words, making a slight alteration, thus,

For we must use, if we would keep

That good thing from above;

Ceasing to use, we cease to have;

Such is the law of love.

Truly then, as the Lord Himself said; " Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it" (Luke 11: 28).

But verse 7 is not the only allusion to the Word of God in this chapter. The Book and its words of prophecy are spoken of again in verses 10 and 18, and in verse 19 they are twice referred to. So in all we have it five times. How careful God is of His very words, and what emphasis is laid upon their integrity and power.

But, in addition to this great emphasis, we get a beautiful presentation of the Lord Jesus Himself, who is coming. A figure is used, as in Malachi. There He was the Sun of righteousness, rising in splendour here He is the bright Morning Star, the harbinger of the coming day. Still in verse 16 He presents Himself not only figuratively but also personally as "I Jesus," and this makes a special appeal to our hearts. He is still all that the figures indicate, but the reality is Jesus Himself. It is remarkable that in Malachi we do get Moses and Elijah mentioned in the last chapter along with the Sun of Righteousness, and again these two men were with Jesus on the Mount of Tranfiguration. There Peter made the mistake, as you will remember, of putting them almost on a level with His Master. They were only servants, who pursued their course for God, each in his day and generation; but Jesus was One who had stepped out of eternity to be there. No name can stand beside His.

In Revelation we have come to the end of the story. Moses and Elijah have disappeared. Peter and Paul and all the great names of every epoch have disappeared, and there remains — "I Jesus." He stands before us in all His excellent beauty and glory. He is the coming One, and he is coming quickly. Perhaps we have understood this word a little too much as referring to time and centuries whereas its primary meaning here may be that of swiftness — no gradual unfolding when He comes but swift as the flash of lightning! When He comes all will be brought to a triumphant conclusion.

When the whole church of God is introduced by Him into the glory of the Father, every eye will be on the One who has brought them there. We shall have nothing to boast in; for see what failure has marred our earthly pathways. All the inhabitants of heaven will turn their eyes upon Jesus and say, He has done it! Not one of them is lost. Everyone in his place, and everyone brought home to glory according to the Father's purpose. Wonderful, ten thousand times wonderful is JESUS! So while we wait for Him we would surely say, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

The better rendering of the last verse is, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints." The last word of Malachi is "curse," but there is no curse as we close Revelation. The curse of the Old Testament is supplanted by the grace of the New. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ will of course be with all the saints and never fail, since it is absolute grace that takes us all to glory. But that grace also is to be consciously realized by us.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be with us all as we travel on to His coming through the present scenes of toil and trouble, strife and desert life; resting upon our spirits, forming our characters, moulding our thoughts, entering our hearts, and coming into expression in our lives. The whole church of God needs it. Every little gathering of the Lord's people needs it. The saints of God — you and I and all the rest of us — greatly need it. Blessed be God! it rests upon us, and is available for us in every conceivable emergency.

Oh! may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, in this fashion, indeed be with all the saints. Amen.

"Come on" and "Get out."

"Come on" and "Get out."

Genesis 11: 1-9; Genesis 12: 1-3; Genesis 13: 1-4; Hebrews 11: 8-10.

Notes of Address at Bangor, North Wales, August 3rd.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 26, 1934, page 249, also Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 273.)

If we trace back the present world-system to its source we arrive at the Tower of Babel. There it was like a trickling stream, now it is like the mighty Amazon at its mouth, bearing all kinds of craft on its bosom. Its ramifications are so immense today that we become lost if we attempt to understand it. If, however, we consider what happened at Babel we find things much simplified, yet with the essential features present.

We are not told much as to the age that preceded the flood. What we are told in Genesis 5 and 6 leads us to think that it was an age of fierce and aggressive individualism. No government had been established by God, and violence and corruption filled the earth. The post-diluvian age took on another character. Men awoke to the fact that they could achieve the desire of their hearts far more effectively by combination and co-operation. It was not that God was more in their thoughts, for they made no mention of His Name. It was merely that instead of laying all stress upon "I," they learned to substitute "us." "Let us build us . . . and let us make us a name.

The beginning of their enterprise was "a city," and the city was to be followed by "a tower." Now a city is not only an aggregation of dwelling-places, but also a centre of power and influence. When men build a city they establish themselves in the earth, and having once got firm hold for themselves they can extend their power further afield.

The significance of the tower may not be so apparent. It can hardly have been intended as a place of refuge should another flood come, since all the high hills had been covered in the flood that was so fresh in their minds. Personally I connect it with the fact that the idolatry that overran the ancient world had its origins at Babylon and that this terrible trafficking with the devil and his powers (which is what really lies behind idolatry), was usually carried on in some lofty place.

If confirmation of this is sought, let Numbers 23 and 24 be read. As long as Balaam was seeking enchantments, by getting into touch with his familiar spirit, he went to high places: "the high places of Baal," "the top of Pisgah," "the top of Peor." As soon as he abandoned the attempt to get into touch with the powers of darkness, he lost interest in these high places, and "set his face toward the wilderness." The tower of Babel was, I judge, a first attempt to get into touch with these supernatural powers, though it may have had uses besides this. Satan, we must remember, has no objection to helping men to make a name for themselves in independence of God, for it exactly suits his designs.

Now the building of a city and a tower whose top should be lifted into the heavens is a task beyond the ability of one man. It can be accomplished without much difficulty if men combine together. Hence combination became the order of the day. "Go to," they said, "let us build." "Go to," has a strange old-world sound in our ears. It is an expression that has gone out of use. The expression we should use today is, "Come on," and this is the rendering adopted in Darby's New Translation. "Come on," they said, "let us make brick." And again, "Come on, let us build." Until the Lord Himself ultimately said, "Come on, let us go down and there confound their language."

The diversity of tongues in the earth has been a great brake on the chariot wheels of human progress. However, in spite of it men have combined as far as they could, and in recent times the idea of combination has been mightily revived. All knowledge and resources are being increasingly pooled and the world is moving with giant strides. Still the cry is "Come on!"

And that is the world's cry to you, my young Christian friend, and to me. Come on! it says; we have a bright idea; we have a good plan, we wish to abolish troubles. We wish to improve conditions. We want a happier world: a world where we can all enjoy ourselves more fully and for a longer time. You believe in good causes don't you? So do we! Ours is a good cause! Lend a helping hand! Join us! Come on! Come on! Come on!

"Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out." WHAT? Get out? Yes, "Get out."

Does that strike you as extraordinary? It should not. It is just what one might have expected. The post-diluvians were busy building a very nice world according to their own tastes — a world without God. Now God does not intend to be thus excluded, and therefore He took certain measures. First, He confounded their language and so upset their plans. Second, He began to formulate His own plan, and as a first step towards its ultimate accomplishment He called out one man, making him the depositary of the promise, and the ancestor, according to the flesh, of the Messiah in whom the promise centred.

The world began saying, "Come on, come on!" God began saying, "Get out, Get out!" The world has not ceased saying, "Come on!" God has not ceased saying, "Get out!" to all who have ears to hear.

Abram's separation was very complete. He left "country" — i.e. his national surroundings; "kindred," — i.e. his social surroundings; "father's house," — i.e. his domestic surroundings. And when he left Ur of the Chaldees he did not know where he was going, as Hebrews 11 so plainly tells. A marvellous act of faith! No wonder he is called "the father of all them that believe," and "the friend of God." No wonder that God specially blessed him, and made him a fountain of blessing for all families of the earth.

Not only did God promise to bless him, but also to make his name great. This is very striking. The great object of the men of Babel was to make themselves a name. The ante-diluvian world had perished. They wished to achieve something that would perpetuate their names, as names of renown, whatever might happen to them. Have their names been perpetuated? Their names are utterly forgotten, though now at length men are digging to find the ruins of their cities.

When Abram turned his back on the splendid Ur of his day, his action must have appeared to be the height of folly to the men of his generation. "Why," they would say, "you are throwing away all your chances. You leave civilization and plunge into the unknown. No monument will ever be erected in Ur to perpetuate your distinguished name to future generations!"

Some four thousand years have rolled and the name of Abraham is remembered by hundreds of millions of human beings! Not only Jews, Christians, and even Mohammedans venerate his name. And for thousands of years all traces of the names of the builders of Babel and Ur have vanished. "Let us make us a name" was their cry, and they are totally forgotten. "I will make thy name great," said God; and the thing is effectively accomplished.

Still Abram might have said, "It is very nice to know that my name is to be great in connection with things to come; but what have I got for the present?" If he asked that question he very soon found the answer. The answer confronts us as we open chapter 13. He had a tent and an altar. His tent stood in sharp contrast to their city. They were out to establish themselves in the earth; to "dig themselves in" — if we may use a modern phrase. He had but a flimsy and moveable tent, the sign of his pilgrimage. His altar stood in sharp contrast to their tower. If they sought to the heights to get into touch with spiritual powers of darkness, he had the lowly altar whereby he was maintained in communion with God.

Now here we have an indication of the immense compensation at the disposal of all those who have been called out of the world by the gospel today. Eternal blessing lies ahead, but communion with God is our privilege today. And think how much of God's mind and purpose has been revealed to us. God did not hide from Abram a certain thing which He was about to do, but let him into the secret. God has today let us into the secret of purposes which are immeasurably greater. By the side of his altar, outside Ur and Babel, Abram had a sight of things, utterly unknown in those great cities of man's construction. The believer of today who is in communion with God and separate from the world has the knowledge of things of which the world knows nothing.

Abram did have a sight of things far beyond his present surroundings. As Hebrews 11 tells us, he "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." The literal foundation of Babel and of Ur may have been all right: their moral foundations were all wrong. They were founded on human pride and power, and hence were doomed to destruction sooner or later. Abram wanted a city of divine construction founded on righteousness which is of God. That he looked for, and that he is going to get; for it says, God "hath prepared for them a city." In the light of that divine city the glory of Babel or of Ur was but a poor tinsel thing.

We have been called out of the world-system. Let us hold fast to that. "Get out," was God's word to us when we were converted, and never has He said, "Go back." As thus called out we have blessings, privileges and occupations which Abram never had. We have not less than he had but more. Blessed are we, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That could not have been said of Abram. Our place is that of Sonship with the Spirit of God's Son in our hearts, and that Abram had not. We are called to take some part, however humble, in the great work of God's present grace in calling out a people for His Name and called to association with Christ in the coming day of His glory. No such evangelical mission was known to Abram.

Still we have what Abram had. We have a spiritual pilgrimage to pursue and we have a place of communion with God and of worship, while we journey. We are called out of the world, put out of touch with its systems and order of things, in order that we may be put into touch, and maintained in touch with God, and with His order of things which centres in Christ.

No one need have pitied Abram! He was a prince moving amongst paupers! And no one need pity the out-and-out, devoted, consistent unworldly Christian! Congratulate him the rather. He is spiritually enriched today. His name will be great in the millennial age, when the great world names of today are as forgotten as though they had never been. Pity the vacillating compromising, semi-worldly Christian, if you like, but not one of the Abram type.

Young people which is it going to be for us? How do we stand as to these things? The call of God has reached us in the gospel. Have we fully responded to it? Are our world-links cut? As the world continues to call us, saying, "Come on, come on!" do we turn our backs to its siren voice because we have heard the divine call, "Get out!"?

God grant that thus it may be for every one of us.

"Come on"-"Get out"

"Come on"-"Get out"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 273.)

In Genesis 11 we are given a glimpse of the descendants of Noah a century or two after the flood. The antediluvian age had been one of individualism, since as yet government had not been established. Liberty flourished, ending in license which developed into violence and corruption. Now government of an elementary sort had been established by God, as recorded in Genesis 9: 5, 6.

This being so, every man's hand was no longer against his fellow, and a new age set in marked not by individualism but by co-operation. Men discovered that what they could not achieve as solitary individuals could be accomplished if they clubbed together. Hence in verses 3 and 4 of Genesis 11, we find twice repeated an expression-"Go to," which in Darby's New Translation is rendered, "Come on." The Hebrew word means, "To give help," so that, if we today wished to stir up others to act together, "Come on," is just what we should say.

But basically the spirit of the postdiluvian age was the same as that of the antediluvian, only instead of each seeking the self-exaltation, of himself, so that "I" was the great word, all together were to seek the exaltation of the great "US." It was "Let US build US a city and a tower and let US make US a name." What the Apostle John calls, "the pride of life" (1 John 2: 16), was the dominating factor.

At this point God acted in a two-fold way. As Creator He knew the intellectual and inventive powers He had conferred upon man, and that acting independently of Himself, with the lust of self-exaltation, "now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." Hence He confounded their methods of speech, which largely confused and hindered their confederation.

But the second thing He did came somewhat later, though it is recorded directly we commence to read chapter 12. To Abram He said, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house." This entailed separation of a very complete kind, inasmuch as idolatry had invaded the family out of which he was called, as Joshua 24: 3, 4, states. By the time he was called, the world-system had taken shape under the deluding power of Satan, and when men of the world were still saying "Come on," that they might accomplish their schemes, God said to him, "Get out."

Now this has ever been God's way. He separates His people from the world, that they may be for Himself. May we adduce a few more examples.

Take first the case of Abram's nephew, Lot. Here was a man who came out with Abram: a true saint at the bottom, for in the New Testament he is called "just [or, righteous] Lot;" though without that measure of faith that characterized his uncle. Hence, presently he drifted into the wicked city of Sodom, where their evil ways vexed his righteous soul from day to day. How different from Abram, yet when the hour came for the destruction of the city the angel's word was, "Hast thou here any besides? . . . bring them OUT of this places" So Lot had to say to them, "Up get you OUT of this place" (Gen. 19: 12, 14). They heeded him not, yet out he himself came, though like Job he might have to say, "I am escaped with the skin of my teeth" (Job 19: 20).

The descendants of Abraham went down into Egypt, which for the moment was a place of security and plenty under the benign rule of Joseph. Presently it became to them the house of bondage. If in Abram's day we see the world-system as the seat of man's progress in combination, yet under the idols of Satan's creation; and in Lot's day we see it as the seat of vile corruption; in the day of Moses we see Egypt as the world in its enslaving power, oppressing the people of God. Hence to Moses the word of God was, "I am come down to deliver them OUT of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them OUT of that land" (Ex. 3: 8). At that epoch Egypt was a splendid and attractive place, apart from the taskmasters, but it was no place for the people, if they were to worship God.

As we all know, though redeemed from Egypt, the people completely failed, falling persistently into idolatry under their kings until the captivity in Babylon took place. The predicted period having passed, under Cyrus a return to rebuild the temple was permitted, and we read, "These are the children of the province that went up OUT of the captivity" (Ezra 2: 1). Once more God called His people out, though only a few responded amongst the many. Once again tragic failure ensued, as we see in Malachi, so much so that when the Lord Jesus, as the promised Messiah, came He was rejected and crucified.

This brought things to a climax as the Lord Himself indicated in those wonderful words, recorded in John 12: 23-33. Referring to His being "lifted up," as the crucified One, He declared, "Now is the judgment of this world." This being the case, it should not surprise us that in this age of grace, which follows on His exaltation on high and the Spirit poured forth, the calling out of the world, of those who believe the Gospel should be strongly emphasised.

As regards Jewish believers, the Lord Himself announced it in advance. As the true Shepherd He entered the Jewish fold in the prescribed way, and amongst the sheep therein enfolded were some whom He called, "His own sheep." And what was His purpose in uttering His voice to them? Was it to stir them up to improve conditions in the "fold" and beautify it? NO. "He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them OUT." (John 10: 3).

But the Gospel has not been confined to Jews; it has gone forth to Gentiles also. This was quite a new departure in God's ways, and what was His purpose in it? In the early council at Jerusalem the Apostle James called attention to what had been declared by Simon Peter; namely that "God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take OUT of them a people for His name" (Acts 15: 14). So that is what God is doing today.

And have we Christians been true to this call of God? Alas, no. Very early in the Church's history believers forgot the nature of their calling and got entangled with the world as we see in the case of the Corinthians. They forgot, or perhaps they hardly yet realized, that there is no fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial; between the believer and an infidel, between the temple of God and idols. The Apostle Paul instructed them that the saints of today are "the temple of the living God," and so the call to them was, "Come OUT from among them, and be ye separate" (2 Cor. 6: 17). The world-system of today is no better than it was when the Apostle wrote these words, though there is a thin veneer of Christianity in English-speaking lands. We are certainly IN the world, as we pass on our pilgrim way; but we are not OF it, since we have been born OF God, and hence "the world knoweth us not because it knew Him not (1 John 3: 1).

From start to finish of the Bible God makes it plain that the saints, whom He owns, are to be separate from the world. This is a tremendous and far reaching fact. Let us each ask ourselves, How am I answering to it today?

The Coming of the Kingdom

The Coming of the Kingdom.

2 Peter 1: 1-11, 16-19.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 13, 1921, page 145.)

The following Address was given in Edinburgh during the last week of April, 1921:-

evening, April 29th.

First of all as indicating my subject I want to call your attention to the latter half of the 11th verse, where we read of "the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Having mentioned it, the apostle Peter proceeds to assure us that in writing to us concerning that kingdom he is not leading us upon a wild goose chase. We are not following cunningly devised fables. We have that which is absolutely sure and certain; not a poetic dream, but something that is to be established in actual visible fact here in this world. A moment is coming, and coming soon, when the Lord Jesus Christ will rise up, assert His power, put God's rights into visible enforcement in this world, and upon the ruins of all human administration, establish an actual dominion to the glory of God.

I do not know, beloved friends, how you feel as you look abroad over the earth, so far as you are able. I know what I feel — my heart calls out for the coming of the kingdom; and I can indeed say, I have not any hope of peace and blessing for men except in its establishment. The sooner He comes, the sooner He ends man's authority and man's dominion, and extends over the earth God's dominion, the better.

Now the latter part of this chapter presents very clearly before us two things that assure us that the kingdom is to be an actual fact, and the first is the word of prophecy. The Old Testament from cover to cover predicts this glorious moment; the grand terminus of all God's governmental ways with this world, the moment when we shall see the perfection of earthly administration; just as at the present moment, in the going forth of the gospel, we see the perfection of God's work of grace. As a matter of fact we see that the apostles, as they followed our Lord Jesus Christ here, had their minds full of that kingdom; indeed, it obsessed them, so much so that, not paying attention to all the prophets and all the Scriptures, they overlooked the fact that the only possible foundation upon which could be reared the glories of the coming kingdom was that of the sufferings of Christ. They overlooked the fact that when the Messiah came, He must be the suffering Messiah first in order that the kingdom might be righteously established. Our inclination to-day is to run to the opposite extreme, because we do know by the grace of God what has been done when Jesus came here in humiliation and suffered; and hence we are apt to spiritualize away this wonderful prediction of His coming earthly glory, treating it perhaps as something which may be merged into His ascension to the right hand of the Majesty on High, and thus we forget that the great mass of Old Testament prophecy waits its glorious fulfilment.

We have, says the apostle, the word of prophecy, and that word of prophecy he likens to a lamp that is shining in a dark place. I picked up sometime since an excellent volume by a first-rate Greek scholar who was greatly used years ago in the unfolding of the Word, and, opening at a page where he spoke of this Scripture, I found he took the liberty of substituting another word as giving us the sense of the original. He translated it like this: "a lamp that shineth in a SQUALID place." That is just what this world is. Am I talking to Christians who are enamoured of the present age? You look at all the discoveries of science and men's clever inventions; man is a very active and ingenious creature, especially when it comes to producing engines of destruction — and it all strikes you as wonderful and very imposing; yet the world, my friends, is a squalid place. Men and women are actuated by selfishness; self is the great master-thought by nature of every man, woman, and child; and the filth and degradation of sin is everywhere. When holy angels visit this world they must have the kind of feeling that you and I would have if, having been brought up in fairly decent surroundings, we went down to the dirtiest and lowest slum. This world of ours, in spite of all we have done with our gorgeous buildings, and our wonderful inventions, is the squalid slum of God's wide creation.

I am not surprised that men and women of this world are feeling hopeless; I wish they were more hopeless than they are. Why, man has been experimenting in the art of government for the last 6000 years. We have run through practically every form of government, until we have reached that particularly squalid form of it known as Bolshevism; and it seems as if there is nothing beyond it to be suggested. But just here the light of the coming kingdom shines. He reminds us of an hour when God shall be supreme; a day when government shall rest in the pierced hands of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when He shall have dominion, and when He will be brought forth as was Joash after the wicked Athaliah had done her worst, and we all shall shout then "God save the King."

The assurance that the Apostle gives at the end of this chapter is that we have the word of prophecy made more sure, or confirmed, by that wonderful private view of the coming Kingdom that he, with James and John, was permitted to have when the Lord called them apart up to the Holy Mount of Transfiguration. They there saw the kingdom, as we might say, in sample. Those who are Bible students will find it helpful to study the accounts in the Gospels; if you do so you will notice that the Transfiguration came in just when the Lord Jesus had been breaking to His disciples the news of His approaching death. He knew all their expectations, and the effect such tidings would have upon them. He knew it would blight their hopes. He knew it would cast them down into depths of despair and gloom, so no sooner had He told them that what was immediately before Him was not the establishment of visible glory but His rejection and crucifixion between two thieves, outside the gate of the city, than it was just as if He said: "Now I am going to assure you that though you will shortly see me rejected and crucified, My kingdom is a great reality and shall yet be established." So He called three of His disciples as witnesses, the three chief, just as David had the three mightiest among his mighty men, and taking them up the mount He gave them a little private view of the glories of the coming kingdom.

What did they see? Oh, they saw Himself transfigured before them; His very face shining like the sun, supreme in authority and power; and His very raiment white as the light; and they saw two glorified saints; they saw Moses and they saw Elias. Moses was a man who died under the hand of God, and his funeral was conducted by the same Almighty hand; and Elias was a man that never tasted death, but was raptured to heaven in a chariot of fire. These two saints, two representative saints, were seen one on the right hand and one on the left hand of Christ in glory. They represented the heavenly saints who will be glorified when Jesus comes for His people, according to the 4th chapter of 1st Thessalonians, and who will be composed of two classes: namely, those who have died and are raised in bodies of glory, represented by Moses; and those living, who are changed without dying at all into the same glorified condition in the twinkling of an eye, represented by Elias.

Then, again, on the mountain were the three disciples, just men in flesh and blood, living under the ordinary conditions of human life in this world, as we are. So when — the kingdom comes there will be supreme authority vested in the Lord Jesus, and saints enjoying a heavenly portion with Himself, and saints upon earth, basking in the sunlight of that heavenly scene. Heaven and earth will be brought into sweet harmony, all having its centre in the Son of God Himself, the glorified Lord Jesus. Thank God, dear friends, that we have not only the word of prophecy, but we have it confirmed by the fact that the thing has been seen in sample, and we are going to see it in bulk when the grand day of God's kingdom comes.

Now I want to call your attention to the early part of the 11th verse. It says: "For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." In the light of this word evidently there is such a thing as an abundant entrance into that kingdom, and also such a thing as having an entrance which is not abundant; in other words, the character of our entrance into that kingdom depends upon certain conditions. Here I must draw a little further distinction. Do not confound the everlasting kingdom with heaven. Keep distinct that which might be represented, by way of illustration, as the business sphere, from the home sphere.

There is, let us suppose, a wealthy man, and he is thinking of retiring from business, and making his very flourishing concern into a company. He has three sons, and all of them are in the business; and the question now is, what place respectively shall his sons occupy, the father becoming the chairman of the company, and largely a figurehead? What does he say? Well, there is my boy George, a brilliant lad, with a really good head on his shoulders. Yes, he is the man to be at the top and hold the reins, George must be managing director. Now, there is Harry, a good lad with no end of go, and sufficient push to carry him anywhere, but he has not much judgment. Harry shall be the chief of the sales' department, and have the travellers under him. And then there is our dear boy Frank — very charming, quite reliable, but a dreadful duffer in business matters. Well, what shall we do with Frank? Oh, let us make for him a snug corner in the counting-house and there he must stop. But when they get home in the evening, does he say to George — you are the managing director, you sit on this chair, and have the best of everything on the table? and you, Frank, you shall have the leavings? Never! As a wise man he will not bring these distinctions into the home circle. Here all are on the same footing of relationship, and all are loved equally. That is the difference between the home circle and the business circle, illustrating the differences between the Father's house, where we shall be in the blessed relationship of children, and the kingdom, with its rewards according to our faithfulness and character.

The place we shall have in heaven will not be based upon our qualities or our endeavours; we are accepted in the Beloved if we are accepted at all. If by God's grace you are believers you stand in Christ's acceptance; you have the children's place, and upon you there beams forth the love of the Father's heart without any variation or diminution. No differences are recognized; it is all yours as much as it was the Apostle Paul's if you are a child of God. But there is the kingdom represented in my illustration as the business sphere. The Lord Jesus in that day is going to use His saints in the administration of His kingdom. He is going to give ten cities to one, five cities to another, as stated in that well-known parable in Luke's Gospel. Here there is going to be a difference, and I would earnestly exhort all Christians, especially young believers, who, if the Lord comes not for a few years, have life before them, that they make good use of what is entrusted to them; for depend upon it there are many of us who, though we shall be in heaven in the full blessing of the relationship which is ours in Christ, will have but a small place when the day of the kingdom comes.

Now let me ask this question: What is going to determine the place which we may have in the coming kingdom? That is the point of the earlier verses of this chapter. If you glance at verses 1 to 4, you will see they emphasize the things that are given to us. Verse 1 speaks of what we have obtained! Verse 3 speaks of all that pertains to life and godliness, having been given to us by God's divine power. Verse 4 speaks of our having received great and precious promises. These things are given to us, they are ours. But now, from verse 5, there is a change. He says, "Besides this" — besides all these great and blessed realities that are given to us through the grace of God — "add to your faith virtue [or courage]." Faith obviously is that with which we begin; you cannot be a Christian apart from faith. Then add to courage knowledge and to knowledge temperance or moderation, to that patience or endurance, to that godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity or love, which is the crowning Christian grace; it is the very nature of God Himself. And I am told that the way our translators have put it is not exactly how it stands in the original. It would better be, "Have in your faith, virtue," and so on. When we read: "Add to your faith, virtue," we have some such idea as that of adding brick to brick; but if we read "have in your faith virtue," it occurs rather in this light: There is a little fruit-bud in April on the apple tree. Now, it is a fact that in that bud there is, in a very elementary, very embryonic form, an apple, perhaps half-a-dozen apples; and if it be not there in embryo, it will never be there full grown when September comes. It is so small as to be microscopic, still it is there, and in the same way our faith really has within it in embryo form all these other graces. What is needed? Why, DILIGENCE under the gracious influence of the Spirit of God, so that we may mature and come to fruition; just as under summer influences the sap flows up through the trunk and branches to the buds and silently yet surely expands them into perfection. Oh! Christian, here is something that is going to determine your place and mine in the kingdom.

Let me put it like this: One thing that will determine your place in that day is the measure in which there has been found in you solid Christian character — the reproduction in your life of those excellent graces which in all their perfection were seen in Jesus — that is the thing that God loves. If there is a saint in whom the character of Christ is eminently seen, you are not going to be surprised — are you? — if the Lord Jesus picks out that saint for a very important place when the day of His kingdom comes.

Time prohibits my reading to you other Scriptures, but if you know Luke 18 — that is the chapter where we have the parable of the pounds — you have it taught that service is going to help to determine our place in the kingdom. When the Lord comes back, having received the kingdom, he will call His servants before Him in order that He may know how much each man has gained by trading. Turning also to 1 Corinthians 3: 13, you will find how service is to be tested in view of the kingdom to see whether men have built gold, silver, precious stones, all things that stand the fire, or whether wood, hay, stubble, things which are destroyed by fire; for "the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." Let us each, as concerns our service, take to heart those words "how much" and "of what sort," for as we have served our rejected Lord, so will our position in the kingdom be.

Then there is a third thing; if you turn to 2 Timothy 2: 12: "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him," evidently not only service, but suffering, is going to help to determine the place of the saint in the kingdom. Stephen, for instance, did not range over many countries, carrying the Gospel in a wide circle, as Paul did. But Stephen died for His Master's sake; Stephen suffered even when his face was shining like the face of an angel, and a large place in the kingdom will be his.

In the light of these Scriptures I think we can see that three things will determine our place in the kingdom — service, suffering, and character; the character of Christ developed as the fruit of our own diligence, under the hand of God, and amid the stresses of daily life.

Now that the meetings are practically over, I want to give a final appeal. Have you fresh views of divine truth? Is the Word of God more precious to you? Oh! how are you going to use it in view of the coming kingdom? Are you going to be like the men in the house of "Interpreter" whom the wife of "Christian" and her boys saw? You will remember they were taken into a very dirty room, and they saw a man with a rake in his hand, working amongst the sticks and stones and dust of the floor, and they perceived that just behind him was an angel standing and holding up a crown of glory. Yet, John Bunyan says, he did not regard, but went on raking to himself the sticks and stones and dust of the floor. We know his name, do we not? "Muckrake" is what John Bunyan calls him.

How many Muckrakes there are among the children of God! How many setting before them merely the getting on in this world, and the question of riches! How many are there setting Christ supremely before them? His interests; His love; His service, and the day of the glorious kingdom that is coming. God help us each to keep the Saviour, who is coming, shining before our souls as the bright and morning star, and to live in view of the coming of His bright day. If we have it thus, we shall not be caught by the seductions of this world; we shall have Christ and His kingdom our crowning objective. Oh, what glory it will be when we shine forth at His appearing; and even sweeter the enjoyment of the Father's house and all the fullness of the Father's love.

A Seeming Contradiction

A Seeming Contradiction.

"Let both grow together until the harvest" Matthew 13: 30.

"Come out from among them, and be ye separate" 2 Corinthian 6: 17.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 29, 1937, page 268.)

That there are no real contradictions in the Word of God we are well assured, though there are passages that present a contradictory appearance to the superficial reader. On closer inspection however the contradiction disappears and some rich spiritual instruction comes to light. A case in point is furnished by the two scriptures noted above.

In Matthew 13, all attempt on the part of the servants of the parable to separate between the wheat and the tares, by rooting up the latter, is forbidden — the wheat representing "the children of the kingdom," and the tares, "the children of the wicked one." In 2 Corinthians 6, a separation between the believer and the unbeliever is strictly enjoined. There certainly seems to be a contradiction here.

It cannot be urged that different epochs are contemplated in the two passages, and that the solution of the problem lies in that. The parable of the tares in the field is one that shows how the kingdom of the heavens in its present form has taken on its very mixed character, which is to be ended by the coming of the Lord; and consequently shows that the mixture must persist throughout the present period. Paul's instructions as to separation are valid for just the same period. Both passages apply to the present epoch in which we live.

We do notice however that it is the kingdom of heaven which is likened to this inextricable mixture of wheat and tares in the field; whilst the instruction to come out and be separate from the unbelievers is addressed to "the church of God which is at Corinth." There is a difference here. Let us consider it.

The kingdom of heaven is of course not heaven but rather that sphere on earth where the rule of heaven is acknowledged. All those who profess and call themselves Christians profess to be under the authority of the Lord who has taken His seat in the heavens. In this parable 'the field" is explained by the Lord as being "the world," and it is by the sowing of the good seed in the world that the children of the kingdom have been brought forth. By the enemy's sowing of tares in this same field have the children of the wicked one been produced. All are in the same world and thoroughly mixed together, especially in those parts which we may speak of as Christendom.

Now this parable makes it very clear that it is not the business of the Lord's servants today to attempt to disentangle the children of the wicked one and clear them out of the world. They will be disentangled from the children of the kingdom and cleared right out when the Son of Man comes and inaugurates the era of the kingdom displayed in power, and the work will be done by angels and not by men. To clear the evil out of Christendom is no business of ours.

Many Christians cling to the idea that to the church has been committed the mission of converting the world; that the Christian gospel, supplemented by Christian education and influence, is going to reduce the tares and ultimately eliminate them, and that so the millennium will be introduced. There is no support for this idea in the parable, but the very reverse. The suggestion made by the servants of the householder was that they should root the tares out of the field, and this was forbidden by the householder. He saw that they lacked the necessary discrimination and skill, and that their efforts would result as much in rooting up wheat as in rooting up tares.

There was a prophetic warning in this. We have only to read a little history to learn what efforts have been put forth by the great Papal system to root the tares out of the field — in other words, to eliminate "heretics" from Christendom, by destroying them out of the earth. In no country was the Papacy more successful in this work than in Spain. They piled the faggots round the "heretics" and burned them by the score, calling the solemn occasion, "auto-de-fe" which means "an act of faith." The irony of it! Much of Spain's present day misery can be traced back to their fatal success.

They did their work all too well. No one was spared who confessed faith in Christ as the only Mediator apart from His virgin mother, and saints and angels. There were not many "heretics" in Spain, so the Inquisition ended with the triumphant feeling that they had rooted all the "tares" out of the land. In reality they had rooted up every visible blade of "wheat." If any system other than the Papal system attempted the same thing to-day, they would only end by producing the same terrible result.

So a brief summary of the parable of the tares of the field would be this: while the kingdom of heaven persists in its present form, the human servants are forbidden to attempt to rectify matters by rooting out of the world the children of the wicked one.

But in 2 Corinthians 6 the church is in view and not the kingdom. Those who are members of Christ, and of His body, are not told to root the ungodly out of the earth, if they were, there would indeed be a great contradiction between the two passages. They are told to be separate as regards all "fellowship" with the ungodly. Just because we are not called upon to put things right in the great "field" of the "world," we are called upon to let a strong line of demarcation exist, and be very visible, between ourselves and the world. The truth here is not contradictory of Matthew 13, but complementary to it.

Examine the passage for a moment and see how this is so. We are not to be "unequally yoked together with unbelievers." The word "unequally" might more accurately be translated "diversely." It is an allusion to Deuteronomy 22: 10 where it is forbidden to plough with such animals together as an ox and an ass. They are diverse in nature and hence thoroughly different in habits and gait. It would be an utter misfit and entail misery for both animals. Now there is a fundamental diversity of nature between the believer and the unbeliever, which forbids anything like a yoke between them. Of course we move amongst unbelievers and have much contact with them in our daily callings, and oftentimes even in the home. We are called upon to behave with the utmost grace and to let our light shine before them. But we are not to be yoked with them.

The question may be asked — What exactly constitutes a yoke? The following verses, containing a series of questions, help to answer this. "What fellowship . . . what communion . . . what concord . . . what part . . . what agreement?" These five words show what kind of thing is forbidden. Moreover they are followed by the positive instruction to "come out . . . be separate . . . touch not the unclean." — three other words which reinforce the five questions. We are not to involve ourselves in any fellowships or partnerships which would yoke us to unbelievers and commit us to the unclean things with which their world is filled. Without any question marriage is a yoke of that kind, and business partnership is another; and other things too come under the scope of this word. Again and again we have to ask ourselves when commitments are proposed to us — Will this thing involve me in an unequal yoke?

Many a godly Christian has had to suffer as to his worldly prospects because he obeyed this scripture. He could have made a lot more money if he had consented to partner some ungodly man and share in his enterprises. This is just what the closing words of the chapter contemplate. We may be losers as to the things of the world, but we shall not ultimately lose, for the Lord God Almighty will take us up and father us in a very real way. We may always rely on Him.

In connection with this such scriptures as 1 Corinthians 5: 13, and 2 Timothy 2: 19-21, have their place. Both show that flagrant evil — whether moral or doctrinal — is not to be given lodgment in the bosom of the church of God. Not only is there to be a clear-cut line of separation between the saints and the world, but evil of the types mentioned in these two passages is to have no place in their midst. And this is the more urgent and important because we are found in the midst of such a mixed state of affairs in the world. Just because we cannot root the tares out of the world field, it is so important to maintain the line of separation, which is warranted and enjoined by the Scripture.

Rightly understood then, the two passages, cited at the outset, support and reinforce each other.

"Count it all joy."

"Count it all joy."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 33, 1941, page 6.)

Nowhere has been a tendency in some quarters to look down upon the Epistle of James as being rather below the standard of the other Epistles. It is true of course that it was written rather early in the day, when the full character of that which God had instituted on the day of Pentecost had hardly come to light; and that consequently it is addressed to the twelve tribes, amongst whom the Christians were but a remnant and mainly poor and persecuted, and that mention is made of the synagogue. Still though this is so, James enforces a standard of life and behaviour which is very high, dealing with matters in a severely practical way. To listen to James — and he calls upon us to do so, saying, "Hearken, my beloved brethren" (James 2: 5) — is a profitable and wholesome exercise. It is also humbling, since we discover how far we come short of the standard he sets.

We have only to read the very first remark he makes to be greatly humbled. "My brethren," he says, "count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. The temptations of which he speaks are the things that try us and put us to proof. They may of course take the form of enticements springing from our own lusts, as verse 14 indicates; but on the other hand they may not. God never entices us but He does permit, and even send, many testings from without, thus working "the trying of your faith;" that is, the putting of faith to the test. Everything that is of value has to be tested, and God sets a great value on faith.

Every year the Patent Office in London passes thousands of applications, but very few of them come to anything. When set before men of practical experience they shake their heads and dismiss the idea as not really workable. If they should suggest that a model be made so that the idea may be put to the test the inventor is glad. And he is far more glad if the test shows that the idea is workable and valuable. The sad thing is when it is not worth even a test. Now faith is eminently worth testing, and we may indeed praise God if we have the genuine article, and confront the testing with joy.

Is this the spirit in which we are meeting the testings of the present time? We must each answer that question for ourselves, and most of us will have no ground for self-satisfaction when we have honestly answered it. The testings are certainly "divers," or "various." For many the winds of adversity seem to be blowing from all four quarters at once. Their homes are damaged and evacuated; their businesses disturbed and perhaps dispersed; their families scattered, some members injured if not killed; their enjoyment of Christian fellowship largely impaired by meetings being broken up. Others have not suffered to the same extent, yet in various ways tribulation has come in, and the old life of quietude and orderly Christian privilege and service quite dispelled. Are we counting these things to be joy?

This trying situation is being met, we believe, with considerable fortitude. But this could be asserted about the populace generally. Is our fortitude definitely Christian in its character? Does it spring from the consciousness of the rich fulness that we have in Christ? We are thankful to bear witness that we have not heard the voice of grumbling and discontent: there has been quiet resignation and acceptance of what God has permitted. This is good, but it is not that of which James speaks. So often are we resigned and quiet and even trustful; yet not characterized by JOY.

What will enable us under such circumstances to rejoice? Only those things of which James proceeds to speak to us. We are to know that all these things are intended to test our faith, and that the testing is going to work out endurance, which is a quality that God prizes very highly. In the very nature of things it presupposes trials which are long drawn out, and so we are told to let endurance have its fully developed and completed work. The process is one which cannot be hurried, trying though it may be. The end to be reached is well worth the process. It is nothing less than our being ourselves fully developed and complete, lacking trothing. When the testings have been thoroughly carried out we shall be the finished article, turned out as graduates in the Divine university.

"Alas!" we have to exclaim, "how far from such full development we are today." Truth compels us so to speak, and our imperfection is contemplated by James in the very next verse. The objective is that we be complete, lacking nothing; but immediately there follow the words, "If any of you lack wisdom . . ." How often do the testings reveal our lack in this direction! A child howls when things go wrong and it gets hurt, largely because it lacks understanding, and it cannot imagine the reason of what has happened nor its object. The grown-up man in a similar case sets himself to understand and profits by the trouble. But wisdom is more than mere understanding. The wise man is one who can apply with discretion the things that he understands.

Again and again the testings reveal to us our lack of wisdom. Very well then, we are to ask wisdom from God, who gives liberally and without upbraiding, and it shall be given to us. A wise understanding of God's dealings and ways cannot possibly be ours unless it is given to us of God, hence He will not upbraid as though it were something that we ought not to need. Asking, it shall be ours in liberal measure, only we must ask in faith. It is our faith that is being tested; hence of course in our asking, faith is a sine qua non.

We make bold to say that if God thus bestows wisdom in liberal fashion He will in the same way bestow all else that we may need as the testings run their course.

In testifying to us of the benefits that flow from the testings of our faith James is not alone. Paul tells us the same thing in even greater detail in Romans 5. No sooner has he spoken of the justification which is ours by faith, than he goes on to tell us of the excellent fruits of tribulation. He mentions not only patience, or endurance, but experience, hope, and the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. So also Peter in the last chapter of his first Epistle; telling us that the God of all grace has called us to His eternal glory after we have suffered a while, and indicating that He can use that very suffering to make us perfect, stablish, strengthen and settle us. We may feel inclined to say, "All these difficulties and this suffering has an unsettling effect on my mind." Turning to the God of all grace however, things would work in just the opposite way, and we should be settled thereby.

The end in view, that we may be "perfect and entire, wanting nothing" is certainly most desirable. Keeping it in view we shall be able to rejoice in some measure. James however is not satisfied with a measure of rejoicing: he says, "Count it ALL joy." It would indeed be no inconsiderable thing if we could count it fifty per cent. joy, but we are exhorted to count it one hundred per cent joy! A counsel of perfection truly! But then the faith of Christ always does set perfection before us.

The high standard which James erects should encourage us to ask in faith from our God who gives so liberally. We shall then pursue our troublesome way not wearily and with dejection, but with courage and joy of heart.

A Danger to be Avoided

A Danger to be Avoided.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 38, 1953-5, page 193.)

The formation of the church of God is recorded in Acts 2. The power that marked its earliest days though it was from the outset in the place of rejection by the world, is recorded in Acts 3 and Acts 4. Then in Acts 5 we have recorded the first evil that was manifested in the midst of it. This was the sin of pretentiousness; of posing as though a higher standard of spirituality and devotedness were possessed than really existed.

Many were selling their possessions and devoting the proceeds to the Lord. Ananias and Sapphira sold theirs, and presented a part of the proceeds as though it were the whole. Ananias acted the lie. Sapphira told it. They desired to acquire a reputation of being more heavenly-minded than they were. Pretension to higher spiritual condition was the first recorded sin then, in the church's history. It will also be the last, as we shall see.

This sin of pretension began with individuals, and it is a danger which threatens every Christian as an individual; this is made very plain in the Epistles. We quote a few passages in support of this assertion.

"For I say . . . to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think" (Rom. 12: 3).

"If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know" (1 Cor. 8: 2).

"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10: 12).

"If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual . . ." (1 Cor. 14: 37).

"If a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself" (Gal. 6: 3).

Those were the days when indeed there were men who knew the things of God, if anyone ever did. There were those who stood, who were prophets and spiritual, and therefore were something in the Divine way of reckoning, but these were just the ones who were happily occupied with Christ and His service, and not thinking of themselves. Those who were doing the thinking, and making claims for themselves, based on that thinking, were largely pretenders. This the Apostle's language indicates. In two instances, above cited, he plainly says, "he knoweth nothing," "he is nothing;" in the others he plainly infers that the pretenders were by no means all they thought themselves to be.

But the most striking exemplification of the point we are considering is found in the addresses of the Lord to the seven churches of Asia, recorded in Revelation 2 and 3. In six out of the seven this sin of pretension is alluded to.

To Ephesus He speaks of "them which say they are apostles, and are not." He characterizes them as "liars."

To Smyrna: "them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan."

To Thyatira: "that woman, Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce . ."

To Sardis: "thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.''

To Philadelphia: "the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and not, but do lie."

To Laodicea: "thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind and naked."

In these scriptures notice several things.

First of all, the claimants here are companies rather than individuals. It is "them," which say. Jezebel is a typical woman, representing more than an individual. To Sardis and Laodicea it is "thou," but this is said to the "angel," who represents the church! so that it indicates virtually the whole church, with the exception of a small remnant.

Then it is "say" here, and not merely "think." The evil has intensified since the day of Paul's epistles. An hour had arrived when these pretensions were not only in people's minds, but said boldly out in the ears of all.

Further, viewing these addresses to the churches as prophetic, it appears that the evil deepens as the history proceeds.

Ephesus was troubled with a little band of men who claimed apostleship. This was a claim likely to deceive in the days when most of the genuine apostles had been removed by martyrdom, and the canon of Scripture was hardly complete. The same dangerous claim has however been raised in our day on behalf of men, who are deemed to be "spiritual," and whose utterances in properly convened meetings are therefore to be accepted as almost, if not entirely, as authoritative as Scripture.

In the age of Smyrna there was trouble and bitter opposition from a certain clique, who claimed a place analogous to that of the Jew. They were truly a "synagogue," but it was of Satan. They were religionists and ritualists without reality.

There is a distant lowering with Thyatira. Jezebel called herself a prophetess, and she indicates, we believe, the Romish hierarchy, who claim the exclusive right of interpreting the Scriptures, and thus of voicing the mind of God. Jezebel is suffered. The pretender here is thoroughly inside the church and is in power.

Out of this state of things Sardis springs. Protestantism — using the word in the largest sense — has a far more respectable exterior and has established for itself a certain reputation, or "name." Yet it is pronounced to be dead. This God-given movement soon got linked up with worldly powers and politics, so that its very life was drained away in wars as well as internal contentions. It is no longer the pretensions of a clique, but the whole church is indicted, though a few things remain not yet dead.

In Philadelphia we get a little glimpse of the brightness and reality which marked the church at the beginning. Once again pretension is confined to a clique outside its pale rather than inside. The religionists, w ho love to claim a place on earth, again appear.

In Laodicea we reach the sad climax. The whole church is infected, as in the case of Sardis, but there it was only a claim to live whereas here the church actually claims to be a paragon of perfection! The claim ends, "I have need of nothing." Could pretension go further? And could the Lord's condemnation be more severe?

Notice one thing more. In every case the Lord, who scrutinizes the churches with eyes as a flame of fire, disallows the claims, and that in most incisive language. In not one case is there the smallest foundation in fact for that to which they lay claim. The very reverse. "Liars;" "Synagogue of Satan;" "Dead;" "Wretched, miserable poor, blind, naked;" are some of the terms He uses.

Now all this has a very distinct voice to us. We live in an age which more and more is taking on the character of Laodicea. And more than this, alas! Many of us, who have aimed at walking in the truth, and having our church life in accordance with the order laid down in Paul's epistles, are conscious how this spirit of pretension has been displayed in such circles, and of how we ourselves may have become infected by it.

Looking back over the years, we have heard claims to be "the spiritual," or, "a new lump," or, "Gideon's three hundred." Or, to possess "the new light," or "the needed truth," or to be "bearing the ark of the testimony'' or "standing for God."

It is a fact, thanks be to God, that there are today spiritually-minded saints, who in their measure are standing for God, bearing His testimony and ministering needed truth. He knows them all, and their secret approbation is with Him, as is also their public recognition in the coming day, as Revelation 3: 9 shows. But let us beware of trying to label them, lest we fall into the folly of labelling ourselves thus. Never let us forget that to claim to be, or to have, these things is certain proof that we are or have nothing of the kind.

What then is becoming in the Laodicean age? Just that which is indicated in these verses (14-22). First, to recognize the Lord as He presents Himself to us here. He is the "Amen;" the One in whom is found the completion and perfect response to all the purposes of God. He is "the faithful and true Witness," who stands forth as the complete and full representation of all that God is, when the church in its witness has failed. He is "the beginning of the creation of God," for in Him, risen from the dead, God has made a new start. He, and not the church, is the foundation of all. Thus all human pretension is demolished.

Second, be it ours to accept the chastening, spoken of in verse 19, and with zeal in our hearts — the opposite of lukewarmness — to repent. Now repentance works such a salvation from the things repented of as is permanent and abiding, as 2 Corinthians 7: 10 indicates.

Third, as we hear Him knocking at the door of our hearts, to swing that door open, that He may enter. Then will be established communion of the sweetest and most heavenly sort. He will condescend to our table that He may know our things, and lift us to His table that we may enter into and enjoy His things.

If in any measure this experience is ours we shall not only find "the things of earth" growing "strangely dim," but our own selves, in our natural self-importance, will disappear, "in the light of His glory and grace."

It is evidently possible to enjoy such communion with our risen Lord even in the last days of the church's history. In the measure in which we do so we shall be marked by the repentant spirit and the avoidance of that self-occupation which leads to pretentious claims.

The Day of Manifestation

The Day of Manifestation.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 161.)

The attentive reader of the Apostle Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians can hardly fail to notice the persistent note of correction that runs right through it. The state of this large assembly, composed mainly of converts from among the Gentiles, was carnal rather than spiritual, and many evils had crept in amongst them. But have we all taken to heart the fact that of all these evils the one to which the Spirit of God gave the first place was that of magnifying certain gifted servants of God to the displacing of Christ for in 1 Cor. 1: 12, He is mentioned as though He were but the leader of a party in the church, and that party fourth on the list, and not the first. This dethroning of Christ was the first, and worst, and most fundamental of all the evils. When that takes place any other evil may easily develop.

Consequently in that first chapter Paul makes repeated mention of the great Head of the church, and dwells repeatedly on His Lordship. Upon the Name of the Lord we call. The fellowship to which we are called finds its Centre in Him as Lord. We wait for His coming, when will be established "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." When that day arrives the most gifted of His servants will have to stand in His presence, and have all their service reviewed and perfectly estimated by Him. His verdict will decide everything.

This fact comes plainly to light when 1 Corinthians 3 is reached. The work is God's and the varied human servants are only "workers together," or "co-workers" under Him. Their work may be varied, not only in its nature but also in its fidelity and spiritual value. Some may be building with, "gold, silver, precious stones," others, alas, with "wood, hay, stubble;" materials which will not abide when tested by fire, which is the symbol of a searching judgment; and as verse 13 says, "the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire."

Now "the day" of verse 13 clearly refers to "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ," that had been mentioned in chapter 1. So we, who have called upon His Name, and who have been called into His fellowship, and who await His coming, when the night of His absence will end and the day of His presence will dawn, must never forget that its searching light will bring everything into manifestation, whether good or bad -everything will be fully declared. We must live our lives in the remembrance of that.

If we do, we shall be delivered from being over-impressed with the judgments, that may be expressed by men of the world, or even by carnally-minded believers. This we see when chapter 4 is reached.

In verse 3 we find the Apostle saying, "With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment," or as it more literally is, "of man's day." Elsewhere the Apostle writes, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand " (Rom. 13: 12). So evidently man's "day" is really the "night," if we view it from God's standpoint, which is also ours, through grace.

Unconverted men of the world view things in the light of their own fallen understandings. When spiritual things are in question their "light" is only darkness, and consequently their judgments on such matters carried no weight in the Apostle's mind, nor need they carry weight in ours. But it is a sad and solemn thing that he had to express the same unconcern as to the judgment "of you;" that is, of the Corinthian saints. Thus he spoke, because at the beginning of chapter 3, he had to tell them bluntly that he could not speak to them as being "spiritual," but as being "carnal . . . babes in Christ."

Now a carnal Christian is one who though truly a believer and indwelt by the Spirit is not walking in the Spirit, as we are exhorted to do in Galatians 5: 16. He is open therefore to fulfil the lust of the flesh. The believer who walks in the Spirit does so as having come under "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which sets him "free from the law of sin and death," as is indicated in Romans 8: 2. Here are two forces: that of the Holy Spirit, and that of the flesh — the old nature, which we have derived from Adam — and under the "law," or "control" of one or the other we live. Though converted and possessing the Spirit of God, we still have the flesh in us, and our lives may still be largely controlled by it, and "the carnal mind is enmity against God" (Rom. 8: 7). This is a strong and terrible thing to say, but such is its intrinsic nature, and hence, even in a believer, it leads his thoughts and judgments astray, according to the measure in which it controls him. No wonder the Apostle was not much impressed by any judgments passed on him by his converts at Corinth.

The saints are to judge manifested evil, as the closing verses of 1 Corinthians 5 show. The spiritually-minded saint is to judge what he hears put forth as truth, as stated in 1 Corinthians 14: 29. But when it is a matter of passing an opinion upon servants of the Lord, as though we could assess the value of their life and work, let us remember what is stated in 1 Corinthians 4: 5. Amidst all the weakness and failure which encompasses the best of God's servants here, there are "the hidden things of darkness" and further we do not know the motives that largely govern their thoughts and actions. There are "the counsels of the hearts"-the hidden motives that led to words and actions. Now both these factors, unknown to us, will be brought into the light. Of every one of them we have to say, "the day shall declare it."

This verse, with which we close our short paper, is one of the most searching contained in the Scripture. What contentions, and strifes, and divisions, and scandals, have marred the history of the professing church of God! Every one of them will be reviewed and straightened out. Everything will be seen in its true light. All that was false condemned. All that was true approved and rewarded. And then, instead of seeking praise from one another each will have any praise he merits from God - which is the only praise that really counts.

We may well praise God that such a moment of judgment, and rectification and appraisement is coming, when man's day ends, and "the day" arrives.

"Dead to the law."

"Dead to the law."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 13, 1921, page 195.)

Romans 7 is mainly a chapter of experience, yet, even so, the first six verses are occupied with what is doctrinal, with a statement of the bearing of Christ's death upon the believer in relation to the law. Verse 4 in particular sets that forth.

Verse 1 reminds us that death sets a term to law's dominion, being, so to speak, the boundary of law's domain. Verses 2 and 3 illustrate the working of that fact by referring to its operation in the relationship of husband and wife. Verse 4 gives the great application of the fact before the mind of the Spirit in connection with the death of Christ. The believer has died to the law in the death of Christ. His history, as under law, was judicially ended there.

We say judicially ended, to distinguish from what may be historic or experimental, but perhaps an illustration may be helpful.

A great lawsuit comes on before the courts, let us suppose. It turns upon the validity of a will disposing of a vast estate, and its result is a judicial decision which destroys the title of the man in possession of the property and establishes that of the claimant. Here, then, at once, the former owner's hold upon the property is judicially ended. For a few days, however, he is still in residence in the ancestral mansion, and then he has to turn out bag and baggage, and the new owner enters amid congratulations of servants and retainers. The former owner's hold upon the property is now historically ended. Even yet, however, there is much to be done. There are many agents and factors, and a host of accounts to be transferred and small details settled. After some months the last item is closed. The whole transfer in all its ramifications is complete. The former owner's hold upon the property is now experimentally ended.

The illustration is as usual imperfect, but it serves to distinguish between what was fully accomplished judicially at the cross, and what is reached historically at conversion; and, again, that which is experimentally learned and accepted by the believer. This last is not something which takes place once and for all, but something to be wrought out "line upon line, here a little and there a little" under the teaching of the Spirit of God.

In verse 4, then, the law is considered as the old husband. Up to Christ, the Jewish saint naturally turned to it for the direction and counsel he needed, and yet, at the same time as he obtained the counsel he got also a deep sense of his own shortcoming and necessary condemnation if law without mercy were applied to his case. Psalm 119 is a fine example of "wifely" affection for the old husband. The law is magnified under many different titles, and the spirit of the whole is, "oh, how I love Thy law!" (ver. 97). Yet all through are interspersed confessions of failure judged by its holy standards, cries for quickening — the law never could quicken (Gal. 3: 21) — and prayers for deliverance.

We, however, have been made dead to the law "by the body of Christ," i.e., by His death, for He took the body prepared for Him in order that He might suffer (Heb. 10: 5-9). Having thus died and our connection with the law having thus been judicially dissolved, the object in view is that we should be "married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead."

The believer then is to look up to the risen Christ as the One with whom his new links are formed — links of a far finer and tenderer character than ever existed in connection with law. Do we want support, direction, wisdom, counsel, all those things, in short, for which the wife should turn to the husband? — if both are according to the divine ideal — we turn to Christ risen with whom all our associations now are. He is the living Source of them all. Under His love, and direction and fostering care, the believer brings forth fruit unto God.

"Beautiful!" we probably ejaculate in our minds. "The idea is wholly admirable; but, oh, when one comes to take it up as a matter of experience — to work it out experimentally — how deep are the troubles into which we are plunged."

Exactly. Hence the wonderful passage, verses 7 to 25, experimental in the highest degree, which follows. These troubles and exercises, this anguish of mind, are all portrayed from the rich knowledge which Paul himself had of the practical working of the thing.

It is noticeable that in this passage the first streak of light amidst the gloom is when he reaches the knowledge of the utter badness of the flesh (verse 18). The fact is that this is the "Hougomont" of the great "Waterloo" of the soul — the point around which all the battle of exercise and anguish rages. Let that point be really and decisively carried, and the believer soon learns to look away from his worthless self to Christ the risen One, and in His risen life and by His Spirit (Rom. 8: 2) all this "fruit unto death" is changed to "fruit unto God" and the path of victory.

The Death of the Lord

The Death of the Lord.

"For the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." 1 Corinthians 10: 26.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 17, 1925, page 223.)

The supper of which 1 Corinthians 11 speaks is the supper of the Lord, and in it the death of the Lord is shown. Verse 26 does not speak, be it noted, of the death of Jesus, nor of the death of the Son of God, though He who died was Jesus, the Son of God. He is the Lord, the Master, and great Administrator of the coming age, and it is the death of the Lord that we remember and show forth.

Consider Him as Lord for one moment. In that character He will take up and administer the vast inheritance of glory in the coming day. All will be committed to His hand, for He is the Heir of all things. God has made known to us the mystery, or secret, of His will; it is to "gather together in one all things in Christ" (Eph. 1: 10). Heavenly things as well as earthly things are included in this vast purpose of the will of God. The great pyramid of glory, if we may so speak, will be broad based on the very earth where He bled and died, but will rear itself into the heavens and find its finality and apex in CHRIST. The top stone of a pyramid is itself a pyramid; it gathers together in one, — in itself, — all the lines and faces and angles of the pyramid as it crowns and completes the whole. Conversely once the top stone of a pyramid is chiselled and fixed, the character and proportions of the whole pyramid are determined, all save its height — which depends on how far the lines and faces are carried downwards.

Christ is that apex, and hence, as Ephesians 4 tells us, He has "ascended up far above all heavens that He might fill all things" (verse 10). In the coming age He will be Head of all and Lord of all and impress His own mark and character on the whole realm, blessed beyond compare, that will lie beneath Him.

Now we show forth the death of Him who is Lord and Heir of all things, for in that way He has elected to take up the inheritance. The thoughts of men's hearts had been that by killing the Heir they would end His claims and seize on the inheritance for themselves. When the Lord Jesus expired between two thieves it did indeed seem as if their thoughts had come to pass. Apparently the Prophet of Nazareth had met with sudden eclipse, His cause was extinguished. Through the ages the devil had played his pieces with but a feeble reply from prophets and servants of God. Now playing with masterly skill the adversary encompassed the death of Christ. But the death of the Lord proved to be God's first great move, a move of overwhelming consequence, a move of such a character that only another move or two of a simple sort need be taken and the devil's checkmate will be a completed thing. By death the Heir has acquired a fresh title to the inheritance, the title which redemption gives. By death and resurrection the Lord has consolidated His sway in all spheres. He is Lord both of the dead and of the living.

But it is still the dark hour of His rejection. Since the hour of His apparent eclipse the world has been bereft of His light. He is forgotten, and men pursue their own way as though He would remain but a Name for ever. He is coming! And when as Lord He assumes authority He will rapidly and effectually overturn the existing order and establish that which is Divine. We know it through grace, and that it is His death which has made all possible. It has made it righteously possible for Him to take up His glory and link us with Himself in it.

We wait, therefore, for Him, and while we wait we eat the bread and drink the cup and thereby show forth the death of the Lord until He come.

The Declarations of God as to the Person of Christ

The Declarations of God as to the Person of Christ.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 4, 1912, page 34-8.)

On only two occasions has the voice of THE FATHER been actually heard by men. In Old Testament days, before the truth of the Trinity stood clearly revealed, we do frequently get God speaking face to face with men, as with Moses, for example. With the advent of Christ, however, everything is changed. At His baptism the Trinity — Father, Son, and Spirit — stood forth in a clear light, and the Father's voice was heard saying, "Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Mark 1: 11). This was a personal declaration to the Son.

The second occasion was at the Transfiguration, when the same voice was not only heard, but evidently addressed itself to men, saying, "This is My beloved Son: hear Him" (Mark 9: 7).

There was a third occasion when the Father's voice was uttered to the Son in the hearing of men (see John 12: 28), but apparently it was only heard as a peal of thunder by them.

All this is strikingly in keeping with the fact declared in Hebrews 1: 2, that the Son has become the spokesman of the Godhead, being Himself more than a spokesman, since He is Himself that which He expresses. The Father therefore first expresses His personal delight in Him, and then declares that delight to men, adding the significant words, "Hear Him." From that time onward it is the Son who speaks, and we listen to Him.

But though these are the only occasions when man is permitted to hear the Father's voice speaking of or to the Son, we are permitted to read in the Scriptures words which are a prophetic declaration of the thoughts of God the Father towards the Son. It is even as though they were directly addressed to Him.

Wonderful words such as these stand out by themselves and have a unique place, just as the prayer of the blessed Lord recorded in John 17 can be compared to no other. Nothing can exceed the privilege of being allowed to hear the Son addressing the Father, or the Father addressing the Son.

In the early chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where we have the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ so strikingly emphasised in contrast to all who went before, we find five distinct utterances from God the Father to the Son quoted from the Old Testament. They are all found in the Messianic psalms, and are here grouped together by the Spirit of God like a constellation of shining stars declaring the glory of JESUS.

Let us briefly consider them:

At His Birth.

1. "For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son this day have I begotten Thee?" (Heb.1: 5).

This is a quotation from Psalm 2 which contemplates the raging and opposition of men which will precede the glorious appearing of the Christ, when He will be set as King upon God's holy hill of Zion. In verse 7 Messiah speaks, declaring the divine decree concerning Himself.

This decree is not only quoted by the Spirit in Hebrews 1: 5, as above, but is also quoted in Acts 13: 33, when Paul was preaching in the synagogue at Antioch. This latter quotation fixes for us the bearing of the decree. It is connected with the way God took to fulfil the promises made to the fathers, viz. by the raising up of Jesus. (The word "again" should not be in this verse, see R.V. or N.T.)

God had "raised up" many a prophet in bygone days, as Hebrews 1 tells us, but the raising up of Christ was an act distinct from all else. He was born of a woman indeed, but let us never forget that the power of the Holy Ghost was so intimately concerned with His "raising up" that it is written "that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1: 35).

Here is a ray of light concerning His glory. It is as "the Son" — the second Person of the Trinity, as we speak — that God has spoken, revealing Himself to us, but to do it He became Man. But having thus humbled Himself to become the great spokesman of the Godhead there is risk of His own proper glory being obscured, and hence the decree is published, and we are permitted to hear the utterance of God the Father to Him spoken, as it were, at the very moment of His birth. The Man Christ Jesus is the Son of God.

As He Enters Millennial Glory.

2. "But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows" (Heb. 1: 8, 9).

Psalm 45 is now laid under contribution by the Spirit of God, and we travel in thought into millennial scenes.

That psalm is a song of triumph in which the godly celebrate the entrance of Messiah upon His kingdom of glory. The verses quoted by the Spirit of God in Hebrews 1 are its climax.

In verse 1 Messiah is "the King."

In verse 2 He is full of grace, blessed of God, and transcending in all moral perfections the children of men.

In verses 3, 4, and 5 He is seen in majesty and power, executing judgment, "because of truth and meekness and righteousness."

All this is good and moves the heart of the Psalmist until he overflows in ready praise.

But verses 6 and 7 are the voice of God, addressed to Messiah Himself. We should have hardly known this were it not for Hebrews 1: 8. It is even as if the Father Himself interrupts the praise of the Psalmist. Good as that was, it is not enough. We are in spirit suddenly lifted as on the wings of an eagle, up and up and up, until, piercing the highest cloud strata, the light of the sun bursts undimmed upon our vision. Messiah is GOD. He is so saluted of God the Father! His throne is for ever, His sceptre is right.

In that millennial day Messiah, who is God, will take the throne and wield the sceptre, but not as unidentified with the lowly path He trod, owning God as His God. He loved righteousness unto death. He hated wickedness unto death — and that death, the death of the cross; and therefore He sits on the throne, anointed by His God with the oil of gladness above His companions. This is morally right. One great "Amen" will fill the world on that day.

In these quotations in Hebrews 1, then, we step from the utterance of God the Father to the Son at His birth as Son of God in time to this utterance at the moment of millennial glory — from the beginning of God's WAYS in connection with Christ to their consummation. We sometimes sing:

"Son of Man, His incarnation

Opened first the tale of grace,

Son of God, in new creation,

Leader of a chosen race.

Well may glory

Crown Him in the ordered place!"

But the beginning and the end could not be thus happily brought together were there not a middle link. This, in Hebrews 1 the Spirit of God hastens to supply.

In View of Death.

3. "And [He saith], Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thine hands: they shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail " (Heb. 1: 10-12.)

There is the middle link! Between incarnation and millennial glory there lay the cross and all that it involved, and hence the Spirit of God with divine skill extracts these matchless verses from Psalm 102 and enshrines them here.

Psalm 102 is "a prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord." In it we have supplied to us by the spirit of prophecy the very utterance of the soul of Jesus when He knelt in Gethsemane's garden contemplating the cross.

From the beginning down to the middle of verse 24 we have Messiah's voice. He pours out His sorrows into Jehovah's ear; He had been lifted up as the promised Messiah, and cast down that He might bear the judgment and the curse (ver. 10). His holy mind travels on to the days of glory yet in store for Zion, and the gathering together of the people at last in peace and blessing; and yet He, the Holy One of God, weakened in strength, and shortened in days. Feeling all these things in perfection, His cry — His strong crying and tears, as Hebrews 5: 7 puts it — is, "O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days."

Then Jehovah speaks — though again we should not have known it but for Hebrews 1: 8 and 10. In that great crisis, the most supreme of all in Messiah's history, He is saluted by Jehovah as "the Father of eternity" (Isa. 9: 6, N.T.).

Higher and higher yet we soar. The Jesus who has endeared Himself to our hearts by dying is declared to be the Creator, the Sustainer, and the ultimate Finisher of all things. He is THE SAME. Here we reach — so it seems to the writer — a point beyond which it is impossible to go. The mind fails, and spiritual affections alone come to the rescue. When we can no further investigate we can worship.

Is it not most fitting that these exquisite words should be the utterance of God the Father to the Son in the hour of death? When Jesus had in self-denying love abased Himself to the lowest point, that just then He should be saluted by that which gives expression to the highest point of His glory.

Jesus, then, received this wonderful declaration of His glory just before He entered that tremendous hour when

". . . desolate but undismayed

With wearied frame and thorn-crowned head

He, God-forsaken, man-betrayed

Went up for us to Calvary,

And dying there in grief and shame

He saved us — blessed be His Name "

In Resurrection.

4. "But to which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool?" (Heb. 1: 13).

After death, resurrection and exaltation. What else could possibly follow the death of such an One as we have seen Jesus to be? And so the Spirit of God next selects these words from Psalm 110.

These are the words which Jehovah said unto David's Lord, words which completely puzzled the Pharisees (see Matt. 22: 41-46), because they involved something of the glory of His person which they were determined not to admit. David saluted this distant descendant of his as his Lord because He is Son of God as well as Son of David.

God not only raised up Jesus from the dead, but gave Him glory, and that as seated at His right hand, the place connected with power and administration. This reference is particularly connected with the present moment. It defines Christ's present position while waiting for the kingdom in power when Jehovah will send the rod of His strength out of Zion, and He will rule in the midst of His enemies, exalted by His willing people.

To-day, however, He is rejected, and it is as the rejected yet risen One that these words are addressed to Him, expressing the divine satisfaction in Him. As the result of the way in which He glorified God in death, He is glorified in God, and that immediately (see John 13: 32)

Four times over, exclusive of this quotation from Psalm 110, do we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews of Christ being seated at the right hand of God.

In Hebrews 1: 3 we read He "set Himself down [N.T.] on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Here this exalted position evidently stands connected with the exceeding greatness of His person.

Hebrews 8: 1 He is "set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." This is as High Priest. He is there in virtue of the exceeding dignity of His office.

Hebrews 10: 12. He "offered one sacrifice for sins" and "for ever," i.e. "as a perpetual thing" He "sat down on the right hand of God" — the place is His because of the exceeding perfection of His work.

Hebrews 12: 2. He has "endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Here, as the context plainly shows, it is because of the exceeding moral glory of the whole path He trod as the Author and Finisher of faith.

Is there not ample reason here for this utterance of Psalm 110, the like of which was never uttered to angels? Indeed there is.

As Received into Glory.

5. "Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec" (Heb. 5: 6). This utterance is clearly connected with the foregoing in Psalm 110, and in Hebrews 5 it is with equal distinctness linked on with the utterance in Psalm 2. Christ did not elevate Himself into the high priestly office, but He who said to Him "Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee," He who saluted Him as His Son in incarnation, has lifted Him up to glory as Lord in resurrection, and has inducted Him as an eternal Priest after the order of Melchisedec.

Here we reach that which has an application to ourselves. Each previous utterance has been purely personal to Christ Himself in its bearing. As Priest after the order of Melchisedec He is the great Sustainer of everything for God. It is quite evident that He is at present exercising that priesthood after the pattern of Aaron (see Heb. 2: 17, 18; Heb. 4: 9-16), yet He is not of Aaron's order. That was a changeable priesthood connected with a material and visible order of things. He is unchangeable, eternal, outside man's genealogies and time-reckonings, and therefore Melchisedec, the mysterious king-priest of Abraham's day, has become the type of His order.

Such an One as this has become our great High Priest. We are entitled to read into the "Thou" of this verse all the wealth of power and love and glory we have previously contemplated, and say "THOU art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." Can we wonder that presently the Spirit of God should add, "Wherefore HE is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them?" (Heb. 7: 25).

This last quotation of the five stands out from the others also in that it is connected with an oath. Hebrews 7: 20-22 refers to this, and the inference drawn is that it signalizes the immense superiority of the new covenant. A "better testament" has been established. By dying Jesus became "surety" for it, and now living in resurrection He sustains as Priest both the covenant and those who are under it. In regard to Himself personally no oath could possibly be needed, but here it is His official position that is in question. A position upon which depends the sustaining of all the redeemed in life and blessing. Here an oath is most appropriate. "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent."

"Will not repent." Thanks, then, be to God, no disaster shall ever overtake that new covenant or those who are under it. We shall be carried through into God's eternal day of REST. We may safely sing:

"Peace, perfect peace, the future all unknown.

Jesus we know, and He is on the throne."

Does it not seem, then, that we are permitted to hear the utterances of God the Father to the Son in the great moments of crisis which He met with in consequence of His having stooped in lowly grace to become the Mediator?

1. At His birth.

2. As He enters into His millennial glory.

3. In full view of death.

4. In resurrection.

5. As received up into glory.

The first gives us the first step in this wonderful story. The second the consummation of the work in the mediatorial kingdom. The last three give us the necessary steps to its accomplishment.

Democracy in the Light of Scripture

Democracy in the Light of Scripture.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 12, 1920, page 108.)

At the present time two great ideas prevail in the world, as far as its national, political, and social life is concerned. They are radically different, and upon the surface wholly inconsistent the one with the other, yet the present drift of things would lead us to suspect that a way may yet be found by which they shall be brought together in a certain kind of amalgamation; and the voice of the prophetic Scriptures confirms us in this expectation.

The two great ideas are respectively the democratic and the imperialistic. Both have fairly arrived on the scene.

Democracy presents itself to us as the finished product of the wisdom of the ages. History gives us, it may be said, the long and dismal record of human experiments in the art of government, and profiting by past experience the democratic idea has been evolved, and now holds the field amongst enlightened nations. It is — to use Abraham Lincoln's famous phrase — "Government of the people, by the people, for the people." In practice it comes to this, that the people are to be governed by a majority of the people — for they are never unanimous, and hence the minority must give way — and that majority should rule by its accredited representatives for the good of all the people and not for the majority's interests only. Whether it really does so is of course another thing.

The imperialistic idea has as its watchword that "union is strength." In national life it leads to groups of nations and powerful alliances and leagues. In politics it expresses itself in groups of parties to achieve together what they cannot hope to enforce singly. Socially it produces giant trusts, federations of industries, unions. It even threatens to appear in the religious world in the form of a federation of "churches." It is really a reversion to the old idea which animated the ante-diluvians in their schemes at Babel. (See Genesis 11: 1-9).

Our present concern is not at all with the political advantages or disadvantages of Democracy; we do wish, however, to get the light which the Word of God sheds upon it, thereby discerning its true character, and anticipating the sure end to which time will carry it.

In the first place then we must enquire of Scripture as to what God's way for the government of the earth may be. He has of course a mind on the subject, and the more clearly we apprehend it the more shall we be in a position to judge of any and every theory that man has proposed.

In the beginning, Adam, as yet unfallen, was placed in the position of sole authority. He was God's image or representative and had dominion over the lower ranks of created beings (Gen. 1: 26). No thought of authority over other men comes in here. This point was not raised until sin had come in. His authority, such as it was, was absolute, and his responsibility was to God alone.

Sin having invaded creation, a long period elapsed during which there was no further authority delegated to man by God, and hence no man had any authority over his fellow men. That age terminated in the flood.

The first post-diluvian age opened, however, with a further delegation of authority. Noah and his sons after him were responsible to maintain God's rights in man, especially as regards the sacredness of human life. (See Gen. 9: 5 and 6). God hereby delegated to certain men authority over men even to the execution of capital punishment. Patriarchal authority was thus established.

Among those who soon thereafter cast off the fear of God, not liking "to retain God in their knowledge," as Rom. 1: 28 puts it, this authority evidently changed its form. It was no longer patriarchal in character, but fell into the hands of men of prowess and renown, such as Nimrod (Gen. 10: 8-10), and after the confusion of speech at Babel, nations with their "kings" appear (Gen. 12: 15; Gen. 14: 1 and 2).

However, those who still feared God adhered to the patriarchal order until God set His hand to deliver Israel from Egypt, and raised up Moses. This marked a new departure. Moses was invested by God with an authority in the midst of Israel far beyond anything that Noah received. True, at first his authority was rejected. The wrongdoer "thrust him away saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?" (Acts 7: 27) but we read also, "This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush" (verse 35). Moses was indeed "king in Jeshurun" (Deut. 23: 5), but it was a kingship of an informal order. Properly speaking, Theocracy was established in Israel with Moses as the spokesman and mediator, and therefore in that sense king.

For centuries such authority as was administered in Israel was of that order, but the power of it declined; those who wielded it were far inferior in faithfulness and in force. "There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deut. 34: 10).

The resultant feebleness led to an outcry for a king like the nations (1 Sam. 8: 5), and after the episode of the wilful king of the people's choice, God raised up David and established kingly authority on a proper basis. He was to be ruler over God's people, and the executor of judgment on their enemies (2 Sam. 7: 8, 9). He was also to "feed" Israel His inheritance. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands (Ps. 78: 71, 72). David's authority was absolute, and he was to rule. He was to execute judgment if and as needs be, but also to feed his subjects and to guide them. His rule was to be absolute but wholly beneficent.

With the failure of David's descendants the glory of it departed, and at last God transferred authority into Gentile hands. It was entrusted first of all to Nebuchadnezzar, as stated in Daniel 2: 37, 38, and though the great king's dream, as recorded in that chapter, foreshadowed the changes that would supervene as to forms of government, yet it showed that the authority that lay behind government, whatever its form, would remain in Gentile hands until the sudden execution of divine wrath on all man's pride and abuse of the entrusted power should be an accomplished fact. Then should appear the kingdom which "shall stand for ever" (Dan. 2: 20), and that kingdom is to be vested in the Son of man, who will wield absolute dominion for the blessing of men (Dan. 7: 13, 9). He will be pleased, however, to take up and use in connection with His government the saints "of the Most High" or "of the high places" (verses 18, 22), and also a "people" who will possess the kingdom "under the whole heaven," i.e., on its earthly side. This people of course is Israel.

This rapid sketch of the course of government amongst men is enough to show that one feature marks it all through. The ultimate authority is always God — and God alone.

No man has any prescriptive right to exercise authority over his fellows except he has received it from God. Hence in such passages as Rom. 14: 1-6 and 1 Peter 2: 13-15 obedience to the ruling authorities is enjoined upon the Christian. The Apostle Paul tells us "There is no authority except from God; and those that exist are set up by God" (New Translation).

Turning now from government as presented to us in Scripture to the practice of it by those to whom it has been entrusted on earth, we at once see that it has been terribly abused, as has all else that has been entrusted to fallen man. Tyranny and self-seeking have everywhere flourished, and history is a record of the long and painful struggles by means of which nations have turned from one form of government to another, or have introduced modifications into their various governmental systems, in the vain hope of evolving ideal conditions. Of all these changes Democracy is the latest, and its advent is not surprising to anyone at all versed in the abuses which gave it birth.

Comparing it, however, not with its predecessors, but with the ideals of Scripture, which are to be fully realized in the millennial age, we at once see that it is more hopelessly condemned than any other form of government which has yet appeared; for the reason that it frankly and unblushingly deposes God as the foundation and source of authority and puts man — i.e., "the people" — in His place. The gulf between these two is as wide as that between heaven and hell.

To the thoroughgoing Democrat only one question really matters, viz., What is the will of the people? To ask what may be right — what, in other words, may be the will of God, is quite irrelevant. What the people desire is to be regarded as the right thing, and the functions of a truly democratic government are to carry out the people's desires, to be the humble servants of the people's will — whether right or wrong.

In this matter, as in all others, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ provides the Christian with a supreme test. At that solemn hour Pontius Pilate the governor was the representative of Caesar, and at his autocratic bar Christ was arraigned. Yet in an unusual moment of weakness autocracy abdicated its functions. The record runs thus: —

"When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it" (Matt. 27: 24).

"And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that He might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required" (Luke 23: 23, 24).

As Caesar's representative, Pilate washed his hands of the whole business, whilst, acting as executive officer of a democracy which held sway for just a brief hour, he "gave sentence that it should be AS THEY REQUIRED."

Viewed as a setting forth of democratic principles, this might be passed as all right. Viewed from every other standpoint, it was the most outrageous wrong of the world's history.

Reverting again to Nebuchadnezzar's dream as recorded in Daniel 2 we may now be better able to grasp the significance of the clay which entered into the image when the feet of it were reached.

Daniel's vision in Daniel 7 sets forth the course of the four great Gentile empires in their dealings amongst men, and they are pictured as wild beasts in their powers of destruction. Nebuchadnezzar's dream, on the other hand, gives us the same four empires but as setting forth the character and quality of their governments, and hence what marks them is a steady deterioration in the metals that appear.

God started the "Times of the Gentiles" with an ideal form of government, though the man who wielded its power was far from ideal. That it was an ideal form is proved by the fact that God will revert to it for the millennial age, when the ideal Man appearing, by whom He will "judge the world in righteousness," all will soon be peace and blessing.

As the empires developed, men deviated from the golden ideal, and introduced human modifications, and the government became silver, brass, and iron, as more and more divine thoughts were forgotten and human policies came to the fore.

It is, however, in the last stage of the last empire — the Roman — that we find for the first time the introduction of clay — a non-metallic substance. This was an evident prediction that before the end there should be introduced into the prevailing governmental system, a principle which should be not so much a further modification of the old, as one radically and fundamentally different. Because of it "the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken" or "brittle" — see margin. Daniel's interpretation of the clay and iron mixed is "they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."

The "they" of this passage appears to mean those in whose hands authority for the time being rests.

We have no hesitation in seeing here a prediction of the uprising and prevalence of a democracy in the last days. The authority which finds its source in God, and that which finds its source in man, are as different from one another as gold or iron or any other metal from clay. The two things may be mingled — they are in part inextricably mixed in our modern theory and practice of government, but only weakness and brittleness is induced, and soon will come the death-blow administered by the stone "cut out without hands."

If any have difficulty in reconciling what is said above with the prophecies concerning the coming Satan-inspired head for the revived Roman empire, we would ask them to remember that in practice the transition from democratic to imperialistic forms is very easy. Let a man of transcendent genius appear, who seems to embody in himself the very spirit of "the people," and nothing is easier than for him to assume for himself the powers that theoretically belong to the people, and the people, fickle and easily led, will be glad to have it so. The career-of Napoleon I. springing out of the French Revolution is a case in point. The coming "beast" of Revelation 13 rises "out of the sea," i.e., the masses of the people in a state of agitation and unrest.

It is therefore more than likely that this coming "super-man" will quite ardently uphold democratic institutions in theory whilst carrying on autocratic rule in practice — iron mixed with clay.

The reader who has patiently followed us up to this point may be inclined to ask what we hope to achieve in writing all this, if we have, as we say, no political ends before us. We therefore avow without hesitation that our aim is a far more thorough heart-separation from this present evil world for ourselves and all believers.

Full well we know that nothing but an abiding sense of the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord can effectually lift our souls above the level of the world and its thoughts, yet the exposure of world politics and schemes by the light of Scripture has its value, and this has been our present endeavour.

The lamp of prophetic scripture is said in 2 Peter 1: 19 to be shining in a dark or "squalid" place. Let the lamp cast its rays on the much-vaunted principles of social democracy and how squalid they appear. The sticky clay may be gilded but it certainly is not gold! The enlightened Christian will not waste much enthusiasm upon it.

And what clear light it sheds upon the vexed question of whether a Christian should vote and interest himself in politics generally. We are asked to accept the position of being a little cog in that machine called "the people" which has usurped to itself that function in the sphere of government which belongs to God alone. Shall we do it? YES! — if we believe in the modern humanistic "gospel" which humanizes Jesus and deifies man. But if we believe that salvation is not of the people but of the Lord, NO!

The world system is doomed. Let there be no hesitancy in our witness to this fact. Out of the impending catastrophe souls are being rescued by the abounding grace of our Lord. It is ours to seek them, bearing witness to our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us then not waste time in vain attempts to shore up the tottering fabric, but let us busy ourselves in that which is the great work which our Lord has allotted to us. To be thoroughly for Him and His interests, is to be thoroughly outside the world system and its hopes.

We look, not for a perfected system of democracy, but for "the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body" (Phil. 3: 20, 21), and as for this earth, we look for the setting up of the kingdom of Christ by the God of heaven, which shall never be destroyed but shall stand for ever.

Man's Diplomacy and God's Discipline

Man's Diplomacy and God's Discipline

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 146.)

It is a remarkable fact, to which attention was called in this magazine not long ago, that Jacob is designated a "plain" or, as the word is elsewhere translated, "perfect" man (Gen 25: 27). The reference is, we believe, to the deep underlying current of life-purpose which characterized him. On the surface his life was marked by innumerable eddies and cross currents: no other of the patriarchs had so chequered a career as he. Yet the redeeming feature in his case was that from his early years he set his mind upon the Divine blessing connected with the birthright, and that blessing — though possibly he but very dimly apprehended it — centred in the Christ who was to come. Consequently he maintained the pilgrim character and went on dwelling in tents, when Esau adopted the line of things formerly favoured by Nimrod, and became a "cunning hunter."

In this we may compare and yet contrast Jacob with David. The comparison exists, because, as Psalm 132 shows, David too, had a deep underlying purpose in his life from his earliest years. He conceived the purpose in boyhood days at Ephratah and never turned aside from it through all his afflictions. His great idea was to "find out a place for the Lord." This doubtless was one great reason, perhaps the great reason, for his being called "a man after God's own heart." The contrast lies in the fact that while David's purpose was "a place for the Lord," Jacob's was a blessing for himself. Still the blessing Jacob sought was God's blessing, it was at least a part of His purpose, and hence Jacob was in that sense a perfect man.

Of all the patriarchs, indeed of all the characters we have portrayed in Scripture, Jacob stands out as the diplomatist. In his case the field of operations was not found in the affairs of state or nations, but in the smaller matters connected with himself and his household. Still the modus operandi in either case is the same. The very word diplomacy is derived, as a dictionary will show, from a Greek word which has as its primitive meaning a paper folded double; and hence it carries to this day the suggestion of artful management or manoeuvring, of seeking one's own cause with paper folded double so that the opponent cannot see all that is written upon it. This of necessity involves a strain of selfishness running through all one's actions.

Thus it was pre-eminently with Jacob. He was an inveterate diplomatist until near the end of his career, always scheming, always seeking his own ends in clever ways. Concurrently we see God dealing with him in discipline, bringing him to an end of his cleverness and finally bringing him to the desired haven, that is, to the end that God himself proposed, which transcended anything that Jacob had before him.

A brief survey of Jacob's diplomacies cannot fail to be instructive, since we all possess his nature that loves to scheme for the attaining of its own ends, though not all possess his ability.

In Genesis 25 we have recorded the transaction with Esau over the pottage of lentils. The birthright was made the subject of a commercial transaction. Esau revealed himself as a "profane person" (Heb. 12: 16), saying "what profit shall this birthright do to me?" Jacob revealed himself as one who, though valuing the birthright, regarded it as a subject of barter, and to be purchased as cheaply as possible. Esau despised the birthright and lost it, but on the other hand there is no evidence that Jacob obtained it as a result of this sharp practice. Rather he obtained it in spite of it.

In Genesis 27 is recorded the artful way in which Jacob, instigated by his mother, deceived his blind father, and supplanted Esau in the matter of the blessing. He lied both by word of mouth and in action. This episode was overruled of God to bring home to Esau the folly of his profanity and its irrevocable results. As for Jacob, he certainly got the patriarchal blessing, which had, as Heb. 11: 20 shows, an element of faith in it, and was according to the purpose of God. Yet he did not get Divine blessing by diplomacy of this disreputable order: he got rather a disagreeable chain of consequences that entangled him in life-long difficulties. He came definitely under the discipline of God.

The first effect of this discipline was to send him forth from home a fugitive to Haran. Though suffering in this way, however, God had dealings with Him in a dream, as Genesis 28 records, and Jacob had dealings with God. God's dealings with him were in pure grace, revealing what He would be on his behalf. Jacob's with God, were still on the lines of selfish diplomacy. If God would be with him and give him the good things of this life, then he would serve God. God was to him as yet but the Source of supply for all the food, and clothes, and protection and care he needed! Can we afford to throw stones at Jacob in this connection? Are there not thousands to-day whose "Christianity" does not consist of much more than that God is good to them, and they find comfort in Jesus amidst the trials, and needs, and perplexities of life, and they expect to go to heaven when they die!

In Genesis 29, Genesis 30, and Genesis 31, we have the record of the years of Jacob's sojourn in Haran, which resolved itself into a duel of diplomacy between Jacob and Laban his uncle. In the government of God, Jacob found himself in the hands of a man of even greater selfishness than himself. There was an extraordinary fitness about God's discipline in the matter of his marriage. He was deceived as to the two daughters of Laban, just as Isaac had been deceived by his two sons, only Isaac was blinded by age, and Jacob by the peculiar marriage customs of the east.

Laban, according to Jacob's complaint, changed his wages ten times. Jacob got his own back by cunning artifices connected with the breeding of Laban's cattle, and according to the complaint of Laban's sons had "taken away all that was our father's." Thus the contest was waged until again God intervened in a dream and made known to Jacob that it was He, rather than Jacob's stratagems, that caused the cattle to pass from Laban to him, and calling him out of the whole unpleasant business back to Canaan.

This at once brought Jacob into the presence of the original trouble, the anger and resentment of Esau. Genesis 32 and Genesis 33 record his skilful diplomacy in view of this emergency. They also show how unnecessary it all was, for the God who had warned Laban the Syrian not to touch Jacob had been before him again and softened Esau's heart. It was in connection with this experience that a climax was reached in God's dealings with him. The Angel of the Lord, in human form, wrestled with him until daybreak. Jacob resisted until he was crippled. When crippled in his own strength and clinging, instead of wrestling, then "He blessed him there." Thus symbolically was the great lesson conveyed, and there began to dawn upon Jacob the light of this fact: that no wrestling, whether diplomatic or physical, can achieve the results that flow from dependence upon God and His power.

That Jacob did begin to learn this is evidenced by the end of Genesis 33 where we find him building an altar and calling it "God, the God of Israel." His thought still had a selfish bent. It was still what God was for him. Still it was what God was for him, as a prince with God prevailing through weakness and dependence. He called it not "El-elohe-Jacob" but "El-elohe-Israel."

Looking back over these diplomatic schemes of Jacob, thus hastily sketched, we perceive that one feature marks them all. Each was a failure. Even where the aim before him was in itself not unworthy, and the methods adopted not wrong, all his schemes proved to be just so much unnecessary trouble, for God had been before him and acted on his behalf.

From this point onwards Jacob's diplomacies fade away, though his troubles do not. In the government of God he has to reap what he has sown till his latest hour. Still he meets these disciplinary events in another spirit, and when later (Genesis 35) he is called of God to go up to Bethel he shows he now has some sense of the holiness which becomes God's house, and he calls the altar he builds there "El-beth-el" or "The God of Bethel," i.e., "The God of the house of God" — not now God in relation to himself, even as Israel, but God in relation to His own house.

Jacob's broken spirit is very manifest when presently he reaps back into his own bosom the harvest of deceit which he had sown in regard to his father Isaac, and is himself bitterly deceived by his own sons as to Joseph. Years after, when the glad truth concerning his beloved son reached him, together with the call from Joseph to travel to Egypt, and that call had been ratified by a word from God, he goes down in simple faith in the word that had reached him, and without the least attempt at ensuring his safety or prosperity by efforts of his own. Hence, conscious of the blessing of God he is able to stand before great Pharaoh and bless him instead of craving a blessing from him.

Last of all we come in Genesis 48 to that remarkable scene alluded to in Hebrews 11 when we read, "By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff." His eyes were closing upon the world which had been the scene of so much scheming on his part, and so much chastening on God's, for he was a dying man. His eyes of faith, however, were never more keen in their vision. He saw the real position in regard to Ephraim and Manasseh; and placing his right hand upon the head of the one whose name meant Fruitful, and his left hand on the head of the other, whose name meant Forgetting, he blessed them.

In the light of what has since been revealed we can see in this action of the dying patriarch a meaning of which he could not have been conscious. In figure there was the taking away of the first that the second — the fruitful one, a type of Christ — might be established.

But why should it be recorded that Jacob was "leaning upon the top of his staff"? Is it not that we might see in his bodily weakness, and consequent dependence upon outside support, a figure of that which now marked him spiritually? At last in conscious weakness he had exchanged diplomacy for dependence, and as a result of this happy exchange, his sun, after a stormy day, was setting in a blaze of glory!

Dying, dependent, and with the "Fruitful" man filling his mind's eye, he became a worshipper. He rose at last as the fruit of God's discipline to that which really was God's purpose for him. It is noticeable that all through Genesis 48 he is named Israel, for he was displaying the characteristics of "A Prince of God" at last.

In Genesis 49 Israel the worshipper becomes the prophet of God, and in blessing his sons speaks of things which have to do with Christ in both His sufferings and His glory.

The great value of Jacob's history lies in the fact that he so faithfully portrayed human nature as it exists in a saint of God. His foolishnesses are ours. His inveterate tendency to scheme with diplomatic cleverness to accomplish his ends, and even to reach ends which were right and part of the purpose of God concerning him, is just the tendency that is ours. Hence God's disciplinary dealings with him are very indicative of His dealings with us.

Happy it is for us if we, too, reach the end which he reached as a dying man. And happy, thrice happy, are we, if we reach that end in the midst of our careers, and before we come to die.

Disappointment and its Cure

Disappointment and its Cure.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth, 1914, Vol. 6, page 28.)

Disappointment is one of the most fruitful causes of discouragement amongst Christians, with the attendant consequences of soul-declension and drifting into the world; and it is to be feared that it is operating powerfully today in many directions.

In times of revival, when the Spirit of God is very manifestly working, it is a comparatively easy matter for the believer to travel happily in the right direction. He finds himself borne along on the current of spiritual enthusiasm and encouraged by every contact with his fellow-believers; but, on the other hand, when, as is always the case, the revival season begins to wane, when the power of evil again becomes painfully manifest, and the flood-tide of prosperity is succeeded by the ebbtide of adversity, then depression often sets in, rendered all the more acute by great and frequently unwarranted expectations begotten by the previous success.

At the present moment a season of very acute depression has set in, embracing practically all the Protestant countries and specially the English-speaking lands. The declension is widely recognized, for it has reduced congregations in all directions, and piled up big missionary deficits both in men and money. Its roots, however, lie deeper, being found in that loss of faith-contact with Christ which has let loose upon us a flood of false and fatal teachings connected with utter worldliness. As a result, disappointment and sad defections are being witnessed in many directions.

We live in the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, indwelling, upon earth. It was preceded by the brief dispensation of the Son of God, incarnate, upon earth. Into those brief years were crowded the most memorable public events of this world's history. They excited in some hearts the liveliest expectations, and subsequently overwhelmed them in the deepest disappointment. We are furnished in Luke 24: 13-25 with, a touching story illustrating the inward experiences of two such individuals, revealing the causes of their disappointment, and showing the cure. Let us learn a few lessons from their history.

The two disciples going to Emmaus were evidently drifting away from the centre of divine operations at that moment — Jerusalem. They were drifting because discouraged, and discouraged because disappointed in the deepest possible way. We can but little imagine, perhaps, the expectations kindled in their breasts by the advent of Israel's Messiah. Visions of emancipation from the Roman yoke, of a national revival, and of glory and splendour under David's Son, in which they expected to share in no inconsiderable measure, filled their eyes. "We trusted," said they, "that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel." Now, however, the vision had been rudely dispelled, for instead of ascending David's throne to the overthrow of Caesar, He had been lifted up by Caesar's soldiers on the cross of Barabbas, and the whole people had rivetted Caesar's yoke upon their necks more firmly than ever, and publicly, too, saying, "We have no king but Caesar." Sick at heart and unable to solve the riddle presented by His claims which they accepted on the one hand, and His sudden and dramatic eclipse on the other, Cleopas and his companion were in the act of abandoning their discipleship and returning to their home.

"Jesus Himself drew near and went with them." At first He asked but two questions which served to draw out from them the story of their disappointment and woe; but that told, also, how unerringly He was able to put His finger upon the root of their trouble, saying, "O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken."

Here let us observe two facts:

First, that disappointment amongst believers is caused by their cherishing mistaken expectations not warranted by the Word of God.

Second, that such unwarranted expectations are entertained by believers because they base them upon a partial view of Scripture rather than "ALL that the prophets have spoken."

Were there no Scriptures which would warrant the belief in a Messiah who would come in power and glory for Israel's deliverance from every yoke? Certainly there were. Multitudes of such passages could be adduced; but there were others which spoke of a humbled Messiah, despised and rejected of men, cut off for the iniquities of God's people, and these they overlooked. Dazzled with the passages speaking of His glory, the others would doubtless seem to them indistinct, mysterious, obscure, and be speedily ignored on the plea that they were difficult to explain and of no particular interest or profit. Hence it never occurred to them that the Christ might first "suffer these things," and then " enter into His glory."

Nearly two millenniums have passed since Cleopas and his friend pursued their sorrow-stricken way, but the main outlines of their history are being retraced still by multitudes of disappointed Christians.

"Soon after my conversion," says one, "I sought and, as I thought, obtained 'entire satisfaction.' I claimed the action of the 'cleansing fire' and believed that sin within me was totally eradicated. However, as time proceeded I found to my unspeakable sorrow that still it was alive and active within me; and from the hour of that discovery my hold on God has been of the feeblest sort. I hardly know whether I am saved or not."

"I used to be an earnest Christian. worker, with great zeal for missions," says another. "I fully believed in the coming of a millennium such as the Bible depicts, and the idea of the gospel triumphing and advancing from conquest to conquest until that end was reached filled me with enthusiasm. Of late, however, it has been forced upon me that the actual number of professed converts, to say nothing of the real ones, is not keeping pace with the increase in the world's population; and worse, that the real triumphs of the gospel in heathen lands are much more than offset by the triumphs of the leaven of rationalism and ritualism in the home lands of Christianity. I cannot describe my disillusionment. I have lost heart entirely."

"Years ago," says a third, "I connected myself with a religious movement which I thought was going to effect a real deliverance within Christendom. My soul was greatly blessed as truth recovered from God's Word after long oblivion was presented to me; and I thought I had indeed found 'the model church' instituted upon primitive and apostolic foundations, which would prove a rallying centre for Christians everywhere. But to-day, how has the fine gold become dim I Where is my model church? Ecclesiastical confusion seems to be complete, and every attempt at displaying church unity and order has ended in a mess and failure. I am sick at heart and very depressed."

Many other such sorrowful complaints could be instanced, but one and all they would only illustrate, as do those quoted above, the disastrous effects of cherishing expectations not warranted by Scripture as a whole.

Do we not read in Scripture of deliverance from sin as well as from its penalty? Does it not speak of "the refiner's fire," and is not the promise that we shall be baptized with fire, as well as the Holy Ghost? Is it not said "sin shall not have dominion over you"?

All these things we read — and more besides. Yet let us not overlook that "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," and that even the Apostle Paul, after a sojourn in the third heaven, needed a thorn in the flesh to prevent the flesh within him being "puffed up." Taking all Scripture into consideration we learn that it is indeed God's thought that a believer may in this world be delivered from the power of sin, and we are saved from the ruinous mistake that we are already delivered from the very presence of sin, — with its resultant disillusionment and shipwreck!

Again, the prophetic Scriptures are undoubtedly very full of predictions concerning a wonderful time of blessing for this earth, commonly called the millennium. Christ will extend His sway over all nations. Mighty spiritual movements will take place. A nation shall be "born in a day." The people of Israel shall be "all righteous," and throughout the wide world righteousness and peace will flourish.

But let us not overlook the significant statement that "When Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness" (Isa. 26: 9). Or that of Peter in the council of Jerusalem to the effect that the divine programme for this age is the gathering out of the Gentile nations a people for Christ's name (see Acts 15: 9).

And what shall be said to the multitude of Christians so sadly distressed because of their own failure and the failure of their fellow-believers in regard to association in service or Christian fellowship? What earnest lover of the Lord Jesus is there who does not find himself standing amidst the wreckage either of "denominations" or "assemblies" or "fellowships" or "societies" or other associations of a sacred sort? — whether originally constructed on scriptural lines or not. In some cases visible disintegration has produced nothing but fragments; in other cases, which is even worse, outward unity has been preserved at the expense of purity. Rottenness and corruption are rampant within. What about the bright anticipations formed, so ruthlessly dispelled? What can be said?

From the lips of Cleopas, in our story, there fell one tell-tale sentence. "We trusted," said he, "that it had been He which should have redeemed ISRAEL." Evidently the redemption and glory of his beloved nation held the supreme place in his thoughts. He read the Scriptures and Israel was to him the great theme, with Messiah as the God-given servant of Israel's greatness. This was the order of their relative importance in his thoughts: Israel, first, Messiah second. A great mistake, fruitful of keen distress!

Is it possible that many of us have been guilty of the same error, in principle? Have "causes" absorbed too much of our attention, until we have insensibly set up little "Israels" of our own manufacture, the prosperity of which has become more dear to us than all beside? There have been many distinct movements of the Spirit of God, heaven-born in their origin, since Pentecost; and into the current of one such we may have been drawn. Many a time have saints become over-occupied with a movement till they are left clinging to it, with its vital force spent and gone. The movement has eclipsed the Master! Has it been so with us?

There is, however, thank God, A REMEDY, plainly indicated in the scripture before us. In our analysis it seems to be composed of three ingredients, which we will consider separately.

1. ALL SCRIPTURE. This is of deep importance, for no less than three times is it emphasised within the compass of a few verses (25-27). "All that the prophets have spoken," "All the prophets," "All the scriptures" are the expressions used. We need to avoid favouritism in our reading of Scripture — the constant reading of certain passages the almost or entire ignoring of others.

We equally need to avoid partiality in our interpretations of Scripture. "No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation" (2 Peter 1: 20) — i.e. it is not to be interpreted as an isolated passage, but in reference to the whole body of Scripture testimony, just as the exact meaning of a small figure inserted in the corner of a great painting by a famous master may best be ascertained by a knowledge of the central idea of the picture and the picture itself as a whole.

More important even than all Scripture is,

2. CHRIST as the theme and centre of all Scripture, for "He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." Not "concerning Israel," mark, but "concerning HIMSELF." What revelations were made to their wondering hearts during the remainder of that walk! No wonder that their hearts burned within them!

So after all, everything was not gone, even if Israel's redemption seemed to be indefinitely postponed. Christ, not Israel, is the glorious centre of all God's purposes. In the course of that marvellous exposition of all Scripture, Isaiah 49: 5, 6, must have been considered. "Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And He said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be My Servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." The theme of any discourse founded upon that scripture must necessarily be, "Not Israel, but Christ."

One thing more was needed by Cleopas and his companion ere the cure of their disappointment was complete. The walk ended in the quiet home in Emmaus, and at the evening meal when the invited guest suddenly assumed the place of host and broke the bread their eyes were opened and they knew Him as He vanished from their sight. Here we find, most important of all —

3. CHRIST RISEN, known by faith as the rallying centre of His people.

They had indeed lost their Messiah as formerly known amongst them in flesh and blood; they now had their first glimpse of Him in the new resurrection conditions into which He had entered, and that first glimpse entirely transformed them. Under His teaching they had just seen that He Himself was the theme of all Scripture; but even while they listened and their hearts as a result burned within them, they only saw Him with their natural eyes and did not know Him. Now He vanishes from sight, and they do know Him by faith. What an exchange!

Then it was that their disappointment was changed into delight. Instead of everything being gone, everything was secure. Their night of weeping was over; their souls were bathed in the light that shone from the risen One. Their Sun had not set amid storm-clouds never again to rise, as they had imagined; He had but suffered a momentary eclipse for their sakes, and had now emerged from the shadow, never to enter it again! They were transformed by their discovery. Their disappointment being cured, they did not pursue their course of drifting for another hour.

"They rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together . . . and they told what things were done in the way, and how He was known of them in breaking of bread. And as they thus spake, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them."

The rest and joy that filled their hearts at that moment may be the portion of every disappointed believer today, but — only in the same way. Christ, and Christ alone, is the Object before the mind of God. Consequently His object is not to make saints consciously holy and satisfied with themselves, but consciously weak in themselves and satisfied with Christ. His object in the world is not mere philanthropy in wholesale conversion movements, but the election from among the nations of a people for Christ. He is not occupied to-day in constructing ecclesiastical unity — seeing it has once for all collapsed — but in elevating Christ as the rallying point before Hid people's faith and love, so that becoming an intense reality to them, He may be magnified amongst them, whether by life or by death. As this is produced, a large measure of unity — the unity of the Spirit — will be realized, though perhaps badly expressed in due ecclesiastical form, since the breakdown in that continues in the government of God.

Let us then, dear Christian reader, carefully form our expectations in the light of all Scripture, and let Christ, His glory, His fame, His interests, and, above all, the excellency of the knowledge of Himself be our satisfying portion. Then shall we go forward through circumstances the most distressing with courage and with joy until the bright goal is reached, when —

"All taint of sin shall be removed,

All evil done away;

And we shall dwell with God's Beloved

Through God's eternal day."

Disentanglement

Disentanglement.

Matthew 24: 37-41, 44-51; Matthew 25: 1-13.

An Address by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 19, 1927, page 250 etc.)

One verse of the hymn we have just sung should impress us; —

"Lord, Lord, Thy fair creation groans,

The air, the earth, the sea,

In unison with all our hearts

And calls aloud for Thee."

When some seventy or eighty years ago the late Sir Edward Denny wrote those beautiful words he could hardly have foreseen what was coming literally in our days. No verse of a hymn came more strongly to my mind during the Great War than that one. The air, with the modern developments of aviation, the earth, with its thundering battalions and big guns, and the sea, with its deadly submarines, were all groaning under man's perversity and iniquity and strife. Sad to say, man, the chiefest of God's works, made as God's representative, is himself the worker of all the mischief. Not the dumb creatures, but man is the mischief-maker in this sad world of ours, and everybody knows it. The world, whether you look at it politically, industrially, socially, or in any other way, is in a state of hopeless tangle. Perhaps somebody here tonight may turn and say, "Yes; but you are a Christian. You speakers are part of the Christian church, and you cannot afford to throw stones at us, who have no pretension to Christianity, for you Christians are in the most terrible state of tangle." That is honestly and at once admitted. Tangles are to be found on every hand. Striving does not help matters. It is like the fly when it goes blundering into the spider's web. The more it struggles the more tightly it gets caught. Its very struggles only entangle it more deeply in the thing from which it desires to be free. The world has its struggles, its plans, and its schemes, but every effort, however well-intentioned, will only land it further into the tangle.

Now I want to speak to you of the Lord Jesus Christ and His advent as the grand solution of every problem. He is the great disentangler of all the entanglements. This Gospel of Matthew specially emphasizes that side of things. I trust you have sufficiently read your Bibles to remember that Matthew 13 is the great parable chapter, the chapter of seven parables, beginning with the parable of the sower. I want to remind you particularly of the parable of the tares and the wheat. Though the good seed was sown in the field of the world by the Lord Jesus Christ, the devil got to work and sowed darner, a thing which in its earlier stages exactly resembles wheat, but is not wheat. In that parable we have the Lord Jesus Christ instructing us, who may be the servants of Christ in these days, that it is not our commission to put the world right. The field is the world, not the church. In the world you have this mixture. We look abroad through Christendom tonight, and we see this strange mixture on every hand. The tares are hopelessly mixed up with the wheat, and the instructions of the Master to His servants are not to attempt to sever the tares from the wheat, lest in so doing they root up the wheat. We have not the discernment necessary for the task. He shows us that what man cannot accomplish is going to be accomplished at the end of the age by God Himself, using angelic ministry.

You pass on through the parables of that chapter, and the last of the seven is the parable of the net, which gathers out fish of every kind, some perfectly good for human consumption, some perfectly worthless. The sorting is going to take place. There are those who will sort every good fish out of the mass that the worthless may be discarded. That is disentanglement again.

Then, passing on to Matthew 24 where we began to read, you have the coming of the Lord distinctly foretold, and when He comes He is going to differentiate. There will be two men in the field, and two women grinding at the mill — one shall be taken and the other left. Who can read the heart and act thus but One, the Lord Jesus Christ, at His advent? He will disentangle. He holds up before us in an ideal way the good servant, and then He presents to us the evil servant, and He tells us that the coming of the Son of Man is that which will put the evil servant and the good servant respectively in their places for ever.

We read in Matthew 25 that the kingdom of heaven was likened unto ten virgins who went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were wise and five of them were foolish, but nobody knew they were wise and foolish as yet. Time had to elapse before the thing was proved. They were externally alike. The difference was that some had only lamps with wicks, but the wise had oil in their vessels with their lamps. It was not the day of glass containers to lamps, where you can easily see whether you have oil or not. It was hidden. It was an inside thing that differentiated between the wise and the foolish. When there went forth a cry heralding the return of the absent bridegroom there began to be a shaking. Then agitation was written upon many faces, and then discoveries were made. The wise had oil in their vessels and the foolish had no oil. So the line of demarcation was drawn.

Someone will say, "Is not this intended to teach us the way in which the Lord will differentiate between the faithful of His people, and those who are less faithful? Is not this a picture of the devoted Christian on the one hand, and the unspiritual and worldly on the other?" My answer to that unhesitatingly is "No." My reason for so saying is the answer the Lord Himself makes to the foolish virgins in verse 12. They come afterwards, and say, "Lord, Lord, open to us." What does He say? "I used to know you, but now I have forgotten you"? "I do know you, but I am not going to own that I know you until you reform your ways, and behave rather better"? That would suit some theories, but He said, "I know you not." There is another verse that says, "The Lord knoweth them that are His," so that they represent those who are not His. There is a vast amount of mere pretension, without any corresponding reality. There are lots of people who claim the Christian name nominally, but the root of the matter is not in them. At this point, let us challenge our own hearts. Where do we stand as to this? Who is there here tonight that would say, "I am a church member, I am a deacon; I am a Sunday-school worker"? You may appeal to certain external things, but nothing that is merely external is going to stand in the presence of God. Inward reality and fidelity are the two things which the Lord Jesus is going to own when He comes again.

I did not read on, for time did not permit. When Jesus Christ comes again there is going to be a great multitude of the professing church disentangled. Let every heart in the presence of God search out for itself how it stands in reference to this. Then comes the parable of the servants, and you find exactly the same thing in principle. In this parable, as given to us in Matthew's gospel — distinguishing it from a similar one in Luke — the servants who were real and true and faithful are all welcomed and all rewarded. The man who had five talents made other five talents, and he enters into the joy of his Lord. But there was another servant who did not know his Lord. He was under the most terrible misconception about the one whom he professed to know and serve. He was judged out of his own mouth as a wicked and slothful servant. The Lord knew how to put His hand upon the man who, though a professed servant of His, was no true servant at all.

Make no mistake about it, the coming of the Lord is going to see a complete disentanglement among the professed servants of the Lord. There are thousands of men taking the place of being ministers of Christ, and what a disentanglement is going to ensue! As the servants of Christ we must all of us face the fact that the coming of Christ is going to bring all into the light, and He is going to draw the line most definitely between that which is genuine and true, and that which is false.

The end of the chapter, that well-known passage about the Son of Man appearing in His glory with the holy angels, shows the same solemn fact. Before Him shall be gathered all nations, not the dead but the nations. When the Lord Jesus comes back in His glory and publicly appears, living nations on this earth will have to stand in His presence, and with a master hand He will divide them as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. He will make no mistake about it. Every man will be appointed to his own place. All will be made plain with infallible truth and justice. The tangles of earth will be untied. People say, "We wish we could get things straightened." It will be a very serious matter. You will be put into your place, and I in mine, and all will be resolved in His presence. You notice, do you not? the ground on which the Lord Jesus is going to divide the sheep from the goats. Everything will depend on how these people have treated certain men whom He acknowledges as His brethren, who were His messengers. It will be a perfectly just ground of judgment. He says in effect, "You expressed your attitude towards Myself by the way you treated My representatives." That is a well-known principle amongst men. It certainly is a well-known Biblical principle. How can we express our gratitude towards the Lord Jesus Christ today? The blatant atheist may shake his poor little fist in the sky, but as a rule he vents his spleen upon the nearest Christian. That is really all that he can do. He cannot get at the great Master, so if he can find one of His humble servants he will administer a blow to him. That explains a great deal of the animosity expended against Christians today. They may glory in it, if it is for their Master's sake.

The Lord Jesus Christ is going to differentiate. His gospel is acting after that fashion today, only we await the coming of the Master Himself for the thing to be done in absolute perfection. Thank God, the crooked places are going to be made straight. The mountains of human pride are going to be brought down, and the valleys are going to be lifted up. One who can grapple with all earth's problems is coming. He will put the world right. In that hour how will you stand? You need not wait to know. You may know as you now ask your own heart, "What is my present attitude towards Christ?"

Disobedience leads to Disaster

Disobedience leads to Disaster.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 38, 1953-5, page 114.)

When the Apostle Paul reminded Timothy that he had known the Holy Scriptures from the days of his childhood, he alluded of course to that part of our Bibles that we call the Old Testament. It was able to make him "wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." Today we have the far clearer light of the New Testament as regards the salvation of the soul, but as to the salvation, that we all so much need from the perils of the world and the seductions of Satan, the Old Testament remains full of instruction which will make us wise, if only we observe it.

Let us take a striking example. There are many outstanding human figures in its pages, but none of them are more resplendent than King Solomon. We read the early chapters of 1 Kings, and observe that everything concerning him was in his favour. At his birth he was given a second name, which signified, "Beloved of the Lord." He stepped into kingship just when the Israelitish state had been enlarged and consolidated by his father David. Peace reigned on all sides. Moreover, when tested by God, the desire he expressed was very acceptable: asking for wisdom, he received it and much else beside. His knowledge of God was so exceptional that the fame of it travelled far afield, for the Queen of Sheba was attracted by it. She came to Solomon, not because she heard of his literary gifts or his vast acquaintance with natural history, that we read about in the end of 1 Kings 4, but because of his fame, "concerning the name of the Lord" (1 Kings 10: 1)

And then we turn to 1 Kings 11 and the record it sets before us seems almost incredible. What! this highly blessed, highly endowed King, ends his days a worshipper of abominable idols, erecting high places in their honour, bringing himself under the severe discipline of God, and sowing the seeds that finally wrecked the whole nation. This almost unbelievable disaster is vouched for by the Word of God, and its roots are laid bare, that we may be saved from anything similar.

We have written, "roots," for we may discern a variety of causes, yet they all sprang from one main cause. The tap-root, if so we may call it, of the whole disaster was found in disobedience to the word of God.

The first wrong step we notice is mentioned at the beginning of 1 Kings 3. Solomon "made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt" and took his daughter as his wife. In the days of Moses the people were told not to take in marriage the daughters of heathen peoples — see, Exodus 34: 16. The Lord knew what evil would spring out of this, and so prohibited it for all the people. Did Solomon think that he was so lifted up above the ordinary folk that legislation that applied to them did not apply to him? Or did he think that the lapse of time since Moses and altered conditions had made this law obsolete?

If now we read Deuteronomy 17: 14-20, we shall see how God anticipated that when in the land a day would come when Israel would demand a king, and so in advance special laws were enacted that should apply to him. The closing verse shows that the tendency would be for the king to be lifted up in heart and consider that legislation for the multitude did not apply to him, so that he could ignore laws made for the people, as we have just suggested.

But beside this there were three laws specially laid down for him. First, he was NOT to multiply horses to himself, and thereby cause the people to return to Egypt. Second, he was NOT to multiply wives to himself, that his heart should not be turned away. Third, he was NOT to multiply to himself silver and gold. It is noticeable how the word "multiply" occurs and the third time it is "greatly multiply." And in each case it is "multiply to himself."

And further, in these verses the king-to-be was bidden to keep himself well posted up in the law. He was to go to the trouble of writing a copy of it and then reading therein all the days of his life. Did Solomon act in obedience with this? We fear he did not. If he did, he simply treated these three prohibitions as a dead letter.

So, as regards the first, "Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen" (1 Kings 4: 26). And again, "Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt" (1 Kings 10: 28). What more natural since his wife came out of Egypt, and was not likely to be contented with humble asses or mules? It is to be noted that with the exception of the few that David captured and reserved, according to 2 Samuel 8: 4, and of Absalom, who, when making his bid for the kingdom, prepared him chariots and horses (2 Sam. 15: 1) there is no mention of a horse in Israel up to the days of Solomon. This first enactment, then, Solomon flagrantly disobeyed.

The second enactment was also disobeyed in flagrant fashion, for King Solomon loved many strange women together with the daughter of Pharaoh (1 Kings 11: 1). This transgression it was that wrought such havoc in his religious life, and carried away by their influence he plunged into sad idolatry — the special error which brought down upon him, and ultimately upon his people, the judgment of God. In his younger days and in middle life he may have had the strength of mind to resist the tendency, but "it came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods (1 Kings 11: 4). Sowing to the flesh in earlier days, he reaped corruption when he was old.

Nor was it otherwise as regards the third prohibition, as the latter part of chapter 10 testifies. He greatly multiplied gold and silver and ivory, and not only these but things that were useless, or that merely pandered to his personal vanity, like apes and peacocks. All these things he multiplied to himself.

We may remember that his father David also amassed great stores of gold and other precious things. Yes, but he did it for the house of God, that he was forbidden to build. The latter part of 1 Chronicles 28, tells us about this. And the next chapter tells us that because he set his affection to the house of his God he gave out of his privy purse no less than 3,000 talents of gold and 7,000 talents of silver. David multiplied for the service of God, though he was never to see the wealth expended. Solomon used it, and then multiplied much more to himself.

These things are recorded for our learning and warning. Riches may be a snare to a Christian, as 1 Timothy 6: 9 bears witness; but we are thinking of the many other plain instructions laid down in the New Testament for us. Because we are not under the law but under grace, we must not imagine that we have no commandments to observe. Indeed some of us might be surprised if we counted the number of times that Scripture mentions a commandment applying to Christians, particularly in the writings of the Apostle John. If we were under law, our standing before God would be determined by our keeping, or not keeping, His commandments. We are under grace, and our standing is in Christ, beyond all forfeiture. Yet if we disregard the commandments of our Lord, we dishonour Him and bring ourselves under His discipline.

There may be many details of our lives as to which the Lord has not issued any definite commandment, and we are then left to inference which with an exercised conscience we may deduce from Scripture. In such matters there may be differences of judgment. But when our Lord has spoken  - as He indeed has — it is ours simply to obey. He has issued commandments in assembly affairs — see, 1 Corinthians 14: 37 — as well as in matters of personal conduct, and if we fly in the face of these, or simply ignore them, we are bound for a disaster of some sort.

When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and He surveys all our earthly course, He will doubtless show us how much of the troubles and even disasters of a spiritual sort, that we suffered, we brought upon ourselves by our disobedience to His plain commands, and to the definite instructions that have reached us in the apostolic writings.

Displacement

Displacement.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 36, 1948-50, page 49.)

The Scriptures present to us in very striking contrast the life history of two men named Saul. In the Old Testament we have Saul of Gibeah, who became the first king over the tribes of Israel; in the New Testament Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul. Both were outstanding men: the one by reason of his great stature and imposing physical appearance; the other a man weak in bodily presence, but intense and powerful in his spirit.

Both of them were brought to a point where they had to face a most testing situation. They did not reach it in the same way, and the outward appearance of it greatly differed, yet in its underlying principles the situation was exactly the same. The strong contrast lies in they way they solved the problem it presented. If we tried to express it in one word, we should call it the problem of displacement.

This word has been largely used of recent years. People by the ten thousand, or even the hundred thousand, have been driven from the land of their birth and find themselves aliens in a strange land having lost their nationality, their possessions and sometimes their families and friends. They are like so much flotsam and jetsam on the sea of nations. They are displaced persons, and may well call forth our sympathy and prayers. This term will suit us very well as we consider the history of the two men named Saul.

With Saul of Gibeah all was bright at the beginning. His imposing appearance helped to carry him from comparative obscurity to kingship. But a test came in the matter of the Amalekites. God's command was their utter destruction, but Saul thought otherwise. Now for the test: would he allow God's will in this matter to displace his own will? He would not. Though to obey is better than sacrifice, he committed himself to disobedience. As a result he was rejected from the kingship in favour of David.

The test now came in another form. He had not allowed his will to be displaced by God's will: would he now allow himself to be displaced by David? No, he would not he fought against it might and main, and thereby committed himself to those months and years of self-seeking misery which only ended on Mount Gilboa, as recorded in 1 Samuel 19: 31.

With Saul of Tarsus things were very different. True, at the outset of his career he attained to some eminence amongst his co-religionists. He stated it thus, "I . . . profited in the Jew's religion above many my equals [contemporaries] in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers" (Gal. 1: 14). But this only landed him into a furious crusade against the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who was anathema to him.

But on the road to Damascus everything was altered fundamentally and for ever. Jesus of Nazareth revealed Himself to him in the glory of God, and in the once despised Jesus he found a new and commanding Object, which from that moment dominated his life. As he afterwards said before Agrippa and Festus, "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision" (Acts 26: 19). He became obedient, and not disobedient like Saul of Gibeah. Moreover he was wholly displaced in his own eyes by the Christ who had been revealed to him. He stated it thus: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:  and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 3: 20).

Saul of Gibeah, disobedient and fighting all his days against being displaced by another. Saul of Tarsus, obedient and "lady displaced by the Son of God, whose love unto death had captured his heart. The history of the one is recorded to warn us; of the other that we may find in him a pattern to follow, as he himself was inspired to tell us — "a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him [Jesus Christ] to life everlasting" (1 Tim. 1: 16).

So let each one of us calmly and honestly face the issue. Am I following in the steps of Saul of Gibeah or Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul — meaning, little — the Apostle of Jesus Christ? Am I disobedient and fighting against being set aside or displaced; or am I obedient to the truth of the Gospel, and glad to be set aside — displaced in order that Christ may be placed in His rightful position in heart and life? To be Christ-centred and not self-centred is proper Christianity.

And now let us note how strikingly the contrast appears when we reach the closing scenes in the lives of the two men. Near the end of his sad career, and after David had for the second time spared his life, we find Saul saying, "I have sinned . . . I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly" (1 Sam. 26: 21). We turn to the last Epistle that came from the pen of the Apostle Paul, just before his martyrdom, and we find him saying, " I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4: 7). Saul of Gibeah fought for his kingship and his crown, when God had displaced him. It was a bad fight. Saul of Tarsus, now Paul the Apostle, fought for the truth of the Gospel and the glory of his Lord and Saviour. It was a good fight.

But could any contrast be more complete or more striking than "I have played the fool," and, "I have kept the faith." Pithy sentences indeed! And each one of us, as we approach the end of our earthly course, will find that our lives are to be summed up under one sentence or the other.

Let us face the issue now, Which is it going to be?

A Door of Hope

A Door of Hope.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 11, 1919, page 36.)

There are not many doors that lead into salvation. There is but one. Jesus said, "I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved" (John. 10: 9).

Neither are there many doors leading from a feeble or backslidden spiritual condition to one of power and nearness to God. Again, there is but one, and by that door we must enter if today we would pass from our weakness and declension into a renewed measure of devotedness and faithfulness to our Lord.

Since Israel's history was written for our admonition, the things that happened to them being ensamples, or types, for us (1 Cor. 10: 11), to that history we will turn for an illustration of this matter.

First, then, it is striking to notice that their history as a nation began with the afflictions of Egypt. To Abram it was said, "Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years" (Gen. 15: 13), and it was in connection with that prophecy that Abram had the vision of the smoking furnace and the burning lamps passing between the pieces of his sacrifice. Into Egypt's smoking furnace of affliction Abram's seed passed. It was an unpromising beginning, for Jacob and his sons were far beneath Abram's spiritual level. They came down as a small tribe of quarrelsome and suspicious nomads into Goshen, apparently ignorant of what awaited them.

God, however, took them in hand and permitted them to feel the scorching heat of Egypt's furnace. "But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew" (Ex. 1: 12). In that furnace of affliction they were welded together as a nation. They entered Egypt a feeble and disunited family: they left it a compact and powerful nation.

Their subsequent history, with all its sad declension and sin is known to all of us. Nothing could surpass the blackness of their unfaithfulness and ruin save the brightness of that faithful mercy of God which plainly predicts and holds out before them the hope and way of recovery.

Now, their sin had taken two great forms: first their forsaking the true God for idols, and second the rejection and murder of the beloved Son of God, their Messiah, when he appeared. Israel is to be richly blessed upon earth, and richly a blessing to the nations in the millennial age, but before ever this can be they must pass through this one and only door to recovery of which we speak.

Hosea the prophet exercised his ministry in the years preceding the utter ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes and capture of Samaria; and his book is occupied with scathing denunciations of the atrocious idolatry that was about to bring down these sore judgments. Mingled with these denunciations are predictions of ultimate recovery, and it is in his second chapter that the expression "a door of hope" occurs.

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart [margin]. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing these, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt" (vers. 14, 15).

How amazing the grace that shines in these promises! To think that there shall yet be a moment at the end of Israel's disastrous history when she shall sing the praises of Jehovah with the sweetness of her youth and with the vigour of that moment when on the further bank of the Red Sea she saw all her foes dead upon the shore!

"She shall sing THERE." Where? In the valley of Achor. Not literally and physically of course, but morally and spiritually she will be there.

Joshua 7 enlightens us as to the significance of this reference to the valley of Achor. It owed its name to the terrible judgment that fell on Achan within it.

When Israel entered the land of promise under Joshua, they were strictly commanded to touch nothing, but make a clean sweep of the nations in possession and all their works. These instructions were sanitary precautions of a spiritual kind. Idolatry is terribly infectious as well as corrupting, and a policy of thorough isolation was the only safe one.

Achan was the first who broke through the sanitary cordon that had been established. He coveted and took a little of their silver and gold and also "a Babylonish garment." Now Babylon was the seat and stronghold of idolatry in the ancient world. This garment was Babylonish, i.e. one to be used in connection with some heathen and idolatrous practice.

Upon Achan summary judgment fell. He and all his surroundings, as well as the offending garment, perished beneath a judgment of stones and fire. Thus the infection was stayed — for the time at all events. It was judged and put away.

Idolatry will yet be revived in Israel's midst in connection with the Beast and False Prophet of Revelation 13, and their final clearance will only be when nationally they enter afresh the valley of Achor, or, in other words, they are brought to whole-hearted self-judgment, and an utter and radical forsaking and destruction of the accursed thing.

Amongst the latter prophets, long after Hosea, Zechariah appeared. In his days a remnant had returned from Babylon, idolatry had been dropped and the first appearing of Christ was the approaching event. Hence he has hardly a word to say on the subject of idolatry, but much as to the religious formalism and hypocrisy that was developing and also as to the Messiah whose coming drew nigh. He predicts His first coming in grace, and His rejection.

The rejection and death of Jesus at the hands of His wayward people was the crowning infamy of all their sins. One may well wonder if any door of hope can possibly be opened to a people guilty of such an act as this.

But, such is the goodness of God, Zechariah was commissioned to predict the opening of just such a door. Zechariah 12: 9 to 14 present it to us.

It is a door of PROFOUND repentance. The remnant of David's house and Jerusalem's inhabitants, who at that time will have come through the awful furnace of the great tribulation, a furnace far worse than that of ancient Egypt, will under the hand of God be smitten with an agonizing conviction of sin that will utterly prostrate them.

Notice a few points:-

It will be a change, not merely of thought or attitude, but of spirit. An "unclean spirit" had been in the land (Zech. 13: 2), now a "spirit of grace" is poured upon them.

It will not be mere regret for wrongdoing, nor sorrow for the consequent chastisement, but rather a profound sense of the enormity of their offence against Christ. It says, "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born," We read "there was a great cry in Egypt" when the first-born fell on the passover night. But this will evidently exceed that in intensity.

Further, the conviction and feeling will be so keen that not only will families be isolated in their sorrow but even men and their wives will find it impossible to mourn together. Each and all will instinctively seek that solitude that shuts up the soul to God alone.

We are familiar with the fact that Israel is to be the great channel of earthly blessing in the millennial age, but have we sufficiently considered this great work which is the moral foundation upon which their subsequent greatness rests? Objectively their glory in the age to come rests upon the finished work of Christ's atonement; subjectively it rests upon this great work of the Spirit in their hearts.

We stand in the last days of the church's sojourn upon earth. Its shameful failure and declension is patent to all beholders. To sit in the critic's chair and expose the wrong is an easy matter, and fruitless too, if there we stop. We need to go forward each for himself and herself, really repenting of the evil, in keeping with the spirit of Zechariah 12, and really putting away the evil in keeping with the action of Joshua in the valley of Achor.

For those who do so there is the assurance of recovery and blessing.

The matter may be crystallized into few words: All recovery is based upon repentance.

Effective Service

Effective Service.

F. B. Hole.

Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 1, 1909, page 15.

Christians are always affected, more or less, by the prevailing spirit of the world which surrounds them. In the days of primitive Christianity this was illustrated by the Corinthians, who, dwelling in a city noted for its luxury and license, soon had these evils springing up in their midst. (See 1 Cor. 4: 8, and 1 Cor. 5: 1). One of the most striking features of the day is its general shallowness, and lack of that force and serious purpose which deep conviction gives; and nowhere are these sad features more painfully pronounced, than in the bosom of the Church of God.

Brethren, we shall not fail in our pathway of testimony upon earth because of lack of knowledge, but rather because, though knowing much, we are not utterly possessed by it, and hence feel so little. We resemble some broad but shallow lake, rather than a well of small circumference, but deep. IT IS THE MAN OF DEPTH AND FEELING WHO IS EFFECTIVE IN THE SERVICE OF GOD.

As an illustration of a man who powerfully affected his fellows, take Ezra. Failure and trespass began to appear in the shattered remnant of Israel, that returned from Babylon, and the old sin of intercourse with the people of the land threatened again to ruin them. It was an emergency indeed. Ezra called together no committee; he laid no elaborate plans for reforming this abuse; he just FELT things before God, and as they affected God. He so felt things that he rent his clothes, plucked off his hair, and sat down astonished, until, realising the full extent of things, he fell on his knees, and commenced a memorable prayer of confession, by saying "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to Thee, my God." — Ezra 9: 3-6.

Then as Ezra was himself moved, others were moved with him (Ezra 9:  4). Indeed, as the work of God in repentance and confession deepened in him, so the power of God radiated forth through him, until "there assembled unto him out of Israel, a very great congregation of men and women and children: for the people wept very sore." (Ezra 10: 1) In result there was a national cleansing from their false associations, and the plague was stayed.

What a contrast between the noisy and ineffective machinery of man's making, and the quiet ease and grace of a heaven-sent movement. But that movement works through a man who feels things with God.

Jonah illustrates another phase of the same thing. He was one of the most effective preachers of antiquity. Though addressing a people of great wickedness, and carrying a message of judgment — always an unpopular one — yet his simple words produced astonishing results. To a man, the Ninevites sought the face of God, and turned from their evil way. (Jonah 3: 5-9).

Why such extraordinary power with the message? Was it not because the man who cried "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown," came up to his mission, fresh from an overthrow himself? Jonah learnt experimentally what it meant to be overthrown by God. When, in the belly of the fish, all God's billows and waves passed over him, the agony of it must have burnt into his soul in a way never to be effaced. When therefore this man preaches an overthrow, there is a power, a pungency, a heaven-born velocity about his words, that is otherwise unknown.

Brethren in Christ, it were better for us to master well one lesson in the school of God than to acquaint ourselves with much in a superficial way.

"Elect . . . unto obedience"

"Elect . . . unto obedience"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 149.)

It is a fact in which we may ever rejoice that we "are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6: 14). Yet that fact does not absolve us from a life of obedience, as, the succeeding verses, in Romans 6, plainly show. Our unconverted lives were marked by the yielding of our members as servants, that in their varied lusts we might obey sin. Now, as converted, we yield our members as servants of righteousness, that so we may obey God.

Moreover, the whole character of the service that we may render under grace is transformed. Were we under the law, such obedience as we managed to offer, would be rendered under compulsion, in order, if possible, to live and establish our position. But now, being delivered from the law and brought under the loving authority of Christ, we serve and obey "in newness of spirit" (Rom. 7: 6). The Gospel has brought us under the mighty influence of the love of Christ, and this produces a glad and spontaneous obedience, not to secure something for ourselves, but rather to please our Saviour.

Of this obedience we read when we open Peter's first epistle. We are "elect," for God has chosen us in His foreknowledge, and we have been reached "through sanctification of the Spirit," and that has committed us to "obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." In this sentence the words, "of Jesus Christ," evidently apply to the obedience as well as to the blood. The sprinkling of His blood was needed to clear us from all the sins that accumulated in our former life of disobedience; and now we are committed to a life of obedience, the pattern of which is the perfect obedience that He rendered in His pathway here. We are to obey as He obeyed.

This imparts a very high and holy character to the life of a Christian, and our first impression may be to regard it as an impracticable ideal. But it is not so, as we may see if we carefully read the first epistle of John. We are there regarded as "born of God," and therefore we have a nature which, viewed abstractly, in its essential nature, "cannot sin," and "doeth righteousness," and therefore we have the capacity to walk as He walked, and do as He did. This will be seen, if in that epistle we read, 1 John 2: 5, 6, 29; 1 John 3: 6, 7, 10, 16; 1 John 4: 11-13; 1 John 5: 1-4, 18. We have the flesh still in us and all too often it displays its ugly features: but this is our essential character, as born of God; and so it is possible for us to obey even as Christ obeyed.

In the Scriptures there are ample warnings against disobedience. We will mention but three. A very instructive Old Testament one is found in 1 Samuel 15, when Saul was sent to destroy the Amalekites. He was told why this severe sentence was to be carried out, though why it was to extend even to their flocks and herds, is not mentioned: but so it was. Now the flocks and herds were desirable possessions, and so under cover of zeal for sacrifices in the service of the Lord, Saul did not do what he was told, but spared them. This brought forth the word of the Lord through Samuel, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" (verse 22).

This incident unmasks for us a very subtle temptation to disobedience in the service of the Lord. Saul was now to accomplish what God has decreed, as we see if we read Deuteronomy 25: 17-19, and so serve the will of God. All true service for us is the carrying out of the will of God, but in grace, since grace characterizes the epoch in which we live. How easily, even in the service of grace, we may be tempted to spare what God has condemned, and do so under cover of honouring God. Our deviation from obedience may seem to us to be an advancement of the work of God, but thus it never is. We cannot serve God and sacrifice to Him after our own thoughts. It is for us to obey.

Another temptation is to assume that the lapse of time induces some alteration in the divine instructions. There was evidently a tendency in this direction under the law of Moses, as century after century passed. In the days of Malachi over a thousand years had passed since the law was given, and hence that word in his fourth chapter, "Remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments." This is the closing injunction of the Old Testament.

Two sad things had happened when Malachi prophesied. First, the majority of the people had been for several centuries scattered among the nations. Second, among the minority, gathered back into the land, grave defection and disobedience had supervened. There must have been strong temptation, specially among the scattered ones, to think — I am indeed a child of Israel, but in my present abnormal conditions I need hardly concern myself with the law, given to my nation in their normal state. The word through Malachi was — The law was given for "all Israel," and therefore, if of Israel, it applies to you, whatever your state may be.

Again, the temptation may have been even stronger for them to say, — But surely, if we try to remember the main demands of the law, we need not concern ourselves with all those minor details, that come under "the statutes and judgments." But this subtle error is met with equal directness. The law, the whole law in all its details, was as binding on the children of Israel as their dispensation drew on to its close, as it was at the outset. To obey it was the responsibility set before them by the prophet.

A third temptation for us is to assume that small details of our behaviour, or of church order and procedure, as laid down in New Testament writings, may lapse, or possibly need alteration, as the days in which we live are marked by such extraordinary progress in human affairs. In this connection let us read 1 Corinthians 14: 36, 37. Many disorders, some of them of a very grave kind, had crept into the large Christian assembly at Corinth. The word of God did not come out from them. It came unto them only, and in a very special way by this epistle, which the Apostle wrote to them.

Now, in this chapter 14, quite definite instructions are given as to how things should be ordered when they came together in assembly, whether concerning giving thanks, or singing, or prayer, or even ministry of a prophetic character. Having given these instructions, Paul called upon the saints at Corinth to recognize that these, together with all the earlier instructions he gave, were not just his own ideas of what would be seemly, but were, "the commandments of the Lord." That being so, our duty is perfectly plain. It is not for us to attempt to explain them away, or to treat them as merely Paul's view of things, or as instructions quite appropriate in the first century, but really outdated in this twentieth century of the Christian era; but rather, as far as we may understand them, to obey them.

In a time of dispensational change we may find instructions given, which later are countermanded: Matthew 28: 19, for instance, alters what Jesus said, as recorded in Matthew 10: 5. Again, Luke 22: 36, countermands earlier instructions. But when a dispensation is established, the instructions given at the outset abide until the dispensation's end. Romans 1: 5, states that the Gospel comes to all nations that it may be obeyed. The same epistle ends with the fact that the mystery, that springs out of the Gospel, is made known among all nations "for the obedience of faith."

May all of us, who confess Jesus as our Lord, be more concerned as to walking in obedience — that character of glad and devoted obedience that characterized Him.

"The election of grace."

"The election of grace."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 106.)

The Scriptural doctrine of election, if it be taken up in a merely intellectual way, is beset with many difficulties. It appears on the surface of things to come into instant collision with the equally Scriptural doctrine of man's responsibility to God. In the past, great schools of opinion have been formed around both doctrines, and fierce controversies have been waged. Today these controversies have waned, still many of those who do not go to the extreme length of such an obsession with one side as to deny altogether the other, but rather admit both, find considerable difficulty in putting both together in an intelligible way.

Romans 9, 10 and 11 are the great New Testament chapters on this important theme. The Apostle Paul is maintaining that in this age, having set Israel as a nation on one side, God has elected to extend mercy to the Gentiles. He consequently proceeds to show that God has uniformly acted in electing mercy; that Israel themselves would have been long ago destroyed as a nation had God not elected to have mercy on them after the sin of the golden calf; and, further, that they owed their original existence as a nation to that same election, in Isaac being chosen and not Ishmael, in Jacob being chosen and not Esau (Rom. 9: 7-13).

In establishing, therefore, the truth of election the apostle carries us back to Genesis, to the son and grandson of Abraham. In these two men the principle of it was set forth. A comparison of the chapters in Genesis with the verses in Romans 9 is very illuminating.

First, in order, both historically and morally, comes Isaac. The apostle quotes the saying recorded in Genesis 21: 12: "In Isaac shall thy seed be called," and his inspired comment on this is: "That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." The flesh can produce nothing save what is flesh. This fact was plainly declared by the Lord Himself (John 3: 6), and His death was the total setting aside and condemnation of flesh, its judicial end. Still God knew its character from the beginning. He knew it was a corrupt source and therefore a source of nothing but corruption. Hence He passed by Ishmael, the child of the flesh, and His election rested on Isaac, the child of promise, the son who had his origin in the resurrection power of God as expressed in His promise of earlier years.

The first illustration of election, then, clearly instructs us that God chooses what is OF Himself, and this involves the passing by of what is not of Himself but merely of man, man's will, or man's energy. This is doctrinally stated as regards ourselves: "The sons of God . . . which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1: 12, 13).

All this lies on the surface and is simple. The difficulty comes in when we remember that even believers were as much of the flesh as others; we are only "of God" as "born of God," and that God's election long preceded our new birth. In other words, we were not elected of God because born of God, but born of God because elected of God.

This leads us to remark upon the inspired fitness of Scripture in setting Isaac before us as primarily a type of Christ, and only secondarily a type of ourselves. The Lord Jesus was essentially the Son of promise, and just as Isaac was born on a resurrection principle, so He came into the world not according to the laws of nature, but according to the operation of the Holy Ghost, and "the power of the Highest" (Luke 1: 35). The Virgin Mary was the vessel chosen for this wondrous entry of Him, whose goings forth had been from the days of eternity, into human life — a life so totally corrupted in us, but so perfectly spotless and holy in Him. He, therefore, is prophetically saluted — "Behold My servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth" (Isa. 42: 1). Truly, here is One elect, because God chooses what is of Himself.

The first man Adam and his race are like Ishmael, fallen, wild, untamed, and untamable. The second Man, the last Adam, is the chosen of God because of His own intrinsic perfections, but we who are of His race, we who are in Him, are also the elect of God. In Colossians 3: 12-14 we are exhorted to "put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved," all those beautiful traits of character which were seen in full measure and in perfect harmony in Christ Himself, who is in surpassing measure "THE ELECT OF GOD, HOLY AND BELOVED."

Thus far as to Isaac; but now turning to Jacob we find the apostle in Romans 9 pointing out the peculiar features of his case. Both he and Esau were children of one mother, and produced at one birth, for they were twins; Esau having first place by a few moments, according to nature. Again, however, God set aside the first, and selected the second, saying, "The elder shall serve the younger" (verse 12). The inspired comment on this in the preceding verse runs: "For the children not being yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth," — showing us thus that God chooses because of what HE IS IN HIMSELF, and not because of what men may be as expressed in their works.

This brings us at once into the presence of that inscrutable mystery that lies at the heart of all divine truth. Turn where we will, whether to the material creation with its unsolvable problems, or to the questions that centre around the existence of Satan and sin, and their entrance into this world, or to the exercise of God's sovereign will and choice, which is now before us, we ultimately in our inquiries come to the facts so strikingly set forth at the close of these three chapters of Romans. In God's wisdom and knowledge there is a depth of riches that must always be beyond the sounding-line of the creature, however exalted. His judgments must be unsearchable, His ways past finding out to us (See Rom. 11: 33-36). There, then, we have to stop, and rest on the assurance that because He is good all His arrangements and elections must be good also. "Thou art good, and doest good," said the believer of Old Testament days (Ps. 119: 68).

God's election of Jacob, and consequent passing over of Esau, brought out another thing, viz., the wisdom and rightness of God's choice is always revealed in the after history, and thus His election always justifies itself in its results. Before Esau and Jacob were born the Divine word was "the elder shall serve the younger." A thousand years after their careers were over it was put upon record, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Mal. 1: 2, 3; Rom. 9: 13).

Had the choice been left to us in the early years of their career, we should have probably selected Esau with practical unanimity. His surface characteristics would have appealed to us. Without a doubt the average unconverted person would choose Esau rather than Jacob at any time, during their lives or a thousand years after. But not so the child of God. He perceives with God that though marked by many a surface blemish there was that in Jacob, fruit of God's work, which was of God, and, therefore, lovely and to be loved. God's choice is "not of works," i.e., of man's works, but "of Him that calleth," i.e., of His own work. God's election and God's work go hand in hand. Why they go in any particular direction and not in another is a question utterly beyond our creature minds; nor should we be capable of understanding God's reasons, if He condescended to tell us, — so we verily believe.

But there is one thing of which we may be sure: God's choice is always "the election of GRACE" (Rom. 11: 5). That God elects to judgment is an idea reached as the fruit of human reasonings upon this matter, which so completely transcends our reason; it is never so stated in Scripture. The Scriptural presentation of the case is that all are totally ruined with no point of recovery in themselves, and that God chooses to have mercy on some and, consequently, in them to work with life-giving power.

Though God does not elect for judgment, He does sometimes harden the hearts of wilful rebels. He may even pick up one such and "raise him up" (Rom. 9: 17), i.e., exalt him to a place of great prominence and renown, as with the Pharaoh of the Exodus, in order to make a salutary example of him, and declare His own power and renown through all the earth. That, too, He does not only for His own name's sake but also for the blessing of men. It was ruin for Pharaoh but it was salvation for Rahab and her household who had heard of the fame of God's mighty hand, and, doubtless, it was salvation for many more besides. Pharaoh was one of those "vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction" — it does not say God had fitted them, they had fitted themselves by their sin and rebellion; there were also "the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory" (verses 22, 23). Here Scripture does present God as the originator and worker. The vessels of mercy were such by His work.

The fact is, and let us gladly bow to it, God has the right to do what He pleases; and what He pleases, that will He do. Men may oppose, and God will judge. He may here and there harden an opponent's heart until he makes a most conspicuous fool of himself as did Pharaoh, and God will then glorify Himself in the presence of man's folly; but His election is always for blessing, and of grace; it is the expression of His mercy, so strikingly set forth in the latter part of Romans 11, just before the doxology which closes the chapter.

The difficulties which envelop this subject largely vanish if we begin with the full acceptance of the truth that man is a totally lost creature with no point of recovery in himself. In Romans 3: 10, 11, the word "none" is thrice repeated. We all easily acquiesce in the first, "There is none righteous." Still for an unrighteous man there is hope if only he recognizes his estate. Alas! "There is none that understandeth." That being so the only faint hope lies in a man being in some way attracted Godward so that he may begin to understand. Alas, once more! "There is none that seeketh after God." Then hope is dead as far as man is concerned!

Do we all really admit this and recognize its force and implications? If so, we shall at once see that there is no hope save in God's electing mercy. There will never be any movement towards Himself and His blessing save as the fruit of His own work.

The parable in Luke 14 sets this forth. The supper was amply provided. It pictures the provision of grace, the result of Christ's work. All was, however, unavailing as far as recipients were concerned save as the fruit of the exertions of "the servant," picture of the Holy Spirit. Every soul that actually enjoyed the supper was there as the result of the servant's work. Christ's work provides the blessing, but none taste it save as coming under the sovereign work of the Spirit of God, and He acts in harmony with the purpose of God and the election of grace.

Let us bless God that we, too, have come into the embrace of that electing mercy, which first showed itself forth in the cases of Isaac and Jacob so long ago.

Encouragement for Parents

Encouragement for Parents.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 18, 1926, page 180.)

To be a parent is no light thing in any case. To be a Christian parent is an even more serious and responsible thing, as is doubtless realized by those of our readers who stand in such a relationship.

Here are, let us suppose, Christian parents with young children. As they gaze upon their loved little ones they realize that they are parents of their flesh — if we may slightly adopt the phrase used in Hebrews 12: 9 — and that by heredity their children stand possessed of the same fallen nature as they know to be in themselves, and with probably a strong leaning towards just those passions and sins which they know to their sorrow and shame have been particularly emphasized in their own cases. For themselves they have happy experience of the grace of God and of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit within, as a result they possess the new nature and by the Spirit given to them as believers they know themselves to be in Christ. As yet, however, they could assert no such things of their children, and they are acutely conscious that new birth and faith in Christ are not transmitted from parent to child. Such is the situation: a situation that may well cause deep and serious exercise of heart.

Surprise is not infrequently expressed by onlookers at the spectacle of young people becoming notorious in ungodliness, and yet springing from eminently godly homes; and it is sometimes suggested — in agreement with the arguments and insinuations of Job's three friends — that the explanation must be that there has been grave sin, or at least grave defect in training, on the part of the parents. If, however, what we have just stated be remembered, as also that it is frequently just those who left unconverted would have been the greatest of sinners, that converted become the most devoted of saints, no surprise need be felt. The children have inherited from their parents the Adamic nature with, probably, an emphasis laid on some particular ugly feature or features which, but for the grace of God, would have been to the fore in the case of their parents; and so they will continue until grace intervenes also with them.

But have Christian parents any ground for really expecting such intervention? May they, in the midst of their exercises and even anguish of heart, repose in the confident anticipation of a work of God which in His own time shall effect a great and saving deliverance for their beloved children?

We may answer this important question by referring to the Gospel record and taking note of the seven occasions on which the Lord Jesus was approached by a parent on behalf of a child. They are as follows:

1. The daughter of Jairus: recorded in Matt. 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8. The daughter was a child of twelve, she was therefore just entering upon the age of responsibility; the father, a ruler of the synagogue; the catastrophe impending was the final one of death. In his affliction Jairus found his resource in an appeal to the Lord. He was heard, yet the impending catastrophe was not averted as doubtless he expected with more or less faith. Circumstances conspired to hinder, and the Lord did not alter the circumstances. Yet Jairus' appeal did not fall on unheeding ears. It was answered with a fulness of power that went beyond the father's faith, and the maid was restored to life.

2. The daughter of the woman of Canaan: recorded in Matt. 15 and Mark 7 The parent here was a Gentile, springing from an accursed race. The Lord Himself was in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, a very stronghold of the devil, as Ezekiel 28: 11-19 testifies, and her daughter was grievously vexed with a demon. The poor woman, though an outcast, a mere dog, brought the case of her child to Jesus. She was not heard at once. The Lord used the occasion of the intensity of her affliction to work a wholesome state of honesty and humility and confession in her soul. But, when she took her own true place and incidentally expressed her faith in the largeness of His bounty that would overflow to a Gentile dog such as she was, she got to the full the desire of her heart in her daughter's deliverance. Her appeal was effectual. She was heard.

3. The lunatic, son of a certain man: recorded in Matt. 17, Mark 9 and Luke 9. This case has several features of special interest. In the absence of the Lord upon the mount of transfiguration, the man first brought the lad to the remaining nine disciples, and they failed to cast out the demon. The failure of the disciples cast reflections on the power of the Master, and hence, knowing all too well the peculiar malignity and stubbornness of the demon who held his boy in bondage, the father approached the Lord with weak and shaken faith, saying, "If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." This gave the Lord the opportunity of demonstrating two things. First, His own supreme power, utterly beyond the possibility of challenge by the adversary. The demon did his malign worst, as though he would wreck the poor tenement of clay, if, indeed, he had to vacate it; yet the Lord raised up the lad and delivered him to his father in perfect soundness. Second, that the only "if" that could by any possibility be introduced into the case, concerned the faith of the parent, who made the application, addressed to His grace and power: "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." That great statement full of encouragement was made in reference to a parent's application to Jesus for the deliverance and blessing of his child.

4. The little children brought that He should put His hands on them and pray: recorded in Matt. 19, Mark 10 and Luke 18. This case also is of peculiar interest. The children in question were very young. "Little children," "young children," "infants" are the descriptions given. We are not told with any exactness who brought them. In each Gospel the matter is left impersonal. Presumable the parents brought them; if brought by others, it only makes the Lord's reception of them the more remarkable The disciples, moreover, were actively hostile to the request, yet "He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them and blessed them."

5. The mother of Zebedee's children with her sons: recorded in Matt. 20 In this case the "children" were no longer young, but full-grown men. No: were they strangers to the Lord Jesus but His acknowledged disciples, His chosen apostles, and near the end of their period of instruction by the Lord in person. The request preferred by their mother did not concern their deliverance or blessing either physical or spiritual, but had to do with their advancement and honour in the coming kingdom of displayed glory. A mother's natural pride and pleasure in her son sought its gratification at His hands and was refused!

6. The son of the widow of Nain: recorded in Luke 7. Special features are again prominent here. The dead son was a full-grown man and the only son of his mother, and she a widow. There is no record that the poor woman, widowed and weeping, uttered any appeal as the two crowds met — a dead man the centre of one; the Christ, the Prince of Life, the centre of the other. Yet, though no cry for help passed her lips, though she was perhaps all-unconscious of the true identity of the Living One, He saw her; He had compassion on her; He said to her, "Weep not." He "touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still, and He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother."

Touched in His infinite compassion by the sight of a mother's lamentations, superadded to a widow's grief, unasked He acted; and the power that was always the servant of His compassion wrought a deliverance which she never expected, and dried up her tears.

7. A certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum: recorded in John 4. Here again we meet with the pleadings of faith. The father went personally to Jesus and besought Him to come and heal his son. True faith had to be tested. The unbelieving mass were content with nothing but signs and wonders, and faith which merely rests on visible displays is no true faith at all. Under the test the nobleman redoubled his pleading and was then met by the word, "Go thy way; thy son liveth." Here his faith triumphed, for without the slightest display which appealed to sight the man took the Lord at His word and went home, only to be met on the way by his servants with the joyful tidings of his son's recovery; a recovery that took place with miraculous suddenness at the very hour in which Jesus uttered the word of power concerning him. No wonder that then he believed and his whole house! The thing of note was that he believed before, for faith is taking Him at His word — believing what He says, because He says it.

We have briefly reviewed these seven Gospel instances that we may obtain a safe and sound — because Scriptural — answer to our question. The question was, be it remembered. Have Christian parents any ground for expecting God to intervene in the blessing of their children?

The joyful answer is: Yes, they have most abundant ground for expecting it. Is their child an infant? The Lord Jesus took infants into His arms and blessed them. Is it the case of a daughter or son afflicted by the power of the devil, or near to death, or actually in death, or even a son grown to man's estate and claimed by death as its prey and insensible to all beside? In each case He heard and wrought deliverance. True, in one case there was delay, circumstances were permitted to hinder. In another there had to be first wrought a work of honest self-judgment in the soul of the afflicted Gentile mother; in another the gentle rebuke of feeble and shaken faith in the anguished father; in yet another the testing of very genuine faith that it might the more distinctly be manifested; and all these spiritual dealings with the parents necessitated some delay. Yet in every case their cry was heard and abundantly answered.

Still there was one exception, which was the more remarkable inasmuch as the applicants here were definite followers and servants of the Lord before making their application. They were, indeed, the only ones of the seven of which we could confidently affirm this, and they were the only ones that met with a refusal! Ah, but they came not for blessing and healing and deliverance, but for honour and preferment! Herein lay the secret of their disappointment, and therefore the one exception is the exception which proves the rule.

We, who are Christian parents, may then with confidence get upon our knees to bring the cases of our children to the Lord. If we bring them with a desire for their prominence and glory, in order that our natural pride and pleasure in them may be enhanced by their being distinguished either in this world or the world to come, we have no ground for expecting the Lord to act. If we bring them that their desperate need may be met and their blessing accomplished, He will hear us. The varying circumstances on our side will be no hindrance. We ourselves may be Jews or Gentiles, people of little faith or defective faith, or strong faith, or even so overpowered by grief that we make no audible appeal at all — it is all the same. The children may be young or old, afflicted in mind or body, or with no affliction at all — it is all the same. He will deliver. He will bless. He will do it in His own time, so as to spiritually exercise and bless the parent as well as the child, which may mean delay; but He will do it, and do it tenderly, even taking them up in the arms of His love to bless them.

No longer is He upon earth, so that the anguished parent heart may cry out before Him, "Master, I beseech Thee, look upon my son" — or "daughter" as the case may be. He is exalted in the heavens with all power at His disposal. Yet He is unchanged in His compassions as in all else, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." Therefore your cry shall be answered by the unchanged and unchanging Christ in the same unchanging way.

Is not this enough?

"The end of the Lord."

"The end of the Lord."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 21, 1929, page 108.)

All God's dealings with His people have a definite end in view. If, in the first place, we recognize that this is a fact, and if secondly we gain some understanding of what the end is, we shall be stabilised and tranquillised in our souls; we shall be patient and enduring unto the coming of the Lord.

If we open the Epistle of James at his fifth chapter we shall find that in the first six verses he contemplates the early Christians as being defrauded and even killed by the ungodly. Then in verses 7 and 8 he exhorts them to patience: they were to endure unto the coming of the Lord, when everything will be rectified, when the end God had in view in all His dealings with them will be reached and the riddle which His ways had presented will be fully solved. In verse I I he reminds them that while waiting for the coming of the Lord they had the comfort of the Scriptures and particularly of the book of Job. The history of that patriarch has been put on record that future generations might have a clear insight into the object that God has before Him in allowing even the direst calamities to overwhelm His people.

We doubt if there is living upon earth to-day one Christian who is not more or less tried by circumstances. Moreover, in the great majority of cases they are not only tried but also very much perplexed and often tempted to quarrel with God's discipline and find fault with His ways. We are all of us apt to reason about such things as did Asaph before he went into the Sanctuary. He tells us about it in Psalm 73, and records that going into the Sanctuary of God he gained an understanding of the end of the ungodly, which solved the riddle of God's previous dealings with them. It was their end, however, which Asaph discovered. God's end, the object He has before Him, in all His dealings with His people, is another matter; and it is this that we find in the closing chapter of the book of Job.

We have "heard of the patience of Job." It has indeed become proverbial. It is not likely that in all the history of the world before or since has such a combination of disasters fallen upon one man in one day. The various happenings were as co-ordinated as to rule out all idea of chance and make it manifest that they were directed from the unseen world. Job's friends felt this and so did Job, yet he endured and gave God time to work out His seemingly dark design to its bright conclusion.

Our patience may be very small compared with Job's. We indeed may hardly have had the patience to read through the forty-two chapters of his book, while he had the patience to endure the sufferings and trials which those chapters record! The Apostle James said to his fellow-believers, "Ye . . . have seen the end of the Lord." We may well ask ourselves if we have seen it. It is still worth seeing. It will strengthen our feeble patience if we observe it. Let us read Job 42 with that object in view.

Having read the chapter, let us endeavour to summarise what we have seen as to the end of God's dealings with him.

1. Job was enriched by an increased knowledge of God Himself, for he said, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee." In these words he contrasted his former knowledge which had been by report merely with that which he

had now acquired by direct

observation. He had, if we may so put it, exchanged knowledge acquired at second hand for knowledge of a first-hand sort. Formerly he knew about Him but now he knew Him.

"Mine eye seeth Thee." Not exactly the eye of his head — for the Lord was in the whirlwind and there was no visible shape before his eyes — but the eye of his mind. He had gained a direct apprehension of, and contact with, God. Was there no gain in this? There was immense gain.

Precisely this is the first great end of all God's dealings with His saints today. Every trial that crosses our paths has this for its object, for there are certain things that can only be learned in the school of experience. We do not underrate the importance of Bible study. God forbid that we should! There are things that can only be learned in God's Bible-study School. There we must go and sit if we would be instructed in God's thoughts and get delivered from our own thoughts. Sound doctrine is of the utmost importance and there alone, with the Spirit of God as our Instructor, can we get it. But to graduate in the experimental knowledge of God we must enter His school of discipline — a school which offers to us a life-long curriculum.

The Scriptures are full of examples which show us the value of God's school of discipline. A peculiarly striking example is the case of the sisters of Bethany, as recorded in John 11. They had a very trying experience, for it must have been tantalizing beyond words to know that all would be well if only the Lord appeared, and yet there was that unaccountable delay, that apparent indifference, until death supervened and their hopes crumbled to dust. Still in the final issue how greatly were they enlarged in the knowledge of Jesus! What a display they witnessed not only of His power but of His love! They gained an insight into His divine affections that could never be exactly duplicated during an eternity in heaven.

"The touch that heals the broken heart

Is never felt above.

His angels know His blessedness,

His way-worn saints His love."

Now it is exactly thus for us today. Let us earnestly pray that we may not miss this "end of the Lord" in all the trials we may be called upon to face. If this be the happy finish to the story of our difficult circumstances we may well endure with patience.

2. In gaining this knowledge of God, Job gained a corresponding knowledge of himself in an experimental way, for he added, "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Thus it ever is. The more we know of God the more, by way of contrast, we know ourselves. Self-knowledge of this sort is very painful but it is very wholesome, for it leads to salvation from self, which is a deliverance of the first magnitude.

There was a time in Job's history when things had been very different in every way. He describes it in Job 29, and the pronouns "I," "me," and "my" seem to tumble over one another all through the chapter. He was prosperous and flourishing and mightily content with his performances. Verse 11 of that chapter stands in striking contrast with verses 5 and 6 of our chapter. Then he stated, "when the ear heard me, then it BLESSED me; and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me." Now he says, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I ABHOR myself and repent in dust and ashes." When the eye was filled with Job there was one story to tell. When Jehovah filled the vision and Job was only seen as in the light of His presence the story was quite another. This self-knowledge can only be reached in an experimental way. The worthlessness of our nature is very patiently stated in Scripture, and of course we do well to believe its holy denunciations and humbly bow before God's Word as convicted by it. Yet it is one thing to believe in the worthlessness of the flesh and another thing to learn it by humbling experience. In Romans 7: 18, Paul did not say "I believe," but "I KNOW that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing;" and that chapter details for us the sad experiences through which he reached that knowledge.

Have we learned this much needed lesson? It is the narrow gate that leads to a large place of blessing in the liberty of the Spirit. It is a part of the "end of the Lord" in all our trials.

3. Job himself was much altered; his own character brought more largely into conformity with the gracious nature of God. This feature is not perhaps so immediately apparent; but it unquestionably underlies what we have in verses 7 to 10 of our chapter.

Job's three friends had not as yet been humbled as Job had been. At last, as recorded in Job 40: 3-5 and Job 42: 1-5, Job had spoken of God the thing that was right and the three friends had not reached this point. They had only ceased speaking, had only laid their hands upon their mouths, because Job had talked them to a standstill. They were now instructed of God as to the course they were to take. They were so to act as firstly to render a testimony to sacrifice on the only ground upon which sinful men may have to do with God; and secondly to humble themselves by seeking the intercession of the very man whom they had been accusing and maligning. They were to be the humble applicants and Job was to act as a priest of God! This was "the end of the Lord" — very desirable indeed — as to the three friends.

But what of Job? Well, here he is still in his bodily wretchedness, stripped of all earthly possessions, sitting in the dust heap. In his smitten and afflicted state he had proved himself an intellectual prince amongst men. Handicapped as he was, he had taken on these able men in argument and talked them to silence. They had said cruel and uncalled for things to him and he had repaid them with added interest in hot words, cutting with sarcasm. Now, however, the wordy storm is over and the three friends approach Job's heap of ashes with the animals of sacrifice and in a very different spirit. Did the men of the east hear of these strange doings and gather round in their crowds to see what would happen? — we wonder.

If they did, they saw a lovely sight. The Lord had told the three friends that the man who had argued so hotly against them would now intercede for them. The sacrifices offered, they draw near and ask his prayers. The afflicted patriarch arises from the dust and though still stripped like a beggar and covered with boils he acts like a prince and a priest. The Job that they knew had disappeared, submerged beneath a new Job formed in the character of the God whom he now knew with a first-hand knowledge, The hot feeling, the animosity, the sarcasm gone. Prayer is heard in its place. And not prayer for himself, not a cry for deliverance from his boils and poverty, but prayer for them, in a warm stream of kindly intercession.

Formerly Job thought he was great, as chapter 29 witnesses. Now he really was great, with the only kind of greatness that abides for ever — moral worth in the likeness of God. Behold this bereaved, beggared and boil-smitten man in conscious nearness to God, lovingly interceding for three men well favoured and healthy who had formerly filled him with annoyance. It was a delightful triumph for the kindness of God. Job was immeasurably promoted in spiritual grace. God's end in all Job's sufferings was a worthy one, if we think for the moment of this feature alone.

4. God blessed Job abundantly; turning his captivity and giving him twice as much as he had before. This He did, when Job had prayed for his friends — and not till then. The blessings of those days were earthly and material, in contrast with the "spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1: 3) which are the distinctive portion of the Christian. Yet God did not permit the tide of them to once more roll in upon Job until he had been profoundly altered in spirit and character. When at last brought into nearness to God, he exercised priestly functions in a way that reflected the goodness and benevolence of God, then everything external changed. The boils disappeared, health returned, the ashes were forsaken, kindness and benevolence was poured back into his own bosom by those who had previously misjudged or forsaken him, and God so prospered him that he ended with twice as much as he had before. Job, therefore, was not a loser but a gainer by the divine dealings, even in material things.

And this, too, is one great object that God ever has in all His discipline. Today the blessings conferred are spiritual and not material, as we have seen; but there is many an aged believer who would testify that their very trials and sorrows have been instrumental under God's hand in leading them into an enjoyment of His spiritual gifts twice as great as that with which they started.

In our case we have to remember that God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, and that His gifts as well as His calling are not subject to recall or to a change of mind. The spiritual blessings are ours, but the apprehension, the realization, the enjoyment of them is another thing; and it is here that great enlargement may be known. That we should be so enlarged is part of God's design in His dealings with us.

5. Lastly, God conveyed to Job a somewhat hidden but very sweet assurance as to one of the main points of perplexity and exercise of mind through which he had passed. In the first chapter we read about Job's intercessory sacrifices and his earnest desires for his children, and how they were swept out of life in a way that well might have raised in his mind distressing doubts and fears as to them. In chapter 14 we read his reasonings and mental struggles over the great matter of resurrection, which in his day was not a subject of clear and unmistakable revelation. "If a man die shall he live again?" was his anxious question, and we have the pathetic record of how he tried to spell out an affirmative answer, reasoning from the analogy of a cut-down tree. He succeeded in reaching the conclusion that death was not the end of men; but that in the end his change would come, and he would rise in answer to the call of God. Still at the best it was a conclusion he had reached by reasoning and not a plain word of revelation from God.

The hour for that plain revelation was not yet. It arrived when Christ Himself rose from the dead, and consequently life and incorruptibility came to light by the gospel. Still, by means of His peculiar arithmetic, God gave to Job an intimation calculated to confirm him in his expectations. It looked like faulty arithmetic, but it was really thoroughly correct and full of meaning.

In verse 10 the plain statement is made that "the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." This is supplemented by details in verses 12 and 13, so that we may see that this statement covered not only sheep, camels, oxen and asses, but also sons and daughters. If we have a mind to check the arithmetic of God's "two-times table" we have only to refer back to Job 1: 3. We find it correct as to sheep, fourteen thousand as against seven thousand; as regards camels, six thousand against three thousand; as regards oxen, a thousand yoke as against five hundred; as regards asses, a thousand as against five hundred; but when we come to children we find a serious discrepancy, only seven sons and three daughters as against the same number before. Why is this? The Lord gave him twice as much as he had before and no qualification or reservation is attached to that statement.

Was it a mistake? By no means. It was a gracious intimation to Job which doubtless his faith knew how to interpret. Had God given him fourteen sons and six daughters the inference would have been that his former children were as much and as irrevocably lost to him as were his former sheep and camels and oxen and asses. In giving him afresh only seven sons and three daughters, it was in effect God telling him that the first family was not permanently lost, that his prayers and intercessions had been heard and that there was a resurrection world in which he and they should meet again.

So this, too, was part of "the end of the Lord" in Job's case. It must have greatly established his faith and filled his soul with contentment and praise. As in after years he looked back over his strange and trying experiences he must have felt they were worthwhile in spite of being so crushing. He was enriched in every way as the result of them, and God was glorified in him.

These things written aforetime were written for our learning. Have we learned by them? In the New Testament we have the assurance that "all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. 8: 28). All things, without any qualification. The troubles that come upon us in the church circle as well as in the domestic or business circles; troubles springing from one's brethren as well as troubles arising from the world or from one's own personal mistakes; all are included. The fact is, that when most things seem to be combining against us, then most are we entitled to look up to God with enquiry as to what His end may be and to wait with patience to behold it.

It may be ours to behold it and rejoice in it even now; but whether so or not, at the coming of the Lord it will be manifested perfectly.

"Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord."

"Enriched in Him"

"Enriched in Him"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 225.)

The disorders that marked the church at Corinth indicated that they were not in a healthy state from a spiritual point of view. They had the sort of knowledge that tends to "puff up," as the opening of 1 Corinthians 8, of the first epistle, shows; but their state was "carnal," and not "spiritual," as Paul plainly tells them, at the opening of 1 Corinthians 3. Notwithstanding this, the Apostle could say to them, "in everything ye have been enriched in Him" (1 Cor. 1: 5 New Trans.). The poor conception they had of the riches did not alter the fact that the riches had been bestowed.

It is indeed remarkable how these "riches" were indicated by our Lord to His disciples during His farewell discourse to them, and in His final prayer to the Father, recorded in John 14-17. They were stated in an elementary way, as bound up with the revelation He had made, the work He was about to accomplish, and the consequent gift of the Holy Spirit. Let us briefly notice some of these "riches," that we have in Him.

As we commence reading John 14, the first is revealed. It is,

"My Father" verse 7.

This great enrichment indeed fills the first eleven verses. The Father so revealed that we may know Him, and the Father's house to be our eternal dwelling-place in association with the Son Himself. The Lord Jesus was so really in the Father, and the Father so effectively in Him, while He was as a Man on this earth, that His words were the Father's words, and the Father, dwelling in Him, was the Doer of the works. It was not, however until His death and resurrection were accomplished facts, that He could say to His disciples, "My Father and your Father" (John 20: 17).

In John 14, He does proceed to speak to them of

"My name," verse 13.

And they and we, being left to represent Him during the time of His absence, may know its virtue and power, as we make our requests in prayer. Indeed any and every request, which is really in His name, as genuinely representing His interests, is sure to meet with a favourable response. A very real enrichment indeed!

But these enrichments in the way of privileges carry with them enrichments in the way of responsibilities. Hence we now read of,

"My commandments John 14: 15,

"My words," John 14: 23,

"My sayings," John 14: 24,

"My words," John 15: 7.

Now His commandments consist of definite injunctions which demand our obedience. They are given, not that by keeping them the flesh in us may be restrained, and a position before God may be attained; but because we are put into a position of favour before God, and they are given with the object of directing the new nature that we possess, to the setting aside of the flesh. We are indeed enriched by having these clear-cut, definite expressions of the will of our Lord for us.

In verses 23 and 24, the Greek words are similar, save that in the earlier verse the word is in the singular, in the latter it is in the plural. In the New Translation they appear as "word," and "words." Here then we have the expression of His mind in a more general way, apart from definite commands, and then the very words in which His mind is expressed. In chapter 15 the word is different, but having much the same force. All His sayings express His mind and will for us, and if they abide in us, our minds are brought into conformity with His mind, and happy obedience follows, with prayer that is acceptable and answered of God. And what an enrichment is this!

In the light of what we have already seen, it is not surprising to find that towards the end of John 14 the Lord speaks of,

"My peace" verse 27.

The peace He leaves with them is doubtless that mentioned in Romans 5: 1, the result of justification by faith in Himself, as having been delivered for our offences and raised again. But beyond this there was the peace that He ever enjoyed in His path of obedience, ever subject to His Father's will. Now if we, under the direction of the Comforter, who was to come and abide, are subject to His word and will, peace of that kind and order will possess our hearts. He has made provision that so it may be, as His gift. Another great enrichment bestowed upon us!

As in some measure at least His peace fills our hearts, we are prepared more largely to enter upon the realization and joy of,

"My love" John 15: 9.

His love has been fully expressed. We know it, thank God, but we are to "continue," or "abide" in it. It is therefore to permeate all our thoughts and be the governing factor in our lives, and this will only be possible as we keep His commandments, and thus we are in obedience to His mind. And, as the succeeding verses show, our love will flow out to all others in the family of God. Love is the Divine nature, and as we abide in it, there is of necessity an outflow to all others in whom that nature dwells. On our side love and obedience are inseparable. The saint who dwells in love is of necessity obedient Godward, and filled with love for the brethren. Where is an enrichment greater than this?

But if not greater, there is certainly more; for the Lord proceeds to speak of,

My joy John 15: 11,

that His disciples might have their cup of joy filled to the brim, by the fact that His joy may be in us; and His utterances up to this point had this in view. His joy had been to do His Father's commandments and thus abide in His love. Now they and we, are committed to a life of obedience to the commandments of His love, and thus abiding in His love, we shall possess a joy of the same order as His, though realized of course in a much smaller degree. That we should be able to share in a joy that is His is an enrichment of a very wonderful kind.

It is not surprising therefore to find a few verses lower down the words,

"My friends" John 15: 14.

We must notice however that here we find an enrichment that is conditional. He accounts us as His friends, if we are marked by obedience to what He commands. Now we have seen that obedience springs from, and is the expression of love. So our Lord is virtually saying that if we abide in His love, and so are marked by responsive love and the obedience that flows from it, He will bring us into the intimacy that friendship involves. We are not merely servants, but friends, as the next verse shows; but it is love and obedience that will introduce us into the understanding and intimacy that friendship really involves. One has sometimes wondered if the Apostle John when he wrote about the "friends" in the last verse of his third epistle, had this saying of our Lord in his mind. If so he was thinking of certain saints who were specially marked by love and obedience to their Lord. Such intimacy with Him is an enrichment beyond words.

We have to travel on into John 17 to find the last of these wonderful things. There we read of,

"My glory" John 17: 24.

We are to behold His glory, and we are to be in a glorified condition ourselves when we behold it, for a few verses earlier we read, "the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them." He did not say, you notice, "I will give," but rather, "I have given." The donation is an accomplished fact. The glory conferred upon Him is given to us; but there is of course the essential and eternal glory which ever was His, and this we shall behold to our abiding joy.

This will be a crowning enrichment through eternal days!

Eternal Life or Idols

Eternal Life or Idols.

Condensed Notes of an Address on 1 John 5: 18-21, given at Wooler, November 3rd, 1949.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 37, 1951-2, page 26.)

In reading this short passage my main point is contained in verses 20 and 21; but just a few words, to start with, on verses 18 and 19, where we have a very important distinction. The Spirit of God draws a very clear line of demarcation between the saints as born of God and the world out of which they have been taken. We must ever bear in mind that we belong to a chosen race, to a generation that God has brought into being by His own act. The character of this new race is declared, since, "whosoever is born of God sinneth not."

Now here we have one of those abstract statements that occur so often in this remarkable epistle. That is, the Spirit of God invites us to consider the matter in its own essential nature and character, abstracting it in our thoughts from all other things, and from the complications they may introduce. To consider a thing abstractly is very helpful, if we really wish to understand it.

Let me use an illustration. A chemist might hand you a bottle and uncorking it might bid you take a sniff. You do so and recoil, saying it has a disagreeable smell. He now hands you another bottle containing a fluid that looks like water, and when opened you can hardly detect any odour. Yet he tells you that the most potent ingredient in the first bottle was that very liquid. In the first bottle its real nature was obscured by other substances. Only when presented in abstract form was its true nature revealed.

Now we are living in a world of many mixtures. The object of the great adversary is to make the mixture as complicated as possible. The object of the Spirit of God is to differentiate, and make the abstract character of the child of God on the one hand, and of the world on the other, as plain as possible.

As born of God we have a nature that is sinless. Such an one, abstractly considered, "cannot sin," as we are told in 1 John 3: 9. Other verses in this epistle contemplate us in our present practical condition, and then consequently speak of our sinning. But when the Lord comes and we stand with Him in glory what is now true of us only in this abstract sense will be true of us practically, absolutely and forever. Thanks be to God!

So also in verse 19, the world is considered in an abstract way. It lies "in wickedness" or "in the wicked one." You may wish to tell me that there are some very nice and amiable people in the world. Granted, if you consider the world with its strange complications, from a practical point of view. In Romans 7 and Romans 8, the "flesh" is viewed abstractly and so we read that there is no good in it, and that those who are in the flesh "cannot please God."

May God help us all, and particularly those who are young, to seize the abstract point of view. Those born of God cannot sin. A man in the flesh cannot do anything but sin. The world lies in the grip of the wicked one.

That may seem a strong thing to say of the world, but it is true. The devil is shaping the course of things. Men may imagine they are doing it, but they are not. When I was a small boy I was taken to see a marionette show. There were the little dolls quaintly dressed all moving or dancing on the stage. But from where I sat cracks in the boarding beneath the stage allowed me to have a glimpse of the men who were pulling the strings, so the dancing of the dolls was not so wonderful to my childish mind. Men on the world stage may look imposing — Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and the rest — but when we see the devil pulling the strings that control their movements, they fascinate us no more.

The trouble with us so often is that we ignore the line of demarcation that God has drawn. Let us see that we maintain it, for we mix things at our peril.

The first statement of verse 20 is this: "We know that the Son of God is come." We do not know that some great and inscrutable Person is come, and that He became the Son of God by the manner in which He came. That is not the truth, and what our verse states is the truth. "Son of God" is a Name of most illustrious import. His coming into Manhood was an act of humiliation, a stoop of unimaginable greatness — far greater than would have been involved had it been needful for Michael the Archangel to assume the lowest form of animal life, and become a worm.

"Son of God" is not a Name taken, expressive of His humiliation but the Name of His original glory, and we have some knowledge of what His coming has brought us. God has been made known, and the Father's Name fully declared. Glimpses of the true God had been granted in previous ages, but now, "Him that is true" stands fully revealed.

But wonderful as the revelation is, it would mean nothing to us had we not eyes to see it. So we get the second great statement of our verse that "He hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true." We may well bless God for a gift like that.

How was that gift bestowed? Well, not only have we been begotten of God, but from the ascended Christ we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. As we read in 1 John 2: 20, it could be said even to babes in Christ, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." In the last scenes, as recorded in Luke's Gospel, we read how the Lord opened the understanding of His disciples that they might understand the Scriptures. That I should connect with John's record of how He breathed into them, saying, "Receive ye Holy Ghost;" bestowing upon them His risen life in the energy of the Spirit. Hence there is given to us the understanding to take in the things of God.

So in our verse we have, firstly, the revelation in the coming of the Son of God. Then, secondly there is illumination by the gift of this understanding. You may remember that the Lord Jesus said, "The light of the body is the eye." Someone might feel inclined to say "But I thought that the light is the sun." So it is, if we view things objectively. But viewing things subjectively, and as a matter of our experience, the eye is the light. The sun might be shining at noon, but if I had no eye there would be nothing but darkness in me.

Twice in our verse God is spoken of as "Him that is true." Here as ever, truth stands in contrast to all that is false and unreal. In God Himself we have the ultimate Reality. Hence the sharp contrast that is drawn between Him and the world, which is so full of unreality. In its moral character the world is a vain show, but even in a physical and material way unreality is increasingly stamped upon everything. Very few things are just what they seem to be. The very food we eat is largely faked in one way or another. This epistle tells us, "The world passeth away." We need shed no tears over that statement.

But verse 20 carries us a step further. Not only have we the revelation and the illumination but, "we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ." We are at a loss for one word to express this. We might say, origination, but that would better express the fact that we are "of God," as verse 19 told us. This goes beyond that, for we might have been "of" Him without being "in" Him. We are "in Him that is true," inasmuch as we are brought into His life and nature, by being "in His Son Jesus Christ;" so perhaps derivation is the more suitable word. Him that is true, then, is clearly God the Father, and we are in the Father by being in the Son. So here we have that which the Lord spoke of anticipatively in John 14. He looked forward to the day close at hand when the Spirit should be given to indwell the disciples, and He said, "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." We derive everything from Him.

This is indeed a most marvellous thing — something beyond all our thoughts. The depth of our plight as fallen sinners was such that it would have been wonderful if God had redeemed us and fitted us to know and be with Him, just as a dog knows and loves his master. A dog may display considerable intelligence and great devotion, but all within the limits set by this fact — it cannot share the life and nature of its master. We are not mere spectators or observers, we have that which no angel has, being brought into the very life and nature of God, by being "in His Son."

Are we then to entertain the thought that the Son is merely an intermediary, and possibly something inferior to God the Father? This false idea has always been simmering in some minds, and appearing more or less boldly from time to time. The closing words of our verse dissipate this thought. Pointing an emphatic finger at "His Son Jesus Christ," the solemn pronouncement is, "This is the true God, and eternal life."

In the first verses of his Gospel, John introduces the same Person as "The Word," and asserts His essential Deity. Here He is "The Son," and His Deity is affirmed with equal emphasis. The adjective "true" is added here, since the world, which is energized by the deceiver, lies darkly in the background. But He not only is the true God, so that all that may be known of God is revealed in Him, but He is also the eternal life, the Fountain-Head of that life which now is ours, so that we may know and enjoy the revelation.

Into that life have we been brought, and we have it now. This does not in any way clash with that which we find frequently in Paul's writings — "The end everlasting life" (Rom. 6: 22) — that life as a future thing. You might walk into a greenhouse in this country and see a cactus growing in a pot. It looks like a spiny cucumber standing up on its end. If you ever visit the West Indies you will see the same sort of cactus in its tropical fulness, twenty feet high, and not stunted by a chilly clime. The essential life of both is the same. We have the life now, though its fulness belongs to the age that is to come.

That which hinders the development of that life now may be summed up in the one word, idols.

Hence the last verse of the epistle. The word, "little" should not be there. The whole family of God is addressed and not babes merely. The closing exhortation is "Keep yourselves from idols." What is an idol? We may define it by saying, an idol is anything which usurps in the heart and mind that supreme place that belongs to God alone. That which takes such commanding possession of our thoughts becomes an idol.

In these words the Holy Spirit has uncovered for us the root of much failure and weakness amongst the children of God. The idolized thing becomes like a film over the eye, dimming its vision of the brighter things above. Here I feel very sympathetic with my younger brothers and sisters, for I am now sufficiently old to look back to youthful days when there were not nearly the number of clever things invented, calculated to fascinate and fill the mind to the exclusion of far better things. In my young days there were no motor-cars, no aeroplanes, no radio, no television, no cinemas, enticing you to spend time on them rather than on the service of the Lord and things of eternal value.

So our closing word must be one of warning. You may hear great and wonderful things in meetings, and even yield them a ready assent in your mind, but if you are decoyed away to spend most of your time in the pursuit of other things that bear the idol character, your Christianity will be but a poor anaemic thing.

So let me repeat once more John's closing admonition, "Children, keep yourselves from idols." And may we all have grace to respond with "Amen," and really mean it.

Evil Men, Silly Women, and the Man of God

Evil Men, Silly Women, and the Man of God.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 210.)

The one passage of Scripture which deals in direct fashion with the last days of the church's sojourn on earth is 2 Timothy 3: 1 - 4: 5. Elsewhere we get predictions concerning "the latter times" (1 Tim. 4: 1), and also as to what shall happen after the church is removed, in such a Scripture as 2 Thessalonians 2. The former of these two passages, however, deals with a time a little before, and the latter passage with a time just after, "the last days" of 2 Timothy 3: 1.

We believe that these "last days" are now upon us, and consequently the Scripture we have indicated has a most urgent voice to us. Hence our calling attention to it in these pages. We ask that the passage be carefully read.

The apostle, we notice, fixes his prophetic gaze upon the sphere of religious profession in the last days, and not upon the condition of the world as such. The sphere where Christ's name is owned, and the Christian religion is professed, is before him, and within it he discerns three classes.

1. "Evil men" (verse 13).

2. "Silly women" (verse 6).

3. "The man of God" (verse 17).

We have placed "evil men" first in order because their features are fully described in the opening verses of the chapter, though the actual words do not occur until verse 13 is reached. The "evil men and seducers" who are to "wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" are those who resist the truth after the fashion of Jannes and Jambres (verse 8), they lead captive the "silly women" (verse 6), and they are "of this sort" — i.e., they are the stamp of person described so fully in verses 2-5. Those terrible verses give us a picture of the general state of the professors of Christianity in the last days, as is clear from verse 5. which shows that all the evils of verses 2, 3, and 4 are covered with a cloak, "a form of godliness," though of course the power of godliness is totally wanting — is rather denied.

In order that the import of these verses may more fully dawn upon us, we quote the rendering given in the New Translation: — "Men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, evil speakers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, profane, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, of unsubdued passions, savage, having no love for what is good, traitors, headlong, of vain pretensions, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; having a form of piety, but denying the power of it: and from these turn away."

Several features of this dreadful picture are very significant. "Self" stands first. "God" comes last, and even then He is only mentioned in order to be excluded. Does not this tell its own tale? The roots of this go back as far as to the garden of Eden. The sin of Adam was virtually this, that he set up self as his object and excluded God by throwing off allegiance to Him.

After "self" comes "money." Those who are lovers of self are always lovers of money, since money is the well-nigh universal medium of exchange whereby all material things that minister to self are procured.

Following again are fifteen descriptions, most of which, if not all, are various manifestations of the self-assertive spirit, for instance: —

"Boastful" — glorying in the supposed prowess of self.

"Arrogant" — filled with an overweening sense of the importance of self.

"Evil speakers" — ready to decry others that self may be the more effectually elevated.

"Disobedient to parents" — self-assertion at a very early age.

"Ungrateful" — self treated as of such importance that all services are taken for granted and treated as unworthy of recognition.

"Profane" — self rising up in its fancied might and belittling God, — and so we might continue to the end of the list.

Last on the list comes "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." If self is the great object, and money is prized as that which enables self to be gratified, pleasure in its many forms is that which gratifies, and it is loved accordingly.

In a word the whole picture presented to us is one of fierce, aggressive, unabashed self-assertion to a point where God is entirely excluded, though the outward form of piety is still retained for appearance sake.

The extraordinary way in which the description fits the present age is quite apparent. A great word in educational, and other similar circles, just at present is self-expression! Education, we are told, consists in drawing out of the young that which is in them; they must be taught to express themselves. Indeed, the right of each individual to this self-expression is insisted upon. Educational ideas, now hopelessly out of date, might recognize there was latent in the child as much needing repression as that needing expression, if not more. Modern theories, denying the fall of man, also deny, or at least ignore, the ugly facts of fallen human nature, and hence repression is ruled out, and expression is all the rage.

In 2 Timothy 3: 2-5 we have, then, just human nature pretty fully expressed with a cloak of hypocrisy superimposed.

But though the description given covers in a general way the religious professors of the last days, out of the general mass there proceeds a special class of deceivers. "Of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women" (verse 6). "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith" (verse 8). "But evil men and seducers [or, juggling impostors] shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived" (verse 13). These three verses put together give us a full portrait of the character of the "evil men."

They are first and foremost active energetic agents of the powers of darkness. They are seducers, and in effect, deceiving, yet are they themselves deceived. They maintain a certain outward Christian profession and yet are thoroughly dominated and deceived by the spiritual forces of evil that they serve. Their minds are corrupted, hence their methods are crooked. They creep into houses to do their nefarious work instead of walking in erect by the front door. Judged by "the faith" they are reprobate or "found worthless," and as to "the truth" they resist it.

This last point seems to be their characteristic feature. They resist the truth, as the two Egyptian magicians once withstood Moses. Truth is the great standard by which everything is judged. Truth is the great object of the assaults of the adversary whom these evil men serve, though perhaps they are not so directly and palpably under his influence as were the Egyptian magicians of old.

It is worthy of note that nothing immoral or outwardly abominable is alleged against these men, as for instance is alleged against those of whom Jude writes. The evil that marks them is of a more refined and subtle sort — evil in the region of soul and spirit rather than the body.

Men "of this sort" are much in evidence to-day. Self makes up their little world. Truth they hate and resist, and souls they corrupt and capture. We need not mention various names under which they work. They adopt a variety of banners, and have differing party cries, but essentially they are one. May we all be fully warned against them!

The victims of the deceiving teachings of these evil men, who are thus led captive by them, are designated "silly women." The term "women" is used, we judge, with a moral significance, i.e., it describes a class of person, and not exactly the female sex as such. The Old Testament provides us with a similar passage in Proverbs 2: 10-22. There we find warnings against "the evil man" (verse 12) and also "the strange woman" (verse 16). That there is a simple and literal meaning there is obvious. It is equally clear that the two expressions personify evil in its two main features; violence on the one hand, and corruption on the other. So, here; though it is true that in the main self-assertiveness, and boasting and active propagation of seducing deceits characterizes men rather than women, and a certain foolish shallowness and inability to reach settled convictions characterizes women rather than men, yet plenty of exceptions to the general rule may be found. Hence, we judge, just as "evil men" in the passage before us indicates a class in which occasionally women may be found, so "silly women" indicates another class in which not a few men may be found.

The characteristic feature of the "silly women" is that they are "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (verse 7). Always inquiring, always open to receive novelties, and yet never reaching a settled state of conviction about anything. "What is truth?" is their perpetual cry. The reason of this singular inability to reach definite knowledge is exposed for us in the words "laden with sins, led away with divers lusts." When the life is laden with sins, and various and conflicting desires and passions make a battle-ground of the heart, no divinely-reached conviction is possible.

Here is another proof of what has often been asserted, viz., that the origin of all mental and intellectual trouble, all scepticism, and uncertainty and indecision, is much more frequently found in the heart than in the mind. The difficulty is far more of a moral than of an intellectual nature. And, oh! with what frequency are the "silly women" to be met with to-day. How many learned professors are bending their energies to produce just this type! Our forefathers were men of rugged beliefs and sharp convictions, whether right or wrong, and lusty blows they gave and received in the conflict engendered. Today all such loud vulgarity is condemned and eschewed and the fashionable thing is to inquire continually and be sure of nothing, so as the better to indulge one's various lusts conveniently, and become a "silly woman" indeed!

The present age is unquestionably marked by shallowness. The river of human thought and energy has so broadened out that depth has necessarily been sacrificed. Shallowness — foolish shallowness — in the things of God is greatly to be dreaded. May the Lord in His goodness deliver both writer and reader from every taint of it.

Towards the end of our chapter a third class comes to light. There are "all that will live [or, desire to live] godly in Christ Jesus" (verse 12). The "evil men" are lovers of pleasures. The "silly women" are led by their various lusts. But in contrast these, far from living lives of self-gratification, "shall suffer persecution." The tide of the world is dead against them. Out of this class springs "the man of God" who is contemplated by the apostle in verse 17.

Not all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus attain to that remarkable title. In Old Testament times God had many saints and witnesses; a few only are called men of God; so in the New Testament. A "man of God" is a man raised up to stand for God when the mass of that which is professedly His is marked by decay and declension and even apostasy.

In this passage the "man of God" particularly before the mind of the apostle was Timothy himself, and we shall do well to notice the things that marked him.

In the first place, he had fully known Paul's doctrine and manner of life. He was thoroughly acquainted, that is, with the full truth of Christianity, and with the proper experimental effect of that truth as seen in the life of Paul, the pattern saint (see 1 Tim. 1: 16).

Secondly, he knew from a child the Holy Scriptures given by inspiration of God. Here he had the unfolding of God's ways in deliverance and government, with every conceivable warning of the tendencies and workings of the fallen human heart. Thus he was to be made wise unto salvation from every pitfall which Satan would set for his feet, or the feet of saints generally. Scripture, too, is capable of so many different uses that it thoroughly furnishes the man of God unto all good works. Here we have the positive equipment of the man of God. 2 Tim. 2: 21 has shown us his necessary equipment of a negative character. As a result of that he will be "prepared unto every good work," just as here he is "throughly furnished unto all good works."

Lastly, he preaches "the word" (2 Tim. 4: 2). Fortified by the truth himself, made wise unto salvation from the raging tide of evil, and thoroughly furnished, he wields the word of truth for the deliverance of others. Truth may fall in the street to all appearance, for the populace may "turn away their ears from the truth," and "turn to fables," still the more earnestly and insistently he preaches the Word.

All this particularly characterizes the man of God. It characterizes also, though, doubtless, in lesser measure, all who will live godly in Christ Jesus. We are painfully conscious how far we come from being entitled to such a designation as "man of God." We may even be aware that we could hardly lay claim to the title "the godly in Christ Jesus," still how gracious is our God! How condescending to our littleness and feebleness in these last days! He even speaks of those who "desire to live godly in Christ Jesus." Cannot we thankfully place ourselves here?

As we conclude our survey of the passage, let us notice how upon God's side all seems to hinge on the truth; and how on our side all hinges on what we love.

Whatever the "evil men" may be in themselves, the great object of the devil in raising them up is that they may "resist the TRUTH." Whether they work in open opposition, or in the more dangerous form of imitation, this is the object.

If it be a question of the careless multitude that will be embraced within the capacious circle of a corrupted and worldly Christianity, they "turn away their ears from the TRUTH." They are glad enough to have teachers, but wish them to pander to their own lusts.

The "silly women" are of an inquiring turn of mind, and therefore at first sight, promise better things. They, however, are marked, as we have seen, by being "never able to come to a knowledge of the TRUTH."

As for the "man of God," that which above all else characterizes him is that he is thoroughly saturated with Scripture, which is to us the fountainhead of TRUTH. The word "truth" does not occur in the verses concerning the man of God. We do get, however, "my doctrine," "the Holy Scriptures," "all Scripture," "the word," and "sound doctrine," which is only another way of saying "THE TRUTH."

In the last days, as in all other days, the truth is of all importance. If that be lost all is lost indeed.

On our side we are coloured and controlled by what we love.

The evil men are "lovers" as we have seen. "Lovers of their own selves, lovers of money, . . . lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God." Their career of evil is controlled by this.

So, too, the "silly women." They are controlled and led away by their various lusts, — or unlawful loves. Demas, of whom we read in 2 Tim. 4: 10, seems to be a pretty fair example of such. Unstable was he, and ultimately controlled by the fact that he "loved this present world."

On the other hand, the man of God is what the evil man is not — a lover of God, and, consequently, he loves Christ's appearing. In this he is not alone. Just as there are others who at least desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, so in anticipating "that day," he says, "not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing" (2 Tim. 4: 8).

And now let us seriously ask ourselves — do we love Christ's appearing? If, indeed, we are Christ's we do most certainly love His coming into the air which will mean the rapture and translation of His saints. His appearing will mean the testing hour has come. The heavens and the earth will be shaken. All religious profession will be put to the test. "Evil men" and "silly women" will equally be tested and judged. The present world which ensnared Demas of old, and has so sorely tempted saints from that day to this, will be exposed in all its hollowness and sham. The truth will be gloriously vindicated, and those who are of the truth, and have held to the Word, living godly in Christ Jesus, according to it, and proclaiming it, will be rewarded with a crown of righteousness. It will be a moment when light, divine light, will be shed on all things.

How does the thought of it affect us? Do we welcome it? Is His glorious appearing as dear to us as is His coming into the air and the rapture of the saints?

Let us brace ourselves afresh for the path of faithful walk and witness while we wait for that Day. May God Himself help us so to do.

"And to exalt the lamb."

"And to exalt the lamb."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 9, 1917, page 8.)

In the very dawn of the world's history the lamb was evidently marked out by God as the animal of sacrifice The "firstling" of Abel's flock is witness to this, as also is the question asked by Isaac in Genesis 22.

That question, "Where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?" seems to ring all through the Old Testament pages without finding any conclusive answer, for no lamb that fell upon Jewish altars possessed any intrinsic value or was able to take away sins (Heb. 10: 1, 2). Abraham's reply was prophetic, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering," and with such a promise men had to rest content, save that the prediction was amplified with further details as time went on. A grand example of such amplification is found in Isaiah 52: 13 to 53: 12, where it was revealed that Jehovah's Servant who should deal prudently, who should be exalted and extolled and be very high, was He who should be "brought as a lamb to the slaughter" for the transgression of Jehovah's people.

To find the glorious New Testament sequel we have to turn to the writings of the Apostle John. Hardly have we commenced his Gospel when the words "Behold the Lamb of God" meet our eyes. We have not proceeded far with the Revelation ere we find heaven's worship centering round the Lamb and expressing itself in the cry, "Worthy is the Lamb."

The Revelation indeed is the book of the glory of the Lamb, and it is worthy of note that the Spirit of God has selected a diminutive form of the word for use in that book, a word meaning "little Lamb." It is as though He would heighten the effect of the contrast by presenting us with the One who became the Sacrifice, and was despised and depreciated as such according to Isaiah 53, now exalted to the highest pinnacle of glory.

The "little lamb" is mentioned at intervals right through the book of Revelation, but it is in connection with the account of the heavenly city (Rev. 21: 9 to Rev. 22: 5) that we have Him mentioned no less than seven times. A city is a place of permanent dwelling, a place of centralized authority, and hence the seat of an influence which permeates the territory comprised within its sphere. It becomes a fitting symbol for the place the church will occupy in the coming age, as the dwelling-place of God, the seat of divine authority and the heavenly centre from whence flow divine and heavenly influences to the earth.

The church, be it ever remembered, is only to be the seat of these excellent things and not the source. The source is found in "God and the Lamb."

The seven things stated concerning the Lamb are these:

(1) The church as the city itself is the wife of the One who once was the despised and suffering Lamb of sacrifice (ver. 9). Amid all the surroundings of external glory and the glad service of ten thousand times ten thousand, He is to possess an object for His deepest affections who in return can intelligently reciprocate them; who can be to Him what in prophetic type Eve was to Adam amid the unfallen splendours of the first creation. This will indeed be the very crowning recompense, the richest fruit of the travail of His soul which He shall see.

(2) The city clearly is the fruit of His own work. Its foundations have their origin in connection with Him — "twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." The names inscribed are the names of the sent ones of the once suffering Lamb of sacrifice. Had there been no Lamb there would have been no apostles, and if each foundation had upon it one apostolic name, every foundation of the twelve was reminiscent of the Lamb whose apostles they were.

Evidently then He will find His solace and joy in that which is itself the direct fruit of His own work.

(3) Every earthly city is built around something. It clusters around some seat of learning, or religion, or authority. Rome was centred in its capitol; Ephesus in the Temple of Diana; Jerusalem was the city of the great King and found its centre in His temple. Of the heavenly city, however, it is said: "I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." Upon earth a sanctuary is needful. Disorder and defilement are upon every hand. In that abode of serene order and purity the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple as well as the Deity enshrined therein — that is, they put themselves directly and unhinderedly into contact with the city itself. No longer do men see "through a glass darkly" but "face to face."

(4) There, too, no created light is needed. "The glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." Moreover the nations spared to enter the millennial age will walk in the light of the city, so that it will be a sort of luminary or light-bearer for the earth. The light which glows in and through it is, however, the light of the One who became the despised and suffering sacrifice for men. Oh I what a light is that.

"But who that glorious blaze

Of living light shall tell,

Where all His brightness God displays,

And the Lamb's glories dwell?"

(5) Into all this great blessedness none are admitted save those "which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

(6) Next we find that a pure river of water of life proceeds "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb," and connected with this is the tree of life which affords both fruit and healing for the nations on earth. All life and fruitfulness and health-giving influence flows forth from the Lamb who is now upon the throne. He is indeed, as John the Baptist foretold, not only the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but also He that baptizes with the Holy Ghost, the result being that they who once were submerged in sin are now flooded with life and blessing.

(7) The curse goes out, and "the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it." The authority of God is finally established, but in connection with the Lamb. Who would not gladly bow to such authority — the authority of the One who sacrificed Himself for us.

This is the last mention of the Lamb in Scripture. He is upon the throne.

One practical word. He who is the Lamb is also the Lion of Judah. Yet it is not as the Lion but as the Lamb that He sits upon the throne. The "Lion" is a character He wears; the "Lamb" is what He is. ("I am meek and lowly in heart.")

And the Lamb, though not yet manifested, is upon the throne to-day. Let us more fully own His authority, and in endeavouring to submit to it, and perhaps to enforce it on our fellows, let us remember it is the Lamb's authority we maintain.

Authority has often been enforced with lion-like energy during the church's sad history, and always with disastrous results. It is Lamb-like authority which prevails.

In that day "His servants shall serve Him," i.e. the Lamb's servants — the servants of the once despised and suffering Lamb of sacrifice — serve the Lamb; and we may depend upon it that in this day we shall not properly serve Him except we are dominated by that spirit.

"Faith" - some "better thing."

"Faith" — some "better thing."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol.  41, 1962-64, page 17.)

The first verse of Hebrews 2 introduces "faith;" its closing verse alludes to "some better thing," which God had "provided," or, "foreseen" for us, who are Christians, compared with the saints of Old Testament times. This better portion which is ours does not consist of things visible to our natural eyes, and therefore faith is a prime necessity for us.

Have we all realized what a remarkable chapter Hebrews 11 is? The actual word faith only occurs twice in the whole of the Old Testament. and the first of these is a negation, for Moses had to complain of the mass of the people that they had, "no faith." And this is alluded to and endorsed in Hebrews 3 and 4, where it is pointed out that Israel's failure sprang from their unbelief; the word that reached them not being "mixed with faith." Yet in chapter 11 the Spirit of God reveals to us that all that was vital in these godly souls of pre-Christian times was the fruit of faith. What lay so largely beneath the surface in former times, now stands clearly revealed.

We have long thought that this chapter might be summarized under three headings; the first of which is,

Faith saves.

The offering that Abel brought was not the result of a fortunate guess but the fruit of faith, which perceived that on him as a sinner the death penalty rested, and so God could only be approached on the ground of death. Thus he was accounted righteous, and he knew it. So also, faith enabled Enoch to walk with God, though surrounded by fearful evils, and at last enabled him to escape death by translation. And further, what was it that enabled Noah to persist year after year building the enormous ship on dry land?  - which must have seemed ridiculous to the men of his day. It was faith, believing that God would do what He had said He would do. It resulted in salvation when the antediluvian world was destroyed. Yes, it is faith that saves.

But then we pass on to Abraham, and the middle of the chapter shows us that

Faith sees,

for it gives a spiritual conception of things that lie outside our natural vision. Abraham departed from Ur of the Chaldees, though it was no mean city — as modern excavations have proved — to go forth into the unknown. His faith enabled him to envisage a city that had foundations that were laid by God Himself. And so we move on through the patriarchs until we come to Moses, when we find a man, who "endured, as seeing Him, who is invisible." So clearly it is faith that sees.

Then in the latter part of the chapter we discover that

Faith suffers.

The one who possesses it is endowed with the power to endure. Indeed we may say that faith never shines more brightly than when it is confronted by adverse power. Moses chose "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." And a long list follows of those who endured persecution and suffering in the energy of faith.

Thus God makes known to us that even in these earlier days, when what was revealed was often in connection with things that were visible, audible and tangible, what was of supreme importance for man was faith. Equally so, indeed even more so, is it thus for us today, seeing that the "better" thing, that we are to know and enjoy, lies outside our natural powers.

Some better thing then have we. Let us notice how this word, better, occurs, as we glance over the epistle. To begin with, we have it in Hebrews 1: 4. The Son, who was the Creator, had become the Revealer and the Redeemer, and is declared to be "much better than the angels." Now the law was given by "the disposition of angels," as Stephen said in his last address, recorded in Acts 7, and this is alluded to in our epistle, when we reach Hebrews 2: 2. Hence this first great contrast in the epistle. The law conveyed some revelation of the mind of God, and it reached them through angels. The full revelation of God, which lies at the base of the better thing that has reached us, is found in the Son, who stands far above and better than all angels.

The word "better" does not actually occur again until Hebrews 7 is reached, but there it occurs thrice. In the first case it stands connected with a type. The priesthood of Christ is "after the order of Melchizedec," and eternal. Now Melchizedec blessed Abraham, out of whom sprang the Aaronic priesthood, and he who blesses is better than the one who is blessed. The priesthood of Christ is eternal, and exists far above Aaron and his family, established under the law.

Then, as verses 18 and 19 remind us, the law made nothing perfect, and so the commandment going before is set aside, and a better hope is brought in. Now why is the better thing spoken of as a hope? Our reply would be that, as stated in Hebrews 3: 1, ours is a "heavenly calling," that will not be fully realized until heaven itself is reached. Hence a large element of hope enters into the Christian calling, and is of a character that surpasses any hope connected with the calling of Israel. But though this is the case its present effect is to bring us near to God. Before Christ came and accomplished His redeeming work, the way into the holiest was not made manifest. Now it is, and we have boldness of access to God, as is stated in Hebrews 1.

Verse 22 makes this manifest, for a new "testament," or "covenant" has been established, and of this covenant the Lord Jesus is the "Surety." If at this point the reader will turn to Genesis 43, and particularly note verse 9, the force of "surety" will be plain. The new covenant is a declaration of the grace of God; and it is as if our Lord said, "Should it not stand imperishable and for ever, let Me bear the blame of it for ever." Stand it will for it is "the everlasting covenant," as Hebrews 13 states; and how much better it is than the old covenant of Sinai is abundantly clear. This is confirmed when we reach Hebrews 8: 6, where the promises connected with it are mentioned. The hope connected with these promises we have just referred to.

If we pass on now to Hebrews 9: 23, we get the statement that the heavenly things themselves are purified with better sacrifices than those offered under the law for the purification of the patterns of those heavenly things. The word here is in the plural — "better sacrifices," because, we judge, the Hebrew reader is referred back to Leviticus 1 - 5, in which various offerings were commanded, all of which had typical reference to Christ. His whole pathway from the glory was marked by continual sacrifice, which culminated in the One great, atoning sacrifice of the cross, of which the rest of Hebrews 9 speaks. Here indeed was the one sacrifice of infinite value, which far outshines any sacrifice previously known.

The early part of Hebrews 10 continues this theme, and shows us that sin having been put away by the sacrifice of Christ, the believer today has boldness of access to "the holiest"  - the very presence of God Himself. And in the later verses of that chapter we learn that consequently we are possessed of "substance," of an "eternal" nature, which is "better" than anything that was promised to Israel under the law. Had they been obedient, they would have been prospered and multiplied in their families and all earthly possessions. The Hebrew Christian had substance that lay outside earthly things, in keeping with the fact that they, and we also, are "partakers of the heavenly calling," as Hebrews 3: 1 states.

It was the realization of this that enabled these early Hebrew believers to take "joyfully the spoiling" of their "goods." It would have been a great thing if, when some of their homes were smashed up by an opposing mob, they had faced the loss with resignation and meekness, but they actually faced it with joyfulness. It served to emphasize in their minds the glorious fact that their real portion lay outside earth and in heaven, far beyond the power of all their opponents.

And what was it that made the heavenly portion that was theirs so real to them? The answer to this is of course found in the first verse of Hebrews 11, which in Darby's New Translation reads, "Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." The better and enduring substance was substantiated to the early Hebrew Christian by faith.

Exactly thus it is for us today. We, who are English-speaking Christians, are like men walking amidst a forest of pleasant and attractive things. The few of us who can look back through sixty or even seventy years, can realize how great has been the advance in pleasant and profitable human inventions. At the moment money abounds and every kind of invention and contrivance abounds; often useful and always very attractive, and therefore bidding for our attention, Our modern "goods" are very absorbing in their nature, and at the moment there is no "spoiling" of them by active opponents. But what about that unseen, yet better and enduring substance which is ours in heaven? Is faith active with us, so that the unseen, heavenly substance is really filling our thoughts and dominating our lives?

"Some better thing," then as compared with what was revealed to the worthy saints of pre-Christian times, has been provided for us, and the knowledge of it, received by faith, is to dominate our lives. But we shall all be ushered into the full enjoyment of our respective portions together. They will not "be made perfect" without us, and we may add, nor we without them; for we shall all reach final perfection together, at the day of resurrection and glory, when the Lord Jesus comes again.

"The fear of the Lord."

"The fear of the Lord."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 9, 1917, page 48.)

There are Scripture principles of great importance which are woven into the whole fabric of the Bible without being at any point crystallized into a formal and definite statement. Take, for instance, what is said in the Old Testament concerning "the fear of the Lord." This expression is found throughout its entire range, but it particularly comes into prominence in Deuteronomy, wherein Moses deals with the moral condition of Israel, and also in the Psalms, in Proverbs, and in the later Prophets, where we have words of divine testimony to them in view of their decadence and failure. A survey of these and kindred passages would suffice, we believe, to convince anyone that there is a principle of Scripture which may be formulated somewhat as follows:

God pays comparatively little attention to outward position where there is not a corresponding inward condition, but lays great stress on inward condition.

Let us bring together four striking passages from the Old Testament, two from the Psalms, and two from the last of the Prophets.

1. The Secret.

"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant." (Ps. 25: 14).

The whole of the Psalm is occupied in emphasizing the moral and spiritual condition which is well-pleasing to God. The humble confession of sin, confidence in God, meekness of spirit, and obedience to the divine testimonies, are the things dwelt upon. These things are of great price in the sight of God in all dispensations, as is shown by the fact that although written by David yet he looks on to the ultimate prevailing of this righteous and godly seed in the millennial age (ver. 13). These are the things to which God has regard to-day, and they are summed up in the expression "the fear of the Lord."

Now it is with those that fear the Lord that His secret is. God does not make known His mind and the secret of His ways, nor admit to the intimacy of friendship all His children, and much less the world. Every child of God has the same standing in grace, and enjoys the same life, relationship, and favour, but by no means all enjoy the same intimacy of communion. To know the mind of God one thing is needful, and this is not outward standing, or correct position, or erudite acquaintance with Scripture, but a spirit and a life saturated with the fear of God.

Scripture affords us many an illustration of this. Lot was accounted righteous equally with Abraham, but he was never called, as Abraham was, "the friend of God." While the latter was let into the secret of what God was about to do to Sodom, the former knew nothing of it until the last moment.

An even more striking example is afforded by the contrast between the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke. At the moment when the greatest event in Israel's history was impending Jerusalem as a whole was wrapped in ignorance and indifference. Not only pleasure-loving Herod but also priests, and Scribes well-versed in the law, and religious Pharisees were totally unconscious that the long-promised Messiah had been born in their midst. The first intimation of this reached them through wise men from the East, who were aliens from Israel's commonwealth and strangers from the covenant of promise.

Worse than this, when they did know, months, apparently, after the event had transpired, they were able glibly enough, and correctly enough, to quote Scripture as to the place of Messiah's birth, and then proceeded to use their scriptural knowledge in attempting to encompass His death !

Such were the men who at that time gloried in outward position.

Luke's Gospel opens amidst quite different scenes. We are introduced to the cottages of the humble in Galilee- to people unknown to fame and without standing in the world, and we find they were speaking inspired words about Messiah's birth months before He came. And further, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem there were certain shepherds -godly men but of the humblest type, mere night watchmen for the flocks- and by angelic intervention they knew of the joyful event not many minutes after it was an accomplished fact.

How great is this contrast! The men of pedigree and position thoroughly blind-the men with nothing but the fear of the Lord thoroughly conversant with the secret of the Lord.

2. The Banner.

"Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth" (Ps. 60: 4).

The setting of this verse is distinctly warlike. The whole context speaks of conflict. Defeat marks the opening verses, and, through God's intervention, victory marks the close.

Now if, through a reverse sustained, a host is in danger of degenerating into a rabble and yet is transformed into a force which can be carried to victory, it must be by some rallying standard being raised. Hence the raising of such a banner was the form God's intervention took.

The varying fortunes of David's contests with Syrians and Edomites gave the occasion of these words being penned, but they by no means exhausted their meaning. The banner of truth abides through all the pilgrimage conflicts of God's saints, and it is for display. A secret is something to be cherished which in its very nature is suitable for the ears of some and not of all; a banner, on the other hand, is in its nature the uplifting of some inscription which everybody is to see whether they take it to heart or not.

TRUTH, then, like a banner is to be displayed aloft; but whose hands are to hold it? The hands of "them that fear Thee." No others.

It has ever been thus. We have but to turn again to those early chapters in Luke to find illustrations of it.

No sooner had the shepherds set eyes on the infant Messiah than they began to testify of Him (Luke 3: 17, 18). When Anna the prophetess beheld Him she at once went forth and "spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Israel" (Luke 3: 38). Thus was the banner raised, though only in a very restricted circle at first.

Again, the early part of Acts is the history of the raising of the banner of truth by "unlearned and ignorant men," who nevertheless "had been with Jesus," to the total discomfiture of those who claimed priestly succession and powers. The latter part shows the banner carried by Saul into the Gentile world and maintained aloft in spite of the fiercest opposition from men of the same stamp.

When we reach the Epistles we find the same Apostle passing on the banner not to men marked by occupying a certain position; not to elders or deacons or men of gift as such, but to Timothy, who was marked above others by an inward condition according to God.

It was of Timothy that Paul had previously written, "I have no man likeminded, who will naturally care for your state" (Phil. 2. 20), and that word "likeminded" we must connect not merely with Paul's own example as given in verse 17, but with the infinitely greater example of Christ Himself as given in verses 5 to 8. Timothy was a man in whom in special measure dwelt "the mind which was in Christ Jesus," and hence to him was given Paul's farewell injunction, "Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of the Lord" (2 Tim. 1: 8), and again, "Preach the word" (2 Tim. 4: 2).

The banner of "the testimony of the Lord" was handed-we repeat-by Paul the veteran not to a class or band of men marked by a certain outward position, but to one marked by a certain inward condition, one who possessed indeed the mind of Christ.

This excellently illustrates our theme and is most applicable to our own days.

3. The Book.

"Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name" (Mal. 3: 16),

The book of Malachi affords us the closing glimpse, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, of the Jews who had left the lands of their captivity and returned to Jerusalem. It also gives us the first intimation of the state of things which developed, revealing the truehearted remnant amidst the self-satisfied leaders and people. The opening chapters of Luke, to which we have already alluded, fit naturally on to the end of Malachi, showing us still a "remnant according to the election of grace." We may assuredly take it for granted that such a remnant was never wanting all through the 350 to 400 years that elapsed between the two.

The very feature that we are dwelling upon stands right to the forefront. Their characteristic feature was "the fear of the Lord." Their minds were occupied with Him, for they "thought upon His name," i.e. they pondered over all that He had revealed Himself to be, and they cared for His reputation in keeping with that. Their mouths were occupied with His word, for they "spake often one to another," and their words met with divine approval, "the Lord hearkened and heard it," so that evidently their communications were "good to the use of edifying." Further, their activities had God as their end and object, for it speaks of "the righteous . . . him that serveth God."

Who these good people were we have no possible means of knowing. They were utterly unknown to fame in the day in which they lived. The prominent people of those days were the priests who were the feeble and deplorable representatives of the once glorious hierarchy established by God. These men had set themselves down in Moses' seat, they were proud, and men called them happy (Mal. 3: 15). Nevertheless they were crushingly rebuked by the Lord through the prophet. They who "feared the Lord" alone were approved.

And for these the "book of remembrance" was written before the Lord. Their record is on high, to be produced when the earth-recorded histories of the proud are as though they had never been; and not only is their record secure but they themselves are to be displayed as the special treasure of the Lord in the day of the Kingdom that is coming. They "shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. "This is predicted in Daniel 12: 1 of the godly seed whose lot it will be to go through the great tribulation in the last days.

It seems pretty evident, from such a scripture as Revelation 3: 7-11, that the book ef remembrance is still in use and that in it still are being entered the records of such as fear the Lord and think upon His name-i.e. those characterized by a certain condition rather than by holding a certain position.

4. The Sun.

"But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall" (Mal. 4: 2).

Under this striking figure we have the promise of the appearing of the Lord. He is the Sun, i.e. the centre, the source of light and warmth of authority and rule and power. He is the Sun of righteousness, since appearing in a scene of moral chaos and unrighteousness, that must necessarily be His outstanding characteristic.

But when He arises as the Sun of righteousness will it not be for all? Truly; but He will not arise for all with healing in His wings. To many His arising will mean the very reverse of that. He will arise with fierce and scorching heat: "For behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch" (Mal. 4: 1). He will arise "with healing in His wings" only for those that fear His name.

It is highly significant that here in the closing words of the Old Testament we get the two classes not only so clearly distinguished, but so definitely labelled-"you that fear My name," on the one hand, and "the proud," on the other. Significant for this reason, that here at the finish we get clearly revealed the tendency inevitably manifested in the career of those who lay stress on position rather than condition. It ends, it always has ended, and ever will end, in pride. That feature which of all others is most hateful to God.

To lay primary stress on outward position, while relegating questions of spiritual condition to a secondary place, necessarily tends in this direction, since one is then occupied with certain external privileges and points of advantage-whether real or imaginary-in which one can boast, while considerations of one's own definite state or lowly condition which would humble are thrust out of sight.

To lay primary stress on inward condition and to put outward position into a secondary place has the reverse effect. It produces the lowly and humble mind of great price in God's sight-such a spirit as we see, for instance, in the greatest woman who has ever walked this earth, in Luke 1: 46 to 55 (particularly verse 48).

In her case, she became the mother of the Messiah, and thus "the dayspring from on high" visited the poor of Jehovah's flock. As "the Sun of righteousness" He will yet arise in glory for the vindication and blessing of those that fear Him.

* * * *

Perhaps two words of explanation may be added. By "outward position" we do not mean the new standing of the believer in Christ nor any of those heavenly and divine relationships into which he is brought. They are of course of primary importance, and the knowledge and enjoyment of them is that which alone will rightly form and maintain a right "inward condition" with any of us.

And further, there is no intention by the foregoing to decry "outward position" as though it were a matter of no importance. Our object has been to simply show from Scripture what is its relative importance, and to put first things first in our minds.

The reminder of it is needed, we venture to think, and never more needed than today.

Getting and Giving

Getting and Giving.

2 Cor. 8: 1-9, 2 Cor. 9: 5-15; Heb. 13: 16.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Simple Testimony, Vol. 35, 1918-19, page 73.)

Our practical Christian life may be divided into two chapters, entitled, "Getting" and "Giving." We begin by coming to the Saviour with empty hands, as needy recipients of His grace. But, though that is the initial attitude, it is not the only one that should mark the Christian through life. We have to think also of giving.

Many times during past years have I heard this question raised: "How is it that we do not make more progress in our Christian life?" Do not scriptures like those cited at the head of this article supply us with an answer? They show us that one great reason why we do not get on is that we do not give out. We are too much like the Dead Sea, into which water continually runs, but out of which it never flows.

First of all let us notice that giving is not a matter of charity. In the passage from the Old Testament, quoted in 2 Corinthians 9: 9, we read, "He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor; his righteousness [not his charity, his righteousness] remaineth for ever." That expression clearly shows that for a Christian to give is not in any sense a matter of charity, but of common and ordinary righteousness. The fact is that God has poured in so much upon us, that it is only righteous that we should be dispensers of blessing to others. Further, in verse 10, the apostle speaks, not of increasing the fruits of their benevolence, charity, or largeness of heart, but of their righteousness. We must learn to regard the matter of giving as something that we are responsible to do, so that if we neglect it, we neglect that which is a matter of plain righteousness.

Taking the eighth and ninth chapters of 2 Corinthians in their context, they have reference to money. It had become notorious throughout the Gentile-speaking Churches that the believers in Judea were in great affliction. Famine had struck that portion of the earth's surface, as had been predicted (see Acts 11: 27, 28). The apostle Paul stirred up the believers in the Gentile assemblies, who had received so much spiritual blessing through the ministry of those who were nationally Jews, to minister temporal relief to their afflicted brethren in Judea. The whole of these two chapters is taken up with that matter. But the principle of it applies to much beside.

Now the Macedonian Christians. amongst whom were the Philippians, had become shining examples of Christian giving, and the apostle makes use of that fact to stir up the Corinthians. The Corinthians had gifts of a more showy order, but Christians of this sort are not always those who wear best. Apparently the Philippians, of whom we read no such striking things in regard to their richness of utterance, or the way in which they spoke with unknown tongues, were men who, when the test came, answered to it. Judging from the epistle written to them, things were very bright in the assembly, but there was persecution from without. To the Corinthians the apostle says in effect, "Now I want you to stop these senseless wranglings, this setting up of one man against another, and turning your teachers, pastors, and evangelists into leaders of parties." To the Philippians he says, "I want you to be encouraged, to strive together with one heart for the faith of the gospel, boldly confronting your enemies, knowing this, that the very fact that they are your enemies means that they will ultimately be destroyed, and you vindicated." Thus they were Christians who, though persecuted and having but little of earth, had a great grasp of the realities of eternity, and the result was that in the joy of the Father's love, the Saviour's grace, the Spirit's presence, and the imminent return of the Lord — they put their money into the collection in a most astonishing way. The apostle says, "Beyond their power, they were willing of themselves." Nobody had to refresh their memories. They were praying with much entreaty that Paul would receive the gift. It was as though Paul said to them, "My dear brethren, I really think you are giving too much. Are you prepared to give all this?" Yet the Philippians insisted and pressed their gift on him. "This they did, not as we hoped." That means they did it in the way he hoped and far beyond it.

It says, "They first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God," This is very important: there is such a thing — or this verse would not be in Holy Scripture — as giving your own self to the Lord. You may say, "How?" By the true, the prayerful, the honest recognition of the claim that has been established over you by the Lord Himself. That claim has been established and it is a great thing to recognize it. If I confess that I myself am the Lord's, that necessarily carries with it all the rest. You see these Philippians did not give a tenth of their income, and leave the remaining nine-tenths to themselves, nor did they even say, "I will give nine-tenths," but they said, "I will give myself to the Lord. I am His bondman. I am under His directions." Then it follows that all I possess is the Lord's. Here we get the true beginning. "They first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God." They recognized they were wholly at the Lord's disposal, and therefore their money, their time, their opportunities, their gifts were all at the Lord's disposal.

Now I would like us to challenge ourselves as to whether that is the way we look at things. You may say, "What will help us to look at things like that?" Well, in chapter 8 we have a well-known verse: "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich." That beautiful verse, sparkling like a diamond, is set in what at first might appear dull and uninteresting surroundings. These two chapters deal with a prosaic subject, a subject that sometimes we conveniently forget.

"You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." This seems to me a tremendous lever. It is wonderful what can be done with a lever in mechanical matters; so also in grace. It would do everyone of us good to meditate much on the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"Though He was rich." When was He rich? Not when He ministered among men, Not when He was brought up in the quiet home at Nazareth, not when He was born at Bethlehem, and cradled in a manger. When was He rich? For an answer we must travel back into the depths of the Godhead. "Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor." Just as it is impossible to measure

the wealth of His riches, so it is impossible to measure the depth of His poverty. And He became poor that we through His poverty might be enriched with blessings that are infinite. We read the Bible with wonderful statements, but we often fail to see the marvellous meaning there is in them. But it is in the power of these things that we can give ourselves to the Lord. No wonder that the apostle says in the end of the next chapter, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift."

That is what we have received. Now we have to be givers. To do good and to communicate forget not. That is to hand on to others that which you have, to communicate a little money to a poor brother, or a little cheer to one who is downcast, or a little bit of gospel to a sinner. With such sacrifices God is well pleased. Have we forgotten it? I believe we have. You may ask, "In what way?" Well, one thing I believe is that we Christians in Britain and America suffer from fullness of bread, from over-feeding. When one goes to places abroad, somehow these things seem to be borne in upon one's spirit. These favoured lands are looked upon by the Christians in other countries almost with reverence. In their eyes they are wonderful places, places from which so many missionaries have gone out, but when one thinks of the actual condition of these countries religiously, with their vast number of factions warring against each other, one can only blush! One asks one's self, What has been the matter with us? I verily believe that the matter is that we have thought too much of getting, and too little of giving.

Mark this, as you give, you reap. The apostle seems to say to the Corinthians, "You have said fine things about the great collection you are going to make, and while the Philippians have done it, you are still in the talking stage. I have thought it wise to send some of my brethren in advance. Don't you think it is time the thing crystallized into something definite?" The apostle sent on some brethren, so that all might be ready. He says, "I want it ready as a matter of bounty, not as of covetousness. I do not want to come down and drag the money out of your pockets. I want you to present it cheerfully and bountifully to the Lord. If you sow bountifully, you will reap bountifully." It does not mean that if a man puts a pound into the collection box, he will necessarily reap five pounds, or indeed reap any pounds at all. It means that when we are prepared to sacrifice ourselves for the welfare of the people of God, for the progress of the work of God, for the help of the service of God, God is prepared to allow us to reap blessing in our own souls.

A great many Christians today are starving spiritually. They attend meetings, they listen to beautiful expositions of Scripture, they enjoy Bible talks, and when they go home all evaporates. Like the mirage of the desert, their impressions disappear, and they go on year by year without growing. I believe it is because they have not been exercised about this. "He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly." He who is of a stingy spirit, who does not open his heart and hand, will reap in small measure. God always takes into account what a man has, and not what he has not; but let him give something, and out of his sowing there shall be a harvest.

Would to God that by all of us there might be some very rich sowing. We live surrounded by privileges unknown in other lands. What would they not give for some of you to go and live out there in the lands of pagan or Romish darkness! I mean going out and living there for Christ, and using the little bit you have for Him. When we think of what the gospel really is and its wealth, and when we consider the appalling need, we ought everyone of us to be on our faces before God, remembering that the Christian is not only a great receiver of all heaven's bounty, but he is the transmitter of it. He is not only the getter, but the giver.

"We glory in tribulations."

"We glory in tribulations."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 41.)

The Apostle Paul wrote these words, which we have selected as a title, when engaged in the calm and reasoned setting forth of the Gospel of God. He did not declaim them in the midst of glowing oratory, when the best of men may be guilty of exaggeration. They were literally true. He did not look upon tribulation as an evil, necessary perhaps, but always to be avoided if possible. He rather regarded it as good and a subject for rejoicing, because, as he tells us in the succeeding verses (Rom. 5: 3-5), he knew the wholesome and desirable effects that it produced within.

Do we regard it in this light? Or have we fallen into the common snare of thinking that nothing is so desirable as that quiet and eminently respectable form of Christianity which, while diligently cultivating Bible knowledge and the gatherings of God's people, and avoiding worldly excesses, yet also carefully avoids everything that would offend worldly and carnal susceptibilities, or involve one in the conflicts which centre round the aggressive work of the Lord?

If, under this mistaken idea, we do make it our aim to avoid tribulation, we shall be great losers, and that probably in a twofold way.

First, we are not likely to escape tribulation. If we do not get it as a result of faithfulness to Christ we shall get it because of unfaithfulness in the way of chastisement. Secondly, we shall miss the very choicest of its beneficent results. We may indeed profit by the chastening of the Father's hand in a retributive way, but not so richly as we may and do when the tribulation comes because of our identification with Christ, and His interests.

Tribulation is to the soul what Exercise is to the body. Spiritual muscle and stamina are developed by it. Indeed, we commonly use the word exercise with that spiritual meaning; and nothing is more important for a Christian than to be maintained in this condition of healthy spiritual exercise. Moments of tribulation and pressure and difficulty when the path seems most hedged up, and decisions are most complicated and burdensome, and the situation seems most impossible, are invariably found to be ultimately — when gone through in communion with God — most upbuilding and enlarging after a spiritual sort.

In the second letter which the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians we get a very instructive sidelight on the working, in his own case, of this tribulation in which he gloried. The story falls naturally into three chapters.

1. ASIA: or, "We despaired even of life."

2 Corinthians 1: 8-11 give us Paul's own allusion to this tremendous episode in his history. He brings it in, as he does also the other episodes to which we shall refer, in a quite incidental way.

At Ephesus, the capital of Asia, the gospel won some of its greatest triumphs through Paul's preaching. There "mightily grew the Word of God, and prevailed" (Acts 19: 20), and there also, and in consequence, the devil made one of his fiercest attacks as a roaring lion. He harnessed his chariot, as so often, to the cupidity and avarice of men. Demetrius, the silversmith, and his friends were his ready tools. The fierce riot, murderous in its spirit, in the Ephesian theatre was the result.

Paul's account of it in 1 Cor. 1 is that "we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life." He evidently found himself, as we should commonly say, in the jaws of death. A great experience this! It was, however, wholly pressure from without. We might at first sight be inclined. to pronounce it the severest test to which a servant of the Lord could be subjected. We believe, however, that more careful reflection would lead us to consider it the least of the three cases that are coming before us.

Immense pressure lay on the apostle from without, but his own spirit was calm and sustained. He tells us that "we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead." He met the great crisis with the death sentence lying upon self, and God as the Object of his faith. Hence he was not only delivered, as verse 10 states, but spiritually enriched — so much so that he was filled with comfort and consolation to the point of being enabled "to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God" (verse 4);

2. TROAS: or, "I had no rest in my spirit."

The Ephesian riot over, Paul departed "for to go into Macedonia," as Acts 20: 1 tells us; and he was minded to travel by way of Corinth (see 2 Cor. 1: 16). It appears, however, that he went first to Troas, where an unexpected door of gospel service opened, but that in spite of this great opening his time there was short. He changed his plans and hurriedly departed straight into Macedonia. That which induced this sudden change has been recorded for our instruction.

Not long previously, the apostle had written his first letter to the Corinthians and sent it by the hand of Titus. He wrote it "out of much affliction and anguish of heart . . . with many tears" (2 Cor. 2: 4), and having dispatched it waited with the utmost eagerness for tidings of its effect upon the Corinthians. At Troas he evidently expected to meet Titus on his return journey, and he did not come!

This plunged the ardent and loving heart of Paul into exercises of a different and even a deeper kind. At Ephesus there had been a fierce but brief moment of external tribulation. At Troas all was prosperous and encouraging without, and yet there was nothing but anxiety within. "I had no rest in my spirit," he tells us (ch. 2: 13). The very warmth of his love, and his care for Christ's glory in the assemblies, only made his anxieties the more acute. At last he could bear the suspense no longer. In spite of the open gospel door he took leave of them, and "went from thence into Macedonia."

Was he right in so doing? Did he miss a great opportunity that never recurred? These are questions it hardly becomes us to answer, seeing we know so little of the burning love and zeal that marked him, and are also ignorant of all the factors of the case. This we do know, that Paul himself could look back and trace that God was over-ruling in all, and leading him in triumph in Christ, and in that he could rejoice. This is shown by verses 14 to 17.

Many of us have known seasons of disquietude when we too have had no rest in our spirit, but it has been perhaps over matters of personal and worldly import. How many of us have been moved in this way solely out of solicitude for the interests of Christ?

3. MACEDONIA: or, "Troubled on every side."

The apostle's story is arrested at 2 Corinthians 2: 13; but the dropped thread is picked up again at 2 Corinthians 7: 5. It appears that his hurried departure to Macedonia from Troas only heightened his troubles and exercises, for there his "flesh even had no rest." He was "troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears."

We do not know what these "fightings" were; but remembering the happy spiritual condition of the Macedonian saints, as recorded in 2 Corinthians 8, we are safe in assuming they were endured in connection with the persecutions of the world. They were evidently of a particularly pertinacious kind and gave Paul no rest. In contrast to the Ephesian trouble, which was short and sharp like an acute attack, this was prolonged in a more chronic fashion. To make matters worse, instead of the calm trust in the God who raises the dead, there were all these fears within. He was still filled with anxieties as to the spiritual state of the Corinthians and the effect of his letter, and, we venture to think, also filled with fears as to whether he had failed the Lord in thus hurriedly departing from Troas.

Here was indeed a climax of trouble!  - trouble which he had never known at all had he not been so wholeheartedly identified with Christ's cause and interests. Do you think he regretted it? Or should we regret it if we tasted such exercises even in much smaller measure?

The Lord watched over His faithful servant, and at length relief was granted. Titus arrived. He brought good news. The first epistle had been signally owned of God. The situation had been saved! The apostle was comforted, and his heart burst forth in the succeeding chapters into touching expressions of joy. Indeed, his joyful words in 2 Corinthians 2: 14-17 are penned in view of this. Christ had triumphed and he felt himself to be like a captive — a joyful willing captive — in Christ's triumphant procession.

Does some Christian reader say, "Well, I have never had such a transporting experience as that"? The reason is not far to seek. You have never known the tribulation and exercise which precedes it. It is as we are "partakers of the sufferings" that we shall "be also of the consolation" (2 Cor. 1-7).

How much does the easy-going and worldly Christian miss! Oh! for more wholehearted devotion to Christ.

God with us, for us, in us

God with us, for us, in us.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 35, 1945, page 1.)

Let us start another year with a very real and deep sense of how very near God has come to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. To some of us evils of a physical and material sort are all too near, and to all of us the seductive evils, that proceed from the world without and the flesh within, are very present. From all these evils we shall only be preserved as God is real. to us and we walk before Him.

In the course of his prophecy Jeremiah raised this striking question: "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?" (Jer. 23: 23). What was the answer to that question? From the moment that God redeemed Israel out of Egypt to be His people, He had made known His desire to dwell in their midst. Yet under the conditions that then existed He had to shroud Himself in fire and cloud and awful majesty, and man had to keep his distance. This was so, whether with Moses, or Aaron and his sons, or with Solomon, when the Temple was finished, and yet the priests could not enter when the glory of the Lord filled the House. It was nearness in one sense, but distance in another.

We open the New Testament, and all is changed, for we are immediately introduced to JESUS, who is EMMANUEL, which being interpreted is, "God with us." Here we have something entirely new. He who once dwelt in the devouring fire on Sinai was now amongst men in perfect manhood and in lowly grace. The One who is light and who dwells in light unapproachable, had now appeared in such fashion as to soften down the piercing rays of His glory so that human eyes might take them in. Those who were His disciples in the days of His flesh could say, "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." God was with them indeed, and they were not afraid. We have not His personal presence today, but we have the inspired record of His presence, and we have what the disciples who followed Him on earth did not have — the presence and indwelling of the Spirit of God — and therefore, "God with us," may be a reality to us today.

God desires to dwell in the midst of His people, yet on our side desire for His presence would hardly exist if we did not know what was His attitude towards us. How necessary then to pass on from Matthew to Paul and discover from his pen in the Epistle to the Romans, that He is wholly for us and not against us. We read the opening of that Epistle and get such a statement of what man is that we might conclude He must be against us; but the exposure of man's sin is followed by the unveiling of God's grace, reigning through righteousness by Jesus Christ our Lord. God has acted in redeeming power so that by the time we reach the close of chapter 8, a challenge can be flung out to the universe, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Is God for us? He is, for He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. There was no ram in the thicket for Him, as there was for Isaac. He rather became like "a ram caught in a thicket," for us, and was offered up "in the stead of," that is, substitutionally for us. That being so, "It is God that justifieth."

But not only does He justify in the Christ who died and is risen again, and is even at the right hand of God, but we are enfolded in the embrace of the love of God, that prompted all, and which finds its expression and its centre in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Here we pause a moment. God is with us in grace, and He is for us in righteousness, which is the fruit of the love which finds its eternal spring in Himself and in Christ Jesus our Lord. What can be more assuring than this as we face all the difficulties of the hour, and anticipate perhaps all the upheavals and earthly sorrows that may lie ahead? God is with us and God is for us. Can there be more than that?

There can; we must turn to John's first Epistle to have it fully brought before us. It is reiterated in a very striking way in his fourth chapter. We will quote a few extracts: —

"Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world."

"If we love one another, God dwelleth in us . . . . Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit."

"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.".

These quotations are sufficient to emphasize our point. The believer in the Son of God and the confessor of His Name may rejoice with confidence that God is not only with Him objectively in Christ, and for Him as guaranteed by the sacrificial work of Christ and the love that lay behind it, but also in him in the power of the indwelling Spirit of God.

In the verses quoted, the Divine indwelling is connected with the Spirit of God being in us, with the love of God — the Divine nature — being operative in us; and with the confession of Jesus as the Son of God. By the Spirit we confess Jesus as Lord, and also as the Son of God. By that same Spirit the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts and we ourselves are taught to love one another. By the indwelling Spirit, who is greater than the adversary — that spirit of evil who is god and prince to this world — we may overcome, however powerful and seductive the force that is arrayed against us. Does not this further reinforce our confidence as we step forth into the unknown future?

There is just this further to be said. God is with us, and He is for us, whatever may be at the moment our state and condition as before Him. But when we come to God in us it is possible and even needful to bring in an "if." This we see in 1 John 4: 12, God dwells in us, "if we love one another." This gives a very practical and experimental bearing to the whole matter.

The Apostle has previously contemplated someone finding his brother with need and shutting up his bowels of compassion from him, and he pertinently asks, "How dwelleth the love of God in him?" Now, if we, who are brethren in the family of God, do not manifest the Divine nature in love one toward another, how shall it be said that God is dwelling in us? As we read, both here and in John 1: 18, ''No man hath seen God at any time." In the Gospel He was, however, to be seen in the only begotten Son, who is abidingly in the bosom of the Father. In the Epistle, He is to be seen in us who are in the family of God, as born of Him, and who consequently manifest the nature of God in our love one to another.

So let us take this thing very much to heart. If there is no manifestation of the love, what proof is there that God, who is love, is dwelling in us? And there is more involved than this, for just after we read "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." Here is love, not circulating within the family of God, but flowing out from the family in large-hearted testimony to the world, with a view to salvation.

We often deplore, and often have heard others deplore, the little power and effect that seems to accompany the testimony to the world of God as a Saviour. One of the main reasons, which accounts for this sad fact, is here unveiled before us. There is so little display of love — the Divine nature — in the bosom of the Divine family.

God in us has to become a fact which is patent to the view of the world. When it is so, even in a very small measure, it has a very potent effect. So let us not seek to avoid some heart-searching as we step forth into another year. God is with us, as revealed in Christ. He is for us in grace, in righteousness, in love. And He is in us, if indeed we are born of Him and possess His Spirit. Being in us, and being Himself love, it is only an outflow of love from us each that will declare that fact — an outflow, first within the circle of the family of God, and then outwards towards the world.

Godliness

Godliness.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 16, 1924, page 58.)

When the Apostle Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy, there were very ominous signs appearing in the church of God, and his mind was seriously disturbed as he contemplated them. A lot of foolish ideas were gaining currency; there was much unprofitable talk, and men were turning aside into all kinds of side issues. Leaving the main line of God's truth, they were getting into little sidings of their own that lead nowhere, and to nothing but endless questions and disputes.

In the first place there were the would-be law teachers at work. All who fell under their influence were diverted to "fables and endless genealogies." 1 Timothy 1 and 1 Timothy 4 allude to this particular evil. In it we see an outbreak of "the leaven of the Pharisees" of which the Lord warned His disciples. Today it is perpetuated in the semi-Jewish and ritualistic line of things, which in its full-blown Romish form is simply full of grotesque fables and of the endless genealogies necessary to build up their "apostolic succession" theories.

In the second place there were "men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth." They were teaching otherwise than the apostle, as 1 Timothy 6: 3-10 shows. They, too, had their questions and strifes of words based upon the idea that "gain is godliness," i.e., that gain is the end or object of godliness. Those who fell under their influence would be set upon riches and consequently fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. Here, then, was an outbreak of "the leaven of Herod": a deliberate attempt to make Christianity a matter of worldly profit. Today the leaven of Herod works energetically. Many there be who, though quite ready to denounce the suggestion that personal or private gain is the end of godliness, would enthusiastically applaud the idea that SOCIAL gain is the end of godliness. "Other-worldliness" they detest. "This-worldliness" they delight in. To them, a more comfortable and easier world, based upon better social conditions with universal peace is the whole substance of religion.

In the third place there were some turning aside to "the oppositions of science falsely so-called," as mentioned in the two closing verses of the epistle.

"Profane and vain babblings" were the product of this departure also. This third form of evil does not appear to have at that time assumed such dimensions at Ephesus as the other two, and hence there is only a brief allusion to it. Still it was there; and in it we discern an outbreak of "the leaven of the Sadducees," the assumption that man's mind, man's reasoning faculties are the ultimate court of appeal in every question.

When men thus practically deify that "science" which is the product of their own observations and reasonings, they quickly become the sport of the devil with his much higher order of intelligence and vaster stores of knowledge accumulated over thousands of years. Consequently their boasted science becomes "science, falsely so-called." This evil has today grown to gigantic proportions. We hope that every one of our readers, the young Christians amongst them especially, will diligently mark all that is implied in this one and only mention of "science" in the New Testament.

In the presence of these dangers the apostle was led to write to Timothy of the church as "the house of God . . . the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3: 16). He points out what should characterise the house of God, if it is to be worthy of the God who indwells it by His Spirit.

Grace is the portal, the door of entrance into it, as seen in 1 Timothy 1. On entering, it is found to be "an house of prayer for all nations," as the opening verses of 1 Timothy 2. indicate. It bears an evangelical character, and both the men and the women composing it are to comport themselves with godliness. Especial care is to be taken that all who hold office in it are marked by a character that is a reflection of God Himself, as we see in 1 Timothy 3. In that house speaks the Spirit, who indwells it, as 1 Timothy 4 shows. In the apostles' day He spoke by way of revelation and inspiration as unfolded in 1 Corinthians 2. Now that the apostles are gone and the canon of Scripture is closed, He still speaks through the inspired communications He originally gave, and all we need is to have ears to hear. In the rest of 1 Timothy 4, together with 1 Timothy 5 and 1 Timothy 6 we have the Spirit's warnings and instructions in detail. His voice orders the house of God, that all its furniture, so to speak, may be worthy of God, whose house it is.

Now all through one word is very prominent — GODLINESS. In one word, this is what should mark those who are of God's house, and this is what serves as an antidote to the evils which are pointed out.

Godliness, or piety, is the fruit of living and moving with God before the soul. It brings God into everything, so that everything is regulated in relation to God, and hence God-likeness is stamped upon those who are godly. To live a life of self-consciousness is to be selfish. The world-conscious man is bound to be worldly. The one who is dominated by God-consciousness, so that the thought of God and of His will enters into every question, and everything is viewed in relation to Him, is godly. The man of selfishness and of worldliness fits neatly enough into the world system. Godliness alone befits the house of God. All else is a misfit there, Godliness is greatly at a discount to-day, a discount which seems to increase with every year that passes. In our school days it was hardly possible to fling a greater insult at a boy's head than to call him "pious." Since then the false-named "science" which aims at eliminating all idea of God, accounting for everything by "nature" plus human agencies, has increased by leaps and bounds. As far as man's vain thinkings and talkings are concerned, God is politely bowed out of His own universe, the sphere of religion included. Instead of God being brought into everything, which is the way of godliness, He is excluded from everything, and hence ungodliness or impiety has increased by leaps and bounds also.

The younger generation of Christians are perhaps hardly aware of the pace at which things have been moving, as they have not the length of outlook which enables them to judge of it. It would be safe to affirm, we believe, that not for 200 years has the public profession of Christianity in Britain been marked by such impiety. The ground that was gained through the series of gracious revivals that commenced with Wesley and Whitfield has been all lost, and perhaps more than lost, during the past thirty or forty years, until a pagan or semi-pagan frame of mind has been produced in the masses of the people.

In the presence of this the promotion of godliness amongst the followers of the Lord has become a prime necessity. Nothing would have a profounder effect than a revival of downright old-fashioned scriptural godliness. Those who are of God's household would then stand out, wearing the livery that becomes them, clear and distinct in the midst of an ungodly world. It would involve increased persecution for them (see 2 Tim. 3: 12), but the testimony of the Lord would be greatly honoured.

Now godliness rests upon a certain basis, hence the apostle writes of "the mystery" or "the secret" of godliness. Piety is a beautiful flower which has its roots hidden beneath the soil, and those roots are its "mystery." "Without controversy [or 'confessedly'] great is the mystery of godliness" — and there follows that remarkable passage which summarises in a few crisp sentences the great facts connected with the manifestation of God in Christ. The passage begins with God manifested in the flesh and ends with His being received up into glory as Man. Here are found the secret roots of all true godliness. There is no godliness but that which springs from faith in God so revealed.

A certain class of person is fond of pointing out some professed unbeliever, who is yet a straightforward clean-living man of the world, such as are occasionally to be found, and proclaiming him to be more godly than the average believer. The fact is, he is not godly at all! Naturally amiable, generous, straightforward, of correct behaviour he may be, but that is all. The knowledge of God, as He has revealed Himself in Christ, is the only possible source of godliness. It is its producing cause, and the more the believer grows in the knowledge of God the more will godliness mark him.

If 1 Timothy 3: 16 gives us the roots of godliness the whole epistle in its many instructions shows us its many-hued flowers. The praying men lifting up holy hands, the women in modest deportment and apparel, as indicated in 1 Timothy 2; the bishops and deacons in 1 Timothy 3, with their sobriety, vigilance and self restraint; the men who labour and trust in the living God becoming an example to the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity, as in 1 Timothy 4; the "widows indeed" of 1 Timothy 5; the servants and masters, the rich men who trust not in uncertain riches but in the living God, and hence who are rich in good works and ready to distribute, as in 1 Timothy 6 — all these set before us godliness in its beautiful features as it is worked out in practice.

What do we know of these things? Does the uprising generation of young believers promise to blossom forth into men of holiness and prayer, and women of discretion and modest dress? Are the older believers setting an example in this direction? We ask these questions with anxiety and concern.

In 1 Tim. 4: 7-10 Paul sounds out the praises of godliness. It has promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come, and hence is profitable to all things. This is declared to be a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, as much as is the saying that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The godly man trusts in the living God as verse 10 indicates, and thereby brings Him into everything, even the smallest details of his life.

Now this is a thing in which we are to exercise ourselves. Bodily exercise profits for a little while, the spiritual exercise which results in godliness abides in its healthful effects for eternity. The young people who wish to be in first-rate physical trim willingly submit to a whole round of exercises. They rise early and get to work with their exerciser. The apostle urges us to be at least as much in earnest in our spiritual exercises as they are in their physical. Let us EXERCISE ourselves unto godliness.

Does anyone ask how this may be done? Read the rest of 1 Timothy 4! Having exhorted Timothy to godliness the apostle indicates how it may be promoted. "Give attendance," he says, "to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine." Till Paul came Timothy was to give himself to the public reading of the inspired writings with the exhortation and teaching which would flow from this. But then how should he publicly read and discourse upon what he had not first privately read and studied for himself? The greater includes the less. Many of us may not be called to the public reading of God's Word, but we all are to the private reading of it, and this is a prime method of promoting godliness.

Meditation is mentioned in verse 15. We must assimilate what we read. We are not nourished by what we eat, but by what we digest. When we so meditate as to give ourselves wholly to the things of God, then our profiting begins to appear to all. We grow in the ways of godliness. Thus it is we take heed to ourselves, and save from ungodliness not only ourselves, but others.

Oh! for a revival of godliness. May God Himself raise up Christian young men and women by the thousand, who in this godless, because God-excluding, age, are not ashamed to be peculiar and bring God into all the details of life here, not ashamed to walk in His fear and own Him by a simple trust, happy to walk in the light of what He is, as revealed in Christ. To this end may He be pleased to revive amongst us all, the young especially, a thirst for His Word, which may result in a far keener interest in the Scriptures and their systematic and prayerful study, and which may lead us to EXERCISE OURSELVES in order to get time for this reading and meditation. Lastly may He be pleased to use these few remarks, and the pages of this magazine generally, to promote all this, to His glory!

Grace, Guidance, and Government

Grace, Guidance, and Government.

Psalm 32; with Psalms 25, 33, 34, 35.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 28, 1936, page 14.)

We do not read very much about grace in the Old Testament. The word itself occurs about forty times in it, but of these fully half are concerned with "finding grace" in the sight of one's fellows and have nothing to do with God. In a few passages we do get the idea of God bestowing grace, as, for instance, in the words, "The Lord will give grace and glory" (Ps. 84: 11). These however are but few, and they are supplemented by a certain number of others in which God is declared to be, or declares Himself to be, gracious. We may say therefore that in the Old Testament the grace of God is a recognised fact, but by no means a prominent fact.

In the New Testament it is a prominent fact, particularly in the epistles, and we discover why it had so small a place in the earlier part of the record. We read that, "the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared," (Titus 2: 11), and that in connection with the first advent of Christ. In keeping with this we read also, "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1: 17). The earlier age was the age of law. Grace always existed in God, but not until Christ appeared did it come fully and decisively to light.

In reading Old Testament Scripture, again and again do we get glimpses of the grace of God, even where grace is not named. A striking example of this is found in Ps. 32: 1-7, a passage which sets forth God's grace in forgiveness and deliverance, administered to the one who honestly confesses his guilt and need. David had a very deep experience of this, owing to the greatness of his sin, and the depth of his conviction once his sin was brought home to him, and that experience he shares with us. It is of course, the experience which each of us has to pass through on our way to the blessedness of which the psalm speaks.

There is, however, this great difference between David and ourselves: he could not enjoy as we can the "no more conscience of sins" of which Hebrews 10 speaks. David lived under the law which only had "a shadow of good things to come." He only had sacrifices which could "never . . . make the comers "hereunto perfect." He might know, and did know, the blessedness of having this or that great sin forgiven, but he could not know that once-for-all purging which the gospel brings. Not until Christ appeared and was "once offered to bear the sins of many" could the worshippers be "once purged," and so have "no more conscience of sins." We therefore can read into Ps. 32 a fulness of meaning which could not have been in David's mind when he wrote it.

The general outline sketched in these seven verses applies to every converted soul without exception, though there is abundant variation when we come to consider small surface details. We all begin with guilt. We may have to speak, as the psalm does, of transgression, of sin, and of iniquity; and each of these words has its own special significance; yet they all come under this general heading.

Next comes guile. This means deceit, hypocrisy, lack of straightforwardness and honesty. It always follows guilt, always has done so from the beginning, as Genesis 3 bears witness. Directly our first parents incurred guilt they sought to hide from God, and also to put the blame upon somebody else. Every soul of man does just the same. It is a deeply rooted instinct of our fallen race.

It is also a very miserable business. Guile only leads to groaning — for that is what the word "roaring" in verse 3 really means. In David's case the groaning came pretty quickly, for God laid His heavy hand of discipline upon him both by day and by night, and he was withered beneath it. He expresses this very graphically by saying, "My moisture is turned into the drought of summer." It is a bad sign when guilt and guile are not followed by groaning for that means insensibility on the part of the sinner, and perhaps that God is deferring His dealings until the coming day of retribution. Happy it is when the groaning quickly follows.

The groaning must continue until confession takes place. Sin must be acknowledged. The iniquity that had been hidden away in most careful concealment must be dragged into the light of God's presence. Transgressions must be confessed not to man merely, or firstly, but "unto the Lord." This, you see, is the exact opposite of guile. It is the complete reversal of the former attitude, the abandonment of all deceit and hypocrisy. It is straightforwardness and honesty in the sight of God.

Confession leads directly and immediately to the reception and enjoyment of grace. As David puts it, "Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." As surely as he uncovered his sin, so surely did he enter into the blessedness of the man "whose sin is covered." Confession on his side led to covering of his sin on God's side. He was put right with God.

And there is more than this. For, directly he was right with God the whole aspect of things was changed. instead of being the Object of his fear, God became the Object of his confidence. He knew how to find God, and how to pray to Him. He discovered that God was his hiding place, where he would find refuge and protection when threatened by the storms and floods and troubles of this life: for though his sin had been dealt with the troubles remained. He anticipated by many centuries that saying which is attributed to Augustine to the effect that, "The best way to flee from God is to flee to God."

We have noted six things in these verses, three that are concerned with guilt, and three that are concerned with the grace that puts it away. The climax is reached in the seventh thing that we observe: he was "compassed about with songs of deliverance." Delivered from the guilt of his sin, and even from the oppressive power of storms of trouble, he was a joyful man indeed. Such was the grace of God.

Now we come to the question of guidance, which to many people is a very perplexing one. Verses 8 and 9 sum it up in a very simple way. They do not by any means say all there is to be said on the subject, but they do give us the two essentials — the definite promise of guidance from God, and a word of warning as to the understanding heart which is needed on our side.

Once we are in right relations with God — our sins forgiven, God Himself our hiding place, songs of deliverance encompassing us — God is going to guide us. There is no "if" about the matter, you observe.

The statement is definite and without qualification, "I will instruct thee and teach thee. .. I will counsel thee, mine eye shall be upon thee" (margin). In the next psalm also we read of the eye of the Lord being upon those that fear Him, but that is for their deliverance. Here it is for their guidance. So as far as God's care and kindly action are concerned, we may take His guidance for granted. We may safely count upon it.

But, on our side, we can by no means take for granted that we possess the spiritual understanding that enables us to profit by the guidance that is given. It is quite possible for us to be just like a horse or a mule. Another rendering of the verse is, "whose trappings must be bit and bridle, for restraint, or they will not come unto thee." The bit and bridle must be always irksome and sometimes painful. The horse is often pulled up with an unpleasant jerk, but that is because it has no understanding of its master's thoughts. Now we may be just like that. The bit and bridle of unpleasant yet compelling circumstances may often pull us up with a jerk, or suddenly direct us into an unexpected road. We may be thankful when God does deal with us after such fashion, though the indirect guidance thus given is by no means of the highest kind.

The thought of God is that we should have understanding to appreciate His instruction, His teaching and counsel, which reach us first and foremost in His Word. It goes without saying that we must diligently study His Word, but we also need the right state of heart and mind to enable us to profit by our study. Now this right state is not described in the psalm before us, but it is in Ps. 25, where we read such things as that, "The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach His way." Again we read, "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies." And again, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant."

These verses emphasize three things: meekness, obedience and the fear of the Lord. Meekness is only found with any of us in proportion as our own restless self-will has been subdued and silenced. Obedience signifies the practical acceptance and carrying out of the will of God. The fear of the Lord means that subduing consciousness of His presence, that attitude of deference and subjection to Him, which tends to meekness and produces obedience. Here then are the features of a moral and spiritual sort, which, if possessed, enable us to profit by the guidance which is given.

Thus the conclusion that we arrive at is that there is no problem about guidance save that which is connected with our own spiritual state. Considered objectively, that is as a matter of light and direction coming to us from God, and consequently from outside ourselves, there is no difficulty for God engages Himself to give it. It is when we consider it subjectively, when it is a question of our having the understanding and spiritual sensibilities which enable us to discern and respond to the direction given, that difficulties appear.

Ps. 32 contains the promise of instruction and teaching, yet it does not specify in any precise way how it is to reach us. Psalm 25 it is, which speaks of the keeping of "His testimonies" as the way by which the paths of the Lord become mercy and truth to us, and the form in which we have His testimonies available for us is in the Holy Scriptures. The Word of God is the prime fountainhead of all light and direction for us. There we find laid down the broad principles of action which are to govern us. There are smaller details of an individual sort of course, and we cannot expect to find reference to these in Scripture. Nevertheless we may seek and find guidance amidst many perplexing circumstances if we maintain the fear of the Lord, if we wait upon Him prayerfully in the spirit of meekness, and if we are obedient to that which we know of His revealed Word.

We do not say that we shall always be guided in such a way that we are quite sure, and conscious of it at the time. When the Word of God plainly directs us, and we obey it, we may indeed be sure. In the smaller details of life, when it is a question of where we shall go and what we shall do, we may yet be most happily guided if our state be right, if in meekness and obedience we seek not our own pleasure but the pleasure of God. He has pledged Himself to guide us, and He will do so. The only thing that will hinder is the assertion of our own will or pleasure. If we go forward in simplicity and self-judgment, making our decisions with a desire for His glory, we shall again and again have reason to look back with thankfulness, discovering that indeed His hand has led us.

Before we reach the end of Ps. 32 we find mention of a third great theme — the government of God. Grace is expounded pretty fully, for seven verses are occupied with it. Guidance only occupies two verses, but as we have noted Ps. 25 goes into the matter with greater fulness. One verse only is occupied with the government of God, but Ps. 33, 34 and 35 are all concerned with this important matter. We are not allowed to forget that God is the moral Governor of the universe and that He has so ordained things that men have to reap what they sow even in this life. This always has been true, and is true to-day. Varying dispensations do not affect its working. It applies to the men of the world, and it very specially applies to the saints of God. It often seems as if the man of the world escapes the working of God's government in this life. But that is because he is travelling on to final judgment and the crash is coming then. Psalm 73 states the problem created by this fact, and gives us its solution. Now the saint is not coming into judgment. The criminal question (as we may call it), raised by his sins, has been eternally settled; but the governmental question remains, and it assumes very special importance. We not infrequently see a saint coming under God's disciplinary hand as the result of some sin, when an unbeliever, who did just the same, escapes.

Speaking generally and characteristically however, it is the wicked who practise evil and reap many sorrows as a result, and it is the godly man who trusts in the Lord, and who as a consequence is compassed about with mercy. This is what is stated in verse 10. It is the normal thing. Still we are living in an order of things in which the abnormal frequently prevails, and therefore in the working out of the government of God we find many complications. Hence the need of the matter being thrashed out much more fully in the three succeeding psalms.

Ps. 33 celebrates the righteousness of God expressed in all His acts — "The Word of the Lord is right; and all His works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment." The Psalmist then proceeds to speak of how right and firm are all His works in creation: while on the other hand the counsel of the heathen and the devices of the people are all brought to nothing. But if from the place of His habitation on high He looks down on the sons of men and chastens them thus, it is also true that "the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, ... to deliver." His holy government acts in. both directions, not only against the ungodly but also for His people.

Ps. 34 expands this theme, that God's government acts in favour of the godly. Verses 12 to 16 of this Psalm are quoted in 1 Peter 3: 10 to 12, as establishing the fact that, if the Christian renders blessing in return for the evil and railing which he may receive from the world, he will inherit a blessing for himself. If he sows blessing he will reap blessing. So it is ordained in the government of God.

Again in verse 15 of this Psalm do we get the fact stated that, "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous." This time it is not for guidance as in Ps. 32. Nor is it for deliverance, as in Ps. 33. It is in government, in order that He may listen to their cry, and overrule affairs on their behalf. But it is "the righteous," be it noted, for whom He acts in this way.

This is important, for it raises the whole question as to what is the spiritual state in which we are found, what is the character that marks us? The character that should mark us is very fully displayed in the course of the Psalm.

Reading steadily through it we shall find not only that God will act in His government on behalf of His people, but that the people for whom He so acts are described as,

"This poor man"

"Them that fear Him"

"The man that trusteth in Him"

"His saints"

"They that seek the Lord"

"The righteous"

"Them that are of a broken heart"

"His servants."

This is a goodly list! Yet the qualities named are not those which the world admires, but the very reverse. They are those which God approves, and, on behalf of a people characterized by them, He pledges Himself to interfere.

There is no pledge that He will interfere immediately. But interfere He will, later if not sooner. The danger of course is that instead of being poor in spirit, and walking in the fear of God, and consequently seeking His face with a broken heart, trusting in Him and going forward as His servants, we begin to take the law into our own hands and fight for ourselves. Then He leaves us to our own devices, and to reap the fruit of our own ways. Then frequently we bring ourselves under a working of His government which more properly applies to the world.

Ps. 34 records the fact that "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil," but we have to pass on to Ps. 35 to find this side of things dwelt upon in detail. That Psalm works out in considerable length how God will ultimately bring the ungodly and the persecutors to shame and to judgment. The poor and needy who are servants of the Lord shall be delivered and brought into prosperity in the day when God shall bring to confusion and destruction their foes, who shall be as chaff before the wind, and tread a dark and slippery way to destruction. Such will be God's governmental dealings with them in this life. There is of course the dark pit of hell before them in the life to come, but that is not the theme of the psalm.

For us the conclusion of the whole matter is this — that grace introduces us to the life of godliness and devotion and true piety: and that such a life of piety is the secret of a path wherein we are truly guided of God, and where we come under His holy government, acting in our favour and not in correction against us.

"This grace wherein we stand."

"This grace wherein we stand."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 38, 1953-5, page 277.)

When God gave His holy law through Moses at Sinai, Israel could not stand before Him. Moses himself said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." Many centuries after, the Apostle Paul found it brought him under the death sentence for he said, "When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died" (Rom. 7: 9). In contrast to this he wrote of, "This grace wherein we stand" (Rom. 5: 2). On a legal basis no one ever stands before God: all collapse and fall down.

So we all rejoice in Paul's emphatic statement, "Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6: 14), and it is helpful to observe 'that though the Apostle Peter was not led to expound the matter as Paul did, yet he corroborated this fact in an inferential way. This we see if we compare 1 Peter 2: 9, with Exodus 19: 5, 6. We notice a strong similarity, for the "royal priesthood," the "holy nation," the peculiar people, of Peter, occur in the Exodus passage, in slightly different words.

But on the other hand there is a profound difference. In Exodus God started with an "IF." "If ye will obey My voice indeed;" but they never did obey His voice and so never were what was proposed. In Peter the "If" is absent and instead we read, "But ye are a chosen generation." The Christians to whom Peter wrote were these very things that Israelites as a nation were not. What was never reached on a legal basis was reached on the basis of grace. And how? His first chapter shows us how they were "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father," "redeemed . . . with the precious blood of Christ;" "born again . . . by the word of God," and that through the operation of the Spirit of God. This was, "the true grace of God" in which they stood, as Peter told them in his last chapter.

So here is a very striking contrast between law and grace. The nation to whom the law was given were not a chosen generation but rather, as Moses had to admit, "a perverse and crooked generation," and again, "a very forward generation, children in whom is no faith" (Deut 32: 5 and 20). The law was given as a test and it manifested the evil that was in them. It could not give the life that was needed, as we learn in Galatians. Grace does give the life, and then calls upon us to live out the life in a way that will be pleasing to God and glorify Him.

Standing in grace, we are brought into liberty, and in that liberty we are to "stand fast," and not be "entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (Gal. 5: 1). But let us take care that we do not turn that liberty into license. In a letter recently to hand there was reference to some who were saying, "I am a Christian, therefore I am under no law, and can do what I like," and they proceed to do things which did not honour their Lord nor bring credit to their faith. That statement is not correct.

It is true we are not under the law of Moses; neither as the means of our justification nor as the rule of our lives, but it is not true that we are under no law at all, for here are two scriptures that plainly refute that idea. In both the Apostle Paul tells us what governed his own life. He wrote that he was, "not without law to God, but under the law to Christ" (1 Cor. 9: 21) and again, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8: 2). This illustrates what he wrote in Romans 7: 4. The Christian is now united to the risen Christ by the Holy Spirit, and the law, or control, thus established is of a far higher order than anything established by the law of Moses.

So in many New Testament scriptures, and specially in the writings of the Apostle John, we get the commandments of our Lord plainly stated. They are not given in order that by keeping them we may establish a standing for ourselves in righteousness before God. We have that righteous standing as the result of the work of Christ on our behalf, and the commands reach us to give us clear direction as to His will for us. The way we obey them — or disobey — does not determine our spiritual standing before God, but it does determine the state of our spiritual health and our spiritual power.

Most of us have known what it is to have had at some time a season of spiritual lethargy or distress or despondency. Should we not on such an occasion ask ourselves, Have I been flying in the face of some commandment of my Lord? Matters arise and questions confront us as to which we cannot find in the Scriptures any clear command of our Lord, and it then becomes a matter of spiritual exercise, of searching the Scriptures that we may be able to deduce and discern what His mind for us may be. But on the other hand as to many things we do have clear commands, which are simply to be obeyed, since we are "under law to Christ." To disobey them is to court spiritual trouble and even spiritual disaster.

We are indeed delivered from the law, as the Apostle has told us, but this is because we are "married to Another," who rules us, not by force or by penalty, but by love, and the true heart finds its peace and its joy in being happily subject to Him.

There is a remarkable incident recorded about C. T. Studd of missionary fame. In his early years, after he had left Cambridge University and before he went out to China, his host in Leicester was attracted by a light under his bedroom door at an abnormally early morning hour. Knocking and enquiring, he found him poring over his Bible. In answer, he said, "Oh, I have been reading that the Lord said, 'If ye love Me, keep My commandments.' Now I do love Him, and I am trying to search out all His commandments to see if I am keeping them." Most of us have heard of the extraordinary life of devotion which he pursued as the result.

Well it would be if the younger Christians of this our day faced up to the commandments of the Lord in the spirit in which he did it. Well also it would be if we older Christians did likewise.

A Great Contrast

A Great Contrast.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 246.)

Of all the men, whose lives are recorded in 0ld Testament Scripture, Solomon stands out supreme in his intellectual endowments. If we read 1 Kings 4: 29-34, and then glance at the first verse of 1 Kings 10, we shall see that his extraordinary mental powers were given him by God, and that he was not only a literary and poetic genius with great knowledge of all natural history subjects, but that he also had great understanding "concerning the name of the Lord;" and it was the fame spread abroad as to this latter feature, that drew the Queen of Sheba to his presence. He was evidently the wonder of his age.

When we turn to the New Testament, and confine our thoughts to those who were merely men, no individual stands out more strikingly than Saul of Tarsus. Like Solomon, he came of pure Hebrew stock, as he states in Philippians 3: 4-6, and in religious matters he held a foremost place, for he wrote, that he "profited in the Jew's religion above many my equals [i.e. contemporaries] in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers" (Gal. 1: 14). In him again we find a man of outstanding intellectual powers.

When, however, we consider the spirit that marked them, the course they pursued, and the end to which they came, we find the greatest possible contrast. In our consideration we must of course remember the great difference that existed between the epochs in which they lived. Solomon had to walk in the light of God as He had been made known in the law system, ministered through Moses; Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul, was brought into the light of God revealed in Christ — in the grace of His atoning sufferings and of His risen glory.

We are struck in the first place by the fact that Solomon possessed and enjoyed all the good things of this life in superabundant measure, whereas Paul enjoyed none of them. We may gain some idea of Solomon's abundance by reading Ecclesiastes 2: 4-10. We turn to Philippians 3: 8, and find Paul saying, "I have suffered the loss of all things." And if we would know what he gained as regards this world, we read 2 Corinthians 11: 23-28. Having done so, the contrast is great in the highest degree.

But now consider the spirit that animated them. Ecclesiastes 2: 10, shows that Solomon threw himself wholeheartedly into "having a good time," as men speak. He pursued everything that came within his reach. His motto must have been, "Everything I do," in the pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction. And what was the principle on which Paul lived? We find it again in Philippians 3, "This one thing I do." And what was the one thing? The things behind him, the things he had lost, he forgot, as he reached forth to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Again the contrast could not be more complete.

The result of this was that Solomon became exceedingly selfish. This too comes out clearly in Ecclesiastes 2. Read the passage again, and note how he puts it, " made me. . . builded me. . . planted me. . . got me. . gathered me. . . So was great." His life became one of self-gratification, so much so that he might have said, "For me to live is — SELF." And the Apostle Paul? Well, in Philippians again we have his word, "For to me to live is — CHRIST" (Phil. 1: 21). No greater contrast can be found than that between a life lived for self, and one lived for Christ.

So with Solomon for a season all went well. He prospered in the most amazing fashion, and his fame was noised abroad in all directions; and in that same chapter in Ecclesiastes he was able to write, "Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour." In his immense worldly success he found his joy.

But when Paul wrote his epistle to the saints at Philippi he was a prisoner in Rome; he was in very unpleasing circumstances, yet he was filled with joy. Here are some of his words, "I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. . . I joy, and rejoice with you all. . . finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. . . rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice." Is he rejoicing in prosperous surroundings? Not at all, for his surroundings were anything but prosperous. His rejoicing was altogether in the Lord, and this is the rejoicing that lasts. Solomon rejoiced in his own successful achievements: Paul rejoiced in the Lord. Another complete contrast.

Lastly, we notice that when Solomon wrote of his rejoicing he used the past tense: not, "my heart rejoices," but, "my heart rejoiced." We glance at the very next verse, and we find him saying, "All was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." His disillusionment was complete.

And what of Paul? We turn once more to the Philippian epistle, and in its closing chapter we find him writing, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. . . I have all, and abound." So while the man who had, as men would say, everything that heart could wish, ended with vanity and emptiness the man who lost all the good things of life, yet found his sufficiency in God, was full "according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." The contrast in their finish is not less striking than that which marked their course.

Now these things have a very clear and challenging voice to us today. The writer desires to accept the challenge for himself, and to pass it on to his readers. We none of us have the immense wealth and boundless opportunities of a Solomon, but we live in an age far more filled with alluring and fascinating objects and devices. The man of small means can today spend much time listening to the voices of men who speak, or to music played, hundreds of miles away. He can watch scenes that are enacted in the far distance. He can mount his car and career along the roads to his desired destination; or perhaps, sit in an aeroplane and cut through the air at 500 miles an hour. These things are very fascinating, but we have to remember that all these extraordinary human inventions are going at the finish to prove but "vanity and vexation of spirit."

Many of our fellow-Christians are suffering many privations behind the "Curtains," whether "Iron," or "Bamboo." If what we hear of them be true, their joy and effectiveness in the things of God is greater than anything that we English-speaking Christians know. They have but little access to the fascinating things we have alluded to, and so they are not tempted to waste valuable time over them. Though not in a Roman prison like Paul, they do suffer imprisonment of another kind under the strong and domineering hand of Communism, but we are told they openly exhibit much joy and courage, and their numbers have greatly increased.

For at least two centuries we, who are English-speaking Christians, have enjoyed much in the way of spiritual privilege and blessing, but because of this very thing we have to beware lest we become inflated and imagine we are "rich and increased with goods," of a spiritual sort, as did the Laodiceans, of whom we read in Revelation 3. If we estimate things aright, we shall, on the contrary, realize that we are far too much on the lines of Solomon, and too little on the lines of the Apostle Paul; far too much engrossed with the passing possessions and pleasures of time, that end in vanity, and far too little with the abiding realities of eternal life, though these are only known by faith in the power of the Spirit of God.

Let us never forget that solemn word spoken by our Lord — "But many that are first shall be last and the last shall be first" (Matt. 19: 30). When the day of Christ arrives, and we who are so privileged, stand before His judgment seat, and hear the decision as to our lives and service in this world what will His verdict be?

The Great Illusion Dispelled

The Great Illusion Dispelled.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Simple Testimony, Vol. 32, 1915, page 151.)

Have you ever seen a mirage? It is a fascinating sight, not easily forgotten.

Travelling, some years ago, with a companion on the Cape Government Railway between De Aar Junction and Beaufort West we were fortunate enough to see one. Away to our left there appeared a large lake dotted here and there with islands. The contrast with the dry and scorched veldt was delightful. Just as we were wondering whether it could be a mirage or not our questionings and doubts were settled.

In an extraordinary way the whole picture began to move, and as it faded it became apparent that the waters of the lake were nothing more than the shimmering heat-waves, and the islands the tops of kopjes in the distance. A few more moments and the lovely lake vanished away, and

Like the baseless fabric of a vision

Left not a rack behind.

Probably you have not seen a sight of this description, yet certain it is that you are perfectly familiar with the greatest mirage, or illusion, of all. The name of this greatest of all illusions is — THE WORLD. By this, of course, is meant, not the material earth, not the people comprising its population, but the great "world-system" with its supply of every imaginable gratification for human desires, without God.

In this fearful and wonderful organization, evolved by the master-mind of Satan, we have all had our share. Its favours fall to the few, its miseries are tasted by the many; but whatever may have been the particular part played, my reader, if unconverted, is inevitably involved in it with the prospect of sharing in its ultimate ruin.

If converted, you no longer belong to the world-system. As to this the words of the Lord Jesus are plain. He said of His disciples: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" — repeating these words twice (John 17: 14, 16). Even so there is danger lest — though delivered from it by the work of God — you should be only half-alive to its true character. Easy then to become entangled in its meshes and greatly damaged in soul. It is for any in such peril that these lines are penned.

In his first epistle the Apostle John has some strong warnings on this matter. Will you slowly and thoughtfully read from the middle of 1 John 2: 14 to 17?

He addresses himself, you will note, to "young men," that is to Christians not in their earliest stage of Christian life and experience — these are classed as "babes"; not to such as have by long experience matured in their knowledge of Christ — these are "fathers," but rather to those who have reached a kind of middle condition. They have gained such a knowledge of God's Word as has fortified them against Satan's wiles in the matter of anti-Christian teachings, yet they have not such a deep and soul-satisfying knowledge of Christ as has made them, like Paul, to count all things but loss for it. They are, therefore, susceptible to the attractions of the world.

As a matter of fact, if converted young, as is the case with the great majority of Christians, and if normal progress is made, the "young man" stage of growth is reached when life is at its best and fullest; and relationships by marriage and parentage exert their greatest influence. Hence many a Christian, who as a "babe" has had a bright history, gets captured more or less by the world in later life, and his light is obscured.

Let us pause, and, as to this, ask ourselves the disciple's question, "Lord, is it I?"

In the verses cited above, the Apostle John states certain facts which if really received will quite dispel the great world-illusion. We may approach them by asking a series of questions.

First of all we will inquire:

UPON WHAT FOUNDATIONS IS THE WORLD-SYSTEM BASED?

Mark the answer! "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life...." Here the three foundations are plainly named.

The "lust of the flesh" is the desire of HAVING — the restless longing to have or acquire everything that can minister to any desire having its seat in the body. The phrase covers the whole range of such desires from the lowest animal passion to the highest refinements in the way of creature comforts.

The "lust of the eyes" is the desire of SEEING. The eye, be it remembered, is only the organ of sight. It is the brain that really sees. This phrase, therefore, covers the whole range of desires connected with the living, intelligent soul which man possesses, rather than with his body. The world provides every kind of spectacle and show to please the eyes or ears. You may visit the lowest kind of music hall imaginable or the finest and most cultured theatre. If your desires are more intellectual you may wander in paths of science and philosophy, ever gratifying the lust of seeing mentally some new thing, though never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

"The pride of life is the desire of BEING. The worst of the three, this lust lies most deeply ingrained in humanity. It covers every desire connected with the immortal spirit which was man's chief possession and glory in creation. It is essentially one desire, the desire of being supreme and first — first amongst the smallest and most insignificant coterie of humanity, or rising in its full height and daring impiety to challenge the supremacy of the God who sits on the circle of the heavens.

On these three foundations then, we repeat, is the world-system constructed. What must its character be?

Or, changing the figure, let us put it thus: This glittering bauble called the world, perfumed as it seems with otto of roses, is handed to us for analysis. We submit it to the simple test of the Word of God, and what results? Its glitter vanishes, its perfume dies away, and there is left only these three primitive elements of fallen humanity, hideous and malodorous: that is all.

But is this really so? Can it be true? Well, you have only to investigate a little with prayerful desire to know the truth and you will be convinced. SELF is the great motive spring of the world-system, and selfishness the great principle on which it is run. This being so, the things that are in the world, though many of them innocent enough in themselves, are tainted, and must not be loved by the Christian any more than the world-system which has tainted them.

Now let us inquire:

IN WHAT WILL THE WORLD-SYSTEM EVENTUATE? or to what end is it travelling? The answer of our Scripture is very plain. "The world passeth away and the lust thereof." It eventuates in NOTHING, for its end is to pass away.

This is an amazing reply. "This is a hard saying: who can hear it?" we feel tempted to say. Yet it is true.

The field of human activities in connection with the world is vast indeed. There are worlds within worlds. Worlds of "thought," consisting in speculations, philosophies, and investigations: worlds of "word," consisting in mighty literatures in many tongues and the records, bewilderingly extensive, of the results of human observations and activities: worlds of "deeds," some bright and gay, some dark and mournful. The worlds of society, fashion, politics, and pleasure are amongst the former. The worlds of labour, poverty, and vice amongst the latter.

And the sum total of these mighty activities, worked to their fullest extent and carried on from generation to generation to their climax, is . . . nothing!

An Oriental fable has it, that a tyrannical prince once bade one of his wise men to give him a motto which should be equally applicable to everything within his kingdom, under penalty of death. The wise man reflected for a moment and then replied: "You have but to write upon everything, O King, these words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.' "

He was undeniably right. His motto was eminently scriptural. The mirage will certainly dissolve. All human achievements will fade into nothingness. The time will come when the last remains of the great pyramid will have crumbled into sand and been blown by hot winds into the Sahara desert, when the very sites of London and New York will have been forgotten, when all human sciences and philosophies will have but entangled men in dreadful and self-inflicted catastrophes and ruin, and when all human greatness and renown will have been hushed in the presence of the Lord.

With all this in view there rings in our ears the apostolic injunction: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." Lay great emphasis on that first word.

We are not asked to live like a hermit, or to follow a monastic life. We pass through the world, though not of it, and with the things in the world we have to do every day, following our callings and gaining our daily bread. And just because we do thus handle the world's things continually the exhortation "Love not" is so needful.

The world has rejected our Lord and Master. Its princes "crucified the Lord of Glory." Remembering this, understanding, too, the foundations on which it is reared, and knowing the nothingness in which it will eventuate, can we love it? Impossible!

But we can go a step further and ask another question:

IS THERE ANYTHING REAL AND SATISFYING THAT SUPPLANTS THE WORLD?

There is: It is "the love of the Father" (v. 15). The world-system took its rise directly after the fall of man. It has been evolved in the vain attempt to fill the void in man's heart made by the loss of communion with his Creator. Now nothing but the knowledge of and intercourse with God will satisfy the heart, and in Christianity we have such communion re-established, only in a far more intimate way than was possible when man was originally in innocence. We, Christians, know God, not merely as an all-wise and beneficent Creator but as Father, and that in connection with His very nature — love.

"The love of the Father" is the very kernel of all that has been revealed by Christ. The Epistle of John opens with reference to all that the apostles came into contact with revealed in "the Word of Life." And that which they knew they communicated to others so that the circle of communion might be extended — communion "with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ."

Here then are plainly two great spheres or systems. The world-sphere filled with innumerable objects, the fruit of man's inventive genius, but all based upon lust and pride. The Christian sphere, filled with unseen and eternal things, all centring in the Father and His love. The former very imposing and noisily aggressive, like Bunyan's Vanity Fair, yet really unsatisfying and transient; the latter as yet only seen by faith, yet satisfying and eternal.

And mark this: It is impossible that both should hold the heart at one and the same time. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The converse is equally true. If any man have his heart filled with the love of the Father it is impossible that he should love the world. For him the great mirage has no allurements. He not only knows its true character, but he finds himself possessed of positive good and blessing which supplants its vain show altogether.

And yet so deceiving is the world, so alluring, so insistent, that all too often we find the love of it creeping back into our hearts and dimming there the shining of the Father's love. How great our folly when this is so. Let us be on the watch as to this, lest, like the dog in the fable, in attempting to grasp the shadow we foolishly let go the substance.

To some minds, what we have just been saying may appear a little dreamy and mystical. Such would like to remind us that life is made up mainly of hard facts and multifarious activities. That is so. Let us therefore ask one more question. It shall be one asked first by Solomon three thousand years ago.

WHAT PROFIT HATH A MAN OF ALL HIS LABOURS WHICH HE TAKETH UNDER THE SUN?

To that Solomon had but a mournful reply. In his book of Ecclesiastes he was limited in vision to the world-system, already in his day highly developed. He could only say, "All is vanity!"

Now let us hear the reply of the Apostle John. Turning from the world, empty and fading, and with his heart rejoicing in the love of the Father, he says, "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." How great the contrast.

It is quite true that there is the active side of life as well as the contemplative and that for most people the former greatly overshadows the latter. It is equally true that in Christian life both sides are provided for and both sides are properly proportioned and balanced. On the contemplative side there is the love of the Father to fill our hearts with joy. On the active side there is doing the will of God for the employment of our energies. The former is the spring of the latter, for only as we learn what the will of God is shall we be able to do it.

It is doubtless true that Spirit-given energies spent in doing God's will can never fail of abiding result. When the world's activities have come to nothing the results of labour for Christ according to God's will shall shine forth in their beauty, yet what is said here is rather that "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." Such an one stands as an enduring exception to the transient nature of everything in the world.

Christian reader! do you realize this? You walk through this vain and fading world-system as one already put in touch with the heavenly system of things centred in God the Father and the Christ in whom His love reposes. You are left here to do His will and represent these abiding realities in the midst of the dying shadows, and not to attempt any reformation of the world and much less to associate with it. You are privileged to labour for the furtherance of Christ's interests with the certainty that time will not cause the fruit of such work to crumble into nothingness. The world's greatest things, compared with God's smallest things, look small indeed!

Again we ask, Do you realize this? Oh! wake, thou Christian that sleepest, and arise from amidst the dead world that surrounds thee; then Christ shall shine upon thee.

Then, with the world-illusion dispelled, you will tread more firmly that abiding path of doing the will of God which is indeed a path of the just, which is "as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." The language of your heart will be:

'Tis the treasure I've found in His love

That has made me a pilgrim below.

"Great things for thyself"

"Great things for thyself"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 257.)

In the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, the state of things in Judah and Jerusalem was rapidly deteriorating. Jeremiah was the prophet, raised up of God and commissioned to proclaim the word of the Lord, and courageously expose the state of things that was leading to the final disaster. Baruch was the scribe that was employed to write in a book the solemn words that Jeremiah had to utter. This we learn when Jeremiah 45 is read.

The masses of the people were indifferent, if not hostile, to all that Jeremiah had to say: but not so Baruch. He not only wrote down the prophecies of judgment, but he felt the weight and sorrow of them, as we see in verse 3 of that short chapter. Woe had been pronounced upon the people, but he felt it for himself, saying, "Woe is me now!" Moreover he accepted it from God. He might well have spoken of Nebuchadnezzar, the great Babylonian monarch, as bringing the misery upon them; but no, for what he cried was, "The Lord hath added grief to my sorrow." He at least believed the things he had written, and he knew that the final crash was still to come, and near at hand.

Let us each challenge our hearts as to how we should have reacted to such a situation. If endowed with some energy and initiative, would not our tendency haste been to say that times of national disaster present great opportunities to the courageous individual for advancement and great profit? It would seem that the temptation to think in this way was present with Baruch, and hence the word to him, "Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not." Self-aggrandisement was definitely to be ruled out. He was simply told that his life would be given to him as a "prey" or "spoil" wherever he might be carried. God would preserve his life and that was the only profit he was to expect.

This little episode has been recorded in the Scriptures for our instruction. Let us seek to profit by it. From the moment that Solomon began to seek great things for himself and pile up riches, decline set in with the nation and its kings. Self-seeking in a day of prosperity is ruinous and even more so in a day of declension and disaster. This was true of Israel who were under the law. It is equally true, if not more so, for the people of God today, since we are not under the law but under grace.

But, alas! self-seeking has been a very prominent evil in the sad history of Christendom. It began very early, for the Apostle Paul in his imprisonment had to write, "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's" (Phil. 2: 21). A few centuries passed, and the awful evils of the clericalism, which reached its culmination in the Papacy, came to pass, in which self-seeking was pursued without a trace of shame.

Still further the centuries have rolled on, and we find ourselves, as we believe, in the closing days of Christendom, and of the character of those days we get a glimpse in the Lord's words to the Laodicean church, recorded in Revelation 3. The outstanding feature of that church is its self-satisfaction, which is the natural outcome of a self-seeking course, crowned with success. There is indeed a striking affinity between the "success" of Solomon and of the Laodiceans. In Ecclesiastes 2 we read how Solomon became "rich and increased with goods," until he had "need of nothing." Laodicea was in just that state, though the "goods" in which they gloried, were of a different sort to those of Solomon. At the finish, Solomon found his to be only "vanity and vexation of spirit;" and the end of the Laodiceans is to be spued utterly out of the mouth of the Lord.

The seeking of great things for self is, of all the tendencies of fallen human nature, the deepest dyed. The world-system has been evolved according to the principles of fallen men. It has come under the searching analysis of the Spirit of God and the verdict is, "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father" (1 John 2: 16). And what are these three component parts of the world but different forms of self-seeking?

In the cross of Christ the world has been judged, as we read in John 2: 31. In that same cross "sin in the flesh" has been condemned, as stated in Romans 8: 3; that is our fallen nature is condemned, and thereby "self" is judged and set aside. At no time is it to dominate the thoughts and desires of the Christian.

Hence the word to us is, "Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God" (Col. 3: 1). This is as important for us, whose lot is cast in the twentieth century, as it was for the saints of the first century. Obeying this injunction we shall be delivered from seeking great things for ourselves.

And, what is more, we shall be seeking the great things of God. A devoted servant of God, who a century and a half ago was a pioneer in missionary work, had as a motto something like this, "Attempt great things for God: expect great things from God." Carey, the Northamptonshire cobbler, spake thus, and he laboured on, in spite of opposition and sometimes ridicule, particularly at the translation of the Scriptures into native tongues. No spectacular results were visible during his lifetime, but great things from God have sprung from what he attempted for God.

So let us remind ourselves that as with Baruch, so with us, only in a far deeper and more wonderful sense, our life has been given to us as our "spoil". It was prophetically declared of our risen Lord that, "He shall divide the spoil with the strong" (Isa. 53: 12) and we are brought into the eternal life which is His, for we have it in Him.

The eternal life which is ours is not centred in self but in Him. As Christians, let us leave the world to seek for itself the great things after which it lusts. We have the life which is life indeed and seeks only the things of God's kingdom and of Christ. So let us obey Paul's instruction to Timothy to "lay hold on eternal life" (1 Tim. 6: 12), to which we have been called by the grace of God.

Are you Growing in Grace?

Are you Growing in Grace?

F. B. Hole.

Growth is one of the surest signs of healthy life. It is so, whether in the vegetable or animal kingdom, nor is it otherwise in the realm of grace. Growth, therefore, we expect to see in every Christian. In Nature, at a certain point, growth stops and decay sets in, but with the believer it should continue all his earthly days.

No sensible person expects the convert of yesterday to be anything but a babe. But we do not expect him to remain a babe. With a keen appetite for wholesome spiritual food, a good digestion, plenty of Heaven's fresh air and exercise, he is bound to grow And the scripture, "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3: 18), applies to every one of us.

WHAT IS GROWTH?

Growth has no direct connection with age. — A man may be white with years, and have passed many a milestone since his conversion, and yet be spiritually a stunted child. Some of the Hebrew believers were like this. They were stumbling over the Christian alphabet when they should have been teachers, and needing milk when they should have been fit for strong meat. (See Heb. 5: 12-14).

Growth is not necessarily connected with what we do. — There may be much earnestness and activity, yet no growth. The Ephesian Christians sadly exemplified this in their later years. When the Apostle Paul wrote his epistle to them, they were like a tree planted by rivers of waters, green and vigorous; but when the Lord Jesus addressed them through His servant John, though recognizing their works, labour, and patience, He had to say, "Thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen." The top shoot of the fair young tree had been nipped by frost, and growth was stopped. (See Rev. 2: 1-7).

Growth does not even depend upon what we know. — Our mental development may far outstrip our spiritual. An "infant prodigy," whatever he may be in musical or educational circles, is a pitiable object in the Christian sphere, and comes to a bad end. The novice, if capable of seizing abstractions, may speedily grasp much truth in his mind, but let him not assume that he has therefore become a giant and able to instruct his grandfather.

Under this delusion some of the Corinthian believers fell. They were enriched in "all knowledge" (1 Cor. 1: 5); they assumed to be wise (1 Cor. 3: 18); they all attempted to be teachers (1 Cor. 14: 26); they even began to let their minds run riot with the cardinal truth of resurrection (1 Cor. 15: 12, 35). As a matter of fact, they were ignorant (1 Cor. 6: 2, 3, 9, 15, 19; 1 Cor. 8: 2; 1 Cor. 10: 1; 1 Cor. 12: 1; 1 Cor. 14: 38; 1 Cor. 15: 36), fleshly and but babes (1 Cor. 3: 1-3). They used their "knowledge" to the damage of some of their brethren (1 Cor. 8: 11). Such knowledge only puffs up. Love builds up (1 Cor. 8: 1).

Growth therefore is altogether a question of what we are. — The very epistle that exhorts us to "grow in grace" opens with a fine statement of what it really is. It runs thus: — "Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity" (or love) (2 Peter 1: 5-7).

With faith we all have started. But to it virtue or courage must be added, if it is to count for much. Courage needs to be controlled by knowledge. Knowledge to be tempered with moderation. Moderation to develop into patience (or endurance). Endurance begets godliness. Godliness produces and develops brotherly kindness. Love, Divine Love, crowns the whole and welds all together in the heart of the believer.

These things, notice, are to be "in us and abound" (2 Peter 1: 8). They are not to be put on as a man puts on a coat, but to be produced inwardly in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that they become part and parcel of ourselves.

The Apostle Peter was really desiring that the features of the beautiful life of Christ should be reproduced in these believers.

Growth, then, is a question of character. As we grow we are moulded more and more into conformity to CHRIST.

ARE YOU GROWING?

Ask yourself, then: Is this kind of thing going on with me? Is there beneath my Christian activity and increase of Bible knowledge a sturdy development of Christian character?" Having asked, answer with candour and great care.

In thus doing, however, a danger lurks. While nothing is so helpful as honest self-judgment before God, nothing is more harmful than allowing this necessary inspection to degenerate into self-occupation.

Beware of getting your thoughts morbidly centred upon yourself.

Three children, let us suppose, have little gardens prettily marked out in their father's grounds. How very different they look! In this one the weeds grow rank and long, the flowers few and feeble. No traces of a trowel and rake and watering-pot! In the second all is tidy, the weeds kept well down, and the flowers, if not high-class, are healthy; while the third shows marks of much labour. Indeed, it is almost painfully tidy, but every flower is either drooping or dead. How easy it is from the state of the gardens to divine the character of the children! And if the careless, go-as-you-please style of number one is to be deplored, the feverish anxiety which led number three to continually pull up one and another of the plants to see how the roots were getting on is almost as disastrous from a practical point of view.

Avoid both extremes. May the good Lord deliver you from that careless and easy-going kind of religion which never allows you to honestly ask yourself the question: "Am I really growing in grace?" for fear of being disturbed; and also from the morbid self-occupation which leads YOU to be always asking yourself that question, and everlastingly tugging up everything in your poor heart by the roots in the endeavour to answer it.

Hit the happy mean by facing the question with the heart in the sunshine of the love of Jesus, and if driven to the conclusion that your growth is but small, let it spur you cheerfully on to know more of Christ.

IN WHAT DO WE GROW?

It is important to remember that as believers we stand in the grace (or favour) of God (see Rom. 5: 2), and hence it is we are told by the Apostle Peter to "grow in grace."

Grace, then, is the soil in which the believer is planted. Not the world, though if one judged by the ways of some Christians, one might almost think so. Though all believers stand in grace, many so surround themselves with a worldly atmosphere that all progress is stopped.

It is very easy for us to abjure the world in the abstract, whilst heavily indulging in its pleasures in detail.

To illustrate this. Some time ago a prayer meeting was being held. Considerable fervour was manifested in the meeting. A man commenced to call upon God. In earnest tones he cried: "Lord, save us from the world!"

"Amen! Amen!" rose in loud chorus from all parts of the building.

A moment's pause, then: —

"Lord, save us from the tobacco!"

Dead and ominous silence! It seemed to kill the meeting.

You may not approve of praying in this fashion, but it shows how easy it is to pray to be preserved from the world in the abstract and to cherish it in detail.

Solomon's vines, remember, were nipped and spoiled by the "little foxes" (Cant. 2: 15). There were plenty of them, and being small, they crept in without attracting much attention.

Many Christians, too, suffer from living in an atmosphere of law. They live and move, read and pray, serve and worship, by rule. No one can expect to grow if encased in cast iron!

How sweet is the liberty that grace gives! Liberty, I say, and not license. For the grace that brings salvation also teaches "that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2: 12).

Let us strike our roots deep down into grace. Let us bask in its sunshine. Oh! the humbling, soul-subduing effect of knowing that, in spite of all we find in ourselves, the sweet and perfect favour of God rests upon us because of Christ, and nothing can separate us "from the love of God which is in" — not ourselves but — "Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8: 39).

HOW DO WE GROW?

Of late, a good deal has been said in public about the poor physique of thousands of children attending school. The practical question is, What is to be done? Will the case be met by giving them plenty to do in the way of exercise and activity? No, they have not the stamina or vigour for much of that. Shall we include some health instruction in the school studies, and teach them how the human body grows, adding cell to cell and tissue to tissue, the value of different kinds of food, and the laws governing the process of digestion?

Six years of such studies will not add as many inches to their stature as a six months' course of good feeding — substantial meals of suitable food, four times a day and seven days a week!

If you would grow, then, select good spiritual food. Good food, remember. Not novels, light literature, or other worldly rubbish. And digest it. Take time to meditate and turn things over in your mind. When the ox chews the cud it generally lies down. In the same way spiritual digestion is greatly favoured by a little quiet, with the knees bent in prayer.

The food of the Christian is in one word — CHRIST — "increasing in (or 'by,' see margin R.V.) the knowledge of God " (Col. 1: 10 ) — and since it is in Christ that God is known to us Peter puts it, "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.''

It is good to know about Him, and everything that helps us in this direction is profitable, but the point of supreme importance is to know the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; to enjoy that holy intimacy which is the fruit of daily living and walking in His presence. Even here upon earth to be

"Close to His trusted side

In fellowship divine."

Then bit by bit we shall discover His many-sided glories, and appreciate the various characters in which He stands related to us. In the following lines we shall try to suggest a few of them.

The beginning of our acquaintance with Jesus is as

SAVIOUR, — TO DELIVER.

To the anxious sinner, burdened with guilt, groaning under sin, and trembling before death and judgment, Jesus stands forth as Saviour. He has grappled with sin; He has died and is risen again. How perfect and attractive He is! No wonder that the newly-pardoned sinner cares for no one and nothing else.

Can you look back to a moment when you tasted the joy of salvation, as Israel did when on the further shore of the Red Sea's judgment flood they sang, saying, "I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously . . . and He is become my salvation"? (Ex. 15: 1, 2). Or as it was with Israel centuries later, when David met Goliath of Gath, and in the name of Jehovah wrought deliverance? Then the awful tension and suspense was ended. A mighty thrill ran through the watching hosts, "and the men of Israel and of Judah arose, and shouted." (1 Sam. 17: 52).

It was so with us. We have been delivered. Our days of mourning and suspense are over. The victory is won, and Jesus lives! And though perhaps years have rolled away since first we knew Him thus, the thrill of that moment is in our hearts to-day

We do not advance far before we see the same Jesus in another character. He is

LORD, — TO COMMAND.

The Gospel, of course, presents Him to us as Lord (2 Cor. 4: 5). We not only believe with the heart unto righteousness, but also confess Him as Lord with the mouth unto salvation (Rom. 10: 9, 10). But some little time passes ere we realize what this means.

Jesus is in the place of authority. It is His to command, ours to gladly obey, and that means the surrender of our wills to His.

The conversion of the Apostle Paul was an ideal one. He reached the point of surrender very speedily (see Acts 9: 5, 6). While in the dust of the road to Damascus he acknowledged Jesus as his Lord, and his whole life was transformed. Most of us lag far behind him. Still, to that point all of us have to come.

We were talking to a Christian young man the other day, and during our conversation he referred several times to "the old days," when he was a worldly, easy-going believer, having just a languid interest in the things of God. He said, "I really believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins, and had I died I am sure I should have gone to heaven."

Still, they were "the old days," for a new day had dawned with the discovery that Jesus was his Lord, a Master to live for and to serve. Passing under this new management a great alteration took place. He was a different man.

Has this new day dawned in your history? If not, may it speedily come! It lies at the very beginning of Christian growth.

One of the first results of a hearty acknowledgment of the lordship of Christ is that the convert gets plunged into a good bit of trouble and soul exercise, since his very efforts to do the will of his newly found Master bring him into conflict with his own will.

Three things at least have to be learned.

First, the true character of the flesh (i.e., the old evil nature still within us), hopelessly bad. "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. 7: 18). If "no good thing," then not even a good desire is to be found there. Yet how long it takes most of us to abandon all expectation of good or even improvement from within.

Second, the terrible power of the flesh. Such power that even the fact of being born again, and therefore possessing a new nature, does not of itself enable us to overcome. We find a man saying, "The good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do" (Rom. 7: 19). He desired the good, proving the existence of the new nature within him; yet such was the power of the old that it overpowered the new, bringing him into captivity (Rom. 7: 23), and making him a thoroughly wretched man (Rom. 7: 24).

Have you never started out to live, as you supposed, a valiant Christian life for the Lord, only to find yourself defeated, not by giant foes without, but by the traitor "flesh" within?

This, then, is the lesson you are learning.

Thirdly, what God has clone as regards the flesh in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8: 3). What a relief it is to know this! God now treats the flesh as a condemned thing, and has done with it. It just remains for us to fall into line with God, and in our turn to treat it as a condemned thing, to be done with. This we can do, inasmuch as having believed in Jesus we have received the Holy Spirit, the new power, and He is more than a match for the power of the flesh.

Led by the Holy Spirit, we lift our eyes to heaven, and Jesus now becomes to us

AN OBJECT, — TO CONTROL.

And this is the real secret of the believer's practical deliverance from the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Satan, the wily adversary end accuser, busies himself in attacking the faith of the saints (see 2 Cor. 11: 3; 1 Thess. 3: 5; 1 Peter 5: 9), and hence to meet him the shield of faith is needed (Eph. 6: 16).

The flesh supplies us with all those baser desires, which each of us knows too well, as also with every other desire not in accordance with the will of God.

The world — the gigantic system around us, which Satan and man have engineered between them in the vain hope of making the latter happy and contented without God — like Bunyan's great "Vanity Fair," contains within itself attractions suitable to every taste and temperament, and all appealing to the lusts of the flesh within.

Though volumes could well be written as to the believer's deliverance from this threefold enemy, and the way of it, that deliverance itself is simply and sweetly enjoyed by those who, having learnt enough of the world and self to be sick of both, turn to Jesus and find in Him —

". . . The Object bright and fair

To fill and satisfy the heart."

Is Jesus this to your soul — an Object to love and live for? Paul said, "the law [or control] of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law [or control] of sin and death" (Rom. 8: 2).

A striking illustration of the power of an object to control occurred when the first military airship made a trial trip round London. During the brief hour that it hovered over the Metropolis it became the object of a million pair of eyes. Everything else was forgotten. The latest fashions lost their attraction, shops were deserted, dinners left to get cold. 'line man of business dropped his pen and the student his books. Everybody stopped and gazed at this new object in the sky, and for the moment got clean delivered from their ordinary life.

It was the novelty of the thing that attracted, however. Not so with Jesus. He who has loved Him longest and known Him best most feels His blessed and permanent attractions. Summed up in one word, it is all centred in His mighty and eternal LOVE. Just as a powerful magnet will extricate a needle from a heap of sawdust, the magnetic love of Jesus will deliver a soul from any amount of worldly and fleshly rubbish. May God bring both readers and writer under its power increasingly.

If all this is to be kept up, we shall know and appreciate the Lord Jesus in another character, viz., as

HIGH PRIEST, — TO SUSTAIN.

There are a good many Christians about who want to be more devoted, or to live "the higher life." But though their desires are good, their circumstances are trying, and their performance poor. Are you one of them?

Possibly you are acquainted with the Epistle to the Hebrews, and therefore know well that Jesus is your great High Priest in heaven (Hebrews 4: 14), but the question is, Do you really and practically know Him as your great High Priest who sustains your soul day by day, amidst the many trials and difficulties of life?

Only those whose faces are set in the right direction need expect the help of the Priest. To help a man on the wrong road is no real help at all. Hence the careless, worldly-minded believer will not get the help of the Priest; he needs the services of Jesus as Advocate to touch his conscience and put him right. The earnest-minded believer who heartily acknowledges Jesus as Lord, and loves Him as Object, will both need it and get it, the result being not only that he is carried safely on to heaven by and by, but also carried into the holiest (i.e., the consciously realized presence of God) now (Heb. 10: 19-22).

Nothing that can be said on the subject, however, will give such a sense of the grace and power of Jesus as our High Priest, as a little practical experience, gained in turning to Him in moments of difficulty and need. So take good heed to the exhortation: "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4: 16).

All this will teach us to look joyfully up to the Lord Jesus as

THE HEAD, — TO DIRECT.

Christ is the Head of the Church, even as the husband is the head of the wife (Eph. 5: 23).

From Him, too, as Head all nourishment and supply for His body comes (Eph. 4: 15, 16).

Wisdom, direction, and nourishment are everyday needs, and the supply of them is not in ourselves, but in Him. As Head He is the overflowing source of all. To "hold the Head" (Col. 2: 19), is to appreciate and cleave to Him as such, and thus to really find in Him that which makes us happily independent of man's wisdom in the way of rationalism (Col. 2: 8), and his religion in the way of ritualism (Col. 2: 20-23).

Christ is everything, and thus He becomes everything to the believer's heart. We look outside Him for nothing.

One word of warning. Do not think that each one of these steps in the knowledge of Christ stands alone. They are closely connected, and often merge into one another in the believer's history. The great end is that we may be thoroughly established; no longer children, but full grown men, Christ being everything to us.

Coincidence, or the Hand of God?

Coincidence, or the Hand of God?

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 77.)

There is with many a Christian the habit of looking at second causes, or even at third causes, in connection with the many events which go to make up their lives, and thus they miss the joy of tracing the moving of the hand of God behind all the scenes. When this habit becomes confirmed and inveterate the whole of one's life becomes a meaningless jumble of odds and ends, and the spirit becomes sorely tried. When, on the other hand, we look away from all secondary causes to God Himself, light and order begin to appear; though doubtless the full explanation of all circumstances contrary or otherwise, awaits that day when all the hidden things shall come to light.

Of this the book of Job furnishes a striking example, as we all know. It was one of the earliest books of the Bible to be written and from this we may learn the kindness of God. Knowing the fearful perplexity that would be engendered by adverse circumstances in the minds of men, and particularly in the hearts of His saints, He caused this book to be written, which should make manifest "the end of the Lord" (James 5: 11). It is possible that never again in the history of the world has such a combination of crushing blows fallen upon any one mortal man and yet all was proved to be from the hand of God, and ordered by perfect wisdom and perfect love. And all this was put on record as soon as ever the written revelation of God began.

The book of Esther furnishes us with another example of how God moves behind the scenes of man's little world, and though the subject is approached from a different angle and many of the chief actors are godless potentates dealing with matters of high policy, yet the proof of it is not one bit the less striking. It is perhaps more striking when we remember that Esther is one of the two books in the Bible in which God is not mentioned. Just where God is not seen and events move on apparently without Him, there most clearly He is at work behind the scenes.

The story unfolded in Esther is well known to all our readers. It concerns itself with the fortunes of the Jews who remained behind in the lands of their captivity after a remnant had returned to the land of their fathers under Zerubabel, Ezra and Nehemiah. These latter were evidently the pick of the people, for the idea of returning to Jerusalem, and facing the privations and troubles and reproach which that entailed, would only appeal to those who feared the Lord and thought upon His Name and purposes. Those of a more worldly-minded type, who had comfortably settled down and acquired possessions and wealth in the lands of their dispersion during the seventy years, would be much less likely to face the sacrifices involved in such an uprooting.

Now whilst God worked openly amongst the remnant who returned, raising up His prophets, who directed them by inspired utterances, He did not manifest Himself at all amongst the mass who remained. As they had declined from His ways so did He hide Himself from their perceptions, so much so that the whole story of their wonderful deliverance from a great impending catastrophe can be related without God being mentioned at all, and Mordecai, who was chief amongst them, and personally, as far as we can judge, a pious man, could only say to Esther, "If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place." A certain measure of confidence he evidently possessed, but "another place" is a very poor substitute for GOD. The book ends with "Mordecai the Jew next unto king Ahasuerus," so that he was a kind of second Daniel, yet how greatly inferior! The one a successful viceroy, "seeking the wealth of his people and speaking peace to all his seed"; yet without any direct touch with the living God. The other no less great and successful as a viceroy, but also a prophet of God, instructed himself in the mind of God and the communicator of it for the instruction of others.

The writer of the book of Esther tells us the story of the great deliverance granted to the Jews throughout the extensive dominions of Ahasuerus, from the spiritual standpoint of the Jews of the dispersion. He puts on record a true story which is almost stranger than fiction. The story abounds in what men would call dramatic situations and the most remarkable coincidences.

Fancifulness is a thing much to be shunned in handling the Holy Scriptures. We shall seek to avoid it by not claiming as coincidences various details which many might be disposed to regard as such. We do not think that any would be disposed to deny as remarkable coincidences! the following:

1. That, when, according to the corrupt customs of those days, large numbers of fair young maidens were assembled at Shushan for the king, Esther out of them all obtained universal favour. That one maiden would obtain the king's favour was pretty certain, but Esther obtained not only that but also the favour of the king's chamberlain and indeed "of all them that looked upon her." (See Esther 2: 9, 15, 17.) Thus was she lifted suddenly into a position of extraordinary influence.

2. That, when amongst the many intrigues of that Eastern court a plot was set afoot to assassinate the king, news of it leaked out to Mordecai, of all people in the world, and thus he was able to establish a claim upon the king's favour.

3. That Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the Agagite (or, the Amalekite) "after these things" (Esther 3: 1). Thus the sworn foe of the Jew did not Obtain his exalted position with its vast potentialities of mischief until after the lines were laid for checkmating his evil designs.

4. That, when Haman, invested with power and full of wrath at Mordecai's lack of reverence, determined to destroy, not Mordecai alone, but all his people, he resorted to the practice of casting lots to determine "the lucky day"; and further that the lots when cast in the first month of the year indicated so late a day as the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, thus allowing ample time for the various steps that brought about the downfall both of his design and of himself (3: 7 and 13).

5. That the necessary measures for the defence of the Jews having been taken by Mordecai and Esther, the success of which so largely depended upon the king being in a favourable frame of mind on the day of the second banquet, "on that night [the night before] could not the king sleep" (Esther 6: 1). Unaccountably his sleep departed from him.

6. That, having lost his sleep, the king did not, like Nebuchadnezzar, lose his temper (Dan. 2). Nor did he, as was customary in those days, send for instruments of music to while away the tedious hours (see Dan. 6: 18), but bethought himself of the book of records of the chronicles and commanded it to be read before him (Esther 6: 1).

7. That the officials who obeyed his orders lighted upon that part of the records where was related the treachery of the two chamberlains and the timely intervention of Mordecai (Esther 6: 2).

8. That the king's memory thus stirred on the point, his curiosity was awakened as to what reward had been given to Mordecai; and, learning that his notable services had so far been totally ignored, that his sense of gratitude, which had been hitherto unaccountably quiescent, sprang into ardent activity, and he determined to reward him in a handsome and striking fashion (Esther 6: 3-6).

9. That just at that early hour of the morning Haman, intoxicated with pride and full of the imagined success of his schemes, was standing in the court, seeking an audience of the king that he might get his permission to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared (Esther 6: 4).

10. That Ahasuerus forestalled his petition by a question as to what should be done to the man whom the king should delight to honour, and that assuming in his pride that the man to be thus honoured could be none other than himself, Haman answered suggesting that he should be elevated into almost regal dignity and that in the most public way imaginable, and that he should be thereupon deputed by the king to carry out his own suggestions in regard not to himself but to Mordecai (Esther 6: 6-11).

The rest of the story proceeds quite simply. As the fruit of this remarkable series of coincidences Haman is hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai, the Jews are empowered to resist any acts of aggression against them, and consequently the thirteenth day of the twelfth month only witnessed the destruction of the enemies of the Jews, the Jews being not only preserved but prospered.

But were all these remarkable happenings just a series of coincidences? By no means: they were the movings of the hand of God, though He Himself remained hidden. God was behind the scenes of man's busy little world; but then, as has very well been observed, He moves all the scenes that He is behind. Moreover He moves them in favour of His people, if not always for their temporal preservation and advancement always for their spiritual good and the advancement of His own purposes.

Dispensations vary, but the ways of God both in providence and government do not vary, but proceed upon principles which remain the same whatever the dispensation. We are assured, therefore, that God is still at work behind the scenes in a similar way today. And our assurance of this is fortified by a further consideration: viz., that while His people are marked by faithfulness, power and brightness, He is pleased to make His presence amongst them very manifest; and on the other hand, when there is defection, weakness and failure, it suits Him to withdraw the manifestations of His presence in large measure, and perhaps altogether, as in the book of Esther. Defection, weakness and failure certainly mark the professing church today.

Are you grieved and tried in spirit by the absence of visible signs of a genuine sort in connection with the testimony of Christ, and the Church's pilgrim pathway through this world? Well, at any rate do not fail to look for these more hidden workings of His hand. They exist on all sides in abundance. Look for them also in the much smaller and humbler circumstances of your own individual pathway.

If you feel inclined to ask, But may I do so? May I look for the moving of the hand of God amidst such very insignificant affairs as mine? The answer is, that you certainly may God does not forget one sparrow out of the five which are sold for two farthings (see Luke 12: 6), not even the odd one unceremoniously thrown in by the seller, since two farthings and not one are spent. He bids you draw near to Him in prayer and supplication concerning simply everything (see Phil. 4: 6). You may be perfectly sure then that He takes the deepest interest in all your concerns and in all your pathway here. You may confidently expect His direction and control. And if perchance you feel yourself to be weak and feeble and not equal to discerning and receiving His guidance in more direct and manifest fashion, you may the more confidently rest assured that His hand is at work behind the scenes, and you may look to see it.

"He condemned the world."

"He condemned the world."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 31, 1939, page 156.)

In the book of Genesis the history of Noah extends over four chapters, and in this there is quite a contrast with Enoch, whose history is compressed into four short verses. Several additional facts concerning Noah come to light in the New Testament, yet in Hebrews 11 one verse suffices to give the inspired commentary on the remarkable faith that he manifested. Let us remind ourselves that what faith gives us is, "'the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (New Trans.).

When Noah was born, over a thousand years, at the lowest computation, had passed since sin entered the world, and six hundred years later the flood was to sweep away the world of the ungodly. If those six hundred years be divided into five equal parts, then four out of the five passed without anything being put on record save the all-important fact that he was "a just man and perfect in his generation," and that ho "walked with God." We are not told when this walk began, nor for how long precisely it continued, but we can see here a very definite moral link with his great-grandfather Enoch, who was translated about seventy years before his birth.

But if four-fifths of the period were comparatively uneventful, there was laid during their course, by this steady walk with God, the foundation on which was reared the activity and the witness that occupied the final fifth — the one hundred and twenty years that immediately preceded the flood. Then was the period of "the longsuffering of God . . . while the ark was a preparing," (1 Peter 3: 20), and also of the witness which Noah rendered as "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2: 5). When he thus preached righteousness, it was the Spirit of Christ who addressed those disobedient men through his lips. They continued in their disobedience, and as the result of that their spirits are now in prison. This is, we believe, the meaning of those difficult verses, 1 Peter 3: 18 - 20; and it agrees with what is said, in 1 Peter 1: 31, as to the Spirit of Christ testifying through the other Old Testament prophets.

Noah's witness as a preacher is passed over in silence, just as Enoch's witness as a preacher is not mentioned in verse 5. Our attention is directed to what he did — the great work in which his faith found its expression — rather than what he said.

As ever, God made the first move, He spoke to Noah, warning him of "things not seen as yet." They were seen with awful vividness and destructive effect when the one hundred and twenty years had expired, but at the beginning of the period there was not the smallest sign of them. Indeed it is quite probable that what is stated in Genesis 2: 5, as to the absence of rain, applied to the whole antediluvian period, and if so the announcement to Noah of the great flood of waters must have sounded to him strange, unprecedented and unbelievable from any human standpoint. However, the warning came from God, and that settled the matter as far as Noah was concerned. Here, then, is an excellent illustration of the dictum that "Faith is believing what God says, because God says it."

It is well that we should realize that we are in just this position today as regards the second coming of our Lord. On two occasions did Jesus speak of "the days of Noe," comparing them to "the coming of the Son of Man" (Matt. 24: 37-41), and again to "the days of the Son of Man" (Luke 17: 22-28). That which He has predicted as to His coming intervention in power, which will mean a far greater overthrow for evil men than that accomplished by the flood, is something entirely unprecedented. We believe it and expect it because He has said it. We too have been warned of God.

Having been warned of God as to these coming, unseen things, and having received the warning in faith, Noah was "moved with fear." His faith substantiated the warning, and conviction of the coming flood moved him. The Apostle James has told us in his epistle that there is a "faith" which is dead, inasmuch as it does not move a man to any works; whereas living faith moves people to actions appropriate to that which they believe. James cites both Abraham and Rahab in proof of this. We may cite Noah with equal propriety. It moved him sufficiently to start him on a colossal task which lasted one hundred and twenty years.

It is plainly stated that what moved Noah was fear. The goodness of God, expressed in His forbearance and longsuffering with guilty man, does indeed lead to repentance, as is stated in Romans 2: 4, yet very often fear of coming judgment has acted powerfully, and Noah's case is an example of this. It was fear of the right kind; not the abject alarm and fright which the rest of the antediluvians doubtless knew when the flood came and swept them all away, but the fear which sprang from faith in God's warning word. The gospel we preach to-day carries with it a very definite word of warning as to the judgment which will fall at the end of this age, when Christ appears in glory: we find the Apostle Paul giving that warning in Acts 17: 31, and it is recorded that a few believed and consequently attached themselves to Paul. They too were moved in the right direction.

Noah's faith in God's warning produced the fear that moved him to action according to the Divine instructions. Had there been no action there would have been no salvation for him and his house; and in that case the question asked by James would have been very much to the point — "What doth it profit . . . though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?" Noah acted in obedience, and so we can apply to him those other words of James, "by works was faith made perfect." In that way he yielded the obedience of faith.

Thus Noah started on his great work of preparing an ark for the saving of his house. God was the Architect, so he had no need to be concerned as to the matter of its design. His only concern must have been to carry out rightly what God had designed. A single man receives a commission to build a gigantic ship, and that, apparently, in the midst of dry land! It was an extraordinary command, and must have called forth faith of no ordinary character in Noah. If we assume the cubit to have equalled eighteen inches, which is the lowest figure suggested, the ark must have been four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet broad, forty-five feet high.

In the whole history of the world up to about a century ago, every other ship constructed was a mere cockle-shell in comparison with this. Only in quite recent years have these dimensions been surpassed. But, what God said, Noah did, and he proved that God's command was his enabling.

It is not difficult to see how very naturally his building and his preaching must have been linked together. His preaching must have explained his building operations: his building must have shown very impressively that he did really believe what he preached. Yet in spite of this he made no converts outside his own immediate household: such was the hardness of heart that marked men at the close of the antediluvian age.

When the Lord said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years" (Gen. 6: 3), the reference is, we believe, to Noah's preaching. The Spirit of Jehovah, in Genesis, and the Spirit of Christ, in 1 Peter 1: 11 and 1 Peter 3: 18, are identical. Being a Divine Person, the Holy Spirit can be characterized in these different ways, and in many other ways besides. Through Noah's words the Spirit was striving with men, and there was not only the warning of the coming flood but also the preaching of positive "righteousness." The earth in those days was filled with flagrant unrighteousness, which expressed itself in both violence and corruption of a most fearful sort. Noah might very well have been tempted to spend all his time declaiming against the evil, which would have involved him in a negative kind of testimony. Instead of this he preached what was positive.

In that he is a great example to us upon whom the ends of the ages are come. The times of the Gentiles are going to end with conditions similar to the days of Noah, only with an accentuated ungodliness. Many good Christian folk seem to have been tempted to spend their choicest energies in protesting against various evils. We know quite well that we should "reprove" the "unfruitful works of darkness" (Eph. 5: 11), but all the same our choicest energies should be expended in preaching the gospel, wherein the righteousness of God is made known. In this age the evangelist is a preacher of righteousness in a sense altogether unknown in the days of Noah.

Had Noah merely denounced the unrighteousness of his age, he would have condemned the existing state of things without indicating what was right. As it was, he condemned it by the simple preaching of righteousness. In the light of what was right, the wrongness of existing things was plainly seen. Yet our verse in Hebrews 11 does not tell of how he "condemned the world" by what he said, but rather by what he did. Men are more impressed by our actions than by our words.

We read, "God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before Me" (Gen. 6: 13). These words clearly intimated that God had condemned the world, and it was only a matter of time for the judgment to fall. Noah realized that the sentence of doom had gone forth from God's lips: he accepted it, and in his turn he condemned the world by building the ark as a refuge from the coming disaster. Every nail, as he drove it home, was a token of salvation for himself and his house, but a token of condemnation for the world: it made the cleavage between himself and the world more pronounced. Has not this a great voice for our hearts to-day?

The gospel is "the power of God unto salvation," but only "to every one that believeth." In it "the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith," but this cannot be rightly declared without making it plain that, "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Rom. 1: 16-18). We fear that all too often the gospel is not declared as it should be, inasmuch as this revealed wrath is left unmentioned. It is really the dark background to the picture, and if it is not allowed to appear, the brightness of the gospel is not thrown properly into relief. The salvation of Noah's house is only appreciated as we view it against the condemnation of the antediluvian world. We have been saved with a far greater salvation, but ours too is from a condemned world.

Noah did not shrink from condemning the world. Do we? Alas! it looks as if very often we do. It brings a considerable amount of obloquy on our heads, and we shrink from it. As an illustration we may cite the popularity of the idea that the gospel is to be preached in order that bit by bit the world may be converted, and conditions thus made so favourable that the return of Christ may be made possible. There is not the slightest sign of the gospel winning the world: on the contrary it is losing ground in nearly all the nations where longest it has been known. But in spite of that the idea persists. And why? Because, we believe, it enables people to eliminate from their minds the ugly thought of total world catastrophe and judgment, and to think that after all appearances must be deceptive, and that somehow, even if long delayed, the gospel must triumph and painlessly introduce the golden age.

Those who think thus have, of course, no need to condemn the world at all: they merely have to tell it that at present it is not up to the standard — not sufficiently Christianized — but that as the gospel is given right of way things will improve and the goal of an approved and accepted world be reached. Moreover those who carry the gospel with this thought in their minds cannot of necessity cut their links with the world. They must strengthen their links, in order that the more effectually they may improve it.

On the other hand, when we know with Peter how that "God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name" (Acts 15: 14); and when we remember that God is not capricious and changeable, but that what He does at the first in any dispensation He does consistently throughout that dispensation; then we realize that the gospel has been, and is, separating a people from the nations. When that separated people is completed they will be removed by the coming of the Lord for them, and the nations will pass on to judgment. Each one of that separated people by their faith in Christ condemns the world. The world condemned Christ. God has vindicated Christ and condemned the world. If we repose our faith in Christ, we must in the very nature of things condemn the world too.

The last clause of our verse is remarkable, and specially so if it be read in connection with its opening words. "By faith . . . became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Verse 4 has told us that, "By faith Abel . . . obtained witness that he was righteous"; that is to say, he was then and there accounted righteous by God. He was righteous, and not merely an heir of righteousness. Noah too was righteous; we are told so in Genesis 7: 1; yet this does not clash with what we are told here. There could be no revelation of "the righteousness which is by faith" until Christ had died and risen again, as we see in Romans 3: 21, 22, and Philippians 3: 9. Hence this righteousness is here viewed as a future thing, and Noah by his faith became heir to it; and in the rich inheritance that it entails for all who participate in it, Noah will be found standing in the age to come.

In this closing point a considerable measure of contrast exists between Noah and ourselves. We are indeed heirs of the coming inheritance, but the righteousness which is by faith is ours the moment we believe the gospel. Standing in this righteousness, how clearly ought we to condemn the world, and how manifestly show that we are heirs of a heavenly kingdom which cannot be moved.

"He looked for a city."

"He looked for a city."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 31, 1939, page 181.)

In the Book of Genesis the history of Abraham occupies just a little more space than the whole history of things from the creation up to the time of his birth. In the New Testament also there are many references to him, and in Hebrews 11, after brief notices of Abel, Enoch and Noah, quite a number of verses are occupied with him. All this testifies to the great importance of certain features marking his story. We specify three of them: there was given to him the first of the special revelations of God's Name, he was the first to receive a Divine call; and in him first was faith declared to be the way of righteousness.

No one had ever been accounted righteous before God except on the principle of faith; hence in Hebrews 11, the Spirit of God directs our thoughts to righteousness by faith in connection with Abel. Still in the actual history, as unfolded in Genesis, this foundation truth did not come clearly to light until Abraham "believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness" (Gen. 15: 6). In Hebrews 11 however, since this truth is stated as to Abel we do not find it repeated as to Abraham; we start rather with the call of God.

That call was to get out of all his old associations, whether national, social or domestic, and go to the place of God's choice, and we read that, in response to that call "HE WENT OUT." though he did not know "whither he went." All his old associations were of an idolatrous nature, and hence the separation was to be complete, and all links of whatever nature were to be cut.

We must not imagine that because Ur of the Chaldees was a city of idolatries it was therefore uncivilised and barbarous; nor must we suppose that he was called to a life of greater elegance and superior amenities. The exact reverse would be the case. Ur was a city of elaborate civilisation, as recent excavations have proved, and in the land of Canaan Abraham had to adopt the nomadic life with a tent and an altar. From the viewpoint of his earthly circumstances he was a great loser by obeying the call of God. He exchanged a place of comfort and luxury for a life of wandering with its attendant discomforts.

Moreover the land of Canaan was at that time inhabited by tribes which were sunken in idolatry as much as the people of Ur, if not more so, therefore it was that God did not break Abraham's links with Ur to allow him to settle down and form fresh links in Canaan. Afterward he was to receive that land as an inheritance, but that would be under different conditions. All through his long life Abraham was a stranger.

Abraham's response to the call of God and his going forth from Ur was an act of faith, and this act was the introduction to a life of faith. We read that, "By faith

HE SOJOURNED IN THE LAND OF PROMISE

as in a strange country." Not once did he settle down as an inhabitant of the land that had been given to him, although his sojourn there lasted for exactly a century. For all that time he maintained his strangership in faith.

In all this Abraham's history sets forth typically the position of the believer today, and is full of instruction for us. We are not called to leave any particular city or country, nor to come out of our domestic circles. The heavenly calling that has reached us is really more sweeping than this, for it involves our being "delivered from this present evil world" (Gal. 1: 4.) The word here for "world" is really "age," a word of wide significance, covering the whole course of the world-system. Our links with the present evil age are to be cut, though we still dwell in the same place and under the same circumstances as before our conversion.

Sometimes this has not been understood. In earlier times, for instance, it was thought that if men really wanted to live separate and holy lives they must retire behind high walls; and hence arose the monastic system. By this means they shut themselves in from a good many evil people, but not from this evil age for they carried within their own persons all its evil principles. The same idea still persists, though in different forms, in unexpected quarters. If we are really delivered from this evil age we shall not come under an unequal yoke with unbelievers; which yoke involves fellowship, communion, concord, part with and agreement with unbelievers, as is shown in 2 Corinthians 6: 14-16; but even so we shall need to know the power of the cross of Christ in our own hearts and lives, so that the world indeed is crucified to us and we to the world.

Of how many of us can it be said 'Having heard the call of God, he went out in response"? And again, of how many of those who do make some response can it be said, "He was content to sojourn as in a strange country"? These are searching questions for us, especially today, when the attractions of the age are so multiplied. It is quite certain that no satisfactory answer to these questions is likely, unless it can be said of us, as of Abraham:

"HE LOOKED FOR A CITY

which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

Here, then, is the secret of Abraham's remarkable career: his faith bestowed upon him telescopic vision. The astronomer sweeps the heavens with his telescope, and into his field of vision there swim ten thousand stars, never yet seen by the naked eye; so faith enabled Abraham to see the city that was altogether unperceived by those in whom faith was not. He discovered that God had something better and more stable for him, and the bright anticipation of this delivered him from the attractions of both Ur and Canaan.

There is no record either here or in Genesis as to how the knowledge of that heavenly city reached him. He could not have discovered it of himself: some word from God must have come to him, and that word he received in faith. What is made quite plain in Genesis is that he lived in an age when men were very busy building cities. The flood had occurred only a few centuries before, and the building of Babel and its tower was still closer to his time. The opening paragraph of Genesis 11 covers verses 1-9, and the opening paragraph of chapter 12 verses 1-8, and there seems to be a designed contrast between them.

In building the city and the tower men aimed at creating for themselves a centre of influence and strength, and thus making to themselves a name. It was self-exaltation, only of a collective sort rather than individual, for they had conceived the idea of co-operation, whereby things quite impossible to the mere individual could be achieved. Their cry was, "Come on, . . . let us make . . . Come on, let us build . . ." (New Trans.). The antediluvian age had been one of intense individualism, and ended with violence as the hand of each was against his fellow. The post-diluvians had a bright idea: they would stop senseless competition and combine!

Now just when men were aiming at solidarity, God introduced scattering; and soon after He called Abraham. Men were saying "Come on! " when to Abraham God said, "Get thee out!" When they were urging combination, God commanded separation, and Abraham obeyed. When men had their city and their tower, Abraham had a tent and an altar. In their cities men seek that which is settled and permanent, whereas a tent is connected with a transitory state of things. A tower is built to provide security and defence, as far as it is humanly possible, but an altar speaks of God, and of maintaining contact with Him.

Abraham spent his life outside the cities of men because he had in view the city of God that is yet to be — "a city which hath foundations." There seems to be a plain inference here that the cities of men lack foundations. Their material foundations may be sound enough, but right moral foundations are sadly lacking. Unless righteousness and love lie at their base neither endurance nor permanency can mark them, and sooner or later they decay, or are swept away by convulsions from within or without. Abraham saw by faith that God would ultimately introduce a city and a polity which would be based upon righteousness and love, and he was content to wait for that.

That abiding order will never be brought about by human endeavour: no one but God can be its "Builder and Maker." As the Fountainhead of love and righteousness He will lay its foundations and construct it, and with that in view we may well be content to be sojourners in the present order of things. It we turn aside to interfere with the arrangements of men's cities in the hope of improving things, we shall commit a double folly. We shall court failure by attempting to accomplish something that God has not told us to do: we shall fail to do that to which God has called us. Our business is to live as those who are delivered from this present evil age, while proclaiming the message of grace by which others may be called out, even as we have been ourselves. Thus it will be clearly seen that we belong to the noble band of those that "declare plainly that they seek a country."

The record in Hebrews 11 does not hide from us that the old land of Mesopotamia had attractions which might well have exerted a powerful pull upon Abraham. If he had allowed his mind to continually dwell upon the old spot from whence he had come, its fascination might have grown upon him. Then his heart would have turned in that direction, and soon his feet might have followed his heart, for easily he "might have had opportunity to have returned." The record in Genesis shows us that he stedfastly set his face against any such return, either for himself or for his son. His word as to Isaac was, "Beware thou that thou bring not my son thither again" (Gen. 24: 6).

The same thing exactly is true for us. Nothing is easier than to be like Demas, who forsook Paul, "having loved the present age" (2 Tim. 4: 10 New Trans.). The word "evil" is omitted here, you notice. As a Christian, Demas would not love evil but he loved the age and desired to get more fully into touch with it. But, whether for Demas or ourselves this means that we go back to that out of which we have been called by the gospel, and if we have any inclination in that direction, we may be sure that the devil will see to it that we get plenty of opportunities to return. There was no lack of occasions when Abraham might conveniently have slipped back, and so it is with us. These occasions often come with special force in middle life. Worldly associations, that one turned from in the early days after conversion, may be returned to under pressure from one's children. It is noteworthy that the warning against the world, in 1 John 2, is given to the "young men," and not to the "little children" or the "fathers" — given, that is, to those who represent the middle stage of Christian growth and experience. Let us all take home the warning.

Abraham and others were preserved in the way of faith and pilgrimage, because they had set their hearts on something better than all that they had left: they desired "a better country, that is, an heavenly." This is indeed a remarkable statement for, as far as Genesis is concerned, the record is that God called him to a place on earth: it was "unto a land that I will show thee" (Gen. 12: 1). And again when in the land He said, "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it" (Gen. 15: 7). As far as God's public dealings were concerned the call that reached Abraham was earthly, yet he became aware that God had heavenly things in reserve, and on those things he set his heart.

If these things were so with Abraham how much more should they be with us, seeing that the heavenly things have now been revealed, and we are amongst those "holy brethren" who are "partakers of the heavenly calling" (Heb. 3: 1). That which was once only a private revelation has become public, and the very gospel that we have believed has set a heavenly country before us, and has bidden us to wait for God's Son from heaven. We know that we are called to heaven, but do we desire it, as did these patriarchs of old? Here, alas! is the weak spot with so many of us. The present age, in spite of its evils, is marvellously attractive, and we are seduced by it, instead of setting our affection upon things above. Setting our mind on the things on the earth, we come to desire them instead of desiring the heavenly country.

Abraham will not be disappointed when the coming age arrives, for God has prepared far him a city. He and the other Old Testament worthies, who died in faith, will enjoy a heavenly portion. Their seat and citizenship will be in the heavens, though they will not participate in certain things which are special to the church. The last verse of Hebrews 11 makes it plain that they will reach perfection in glory when the church does so, and not before. The same verse shows that there is a distinction to be observed between "they" — the Old Testament believers — and "us," who are the church, and that God has in store for the church some "better thing" than is provided for them — most wonderful as their portion is to be.

When Abraham reaches his full portion in the bright millennial age, he will be raised in a body of glory to enjoy his heavenly citizenship. He will have reached the city that he looked for and the heavenly country that he desired. We sometimes sing the verse of a hymn, which says,

"Yes! in that light unstained

Our stainless souls shall live;"

but perhaps he, more truly than ourselves, could take up the language of the third and fourth lines, and say

"Our heart's deep longings more than gained

When God His rest shall give,"

Our heart's longings for the heavenly country are often painfully shallow, if the trend of our lives is any true index to the desires of our hearts. Let us be concerned about this matter.

The prepared city lies in the future, but there is also a remarkable statement made as to the present —  "Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God." He is spoken of very frequently as the God of Abraham, and He was content to be designated in this way. In Hebrews 2 we read of Christ as the Captain of our salvation, and He is not ashamed to call us brethren; but that is because we are sanctified as being "all of one" with Himself, the Sanctifier. All that we are, as the fruit of God's own workmanship, and He cannot be ashamed of that which is His own work. In Abraham's case however, the statement is made in connection with his responsibility.

"Wherefore," we read; "Wherefore God is not ashamed." And when we turn to the context to discover what is referred to, we find the reference is to the faith which led Abraham and others to the pilgrim life, with their desires set on the heavenly city that was yet to come. They yielded present and earthly things in view of the coming things of heaven. God is not ashamed to be known as the God of such men as these.

In the New Testament we find Paul claiming God in somewhat similar fashion. He says to the Philippians, "My God shall supply all your need." Yes, He was the God of Paul, and we are sure He is not ashamed of that designation. But, the God of Demas? Never! Of that He would be ashamed, we are sure.

How do matters stand with us? Of how many of us would God be ashamed, if He were spoken of as our God? These are searching questions. God has indeed provided some better thing for us; that is the fruit of His sovereign choice and action. Then comes the question of our responsibility to answer to the grace conferred. How well Abraham responded in faith to the lesser grace bestowed upon him. How poorly do we respond to the greater grace bestowed upon us. Let us bestir ourselves lest in days to come we have to discover that God was ashamed of us, though He was not ashamed of Abraham.

"He pleased God."

"He pleased God."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 31, 1939, page 132.)

All that we know of Enoch is compressed into eight verses of Scripture: four in Genesis 5, two in Hebrews 11, and two in Jude. These few verses, however, suffice to give us an accurate insight to the character and life of this remarkable man.

He was the seventh from Adam, as Jude informs us, and this we can easily verify from Genesis 5. He was number seven, counting from Adam through the line of Seth, which was the line in which faith was preserved in the days before the flood. When Eve bore Seth she said, "God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." These words were doubtless prophetic. Cain the carnal man had slain Abel the man of faith, and God had now appointed another godly seed by which faith should not' perish from the earth. The seventh man on that line of faith was the outstanding man of the line. In him faith shone out with peculiar brightness.

The four verses in Genesis 5 are occupied with one great feature that characterized him. We are told that at the end of 365 years, "he was not, for God took him," but the exact significance of that is hardly clear until we come to the explicit statement of Hebrews 11, that he was "translated." The one feature that is made abundantly plain is that "Enoch walked with God", and that this walk with God continued over the immense space of three centuries, and endured in spite of Enoch having all the usual family responsibilities in the midst of a generation that was wholly departing from God. We may get some idea of that departure if we notice that the infamous Lamech of which Genesis 4 speaks, was number seven from Adam on the line of Cain. He was therefore perhaps about a century ahead of Enoch, and an outstanding instigator of violence and corruption in the earth.

What led to Enoch's walk with God is revealed to us in Hebrews 11: 6. He could never have walked with God had he not been one of those "that cometh to God," and he would never have come to God had he not believed "that He is, and that He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." And of course he never would have believed that, apart from faith.

So this is where faith begins, whether for Enoch or for ourselves. It leads us to the knowledge that GOD IS, and this is something very different from the belief that there is a God. Even in these days of scepticism there are to be found multitudes who cannot satisfy their minds, in trying to account for the existence of all things, without postulating the existence of a God, of some sort and somewhere; but this is reason and not faith. Faith it is, and faith only, which puts us into the presence of the LIVING GOD, who knows, and sees, and acts, and makes Himself known, and even rewards those who diligently seek Him. In days when all thought of the living God was fading from the minds of men, Enoch by faith had the living God before him. He diligently sought Him, and consequently he found Him, and there began that remarkable walk with Him which continued for three hundred years.

In the New Testament epistles we very frequently find the "walk" of the believer referred to. The word is used in a figurative sense, and appears to cover all the activities of the believer's life. We are to "walk in the Spirit," for instance; that is, all our activities are to be in the energy of the Spirit of God. Now Enoch is the first believer whose walk is referred to, and it is said to have been, "with God." In Genesis 3, the Lord God is said to have been "walking in the Garden," but Adam was then a fallen creature, so there is no word of his walking with God.

Walking with God, the activities of Enoch came under the Divine control. It was Enoch's happy privilege and responsibility to keep in touch with God, so that he might know His thoughts and understand His ways: then God ordered his life and path, for it was His to indicate the direction and to set the pace. God led the way and Enoch was by His side, as intelligently led by Him. His walk was not like that of a dog who so devotedly follows the steps of his master, since he was endowed with a wonderful understanding of God's mind and purpose, as is made plain in the Epistle of Jude.

If this characterized the seventh from Adam, who lived more than three millenniums before Christ appeared, what should mark such as ourselves? Faith puts us in touch with God as He has been revealed in Christ — revealed in the fulness of His love, and in the breadth and length and depth--and height of His purposes which centre in Christ — and the Holy Spirit has been given with a full capacity to take in the revelation. It is possible therefore for us to have a much fuller understanding of God's mind and purpose. We only need the faith that makes God a living reality to us, which leads us to diligently seek Him, and finding Him to walk with Him; all our activities governed by communion with Him. Alas! so often with us the flame of faith is burning low. There are times when there should come with great force to us the Master's question to His disciples, when "He said unto them, Where is your faith?"

Nor can we excuse ourselves by pleading the complexities of modern life with the multiplicity of its distracting interests, for most of those distractions are self-made. And as to the fundamental claims of life, which are by no means to be avoided but rather taken up in such a way that God may be served in them, these were known by Enoch as by ourselves. Indeed, in those days of greatly extended human life and large families the difficulty involved in the begetting and rearing of sons and daughters was probably greater than it is with us. Yet Enoch walked with God, and that walk continued for three hundred years.

From Enoch's walk we pass to his witness, as from cause to effect; and we have to travel to the last epistle of the New Testament to know that he bore any witness at all. We discover that he was a prophet, that he foresaw the day of the Lord, when He would come with ten thousands of His saints, and that he bore the most uncompromising witness against the ungodly of his day, foretelling their ultimate doom. The tremendous way in which he emphasized the ungodliness of the ungodly is very striking.

That which Scripture speaks of as "the world" came into being as the fruit of man having turned away from God, hence there never has been any harmony between God and it. The breach came most clearly to light and was irrevocably fixed when the world cast out and crucified the Son of God, yet it was there from the beginning, and Enoch knew it right well. Walking with God, he was on God's side of the breach, so of course the breach itself could not be hid from him. Walking with God, he knew God's holiness, and this made the ungodliness of men the more apparent to him. Let us take note of this; for it means that if we have but a feeble sense of the evil of the world, we have but a feeble walk with God. The more we know God the more we are alive to what the world is and dissociate ourselves from it.

Enoch not only spoke with the utmost plainness of the ungodliness characterizing the people of the antediluvian world, but he prophesied of their terrible end. He did not speak — so far as is recorded in Jude — of the more immediate judgment of the flood, but looked on to the ultimate judgment when the Lord would come with ten thousands of His saints. Clearly then, it must have been revealed to him that this ungodly evil would persist until the end, however far distant it might prove to be, and that no one could finally deal with it but the Lord Himself. In the Lord's own time it would be effectually dealt with, and the story of evil men closed up, in His holy and unsparing judgment. He spoke of ungodly men, of their ungodly deeds which had been done in a most ungodly way, and of their hard and ungodly words. The men, their deeds, their motives and their words, all are to come into judgment.

It strikes us as extraordinary and sad that, if Enoch knew and proclaimed all this, Christian people today should cherish the illusion that the gospel is sent forth into the earth to produce a converted world, an earth fit for Christ to return to, and take up His kingdom, without the necessity for judgment falling upon living men. Here is Jude telling Christians towards the end of the first century that evil men, of the sort Enoch alluded to, had crept into the bosom of the church, and that they were to meet their doom at the coming of the Lord. How then shall this church, burdened with these men, make the world fit for Christ's presence? No: the coming of the Lord in His glory is necessary for the final removal of the evil, that even in the days of Enoch had prominently raised its head: and that means judgment for the world. Nothing short of that can put everything right. Enoch knew this, and so should we.

At the end of the 365 years Enoch was translated without seeing death but before that, "he had this testimony, that he pleased God." Before Abel died at the hands of Cain he obtained the testimony, "that he was righteous." Enoch doubtless had this, but he also had the assurance that he was pleasurable to God, which was a decided step in advance. He still speaks to us, and it is to the effect that the faith that lays hold of the living God, that diligently seeks Him, that consistently walks with Him, and that witnesses for Him against the evil of the world, is very pleasing to. Him. These are fundamental things, which remain valid for us today. The brighter revelation of God in Christ, into which we have been brought, has in no way diminished their value, but rather increased it.

We may be quite certain that if Enoch pleased God, he displeased the men of the world. This is not stated in so many words, but we think it is inferred in two statements made in Hebrews 11. First, it is stated that he was translated, "that he should not see death." Had we not been given such full details in Genesis 5, as to the ages of the patriarchs at their death, we might have been disposed to picture Enoch at 365 years of age as a decrepit old man peeping for his grave. We can hardly do so however. Human life then was about ten times the length it is now, so Methuselah's life is comparable to that of the old man of today who misses being a centenarian by a few years. and Enoch's becomes equivalent to 36.5 years, when a man is in the prime of his strength. Death evidently threatened him while he was young, and he was snatched away that it should not take him for a prey.

But there is the second statement, he "was not found," and this infers that he was sought. This, of course, might only mean that people were curious as to what had become of him, as they were curious about Elijah and sought him when he was translated. Reading it however in connection with the first statement, we venture to think that it means that men were seeking him that they might slay him. Days of unbridled violence upon the earth had set in.

From Genesis 4 we know that Lamech had set an example of evil by ruthlessly slaying a poor young man that had done him some injury; and then making his boast about it, as though it were a fine thing to have done. Genesis 6 tells us not only that the earth "was corrupt before God," but also that, "the earth was filled with violence." No government had been instituted by God, and men gave full rein to their lawless lusts and were wreaking vengeance on one another without restraint. Were they likely to hear a man denouncing their terrible ungodliness and predicting the coming of the Lord to judge them, without their anger rising to murderous heights?

So, in reading that fifth verse of Hebrews 11, we cannot help feeling that we are to understand that Enoch's three hundred years of walk with God and his bold witness for God was just about to be ended by his violent death at the hand of the antediluvian sinners, when God intervened and translated him. They were after him, but just before the blow could be struck, "he was not; for God took him." God did not intervene in Abel's case: that man had testimony that he was righteous, and then died a martyr's death. He did intervene in Enoch's; this man profoundly displeased the men of his age, but he pleased God so much that He took him into His presence beyond the reach of his foes. We may sum up his story by saying that he walked with God, he witnessed for God, and he went to God.

Lastly, it strikes us as remarkable that though Enoch was without a doubt the one outstanding figure amongst the men of faith who lived before the flood, he yet lived by far the shortest life. If we had had the arrangement: of affairs, should we not have ordered otherwise? Not infrequently we see saints of godliness and gift removed comparatively early in life. This one who was so very useful and helpful to his fellow-believers is cut down when one might have anticipated for him another twenty years of useful service for the Lord! Conversely, another, who has never been conspicuous for piety or service, but who is rather a drag on his brethren, is left to an over-ripe old age! We are all disposed to consider this kind of thing as extraordinary, and feel like questioning the wisdom of God's ways.

But it is our wisdom to be silent before Him. The two men of faith, who were outstanding in the antediluvian days, both were removed in comparative youth. One went by death: one went by translation. But they both went. It is more striking in the case of Enoch because, though we know nothing of any word that Abel spoke, we do know that he was a prophet and bore wonderful testimony to man's evil, and to God's rights and ultimate appearance for judgment.

Evidently his witness was finished so his walk terminated in the glorious presence of God.

The church has been called out from a world that is far from God, that it may walk in communion with Him, and bear witness to its absent Lord. It has sadly failed to do this in any corporate or collective sense; yet it is still open to individuals — any number of them — who are included in the church, to do this according to their measure. Let us earnestly seek grace from our God that we may be enabled to do so.

Enoch was translated as one who pleased God in days long before "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1: 17). Grace having fully arrived, the church is going to be translated on the ground of the grace of God. After our translation we shall have to pass before the judgment seat of Christ, and there learn the measure in which we have pleased Him.

In the light of these two things — God's grace, and our responsibility — let us be keenly desirous of having before the judgment seat the verdict, that we have pleased our Lord.

Hearkening to James

Hearkening to James.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 27, 1935, page 241.)

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing" (James 1).

When in the council in Jerusalem James began to sum up the matter before them, he started by saying, "Men and brethren, hearken unto me" (Acts 15). I have said to myself, Yes, I would like to hearken to that which God may have said to me by that remarkable man. And I want you to hearken for a few minutes to things the apostle James would be saying to us if he were standing here tonight. He would say to us, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." It seems to me we don't listen to James as we ought. We have only one epistle written by him and that not a very long one, and also he seems to have been rather at a discount in many minds. So great an authority as Martin Luther, I am told, spoke in terms of contempt of this epistle and talked about it as an epistle of straw. Now in many things I bow down to the authority of the great reformer but I must rather stand up to him in that. The book to me seems much more like a great sledge-hammer than a bundle of straw. If any man knows how to hit heavy blows on the conscience of the average saint James is the apostle that does it. We get very straight talking if we hearken to James.

Is it not a rather extraordinary thing that he says to us in this verse? Temptation, of course, has the force not merely of certain things that tempt us, such as besetting sins. Practically all the circumstances of our lives in this world provide us with occasions of temptation, in the way of trials and testings. We grin and bear them. That may be stoical, but it is not Christianity. James says, "My brethren, count it all joy." "Why, James," we might say, "you have asked us to do a very big thing." Candidly, I am not up to it. I hope I have arrived at this point that when trying things keep happening, I can say, God knows how ultimately to make all things work together for good to them that love Him. I can see there may be eventually what is profitable. But this is rather beyond me.

"Count it all joy!" not ninety per cent joy. All joy when you fall into divers, that is, various testings. Again and again we get tested, and not always by the same circumstances. First of all we are attacked, assaulted, tested, tried, tempted on this side. Then the wind seems to veer round and blows from the other quarter and we are tempted in a totally different direction. And suppose we challenged James as being very peculiar in his teaching he would look us in the face and say, I am only saying that which is the concensus of the apostolic testimony.

We turn to the Pauline epistles. There are verses in Romans 5 which say in other words very much what James is saying here. Paul says, We not only rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and not only do we rejoice in God Himself, but, we rejoice in tribulation also. We turn to Peter's epistles, so as to listen to the Petrine exhortation, and we find in his first epistle more about suffering than anywhere else in the epistles. Again and again he speaks of Christ's suffering and our suffering. We suffer for righteousness' sake, for Christ's sake, for doing good. We suffer in other ways, but we should be very, very careful, though we suffer as Christians, not to suffer as evildoers. But when you get to the end of Chapter 5 he sums up by saying, "The God of all grace who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect, stablish, strengthen settle you." Peter speaks of Sufferings, Paul talks about tribulation. James talks about temptations, but mark you, they all tell us of the great virtues that reside in these things.

Now it seems to me, if I am going really to listen to James, I shall have to revise some of my Christian thinking. Instead of trying to dodge suffering when it comes I shall have to welcome it. Frankly, I don't like temptations; temptations are very terrible things. Let me avoid them, I should say, at all costs. "My brethren," says James, "count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations."

Each apostle gives the same reason. Paul says, We glory in tribulation knowing that tribulation worketh patience — the very thing that James speaks of here — patience works experience, experience hope, hope makes not ashamed. It clears away obstructions and makes room for the inshining of the love of God. Find a Christian whose heart is filled with the love of God and you find a very remarkable man. And Paul knew right well that, though the process was trying, the thing to be reached by the process was a thousand times worthwhile.

We turn to Peter. God has called us to eternal glory but, he says, after ye have suffered a while. We may connect that little phrase with the beginning of the verse, He has called us to His eternal glory after we have suffered awhile; but we must connect it with the end of the verse also. Suffering helps to make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. Why is it, think you, that we often find a sad lack of stability of settlement, of establishment amongst us as believers? I dare say it is that we have managed in this very favoured land of ours to escape so many of the sufferings others have endured. Again and again we see it, that suffering instead of knocking the truth of the gospel out of the young convert most effectually knocks it in, and if you want to find stabilised Christians, strengthened Christians, settled Christians, you will have to discover tested Christians.

The strong winter winds shake the sapling down to the utmost ramifications of its roots; and it is that shaking, that testing that the young tree gets, that enables it to break up the soil round the roots and get ready for the underground growth of the spring, when above the ground the fresh leaves and twigs appear. The process is going on beneath the surface and even the winter winds prepare the ground for the strengthening and establishment and settlement of that tree in the site where it has been placed.

We still listen to James and he tells us that the trying of our faith "worketh patience," and patience, as you know, has in it the thought of endurance. It is the testing of your faith that works endurance. God permits the trials to come upon us in order that we may be tested, and patience having worked her perfect work we may be perfect — that is, carried to completion — and entire, wanting nothing. The common notion is that temptations and testings and trials are merely dreadful weights. We say, if only I were not tied down by these difficulties what a good kind Christian I could be. But again I have had to revise my thoughts on that subject. I discovered after all I was not right.

A little lad flies his kite in the March winds. It goes soaring into the sky and here he is down beneath. He has hold of the cord and if you could give that kite a mouth it might reason plausibly to itself after this fashion. "Look how well I am flying and, mark you, doing all this in spite of the aggravating circumstance that that stupid little youth continually hangs on to the end of the string. I don't know what it is for. I know why I have a tail and little side wings, but that string is the trouble, and that idiotic child hanging on the string. Does he think I am going to lift him as well as myself in the wind? Seeing I fly so well under this handicap, I think I could fly up and hit yonder moon if only I got free. What could I not do if I were not tied down in this foolish way?" Then the little lad is inattentive for a moment, the string goes slack, and the kite going up again with a jerk, the string snaps. The kite goes wobbling down and down, and gets tangled in the telegraph wires or the old oak. A poor, sorry thing it looks. Supposing the kite could speak what would it say now? It would have to revise its thinking and say, "Well, well, I never! The very thing I thought was keeping me down was keeping me up."

My little parable is not an original one. I have heard it used before and I have used it myself before, but it is a good one. It is the trials, the testings, the awkward circumstances you and I have to face that are God's education for us. We are learning what God can do for us in the midst of those temptations. We have an opportunity of gaining an experience we are never going to get in all the golden days of heaven.

There is no doubt about it, God knows how to deal with each one of us, and so James opens his epistle with this word. He has many things to say to us but he clears these great distractions out of the way to begin with. The temptations are distractions and stumbling-blocks to us unless we hearken to James. Look at these things in the home, in the business, in the meeting. It often seems to me that people are pig-headed and obstreperous and foolish. They may be all that, and I am not proof against being all that myself, but it is here in the midst of these testing circumstances, these temptations, I am going to learn myself by my failure, and I shall learn what the grace of God can do for me. I am thinking not so much of opposition from the world as things amongst the people of God — in this land of ours the trouble comes less from without than from within.

Supposing God saw fit in His wisdom to allow this country to pass into circumstances that have prevailed in other countries so much of late.

Supposing we got a measure of tyranny. Supposing things don't get better but worse, and the idea prevails of a totalitarian state — the State claiming to control the life of the individual in totality, not even religion excluded from its grasp — and you have to bow down or suffer. We have not got that yet, but if we did we should be a good deal more together, the line of demarcation between the world and the church would be much more definitely drawn. But the present tendency is to utter disintegration within. We fall apart and fight, the world meanwhile sitting by with a very broad sneer on its face, while we are in easy surroundings.

But either way temptations abound. They are going to work endurance, and teach us patience, and prove our spiritual mettle. And there is the day of the kingdom coming. What a wonderful thing it would be if the Lord could look upon such as ourselves and say, There are people approximating to a state of being "perfect and entire, wanting nothing." We may prove the grace and sufficiency of God, by the Holy Spirit, in these difficult circumstances. We may discover the infinite resources in Christ in the midst of these circumstances. We may learn to know Him with an intimacy and knowledge of such a character as we will never get in heaven if we don't get it on earth.

So, let us be encouraged. Let us remember what God has in view in these testing things. And let us hearken to James when he tells us to count it all joy — not sorrow, nor something to be avoided at all costs. If God confronts you with testings again and again, say to yourself, "Look! a fresh opportunity of my experiencing something more of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; a fresh opportunity of proving the fulness that is in Him, of learning lessons that, once learned, will stand in good stead throughout the golden days of eternity."

"Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him."

The Heart of the Lord

The Heart of the Lord

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 31, 1939, page 192.)

Take the case of the woman who came behind the Lord and touched the hem of His garment. She had a great need, and by that simple act of faith her need was met. She had not ventured to touch the Lord in vain, she had got relief and was going away satisfied with that. But the Lord was not satisfied with that, He wanted her to know more than the virtue that could heal her, He wanted her to know the love that He had for such needed ones as she was. So now, He is not the Saviour merely to relieve us of our burden of sin and corruption, He is that, blessed be His name, but He would draw those He relieves into a close relationship with Himself. They have felt the extent of their need, He wants them to know the warmth of His heart that has relieved them of it. Acquaintance with the grace that saves us is wonderful, but acquaintance with the One from whom the grace comes is the greater blessedness.

Heavenly Things Introduced

Heavenly Things Introduced

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 177.)

When the Lord Jesus had come "into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi" (Matt. 16: 13), He was at the furthest limit of Palestine and nearest Gentile territory, and it was then that He raised with His disciples the question of who He was He had been presented to the Jews then in the land as their God-given Messiah, but as the early verses of the chapter show, their leaders asked for a sign, when the trouble was they had no eyes to see the many signs given, though they could discern the face of the sky, giving signs of the weather. Only the sign of the prophet Jonah was left for them: which was the sign of Christ's own death and resurrection.

The religious leaders did not know who He was. The mass of the people only surmised He might be some ancient prophet appearing. Who was He?

Peter it was, who gave the right answer. He was truly the Christ but also "the Son of the living God." This answer declared our Lord, was the fruit of revelation from "My Father which is in heaven." We may therefore truly say that the announcements made in this remarkable passage all originate from the Heavenly Father.

From Him there was granted to Peter the revelation of the Heavenly Person - not merely the long promised Messiah for the establishment of God's earthly Kingdom but "the Son of the living God."

In answer to Peter's confession he Lord gave His first intimation of a Heavenly structure which He now purposed to build, and which He called "My Church." Not that He revealed at that moment its heavenly character and destination; that we find revealed in the Epistles, after the Holy Spirit was shed forth. What is revealed here is that against His Church all the power of the adversary would not prevail, and that Peter himself was a stone, destined to be incorporated in the structure. The Lord had envisaged this at the outset, as recorded in John 1: 42; and on it Peter himself enlarged in 1 Peter 2: 4, 5.

Then further, the Lord told Peter that he should be given "the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven," that is of a Heavenly Kingdom to be established on earth. As recorded in Matthew 13, the Lord had instructed the disciples in the mysterious or secret form this Kingdom would assume, as the result of His being refused the Kingly place at His first advent, and while we have to wait for His second advent.

That Kingdom exists today in secret form, for in receiving the Gospel we are brought under the rule and dominion of Heaven vested in "the Son of His love" (Col. 1: 13, margin). Peter used the "Keys" in opening it to Jews in Acts 2 and to Gentiles in Acts 10. In that Heavenly Kingdom we are today, as having believed the Gospel.

At this point the Lord cancelled the earlier instructions given to the disciples to announce His Messiahship and the nearness of that dominion on earth, centred in Jerusalem, which the prophets had predicted. This we see in verse 20.

And from that time forth, as we see in verse 21, the Lord began to lay emphasis on His impending death and resurrection, which as He knew, was to be the righteous basis or. which both the Heavenly Church and the Heavenly Kingdom, would come into existence. Not realising this, Peter spoke, as recorded in verse 22. By revelation he knew the greatness of the Person, but he did not yet know the wonder of His work.

The speed with which Peter descended from the heights of Divine revelation to the depths of the thoughts of men, behind which Satan is lying, furnishes a very impressive lesson for us. It may remind us of the apostle's reproachful word to the Galatian saints, "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh" (Gal. 3: 3). The flesh in Peter and in every one of us shrinks from the cross.

But as the Lord indicates in the verses that follow, the cross is the way into the Heavenly things He was about to establish, not only for Himself, but also for all who would follow Him. A man may avoid the cross and gain the whole world, and yet lose everything worth having.

The taking of the cross entails the losing of the life of this world, but it is the door of entrance into the life that is life indeed — into that "eternal life" which is the fruit of death and resurrection. Here is found a Heavenly Life indeed, though that exact expression does not occur in the passage we are considering. Three disciples were permitted to see a sample of that Heavenly life by the Transfiguration scene, which the verses that follow put on record.

Thus Heavenly things were indicated by our Lord Himself in germinal form, and His death and resurrection shown to be the basis of their introduction. "These things," He spake, "being yet present" (John 14: 25), but when the Holy Spirit was come He would teach them, "all things," as the next verse says.

Thus we are brought into the full light of the Heavenly things that our Lord Jesus introduced in Matthew 16.

"High time to wake out of sleep."

"High time to wake out of sleep."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 270.)

Another year of the church's pilgrimage is fast running to its close, and we have a desire to sound out, before it ends, a word of warning and an awakening cry to all our fellow-believers within reach. A very stealthy and unsuspected foe is amongst us. Its presence is not signalized by grave sins or scandals. It gains the ascendancy and holds sway even when the outward religious life of the Christian is conducted with regularity and smooth propriety. Its name is SLEEP.

Sleep is evidently a foe marked by peculiar pertinacity during the present dispensation, and this for the simple reason that watchfulness was intended to characterize it. We are living in the moment in which the kingdom of heaven was likened by the Lord Jesus to "ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom," and of these He said,

"While the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps" (Matt. 25: 5-7)

Our Lord's parabolic prophecy was duly fulfilled. Rejected and condemned to death by His own people, and handed over by them to the Gentiles by whom He was crucified, He took up His place in risen glory, outside every existing institution on earth, and consequently those who believed in His name and became His followers went forth also outside all existing human institutions, sharing His rejection and awaiting His return. This was the church's proper and primitive position. They "went forth to meet the Bridegroom.''

Again the prophecy was fulfilled. The Bridegroom tarried and consequently sleep supervened. Both wise and foolish, "they all slumbered and slept." Drowsiness overcame the people of God. First love waned, as we find in Rev. 2: 4, and consequently the soporific influences of the world prevailed against them and they lapsed into that condition of insensibility and lethargy which is sleep of a spiritual sort. As the result of the insensible condition of the people of God, every kind of corruption invaded the church, and all the abominations of the Romish system appeared.

We may pursue the parable one step further and point out that the "midnight cry" has gone forth. The coming of the Bridegroom has again become an expectation and a hope and consequently once more its separating power has been known. Saints reverted once more to the original position that they had left but which should have marked them all along. The cry was, "Go ye out to meet Him," and they obeyed and consequently found themselves where they had been when first they "went forth to meet the Bridegroom."

And now, especially in these highly-favoured English-speaking lands, there are serious symptoms which would lead us to fear that sleep is again supervening with many. The world is tolerant, outward persecution is lacking, circumstances are comfortable compared with most lands; how easy, then, whilst doing nothing that can be objected to by one's fellow-Christians, to become insensible to the urgent needs of the hour and lethargic as to the Lord's interests; to be kindly and amiable and orthodox, and as to the things of God regular enough and quite willing to help, if such help does not involve the setting aside of one's own interests, and yet to be asleep in the Scriptural sense of the word.

We need to awake from dull lethargy and to shake off the drowsy influences of the earth and the world. The coming of the Lord draws nigh, and shall we, who are His and consequently identified with His interests and testimony, be frittering away the present opportunity of being wholeheartedly for Him by immersion in the pursuits and the pleasures of the age? — even if "harmless" judged by ordinary standards. Listen to the words of the apostle:-

"And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day . . ." (Rom. 13: 11-13).

Here the exhortation to awake is based upon the fact that the day is approaching which will mean our full and final deliverance from the present age. We are still in the night but we belong to that day and are to walk "honestly" or "becomingly" as in that day — not taking the ways and customs of the night-age as our standard, but walking according to the ways and principles of the day-age, before the day comes.

The day, carrying with it our salvation, is at hand! Do we really believe it? Is it plain to us that the night is rapidly approaching its darkest hour of apostasy and the consequent outpouring — once the church is gone — of the long pent-up wrath of God?

The signs of the last days are fully manifested. We have no wish to occupy our readers with the doings of the present evil age, but, on the other hand, it is well sometimes to take a good look at conditions as they are. Many of our readers have learned the blessedness of the true Christian path of separation from the world-system, and perhaps for that very reason they hardly realize how fully the world is approximating in its ways to the days of Noah and of Lot, only on a much greater scale. The days of Noah ended in a deluge of water; the days of Lot in a deluge of fire; the present age will soon end in a deluge, not providential nor provisional, but of the direct judgment of God.

We have just received from the United States of America a small leaflet giving a review of conditions as they struck one of the Lord's watchmen in that great country early in 1921. We give below a substantial extract from it. The writer is dealing with signs of the times.

"COMMERCIAL SIGNS, Daniel 12: 4. God told Daniel to close up the book until 'The time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.' When? In the time of the end.

"One hundred years ago there was not a railroad in this land. If a man wished to come from London, he must spend a month or more on the voyage, take a stage coach after landing, as far perhaps as the Ohio river, and then have an unexplored route before him if he wished to journey further. Today he crosses on an ocean greyhound in six days, takes a palatial palace car, and speeds away to the Pacific coast. If this is not fast enough he can take an airship. Men are running to and fro. Railroads cross and recross this land; they run from Chile to Alaska, and penetrate the heart of Africa and China. The Inter Transit Company in New York sold in one year 1,700,000,000 tickets — one city alone. And besides this there is the automobile traffic. One state boasts enough machines to carry all its inhabitants at once.

"'Knowledge shall be increased.' An event takes place in the middle of the Atlantic at night, and the metropolitan papers print the news the next morning. The daily paper circulates everywhere. We have schoolhouses on every hill, high schools and colleges in abundance, and universities in every state, disseminating knowledge; and too often a knowledge which denies the very God that bought them and rejects His Word which has been given to enlighten the world. Yes, Daniel was right. Knowledge has increased until men have placed it on a pedestal, worship it, and call it a god.

"SOCIAL SIGNS, James 5. 1-8. James speaks of treasures heaped together. For what time? 'The last days.' He then offers comfort to the oppressed, but the hope is not in legislation; it is not in labour unions; it is not in the triumph of justice through the ministry of a church which is in apostasy It is in the Blessed Hope of our Lord's return. 'Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.'

"It is said that ninety-nine per cent of this nation's wealth is controlled by one per cent of its population. Ten thousand millionaires have made their appearance in the last four years. By their combines and monopolies they have heaped treasures together, and at the cost of much suffering. Senator Curtis says that the sugar combine cost the nation billions of dollars in just a few months. If Adam had lived to this day, 6,000 years, and accumulated $100,000 a year he would not be as rich as some 'Self-made' men to-day. Can they acquire such wealth honestly? Let God answer in the last day.

"One woman invited a number of poodle dogs to join her dog in a $30,000 banquet; another spent $25,000 for a string of pearls for her cat; yet thousands of little children went to bed hungry near by. They have lived wantonly, they have nourished their hearts as in the day of slaughter. The great gulf between capital and labour is ever widening, and none but the Son of God can solve the problem.

"MORAL SIGNS, 2 Tim. 3: 1-5. These verses also speak of that time we are considering. 'This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.' Men are here shown to be lovers of pleasure, lovers of their own selves; but not lovers of God. All the wickedness of the age is held within these few verses. Paul, if living now, could not better describe the present time.

"The year 1920, just ended, is said to have been the worst on record for crime, — not only in scope and numbers, but in blackness, magnitude and daring. The ancient Blue Beard is no longer fiction but a fearful reality. For the first time the Federal prison at Atlanta is unable to care for all the prisoners sentenced there. Reformers said prohibition would do away with crime. It may have relieved the suffering on the part of many who were innocent, but crime marches on. A sober criminal can function better than a drunken one, and they now have more time to spend at their trade.

"Others said that education was the key to the solution of crime; but, alas! we have found the educated criminal is the worst type. It takes more than education to change the heart; but it enabled them to commit crimes that the uneducated could not have done. For instance, the bombs used by anarchists are products of the highest mechanical and chemical skill.

"Divorce is likewise on the increase. In some places the ratio is about one divorce to three marriages. What will be the result with this ulcer eating away at the home and social life of our people? The time seems to have come, spoken of by Sam Jones, when marriage licences will be issued with divorce coupons attached, and the shame that once followed the divorced is no longer present.

"After an automobile accident at two o'clock in the morning two girls were taken to a hospital. By ten o'clock over seventy mothers had called to see if they were their daughters! Yes, there is disobedience to parents, and many a parent's heart aches at the thought of their children having to face the fearful temptations that confront them. The moving picture business is like a mighty vampire spreading its black wings of death over the land and sucking away at the very life blood. The crowded dance halls are also sending a steady stream down the broad path of degradation into the dark night where the star of hope will never again pierce their sky.

"RELIGIOUS SIGNS, 1 Tim. 4: 1, 2; 2 Tim. 4: 3, 4. Here perhaps lies the greatest peril of all. If the church of Christ stood steadfast, holding its proper place as a separated people, living in the world, yet not of the world, this warning message might not be needed. But the church has lost its bearings and is fast drifting towards the rocks. Critical times are upon us because of false doctrines, and because after their own lusts men are heaping to themselves teachers, having itching ears. Reformation is taught now instead of regeneration; social life instead of spiritual life. Instead of thundering out God's warnings against evil, the ministry is compromising with it. The Methodist Centenary Commission boasted that 5000 moving picture machines were sold at the Columbus exhibition. 5000 churches turned into houses of amusement instead of places of prayer and praise!

"Practically every fundamental doctrine is being denied in the pulpits to-day. A prominent preacher in Cleveland said that since the Holy Land was open to research, no doubt the very body of our Lord and Saviour would be discovered, embalmed in the lost tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Did that poor blinded preacher never read the fifteenth of First Corinthians?

"Dr. Charles Foster Kent and his associates have given the world 'The Shorter Bible,' with the 'Non-essentials' eliminated; and the sad part is that the so-called 'Non-essentials' are the things so dear to the heart of every true child of God — The Atonement by Blood, Resurrection, Regeneration, the Blessed Hope, etc. When Jehoakim of old attempted to make a Shorter Bible by the use of his penknife, God did not say, 'Well done, it needed revision.' No, He told him he should be 'Buried with the burial of an ass.' God says that he that taketh away from the words of His Holy Book, shall have his part taken away out of the book of life. Of all the treachery since Judas kissed our Saviour, I know of none so base as the so-called attempt to eliminate the 'Non-essentials' from the Bible.

"Everywhere there is the cry of a shortage in students for the ministry, and church councils have decided that the cause is insufficient support. Friends, the cause is more serious than this. It is because, under the withering power of rationalism, many who go to the Seminaries lose the conviction that they must preach the Gospel. They leave without a Christ to preach. No wonder they quit. They are more honourable in doing so than those who continue to hold pulpits and deny the very Lord that bought them. I wish a thousand more would quit, but do not slander them and say it is because the support is insufficient. Men that are ealled of God are still willing to bear the reproach and suffer physical need if need be. Our Seminaries are in truth 'Cemeteries,' where hopes die and many make shipwreck of faith."

Are conditions in Great Britain very different? We think not. Here there is rather more restraint and reserve, and tendency to reverence ancient religious landmarks. There all novelties are more eagerly welcomed, people are less restrained, and the general pace of things is hotter; but substantially things are much the same.

The present condition of affairs in both world and church, apart from any other consideration, constitutes a loud call to every true saint to awake. Supposing these things were no sign of the end of the age being upon us; supposing we knew for a certainty that another thousand years must elapse before the coming of the Lord, they ought still to warn us of a great crisis, and stir us to our depths with desire to be faithful witnesses and servants of our absent Lord in the emergency. How much more should they awake us and stir us to this, seeing that they are very clear signs of the end of the age, and consequently of the fact that the Lord may be in the air with the assembling shout for His saints at any moment? — and thus the day of grace and of the church's testimony may end. It is indeed high time that we should awake out of sleep.

The present conflict is intensely real, and we long to be fully in it ourselves through the power of the Spirit of God, and also to see every true saint, however small and feeble their measure, thoroughly alive to it, and wholeheartedly identified with the interests of their Lord. Zeal in the things of God we do most badly need; we need intelligence as well.

We shall not serve our Lord's cause, no matter how fervid our zeal, if we ignore His word and attempt a service which He has not prescribed. It is not our work to attempt to put the world right. We are not sent to convert the world and much less to Christianize it. No mistaken notion has had more disastrous results than this. It has led directly to the adopting of social service as the great objective and has opened the door to the whole flood of modernist heresy which has swept over the professing church.

To clean up the world, whether socially or nationally, is not our business; it will be effectually accomplished by the Lord Himself at His return in glory. He cleaned up the world temporarily in the days of Noah by water, and partially in the days of Lot by fire. He will do it altogether and forever in the coming day of His wrath and judgment. Our business is not to attempt before the time what belongs to the coming dispensation, but to be true to the Lord's present commission, and to all that has been revealed and accomplished by his first advent, and which has consequently become the subject of testimony. That which was set forth in Christ here is, according to God's purpose, to be continued in the church — in his servants — during the time of His absence.

Two great things marked our Lord's exit from this world. First, as recorded in John's Gospel, He bore unfaltering witness to the truth. Before Pontius Pilate He "witnessed a good confession."

"Pilate therefore said unto Him, Art Thou a king, then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice" (18: 37).

Secondly, as recorded in Luke's Gospel He spent His latest breath not in protesting against the world's unrighteousness, or in formulating an ideal scheme of righteous principles, but in saving one soul out of the world for heaven.

"And he [the other malefactor] said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise" (Luke 23: 42, 43)

Behold, then, in the great Master Himself that which should mark all His servants to-day! If you would be in the current of His will, and follow in His steps, make these two things your objective. Earnestly covet this from the hand of God, that you may be set as a witness to His truth — to the whole of it and not a part merely — and that you may be of use in the completion of His present purpose of gathering out of the nations "a people for His name" (Acts 15: 14). If these two are laid down firmly as the rails on which you travel, then you may safely generate every possible ounce of zeal. Off these lines your zeal may be largely destructive, like an engine under full steam which jumps the metals.

Brethren in Christ — you who are young, especially — it is indeed high time to awake out of sleep! The night grows darker, but our salvation out of it, and the subsequent dawning of the day, is now very near. Shall we ever forgive ourselves if we spend these last hours in easy-going slumber and self-pleasing? Certain it is that if we miss the present opportunity we shall suffer irreparable loss in the day of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Rather let us bestir ourselves from our natural lethargy and wholeheartedly identify ourselves with the whole truth of God as revealed in the New Testament, and the service of God according to that truth, today.

His Last Request

His Last Request.

F. B. Hole.

Edification Vol. 2, 1928, page 148.

Not many episodes in the life of our blessed Lord are recounted as many as three times in the four Gospels, yet the institution by the Lord of His supper on the night of His betrayal is one of them. The Apostle John, the only one of the four Evangelists who omits it, occupies his time in giving us a full account of the wonderful words spoken by the Lord to His disciples on that occasion, and his divinely-ordered omission is made up for by the Apostle Paul being inspired to tell us in 1 Corinthians 11 how this ordinance of the Lord was specially confirmed to him by revelation from the Lord Himself. He received it, not from Peter or John or some other one of the eleven who were actually present on the occasion but "from the Lord." Having so received it he faithfully delivered it to the Corinthians, and to us.

Did we read only the accounts given to us in Matthew 26 and Mark 14 we might be led to regard it as a touching little ceremony specially designed to affect the hearts of the disciples on that most sacred occasion, but without any bearing upon ourselves, for no word is there recorded which makes it clear that it has an application to days to come. The same thing might almost be said also concerning the account given us in Luke 23, only there we do get the word, "This do in remembrance of Me." That might leave us with the impression that in saying this the Lord had the future in view, but it would be only an impression for there was still no definite instruction from the Lord's lips. "This do" might after all only be meant to apply to that particular moment on the betrayal night.

But when we turn to the inspired words of the Apostle Paul we are no longer left to our impressions: we have the certainty of divine instructions. He recalls the words of our Lord in connection with the bread, as also with the cup; only in the case of the latter he records words omitted by the other three — "as oft as ye drink it." Then upon these words he adds his own inspired comment, "for as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." (1 Cor. 11: 26). It is absolutely certain then that the Lord requests His disciples to observe this simple ordinance throughout the time of His absence until He comes again.

The question now arises as to what was the Lord's intention and purpose in instituting His supper that it might be observed during the period of His absence? We will summarize our answer to this under three heads.

REMEMBRANCE.

The first and obvious answer is that He desired to be remembered by His saints and He knew very well that they were to pass through a world where Satan would be multiplying every possible kind of distraction, every device that would have the tendency to blur the distinctness with which He should stand out before the faith and love of their souls. Hence His words, thrice repeated in Scripture, "This do, in remembrance of Me."

He loves to be remembered by His people, there can be no doubt about that. He particularly loves to be remembered during this time of His rejection, the time in which He is practically forgotten by the world. Does not this fact appeal to us apart from any other consideration, and move our hearts towards a response to His desire?

There is however the other consideration of that which is good and needful upon our side. To have Him in abiding remembrance, to be kept under the gracious influence of His love is most necessary for us, and hence not only the institution itself but also the nature of it. Both the elements represent before us His death. The bread He spoke of as His body. The cup He spoke of as His blood. Not both in some way together, as though they represented a living Christ upon earth, but entirely separated the one from the other, representing His body given for us and His blood poured forth in death. As we eat and drink of them we have before our very eyes the symbols of the Christ who died for us and who thereby enabled us to say, "Hereby perceive we the love of God." (1 John 3: 16).

We should of course have Himself and His death in abiding remembrance but this is no reason for our neglecting these special seasons which are according to His word. If the early disciples at Troas habitually came together on the first day of the week for the breaking of bread — as evidently they did, according to Acts 20: 7, and there is nothing to show that they were singular in so doing but rather the reverse — do you not think that twentieth-century disciples might well observe the ordinance with similar frequency? These at Troas lived in close proximity to the great event commemorated, it occurred doubtless within the lifetime of many of them. We are nearly nineteen centuries removed from it. Is not the great commemoration for us a more vital necessity, if possible, than for them?

And if our Lord and Master had bidden us do some great thing would we not have done it? How much more then when He has set before us such simple symbols, with the request that we should do so small a thing as eat and drink for a remembrance of Him? And see His wisdom in this, for man's way is frequently enough to raise the most elaborate monuments to keep alive the memory of persons or things which eventually turn out to be of little real moment.

The Lord's way was to use the simplest possible means to set before us that which is of infinite and eternal importance. Were it otherwise we might have all our thoughts centred on the emblems and overlook their significance. As it is, the extreme simplicity of the emblems is calculated to lay all the stress on the great realities that they represent.

Besides remembering Him in His death when we partake of His supper we also "show the Lord's death" or "announce the death of the Lord." This indicates that the Lord intended the ordinance to have an evidential value before men. It is the

STANDING WITNESS

to the fact that He has died, a witness of a character that cannot be gainsaid. It consists of an outward act to be performed originated at the very moment when that which is commemorated happened, and continuing to be performed up to the present "moment. The great force of this witness may not be apparent to many of our readers, if so, as space forbids any elaboration of the matter here, we refer them to a paper entitled, Christianity True: an Unanswerable Argument.

The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus is of course the theme of the Gospel so that a testimony to it is presented to men whenever the Gospel is faithfully preached. Yet this does not take the place which the Lord's Supper has in this connection. The Gospel proclaims His death and its wonderful results, whereas His Supper furnishes the abiding and standing witness to its reality. Both are needed, but in the first only a few comparatively can take part, whereas in the second every true-hearted saint may have a share, joining together in the making of the great announcement. Does not the thought of doing so make a very definite appeal to your heart?

In the third place the Lord instituted His supper that it might be expressive of fellowship — the fellowship of His death, and connected with this are certain

RESPONSIBILITIES.

This is unfolded to us in 1 Corinthians 10: 15-22. It was not instituted nor is it to be observed as an individual matter. It is "we, being many" who partake of it and thereby we express the fact that we "are one bread and one body." Note very carefully the wording of these verses. The one loaf of the Lord's supper sets forth the sacred personal body of Christ given for us in death. Our joint-participation in eating of that one loaf sets forth our oneness as belonging to the one body of Christ, the church. It is not the one loaf which sets forth the oneness of believers but rather their act in partaking of that one loaf. Thereby we each and every one express our identification with His death and commit ourselves to all the responsibilities flowing therefrom.

The poor heathen offering and eating of things sacrificed to idols had fellowship with demons. This verses 19 and 20 tell us. The Israelite who ate of the sacrifices was put into touch with God, partaking of His altar, and consequently he had to be very careful how he ate, as is witnessed by Leviticus 10: 12-14. This verse 13 tells us. So it is for the Christian as verse 21 tells us. Partaking of the Lord's table we must necessarily exercise great care. We cannot touch the "table of demons" and many another defiling and inconsistent thing. The responsibility rests upon us to be true to the One who died and who is the Centre of our fellowship. The point is not that we all have to be true to each other, but that we all have to be true to Him and to the fact that He has died. This is a responsibility indeed.

And to that responsibility the Lord will hold us. As we infringe it we provoke Him to jealousy, as verse 22 reminds us, and as is exemplified in 1 Corinthians 11: 29-32. But of this we cannot say more just now.

The responsibility is there and we must face it. Even were we to ignore this last request of our Lord, as some alas! do, we should not thereby evade the responsibility, but only incur greater responsibility. And after all it is nothing hard or irksome to the one who really loves the Lord.

The appeal of His last request is to our heart's deepest affections. Is there not within us each that answering love which will lead us to respond?

"His steps" and "Following his steps."

"His steps" and "Following his steps."

Psalms 16 and 17

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 27, 1935, page 82.)

The statement that Christ has left us an example, that we should "follow His steps," is made by the Apostle Peter is his first epistle (1 Peter 2: 21). It is one that obviously could not be made until He had been manifested, and thereby His steps had been uncovered before human eyes. In earlier days however the Lord had said, "Ye shall be holy for I am holy" (Lev. 11: 44, quoted in 1 Peter 1: 16); and in other Old Testament passages a similar thought is enforced. The two Psalms before us illustrate the point. Psalm 17, especially its last verse, breathes a spirit which reveals to us a saint who is in the steps of his Lord.

The path trodden by our Lord Jesus on earth was one of perfect and unsullied light. Having become Man, He was characterized by every grace and perfection that is properly human, when manhood is seen according to the pleasure of God. Being God, there was of course displayed in Him every Divine perfection: but having become Man there was equally seen in Him every human perfection also. These human perfections are specially set before us, according to the spirit of prophecy, in Psalm 16. The perfect light of His humanity is, so to speak, broken up into the prismatic colours that compose it.

The opening words of the Psalm formulate a prayer, expressing complete dependence upon God. Man was originally made a dependent creature; and the attitude of independence of God which he took up was the very essence of his sin. Perfect dependence marked our Lord.

He did indeed live by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, and not by bread alone. This it is what explains those remarkable sayings of His, found so plentifully in John's Gospel — the Gospel which emphasizes His Deity — such as, "I can of Mine own self do nothing." His whole life below was thus lived in dependence, which becomes a bright ray of His human glory.

But behind this beautiful dependence upon God lay His absolute confidence in God, set forth in the latter part of the verse "for in Thee do I put My trust." We can discern in Genesis 3 how the serpent aimed his first blow at Eve's confidence in God in order to entice her into independence of God. The adversary knew right well that no one will preserve an attitude of dependence upon One whom they do not trust. If confidence goes dependence goes. Here too our Lord was pre-eminent. Who knew God as He knew Him? His knowledge of God was absolute, hence His trust in God was absolute. Another bright ray of His glory.

This is followed by a word expressive of His whole-hearted subjection to God. He "said unto the Lord, Thou art My Lord." Jehovah was His Master in everything. This too sprang out of His trust; for we not only depend on those we trust but we are glad to accept guidance and direction from them. The Lord Jesus took the subject place in everything. He came down not to do His will but the will of the One who sent Him. Hence His whole pathway was characterized by obedience. Adam became disobedient unto death: He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. His whole life may be summed up in the one word, obedience; and His death may be viewed as that great act wherein His perfect obedience was crowned and consummated. This is the viewpoint of such a scripture as, "By the obedience of One shall many be made righteous" (Rom. 5: 19).

There was no thought of inferiority in this place of subjection and obedience which our Lord took. Even amongst men, in the business world for instance, we often see subjection without any inferiority. Again and again has the young man in the subject place ultimately proved himself not only the equal but actually the superior of the seniors above him. Our Lord Jesus was "equal with God," for indeed He was God. Yet He took the servant's place that the will of the Godhead might be done, and the glory of the Godhead displayed.

Having taken this subject place the Lord Jesus was marked by a beautiful lowliness which was in keeping with it. The words in verse 3, "to the saints," are to be read, we understand, as in contrast to the words in verse 2, "unto the Lord." There is what He said to the Lord, and what He said to the saints, who are acknowledged as "the excellent." He speaks to them as those in whom is all His delight. What lowly grace was this! The mighty Son of God was amongst us as Man, and He delighted in and acknowledged humble and obscure people such as Zachariah, Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary, Simeon, Anna, Peter, John, James, and the rest. To Him they were a people of excellence and delight.

Nor are His saints today any different in His estimation. Let us get this fact well engraved on our hearts, so that it may control our attitude towards them. Let us have very great care how we treat them. If He found all His delight in such, who am I, or what are you, that we should wish to consider such associations as beneath our dignity?

Having thus associated Himself with the saints, finding His delight in the excellent, He was wholly separate from all that was not of God. This was His path, and this is our path, wholehearted identification with the Lord and His saints, and wholehearted separation from the world and its religion.

Verse 4, be it noted, does not speak of the shocking wars and fightings which mar the earth, nor of its lustful pleasures, nor of its crimes. It does speak of its false religion. Here indeed lies the fundamental error of this poor world, and from that error our Lord was completely separate. He had nothing to do with it. There was absolutely no compromise. Jehovah was His all-sufficient portion.

And having Jehovah as His portion He was completely satisfied. In the midst of an unhappy, complaining, dissatisfied world He was filled with satisfaction: so much so that, though Himself the object of opposition and persecution, He could speak of "a goodly heritage," and even of "pleasant places," and He turned in blessing and thanksgiving to Jehovah. Satisfaction is the necessary prelude to worship. The cup must be filled to the brim before it can overflow.

And then we see Him as the One who was wholly and always devoted to Jehovah. There was nothing partial about His devotedness as there is with ours. He set Jehovah before Him always. Only one consideration weighed with our blessed Lord. The will of the Father was His one care and His constant delight.

We have just summarized these beautiful features which marked the Lord Jesus under seven heads; we might equally well summarize them under five heads, as follows:

1. Jehovah was His Lord (ver. 2).

2. Jehovah was His portion (ver. 5).

3. Jehovah was His counsel, or direction (ver. 7).

4. Jehovah was His Object (ver. 8).

5. Jehovah was His end (ver. 11).

His path as Man was one of such unsullied light and perfection that on that ground alone, the only fitting place for Him was the right hand of God. He has that place also on other grounds, as the Epistle to the Hebrews shows. He is there because of the surpassing glory of His Person, because of the greatness of His priestly office, and because of the perfection of His atoning work. But He is also there because of His human perfections, as tested and proved in the race of faith; and it is of that perfection that we read in Psalm 16.

The path of faith that He trod truly led Him into death, and through death it was proved to be a path of life. The paradox is complete enough; but the life is discovered to be life in resurrection and hence beyond the power of death for ever. The perfect Man is not merely in Jehovah's presence for there indeed all the saints will ultimately be; He is also at Jehovah's right hand, where are pleasures for evermore; and that is a place where saints will never be. It is a place of pre-eminence reserved for Him alone.

Now we turn from our brief contemplation of the pre-eminent One to consider the case of the saint upon earth, left to follow His steps in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, amongst whom he is responsible to shine as a light in the world. Psalm 17 brings this before us. It opens with a cry from the saint to Jehovah that He would hear the right; for at the moment right is being pilloried in the world, and "the paths of the destroyer" rather than "the path of life" is before our eyes.

Quite a different atmosphere pervades Psalm 17. The lovely picture of perfection that delighted us in Psalm 16 is not here: in place thereof we have a picture of a saint in the midst of evil, struggling against it and oppressed by it, yet finding his resource in God, counting upon Him, and being sustained so that in measure he displays the same likeness as his Lord. In Psalm 16 we have One who set Jehovah always before Him: consequently He was at His right hand and He could confidently say, "I shall not be moved." In Psalm 17 the saint speaks very differently. If he were to say, "I shall not be moved," he would be greatly mistaken, and ere long have to withdraw his words. If he knows anything rightly as to himself he has the rather to say, "Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps be not moved" (ver. 5, margin). These very words however breathe that spirit of confidence and obedience which are so pleasing to God.

In the latter part of the Psalm there is a very striking contrast pursued between the wicked and the godly. Verses 9 to 14 are filled with the dark picture of the one, whilst one brief verse (15) contains the bright picture of the other. The contrast is very complete, and the saint is seen in a light which shows that he is in the steps of his Master. Perhaps the simplest way for us to note the contrast will be to take the last verse step by step, in its five details.

"As for me," says the saint, "I will behold THY FACE." That is the prospect before him, whatever may be the occupations and prospects of the world. And what are those occupations and prospects?" They have set their eyes bowing down to THE EARTH (ver. 11). Earth is the one and only sphere before the vision of the world. An improved earth, an enjoyable earth, an earth where everybody can gratify his desires to the full, and some kind of a heaven (if heaven must be brought in, to satisfy popular demand)which shall be as much as possible like an earth where all can gratify to the full their natural desires, is all that enters their thoughts. The picture of "Muckrake" drawn by Bunyan in his great allegory was a very accurate one. Poor "Muckrake" had no eyes for the crown of glory held not far from his head. He was absorbed in the sticks and stones and dirt of the earthen floor.

The saint is not "bowing down," nor does earth fill his vision. On the contrary, he is lifted up for he is to behold the very face of Jehovah. He is to live in the light of His countenance; that is, in the blessedness of the full knowledge of Himself. We know Him now as revealed to us in Jesus, and we are to live for ever before Him in love. The right hand of God is reserved for Jesus, but His face and His presence are to be ours for ever and ever.

You have noticed of course how persistently modernistic religion concentrates on the earth. Anything that has a tinge of heaven about it is ridiculed as far away and unpractical, in fact a kind of dope to prevent people being occupied with what professes to rectify the inequalities of earth. "Earth, give us earth," is their great cry. Earth they shall have right enough — six feet by three in due course. We know a heavenly; Christ, a knowledge impossible to the Psalmist in his day.

The Psalmist did, however, anticipate beholding Jehovah's face "in righteousness." He knew that God had a way of establishing men before Him in righteousness, though perhaps that way was not as yet quite clear before his eyes. Who could behold God's face except in righteousness? Except we can stand before Him, and in the light of His face, on a righteous basis we cannot stand there at all. The world knows nothing of this righteousness; they are characterized as "the wicked" (ver. 13). In Psalm 16 we see the Righteous One — intrinsically righteous was He. In Psalm 17 we find a saint who can stand before God in righteousness — not intrinsic but imputed: he stands before God in the righteousness of Another. His righteousness was wrought out by the Perfect Man of Psalm 16, when He trod the path of life, which led Him into death, and forth into resurrection. We share the Psalmist's faith, thank God! Righteousness is ours, and we shall live in the light of Jehovah's face, known to us as Father.

Hence the words follow, "I shall be satisfied." Of course we shall be! The words however carry us forward into the future. The Lord Jesus was the satisfied Man even in the midst of circumstances which were wholly contrary and antagonistic, as we have seen. We alas, are not that, though there is no real reason why we should not be, for all things that pertain to life and godliness are ours. Still the plain fact remains that again and again we fail to utilize our resources and become dissatisfied and cast down. Notwithstanding we are going to reach absolute satisfaction when God's work with us and in us is finished.

The world is not satisfied and never will be. The wicked are described as being like "a lion that is greedy of his prey" (ver. 12). The wild beast knows not what it is to have restraint upon his passions. He ravens and slaughters more than enough to satisfy his cravings, and yet is not satisfied and slaughters again tomorrow. Man in his unconverted state is like this. The Apostle who speaks so much of practical Christian life has said, "Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts" (James 4: 2, 3). This is indeed the way of the world, but let us see to it that we keep quite clear of this greedy, unsatisfied spirit.

By faith, and by the Holy Spirit given to us, we have been put into touch with that which can satisfy us whilst in this world of dissatisfaction. We travel on to the moment and to the place where we shall be satisfied fully.

That moment will be when the resurrection world is reached, or, as the Psalmist puts it, "when I awake." It is true of course that resurrection was not set before the saints of Old Testament times as their goal and hope as it is before the saints of today. Christ had first to appear. Then it could be said, "Our Saviour Jesus Christ . . . hath abolished [or, annulled] death, and hath brought life and immortality [or, incorruptibility] to light through the gospel" (2 Tim. 1: 10). Still, though the resurrection world was not fully and clearly set before their faith, they had glimpses of it. They anticipated a day when a heavenly country should be theirs, fairer than all the scenes of earth.

In contrast to this the wicked are described as those who "have their portion in this life" (ver. 14). With them it is all earth and greed and this poor life which is bounded by the grave. How great the contrast between such and that perfect Man who said, "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of My cup." There will be no small contrast too between the world and ourselves if we let go, and even "hate," life in this world, to "keep it unto life' eternal." God give us grace to keep our eyes fixed on the resurrection world.

But the Psalmist reached his climax when he added the three closing words, "with Thy likeness." Not only did he anticipate being in the resurrection, but also being there with the likeness of Jehovah stamped upon him. In so saying he remarkably anticipated what the New Testament reveals, for at least he saw that he would be in Jehovah's likeness when he beheld Jehovah's face. We can go further than that of course, for we know Jehovah as Father, revealed in Jesus; consequently we can say, "We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3: 2).

Seeing Him, and being like Him, go together. Even now the more we really see Him by faith the more we are transformed into His likeness. When we fully see Him as He is, we shall be fully like Him. Indeed we must be fully like Him to see Him as He is, for without holiness no man shall see the Lord. The two thoughts occur again in Revelation 22: 4. It says, "They shall see His face:" and then it adds, "His Name shall be in their foreheads." That is to say, That which He is shall be most prominently displayed in them: for the forehead is the most prominent and visible part of a man.

And what of those who live without the knowledge of God? Well, once more the contrast is complete. The wicked who have their portion in this life are spoken of as, "the men of this world." This world, this present evil age, claims them, and they bear its stamp on their foreheads. They are in its likeness.

The phrase, "a man of the world," has passed into current use even in the world. Two business men, neither making any profession of Christianity, are talking. The name of a third comes up, and one of them enquires, "what kind of a man is he?" "Oh," says the other, "he's a regular man of the world." No more is said, but the effect of that remark is to put the enquirer on his guard; for if he is a man of the world, he is not likely to be too careful of what is strictly true, and straight, and honest.

As believers we are not "men of the world," though we are men, and in the world. We are men who have been called, and taken out of the world-system, and now sent into the world to display the character of Christ, and serve in His interests. This is our high and holy calling.

We may depend upon it then that the stronger the contrast that exists between the Christian and the men of the world the better it is for both the Christian and the world; the more the Christian will be worthy of the great Name that is called upon him, and the more the world will have the opportunity of seeing the excellence of Christ translated into human life.

The blessed, holy Man of Psalm 16 is seated at the right hand of God awaiting the moment when He shall arise that His enemies may be made His footstool. We are left here for a season that as royal priests we may show forth His excellencies, while we wait for His advent. Then we shall behold His face in righteousness, and awaking with His likeness, shall be satisfied absolutely and forever.

The Hope that Purifies

The Hope that Purifies.

1 John 3: 1-3.

Notes of an Address by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 221.)

There is great need to lay special emphasis upon this fact, that all truth — everything that God has been pleased to make known to us and which we have enshrined in Holy Scripture — is intended to have a present effect upon our souls. If we have set before us the truth of God, it is in order that it may powerfully affect our lives; that what we know of His Word should have a commanding and mighty influence over all our thoughts and ways.

Now here in three short verses you have a wonderful summary of truth. It would not perhaps be easy to quickly find three other verses, in which so much is compressed. You find when you get to the third verse that all these blessed realities are to have a very powerful effect; they are to exert a purifying influence over all our lives, and, depend upon it, this is something that is greatly needed. Oh! if there were a purifying work in our hearts and in our ways and in our lives, how mightily the truth of God would grow and prevail even in these days.

I want in speaking of these verses, to give you a few words which I hope you will easily remember, and which will furnish a kind of little summary of what these verses contain. Now looking at them, you at once see that the story as told us here begins with love. Of course that is just where the great story we know so well does begin. Behind everything lies the mighty living love of God, though it is not exactly the love of God that we have in these verses. If you want the love of God, you turn to John 3: 16, where you read of the love of God, and the measure of that love, "God so loved . . . that He gave His only begotten Son." Here you have the manner of the love rather than the measure of the love, and it is the Father's love that comes before us in this verse — "Behold," says the apostle, "what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us." This contemplates the Christian circle, that is, the whole family of God; upon us there has been bestowed all the Father's love, and love of this manner, that we should be called the "sons" or the "children" of God. In the New Translation you have it more correctly rendered. The word here is the word "children" rather than "sons." 1 John 2: 29 is really intimately connected with it.

The paragraph really begins with the last verse of chapter 2, and there we are told that everyone that practises righteousness is born of Him. We are children of God, as born of God. Frequently, you know, people talk about our being God's adopted children just as though God adopted us as the late Dr. Barnardo adopted orphans into his great and growing Institution, but that is hardly correct. The truth represents far more than that. It is not that God has been pleased to adopt us, leaving no nearer connection between ourselves and Himself than is established between the homeless child when it has been adopted into this Institution and the Directors of the Institution; no, we are the children of God, because born of God, and the manner of the Father's love is this, that such a wonderful place, as children of God, is ours. Now the word I give you to summarise this point, is AFFECTION.

This affection, however, shows itself in relationship. We are put into relationship with the Father Himself. Oh, dear friends, is this a great reality, I wonder, to every one of us? Are we living our lives in the sweet and blessed consciousness that this relationship has been established, that we do stand in this new and near and intimate place with the Father Himself? Affection has expressed itself in relation, which involves the children's place in regard to God. But then there is another fact in connection with. this new place of relationship in regard to God, and that is this, we are correspondingly put out of relation with the world. My second word then will be RELATION.

First AFFECTION, secondly RELATION, but thirdly DISCONNECTION. It says, "Therefore the world knoweth us not." You cannot, my good friend, have it both ways exactly. If you are brought into this new and wonderful relation, why then you will find there is carried out a process of disconnection from the world, and as the world knew not our Lord Jesus Christ, so it will not know you. You will not be the kind of man it will understand. How often does this kind of thing take place: an earnest, sincere, out-and-out young Christian enters some house of business, and in a week they are all saying, "Look here, he is a funny man, we don't understand him; he always seems to do the unexpected thing! We knew he was a bit religious, so we said to him the other day so and so, thinking it would suit him, but it did not. We can't understand him; he will not fit anyway into our system of things." He is like a stone cut on such a plan, with such angles and corners about him that he does not fit. You see, he has some resemblance to his Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ, when He came here, was the Stone that the builders rejected.

The builders had their ideas of how to build; they wanted a stone of a certain shape, and the Lord Jesus Christ was of such a nature that they found they could not build Him according to their fashion. The kind of building that the leaders of that day had in their mind was such that the Lord Jesus would not, could not, did not fit in with their schemes. He was the Stone that the builders rejected, and you know what happened; how that in turn God rejected the builders, and the rejected Stone He made the chief corner Stone and Foundation of a building which is according to His thoughts, and it will abide, and into that you and I are brought by Christ. Here it is not the building; it is the family; we are put in relation with the Father made known to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, for He is His Father and our Father; His God, and our God; but equally He has disconnected us from the world's system and put us outside that.

It is possible of course for you to try and disguise that fact, and if you do I tell you plainly what you will be; you will be a bit of a hypocrite. Remember there are two kinds of hypocrites; there is the man who wants to appear to be what he is not, and there is the man who does not want to appear what he is. I quite admit the common-place hypocrite is the one that wants to be on the surface what he is not inside; he poses as being something very wonderful when he is not; he would like everybody to take him as the finest mahogany when, as a matter of fact, he is common deal. But there is another kind of hypocrite who is the finest mahogany, but lest he should not please those whom he is amongst he will pretend to be but deal, that is, he is quite prepared to accommodate himself to what is the popular and expected thing in the circles where he moves. Are there any young believers here a little inclined to hypocrisy of that kind? Would you, in order to have the smile of the world, appear not to be what you are — a child of God in relation with God the Father, disconnected therefore from the world? If true to your character, the world does not know you; you are a child of God, but as far as the world is concerned you travel through it unknown.

The next verse goes on to speak of this, "Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like Him." What we shall be has not yet been manifested. You are a child of God, but you never yet have been manifested as such, just as the caterpillar which crawls on your cabbages, and works havoc there, has not yet been manifested in its true character — a butterfly. To all appearance it is but a crawling grub, yet presently it will go into a state of apparent death, what naturalists call the pupa stage. Then it will emerge later as the perfected insect, and instead of crawling on the earth, soar in the air, a butterfly. Here is one of God's parables in natural things. Children of God are we, but in the caterpillar stage, no outward signs mark us out as the heirs of glory. An hour is coming when we shall be manifested in such fashion that all must see who and what we are.

MANIFESTATION, then, is my fourth word. And when will the day of manifestation be? Oh, it will be when He is manifested. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes forth shining in His glory, then and not till then, will you come forth. What a wonderful thing it is; the One who is our Saviour, our Head, is hidden in the heavens. He is like that little King who was rescued out of the wreck of David's line, when the wicked Athaliah usurped the throne. Little King Joash was secreted by the wife of the godly High Priest, and for six years was hid in the house of the Lord. The populace did not know the King was there, but one day, Jehoiada the priest, knowing that the moment had arrived to bring things to a crisis, brought forth the King and manifested him to the people. Athaliah was slain that same day, and the King of David's line was restored, and the people rejoiced and said "God save the King." When the King came forth it was the day of his manifestation. And the Lord Jesus Christ is hidden in the heavens; He has gone into the true Tabernacle, and a moment is before us, a grand day for this poor world, when the Lord Jesus Christ is coming to shine forth in His glory. We might say, in regard to His first advent, that He travelled incognito through His own creation, just as Kings occasionally do not officially travel as such; they travel incognito when they do not want to be recognized as Kings, but to enjoy a quiet untramelled holiday. Thus it was when the Lord Jesus Christ came in humiliation. He travelled unknown through His own creation. Now is the day in which He is hidden, having done the mighty work of Redemption, and we His people also travel incognito, waiting for the manifestation of the King; and it says we know that when He shall be manifested we shall be like Him.

Thus my fifth word is CONFORMATION. What a great thing to know that when He shines out in His glory, you and I are going to shine forth in His likeness. When He appears we shall be like Him. We are coming forth at His side, forming part of His triumphant train from the heavens. It is perfectly clear that somehow or other we have got to be with Him before He comes. How we are to be with Him is brought out in the 4th chapter of 1st Thessalonians, which I must not stop to speak of; but when He comes we shall be with Him, and we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Oh the privilege, the blessedness of that!

Now, I have seen King George. I saw him before he was King; I saw him after he was King, on the day of the Armistice; I saw him the following day when he went to return thanks to Almighty God; but I have never yet seen him as he is. I have seen him in his official uniform; I have seen him as a General of the British Army, and as an Admiral of the British Navy; but I have not seen him as he is. Indeed, in keeping with this, it seems to be one of the penalties that is imposed on Royalty in regard to things in general, that they rarely see things just as they are. If His Majesty were to come amongst us the loyal citizens of this city would hardly allow him to see the main street just as it is; no, they would insist upon putting flags all over the place, stringing them across the thoroughfares, and dressing the houses in bunting. But if I were put in relation with the King; if I were a child of the King, I should see him as he is. I should have entrance into the royal presence. I should not only go into the State Apartments, but should have access into the private apartments of His Majesty, and should see him stripped of all that outward formality that state imposes upon him, and in the quiet harmony and freedom of the domestic circle I should know him. Think, oh! think, my Christian friends, of that which is the privilege of such as ourselves as children of God. When He comes forth we shall see Him; we shall see Him with the crowns upon His Head; we shall come with Him conquering and to conquer. What a splendid thing it will be! But there is something more splendid than that — to know Him as He is; to see Him as He is; to be brought into His secrets; to be treated as His friends — oh, this is a privilege of surpassing worth! And since there is to be this day of manifestation, then there will be the most absolute conformation of every saint to His likeness, because brought into such nearness to Himself that we see Him as He is. No wonder, that to the word conformation we can add the word PERFECTION.

Now comes the definite call of the Spirit of God to your conscience and to mine. It says "And every man that hath this hope in Him [that does not mean in your heart and in my heart; it means that everyone that hath this hope in the One who is soon to be manifested] purifieth himself even as He is pure." There is a progressive, steady work of PURIFICATION going on with everybody who entertains such hope in Christ. Can you measure the holiness of Christ? Can you tell me the standard of purity that marks our Lord? Why, absolute purity in every detail. He is essentially the holy, spotless, undefiled One. Yes, that is the standard. If that is the standard, you may depend upon it there will be room for purification every hour of our lives in this world. There will never be a moment when we shall say, "Now then I am absolutely up to the standard; I am as pure as He is pure," until clothed in a body of glory we shine forth in His likeness and see Him as He is.

But notice this purification is not something that is going to be done for you; the responsibility as to it rests upon your shoulders. We purify ourselves. Does some young Christian say — I would like to know exactly what this means; how does it work? Well, I should reply — Have you ever formed the godly habit of self-judgment? Do you ever sit down and consider your ways, and test yourself somewhat and judge yourself in the light of the presence of God? If you were to look over some of those fine old works of the so-called Divines of the 17th and 18th centuries, you will find that these good men did a tremendous amount of this examination, indeed they carried it to excess; they were too much, perhaps, occupied with themselves, but I venture to say that in this rather superficial day when everybody is in a constant hurry, we do not stop nearly enough to solemnly examine ourselves in the presence of God. We do not sufficiently judge ourselves in the light of what was accomplished on the cross of Christ, and thus overhaul our motives. All our lives are far too much like a broad bubbling river curving under the boulders and stones and making a great deal of noise, but without very much force and volume. If you inquired as to the horse-power of the river you would find it very small. It is the still waters that run deep.

Form, then, the good habit of self-judgment. If you learn to know yourselves, to test your ways, and to set your eyes upon the glorified Christ who is coming, you will surely say — If that is the standard; if that is my destiny, I want to be like Him now, and by the grace of God, that and that and that are going to go. One of the surest signs of progress in the Christian life is when there is an enlightening as to those things that please the Lord, and firmness and diligence to have done with things that defile and enfeeble and weaken the soul.

When I was a little boy electricity was in its infancy. I remember we had a great day at the little school that I went to, when a man came with a machine that generated electricity as the handle was turned. The most remarkable thing to our childlike minds was this, he brought in a dozen tumblers, turned them upside down on the table, and on the top of the tumblers a board was placed and then we were allowed to stand on the board. I was a little child, and was picked up by the demonstrator and placed there. Then I was told to grasp a handle. Well, I had a strange tingling coming in my limbs and then I was told to put my fingers to the gas which was turned on. I did so, a spark jumped out of my finger, and I lit the gas with my finger! Of course as a child I was very pleased with that. But never would that have been except for one thing. You know of course that glass is an absolute non-conductor of electricity. They had to have the tumblers to insulate me. My friends, the amount of trouble that comes into our lives by reason of breakdown in insulation is remarkable. We have meetings and we work the machinery, so to speak, and pump a little spiritual energy into the people of God; but alas! it seems to be lost at once. Insulation from the world is sadly lacking. Insulation and purification are in practice closely allied.

Keep then your eye on Christ, the coming One, wait for His manifestation, purify yourselves, exercise self-judgment, remove defilement, keep up spiritual insulation and there will be in your lives something of the power of God.

The Hope, and its Effects

The Hope, and its Effects.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 227.)

During Old Testament times hope was pre-eminent. Faith, of course, was there, as Hebrews 11 so strikingly shows, and love also, but that which was revealed so as to present an object to faith was but small and partial, and every saint had his eyes directed on into the future. Hebrews 11 while emphasizing faith makes this element of hope very plain, as may be seen if verses 10, 13, 14, 16, 20, 22, 26, 35 and 40 are read.

The appearing of the Saviour in humiliation, that He might accomplish redemption, has fulfilled many an Old Testament hope and prediction, and in Him the great Object that fills faith's vision has been discovered. By that epoch-making event a whole range of things that were matters of promise have been translated into matters of accomplished fact, and thereby they have been removed from the category of hope and placed upon that of faith. To these things the saint of to-day does not look on, he looks back upon them instead.

But though this is so, hope still remains a very potent force with the Christian, and many things remain to be fulfilled. Hope is no longer preeminent as once it was; indeed, we may say that faith and love have stepped out beyond it; still it abides with faith and love as 1 Corinthians 13: 13 reminds us. We are "saved in hope" (Rom. 8: 24, N. Tr.), and our hopes are sufficiently pronounced for Christianity itself to be designated not only "the faith," but "a hope." We refer to Hebrews 7: 19. In the New Translation the passage runs thus: "There is a setting aside of the commandment going before for its weakness and unprofitableness (for the law perfected nothing), and the introduction of a better by which we draw nigh to God."

The law introduced hopes of a sort, but they were connected with a system that necessarily prohibited access to God. Christianity has introduced the one great hope, which hangs upon the great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, who is shortly to come forth from the presence of God. But meanwhile He is in the presence of God, and as there on our behalf, crowned with glory and honour, He gives us title to draw near and maintains us in our access to God. When He comes forth again, at His second Advent, we shall begin to see our hopes fulfilled.

The Christian hope is not something of an advanced nature to be apprehended only by those of ripe experience. It lies at the very beginning of things. The Colossian believers heard of it "in the word of the truth of the Gospel" (Col. 1: 5), and the Thessalonians were still an infant assembly when Paul wrote to them his first epistle, in every chapter of which he speaks of the coming of the Lord. There were details of His coming concerning which they needed further instruction, but the fact of His coming again was known to them from the hour of their conversion, for it could be said of them, "Ye turned to God from idols . . . to wait for His Son from heaven" (Col. 1: 9, 10).

A very large number of those who will read these lines are in this respect like the Colossians and the Thessalonians. A century ago it was far otherwise. Then the coming of the Lord, the proper hope of the Christian, was very largely ignored altogether or else was relegated to a future so hazy and far distant that it excited little or no influence as a hope. Now it occupies a prominent place in the minds of most evangelical Christians, and has for many decades been preached with increasing conviction and clearness. Some of our readers who are of an older generation may be able to look back to a moment subsequent to their conversion, when the truth of the imminent, pre-millennial coming of the Lord shone into their hearts as a hope, and began mightily to influence their lives, but the great mass of those who are younger have heard about His coming from the outset. It, perhaps, played a part in producing exercise which eventuated in their conversion, and it has never burst upon them with quite that thrilling power that a genuine hope conveys. The writer of this article stands in this latter category himself.

The danger with us, then, clearly is that we may hold the coming of the Lord as an item in our theology without it being a hope, potent to influence our lives.

We earnestly ask for close attention to this point and for an honest spirit of self-examination and self-judgment. We challenge especially every Christian young man or young woman as to whether they are "like unto men that wait for their Lord," and, consequently, shaping their course through the world's present gloom in view of the day that will be manifested when Christ appears, or whether, while avoiding its gross sins and excesses, they are conforming to the world's ways and spirit, and seeking their own things rather than the things of their Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We need not go outside 1 Thessalonians 1, for clear evidence as to the effect of the hope upon the Thessalonian believers, and the marks it left upon them and upon their lives may serve as very useful tests to us if we wish to examine ourselves upon the point.

The Gospel came to these believers of primitive days, "not . . . in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance" (verse 5). The heralds of it amongst them, Paul and his companions, were men of a most unusual "manner" in their grace and devotedness, and they preached the Gospel with uncommon power and fulness. Jesus, the Son of God, risen, in heaven, and coming from heaven was their theme (verse 10).

Embracing such a message in faith great moral results at once appeared in them. Divine life was now theirs, and it began to manifest itself. An extraordinary revolution took place in their characters. New life meant a new nature; and a new nature meant transformed characters. Things now appeared in them personally that had never been there before — things not donned outwardly as an article of raiment, but rather produced outwardly as the fruit of the working of life within, as the feathers of a bird or the leaves of a tree. Faith and love and hope were working in their hearts (verse 3).

Each of these three things, however, had its own appropriate manifestation. Faith expressed itself in work; love in labour; hope in patience, or endurance. God could see fully and appreciate the faith and love and hope — the things wrought in them. Man could see and consequently "remember without ceasing" the work and the labour and the patience — the things manifested by them as a fruit of the work within.

It has been said that God has more to do in us than by us, and the remark is profoundly true. What, then, about the work of God in us? Shall we test ourselves? Have we the spiritual fibre to do so? Look at the young people of the world, viewing them in the most favourable light, as they express themselves in their most innocent pleasures; what marks them ? We should answer by naming a trio of things which are very opposite to the trio of 1 Thessalonians 1: 3. Absence of fixed principle — egotism — a gay recklessness, begotten of a feeling of insecurity as regards the future, no vision beyond the immediate present, and a determination to exploit that present for all it is worth.

Brother or sister in Christ, is the hope burning brightly in your soul? Faith gives you an Object that instantly fixes your course across this world. Love delivers you from a self-centred existence, and sets you at the happy task of labouring for Christ's glory and the good of others. Hope steadies your soul, and nerves you with the absolute certitude of final victory and glory, and so you endure. Again, we ask, is the hope burning brightly in your soul, or are you, while perhaps quite nicely carrying out all the outward observances of religion in meetings and the like, largely living an insipid, aimless existence, much centred on self, and bent upon extracting as much mild and lawful pleasure from the world and the earth as you can?

Not only was there this work wrought in the Thessalonian believers, but God took them up and made of them something for His glory and the furtherance of His interests, as the later verses of the chapter show. They became: —

1. "Followers of us, and of the Lord" (verse 6).

2. "Ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia" (verse 7).

3. From them "sounded out the word of the Lord . . . in every place" (verse 8).

Again we find three things. The first defines what they were made as regards the Lord. The second, as regards their fellow-believers. The third as regards the world.

As regards the Lord, they became followers or imitators. They were attached to Him as His disciples, and they began to walk in His ways and manifest His character. This they did not as mere copyists, but because they now possessed His life and nature.

As regards their fellow-believers, they became examples. All those who believed in Macedonia and Achaia could find in them a practical exemplification of the grace that the Gospel brings and promotes in those who receive it.

As regards the surrounding world they became advertisements of the power and efficacy of that word which they had believed. From them the word of the Lord "sounded out," and in every place their faith towards God was "spread abroad," and that to such an extent that no testimony was needed on the part of the apostle.

All these three characters were now worn by people who came out of very unpromising surroundings. The Thessalonians are in Acts 17 contrasted unfavourably with the Bereans, who are said to have been "more noble than these in Thessalonica." The main part of the Thessalonian inhabitants were "Jews which believed not, moved with envy" and "lewd fellows of the baser sort."

Let us again test ourselves at this point, and ask each one, What is the character that I wear? Is it that of a follower of the Lord, and consequently an example and an advertisement of His grace? Or am I a follower, though in a modified and inoffensive form, of the fashions of the world, and consequently an example of poor and anaemic Christianity and an advertisement of warning to all who have eyes to see?

The last verse of our chapter carries the story of these early Christians one further step forward and shows us how, having turned to God from idols, with these remarkable results flowing therefrom, they were waiting for Christ with full expectancy, and meanwhile were serving the living and true God. When hope burns brightly the service of God is diligently pursued. And the converse is equally true.

It has been supposed by some that the hope of the coming of the Lord is an unpractical and visionary thing, that those whose hearts are filled with it are thereby left idly standing and "gazing up into heaven" like the "men of Galilee" (Acts 1: 11). It is possible, no doubt, to misuse the Christian hope in this fashion but its use is far otherwise. A proof of it lies in the very Scripture alluded to. It was His departure into heaven that for the moment rooted the disciples to the spot and left them gazing upwards. Directly their hearts were assured of His actual and visible coming again by the testimony of the two angels, they returned to Jerusalem, and in the rest of Acts 1 we find them continuing in prayer; in Acts 2 and onwards they continue in preaching with overflowing results. With this 1 Thessalonians 1 agrees.

"Ye turned . . . to serve the living and true God." The words we have italicised just describe the normal and proper life of the Christian. The service of God is every Christian's business. We may hold the doctrine of the second advent and be cold and lethargic to a degree in that high and holy service, and at the same time we may be very active in the pursuit of earthly pleasure; but if His coming holds our hearts as a burning and shining hope it will be far otherwise: we shall be diligent servants of God.

Shall we close by once more testing ourselves? What is the aim and purpose of my life? Serving something or somebody I certainly am. Am I serving the living and true God or my own ease and convenience, my own whims and pleasures? Is the truth of the second advent of Christ to me a mere doctrine, a matter of theology, or is it a bright, an inspiring, and a compelling HOPE?

The House of the Lord

The House of the Lord.

Psalms 23-29.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 27, 1935, page 127.)

The opening chapters of Genesis disclose to us the fact that God not only created man with a capacity for holding intelligent intercourse with Himself, but also actually desired and sought his company. Directly sin entered, this happy intercourse was broken up, and Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of the Lord when He walked in the garden in the cool of the day. Mankind soon lost any desire for the company of God. God has never deviated from His desire for the company of men, and He purposes ultimately to secure it.

Moreover God never left Himself without witnesses in the shape of those who did desire His company. In the age of the patriarchs, whether before or after the flood there were those who walked with Him; such as Enoch, and such as Abraham, who was called the friend of God. These however were but individuals; it was when He called Israel as a people out of Egypt, and brought in a national redemption from Egypt that His purpose to dwell amongst men comes clearly to light. The oft repeated word to Pharaoh was, "Let My people go that they may serve Me." And, directly they began to sing on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, they said, "He is my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation." If no one else did, Moses at least seized the Divine thought to dwell in the midst of His redeemed people.

This purpose of God comes fully to light in the New Testament, but it also appears at intervals in the Old Testament, both in history and in prophecy, and notably so when the great redeeming sacrifice of Christ has come into view prophetically.

The great Messianic prophecy of the later part of Isaiah is a case in point. Isaiah 53 predicts the atoning work of Christ: Isaiah 54, the consequent blessing of Israel: Isaiah 55, grace flowing out to the Gentiles: Isaiah 56, the house of Jehovah established and becoming the available centre where all who fear His Name shall be gathered in a place of nearness — His house "an house of prayer for all people."

The only other Old Testament scripture which equals Isaiah 53, in its clear and full prediction of the atoning sufferings of Christ, is Psalm 22; and here again this feature comes into view. With one exception each Psalm from 23 to 29 inclusive has some reference to the house of God. Different features connected with that house are stated, and we may now briefly consider them.

In the opening verses of Psalm 22 Jehovah is addressed as, "Thou that inhabitest [or, dwellest amid] the praises of Israel." In order that Jehovah might eternally dwell amid His people — and they be a praising people, so that He dwells amid their praises — the blessed Saviour suffered and died. The latter part of the Psalm shows prophetically how fully this purpose is going to be realized in the days to come: how that, beginning with the godly remnant of Israel, who became the nucleus of the church, and widening out to a restored Israel and gathered Gentiles, and even generations yet unborn when the Millennial Age begins; praise and worship shall rise, and He shall indeed dwell amid the praises of His saints. The house of the Lord is not actually mentioned, but one of the great purposes that is to be attained as the fruit of God dwelling among men is very manifest. The house in which He shall dwell shall be filled with praises; each family whether heavenly or earthly (see Eph. 3: 15) having its own distinctive note.

The house is however named very distinctly in Psalm 23, when we come to the last verse. The primary thought of the house is that it is the place where God dwells amid the praises of His people; but it is none the less true that it is also the place where saints will dwell, and dwell for ever. The Psalm celebrates the activities of Jehovah as Shepherd. We very rightly refer it to the Lord Jesus in His risen activities, for He is Jehovah. But it not only speaks of His activities on our behalf; it speaks also of His abiding with us, both in the presence of our enemies and in the valley of the shadow of death, and ultimately of our abiding with Him in His own house.

The last two words of the Psalm, "for ever," stand in contrast with the words, "all the days of my life." This shows, we judge, that in the mind of David this dwelling in the house of the Lord was something beyond any drawing near to God in connection with earthly dwelling-places, even millennial ones. His faith looked on to something akin to that which Abraham saw when "he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11: 10). The patriarchs desired an heavenly country, and looked for the city that God would build: David had his expectation centred on something more intimate still, for to dwell in the house of the Lord bespeaks a nearer intimacy.

We share this happy expectation with David, and neither he nor we shall be disappointed. In the New Testament the expectation becomes enlarged and clarified. We have the Lord's parting words, "In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." The temple in Jerusalem, with its many chambers and abodes, had been a pattern or type of the real dwelling-place of God. If the reality had not been according to the type, the Lord would have told His disciples as to the difference. The type however had been accurate. The house that Solomon built had been surrounded with chambers, so that when God granted His presence in the most holy place He dwelt there surrounded by those who were put into priestly relation with Himself. Thus it is going to be in the true house of the Lord which shall fill eternity. In that house David shall find his place. In that same house a place has been reserved for us, who are called to follow the Lord during this time of His rejection and absence from this world.

In that house we shall dwell. The passing and the evanescent will have given place to the abiding and the eternal. David evidently realised this. What he did not know was that we shall dwell in that house of Jehovah in company with the Son of God. We shall reach it by His coming again to receive us unto Himself; and His own words are, "that where I am, there ye may be also." So we have before us not merely a place, but a well-known and well-loved Person filling the place. This it is that makes the house of the Lord a home to us, so that the thought of dwelling in it for ever becomes a delight.

In Psalm 24 the house of the Lord again comes before us, spoken of as, "His holy place." The holiness of the house is clearly the point here, for that becomes His house for ever, and constitutes a challenge to everyone who would draw near. "Who shall stand in His holy place?"

The demand which this challenge makes is very sweeping. Hands, hearts, soul and mouth are all brought under review, and perfection of holiness is required. Of all the myriads who have trodden the earth only One has ever manifested holiness such as this. There has been this One, and as a consequence He enjoys what we may call, the freedom of the house. Its doors are flung wide open before Him, and He has full liberty of, entrance. Not only does He enter, He enters in a blaze of glory, and as the leader of hosts who are associated with Him.

So, after all, there are to be others who answer the challenge and finally stand in His holy place. There is to be this "generation of them that seek Him," (verse 6) who also are characterized by holiness. They have become that which He ever was in intrinsic perfection. Their clean hands and pure heart are the result of a work of God, both for them and in them.

So if Psalm 23 gives the saints the confident expectation, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever," Psalm 24 indicates that "the generation of them that seek Him" will be so established in holiness as to be altogether suitable to that "holy place." They will enter as hosts identified with the King of glory, who has a perfect and absolute title to the abode of Jehovah's holiness, both on account of what He is and of what He has done. Since it is going to be thus with us in the day of manifested glory which is approaching, let us see to it that we are characterized by holiness now. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord," is a saying capable of a double application; a present as well as a future. We may be perfectly clear in our doctrine: we may stoutly maintain the priesthood of all believers: yet if we do not pursue holiness we shall be lamentably poor and weak in drawing near to God, and in the exercise of our priestly functions.

Psalm 25 makes no allusion to the house of God. It concerns itself rather with the varied features of godliness in the saint which qualify him for having to do with God. "Show me Thy ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths," is the prayer; and the condition in the saint which enables him to discern the Lord's way is described in the verses that follow. He must be marked by meekness (verse 9), obedience (verse 10), absence of guile (verse 11), the fear of the Lord (verses 12 and 14), a spirit of continual dependence on the Lord (verse 15). If characterized by these things the house of God will be to him a centre of attraction.

The attractiveness of God's dwelling-place comes before us in Psalm 26, where again the house is referred to. It is spoken of as "the habitation of Thy house," which seems to lay stress upon the fact of its being Jehovah's dwelling in the midst of Israel. It is also "the place where Thine honour [or, Thy glory] dwelleth." Glory is the outshining of excellence. When the saints are glorified it will be the outshining of an excellence which has been conferred upon them. With God it is the outshining of intrinsic excellence. All creation declares His glory, save such parts of it as have been invaded by sin; yet there is a spot where His glory is concentrated. That spot is His house.

How significant a fact is this. With most of us our glory — such as it is — does not dwell where we dwell. Our glory lies far afield in places where we only visit, and where consequently the things that would tarnish our glory are hardly noticed. At home our blemishes become painfully manifest. With God the very opposite is the case. The nearer one is to Him the more His glory is perceived, for it dwells where He dwells. David had a spiritual understanding of this, and hence the house became an object of his affections. He loved it. And surely so do we.

In David's case this was the more remarkable inasmuch as there was no proper house of God in Jerusalem in his days. The altar of burnt offering was in the high place that was at Gibeon, whilst the ark was at Jerusalem in a tent which he had specially pitched for it after bringing it up from Kirjath-Jearim. Had he been swayed by considerations of a materialistic or ceremonial or ritualistic order, he would never even have discerned the house of God in the lowly tent that covered the ark of the covenant. He was swayed by faith: and faith discerned the presence of God. He was swayed by love: and love delighted itself in the One whose presence he discerned. He proved that he loved the Divine habitation by the immense provision he made for the building of the house by his son though he himself was not to have the glory of erecting it, nor even to see it.

No material house of God have we today; not even a simple tent such as David had. There is the Father's house on high in which our place is prepared, and into which we shall enter when the Lord Jesus comes. The only house which God has on earth today is composed of the saints, who are "builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 2: 22); and so we read of "the house of God, which is the church of the living God" (1 Tim. 2: 15).

Today, then, the true church of God is the house of God. There His Name is set: there His Spirit is: there His glory dwells, in so far as it is found at present upon earth. Do we love it, as David loved the habitation of His house in his day? Do we love the church of God? Are we able in any degree to see it as God sees it? We may love certain individual saints who happen to accord with our own thoughts. We may be loyal to those who are attached to the community where our own attachment lies. But that love and loyalty may count for very little before God. Do we love saints as saints, just because they are members of Christ, because they have been "built up a spiritual house." That is the thing that counts. The Apostle Paul is a pattern to us in this, for he said "I endure all things for the elects' sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim. 2: 10).

David's affection for the house of God is revealed yet further in Psalm 27. It was the one object of his present desire. He had full confidence that he would dwell in the house of the Lord for ever, as Psalm 23 shows. Now we find that in keeping with this his present desire was to dwell in God's house all the days of his life, inasmuch as His beauty is beheld there, and in His temple enquiry can be made of Him.

"Beauty" in this verse apparently has the sense of pleasantness or graciousness. If 1 Chronicles 17 be read, we may see how the graciousness of the Lord was made known to David, and how he "came and sat before the Lord." The verse in Psalm 27 seems to be reminiscent of that. On several occasions too we read of David inquiring of the Lord, and he knew that His temple was the special place for that. To withdraw from the noise and distraction of the world into the quiet of the Divine presence is the way in which the mind of God may be known and His graciousness be realized.

A somewhat similar thought marks the allusion to the house of God that we find in Psalm 28; where David speaks of, "the voice of my supplications . . . when I lift up my hands toward Thy holy oracle." An "oracle" is of course a speaking-place, and it is a term applied both in Kings and in Chronicles to the innermost sanctuary of the temple. Owing to the failure that supervened so soon after the temple was built, it may be that God hardly ever, if at all, spoke from His holy oracle in Jerusalem; yet that was the Divine intention. The intention was only realized in full when the Lord Jesus appeared; for He could speak of the temple of His body, and in Him was found not only the speaking place, but the Spokesman. All that God has to say to us is in and through Him. This particular thought in connection with the house is realized not in the church, but rather in Him who is the church's Head. In the New Testament, as has so often been pointed out, the church does not teach but is taught.

It is "Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ ... unto the church," whether at Corinth or elsewhere. Paul was the human teacher, but all his authority was derived from Jesus Christ, who is the Spokesman of the Godhead; and the church was taught.

Psalm 29 is the last of this series speaking of the house, and again it is the temple that comes before us: the place where God sits, abidingly enthroned in His glory. The whole Psalm celebrates His majesty and calls for the ascription of glory to Him. In the poetic imagery of the Psalm, Jehovah is seen sweeping through the land in might which is irresistible. His advent is like a mighty thunderstorm and an earthquake combined. Trees and mountains — symbolic of all the great powers established in the earth — are broken or moved before Him. The centre is His temple, for there "doth everyone speak of His glory" — "in His temple doth everyone say Glory!" (N. Tr.). In His temple there is no discordant note; the praise is universal and forever.

That of course is the climax. It will come to pass when Jesus is revealed in His majesty and glory at His second advent. Then all who would not say, Glory! will have been removed in judgment.

How happy for us that we anticipate this blessed service before that day dawns. Indeed we are the temple of God, for it is written, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Cor. 3: 16). As in and of that temple we say, Glory! And so it comes to pass that we often sing,

"Glory, glory everlasting,

Be to Him that bore the cross!"

How do we regard the Bible?

How do we regard the Bible?

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 99.)

In the conflict between the truth of God and the lie of the devil between faith and unbelief, the attitude which we adopt towards the Holy Scriptures is decisive — decisive as regards ourselves. The Book, and the God who inspired it are quite unmoved by our thoughts and words.

If an airman, flying over the Himalayas, regards Everest's mighty mass as an illusion, and steers straight into it, he will not move Everest an inch. He will only move himself and his machine in disastrous fashion; and the way he regarded the mountain will prove quite decisive to him and to the result of his flight.

Ever since the Bible reached completion in the apostolic age it has been the object of attacks. For long it was removed from the common people and buried in monasteries and the like Since the Reformation it has been widely circulated, but then began denials and criticism. The mode of attack has varied, but more recently, especially in religious circles, the fashionable thing has been to eulogize it as literature, as a repository of beautiful religious conceptions and a story of religious progress, whilst impeaching its real veracity, and undermining its authority as the Word of God.

Years ago we received a pamphlet, bearing the same title as this article, which summarized such teachings in small compass. It emanated from the "Social Problems Committee" of a certain "Church," so went forth under the sanction of a religious organization.

No reader of our magazine would find much fault with its opening words: —

"We Christians love our Bible. As life goes on most of us come to love it more and more We go to it in sorrow and find comfort. We go to it in perplexity and find light. We go to it when we are weary and find inspiration. It never fails us. It is out of our own experience that we call it, 'The word of Life.'"

Here are some quite nice sentiments, which our author undertook to express on behalf of Christians generally. We love our Bible, he stated, because of certain benefits it gives  -  comfort, light and inspiration —  he did not state that we love it because it is true. He did not believe it to be true, as we shall see. Such benefits are indeed good and desirable, if they are true, as proceeding from TRUTH. If not, they are but destructive opiates for the soul.

A pamphlet advocating Spiritism might begin in similar fashion, "We spiritists love our seances," and proceed to eulogise their effects in similar words, ending, "They never fail us." But at this point many would wish to interrupt and observe that possibly spiritists do find what they claim in their seances, but that the supreme test is not the subjective effect produced in the devotees of any cult but the truth or falsity of the cult to which they are devoted. Exactly! We agree as to the comforting properties of the Bible, but also affirm that there are, sad to say, a number of false cults which, implicitly believed, also exert a similar effect. We ask, why applaud the Bible and reject them?

To such a question we should give immediate answer, because the Bible is true, and they are false. Our author, however, had no such logical reason for his choice, since for him the Bible also could not be said to be true. And so, having opened his pamphlet in this pleasing way, he proceeded to give what he called, "blunt answers to blunt questions."

"Do we hold that every word in the Bible is true? No! we do not. Do we accept the views of the Bible on scientific questions? No, we do not. Do we approve all the moral sentiments expressed in the Bible? No! certainly not. Do we regard the Bible as infallible history? No. Do we agree with all the opinions of St. Paul? No! we do not."

Our author was not alluding to the fact that here and there in Scripture we have words and sentiments of evil men and even of Satan recorded; and that obviously such words and sentiments are not to be accepted as of God. No. He just stated that he and his friends did not believe the Bible to be true and trustworthy, either as to its words, its views, its moral sentiments, its histories, or its opinions; and if so, there is left no respect at all in which it can be said to be true.

Thus he asserted, as though he spoke for Christians generally. But there are Christians in their tens of thousands, who utterly repudiate such weak and illogical unbelief. Leaving that aside, however, let us address ourselves to the main question. Ought we, or ought we not, to accept the Bible in its words, its views, its moral sentiments, its histories, its opinions, and we would add, its assumptions, as true? Let us allow the Bible to propound to us concerning itself the very question that the Living Word addressed to His critics, "Which of you convinceth Me of sin? and if I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?" (John 8: 46).

Take that tremendous Bible assumption, "Thus saith the Lord," repeated over and over again. Now, did the Lord say, or did He not say? If He did say, then to treat anything He said after the fashion of our author is undiluted blasphemy; and if He did not say, then to talk about anyone deriving comfort or inspiration from such deceitful utterances is to advocate a very silly form of sentimental, not to say, immoral religion. Nor would it improve the case by urging that the men who prefaced their writings with, "Thus saith the Lord," or its variant forms, were good men, who genuinely thought they had a divine commission; for it is not the good men but their bad writings, that we are to derive comfort from!

Now, what underlies the flagrant unbelief expressed in this pamphlet? The steady refusal to see anything in the Bible beyond purely human literature; the acknowledgment of nothing in the nature of a revelation from God, but only of the evolution of religious ideas in the minds of successive generations of men. Here are the words: —

"What then is the Bible to us? It is simply the story of how through long centuries men gradually worked their way from primitive religious ideas and very primitive moral ideas up to the loftiest heights of spiritual perception which the race has attained."

"Israel began with what we should call pagan ideas about God. They believed in many gods, and about their own special god they believed some very strange things. They held him capable of such feelings as jealousy and the desire for revenge. They believed he could be pleased by animal sacrifices. They thought He cared for one nation and could take pleasure in seeing others massacred. And yet, slowly and surely, such thoughts were left behind. Slowly they learnt to fill out the idea of His righteousness with ever nobler content. They rose to a belief in His mercy, and then in His love . . . And as this progress went on they discarded their earlier ideas. Many of the earlier conceptions in the Bible stand condemned by the later teaching of the Bible itself."

Having read these statements, which purport to be instruction as to the true character and value of Old Testament Scripture, we have just our one question to ask as to them. ARE THEY TRUE;

They are NOT true to the facts as stated by Scripture.

That can easily be verified. According to the Bible, Israel did

not

begin with pagan ideas of God. Israel himself and his immediate descendants had the knowledge of the true and only God. At a later stage in Egypt they evidently caught the infection of Egyptian idolatry to a considerable extent. From this they were again to some degree extricated by the wonders of Sinai and the law then given. Their subsequent history was the exact opposite to the picture drawn by our author. Not a steady upward evolution of religious ideas, but a steady degradation to the depths of polytheism until the Babylonian captivity, only relieved by the faithful intervention of prophets sent by the Lord. And after the captivity, though they avoided idolatry, they degraded religion into a mere matter of ceremonies and pharisaic observances, that was sternly denounced by our Lord. This, we repeat, is simply beyond all contradiction the plain testimony of the Bible. The only increasing light to which it bears witness is the increasing clearness of prophetic testimony to the Coming One, which culminated in the COMING ONE Himself the Lord Jesus.

Whence, then, did our author get all these assertions as to how Israel's ideas were evolved? Is there some other history of the chosen race extant, of such unimpeachable accuracy that he felt himself authorised entirely to rewrite their story? If there were, it would be honest of him to have denounced our Bible as untrue, and to have said, "We Christians despise our Bible;" rather than foist upon it statements that it contradicts. There is, however, no such other history. His statements represented the account of things fashionable in speculative circles where evolution is still the rage. He just moved with the times and advocated the latest evolutionary philosophy. He told us he loved the Bible, but he loved his philosophic notions more, and in their favour he handled, "the word of God deceitfully," and thus he corrupted, "the word of God " (1 Cor. 4: 2; 1 Cor. 2: 17).

To him, of course, it was not the Word of God, for in the pamphlet he spoke of it as "writing the world has produced."

He was pleased, however, to approve of "Jesus." Here are his words:-

"The summit of all this progress is reached when we come to the person and teaching of Jesus. It is to that that all the earlier parts lead up. In Jesus we have the perfect revelation at last. He is all the best we ever dreamed that God might be. He is the final and complete picture of what God is. His teaching is the final word about the will of God for man. He satisfies perfectly man's craving for knowledge about God. And, therefore, the book that tells us about Him must necessarily be mankind's most sacred possession."

A number of these statements are true, and yet the whole passage exemplifies how truth may be used to decorate falsehood. The main idea is that "Jesus" is the summit of human progress. The race had been striving upwards, and its dreams of goodness were consequently in advance of anything yet attained, when, lo! as the fruit of this evolution there appeared "Jesus" and fulfilled our dreams.

Now for our question — Is this a FACT? Not if the Gospels be true. They show us that instead of the Lord Jesus appearing as the summit of human progress, fulfilling human dreams of goodness, in which case He would have been rapturously acclaimed by all the leaders of this progress; it was precisely "the princes of this world" who "crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2: 8). Isaiah's prediction, "when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him" was fulfilled.

Had our author access to some other document more reliable than the Gospels that enabled him to recast the story? He had not. There is no other authentic history. Either he was unable to read the sober objective facts of the Gospels without importing into them ideas from his own subjective consciousness, or he so questioned their veracity that he felt at liberty thus fundamentally to alter the story. He fashioned a "Jesus" after his own ideas, and not once in his pamphlet did he speak of Him as his LORD.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect and final revelation of God, because He is God. He is not the fairest and most perfect expression of the desires and genius of Adam's race. He is the last Adam, the Lord from heaven, the Head of a new race (see, 1 Cor. 15: 45-49).

This quotation from an Epistle would not count for much with our author, of course. In his paper he proceeded to explain that the Old Testament, though hardly needed by us, has at least some value, as an interesting story of the preparation for Christ. So too, the Epistles "are of value because they fill out our knowledge of Christ;" but he did not regard them as authoritative.

The Apostle John declared otherwise. Writing of the false spirits in the world — the spirit of antichrist — he said, "We [The inspired apostles] are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error " (1 John 4: 6). Which spirit pervaded this pamphlet? Its author considered the apostolic epistles as open to question in many things, and the verses just quoted would be to him just John's opinions, which we need not follow. But judging by that sentence of the Word of God through John, he was deluded by "the spirit of error."

Now what is the upshot of this way of regarding the Bible? A closing quotation shall tell us:-

"From all this it must be plain that the Bible, which Christians love so much, and which proves so invaluable for life, is not the whole Bible. It is the greatest thoughts of the Bible, which feed our souls and refresh our spirits. Possibly the amount of Scripture which is thus living, and which actually operates in the lives of some Christians, might turn out to be little more than a tenth of the whole . . . Probably every reader makes his own Bible. The parts that do not grip him he passes by."

A few more lines followed, containing a pleasing sentiment or two about the Bible, and the pamphlet thus closed as it opened; bestowing its blessing upon the venerable Book!

A few more lines followed, one-tenth of the Bible's contents of any real use. The remaining nine-tenths can be discarded. No assurance is given as to which tenth is of use. We are left at liberty to make our own choice. So "we Christians," who "love our Bibles" are left each loving a different "Bible" — each loving what is totally condemned in part by the majority of other "Christians." We are thus presented with the melancholy spectacle of "Christians," every one of whom on a majority vote of other "Christians" would be condemned as foolishly credulous. If this were really the position, who would not be an out-and-out infidel!

We do not know whether the author included Luke 24 in his "Bible." He professed admiration for the "Jesus" of the Gospels, though why he should it is hard to tell, since we owe the Gospels, as we do the Epistles, to apostles or men under their influence. If these are not to be relied upon in their Epistles, why trust them as to "Jesus" in the Gospels? Have we then anything left that is reliable as to Him?

It may be however that he did include Luke 24 in his "Bible," which is one-tenth of our Bible; and so he might yet have read that chapter, and noted what our Lord Jesus said, when He was raised from the dead:-

"O fools, and slow of heart to believe ALL that the prophets have spoken."

"Beginning at Moses and ALL the prophets He expounded unto them in ALL the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

"ALL things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me."

The issue between the Lord Jesus and the writer of this deceitful pamphlet is complete. Had it been openly and honestly infidel we should hardly have noticed it in our pages. Its danger lies not in its negations but in its smooth professions of admiration. The "Jesus" of the author's imagination was eulogised in order the better to deny to the Bible its true character as inspired or "God-breathed" writings, bringing us A REVELATION FROM GOD. Did not the kiss of Judas prove of old a more effective device than the swords and staves of the multitude?

We welcome the opportunity at the start of another year, by reviewing this pamphlet of years ago, to make manifest once more our glad and humble acceptance of the whole Bible as the inspired Word of God. We consequently desire that it may have an ever increasing weight of authority in our own hearts and in the hearts of all our readers. As a result of this may we be preserved not only from taking anything from it, but also from adding to it anything claiming to be a fresh "inspiration," or "revelation," from God, no matter from what quarter it may be proferred to us.

How do you look at life?

How do you look at life?

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 22, 1930, page 14.)

This is a question which I should like to ask my fellow-Christians everywhere. I am stirred to do so by reading a brief article in a secular magazine.

The paper in question — Elder's Review, a quarterly issued as to West African matters by the large Steamship Company operating in those regions — was sent to me by a friend, before whom it came in the course of his business. He requested me to read a brief article, of but three short columns, which the editor had inserted right in the very centre. The Review I opened as indicated. The article, "How I look at Life," by Lord Beaverbrook, I have read.

The editor introduces the article with a few words pointing out that but few men in our day, in climbing to affluence and influence, have had such a romantic career as the author, and he expresses his opinion that the article is one which gives ample cause for reflection to those who are on the threshold of their careers and also to those who are older. With the editor we certainly agree.

Lord Beaverbrook points out that, "So much depends on the youthful direction of the mind that we can never completely recall our earliest important decisions." He goes on to cite his own case as an example of this, telling us how he was born in Canada, where prices are higher than in England. His father was a Presbyterian minister with an income of but £200 to £300 a year, whereon he struggled to bring up a family of a good round dozen. "As a consequence," he says, "we were miserably poor, and so life struck me as the necessity for an escape from poverty."

Naturally, then, he strove for education as the equipment which would enable him to live some better life, for as he says, "I was so shocked with the atmosphere of penury which reigned at home that, when I went into the world, I sought above all and first of all — money." To the making of money, therefore, he turned all his youthful energies, with the result that in a very short space of time he accumulated a fortune, and with it came honour and influence and power.

His lordship is now well on in middle life and he looks back upon the years that are past, that he may speak of what he calls, "Life's real satisfaction." He says, "Yet I regret this turn which circumstances gave to my mentality. I would gladly have lived a different life.... There is nothing I admire quite so much as the life of the evangelist — the man who embraces poverty willingly, who preaches a new doctrine to mankind, and revivifies an ancient faith for humanity. Luther, Knox, or Wesley — it is all the same. These are the men who have had the most satisfying of lives, because real satisfaction in life consists in the knowledge that one has done good. That is an ambition which can never be exhausted."

As for money, he tells us that he puts it lowest in the scale of what gives life satisfaction. Power he ranks just one degree higher. The power to do good is, he considers, better than all; the supreme source of satisfaction. Therefore it is that the career of an evangelist so greatly appeals to him.

He closes his article with these remarkable words: —

"If I were in a position to influence the life of a sincere young man today I would say to him, 'Rather choose to be an evangelist than a Cabinet Minister or a millionaire.' When I was a young man I pitied my father for being a poor man and humble preacher of the Word. Now that I am older I envy him his life and his career."

It may be observed that in these quotations which we have given there is nothing to show that God's call and God's work is recognized; nothing to show that no one can really devote his life to the work of an evangelist except first converted and then called of God; that conversion and the endowment of the Holy Spirit are needful before any individual can do a solitary thing in the service of the Lord. That is so, and the omission, alas! characterizes the whole article. That point of all-importance his lordship does not appear to see, and every reader of these lines might well at this point lift up his heart to God with the request that his eyes may be effectually opened to see it.

Still, this fact by no means takes the edge off his words. Here is a very successful man of affairs who is at least beginning to see life in its true perspective, and he tells us in very plain and open fashion what he sees. We, by the great mercy of our God, have been converted. Our sins are forgiven, we stand justified from all things, and we have received the Holy Spirit. We therefore have the Anointing which enables us to know all things in their true perspective, and we have the Power which capacitates us to take up the service of God under the direction of the Lord. How do we look at life? Let us ask ourselves this question in all seriousness.

We especially beseech our younger brethren and sisters to face this question. Many of you doubtless live in quite poor homes. Some of you have, or have had, fathers not earning as much as the salary of the Presbyterian minister, even in these days of high prices compared with fifty years ago. Does life strike you as being in the main an avenue of escape from the grind of poverty? God forbid that it should Others of you come from homes of comparative comfort, and some few of you from homes of affluence and wealth, from circumstances which can provide you with anything within reason on which you may set your heart. Does life strike you as mainly an avenue bordered on either side by gardens of pleasure, whence you may pluck as often as you please every flower that takes your fancy; a pathway which is to provide you with every earthly delight which does not violently clash with your Christian profession? Again we say, God forbid that it should!

One of our poets has said,

"Life is real, life is earnest,

And the grave is not our goal."

This witness is indeed true. There surrounds us on every hand the world that is: there lies before us the world that is to come. The one thrusts itself upon our notice at every turn; our eyes rest upon its gilded glories, our ears are filled with its ceaseless din. The other is at present known only to faith. Yet the one is the creature of one short fevered hour in the history of eternity; the other abides for ever. No wonder the Apostle John has said to us, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." Though we all of us handle and use the things that are in the world we are to take great care that they do not obtain a strangle-hold on our affections. He added, "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever" (1 John 2: 17). God's world abides, and in that world he who does God's will abides for ever.

Dear young Christian, we appeal to you! For which world are you living? In which direction are you bending your energies? What seems to you to be the highest good in life?

You will tell us, perhaps, that you quite admit the truth of what we have been saying: that you could not very well be a Christian and not admit it. Yet there are, you urge, many difficulties — one must make one's way in life and earn one's living: it is not pleasant to have but little of the good things of this life in the presence of others who have much: downright earnestness in God's things often brings contempt and even ridicule. Our reply to this has to be, that these difficult facts are just as you state them.

We cannot shut our eyes to them. Even Lord Beaverbrook in his article did not attempt to do so. He says, "I know only too well from bitter experience how youth is turned away from such high missions of service by the intimate prospect of penury." Again he adds the following striking words, "To this is often added the fear of ridicule and contempt which unworldly enthusiasm arouses. 'Let us,' said a bishop of the late eighteenth century, 'let us, above all things, put down enthusiasm.' And so the church lost Wesley. That man will be happiest in middle years who resists most successfully the temptation of a purely material success."

The difficulties are apparent, and we do not shut our eyes to them. But shall we flinch from them? Shall we allow them to obscure before our eyes the lasting glories of that world which is to come? Shall we let them dim in our souls the brightness, the sweetness, of the love of Christ, or damp down the holy enthusiasm which such a Master and such a message are otherwise bound to create? By the grace of God it shall not be so with us.

Let all the difficulties and disadvantages be duly weighed up and appraised. Then let the coming day be considered, when humble saints, who have been true and faithful to the Name of Christ, shall be vindicated, according to that word, "Behold, I will make them [the opponents] to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee" (Rev. 3: 9); when there shall be fulfilled to humble servants that word of their Master, "Where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will My Father honour" (John 12: 26). What shall we say to these things?

Without a doubt we shall say that to be publicly honoured of the Father, and declared to be the objects of the love of Christ, is a coming blessedness and joy with which all possible disadvantages are not worthy of being compared. To be disliked by men and dishonoured by them is not pleasant, but what will it be to be loved by Christ and to be honoured of the Father?

Can you conceive of anything more blessed than that? No, indeed! Then see to it that for a little success and paltry honour in this world you do not forgo that honour which comes from God alone. See to it that you do not miss the opportunity of giving yourself whole-heartedly to Christ and His service.

Your abilities may be large or small. You may have gift of a pronounced kind or you may have no special gift at all. Whichever way it is, our exhortation to you is the same. You know the grace of God. You have a Master of infinite blessedness and glory to serve. Your years upon earth are at most very short. Your opportunity for devotedness to Him and His service will soon be gone. Oh, embrace it, dear young Christian, and labour not for the world that is but for that which is to come!

May God enable you to be wholehearted for Christ.

How to "run well"

How to "run well"

F. B. Hole.

A GOOD START

You

stand, if just converted, upon the threshold of an absolutely new epoch in your existence. Doubtless things seem to you new, and the path you now commence to tread a little mysterious. I want to be allowed, somewhat after the fashion of "Interpreter" with "Christian" in "The Pilgrim's Progress," to point out one or two things which may, with God's blessing, help you at the start of your Christian career.

We shall not have much to say as to your past-that is settled; nor as to your future-that is secure: both through the value of the precious blood of Christ. Our thoughts must be concentrated upon the present. You are a dead loss to Satan for eternity, and he knows it he will therefore concentrate his efforts upon spoiling your testimony for the Lord now.

If he can make you definitely dishonour Him, so much the better from his point of view, and if not, well! he has some very successful ways of stunting spiritual growth and making his poor victim anything but a successful Christian.

The animal kingdom is divided into two great classes: the Vertebrate-those with backbone, and the Invertebrate-those without. Believers also, may be classified thus, and we long that you should be a "Vertebrate" Christian, having backbone, and being marked by decision and spiritual vigour, and not by stagnation and decay.

Be warned at the outset against the idea that in being converted you have reached the summit of all ambition, the goal of the Christian race. The truth is that far from conversion being the goal, it is the starting-post. The race is just beginning, so that it is emphatically not the time for you to take things easy, but rather for you to prepare for action. It would be well if every convert imitated Saul of Tarsus (afterwards the Apostle Paul) in the questions he asked upon conversion (Acts 9: 5, 6). The first was, "Who art thou, Lord?" The second, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"

And Jesus also is your Lord: not only your Saviour- blessed be His Name!-but your Lord. This, of course, you acknowledge, else you are no true convert; prepare then to arise and go at His bidding as Saul did, In the epistle addressed to some converts from the Jews' religion to Christianity we find the exhortation, "Let us go on unto perfection" (Hebrews 6: 1). Take these words,  "Let us go on," as a motto, and bear them continually in mind; for just as a cyclist must go on if he would keep on, so we must advance if our Christianity is to be much more than a worthless name.

You want, however, a good start. Then first of all be real. If you still have lingering doubts and fears as to how you stand with God, have courage to say so, rather than to continue professing to be all right when you are not sure. Never mind if you have told preacher and friends, even many times, that you are saved; your confession will not greatly surprise them-if they know much of their own hearts-and they may be able to help you. Anyhow, be real. Don't say "I see" if you don't see. Don't go one inch beyond where you are to please the best of friends. Far better take time and get a firm foothold, or you will never start well.

CONFESSION

Once, however, you have the Word of God beneath your feet and are sure, confess Christ immediately, let nothing make you delay. There is too much truth in the proverb, "He who hesitates is lost." The Scripture says, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10: 9). You will never be happy without it, for you will be a hypocrite. Inwardly a Christian, outwardly still a man or woman of the world, drifting with the stream, doing as others do, feebly smiling when worldlings direct the shafts of their wit and ridicule at sacred subjects, for fear of making yourself conspicious, and hating yourself for so acting all the while. Ah! the misery of it!

Stand shivering on the brink no longer, but plunge bravely in, Never mind the shock; the ridicule, the sneers, the cold shoulder; it will not be half so bad as you imagine, and will be followed by the after-glow of a peace and joy you never knew before. Begin at home. "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee" (Mark 5: 19).

Having confessed the Lord, you have fairly started as a Christian, and if you enquire what will give vigour to your Christianity, and ensure a successful and God-glorifying career, I should reply, Be whole-hearted.

You have heard of the general who, having disembarked his men, burnt the ship from which he had landed, deliberately throwing away his only chance of retreat, He did it, that not one of his men might be tempted to cast a lingering look behind him. Act on this principle yourself, make a clean break with the world behind you, and make up your mind that by the grace of God, Christ and His claims shall be supreme, your chief consideration under every circumstance. in the world that man succeeds who, having selected his pursuit-be it money, learning or power-sticks to it with unwavering fidelity and dogged persistency. His object controls him, everything is made subservient to it, and eventually he becomes a millionaire, a great scientist or a prime minister, as the case may be If you make Christ your object, He will control you, you will be able to turn everything to account for His interests, and ultimately you will get the greatest of all rewards, "Well done, good and faithful servant," from His own lips.

THE FIRST FALL

You will not have been converted many days, or even hours, before you will discover that there are many traps for your feet. Let me point out some of them, so that being forewarned you may, with God's help, be forearmed To begin with, it is rather an anxious time when the first fall after conversion occurs, especially so if you have previously been enslaved by any particular evil habit or sin. Not one of us escapes this experience. The joy of salvation is in our hearts, the happy hours go flying by, and it seems as if no sorrow or clouds would cross our path again, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, we are down! Ah! the bitter shame and sorrow that fill our hearts, and, who knows?-perhaps some of you whose eyes scan these pages have that sorrow and shame in your hearts as you read. Possibly, to make matters worse, your worldly friends have noticed it and their amusement at your discomfiture is but ill concealed, your Christian friends are none too sympathetic, and you don't know what to do.

Now is Satan's opportunity, and he will tender you advice after this fashion: "A nice mess you have made in thus attempting to be a Christian. Would it not be better to give up at once, and thus save further disgrace to yourself and dishonour to your Lord?" He would fain lead you to distrust God. Give up is always his word.

Friend, let me tell you what to do. Do not give up, but get down and go on.

Get down, I mean, in humiliation and self-judgment before God, remembering that though you have changed, He has not, This sin of yours is one amongst the many for which Christ suffered on the Cross, and He has now gone on high to be your Advocate (see 1 John 2: 1). God is still your Father, and the word to you is-

"If we confess our sins, He [the Father] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1: 9),

Get down, then, in confession to God, and from Him as your Father you will get forgiveness; the very process itself through which you pass will have a cleansing effect upon you, and, with greater confidence in Him and less in yourself, go on.

OLD ASSOCIATIONS

Another thing. Beware of old companionships and associations. Sometimes when the convert himself starts brightly, confesses the Lord and seeks to break with his old companions, they, for reasons of their own, are not willing to part with him, and move heaven and earth to retain him. Sometimes it happens that in after years love begins to grow cold, and the believer begins by slow degrees at first, more rapidly as time goes on, to drift back to people and to things he once forsook.

Sometimes, most subtle and dangerous of all, we entertain the idea that if only we join with our former ungodly associates we shall thereby more effectually gain their ear and influence them for good. This is a great mistake. We shall not lift them up. They will drag us down.

Experience universally confirms this statement, and so does Scripture.

Jehoshaphat was one of the best of Judah's kings, Ahab the very worst that ever disgraced the throne of Israel, and yet we read, "Jehoshaphat . . . joined affinity with Ahab" (2 Chr. 18: 1).

With what result? Did Jehoshaphat elevate Ahab to his own level, so that he could say with satisfaction "Thou hast become as I am"? By no means; the very reverse, In verse 3 of the same chapter Jehoshaphat says: "I am as thou art," and the admission brought no blush of shame to his cheek.

This was followed by the expedition to Ramoth-gilead, in which Ahab lost his life and Jehoshaphat escaped with the skin of his teeth, only to be confronted with a very serious message from God, through Jehu the prophet, "Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord" (2 Chr. 19: 2). The final upshot of the whole affair was that Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram married Ahab's daughter (2 Chr. 21: 6)-the notoriously wicked Athaliah, a true daughter of her mother, Jezebel, and the cause of untold misery to Judah.

If you wish further evidence from Scripture, read carefully Genesis 13, Genesis 14 and Genesis 19, which give the history of Lot's sad downfall through his alliance with the men of Sodom. He did not elevate them; they degraded him; so much so that nobody paid the least attention when he attempted to testify of the impending storm; and we ourselves should have had no certainty as to whether he was a, true saint of God or not had it not been that the Spirit of God, knowing the difficulty, set the question at rest by calling him in the new Testament "that righteous man" (2 Peter 2: 8).

Of course you must meet your old companions, but lose no time in letting them know that the old relations exist no more Speak to them of Christ. Whatever you do, don't descend to the old level, and don't be hail-fellow-well-met as before. So surely as you do, your power, Samson-like, will have fled, and you will become their easy prey.

In the great majority of cases one good bold confession of Christ is enough. Some may receive a homethrust that will eventually result in their conversion others may just leave you. If not, you will find it best to leave them. If you can't help them, they will harm you. Don't give them the opportunity.

The foregoing remarks apply with equal force to the forming of new links and associations. A guiding star in your Christian life should be this Word-

"Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6: 14, read 2 Cor. 6: 14-18), Frame this text in your prayers and hang it in a prominent place on the walls of your heart and memory. It will save you a world of sorrow if obeyed. You will need it, for you cannot go through the world without forming associations of many kinds.

Beware of the "unequal yoke" in society, beware of it in business. Many a Christian has had his testimony ruined through partnership with an unconverted man, and thus getting mixed up with his questionable practices; above all beware of it in marriage. A few days or weeks suffice to break the unequal yoke in society or in business, but here it is life-long, either for yourself or for your unconverted partner. How many promising young lives have been darkened, and what chapters of sorrow could be penned as a result of disobedience to the divine command. Would that I could lift up my voice like a trumpet and warn every young convert in the land.

FALSE TEACHERS

Take a warning also as to false teachers and their doctrines. Do not be surprised that they exist, Satan has his servants as well as God, and he works by way of imitation. The Apostle Paul, speaking of some of his agents, said, "Such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11: 13, 14). It is more than likely, therefore that before long you will meet with men or women who will bring you strange doctrines, advanced with much plausibility and covered with a thin veneer of truth.

Accept one or two hints:

If they come to you with doctrines that cut athwart the simple gospel you have received, belittling the death and resurrection of Jesus, refuse and avoid them. They are false (see Gal. 1: 6-8).

If they do not acknowledge Jesus as their Lord (1 Cor. 12: 3), or that He-a divine Person-is come in flesh; i.e., has become man; if they do not, in short, confess His Deity and Manhood (1 John 4: 3), they are not of God.

If Christ is not the centre of their teaching, but rather some religious fad, or if they demand your subjection to the teaching of some man or woman who assumes the place of prophet, or to some new revelation which somebody professes to have received, you may safely turn from them. If tested they prove to be but liars (see Rev. 2: 2).

If the teacher himself be unconverted, don't listen to him. Of course he may say what is right, just as a parrot sometimes makes very appropriate remarks. Scripture, however, is very decisive. "The natural man [i.e., man in his natural or unconverted state] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2: 14)

Pay no attention, therefore, to infidel theories, whether honestly advanced by avowed unbelievers, or dishonestly cloaked as "Higher Criticism" and "Modern Thought" by professed ministers of religion. The poor authors of these soul-destroying delusions have not the Spirit of God, and hence, though possibly very learned, are no Christians at all, and know nothing of true heart religion.

Once more, if anyone comes to you with doctrines, to support which he has to twist Scripture either by giving strained meanings to words in our Enghsh version, or by continually referring to the Greek or Hebrew original and translating to fit with his ideas, or if he tears texts away from their contexts or surroundings, which always decide their meaning, you have every reason for considering his doctrines with the gravest suspicion. "No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation" (2 Peter 1: 20). Remember, also, that the Bible is one whole; thus one part dovetails into the rest, not only agreeing but explaining.

HOBBIES

One more warning, though it may seem a strange one. Seek grace from God to live your life without a hobby.

Many estimable Christians, both young and old, are sadly lacking in freshness and spring. They are like a plum with the bloom rubbed off, and this is frequently traceable not to the allowance of positive sin or worldliness, but to their taking up with some pursuit or hobby that occupies much valuable time and thought, that could be far better employed. Some have a pipe for their hobby, others novels, and others again, dress, motoring, recreation in its many forms, or something more scientific, such as the radio. Do not misunderstand me. I plead for nothing legal or straight-laced. If we merely make you affect a spurious piety and wear a sanctimonious expression, we have got you "out of the frying-pan and into the fire" indeed. No! Of course you must have exercise and recreation especially if you are young, otherwise your health will suffer; only, mind-this is the point-keep them in a quite secondary place, subservient to Christ and His interests. Don't let them become hobbies; if you do they will become weights.

"

Let us lay aside every weight,

and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience " (Heb. 12: 1), is the inspired direction of the apostle. Notice it is the "weight

and

the sin," i.e., weights are something additional to and different from sin. "Sin" is like some entanglement across the racer's path: if he catches his foot in it, down he comes; a "weight" may be something very useful and excellent in itself, but if the race is to be won, it must be laid aside. The athlete does not even carry valuables. He has no

pockets

in his scanty attire.

If ever in your Christian life you find anything, however good in itself, becoming a weight to you, have the moral courage to lay it aside, We want you to get the maximum of joy and blessing out of your knowledge of Christ.

THE CHRISTIAN'S SUPPORT

I can quite imagine that some begin to think that it must be difficult if not almost hopeless work to be a Christian. It will do you no harm to discover that it is hopeless work in your own strength, if you do not forget that the power of God is on your behalf. Lions m the way there certainly are, but do not play the part of Mr. Timorous, especially as God has Himself provided you with certain things that are of the greatest help.

You have not believed upon a dead Saviour, but upon a living One. He is out of sight, having left this world. He is your great High Priest, in heaven He has entered "into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (Heb. 9: 24).

There He has charged Himself with the management of our concerns. Use Him, make Him your Friend. Confide in Him. Keep no secrets from Him, but let Him have the key that opens every chamber of your soul.

You will meet many a temptation, "He is able to succour them that are tempted" (Heb 2: 18).

Weakness and infirmity will sometimes press you sore. He is able to sympathize. He can be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. 4: 15).

Seas of difficulty and danger may roll in on your soul and threaten to engulf you. "He is able also to save . . . to the uttermost" (Heb. 7: 25), i.e., right through to the end.

Succour and sympathy may reach you from your Christian friends. We trust they will, but if you want absolute certainty, look to Him!

THE CHRISTIAN'S POWER

Connected with this is the great fact that the Holy Spirit of God, a divine Person, is upon earth and that If a believer, you have received the Holy Spirit. "But," says many a young convert, "I have not felt anything special. Is it possible for anyone to receive the Holy Spirit without some great and unique experience?"

It is certainly possible, and two things account for it First, the outward and visible signs which once accompanied His entrance, such as a tongue of fire or speaking foreign languages, do so no longer; and secondly, His mission is emphatically not to call attention to Himself, but to glorify Christ (see John 16: 13, 14).

Silently, noiselessly, He takes up His abode, but soon the effects of His presence are felt. Perhaps it never occurred to you that the very glimpses you get of Christ and His preciousness, and of the love of God; the fact of the Bible becoming a new book to you; and of prayer becoming delightful instead of irksome; are just the results of His presence.

"But in my case," somebody says, "I fear these results are conspicuous by their absence, and yet I do believe in Jesus. I fear I have never received the Spirit." The probable solution of the difficulty is not that you have never received Him, but that having received Him you have grieved Him.

"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption," said the Apostle Paul to the Ephesian believers (Eph. 4: 30). To grieve Him is to lose the practical benefits of His presence. He then grieves you and since He is the Teacher in the things of God and the Power for worship, communion and service, no wonder you are unhappy.

Ever bear in mind, therefore, that "your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. 6: 19). Shun every defiling thing, for with the Spirit of God ungrieved you have power greater than any that can be brought against you (1 John 4: 4).

THE CHRISTIAN'S GUIDE

There are four things of great practical use as helps to the Christian, be he young or old; the Spirit of God will certainly lead you to be very diligent in their use.

First and foremost, the Word of God. Read your Bible, and read it well. Make it far and away the foremost book in your library. Other books you will find helpful, especially such as continually refer you back to the Bible, but never allow them to supplant in your reading the Word of God itself.

We live in days of much infidelity, one of its greatest strongholds is ignorance of the Scriptures (see Matt. 22: 29). Let us, therefore, arm ourselves with a close and prayerful acquaintance with the Book. It is related of a certain well-educated gentleman of infidel views that being advised by his doctor of the slow but certain approach of death owing to an incurable disease, he became very desirous of seriously investigating for himself the claims of the Bible to be a revelation from God. Meeting a Christian acquaintance he asked advice as to what book or books he had better read to enable him to form his judgment of the Bible's merits. The laconic answer was "The Bible." In astonishment he repeated his question, but received the same answer with the advice to begin at the very beginning and read straight on. He did so and had not completed the five books of Moses before he became convinced that its origin was divine. He was ultimately converted to God.

Yes! if there is a royal road to understanding the Bible it is the reading of the Bible itself; prayerfully and in dependence upon the teaching of the Holy Spirit.

Read consecutively;

don't jump about hither and thither, and don't have favourite portions which you read over and over again, neglecting other parts.

Read also comprehensively;

not so fast as not to think about what you read, but sufficiently fast to bear in mind the drift of the whole passage or argument, to get a kind of bird's eye view of the whole.

Search the Scriptures,

as well as read them. Points will often arise in your life upon which you must seek the mind of God Sometimes you will find a passage bearing directly upon the point in question, sometimes you will not; then you must search to find some God-given principle which will apply to your case and shed light on your pathway. The Bible is pre-eminently a book of principles, be like the Bereans, who "searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (Acts 17: 11).

Cultivate also the habit of diligently turning over the Scriptures in your mind. To be well nourished, it is necessary not only to eat but to digest. The ox must not only browse on the fresh grass, but also chew the cud; so let us not only read and search and thereby gather information, but having done so, turn it over and over in meditation, that it may really soak its way into our souls. This means prosperity. Paul said to Timothy, "Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all" (1 Tim. 4: 15).

THE CHRISTIAN'S RESOURCE

Second only in importance to the Word of God is Prayer. If you wish for some idea of how necessary it is, take your Bible and read steadily through Luke's Gospel, underlining with a pencil every place where Jesus prayed. Mark! He who was a Divine Person, when here on earth frequently prayed.

Or read Paul's Epistles, and what he says about prayers, "Night and day praying exceedingly," and so forth. If Paul had to pray, surely you and I need to.

You may just simply pray about anything and everything (read Phil. 4: 6, 7). Nothing is too small. Our God is great enough to attend to your smallest need.

"What a Friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer!"

Unburden your heart, and make your request with thanksgiving. Whether you get the answer you would like or no, you will get at least His peace in your heart.

Don't forget intercession, i.e.,

praying for others, both saved and unsaved. There is a danger of our becoming cramped and narrowed in our thoughts and prayers. There is always a great blessing in thinking of others.

But, at all events, let us pray, and that "without ceasing." Keep in an attitude of continual dependence and waiting upon God. Let your heart ever be breathing the spirit of prayer even if you cannot always be upon your knees. Besides being helpful, it is safe. The old couplet is very true:

"Satan trembles when he sees

The weakest saint upon his knees."

THE CHRISTIAN'S COMPANY

Let me now impress upon you the great importance of keeping Christian company. Much of what has been said as to old companionships and associations would come in appropriately here, but repetition is needless. It suffices to say that the best way to keep out of the old associations is to form and heartily cultivate the new.

David said, "I will not know a wicked person . . . . Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful" (Psalm 101: 4-6), and in so saying he was doubtless a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. To avoid the evil and to cultivate the good was ever His way, and if so, we shall do well to make it ours.

Again, the very first act of Moses' life singled out for mention and commendation is that, having come to age, he whole-heartedly threw in his lot with the despised people of God. "Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for season" (Heb. 11: 25).

Don't start with the idea that Christians are perfect or you will have a big disappointment in store. They are not so; far from it, but you will find amongst them a warmth and a love which you will never find in the world. Stick to them, and if they don't come quite up to your expectations or square with your notions stick to them still. Even should they give you the cold shoulder, return the compliment by giving them a warm heart, and you will soon get your capital repaid with interest.

Generally, however, matters stand the other way about, I have heard a good many affirm that their fellow Christians are so cold that they never get spoken to after the service or meeting. On closer investigation I nearly always find that these very people are noted for jumping up instantly the meeting closes and bolting without giving anyone the chance of a friendly handshake. They are cold, not their fellows. A frequent symptom of disease is that one complains of cold when really it is quite warm.

To shun the company of Christians is an early symptom of spiritual disease. When flock-masters or their shepherds see one sheep standing in a field quite apart from the rest they at once conclude that it is ill. When well, all keep together. Beware, then, of sulking alone. It is the stragglers who fall an easy prey to the wily foe.

Some, however, may wish for a practical word as to where to go, seeing, alas! that Christians, even true ones are divided into many bands, some great, some small, meeting in various places.

My advice is, Go where the Word of God would lead you.

But, remember, what you like, or what your parents did before you, has nothing to do with the matter. The question must be decided absolutely by God's Word as if it were your salvation at stake. Here, then, is a point on which you may well search the Scriptures prayerfully.

Do not become a rolling stone, or, as it is commonly termed, a "free-lance." Such a procedure chiefly indicates grave lack of principle; far better stay just where you are for so long as the Word of God, and a good conscience, and true-hearted love for our Lord Jesus Christ, will let you.

THE CHRISTIAN'S SERVICE

Last of all. Do not forget to serve the Lord. And by this I mean not merely that you should do everything, even daily toil of the meanest sort, if such is your appointed task, to the Lord (Col. 3: 22-24), but that you should definitely take up some interest and work for the Lord Jesus Christ, even though it be very small.

What shall I do? is the question often asked. Ask that question of your Master, who alone has the right to answer it and you will soon discover what you should do. Opportunities abound, and the need is great.

Possibly you have already begun to serve the Lord, almost without knowing it.

Like Andrew, you have sought out some brother, some friend, that you might bring him to Jesus (see John 1: 40-42). Having found the Lord yourself, you did it without being told, just as a duckling, when hatched, instinctively waddles to the pond. If so, thank God and do not tire of this blessed work. Go on, and having sought to bring your friends to Jesus, enlarge your borders and still go on!

How many ways there are of serving the Lord-by personal conversations, anywhere and at all times, by tract distributing, by sick visiting, by teaching the young in Sunday School, besides the public preaching of the Gospel, and ministry of the Word to believers. Ask the Lord what you are to do, and, having found out, DO IT.

Do it in obedience to the principles laid down in the Word of God.

Do it prayerfully, and

Do it in concert with your fellow Christians, but I repeat, DO IT.

Bodily health is impossible unless we work. Solomon observed this and said, "The sleep of a labouring man is sweet .... but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep" (Ecc. 5: 12).

Many fashionable members of society suffer from "nerves" and similar complaints, simply from lack of something to do, and Christians may be found who do not get on for just the same reason; they rank amongst the unemployed, unless, indeed, they devote their energies to what is profitless if not mischievous. The old rhyme is as true as ever:

"And Satan find some mischief still

For idle hands to do."

Let us, therefore, be like the Thessalonian believers, to whom it could be said, "Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven" (1 Thess. 1: 9, 10).

If that verse becomes a truthful summary of our lives they will have been lives well worth living.

May you richly BE BLESSED, and may you thereby BECOME A BLESSING

Human Nature

Human Nature

F. B. Hole.

(Edification  Vol. 11, 1937, page 318.)

The "Modernism," which has swept in like a flood, is based upon a refusal to face the plain and elemental facts as to human nature. It assumes that mankind is on the upward grade and that further enlightenment and progress will banish all ills. The doctrine of evolution is just assumed, when it cannot be proved, and as the assumption panders to human conceit, it is allowed to pass unchallenged in many quarters. Modernistic theologians outdo modernistic scientists in their devotion to the theory, and they certainly far outrun the ordinary plain and more matter-of-fact man of the world.

As witness of this fact we quote some paragraphs written in one of the London daily papers not long ago. The leader writer had been stirred by a report of vandalism on Ben Nevis, and the fact that nothing of a religious nature was in his mind only makes his remarks more to the point for our purpose.

"If there were no other objections to the doctrines of Socialism, a conclusive one would be found in conduct; for conduct is fundamental to the Socialist hypothesis. Its advocates assume a human nature purged of all its baser elements — one by virtue of which everybody will behave in the best possible way. It is a fallacy, a complete illusion. Nothing will be changed except that the opportunities for misbehaviour will be less restricted. The means to do ill deeds makes ill-deeds done. Take, for example, the bitter complaint that has just been uttered about the vandalism which is being practised by visitors to Ben Nevis — a spot whose majesty should forbid the show of violence. Yet it is asserted that unless something is done, 'the summit of Britain's noblest mountain will soon resemble a refuse dump.' The joy-parties who visit Ben Nevis, it appears, not only leave litter and fragments of food, empty tins and broken bottles in and around the old Observatory. They use the pillars and indicator as pedestals for bottle-targets; and so depart. The only impulse inspired by the splendid vista which is opened out to their eyes, is to make an imitation Aunt Sally range, and indulge their instinct for destruction....

"Is it not enough to change faith in human progress to despair, to know that in this Twentieth Century liberty can so easily result in vulgar and stupid licence, that in spite of the amenities and opportunities which modern life has made available for all, the heart of man remains so abysmally insensible to dignity and beauty and decency?

I

hold it truth,

with him who sings:

To one clear harp in divers tones,

That men may rise on stepping-stones

Of their dead selves to higher things.

"So sang Tennyson; but the evidence is against his simple faith. Man remains, at bottom, the same primordial savage. He may climb the dark brow of the mighty Ben Nevis; but only to make a cock-shy for his empty bottles on the summit. Possibly there is nothing to be done about it, except not to expect grapes from thorns or figs from thistles. Human nature is still elemental."

Now we certainly do not "expect grapes from thorns or figs from thistles"; but this, not because of the plain facts of life which we observe, whether in others or in ourselves, but, because we have been warned not to do so by the lips of the Son of God. He knows what is in man and He has plainly told us. The evil that fills the earth is not something imposed on man from without, but something that he generates from within. "Out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mark 7: 21-23)

To accept the divine verdict against us is the beginning of all blessing; and it is a great day for us as saints when we cease to expect anything from the flesh within us, and we ratify in our own hearts what God Himself accomplished at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. There "sin in the flesh" was "condemned;" there "our old man" was "crucified with Him."

We have no faith in human progress, yet we have no despair for we know that all good is found in Christ, and that God now has before Him a new humanity "created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Eph. 2: 10). Our faith and hope is centred in Christ and not in ourselves or any other man.

The evidence is in indeed against all faith in man. Yet we are abundantly optimistic as we fix the eye of faith on Christ.

"In my name"

"In my name"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 169.)

The above words occur no less than seven times in the last discourse of our Lord, recorded in John 14-16. And of these seven no less than six refer to the place of privilege and responsibility in which His disciples would find themselves after His departure to the Father, as may be seen if John 14: 13 and 14; John 15: 16; John 16: 23, 24 and 26, be read. Though He would be no longer visibly amongst them, so that to Him they could go with their enquiries and requests, they would be able to ask in His name, with the certainty that He Himself and the Father also, to whom He was going, would grant what they asked.

Our first enquiry is, what is the force and meaning of asking in His name? The answer surely is, that the Lord was leaving His disciples during His absence as His representatives. As far as His interests in this world are concerned, they were left to represent Him, and their requests as His representatives would be granted. A place of remarkable privilege indeed: and equally a place of great responsibility.

Take a simple illustration. The heads of a large business concern have to leave for the antipodes. They depart after giving powers to several of their subordinates to act for them during their absence. They can sign cheques, which the bank will certainly honour. A cheque is but a request — in proper legal form — that money be dispensed to somebody else, and the bank honours the business in whose name the cheque is issued.

We may at once feel inclined to say, Yes, but what if those deputed to sign for the firm as representatives of the absent chiefs, misuse their authority, and use money for their own purposes? And we have to reply that such breaches of trust among men do happen all too often, and the bank, unaware of the fraud, may pay the cheques. So here, of course, our illustration fails. No bank has power to discern what lies behind the issuing of a cheque. If it is technically correct, it is honoured and paid.

But, HE who presides over the "bank" of heaven — if we may thus apply our figure — possesses omniscience, since, "all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do" (Heb. 4: 13). We may close our requests by saying that we make them, "in the name of the Lord Jesus," but He will know whether we are really asking for things that are in His interests, or whether we are asking for things, that will suit our own desires merely. Only that which is really and genuinely "in His name," as representing His interests, is sure to be granted, and this should produce in us much searching of heart as to what we ask as left to represent our Lord. We have of course full liberty to make known all our requests unto God, with thanksgiving, as stated in Philippians, 4: 6, but that is another matter. We are not told there that what we ask shall be granted, but we are told that our hearts and minds shall be kept in the peace of God through Christ Jesus.

But now we must take note of the seventh occurrence of this wonderful phrase, which occurs in John 14: 26, for here we see the impelling Power, that lies behind the other six occurrences of the words. The main announcement of this farewell discourse is the coming of the Comforter, the Spirit of God, and here the Lord states that the Father will send Him "in My name;" that is, as My great Representative, to maintain My interests. This is a remarkable statement, and the force of it may be more clearly seen, if we place it alongside another statement of our Lord, "I am come in My Father's name" (John 5: 43). He came as representing His Father, concerned with His interests, and now that He is departing, the Holy Spirit comes to represent Him and concern Himself with His interests.

What we read in John 16: 13, is in keeping with this. The Spirit did not come to speak "of," or, more literally, "from Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak." Clearly then, He came not to originate, but rather to give effect to the word of God, and to represent the absent Lord, who had gone on high; caring for His interests.

Now let us put these two things together. The Spirit is come as the Divine Representative of the absent Lord, gone on high; the disciples are left as the human representatives, with authority to ask in His name. Having done so, we shall at once realize that consequently it is of the utmost importance that we are dominated by the Spirit of God. He indwells us that He may dominate us. This we see brought to pass in the Apostle Paul, when he writes that, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8: 2). The word, "law," is here used evidently in the sense of, "effective control." Dominated now by the Spirit, Paul was set free from the domination of sin and death. He not only had "life in Christ Jesus," but also the Spirit, as the energy of that life. In verse 9 of that chapter He is called, "the Spirit of Christ," since He is here as we have seen, to represent Him.

Hence the great importance of that injunction in Jude 20, "Praying in the Holy Ghost." If we are enabled to pray thus, the requests we make will be in complete harmony with the mind of the Spirit. We, though imperfect, are left here to act and make requests in the name of our absent Lord. The Spirit, who is Divinely perfect, is sent in His name. Now if our prayers are "in the Holy Ghost," they will be marked by the suitability that He alone can impart. The requests, that we make then in our prayers, will really be, as our Lord said, "in My name."

It is when we pray after this fashion that the answer is so sure —  "that will I do," "I will do it," "He will give it you."

Intelligent Service

Intelligent Service.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 16, 1924, page 150.)

The Epistle to the Romans, presents us with an orderly unfolding of the Gospel in Romans 1 - 8. First of all we are carried through an exposure of the ruin and corruption that marks the human race in all its branches, and then step by step the Divine way of blessing is unfolded: the way in which God has wrought on man's behalf in the death and resurrection of Christ; the particular application of His death and resurrection to the believer, first as regards his sinful acts and then as regards his sinful state; the consequent gift of the Spirit; the experimental process by which the believer learns to now walk in the liberty of the Spirit and free from the dominion of sin and law and flesh. This is supplemented in Romans 9 to 11 by a treatise upon the ways and purposes of God, showing how His ways, which are past finding out, are made to work out to the fulfilment of His purposes.

With Romans 12 we begin the hortatory and practical part of the epistle, and, by the mercies of God unfolded in the earlier chapters, the apostle beseeches us to present our bodies "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," and he adds, "which is your reasonable [intelligent, N. Tr.] service."

That the believer is converted to be a servant of God is a well-recognized fact. When once Divine life has been received, a person is desirous of going in the Divine way and of being a servant of the will of God, even though as yet he has very little knowledge of the truth outlined in Romans 6, 7, and 8. Thus it was with most of us; in the first joy of conversion we began to serve hardly knowing why we did so. We began by rendering what we may call instinctive service. We cannot, however, proceed indefinitely upon those lines. Our service, if it is to be sustained and efficient, must flow from an understanding of the truth, from a recognition of what has been achieved and established in the death and resurrection of Christ. It must be intelligent service.

In our unconverted days sin was reigning in our mortal bodies, and we were obeying it in the lusts thereof. Consequently we were yielding our members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, and as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, as Romans 6 tells us. As believers now "dead with Christ" we are to reckon ourselves "dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord," and consequently sin is not to have dominion over us, but we are to yield ourselves unto God, "as those that are alive from the dead," and to yield our members "as instruments of righteousness unto God," and "as servants to righteousness unto holiness." Let this be really laid hold of in the faith of our souls, and we at once perceive that our bodies, which formerly were the vehicle for the expression of our own wills and the pursuit of our own pleasures, are now to be presented as a sacrifice to God.

The sacrifices of Old Testament times were animals devoted to God by way of death, and the thought of a living sacrifice hardly appears; it would indeed have seemed a contradiction in terms, and an impossibility. That, however, which would have been an impossible service under Judaism becomes an intelligent service under Christianity. The only right course for the believer is to present his body to God as a thing wholly devoted to His will and use and glory, and it only can be so presented as a thing which though living is yet acknowledged to be dead as viewed in the light of the death of Christ. The contradiction in terms alone remains, but then such paradoxes are common in Christianity, as Gal. 2: 20 bears witness.

It is an incontrovertible fact that the men and women of the world are largely ruled by their bodies. Scripture speaks of man as a tripartite being. He is "spirit and soul and body," placing the three parts in that order, thus giving prominence to the spirit as the most important, since it is the essential and characteristic part which makes man what he is, and distinguishes him from the lower animal creation. The phrase has passed into common use, but people nearly always invert the order, and speak of "body, soul, and spirit," thus insensibly betraying the view they take of their relative importance. The spirit, which capacitates man for intelligent intercourse with God, is dethroned. The body, which through its five senses puts him in touch with his fellows and with the earth, is exalted. They do not wish to have to do with God, whilst they very much love and enjoy the earth. Consequently the body becomes of prime importance, and they spend their lives over questions as to what they shall put into it, and upon it, or over it in the way of shelter, and how they shall get the wherewithal to provide it with pleasurable sensations through its various senses, or stimulate its jaded nerves to further pleasing action, and of how they shall check the inroads of the diseases and disorders so frequently provoked by their vices and follies, and stave off as long as possible the approach of death.

What a whirlpool of death has the poor world become as a consequence of all this! God does not, however, leave His saints in its power. They are not to be finally sucked down into its vortex, and it is not His will that they should be meanwhile swept along by its current, for those who are in its grip are on their way to death. It is true, of course, that if a true believer gets so entangled God will extricate him before the bitter end is reached, though this may involve terrible loss, as illustrated by God's dealings with Lot in Sodom.

On the outer rim of a whirlpool the motion is but slow; as the vortex is approached the speed is greatly increased. We are not far removed from the vortex of the world's great whirlpool today. The pace at which "life," as the world terms it, moves, the speed of all great world movements, is greatly increased. Are Christians generally awake to what the situation really is?

We greatly fear that the answer to that question is in the negative, and hence we venture to pen these lines of earnest appeal and exhortation. We beseech our readers to join us in obeying that wholesome Scriptural exhortation, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; consider your ways" (Haggai 1: 7). The very ease of our circumstances in these favoured English-speaking lands lends itself to religion of an easygoing and semi-worldly, if not wholly worldly, type. Proper Christian life, the life that pleases God, does not, indeed, consist in inward gloom and outward sanctimoniousness, "pulling a long. face," as it is popularly called, but then neither does it consist in a piety, however genuine it may be, which goes hand-in-hand with any amount of "innocent" and "harmless" jollification.. Those who follow this latter type may flatter themselves that they present to the world an attractive Christianity, and announce that, "I feel like singing all the time"; yet this "joy-bells" type — as we may call it — is no nearer the thing that Scripture indicates than the other. Not thus did the apostles live.

There are things which really are life, and these are not connected with the earth or the world, and they cannot be purchased with money. For the Christian the possession of money frequently means the death of spirituality, as 1 Timothy 6 shows. Not money but the love of money is the root of the mischief, and yet it is most difficult to possess money without the love of it creeping in, and then money becomes a master and not a slave, and the possessor of it spends it for his own gratification and not for the will of God. And yet money and all the luxuries it procures are not really life. If any of our readers be rich we beseech them to remember that their wealth is to be used in such a way that they be "rich in good works . . . laying by for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold of what is really life" (1 Tim. 6: 18, 19, N. Tr.).

The plain fact is that all the things in which the flesh and the world move are but death. Romans 8 tells us that there are the things of the flesh which are minded by those after the flesh, and the things of the Spirit which are minded by those after the Spirit, and that while the mind of the flesh is death, the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. It also tells us very plainly that "if ye live according to flesh, ye are about to die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (verse 13, N. Tr.). In these words the apostle speaks of things according to their essential character. Death lies at the end of a life lived according to flesh, and whoever lives that life, no matter who he may be, or what God in mercy may do before the end is reached, is making straight for death, and may be said to be "about to die." On the contrary, whoever goes forward in the energy of the Spirit putting to death the deeds of the body has life, in its full and proper sense, before him. For such an one "the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness" (verse 10), i.e., the body is held as a dead thing, for if it gains the mastery of us, so that we are swayed by its desires, only sin is the outcome, whereas when the Spirit controls so as to be the internal means of life, righteousness is the outcome.

We are to present, then, these living bodies of ours to God as things devoted to Him through death, as vehicles for His will because of the acceptance of death as regards the will of the flesh. What this involves is unfolded to us in the succeeding verses, and that by means of a series of exhortations and instructions.

Before coming to the positive side of things we are shown in one brief sentence what it means on the negative side. "Be not conformed to this world." The word used here for "conformed" is elsewhere translated "fashioned," and that for "world" is more literally "age." "Be not fashioned according to this age" is what the apostle has to say to us. This age is a Christ-rejecting age, and we are called to represent Christ in the midst of it. Can there be accord between us and it? And if there is no inward accord, should there be outward conformity? Never!

How many of us are living our lives in defiance of this injunction? How many of us are content to take our cue from the world, and run after its fashions, and be carried unresistingly with its tide, and do things just because "everybody's doing it"? The fact that "everybody's doing it" ought to be to us a pretty plain intimation that it is a highly desirable thing that we should not do it. We are separated and distinct from the world, if in truth we are the children of God. Let us not then ape the ways of the world and so become guilty of the form of hypocrisy to which Christians are liable, viz., that of pretending not to be what we are.

When we turn to the positive side of things we do not find reformation urged as the opposite to conformation to this world. It is rather transformation that we need. Here the apostle uses a word which is only used on three other occasions in the New Testament. Twice it is used of the transfiguration of our Lord, and the third occasion is in 2 Cor. 3: 18, where it is translated "is changed." The consideration of its use in these passages may help us to grasp its significance here.

Moreover the exhortation is to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind," for it is always the Divine way to work from the within to the without. Our bodies are controlled by our thinking faculties, and our very thinking faculties need to be renewed; a striking witness this of how deeply and fundamentally the fall has affected us, and of how impossible it is for us even to think aright except as the fruit of God's work. The reference here, however, is not to the new birth, for that has been accomplished in the case of every true child of God, and is consequently never a subject of exhortation, but to that progressive and daily renewing wrought by the Holy Spirit as our minds are enlightened by and brought into subjection to and into harmony with the Word of God.

At this point again some serious questions suggest themselves. How many of us give sufficient time and place to the Word of God and prayer to get our minds renewed in any thorough fashion? How many of us really want to get them renewed? Some of our Christian acquaintances may tell us with considerable emphasis that they see no harm in this, that, and the other, and that they mean to go on and enjoy themselves, when, if only a little renewing took place, they would not only see the emptiness of these things that charm them, but they would lose all taste for them. Are there any of us secretly afraid to give more than a perfunctory surface reading to the Scriptures, lest too much light should shine into the conscience and disturb it? Alas! if so it should be.

Oh, let us earnestly seek that our minds be so enlightened and renewed that we not only see what is the will of God, but come to delight in it. Then, our renewed minds controlling our bodies, they will be presented as a living sacrifice to God, and we shall be transformed into the character of Christ. The will of God is good and perfect, no matter what our attitude may be; but then we shall know it to be not only good and perfect but acceptable also, and we shall not only know it to be all this, but we shall prove it to be so. The will of God will be practically wrought out to the point of demonstration in our lives.

The rest of our chapter works out in detail for us what the will of God is. The very first indication of the mind being renewed, and the work of transformation being wrought, is that we cease from high thoughts of ourselves, as verse 3 shows. Nothing is more deeply ingrained in the natural mind than self-esteem. One of the first marks of a renewed mind is humility. Then we begin to think soberly, and to know that our real measure is not to be judged by intellect or money or social status, but by faith; it is, "according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."

The second indication is that we begin to think of others. The natural mind is self-centred. The renewed mind becomes enlarged. We discover that we are not the only child in the family of God, or so many isolated units, but rather are intimately connected with all other believers. It is with us just after the analogy of the human body; though many we are "one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." This delivers us from selfishness. We begin at once to recognize that what God may bestow upon us is not for our own use and benefit alone, and still less for our own glorification, but is to be utilized for the good of all the members of that one body.

From this it flows that we shall not all be doing the same things. There is unity, for there is but one body. There will be diversity, however, for there are many members. Hence, as the latter part of the chapter shows, we must see to it that we know what is the work or service which is allotted to us each in the will of God; then we are to give ourselves to it with all diligence, and be careful that it is done in the gracious spirit of Christ Himself. Thus we shall be carrying out in detail that intelligent service to which we are called.

Just After Conversion

Just After Conversion.

Edification Vol. 1, 1927, page 29.

F. B. Hole

JUST before conversion we were full of fears and questionings. The fact is, our consciences were at work and well we may thank God that they were. Our sins rose up before our memories. They witnessed against us and we found ourselves impeached by the unerring Word of God, and consequently, conscience spoke against us with an accusing voice.

Every Christian reader has known something of this. There is no such thing as cleansing from sin without there being conviction of sin. First sin is confessed by man, then it is covered by God. As David put it, "I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin" (Ps. 32: 5). The

ACCUSINGS OF CONSCIENCE

are a very real and pressing thing and once really produced by the action of the Spirit of God there is no true rest until they are silenced.

What silenced them? One thing, and one thing only — the knowledge of the finished work of Christ. We probably turned first of all to our own works. They were but human, imperfect and unfinished. The atoning sacrifice of Christ was divine. perfect and complete. Hence His dying cry,

"IT IS FINISHED" (John 19: 30).

Here was that which presented a full answer to the accusings of our consciences. "Who is he that condemneth?" asks the apostle. Can even our own consciences condemn? NO, for "It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God" (Rom. 8: 34).

Having turned to God and got free of the accusings of conscience many of us, however, fell victims to

MISGIVINGS OF HEART,

and hence, just after conversion, we found ourselves not as happy as we knew we rightly should be. Some may be a prey to these misgivings today — even as you read these lines. If so, it is because you are in some way seeking a point of assurance and repose in yourself.

You are not seeking any merit in yourself. Doubtless you are clear as to that and have learned to look away from yourself and wholly to Christ in that connection. But are you seeking stability and constancy and fixity in yourself? Something so constant and stable that you might be able to congratulate yourself as being unquestionably one of the people of God because things are so satisfactory in the realm of your feelings!

You are bound to be disappointed in that direction. A far more advanced Christian than either you or I had to write,

"Yet, Lord, alas! what weakness

Within myself I find,

No infant's changing pleasure

Is like my wandering mind."

And just as he could not find any point of assurance or anchorage in himself and his spiritual state and feelings neither can we.

The fact is, God does not want us to find anything in ourselves. Not what we are or can do, but the finished work of Christ silences all accusings; and so also not our feelings, but the definite and abiding Word of God dismisses all misgivings. If we would say goodbye to all misgivings we must know the force of the words,

"IT IS WRITTEN" (John 8: 17; John 10: 34).

The Jews came to the Lord with a false insinuation. "How long dost Thou make us to doubt?" said they, "if Thou be the Christ tell us plainly." His answer was, "I told you." He gave them His spoken word which was the Word of God. A moment later they accused Him of blasphemy. His reply commenced thus — "Is it not written in your law" — referring them to the Scriptures. Today we have not the spoken Word of God. This ceased with the disappearance of the inspired apostles. The written Word of God remains and is the antidote to all doubts. It alone has authority.

There is no authority in our impressions or feelings — even those which may be produced by the Spirit of God. Nothing that fluctuates and changes can be authoritative. A clock which gained yesterday and lost today is not one by which people will set their watches, even if it happens to keep good time to-morrow. Somewhere there is laid up the authoritative yard measure. It is correct to the ten-thousandth part of an inch and deposited where it is beyond the reach of alteration or tampering. It is the authoritative standard by which all good measures may be tested. But then it is unalterable.

In things spiritual therefore, we need not have misgivings. He who has not really trusted in Christ should have none as to his position. He is not saved and should know it. We who have trusted in Him should have none. The Word of God declares we are justified. We know it, taking God at His Word.

Some of you would tell me that you are converted and have the assurance of your justification and place of favour before God, yet you are not really very happy. You have a vague sense of disappointment and emptiness and failure. The fact is, you have

LONGINGS OF SOUL,

and they are not satisfied.

Now listen! They never will be satisfied until you discover in Christ an Object to command your affections, a Master to control your life and service. When His disciples were in the storm on the lake they were filled with fears and longings for land. Jesus appeared and made Himself known to them in the words,

"IT IS I" (John 6: 20),

that was enough. Their fears ceased and their longings were satisfied.

Have you ever yet, by faith, caught a soul-satisfying vision of Christ in His glory? Does He seem to you so attractive that you catch a little of Paul's spirit — "that I may win Christ . . . that I may know Him... that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3: 8-12)? Does His service occupy and delight you so that you can also say with Paul, "Whose I am and whom I serve" (Acts 27: 23)? It so you will not be amongst those who drift on aimlessly and unhappily with the world's stream.

The aimless and objectless person is a sorry sight wherever you find him, and never more so than when it is an aimless and objectless believer that is before you. Be not thus, good Christian reader, we beseech you. The Lord Jesus Himself is infinitely worthy not only of your heart's trust, but also of your heart's adoration and service. If hitherto you have been asleep as to this do not slumber on another hour. "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light," or "shine upon thee" (Eph. 5: 9). Oh, what a transformation is wrought in the heart and life of one who comes into the shining of Christ!

Happy indeed it is if this blessedness is ours, not at the end of our careers, but at the beginning of them — just after conversion.

Keeping the Unity of the Spirit.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 273 & Vol. 7 page 326.)

During the first twenty years of the Christian era, we find, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, circumstances arising which seriously imperilled the oneness of heart and soul which so happily marked believers at the beginning. The occasions were these:-

1. The murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews (Acts 6).

2. The gathering out of the church from amongst the Samaritans (Acts 8).

3. The conversion of the first Gentiles — Cornelius and his friends (Acts 10, 11).

4. The controversy as to the law of Moses and the Gentiles (Acts 15).

In each case we see how the disruptive forces at work were checked and defeated, and a brief survey of them may not be without its usefulness for us today.

Two things stand out prominently, and must be carefully distinguished. First, the wisdom of God, that wrought providentially behind the scenes; second, the grace and wisdom of the apostles and early Christians, which was the human element in the case.

As to the former we can only observe it with wonder, and pray that at the present time, when disruption has been so sadly achieved, a like providence may yet be operative towards God's saints. As to the latter, let us note and inwardly digest with exercised consciences that at least we may learn how better to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4: 3). We shall thereby prove afresh how these God-breathed Scriptures are profitable "for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

1. The murmuring of the Grecians.

All the disputants in this case were Jews nationally. The only differences were matters of upbringing and tradition. The Grecians, or Greek-speaking Jews, whose ancestors had for long been outside the boundaries of Palestine, naturally had a different view of things from the Hebrew-speaking Jews, who had been carefully guarded in the land under the strictest regime. Suspicions therefore were easily excited and quickly expressed. The matter in question was wholly of a mundane order.

The workings of God's providence in this case are not clearly manifested. The human side, however, is distinct enough. We would specify three things.

First, the apostles dealt with the difficulty, as soon as it was apparent. They did not wait for it to spread and grow. "Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!"

Second, they would not suffer themselves to be diverted from their great work of ministering the word by any such dissensions, but cast the responsibility of a godly settlement upon the whole body of saints.

Third, the believers at large recognized that it was an occasion to express and confirm their interest in these Grecians, who were more or less strangers in their midst, and hence chose as overseers men whose names indicate that they were mainly selected from the Greek-speaking saints. Unselfishness triumphed. Suspicions were allayed.

2.

The work at Samaria.

No dissension was actually manifest here. It was a case of prevention rather than of cure. The antipathy between Jew and Samaritan was of long standing. Such Scriptures as 2 Kings 17: 24-41, and John 4, enlighten us as to it. With these before us, it is easy to see how Philip's very successful evangelistic labours opened up a dangerous question. On the one hand, the church in Jerusalem might wish to repudiate any real connection with believers from amongst their despised rivals. On the other hand, it would have been natural for the Samaritan church to have nursed its own feelings, and refused to be in any way guided by the authority of the apostles at Jerusalem. In this way the scandal of division might early have appeared in the form of a Samaritan "church" and a Jerusalem "church."

In contrast with the first occasion, the main thing mentioned in this chapter is the providential working of God. Philip preached, many believed and were baptised, but no Holy Spirit was given. The usual procedure was in this case suspended, and it was not until the two apostles came upon the scene, with prayer and laying on of their hands — symbolic of the identification of the apostles and the Jerusalem saints with the believers in Samaria — that the Holy Spirit was given. By this simple variation on God's part it became out of the question for the Jewish saints to repudiate the Samaritan, or the Samaritan to declare their independence of the Jewish.

On the human side we have only to notice the fact that the apostles were subject to the leading of God. They did not attempt to give rein to natural prejudices by denouncing Philip as irregular in his proceedings, or seizing upon the absence of the gift of the Spirit, as a reason for discounting, if not entirely disowning, the whole work at Samaria. They bowed to the sovereign grace of God, and selected from their number, to go to Samaria, two who ranked amongst the very chief of the apostles — Peter and John.

3.

The conversion of Cornelius.

This was perhaps an even more critical moment than the foregoing, inasmuch as the Jewish feelings in regard to Gentiles were far more pronounced than against the Samaritans.

The providential actions of God were many. The angelic messenger to Cornelius; the vision granted to Peter; the instantaneous giving of the Spirit upon reception of the Gospel, without baptism having taken place, as was the case with the Jew in Acts 2, which rendered it impossible for any Jew, however great his natural prejudices, to forbid the baptism and formal reception of these Gentile believers. All these show us how God was at work, manipulating events so that every barrier, which might have withstood the thorough fusion of both Jew and Gentile in the one body of Christ, was swept away.

On the human side the outstanding feature was the action of Peter, in taking "certain brethren from Joppa" (Acts 10: 23), "these six brethren" (Acts 11: 12), with him.

By this wise act he not only made sure that there was ample witness of what really transpired, but he did away with any suspicion that he acted behind the backs of his brethren. There was nothing underhand, no attempt to settle a thorny question apart from fellowship with his brethren.

The effect of this is seen in Acts 11. When in conference at Jerusalem certain brethren of extremely circumscribed views raised difficulties, the evidence was so conclusive that they ended by admitting God's work amongst the Gentiles, and glorifying God for it.

4.

The controversy as to the Law.

This was perhaps the most dangerous crisis of all. Though Gentiles were admitted into the fellowship and privileges of the church, yet there were many Jewish believers who wished to maintain a Judaized or legalized form of Christianity, and therefore to Judaize the Gentile converts. This was stoutly resisted by Paul and those with him.

Galatians 2: 1-5, throws light upon this occasion, showing how uncompromising Paul was because he saw that vital truth was at stake. It shows also the working of God's providence inasmuch as it was "by revelation,'' that Paul went up to Jerusalem about this matter. The church at Antioch "determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up" (Acts 15: 2); but behind the scenes was that revelation to Paul, which was the governing factor.

On the human side we notice three things: —

First, the obedience of Paul and his companions to the revelation. They might naturally have felt that they were throwing away their case  - which they knew to be right and of extreme importance  -  by consenting to go for a settlement into the city where the influence of their opponents was so great. They waived all natural feelings and calculations, and obeyed.

Second, free but sober discussion was allowed. The case was freely stated on both sides. No attempt to score points, by descending to a level sometimes displayed by barristers arguing in law courts, is recorded. There was much discussion, as verse 7 states. The truth is great, and therefore it fears no investigation.

Finally, Peter cited facts and James cited Scripture, and then stated his judgment, founded upon both, to which judgment all those present agreed. Facts, and Scripture which interpreted the facts, carried the day. There was no appeal from these things. They were conclusive, and to them all bowed.

Is it not evident that had similar wise procedure been followed, aided by similar desires for the unity of the saints of God as members of the body of Christ, the history of the church through the centuries would have been very different from what it has been?

And is it not equally evident, that even though the history of the church has been so full of failure and disruption, our responsibility to keep the unity of the Spirit still remains, and that these. Scriptures may help to make us wise, unto salvation from further disruptive tendencies?

In the Kingdom of God

In the Kingdom of God.

Romans 12. 1-11.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 23, 1931, page 249.)

Yesterday this Scripture somehow began to take shape in my mind as my message for you, and last night I had it very definitely confirmed. I was visiting a dying brother, a man who has not played a very conspicuous or great part in Christian work — he has just pegged away and served the Lord for a good many years in his own small corner. When I came to leave him I said, "Now I am going back to High Leigh where many young Christians are gathered." He said, "Tell them there are some little jobs left for them to do — it is not only the great jobs but the little jobs." He has been in the building trade. "Tell them to do the little jobs well and clear up as they go along." Well, I will hand on his message to you, my young brethren, tonight. There is a great tendency to overlook the little jobs; they are not less important than the big ones, as our Scripture shows.

We are reminded here that we are one body in Christ and hence we all have different functions, and the great thing is for each to fulfil his own part, whether apparently big or little. In connection with the divine scheme of things it is necessary not only to do what the Lord will have us do but to do it in the right way. You will notice all down through these verses that seems to be the point. Let the prophet by all means prophesy, but prophesy according to the measure of faith — or the minister, let him wait on his ministering — or the teacher on his teaching, or the exhorter on his exhortations — or he that giveth let him give with simplicity. The ruling is to be done with diligence — he who shows mercy is to do it with cheerfulness. To do not only spiritual things but to do them in a spiritual way; material things also are to be done in a spiritual way — even your giving must be done in a spiritual way. That seems to be the great point in this passage. The fact is that the apostle is bringing home to the believers in Rome what it really means to be in the Kingdom of God. You may remember that when he reviews his ministry before the Ephesian elders he seems to divide it into three parts. I have preached the gospel of the grace of God. That has been the first great item in my ministry. But then he speaks gf going among them all — the circle of the saints — preaching the Kingdom of God. Thirdly he speaks of his faithfulness in not shunning to declare unto them the whole counsel of God. We get the gospel of God, the Kingdom of God, and the counsel of God, and we must not omit the one in the middle. The Kingdom of God means not only that the rejected Jesus is the rightful King, and that the hour is coming when He will take His throne, but the point is, everywhere he went among the saints he took care to make them to see the bearing of the truth that he unfolded. He said, Brethren, you have been brought into the divine kingdom, subjects of divine birth — you are under divine rule — the sway of God has been established in your hearts and that means this, and this, and this. He showed them what it meant. Personally I am heartily glad for the plain words that have been spoken tonight; it is a note that has been missing; we have not had the Kingdom of God pressed as it ought to have been. There are these heavenly things, but what is the reflex light they cast upon us here? The Apostle Paul preached the Kingdom of God and brought the truth to bear in a practical fashion. You may depend upon it, it is that we want today. Having pointed out the way in which he is setting the Kingdom of God before the Roman believers, he shows them the alteration it is going to make in their lives, the new character coming out in them as subjects of the kingdom. At the beginning of the chapter we get that which underlies all this — what it is that is going to enable us to carry out these exhortations. A moment has to be reached in our histories when our hearts, being constrained by the mercies of God — referring to the latter part of Romans 11 — absolutely surrender themselves to Him.

We are the subjects of divine mercy. We deserved nothing, but we are enriched with practically everything. If the sense of divine mercy takes possession of our hearts, then we shall see that our bodies, which were the vehicles in which sin wrought and dominated us — that were used by us to express all our sinful wilfulness — we must now present as a living sacrifice, something wholly and livingly devoted to God — to be absolutely at His disposal, set apart for Him and His service and acceptable to God, seeing it is our reasonable and intelligent service. In the sixth chapter, where we get very similar truth, I believe we get the verb yield used in a twofold way — first, the Kingdom as an accomplished fact, absolutely yielded, then secondly in a more present sense, going on yielding. Has a moment ever been reached in our histories when we have been brought to the point of presenting our bodies a living sacrifice — something now devoted to God — set apart for His use, never to be recalled? It is our only reasonable service. That is the body — the next verse speaks about our mind. Be not conformed to this world — be not fashioned according to this age. You say, He is going to talk now about our dress. Well, Suppose I do! I know we are very largely the victims of the fashions, yet we should be careful to dress as becomes godliness. But after all it is not primarily a matter of dress, it is a matter of the mind. "Be not fashioned according to this age: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." We get down beneath that question to a more fundamental matter. Be not fashioned in your mind according to this age. There are terrible fashions in the mind regions — the scientific world is full of fashions. Scientists seem to be the greatest devotees of the goddess fashion that you can find anywhere. No Parisian fashions exert their sway over minds in the way that the scientific fashions do. We are not to be fashioned according to this age, but rather transformed; we are to be non-conformists in this sense, not reformists — but transformed by the renewing of our minds. God begins at the citadel, in the very centre of our beings. Some may say, Be practical and tell us how to get our minds renewed. Soak them in the Word of God prayerfully, in dependence upon the Spirit of God. As we progress and prayerfully study the Holy Book it is wonderful how our minds get shaped according to God. We unlearn our own thoughts, we begin to imbibe divine thoughts. Thus our minds are renewed and we prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, we say, it is such a perplexing thing to decide, what is this will of God? The point here is not that you may discover, but that you may prove the will of God. How do you prove a thing? You put it to the test. A person tells you that if you put certain chemicals together they act in a certain way — you prove and test it and it works. It is not mere theory, it is proven in every day life — it is a practical proposition. In the same way you and I are to prove what is the will of God, and as we prove what it is we shall discover it is good, acceptable and perfect. We shall of course learn incidentally that our own wills are bad, and imperfect and very disastrous. Naturally we love our own wills — you and I are to have our wills removed that we may prove and carry out in practice what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. How much is our Christianity purely a theoretical thing? How much have we proved, experimentally proved, the blessedness of the will of God? We shall experience it if we present our bodies a living sacrifice to Him, and if our minds are not dominated by what the world thinks.

We come then under the influence of the Word of God. We think, reverently, His thoughts after Him, and are subject to Him. Our minds renewed, our bodies presented as living sacrifices, all these lovely things detailed in the chapter are the outflow. If we have not had such a moment in our histories, may the Lord give us the joy of having such a moment and to have it before we sleep tonight, for His Name's sake.

The Kingdom of Heaven. Law and Grace

The Kingdom of Heaven. Law and Grace.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 12, 1920, page 160.)

To the Editor of SCRIPTURE TRUTH.

DEAR BROTHER IN CHRIST, — Having recently received through the post a series of controversial publications by an American author, dealing with such subjects as "The Kingdom of Heaven," "The Sermon on the Mount," "Law and Grace," it occurs to me that others of your readers may also have received them, and that therefore a few remarks on these subjects may not be out of place in your columns.

First, then, I would like to point out that where the word "law" occurs in our Authorised Version of the New Testament we have to draw a twofold distinction.

To begin with we must distinguish between "the law" and "law" without the definite article in the original Greek. If we possess the "New Translation" of the late Mr. Darby we can pretty easily do this, even though we are unable to handle the Greek text. "The law" is specific, and indicates the law of Moses whereas "law" is characteristic, and sets before us rather that principle or feature which characterized the law of Moses, viz., God formulating and codifying His righteous demands upon man, and then basing His attitude towards man upon man's attitude towards Him as revealed by his response thereto.

Then we have also to distinguish between both the above meanings and the use of the word in such a passage as Romans 8: 2. Here it bears the same sense as it does when we speak of the laws of the universe, or more specifically of the law of gravitation, and indicates some controlling force which operates with uniformity of action upon all under its power.

Bearing these things in mind, let us proceed to a few distinctions of a practical nature.

Adam was set in responsibility under law, though the law was not instituted until 2500 years later. In his case there was but one prohibition, but his attitude towards that one prohibition regulated God's attitude towards him. For so long as he kept it he lived, when he broke it he died.

Consequent upon his fall, Adam and his posterity became subject to the dreadful tyranny of "the law of sin and death" of which Romans 8: 2 speaks. Yet for many centuries no further laws were given by God, and hence what characterized mankind was not lawbreaking, but rather lawlessness. This was the great feature of the antediluvian age.

With the call of Israel out of Egypt the law was given through Moses to them. Henceforward there was a people possessing the law and, of course, "under law" as to the principle of their relations with God. The law of Moses only proved how thoroughly they were dominated by "the law of sin and death."

Meanwhile the Gentiles remained, up to Christ, openly dominated by the law of sin and death, though quite lawless as to their relations with God.

Now Christ having come, redemption having been accomplished, and the Spirit having been given, believers are not under the law, nor are they even "under law," as to the principle of their relationship with God. They are rather "under grace" (Rom. 6: 14), and "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" sets them free from "the law of sin and death." Thus they are kept "under law to Christ" or "legitimately subject to Christ" (1 Cor. 9: 21), and enabled to fulfil all the righteous requirements of the law (Rom. 8. 4) — not as thereby attaining or maintaining a position before God, but rather as the fruit of the grace that has set them already in the position of richest favour.

If these things are clearly grasped we shall have no great difficulty in settling various points which have been raised as to "the sermon on the mount" (Matt. 5-7).

Is the sermon on the mount law? This is one question which is much agitated. What is the answer?

Clearly it is not the law of Moses, and yet in those chapters we hear the voice of the original Law-giver, setting before us, as has well been said, "not a new code but a new edition of the old one," "clearing up His own intentions and disallowing the perversions of men." This is particularly marked in Matt. 5: 17 to 48. He announces Himself as the One come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil, or give the fulness of it. Hence the repeated words, "Ye have heard that it was said . . . But I say unto you . . ." Note Matt. 5: 20, 22, 26, 28, 82, 84, 89, 44, and Matt. 6: 2, 5, 16, 25, and 29.

But if these chapters are not "the law," are they "law"? In other words, did our Lord base His teaching in them on grace previously known and received which had established His disciples in their relationships with God-; or did He lay down these further and more spiritual instructions as being themselves, if kept, the basis of such a relationship? Were they based — in a word — upon the principle of "do and live" which is law, or "live and do," which is grace?

Other Scriptures will help us here. Your readers will remember that wonderful statement in John 1: 17. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." This prepares us for what we find in Matt. 5: 7. A definite strain of grace runs through those chapters. Under the Lord's teaching, thus early in His ministry, God appears to the disciples in a new light as "your Father which is in heaven." Pretty clearly there is nothing legal about such a conception as that.

And yet we have equally to remember Gal. 4: 4, 5, which tells us that "God sent forth His Son . . . made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Here the striking fact meets us that though our Lord Jesus came into the world "full of grace," yet He came "under the law," though indeed His object in so coming was to accomplish redemption from law and bring His saints into a position where they might be able to rejoice in the grace He brought.

Allow me to propound a question! When did our blessed Lord Himself cease to be under the law? He came into this world under it; did He, for instance, cease to be under it when He left the seclusion of Nazareth and launched forth in public ministry? Or when? The answer is, He ceased to be under it when He redeemed His people from under it by DYING on the cross under its curse (Gal. 3: 13). Hence the ground on which Paul was "dead to the law" was simply this, "I am crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2: 19, 20).

Your readers must also bear in mind the drift of the great argument of Heb. 9 and 10. Let them particularly consider Heb. 9: 11-14, and Heb. 10: 1, 2, 9-17. Nothing can be plainer than that such a great fundamental blessing of grace as a conscience purged "from dead works to serve the living God" or, "no more conscience of sins," consequent upon being "once purged," could only be known and enjoyed AFTER the death and resurrection of Christ.

The sermon on the mount is Matthew's record of the early teachings of the Son of God come full of grace and truth, and yet come under the law. As yet redemption is not accomplished, the blood that purges the conscience and sets the soul in the liberty of grace is not shed. There IS no proper release from law and its claims until He DIES, and the whole ministry of our Lord was transitional and progressive up to that point. The sermon on the mount then is law, but in it the clouds of Sinai are wearing thin and we discern the glow of the sun of grace behind them. With His death and resurrection the clouds rolled away and the sun shone forth in its strength.

Another much-discussed question is the following: To whom is the sermon on the mount addressed? or to use the words of another, "Are the commandments found in the sermon on the mount the law which God has given to His own children in this dispensation, or are they the law of a yet future kingdom?"

Taking the question in its latter form and giving a matter-of-fact answer, we have to reply, "They are neither one nor the other," for, answering the question, as first stated, we can only reply — It was addressed to the disciples (see Matt. 5: 1, 2). Subsequently some of these disciples became apostles, and later still, when the Lord had died, risen, and ascended, these disciples became the nucleus of the church of which Matthew 16: 18 speaks, and they were definitely incorporated as such by the baptism of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. But at the time when the Lord addressed to them the sermon on the mount they were not in the Church position, nor had the Lord even announced His intention of building His Church. The first intimation of this was as recorded in Matt. 16.

A contrast has been drawn between Matthew 5-7 and John 14-16, and very justly so. The former gives us a set discourse of the Lord to His disciples in the early days of His ministry, the latter a set discourse to the same just at the close of it. The contrast is most marked. The former discourse in all its parts dwells on what the disciples were to be for God, the latter on what the whole Godhead — Father, Son, and Spirit — would be for them; and the obedience to the Lord's commands and the keeping of His words that is enjoined, is clearly based upon the revelation then made of the disciples' new position before the Father and their relation to Christ as branches sharing the life and nature of the vine.

Your readers will indeed do well to carefully and prayerfully ponder these two passages, as an appreciation of the true character of the sermon in the upper chamber and afterwards will greatly help in a correct appreciation of the character of the sermon on the mount. It will not be difficult to see that law is the prevailing feature of the one in the light of the grace which is the chief feature of the other — always remembering that law sets before us what we should be for God and grace what God is for us.

In pondering the sermon of the upper chamber, let John 13 and 17 be read. The one gives the preface and sets the scenes for the discourse, the other gives its grand conclusion in the great "High-priestly" prayer of our Lord. It is in these two chapters that we find the standpoint from which the Lord spoke. The cross was actually a few hours ahead of Him, but He spoke as one in spirit beyond it, treating it as something already accomplished (see John 13: 3, 31, 32; John 17: 1, 4, 11). It is this that accounts for the wonderful nature of the discourse, and for the fact that He now spoke of things of which He had not spoken at the beginning of His ministry (see John 16: 4).

To sum up: The sermon on the mount was addressed to the disciples in their then character as a godly "remnant" or "seed" in the midst of Israel. They were, in the parabolic language of John 10, "His own sheep," who recognized the Shepherd when at last He entered the Jewish fold. The Shepherd did indeed purpose to die out of the Jewish fold and thereby make a way of exit for them, but that great event was not yet.

I hasten to conclude, but before doing so I would again beg your readers to carefully weigh the closing part of John 16: 4, because the question which underlies all these discussions is simply this: Have the synoptic Gospels a transitional character? John's gospel is quite distinct, as they know, and starts with Christ's rejection at the very outset (John 1: 5, 10, 11); but it supplies us with this important word of our Lord in which He claims a progressive character as stamping His ministry. To this verse we may add John 14: 25 and 26, and John 16: 12 and 13, wherein He promised His disciples further teaching beyond anything we have in the Gospels. These promises were fulfilled in the Spirit's teaching in the Epistles, when the disciples had reached the full and proper Christian state. How striking the contrast between the "these things" of the Lord's earthly teachings and the "all things" of the Comforter's teaching  - then future. Each of the other three Gospels teas a clearly-marked transitional character, and the transition from a dispensational standpoint is most distinct in Matthew. In Matt. 12 recounts His definite rejection by the leaders; and their blasphemy against the Holy Ghost — the unpardonable sin. It also recounts the fact that He commenced to recall the testimony to Himself as the Christ in the midst of Israel. He made this more definite in Matt. 16: 20. He denounced the unbelieving mass of the people, and symbolically, at the end of the chapter, broke all the old links with them.

In Matthew 13 He commenced His parable teaching and indicated the new form under which the kingdom of heaven should be established during the period of His rejection. Enough had been said in the Old Testament to show that the kingdom so long promised should have its centre of authority and direction in the heavens; but these "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (verse 11) which are unfolded in the parables are things which had been "kept secret from the foundation of the world" (verse 35). Indeed in keeping with these new revelations is this new meaning connected with the kingdom (verse 11); a new method of divine working, viz., not seeking fruit from the existing vineyard but sowing seed to produce fruit (verses 3-8); and a new method of teaching, viz., by parables (verse 10). Hence the scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, brings forth out of his treasure "things new and old" (verse 52).

The first parable of the chapter, then, sets forth that Christ's rejection as Messiah involved a change of dispensation, and the introduction of a period in which man's probation being over God would Himself work to produce the fruit He desired. The remaining six parables, which are similitudes of the kingdom, give us first what the kingdom is like viewed in its external system as seen by men (verses 24-43), and then what it is like in its internal condition as known only to faith (verses 44-50). Thus the kingdom of heaven is set before us in two ways, one in which it embraces all profession of Christ, the other in which it only embraces what is really and vitally the fruit of God's work.

Later chapters of the Gospel give us further similitudes of the kingdom of heaven as well as the first intimation of the building of that which the Lord calls "my Church" in Matthew 16. The transitional period covered by the gospels being over, that Church is seen formally inaugurated in Acts 2, and the truth concerning it fully developed in the epistles.

This is a very brief survey of these important matters, but it may serve to awaken interest, and increase among your readers the number of those "scribes" who are "instructed unto the kingdom of heaven."

Affectionately your brother in Christ,

F. B. Hole.

The Knowledge of God

The Knowledge of God.

Psalm 84.

Notes of an Address by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 18, 1926, page 209.)

While recognizing the Jewish character of this Psalm, we may profitably consider it in the light of the New Testament, and thus make it the vehicle of a little New Testament instruction and encouragement. The theme of the Psalm is the exceeding blessedness of the knowledge of God and, as we might say, adopting an old phrase, the practice of the presence of God. True blessedness is to be found in the knowledge of God Himself. Of course for us to-day the knowledge of God, as revealed in Christ, has reached a completeness that was not possible in the days when this Psalm was written, yet to be put in touch with God Himself, and taste the reality of His presence, that is blessedness indeed, beyond which there is no blessedness to be known.

Now that is the theme of the Psalm. It says, "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts." I hope that in some small degree we can all take this language upon our lips, "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord." Of course, for the godly Jew who was not of Aaronic or Levitical descent there was no access at all into the immediate presence of God. The high priest could only enter the holiest once a year, and then under the most stringent regulations. This meant, as Hebrews 9 tells us, that the way into the holiest, the immediate presence of God, was not yet made manifest. Thank God, for us it is made manifest. We have a new and living way, and a great High Priest over the house of God, who has taken up His seat in the very presence of God. Do we in any measure long for the presence of God?

Can we say, "My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God"? Yes, I think even the youngest and simplest believer in this audience can say that, though admittedly in modified form. Have you never felt that you are going through a world which is just a wretched sham, that there is no real truth in the world? The world is dominated by the god of this age. He is a liar and the father of it. Truth has come out in Christ. We go through a world where things are not what they seem to be, and our souls long for that which is true and real. Give me the living God in a world of death like this, we cry. You may say, "I wish my heart always so cried out." So do I. Still, it does cry out. Your heart, though you have been but recently converted, surely enough does cry out for the living God. You never find absolutely unalloyed satisfaction and joy other than in the presence of God, now of course well known in Jesus' love.

We want the presence of God, and if anyone said to us, "Why do you want the presence of God? Why is it that you say in the language of the Psalmist that 'A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand,' and 'I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness'?" we could reply, "First because of what God is, and then because of what He gives."

He is a sun and He is a shield. How fully that has been verified in our Lord Jesus Christ! The sun is the Divinely appointed centre of our little solar system. The sun is the light-bearing and the attractive centre that holds the whole system together. That is what God is. All the light and attraction is found in Him. Happy for us if, like the planets, we have swung into the attraction there is found in that great Sun, and find ourselves under His blessed direction!

Remember that there is no region of twilight between darkness and light. We may try to make a kind of third ground, a kind of neutral ground between the two, but you do not find that neutral position here. You find the courts of Jehovah and the tents of wickedness. You may say, "I live in a house where they are all unconverted." Yes, but where does your heart find its home? Where is your mental and spiritual abiding-place? To what spot does your heart resort in its leisure moments? That is a searching question for us all.

We can say He is a sun and shield. He is light and warmth and an attractive centre. What does He give? "The Lord will give grace and glory." In the light of the New Testament we would revise it, and say the Lord God has given the most abundant grace, and very shortly He is going to give the most abundant glory. As Titus tells us, the grace of God which brings with it salvation for all men has appeared, teaching us that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world; looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory. Grace has appeared. The glory is about to appear. "The Lord will give grace and glory," said the Psalmist. We say, "He has given grace, and we stand on the threshold of glory." Verily the coming of the Lord is near. Glory is ahead of us and as to the time between, "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." Do you say, "I am a poor man"? Well, it may be good for you. A little more money might have wrecked you spiritually. He will give you what is good. He will withhold nothing that is for your spiritual good, nothing that will lead to advancement for you in the day that is coming. The Lord will give all that is really good to the one that walks uprightly, that is, in the fear of God.

We have been speaking about the excellence of the realized presence of God. Now in verse 4 you get the first of the three occurrences of the word "Blessed," and they are divided one from the other by the little word "Selah." The "Blessed" of the first section is in verse 4, of the second section in verse 5, and of the third section in verse 12. They evidently occur in what we may call a descending scale. "Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house." Happy, says the Psalmist, are those who have found in the presence of Jehovah a point of repose and dwelling. They are so blessed that they will be still praising Thee. They will have their lips continuously full of praise. They will praise and praise and go on praising. Find the Christian whose heart abides in the blessedness of the presence of God, and you will find one whose heart is filled with praise that springs from-the knowledge of Himself.

I am here reminded of what we get in the second chapter of the first epistle of John, where the aged apostle divides the people of God into three classes — the fathers, the young men, and the children. There is an extraordinary likeness between the three classes of 1 John 2 and the three classes of our Psalm. Here you have what answers to the father. He has reached the source of eternal good and blessedness in God Himself. Blessed indeed is that one who knows God in such a soul-satisfying way that, whether the storms blow this way or that way, he abides in the presence of God, and his heart is continually filled with praise. Probably every one of us here will say, "I wish I were like that, but I do not know much about it." That is how I should speak.

But then, there is an encouragement in the second section. "Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee; in whose heart are the ways." Another translation says, "In whose heart are the highways." Blessed is the man who, if he has not yet found his abiding place in the house of God, has the highways that lead to the house engraved like a map on his heart. The literal simple meaning of those words applied in a spiritual way is something like this: It may be quite true, I honestly confess, I do but very little abide in the presence of God. Instead of being above the storms I am often blown about in all directions and mightily perplexed. Instead of having my heart filled with praises, I am often filled with inward complainings. I get under the power of a thousand and one things that would not affect me in the same way if I were dwelling in the presence of God. Yet I do know the way. I have got the light and truth and direction of the Word of God in my heart.

It is a very good thing if we have. Happy is the man who has before him the highway of blessing. Happy is the one who knows the way of true sanctification, true devotedness, true abiding satisfaction in the "excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Happy is the man who has the highway to the desired end mapped out in his mind's eye. Happy is the man who finds his strength in God while he is on the way. Unhappy is the man whose strength is in himself. "Happy is the man whose strength is in Thee." That is a lesson we have to learn. You say, "I hope I am learning it." Very good; you are on the right road. That is like the young men in 1 John 2.

They are strong, and the Word of God abides in them. As regards the anti-Christian activities of the devil, they have overcome the wicked one. They are not yet "fathers," but the road opens out before them, for they know the Word of God, and it dwells in them.

They pass through the valley of Baca (which means "weeping") and they make it a well. They get into all kinds of troubles and exercises, and out of their very troubles and exercises they draw the waters of spiritual refreshment. It is through our own troubles and exercises that we learn most valuable lessons. It is when we are reduced to a point where we could very well weep that we learn something that will stand us in good stead. Oh, turn the valley of weeping into a well out of which you draw the waters of refreshment and blessing! If you do, you go from strength to strength, and "every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." Thank God, they get there!

But a person may say, "I am afraid I know but very little about this second section, and those people whose strength is in the Lord, and in whose heart are the highways." So you come to the last four verses, and the Psalm closes on a simple note. See how the Psalmist emphasises what God is, because what God is, He is to the feeblest and most failing believer as well as to the most faithful. It is recorded of Mr. Hudson Taylor that, talking in a meeting once, he quoted those lines of Miss Havergal's:

"They that trust Him wholly

Find Him wholly true"-

and said, "That is very nice, but I know something more wonderful than that — those who do not trust Him wholly find Him wholly true." Praise God, so it is. God is what He is, no matter how failing I or any one of His saints may be. God is not what He is because I am very good, and He will not change because I am very naughty. Those who trust Him only ten per cent will find Him as wholly true as those who trust Him one hundred per cent.

How desirable that you and I should walk in communion with God! "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee!" That is like the babes of 1 John 2. We can come in there. We cannot, perhaps, say much about this great strength and these experiences. We hope we may turn the valley of weeping into a wellspring. We want to go on. We feel sure there is no lasting satisfaction in the world.

We believe it is only in God Himself there is to be found that which really satisfies. Oh, that we may know Him, that we may know Christ and explore His love! Then, happy is the man that simply trusts in Him.

Let us start with that — we trust in Him. We are on the road, and we know as we go through this vanity fair of a world, that there is no real, lasting happiness except in the knowledge of God Himself made known to us in Jesus. It is as we dwell in His presence, as we taste the bliss of His company, as we enter into communion with Himself, that we are really blessed, and that we find a satisfaction which abides.

Free-hearted Liberality

Free-hearted Liberality

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 16, 1924, page 129.)

Speaking generally, we are safe in saying that there is no danger in current Christianity of overlooking the money question. The appeals for money are too loud and too frequent, and the methods adopted in order to obtain it are frequently so questionable, if not so utterly worldly, that the whole thing has become a scandal. Thirty years ago we remember seeing an anti-religious cartoon satirising the discord and contention which exists between the various sects of Christendom, and underneath were printed words to this effect: "The one point upon which they are all agreed: 'Now concerning the collection' (1 Cor. 16: 1)." Because of the large measure of truth there was in it this was the most stinging point of the satire.

What is in danger of being overlooked is the spirit and attitude and action of the saints of God where giving in relation to the interests of the Lord is concerned. The incessant cry for money may very easily provoke a reaction in our minds and lead to a careless and indifferent spirit on the subject, so that the genuine claims of the Lord are neglected. It is worthy of note that the Spirit of God has been pleased to give us two whole chapters in the New Testament dealing with this matter, besides allusions to it in sundry other passages. We refer to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.

In these chapters the apostle Paul was dealing with the specific matter of the collection on behalf of the poor saints at Jerusalem, to which he had alluded in the first epistle and also in the epistle to the Romans; consequently he does not touch upon giving to the Lord's servants for the spread of the gospel or the work of the ministry generally. Other Scriptures deal with this side of things, notably the epistle to the Philippians, who are praised by the apostle for their "fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now." He does, however, take advantage of this specific matter to unfold the general principles which govern all Christian giving, and hence we have before us here instructions of abiding importance.

First of all in point of importance comes

THE MOTIVE,

for if this be wrong, all is wrong, no matter how much may be given. Giving must spring from the right source, it must draw its motive force from a worthy direction. What that direction is the apostle indicates in 2 Corinthians 8: 9, saying: "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." The grace of the Lord Jesus operating upon our hearts, produces its own effects in the way of the grace of giving and every other Christian grace. He becomes to us the fountain head of these things, so that even in this sense we rightly sing:

"Lord Jesus, source of every grace,

Glorious in light divine."

At first sight we are inclined to exclaim, "But how great a lever for producing an apparently small result!" Yet is it not ever thus in Scripture? The weightiest considerations are brought to bear upon the simplest details of the Christian's daily life. On second thoughts, however, we perceive that the result is not so small after all. Nothing is more ingrained in man's fallen nature than selfishness, and it was this that accounted for the sluggish action of the Corinthians. When the subject of this collection for the poor saints first came up they willingly agreed to give; the apostle could speak of "the forwardness of your mind" (2 Cor. 9: 2), and consequently he boasted of them to others, "that Achaia was ready a year ago;" yet though there was this willingness in mind and word there was delay in action, and the thing so far had not materialised. There was "a readiness to will," but they did not readily "perform the doing of it" out of that which they had (2 Cor. 8: 11). What could stir their sluggish hearts — or ours — so effectually as a fresh sense of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ?

In this we have a motive which is absolutely perfect, yet even so the apostle thought it well to inform the Corinthians of something which he knew would also stir them, and act as just

THE STIMULUS

they needed. He turns their thoughts to the extraordinary generosity which had marked the Macedonian believers, amongst whom would be numbered the Philippians; indeed, he opens up the whole subject in this second epistle by referring to them.

Several circumstances combined to make the giving of the Macedonians very noteworthy. First, they were very poor; the apostle speaks of their "deep poverty." Second, they were very persecuted, for they were in "a great trial of affliction." Third, they were very joyful, since he alludes to "the abundance of their joy."

Now here we have a combination of things which would never suggest itself to the average man of the world. He would almost certainly link together poverty, persecution and misery; and wish to combine wealth, popularity and happiness. Yet he would be wrong, and the proofs of it lie thickly on every hand. True, the poor and persecuted man of the world is miserable enough; yet he is not so commonly found, for being of the world, the world loves its own: the rich and popular are seldom marked by happiness. Find on the other hand the true but poor Christian, marked by a confession of Christ's name so courageous and consistent that it brings down upon him the persecution of the world, and you will assuredly find one whose soul has such an entrance into the favour of God and the fulness of Christ that his heart is filled with joy.

Here then were these Macedonians, poor, persecuted and yet with a large spiritual entrance into the heavenly blessings and joys of Christianity, and these three things combining, they "abounded unto the riches of their liberality" ("their free-hearted liberality," N. T.). They not only gave to their power, but even beyond their power, as Paul bears them record. How interesting is the light which all this sheds on the epistle to the Philippians, and vice versa. In that epistle their poverty is only once alluded to, and that in a very delicate way, when the apostle says, "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." We have no wish to belittle the general application of these words to any saint in need, and thereby rob them of the comfort they give, but the special application of them evidently is to saints who were poor to begin with, and who impoverished themselves still further by large-hearted giving in the service of God. The persecution they were enduring is alluded to in Phil. 1: 28, and joy, as we know, characterizes that epistle.

All this was intended to have, and doubtless did have, a very stimulating effect upon the Corinthians, who were well-off and inclined to be luxurious as we gather from the first epistle (1 Cor. 4: 8). In spite of the readiness of their mind, they had been entirely outstripped in performance by these poor Macedonians. The apostle, however, does not leave it at that, but carries the matter a point further by holding up as an example

THE MANNER

in which they accomplished their giving. He tells us in the 5th verse that they did it in a way that exceeded all his expectations by first giving "their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God."

It was good that they should give, but doubly good that they should give after such a fashion as this. They might have begun and ended by just giving of their substance; as it was, they first gave themselves to the Lord — they yielded themselves to Him, to be wholly at His disposal — and then as a consequence gave as he directed and all His love prompted; laying their possessions at the apostle's feet, according to His will.

This was giving of a very rare sort to which but few of us have attained. To have so definitely given ourselves to the Lord that we do not regard what we possess as our own but His, is not a common thing. The world may inscribe the words, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," over the Royal Exchange in the City, yet within its courts, and all around, men drive their bargains with a view to obtaining as large a share of God's earth as ever they can, and to keeping the share which they get as much in their own power as possible. Likewise Christians may very lustily sing:

"Nought that I have my own I call,

I hold it for the Giver,"

and yet betray by their outlook and actions that they are very largely holding it for themselves. But if first we give ourselves to the Lord, then all that we have is necessarily at His disposal. How many of us have reached that point in our history where this becomes an accomplished fact?

It may help us to reach that point if we notice

THE CHARACTER

that giving bears in the case of the Christian. It is not spoken of here as generosity, though we do not deny that it has that character, but as righteousness. The apostle quotes from the Psalm, "He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever." And again, he speaks of God increasing "the fruits of your righteousness." Further it is a striking fact that in such a Scripture as Matt. 6 the word for "alms" is really "righteousness," as an ordinary reference Bible will show.

From this it is evident that it is the normal and proper thing for the Christian to be a giver. If he gives, it is not to be regarded as something wonderful and unexpected for which he is to be highly complimented; the case is rather that if he does not give he is unrighteous. It is positively wrong if he receives such a wealth of blessing from God and yet gives out nothing as a result, and not only wrong but dangerous. If a reservoir has a large intake and a choked-up outflow, a catastrophe of some sort is certain. Nothing is more certain than that the believer is set in this world to be a giver, a dispenser of good things to those in need. This is an obligation which grace imposes, and it is the merest righteousness to fulfil it.

If our giving is to be according to God, one thing further we must notice.

THE SPIRIT

of our giving must be right. This the apostle felt in regard to the Corinthians, and hence while setting before them the motive and the stimulus, and indicating the manner and character of it, he is careful in chapter 9 to exhort them to give not grudgingly but cheerfully. He instructed them to give "every man according as he purposeth in his heart," and further he took the precaution of sending certain brethren in advance of his own coming to collect that which they purposed to give, so that "the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness" ("as blessing, and not as got out of you," N. T.). Neither in appearance nor in fact did he wish their giving to be made under pressure. He had no desire to extract unwilling donations, or excite them into a generosity which went beyond the faith and grace which they possessed, and which afterwards they might regret. What they gave, whether sparingly or bountifully, was to be given with cheerfulness and joy.

The fact is, of course, that though money has a place in connection with the work of God, it has relatively a small place. It is a thing of minor importance here, and if taken out of its place it becomes a curse and not a blessing. God loves a cheerful giver, but He never lowers Himself into the position of grasping from man all He can get, as though it were of importance to Him. If we give, then let us give with icy and cheerfulness. If we aim at inciting others to give, as Paul was doing here, let us avoid every method and every artifice which would be unworthy of the God whom we profess to serve.

Our chapters afford us further instruction on this subject which we must notice. There is a very clear statement of

THE PRINCIPLE

which underlies all giving, especially when, as here, it is a case of giving between believers. The apostle states it in these words: "I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened; but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality" (2 Cor. 8: 13, 14). He goes on to confirm his words by a quotation from the Old Testament showing that the rich had nothing over, and at the same time the poor had no lack.

At the moment when Paul wrote the need was amongst the saints in Jerusalem and the supply was found amongst the Gentile saints who had been reached through Paul's labours. A tide of supply was consequently to flow from the latter to the former. In process of time the situation might be exactly reversed, and then the tide should flow in the opposite direction. In the physical creation, as we have often been told, "Nature abhors a vacuum." So it is also in the spiritual realm.

We must remember, then, that the principle which governs our giving is this, if indeed we give as to the Lord. Our natural tendency is to give according to whim or fancy, according to our likes and dislikes, to give more largely to those whom we like and favour and to withhold from those whom we do not like, even though their need be great, and in so acting we serve our own pleasure and not the Lord.

Another thing which comes clearly into view in these chapters is

THE METHOD

which should be pursued in our giving, and not only in our giving, but in the way the gift should be handled by those who have the business of dealing with it. Paul himself was the chief trustee in connection with this collection made amongst the Gentile assemblies, and he took great care that all should be administered with openness and integrity. His own words are, "Avoiding this, that no man should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us: providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men" (2 Cor. 8: 20, 21). In pursuance of this care he associated with himself no less than three brethren, one of them Titus, who was Paul's nominee in the matter. The other two were messengers of the churches and chosen by them for this service. Of these two, one was much esteemed as an evangelist, the other was noted for his diligence.

It is worthy of note that it is only in connection with the righteous distribution of monetary or other benefits that we find the church choosing the men to be employed. The church chose the seven men of good report who were to properly distribute the daily ration, as recorded in Acts 6. The disciples at Antioch sent the relief they collected for the brethren in Judea by men of their own choice in Acts 11. In our passage again we find men acting that were selected by the churches, so that the principle that those who give are the ones to determine who shall handle the gifts evidently has Divine sanction. We have no record in Scripture of the church choosing evangelists, pastors or teachers, or of selecting the elders or bishops who shall exercise rule and oversight. No such authority is committed to the church; it is vested in the Lord.

Lastly we may consider

THE EFFECT

of giving such as is contemplated here. The effect upon the giver varies. If he gives sparingly he reaps sparingly; if he gives bountifully he reaps bountifully. Still, he reaps; and usually in spiritual things. He who sows seed by dispersing abroad what he has to give has to do with a God, "who is able to make all grace abound." ALL grace, be it noted — grace of every kind  - grace in spiritual things and grace in material things. The consequence of this is that the liberal giver is "enriched in every way unto all free-hearted liberality" (2 Cor. 9: 11, N. Tr.). He is enriched by God so that his giving may go on and expand. This enrichment may not take the form of material things; it may please God rather to enrich him in spiritual things, so that he who began by giving a little money may end by dispensing a rich store of spiritual blessing. There is also, of course, the reward which the future will bring, the increase in the fruits of righteousness which may be expected in the coming days, but this is not the main point here.

Still it is strictly true here that as we sow we reap. Many believers who have to complain of lack of joy and liberty and freshness, and who pass their time in a state of chronic weakness, would find the solution of their troubles just at this point. The explanation lies in their lack of compassion and generosity and openness of heart and hand. In one word, they are selfish.

The effect upon those who benefit by the free-hearted liberality is that their hearts, discerning the real source of the gift, are lifted in praise to God. The service "is abundant also by many thanksgivings to God," and God is glorified. Thus not only are the wants of the saints supplied, but there is a harvest for God Himself in which He delights.

Upon the onlooker, such as Paul himself was in this case, the effect is similar to that produced in the recipients. In thus giving, the saints were reflecting to others the grace which they had received, and Paul delighted in it. His thoughts were naturally diverted from the reflection to the great reality which produced the reflection, and lifting up his soul he closes the chapter with the joyous outburst, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." The smallest gift of the humblest believer, if offered in THE NAME, is a reproduction and a reminder of the unspeakable gift, and is consequently fragrant; acceptable to God, and promoting praise in those who behold it.

Will it not be worthwhile for every one of us to diligently cultivate the grace of GIVING?

Liberty, Responsibility, Fraternity

Liberty, Responsibility, Fraternity.

Romans 14: 1 — Romans 15: 7.

Bangor. Tuesday, July 24th.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 30, 1938, page 241.)

We have to remember that there is a very real sense in which the kingdom of God is established today. lf we turn to Exodus 19, we find that when God gave His law to Israel through Moses He said, "Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then . . . . ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests." Israel did not obey His voice, they broke His covenant and ceased to be a kingdom, which in any sense could be owned as His. God has not given up His thought however, and a day is coming in which His kingdom will be established in glory. It will be placed under the son of Man, and extend beyond Israel to "all people, nations and languages," and be "an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away," as Daniel tells us.

This, I trust, we all believe, as we wait for the appearing of Christ in His glory. What we may overlook is that God has not given up His sovereign place even today; and if we have truly received Jesus as our Saviour and Lord, we have been brought into His kingdom, for He has "translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." Paul went about amongst all the saints preaching the kingdom of God, as he reminded the Ephesian elders, in Acts 20, that is, he everywhere insisted upon obedience to the will of God, and showed what that will is in its details. This is what he did in the latter part of his epistles, and nowhere more extensively than in the Epistle to the Romans.

Hence in the passage that I have read we find the kingdom of God referred to, and we are told that in its practical details it does not concern itself with "meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Righteousness does not consist so much in my enforcing what is due to me, as in my paying to all others what is due to them. We must yield to God all that is His due, and give to Christ the place that is His, and then practise everyday righteousness with all our neighbours, both saved and unsaved. Peace and joy in the Holy Ghost are then the practical outcome. Righteousness is the foundation on which they rest. This fourteenth chapter gives instruction in righteousness to all saints.

Nineteen centuries ago Rome was the great world-metropolis, and to it multitudes of people gravitated, Christians amongst them. Those composing the church in that city would doubtless belong to a variety of races, Jews and Gentiles mixed together. Hence among the brethren were bound to be found men brought up with widely divergent customs and ways, and many occasions would arise provocative of arguments and wranglings, especially between Jew and Gentile. Our chapter opens with the words, "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations," or, as the New Translation has it, "not to the determining of questions of reasoning." As we read down the chapter we find that the one "weak in the faith" is the one of Jewish upbringing, who had scruples about matters of meat and a regard for days. Such were to be received, but not in order to argue with them or dictate to them what they should do, or not do. These questions as to meats and days do not agitate us much today, but there are plenty of other questions that do, relating to affairs concerning our daily lives and also our service to the Lord.

We must emphasize that this passage deals with "questions of reasoning," and not matters as to which God has plainly spoken in His Word. Take for example that plain word, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." No reasoning is necessary when we read that there is only one thing to do — obey it. If we do not obey these definite instructions of Scripture we are sure to come under the direct government of the Lord, to our cost. But, on the other hand there are many details of life and service as to which we have to judge by analogy and by comparing scripture with scripture. Here we may not agree, inasmuch as we vary so much in knowledge of the Word and in spiritual growth, to say nothing of our upbringing and temperaments. Now as to things of this kind, if we are not to argue until all are agreed, we must observe the principles laid down in this chapter.

The principles appear to be three, and each carries with it a corresponding exhortation. The first is that of

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

We are set free, as to these matters of reasoning and spiritual judgment, from man's dictation or interference; set free, not to do our own wills, but that our souls may be placed in the presence of the Lord as our Master. This principle is plainly set forth in verse 4, where the question is asked, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" and the statement is made, "To his own Master he standeth or falleth." The Lord claims absolute right over His servants, and no one has any right to interfere and call them before some little judgment-seat which he has erected.

The exhortation attached to this is found in the end of verse 5: "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." Now that evidently infers that to begin with every man must be fully exercised in his own mind as to the point in question. He must aim at discovering for himself what is in the mind of his Lord. This, sad to say, is a thing that many of us are inclined to shirk. We would rather that somebody else had the exercise, so that we might do our thinking by proxy, and have an easy time of it. If we take up that attitude we become like some small boy who comes home from school with his sums, and thinks it delightful if father kindly works them out for him. If that becomes a habit, what is going to happen? Why, one of these days, when father is not available, he will run to somebody else who will produce ridiculous answers to his sums, and make him look very foolish at school. In any event he will remain a little dunce in things arithmetical, and be found out when examination day comes.

If I am to be fully persuaded, and in my own mind, and not somebody else's, exercise of mind there must be, and that exercise is spiritually healthful, and productive of spiritual development. Many remain spiritual dwarfs because they shirk this exercise; and if any man undertakes to judge me, and thus interfere between me and the Lord, he is helping to dwarf me. He may say that if he does not interfere with me, I shall make mistakes. No doubt I shall, but the Lord will know how to teach me valuable lessons by my very mistakes, before lesson time is over; and at all events I shall not be wholly ignorant when the examination day comes.

The examination day is certainly coming. This brings us to the second principle; that of

CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY, which is plainly set forth in verses 10-12 of our chapter. We are all going to "stand before the judgment seat of Christ," and "everyone of us shall give account of himself to God." These are very sweeping statements! Christ is Master and Lord to each of us, and He intends to assert His authority. No man ought to call me before his little judgment seat, because the Lord intends me to stand before His judgment seat of Divine power and omniscience. There every knee shall bow to Him. There we shall each render an account to God and get His mind as to all our course, and His approval where He can bestow it.

The exhortation which is based upon this is found in verse 13, and is in two parts — the negative and the positive. The negative side is this: "Let us not therefore judge one another any more." There is no need to do so. Our judgments are at best partial and imperfect: His judgment which is to come is complete and perfect. The responsibility of each servant is to Him, and we are entrusted with the liberty, of which I have just been speaking, in full view of that fact. The one is the complement of the other.

The positive side of the exhortation is found in these words: "Judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." Now this introduces us to the third principle which is so prominent in this chapter; that of

CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD or FRATERNITY.

Verse 15 states it very definitely: "If thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat,, for whom Christ died." Each one for whom Christ died is my brother, and I am to act toward him "charitably," or, "according to love." If some action of mine would have a destructive effect upon a brother, wounding him in heart and conscience so as to bring him under a cloud, and put him out of action in his service for our common Lord' then far be it from me to do it.

We have seen that the liberty which is accorded to us must be used in the full light of our responsibility to the Lord, which will reach its termination at the judgment seat. Now we find that the brotherhood which has been established also lays a restraining hand upon our exercise of the liberty with which we are entrusted. In certain matters I may be a 'weak' brother, entertaining scruples, to which you, as a 'strong' brother, are an entire stranger. In such a case I must keep my hands off you, and not drag you before my judgment seat, demanding that you conform to my thoughts. In other matters possibly you may be the weak brother and I the strong. Now again I must be careful, lest I despise you and insist upon going my own way, quite regardless of your feelings and of the spiritual damage I may be inflicting upon you. I may be convinced that the thing in question is according to the will of the Lord, and one that, under ordinary circumstances, I should do; but if, under these circumstances, my doing it would work damage to you, then it is the will of the Lord that I refrain from doing it.

Hence the third exhortation which we have in this very important chapter is that which is found in verse 19: "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another." We are to consider with real sympathy all our brethren, and aim at their spiritual good. A brother may be, in my eyes, a very awkward fellow, but I must never forget this great fact — Christ died for him. We need thus to cultivate, what I may call, the family feeling; for whatever our differences of judgment on these questions of reasoning, we all are brethren.

So the Apostle adds, "For meat destroy not the work of God;" and surely we may say, not only for meat but also for days, and for a good many other things beside. The work of God is by far the greater thing. Do not let us destroy the greater thing for the sake of establishing some lesser detail, as has so often been done, sad to say, in the church's history.

When the French revolution took place one hundred and fifty years ago, the great cry was for, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." In practice all three were terribly abused, and ultimately entirely denied. Their boasted liberty degenerated into tyranny of the fiercest kind. Their equality became a farce, and upon its ruins strong imperialism was erected with Napoleon at the head of it. Their fraternity turned into fratricidal strife, the guillotine and the chopping off of many heads. The trouble with them lay in the middle term of their three. Now where they put "Equality," the Word of God puts "Responsibility," and that makes all the difference.

Equality means the flattening out of all things in a horizontal direction, whereas Responsibility draws a straight line in a perpendicular direction, lifting our thoughts from where we stand on earth straight to God in heaven. Man was in the centre for them, whereas God is in the centre for us.

Too frequently has the fourteenth of Romans been skipped by us. Let us give it the place which is its due, for the non-observance of the instruction that it gives has often wrought mischief in the past. If we observe the three principles that it establishes, we shall not only avoid doing damage to the work of God, but we shall further the kingdom of God, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. And further, serving Christ in these things, we shall be "acceptable to God and approved of men."

The Life of Faith

The Life of Faith.

Heb. 10: 35; Heb. 11: 1-4, 8-10, 24-26;  Phil. 3: 1-11; Heb. 12: 1-2.

Address at High Leigh, July 27, 1924.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 16, 1924, page 248.)

As you probably know, the eleventh of Hebrews is like a sermon based upon a text taken from Habakkuk 2: 4. It is a commentary by the Spirit of God on the text, "The just shall live by faith." It was a little information which Habakkuk received when he was much disturbed in mind by the conditions that prevailed in his day. He was granted a wonderful vision. In the third and last chapters of his prophecy we are given a description of God riding in majesty to the deliverance of His people and the accomplishing of His own purposes in-the earth, which is clearly God putting the world right. God will yet ride in majesty in the overthrow of evil. When Habakkuk heard the story we may imagine him saying, "Oh yes, but how long have I to wait?" But the Lord said to Him, "Habakkuk, whilst you wait I will give you the secret of a life according to My mind." The great secret of spiritual life from the beginning is given us in the eleventh of Hebrews, which shows us that it is faith in God —  "The just shall live by faith." It has been suggested that in the three New Testament quotations of that little text you have the emphasis laid on a different word in each case, and very clearly here the emphasis is upon the word "live." The point here is, not that we start by faith, nor that we are saved and justified by faith, but that we live by it. It is the great operative principle of Christian life and, indeed, has always been. It is the great principle on which the people of God of all times have pursued their pilgrim way, and what has been core in the past God will do for us to-day. It is really an inspiring thought that we are actually found in the grand faith-succession, which began with Abel and has been increasing down the ages. All along the line God has been pointing out His thoughts; there has been as time has progressed far more for faith to see. I remember being told when a young man that faith is "light," but I should feel inclined to say that faith is "sight." Revelation is light, but faith is sight. You may have two men in a dark room, and one of them has most acute vision and the other is stone blind — there is nothing to choose between them; but bring them into the light and there is all the difference. One has sight that takes in and appreciates the light, and the other has not. Faith is that peculiar capacity which can receive and appreciate the light when the light shines.

The eleventh of Hebrews begins not exactly with a definition of faith, not what faith is in its essence, but with what faith is in its practice. "Now faith is the substance (substantiating) of things hoped for, the evidence (conviction) of things not seen." Faith is that which turns "things hoped for" into positive "substance" today, and this, of course, is the main argument of this letter to the Hebrews. Some of the Hebrew Christians were beginning to think that they had lost the real thing. Imagine a Jew who had become a follower of that Jesus who was crucified as a malefactor some thirty years before. His old friends say to him, "You are surely a fool. Here is our Temple, with the sacrifices going up and silver trumpets sounding; we have the ancient God-instituted worship and the priests descended directly from Aaron. You can see our religion; you can smell it; you can hear it; we have the real thing. You have got only a little upper room, where your Master gathered His disciples together; but now He is gone, and where has He gone? Really you have got nothing, you are running after mere ideas." This is the language of the world, but the language of the Epistle to the Hebrews is, "Your sacrifices are shadows, you have only a shadow temple. Your priests are shadows, and your altar is only a shadow altar." A few years after the epistle was written the Roman armies came and swept the whole shadow system off the map. We Christians have got the substance, that of which the shadows when first they were ordained of God spoke, but it is no good to us except there is faith that lays hold of the unseen things and turns them into real "substance" in our hearts and lives. The writer goes on immediately to speak of creation: "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God." No one can prove it nor fully understand it. In the same way as by faith we understand that the Bible is the Word of God, we understand this truth of Creation. Faith can and does receive it. Faith is the eye of the soul, or, as I think we shall see in a moment, is more like a telescope which, applied to the eye, brings into evidence things beyond the reach of mortal eyes. I am not speaking of something that only appeals to very advanced Christians; you are not a Christian at all if you have not got faith. If Christ is not a reality to you, you can hardly claim the name of Christian. I am speaking of that with which you have begun, and I want you to see that faith is not only that with which you start, but the operating force on your side that is going to carry you through. Your life in this grand faith-succession comes down from Abraham, Moses and Paul, and. here we are today blessed in the Lord Jesus Christ. However humbly you start, you are in this grand faith-succession. Faith saves the soul, and this comes out in the opening instances of Abel, Enoch and Noah. Faith was that which respectively put them in right relations with God, translated them, saved them from the judgment. Faith does save the soul, but it would not do that were it not that faith is sight that sees the thoughts of God and enables us to hold them: "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain"; it was not by accident, but by faith. How could he have done it by faith except there had been some "light"? I have no question in my own mind that it was the first action of the Lord God in the garden in the day when sin came that was the object of Abel's faith. Again and again he must have heard that story of the ineffectiveness of the aprons and how the Lord God made coats of skin, thus indicating His way of covering.

The day that sin came in, sacrifice came in; that very day the death of some sinless victim had to take place, thus in pictorial fashion God set forth His thoughts. The death of a sinless victim is that which covers man's nakedness in the presence of God, and I suppose Abel heard that story again and again, and would say, "Then that is God's way of approach, that is God's way of maintaining such intercourse as is possible between the fallen creature and Himself." Faith sees and discerns God's mind and God's way.

When you come to Abraham, this state of things is very greatly stressed. Abraham was a man with a telescope, a man who had within his knowledge things that his contemporaries apparently knew nothing about. Abraham lived in a very highly civilized age, as is shown by the excavations which have recently been made, but suddenly there came within his knowledge other things; the God of Glory appeared to him and altered his whole outlook. He began to look at other things, and when he was called to go out into a place and take a wanderer's life, he went not knowing whither he went, and he began to look for a city which had foundations, whose builder and maker is God; he turned his back upon Ur, that city of gods. In the case of Abraham what is emphasized is what he saw. Faith brought that heavenly city built of God into his vision, and we are told how the promises came before him and, with others, he saw them and was persuaded of them, and confessed himself a stranger and a pilgrim in the earth. All these things came into Abraham's view, and faith was to him like a telescope of the soul. What the world thought of Abraham I do not know; he was like a mariner steering his ship by stars which not one of his fellow-mariners had ever seen. They knew about gods and temples and such science as there was approximately two thousand years before Christ, but they did not know God, nor God's country, and Abraham did. He was content to go on in faith, for he had God. Have we all been in the habit of using faith's telescope? Have you before your soul things that the worldling, with whom you have to mix, knows nothing about? Do you steer your course through the world by these things? This is the way the Christian should steer.

The third outstanding character in this chapter is Moses. When he was come to years he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and chose rather to suffer affliction the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Faith not only sees like a telescope, but is something like seeing by X rays. Faith has marvellous penetrating power. It not only sees what God sets before us, but it sees through all the fine objects by which it is surrounded. This is what we find in the case of Moses; he had the power of seeing through a thing, and when you see through a thing its fascination for your heart is broken. What you do not see through exerts a remarkable charm over you, but when you see right through the thing (and the things of this world are rather threadbare) the charm disappears. Moses was a man of faith when he came to years, and he knew how to sum up matters and measure things. He made his immortal choice; he saw through the finery and glory of Egypt. Moses saw the purposes of God in a nation of slaves out of which he had been lifted and put into a position of glory and honour. It might be assumed he would say, "Surely I must keep the place God has given to me"; but he saw through it all, and summed it up rightly, and found it to be but the pleasures of sin, and that only for a season (and a very short season). He saw in this race of slaves a people out of whom was coming Christ, who was to be manifested in the flesh. He said, "I will identify myself with the people of God rather than accept the honour of the world." In this way he is a faint reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he esteemed it greater riches than the pleasures of Egypt. He was prepared to suffer in identification with what was of God, and from that point onward he accepted the thought of suffering.

In the third of Philippians the Apostle Paul was speaking almost in the same strain. You may almost say, "By faith Paul, who before his conversion was a man of eminence with an immense fund of things in which he might glory, saw through all the things which surrounded him, and said, 'I count them but loss for Christ.'" We must remember he wrote these words when he was in a Roman prison near the end of his career. Here was a man who threw up all social position — soon he would have been in the Council of the Seventy, and an acknowledged leader of Israel — but he identified himself with Christ and His interests. He endured in the teeth of opposition for years. They stopped his public labours and left him for years to languish in captivity in the dungeon of Rome. The world would have said, "The man is a fool, he has thrown everything over for a theory." Paul lived long enough: to see everything apparently crumbling away, and everything going wrong, but he says, "I am just exactly of the same conviction. When I met Christ on the road to Damascus I flung all away so that I might have Him for my gain." He would have said, "I did not identify myself with Christ because I thought I was going to build up a church. It was Christ I had before my soul, and He is as bright as ever, in fact He shines more brightly for me in prison than ever He did before."

Christ is to be known now. He is actually living in the presence of God, and we are exhorted to know Him and the power of His resurrection. We are going to know that resurrection with regard to our bodies, but while we are waiting for Him we want to know the power of His resurrection in our spirits and souls, lifting us out of this life into another region of things. How little we know this! You younger Christians may very well desire to know it. It will revolutionise your lives as it will ours. Only remember, Paul is not the one that we are to be primarily occupied with, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That is why I read the opening of the twelfth chapter, which we must not disconnect from the eleventh. Those who witness to us of the fortitude of faith in the Christian race have been enumerated in the eleventh chapter, and now comes the exhortation: "Let us lay aside every weight."

The writer was adopting the language of the athletic contest. The athlete carries no weight beyond what is absolutely necessary, and so we are exhorted to lay aside every weight and sin which so easily besets us, as though it were some kind of obstacle on the ground, and let us run with patience (endurance) the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. The word "look" here means looking off every other object and looking exclusively at Him. He is the One who has traversed the path of faith in its perfection, always doing the things which please the Father, always living in the light of the Father's presence, traversing the whole way of faith from the start to the martyr's crown. He was much more than a martyr, as it goes on to say — by inference, at least — He resisted unto blood striving against sin. All round Him were the powers of evil and of Satan, but He went right through to the finish — death. Ah, fix the gaze of your soul on Jesus, by faith keep Jesus as the living object of your soul! He is seated now at the right hand of God in heaven, and as you keep Him before your soul you will find there is power even today for you to run the Christian race.

Let us beware of the weights and of sin. There are many things which you could not exactly label as "sin," but may become weights, viz., those things which impede our progress. We often hear the question: "Is there any harm in it?" but that is not the question at all. "Is there any good in it?" It is not "Is there any harm in this pursuit, or in that book?" but "Is there anything that will help me on in view of Christ and His glory and kingdom?" God helping us, let us lay aside the weights and be warned against the sin that besets us, and looking to Jesus, let us keep Him before us and run the race which is, I believe, now not long. The day of His coming is near. My dear Christian, let us not at the last give up; we are in sight of the goal, let us run the race of faith to the glory of God.

Life: Lost or Kept

Life: Lost or Kept.

John 12: 24-26.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 26, 1934, page 217.)

Three verses only are before us. The first gives us, in parabolic or illustrative form, the fact and necessity of the Lord's death. The middle verse gives us the two courses that open before us as a consequence of His rejection and death; and indicates the only way that leads to what is proper Christian life. The last verse gives us in one word what that life really is, what must precede it, and the glorious end to which it leads.

Our Lord Jesus, as the single rain of wheat did not love His life — that life which He took up amongst us as Man, in all sinless perfection — but laid it down in death, to take up life in resurrection which should be eternal, and in which a whole multitude should be found as fruit, of the same order as Himself. This, which verse 24 states, is the basis of the verses which follow.

Now I wish to concentrate attention upon John 12: 25, a most remarkable and significant utterance of our Lord. Of all His wonderful words recorded in the Gospels this is the only one, as far as I know, that is repeated (with slight variations) no less than six times. Let the following passages be read: Matthew 10: 39; 16: 25; Mark 8: 35; Luke 9: 24; 17: 33. These, together with the one in John 12 just read, make six. Three of these, as may be observed, are records of the same utterance just before His transfiguration. The others are records of what He said on other and different occasions. It is evident therefore that He enforced this truth (1) when commissioning His twelve disciples; (2) Just before His transfiguration; (3) When giving a prophetic discourse not long before the end of His ministry; and (4) Within a few days of His death.

Every word He uttered is worthy of our deepest attention; but a word that He repeated in this fashion, and that is recorded in Scripture six times over, must especially command our hearts, believing as we do that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. We assume at once that there is something of special importance about it, and on examination this assumption is confirmed. This utterance of our Lord is like a key that opens to us the life that is truly and properly Christian.

"He that loveth his life shall lose it." The word translated life here, is one that usually is translated "soul." It refers to that "soul life" which characterizes man in his natural fallen condition. The soul as distinguished from the spirit (which is the higher part of man, capable of putting him into intelligent touch with God) is the seat of our natural desires and aspirations; and "soul life" is that life of enjoyment of all those things that naturally appeal to us.

This "soul-life" is further defined as being "in this world." The word used here for world (kosmos) is one that we have taken over bodily into our English tongue. It is the opposite of chaos. God's "kosmos" was thrown into chaos by sin; and ever since that the devil has been busy using fallen man to evolve a "kosmos" of his own, with what results we see. The "life in this world" is of course the life of this world — the "soul life" of this "kosmos." Now what about it? Do we love it, or do we hate it? Do we look upon it as something to be gone in for, something to be sought and valued and cultivated, or something to be turned from as worthless, and esteemed as positive loss because calculated to divert from what is infinitely better? WHICH?

Ah! but I love the life of this world. I don't want the doom of this world, but its life is very attractive. I will endeavour to avoid the grosser side of its life while retaining much of it that is pleasant. Do any speak or think thus? Well, if they do let them face the fact that they are going to lose it all. A moment must come when not a shred of it is retained. Lost, lost, LOST, and nothing but an aching void left. What a tragedy!

Yet this tragedy need not be, since "he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." He who turns his back on the soul-life of this world, because identified with the rejected Christ and His death, is going to keep life unto life eternal. Here the word for "life" is changed, for the "life eternal!' is a far higher thing. An illustration of what this means is found in Philippians 3 where Paul recounts all his natural advantages and then shows how he counted them loss for Christ. Christ became so infinitely attractive to him that he hated all else in comparison with Him.

Christ is still in rejection and we are left as His followers in the place where He died. Are we going to spend our days pursuing the life that ultimately we are sure to lose, or are we going to grasp the life that abides and is life indeed? God give us grace to answer this question aright.

And what is this life that is life indeed? In one word it is a life of service. The next verse opens "If any man serve ME." The word is used here in no limited' or restricted sense. It does not mean merely service in the work of the gospel or in ministry of the word. It covers all Christian life. There is the service of the sanctuary as well as the service of the field. Once we were lawless, doing our own wills. Now we are subject to Another: our endeavour being to serve His will in all things. This is proper Christian life.

For this life there is an essential preliminary. It is this: "Let him follow Me." Following must precede all service. If we think quietly for a few moments we shall see that this must be so. We must accept His leadership, and be under His direction if we would serve Him. A person may be an absolutely first class worker in some business department, but if he is continually doing what he thinks best independently of the leadership of his departmental chief, he is continually causing confusion, and he is a very poor servant.

We must be followers of Christ. He is the Son of God and worthy to absolutely command us. He is in rejection and it is our great privilege to be under His orders, His direction, and follow Him. Then our whole lives, and not merely certain departments of our lives, may be characterized by service to Him. Then see the marvellous end to which His service leads. "Where I am, there shall also My servant be." How extraordinary is this intimacy between Master and servant, this community of place. Its like is not seen amongst men. Supposing you were honoured one day with a command to Windsor Castle to speak to the king in his private apartments in that magnificent royal residence. You are ushered within and at last stand in his presence. Would you be likely to comment on the absence of his servants? Would you feel inclined to exclaim, "But your Majesty, where are all your servants? Surely you have some Hundreds in this splendid place." You would hardly speak thus. But if you did, His Majesty would answer to this effect, "Indeed I have hundreds of faithful men and women in this place, who serve me. But they have their own excellent quarters. They do my pleasure, but they are not with me."

We are to be with our Lord and Master because we are not merely servants but friends. The one who really serves Him is permitted to share His thoughts and know His secrets and be in attendance on His person. The very acme of our joy and blessing in eternity will be to "live together with Him" (1 Thess. 5: 10).

And there is more than this, for the next words are, "If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour." What in the way of honours can be compared with this?

Let us endeavour to visualise the scene. Here stands the rejected Nazarene. For a moment it seems as if indeed the world had gone after Him. Yet He knew that in a week's time all would be reversed and the mob be shouting for His crucifixion. Are any going to commit themselves to His leadership and be His servants? Then they must expect a bad time of it. No honour will they get from this world: rather a plentiful share of dishonour will be their portion, even as it was the portion of their Master.

The world however, passes away  - the lusts of it, and the honour of it — and the dishonour it awards likewise. The moment arrives when God rewards His servants. The rejected Nazarene is the mighty Son of God. Faith enables us to perceive this and inspires us to serve Him. The Father appreciates the service done to His Son, and especially that done to His Name in the days of His rejection.

Some 3,000 years ago David became God's king in Israel and many a devoted servant had he. Yet, pretty evidently, no service was of greater value in his eyes than that rendered by the valiant men who cast in their lot with him in the days when he was being hunted and persecuted by Saul. They served him sometimes in but very small things, yet that was the service he so highly rewarded when the kingdom at last became his. These devoted followers of David hated their life in the world of Saul's kingdom, and lost it. But in effect they kept life to the glorious reign of his successor, and they were honoured in David's kingdom.

This is but the type. It points forward to something much more satisfying and abiding. A day is coming when God the Father will publicly honour those who have served His Son in the time of His rejection. How paltry are all earth's honours in comparison with this.

Do we value the honour that comes from God alone? Then let us take the way that leads to it in identification with Christ Himself.

"The Lord is risen indeed."

"The Lord is risen indeed."

F. B. Hole.

CONTENTS

The Fact Itself.

The Key to the Position.

The Believer's Peace.

God's Victory

The Test Case

The Pattern for Believers

Its Present Bearing and Application

The True Beginning

THE FACT ITSELF.

The Patriarch Job propounded two questions of far-reaching importance in the course of his discussions with his friends: the first —  "How should man be just with God?" (Job 9: 2); the second — "If a man die shall he live again?" (Job 14: 14); but to neither of them could a clear and conclusive answer be given. If Job 9 be read, we may see Job's attempts at answering the former question, and how he discards his attempts one by one as worthless, and ends with a cry for a "daysman," or mediator; a cry that was not to be satisfied for perhaps two thousand years. If Job 10 be read, we find him reasoning in favour of resurrection by the analogy of a cut-down tree, which in after years springs to life at "the scent of water." He believed that there would be a resurrection, as the fruit of spiritual intuition coupled with reason, for he could not fall back upon any definite word from God as settling the point. A strain of great pathos runs through both chapters.

Today we occupy a far more privileged position than he, for the Lord Jesus has appeared and has "brought life and immortality [incorruptibility] to light through the Gospel." (2 Tim. 1: 10). His death and resurrection supplies us with the answer to both questions. If He is risen, we may be justified, and the fact of resurrection is put beyond all question.

When the Apostles preached the Gospel at the outset, they used the resurrection of Christ as the spear-head of the thrust which it makes at the consciences and hearts of men. The priestly caste in Jerusalem at that time were Sadducees in doctrine, and hence the impact was felt most keenly by them. They were stirred to fury when the Apostles "preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead." What did they do in their efforts to counteract the apostolic witness?

They imprisoned them, they beat them, they cajoled and commanded them not to preach in the Name of Jesus, they threatened them, they even martyred Stephen. One thing however, and that the one conclusive thing, they did not do. They did not meet them with bold and flat denials, giving conclusive proof that Christ was not risen, and that the Apostles were tricky impostors. They did not do it, because they could not do it: it was not possible.

As we read the opening chapters of the Acts, and note this, we find it the more significant as we remember what is recorded in Matthew 28: 11-15. These same Sadduceean priests had stooped to a big act of bribery in connection with the soldiers deputed to watch the grave — and committed themselves to an even more expensive act of bribery, if necessary, in connection with the Governor — in order to pervert their witness to His resurrection. Yet it is evident that, when only a few months had passed, the lie they had winged on its way had proved itself too fragile to be depended on. They dared not take their stand upon it.

"With great power gave the Apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus," and signs and wonders were wrought by God in confirmation of their testimony. A notable sign was the cure of the lame man that for many years had lain at the beautiful gate of the temple. This specially raised the ire of the chief priests because the whole episode was a notable ratification of the resurrection, and in Acts 4 three things are emphasized in connection with it. Much as they longed to invalidate its witness, (1) "they could say nothing against it" (Acts 4: 14): (2) they had to confess, "we cannot deny it" (Acts 4: 16): (3) they found "nothing how they might punish them" (Acts 4: 21).

We all know that when men are confronted with a fact which they hate, they will deny it if they can, and if they cannot deny it, they will speak against it; criticizing the mode or the method of the thing, when they cannot refute the substance of the thing. Lastly, as a more desperate expedient, they will attack and persecute those who witness to the fact, if they furnish them with the smallest pretext for it. All three devices failed in connection with this miracle; and it would be equally true to say that they failed against the truth of the resurrection of Christ, to which the miracle bore witness.

Had there been no resurrection, the first few years, when the assertion of it was fresh in everybody's mind, was the time when the imposture would have been easily exposed. The attempt that was made, and supported by bribery, obtained a certain currency among the Jews, but evidently they never dared to produce it in public as evidence, where sifting and examination of it could take place. This is most significant.

What we have been pointing out is in the nature of negative evidence in favour of the truth of the resurrection. It is strong, but the positive evidence is even stronger.

In the early verses of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul cites six witnesses, or groups of witnesses, all of whom vouch for it that they actually saw Christ risen from the dead — Peter; the Twelve; five hundred brethren at once; James; all the Apostles; Paul himself. The list of witnesses is by no means exhaustive, for he might have cited the occasions on which He was seen, recorded in Matthew 28: 16; Luke 24: 13 - 31; John 21: 1-14; and other occasions alluded to in Acts 1: 1-11; to say nothing of the occasions when He showed Himself to some of the women who believed. The six cases he does cite were however quite sufficient witness: three individuals, and three groups.

Look at the three individuals. Their epistles show us the kind of men they were, and of Peter we know something, and of Paul a great deal, beside. Peter was warm-hearted and impetuous, yet a broken-hearted man, when he saw the Lord in resurrection. James was evidently a calm man of judicial and even critical mind. Paul was a bitter opponent up to the moment in which he saw the Lord in His risen glory, and the sight transformed him utterly. Very different were they in upbringing and temperament, yet their very differences render their agreeing witness the more impressive.

Add to this the witness of the three groups. Of a solitary individual it might be alleged that he was impressionable by nature, a bit of a visionary; but this could not be said of the Twelve, nor of all the Apostles. An alleged appearance to an individual might have been something very secret, a kind of hole-and-corner affair; but it would be impossible to say this about the occasion when He appeared to five hundred brethren at once. No fact of history is better attested than the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Two men, living about the middle of the eighteenth century, Lord Lyttleton and Gilbert West, wrote books which became famous; the former on the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the latter on the resurrection of Christ. Both were unbelievers, and swayed by the type of infidelity popular in their time, they felt the time had come to administer a death-blow to Christianity. They selected these two themes believing them to be the most vital points in the line of Christian defence. If the resurrection could be proved a myth, and Saul's conversion a delusion, then the defeat of Christianity was assured. They agreed upon their tasks, separated to study their themes and write their books; and when they met with their completed works, they discovered that they each had written in exactly the opposite sense to that which they had intended. Both had been convinced of the reality of that which they had disbelieved. Saul's conversion had about it every mark of reality. The evidence for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus was complete and convincing.

We may indeed say, "The Lord is risen indeed!" with confidence and exultation. In the earlier days of the Soviet regime in Russia a certain "comrade" name Lunatcharsky lectured for an hour and a half in Moscow against Christianity. He aimed at proving it to be a superstition without any basis in fact. Having finished he proposed a discussion, but stipulated that no speaker should occupy more than five minutes. A young man in the audience, deeply moved, mounted the platform, saymg he would not require so long a period as that. Standing in front of the throng, he gazed at them and then in loud tones gave the well-known Russian Easter-greeting, "Brothers and sisters, Christ IS risen." The whole audience rose as one man and thundered out the response, "He is risen indeed."

The young man turned to the lecturer and said, "I have nothing more to say."

And in truth on that point nothing more needed to be said. The evidence for the resurrection had long before been tested to the utmost. The truth of it remains unshaken.

THE KEY TO THE POSITION.

WHEN the Apostle Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, he was about to depart from the field of action and enter upon the bliss of being with Christ. He had been in the thickest of the fight, and now the tide of conflict was beginning to run against him: the adversaries were growing bolder, and many a deserter was leaving the ranks; yet his words breathe forth a dauntless courage and supreme confidence in the great Captain, who will ultimately lead His forces to victory.

But the very fact of the aged warrior laying down his armour, must only make the young man, Timothy, gird his the more tightly on, and prepare himself to "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2 Tim. 2: 3). He is to "stir up the gift of God" which is in him. He is not to be "ashamed of the testimony of our Lord," but rather to be a "partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God" (2 Tim. 1: 6, 8).

The mighty adversary in the conflict is a foe of sleepless vigilance and consummate skill. Every military commander of outstanding genius has been marked by two things: first, he was able to locate quickly the exact spot in the enemy's defence which was the key to his position: second, he was able so to manipulate his own forces as to make that point his objective, and sooner or later deliver a crushing blow there. We may be sure, therefore, that Satan, the secret energizer of all man's opposition to God, has from the beginning, and all along the line, been aiming his blows at that which is at the very heart of the truth of Christianity.

Let us glance at the early part of the epistle, that like Paul we may not be "ignorant of his devices."

2 Timothy 1: 1-10. The Apostle encourages Timothy by lifting the eye of his mind from himself, and even from the field of conflict below, to God, and to those purposes of His which shall never fall to the ground, since they find their place of undisturbed repose "in Christ Jesus;" and further by reminding him that in spite of apparent defeat, victory is sure, for the great Commander Himself, "our Saviour Jesus Christ," has already, single-handed, achieved it. He "hath abolished [annulled] death, and hath brought life and immortality [incorruptibility] to light through the Gospel" (verse 10).

This is a great inspiration to start with!

2 Timothy 1: 11-18. Having breathed in fresh life and energy, Timothy is bidden calmly to view the actual position of the conflict, as committed to the saints of God below. How dark the picture! Paul, lying in a Roman dungeon with martyrdom before him; "all they which are in Asia" — his own converts, including those at Ephesus, the capital of that province, where much of his finest work was done — had turned away from him: it may have been to run eagerly after new teachers, who were already developing the deadly theories known afterwards as "gnosticism," so that even the "form of sound words" was in danger of being given up.

2 Timothy 2: 1-6. Here are given the qualities required in the good soldier of Jesus Christ. Danger and the rolling tide of disaster must only stiffen his back. "Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." He needs the faithfulness of a witness, the endurance and devotion of a soldier, the obedience of the athlete, the patience of the farmer.

2 Timothy 2: 7 - 19. Having brought Timothy thus far, the Apostle now discloses to him the great key to the Christian position, against which the enemy's assaults are sure to be delivered. Verse 7 is a preface showing the deep importance of it. Verse 8, containing the disclosure, is poorly translated in the A.V. The R.V. is better — "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my Gospel."

The key to the position, then, is Christ risen from the dead.

If we may paraphrase the Apostle's inspired words, it was as though he said, "My Gospel presents to you Jesus Christ in two ways, as incarnate upon earth, come of the seed of David, and as risen from the dead. Maintain both; but since you are not Israelites but Christians, 'risen from the dead' comes first as of paramount importance to you; let that go and the day is lost."

Already Satan was launching an attack through Hymenaeus and Philetus against this truth (2 Timothy 2: 17, 18). Not that it can be really touched. Christ IS risen. The foundation of God stands sure. Yet, if forgotten or denied, the key to the position is left in the enemy's hands, and disaster to our faith is certain.

The Corinthian believers illustrated this. They had in their midst grave immorality unrebuked (1 Cor. 5); party spirit was rampant amongst them (1 Cor. 1); and disorder marked their coming together to partake of the Lord's supper (1 Cor. 11); but it is not until we reach 1 Cor. 15, that we find what lay at the root — the resurrection was being questioned, and even denied, In their midst. That was the "evil communication" that was corrupting their "good manners."

Moreover, Paul immediately shows them the effect of this, not only on Christian behaviour, but Christian doctrine. Read 1 Cor. 15: 13 - 19, and learn that if resurrection be denied the resurrection of Christ cannot be maintained; and if Christ be not risen, Christianity is dissolved like the unsubstantial fabric of a dream.

Has not all this a loud voice for us, who live towards the end of the Church's conflict upon earth? Instead of being, as in her first years, "comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners," she has become in her responsibility on earth an outward wreck, torn in every direction, alike the prey of enemy without and traitor within, till the poet had to write —

"Though with a scornful wonder

Men see her sore oppress,

By schisms rent asunder,

By heresies distrest."

Early in her history "Jesus Christ, risen from the dead," faded in her memory. The thought of Him as a risen, heavenly Man was almost lost; if He was remembered it was as a Babe in the arms of His virgin mother, and that only in a carnal way. Hence the Church lost her heavenly hope, and settled down into the corruptions of the world around.

If any revival in these last days has visited us from on high, it has been as He, the risen One, has shone as the Morning Star into our hearts.

His appearance in the midst of His disciples on the resurrection day transformed them, so that instead of huddling together like a flock of frightened sheep, they stood forth on the day of Pentecost, filled with the Holy Spirit, as bold as lions. The faith of Himself as the risen One will do all this for us today.

Christian men and women, may this faith be ours! To have His resurrection as an article of our creed is not enough — it was an article of the Church's creed all through the dark ages. It is Jesus Christ Himself, raised from the dead, shining before the faith of our hearts, that we need.

Then hope will burn brightly, and the fort of true, God-given Christianity will be held, till those words come true with which the poet closed his verse —

"Yet saints their watch are keeping,

Their cry goes up, How long?

And soon the night of weeping

Shall be the morn of song."

THE BELIEVER'S PEACE.

A GREAT DEAL can be compressed into few words. We have the Apostle's statement "I had rather speak five words with my understanding . . . than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue" (1 Cor. 14: 19), and in keeping therewith it is worthy of note how many of the most pregnant sentences of Scripture contain only five words.

For an instance take these words: — "We have peace with God" (Rom 5: 1), and think into them as you would gaze down into some clear lake whose still waters run deep. Can you see the bottom? No! There are depths in those words unexplored yet by the believer of ripest experience, though "peace with God" is not something to be attained at the close of a Christian career, but something to be received at the beginning. It is the choice birthright of every child of God.

In spite of it being so, however, we may safely affirm without fear of exaggeration that there are today thousands of believers who cannot say "we have peace with God," as a matter of personal experience. That Jesus made peace "through the blood of His cross" (Col. 1: 20), they do not doubt: to say "I have peace" is, however, a different matter. Truth would remind them that they should say "I have many a doubt and fear in my heart."

Let us clearly recognize that this is a very abnormal state of things. Sincere souls may think it becomes them to remain to the end of their days in humble uncertainty as to their exact relations with God, and consider doubts and fears to be an especial sign of grace, but Scripture lends no countenance to such an idea. Indeed, it teaches the very opposite. To the "little children," i.e., the babes of God's great family of the redeemed, John says "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His Name's sake" (1 John 2: 12); and again: — "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life" (1 John 5: 13)

Why then the uncertainty which darkens so many hearts, and prevents the bold and happy utterance of those words "I have peace with God"?

Cases differ, especially in details of a secondary nature, but the primary cause lying at the root of the whole matter is the failure to grasp in the soul the meaning and bearing of the resurrection of Christ.

In Romans 5: 1 there is a much overlooked word: —  "Therefore . . ." That word refers us back to that which immediately precedes.

Let us then ask "wherefore?" — and for answer we must read "Jesus our Lord . . . who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God."

Two important facts lie upon the surface of this text.

Firstly: Our peace with God depends upon our being justified by faith; and hence, since to be "justified" is to be "righted," and thus to be right with God, we may say that to be right with God is the only basis for peace with God. Peace on any other basis must be but a delusion and a snare.

Secondly: Our justification by faith depends upon the death and resurrection of Christ. We are "righted" altogether by the work of Another, and that work altogether apart from us. But "righted" by faith.

The Puritans used to speak of faith as a recumbency, a leaning; the soul reposing itself upon an outside object. How simple this is! and how completely it exposes the folly of the oft-repeated saying of anxious souls, "Oh, but I can't believe." Indeed! Is believing then so great a load? Nay. It is but to cease from doing, and to lean on that which is done, and the One who did it. Let no man say he cannot lean.

But faith not only reposes upon an outside object; it also sees, apprehends, and grasps the meaning of that upon which it leans. Here it is that the break-down comes. The death and resurrection of Christ are believed in as historic facts, reposed upon as the basis of salvation, but inasmuch as many do not grasp in faith their meaning and bearing upon the questton of their own justification, they dwell in uncertainty instead of in peace.

Ponder Romans 4: 25. Let us go over it slowly, and in faith, that some light may dawn upon us.

"Who": i.e., Jesus our Lord, the Son of God. No one less than He!

"Was delivered": He was given up to death and judgment. Who delivered Him? God. "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God . . ." (Acts 2: 23). It was an act of God on our behalf.

"For our offences": Not as a martyr merely, but as a sacrificial victim, He stood in our stead. He took upon Himself the awful load of our guilt. He charged Himself upon Calvary's tree with the full weight of our broken responsibilities, and the dread liabilities resulting therefrom. He stood there representatively for us. Each believer may say "He went into death as my Representative beneath the load of my offences."

"And was raised again": This great truth is as much part of the Gospel as is the death of Christ. It speaks of victory over every adverse power, and of the complete settlement of every claim of the righteous throne of God. Death and the grave could not hold Him. He arose.

"For our justification": These words give the bearing of His resurrection upon us who believe. Keep in mind that He represents us, if you would seize their meaning. Has He come forth free from the dominion of death? Then we are free. Is He triumphantly cleared from the burden of our offences? Then we are clear: as clear as He is. We stand or fall by our Representative. His position is our position. If death and judgment are behind Him, they are behind us.

This is strikingly illustrated by that well known scene in the valley of Elah (1 Samuel 17). The conflict lay between the champions of Israel and Philistia, David and Goliath. Upon either side of the valley stood the two armies in battle array, yet the battle wholly lay between their respective representatives.

What a tempest of conflicting emotions must have raged in many an Israelite's breast as they watched David walking down into the valley to meet the giant. If reason prevailed, and they estimated David's chances by the laws of probability, doubts and fears must have held undisputed sway. And if faith raised its voice, and brought Israel's God before them, hope must have been kindled in their hearts. But so long as it was only David going down into the valley, it was a case of hoping for the best.

A few more moments and the victory was won. The smooth stone crashed into the Philistine's skull, the big man lay prone on the ground, slain with his own sword, his head in David's hand; and the stripling commenced his triumphant walk up from the valley to the hilltop.

"And the men of Israel and of Judah arose and shouted." Every doubt and fear vanished before the return of their victorious representative. His victory was their victory. They were as clear and as free from the Philistine oppressor as he was.

The application of this lies plainly before us. Our Lord Jesus, the greater than David, has been into death's dark valley "delivered for our offences." Many a Christian stops there, and consequently gets no further than hoping for the best. The Gospel does not stop there however. Having vanquished the foe, our great Representative has come up out of the valley "raised again for our justification." His victory is our victory. His freedom is our freedom. This is the meaning for us of His resurrection.

Remember then "Jesus Christ . . . raised from the dead according to my Gospel," and, with peace in your heart, rise up with the true Israel of God to shout His praise.

GOD'S VICTORY.

We are apt to forget that a fact may have more than one signification, and that its bearing may be felt in many directions.

The resurrection of Christ is a great and glorious fact which cannot be overthrown. Men have flung against it their wit and strength, but like waves dashing against a cliff, only to recoil shattered upon themselves. It has stood through the years and will stand. Its bearing on the question of our justification and peace with God we have seen. We should be great losers, however, if while rejoicing in that, we overlooked its value and bearing Godward.

Roman 4: 23 - 5: 2, sets before us the former, and 1 Corinthians 15 treats of the latter aspect of this great subject.

Some amongst the professed disciples at Corinth had intellectual doubts and difficulties as to the resurrection of the body, and reasoned, "How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" (1 Cor. 15: 35). They considered it apparently too gross and materialistic a conception; and posed as pioneers of a more spiritual idea of the subject. They were, in reality, fools (1 Cor. 15: 36).

But the apostle Paul did not content himself with merely answering their foolish questions. He disproved their whole position by establishing, beyond doubt, the great fact of Christ's resurrection (see 1 Cor. 15: 3-11), and then 1 Cor. 15: 12-28 he shows how this great truth bears upon everything: not only upon our safety and happiness, but upon God's purposes and glory.

We have our souls, infinitely precious to us; if we lose them we lose our all. Their safety then, their happiness now, is rightly therefore a matter of absorbing interest to us. Until everything is settled, and the last flicker of doubt has died away, we have neither ears nor mind for anything else. But when once we grasp, by faith, the bearing of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus upon ourselves, and see that we are as clear of judgment as He is, then we do well to remember that God's rights were outraged by sin. He has His own sovereign will and purposes concerning the putting away of sin, and the bringing in of peace, blessing, and glory upon this sin-cursed earth. He has counselled a heavenly region of bliss, and to reveal Himself in such a way that men may be recovered to Himself, and brought in the place of sons to know Him and enjoy Him, and to give Him His right place of supremacy In love for ever and ever.

All the power of darkness was arrayed against the accomplishment of these things. In the death of Jesus we see divine love grappling with the power of evil. In His resurrection we see its victory declared.

It may help us to perceive the greatness of this victory if we get some idea of the divine stake in the death and resurrection of Christ, by seeing what God's thoughts and purposes were. We need not go outside 1 Corinthians 15 for this, though other scriptures unfold these purposes more fully.

The resurrection of the saints was one great thought which God had before Him (1 Cor. 15:  20-23). His character and glory were intimately bound up with it. All through the ages, here and there — often enough in the humblest individuals — the light of faith had shone. Before Christ came, when as yet there was only the starlight of type and promise to cheer the watcher, saints' of whom the world was not worthy, lived, and suffered, and died. Out of the scene of their sorrows, they gazed into the realms of God's purpose.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb. 11: 13).

And what then? They went down, like to the wicked to all appearance, into the silence of the grave.

Further there were the early disciples. They, even while Paul was writing, were the objects of fierce persecution from a hostile world. Gaps appeared in their ranks as one after another was smitten. And yet for every man that fell two stepped into the ranks eager to be baptized for the dead, and themselves become a target for the foe (1 Cor. 15: 29). Why was this? They looked on to a glorious recompense in the coming day.

And they were right, for resurrection was God's thought for them. Yet if ever it was to be, the power of death must be broken and the bars of the grave, gates and all, must, Samson-like, be carried away.

The establishment of a kingdom in this world was another purpose of God (1 Cor. 15: 24, 25, 50). It might be thought that this would be a very simple matter, an end which could be easily reached by the simple exercise of Divine power. It was not so. Man was in rebellion, and in league with the power of Satan. There was opposing rule and authority and power, there were enemies to be subdued (1 Cor. 15: 24, 25). True it is that if God makes bare His arm, every enemy is swept before Him like chaff before a tempest, but what about the enmity and the sin which had ruined everything? This must be met. It was met when once at the end of the age Christ appeared "to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. 9: 26). His death and resurrection therefore was the shattering of the very foundations of Satan's empire, and in the risen Christ we have not only the firstfruits of the great resurrection harvest of the saints (1 Cor. 15: 23), but the pledge of the establishment of God's will and authority here upon earth "He will judge [or administer] the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17: 31).

Then again at the close of the mediatorial kingdom of Christ, it is God's purpose to receive everything into His own hands and to be all in all (1 Cor. 15: 28). He will be "in all" for He will pervade the whole of the realms of light, and each and all who dwell therein, whether in heaven or on earth. He will be "all" for He will be the supreme and exclusive Object of every soul that He fills. All this too hinges on the resurrection of Christ. Established in the power of that, all is permanent; without it all would be passing away.

If we turn to the epistle to the Ephesians, we find the fullest unfolding of the thoughts and purposes of God, especially in connection with believers of this dispensation: unto Him there is to be glory in the Assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages (Eph. 3: 21). Here too the resurrection of Christ is the great essential (Eph. 1: 19 - 23). But for the moment we confine ourselves to 1 Corinthians 15, and note the way in which the Lord Jesus is presented to us in connection with all this.

"For since by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor. 15: 21).

The victory has been achieved by Man in the person of Jesus, just as the ruin came in by man in the person of Adam. Instead of shifting the contest on to an entirely fresh plane, and settling everything by one stroke of Deity pure and simple, God has — if one may so put it — met the foe on the old battle ground originally chosen by him in the garden of Eden, and there reversed everything. Man comes out of the contest in resurrection, covered with glory, and not the shame of defeat.

But this Man is of an entirely new kind or order. "The first man, Adam, was made a living soul;" the last Adam "a quickening spirit" . . . "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second Man is the Lord from Heaven" (1 Cor. 15: 45, 47).

One thing more. Though the victory is God's victory, He gives it to us who believe, as it is written: "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15: 57, 58)

Let us only go through this valley of the shadow of death with the light of Christ Risen in our souls, and we shall possess the deep and sweet consciousness that the resurrection world established in Him abides for ever, and that no labour in view of that world is lost: it too abides and will all be manifested in the resurrection day. This will give stability to our souls, and our Christian character, and prove an abiding incentive to spend ourselves in the service of the Lord. The shadow of defeat no longer rests upon us, for Christ is risen and the victory is God's.

THE TEST CASE.

The consideration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus as being the demonstration of God's victory, naturally leads to another aspect of the same great truth, very closely connected therewith. What, it may well be asked, is the bearing of this victory? Is anything involved in it beyond the display of His supreme power and the personal vindication of the Lord Jesus?

That it was the personal vindication of Jesus is evident from Acts 2. His resurrection was the great theme of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, and the conviction was borne irresistibly in upon three thousand men that God had intervened in the great controversy between the leaders of Israel and Jesus — between the builders and the Stone which they rejected  - and the decision of Heaven's final court of appeal was in favour of Jesus. He was triumphantly vindicated. "The Stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner" (Luke 20: 17).

Every one who loves our Lord Jesus Christ must greatly rejoice at this thought; yet we must not overlook the fact that there was involved in His resurrection much more even than this. It was the great test case upon which infinite and eternal issues hung.

Occasionally the Law Courts witness a great fight over a seemingly trivial matter. There is a great array of legal talent on both sides, many witnesses are called, much money is expended, a large amount of valuable time consumed, and court and spectators alike treated to brilliant displays of oratory, wit, and legal acumen, and all over what to the uninitiated appears so small that they are inclined to turn away saying, "much ado about nothing"!

But it is not so; they are mistaken, all this effort is quite justified by the importance of the occasion. The case under trial, though nothing great in itself is a representative one. There are many other cases like it in their underlying principle, and this one has been selected as a test case. The decision given, whichever way it is, will establish principles and interpretations of law which will instantly bear in scores of different directions. Possibly hundreds or even thousands of cases are really being tried and decided in this one, and this fact instantly raises it right out of the common rut and invests it with great importance.

Scripture plainly indicates that the resurrection of Jesus had this character. Not that it was an insignificant thing in itself — there our illustration fails of course. No event ever had more importance in itself, and yet its importance is enhanced by the fact of its being the great test case of the ages by which everything  - ourselves included — must stand or fall. In Ephesians 1: 17 - 23, we get recorded one of those wonderful prayers which were continually ascending to God from the heart of the great apostle Paul. He prayed: —

"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding [or heart, R.V.] being enlightened; that ye may know . . . what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places."

Here clearly resurrection comes before us in this light: His resurrection is the test case, and we learn the greatness of God's power toward us according to that. Small wonder therefore that the apostle uses the forcible language he does. God's power towards us — His people — is exceeding (or surpassing) great because measured according to the working of the might of His power (margin) which He wrought in Christ.

All this is surely intended by the Spirit to convey to our minds that God's power in a surpassing and wholly extraordinary degree was exerted in the raising of Jesus. No such strong expressions are used when it is a question of raising the millions who shall share the bliss of the first resurrection, for the reason, doubtless, that that is a simple matter uncomplicated by all those tremendous questions of sin, death and Satan's power, which were in evidence in the case of Jesus. Then it was that the real battle was fought; then that every adverse power, whether human or Satanic, rose to its highest expression, and combined in one last effort to hold the Saviour in the dominion of death; then that the might of God's power rose up, flung back every assault, confounded the full power of the enemy, and raised Him from the dead, and up until, seated at His own right hand, He is above, and not only above, but "far above all principality and power" (Eph. 1: 21).

Majestic language, this! The Spirit of God is evidently rejoicing in the triumphant ending of the great test case.

And our little cases are settled in His great one. Hence Ephesians 2 begins "And you." Pick up the thread of the argument, and it runs thus: "The working of the might of His power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead . . . and you . . . who were dead in trespasses and sins." In Christ, the controversy was settled, and when the power of God is displayed in us it works in exact keeping therewith; we are quickened, and raised up and seated in heavenly places in Him (Eph. 2: 5, 6). But further, His resurrection not only has its bearing upon us in this spiritual way now, but it is also the certain pledge of the actual resurrection of all that are His at His coming. This is plainly indicated in these words:

"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept, . . . Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming" (1 Cor. 15: 20 - 23).

Death can, in the long run, no more retain its hold upon us than it could upon Him. Once see this clearly, and the well-worn phrase "In sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection" — so often quoted by the gravesides of believers — becomes illuminated with a fuller meaning than ever. Our hope is sure and certain, not only because we have God's word for it (though that were sufficient) but we have in the risen Christ the ever abiding pledge of it for our souls. It was with this before him that Paul could say "Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you" (2 Cor. 4: 14)

To raise us up only a word is needed, — one word of power.

"The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth" (John 5: 28, 29).

This too it was, that made the Sadducees such bitter opponents of the apostles as recorded in the Acts. The Pharisees were the great adversaries during the lifetime of the Lord Jesus, for being Himself the truth He exposed at every step their hypocrisy; but immediately He was gone and the apostolic testimony to His resurrection became the prominent thing, we find the Sadducees springing into activity.

"The priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus [in Jesus, R.V. ] the resurrection from the dead" (Acts 4: 1, 2).

These ardent advocates of "no resurrection" theories were keenly alive to the fact that the resurrection of Jesus was destructive of their whole position. Had it been a mere isolated or accidental event they might have passed it by in silence, or even claimed it as the exception which proved the rule of no resurrection, but it was not so. "In Jesus" the resurrection from the dead was in principle established, hence they left no stone unturned in their efforts to silence the preachers and crush their testimony.

Thank God! that testimony was not crushed, and never will be. Who can rightly estimate its practical value in ministering comfort and vigour to the souls of believers? Listen to Peter when he says:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively [living R.V.] hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1: 3).

We can perhaps but faintly understand the desolation which must have swept into the hearts of those who loved the Lord Jesus Christ when they saw Him die. Not only did it outrage their personal affections for Him, but at one blow it destroyed all their hopes which centred in Him as their heaven-sent Messiah. We may gain some idea of it by considering the two disciples going to Emmaus (Luke 24) and marking their spirit and demeanour. Hope in their hearts was dead.

But the Risen One revealed Himself to them. What a change! They were "begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." It was as though they were born into a new world where new hopes reigned, and those hopes living, because all centred in the living One, who in resurrection life would never die again. Well might praise and blessing ascend from the Apostle's heart to God!

Good it is for our souls if we have had an experience after this sort and learned to centre our hopes and expectations in the Risen One. It was just when everything was, to all appearance, lost, that the day was really won, and it remains for us who through grace believe, to quietly watch and wait till the power that fully expressed itself in the great test case shall exert itself toward us, lifting us out of the reach of death and the grave for ever, and crowning our hopes with the glory of God.

THE PATTERN FOR BELIEVERS.

Bearing in mind that, as we have seen, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus was the great test case in which all that concerns us was settled, we shall readily perceive that since He stands as the great Pattern or Representative for us, His place and position before God must be ours, both as regards our actual resurrection by and by, and as regards our souls now in this present time of faith.

This is indeed just what we find explicitly stated in Scripture. "Risen with Him" (Col. 2: 12) gives us in three words the new place or status of the believer upon earth whilst waiting either for translation or actual resurrection at the resurrection day; and Romans 8: 11 clearly teaches that His resurrection is the pattern for us: "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."

Let us seek to get some idea of this side of our vast subject.

His resurrection is seen to be the pattern of ours in several different connections.

1. As to the power of it. The Holy Spirit dwelling in the believer is this (see, Rom. 8: 11, already quoted).

2. As to the manner of it. He rose from among the dead as the first-fruits. We too shall rise, not as the first-fruits, but out from among the dead even as He did. The first resurrection, that of the saints, will leave the multitude of those who died in their sins, untouched. They will remain in the grip of death while the saints come forth (see, Rev. 20: 5).

3. As to the character of it. There was a marked difference, for instance, between the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Lazarus was raised up to live a little longer under the ordinary conditions of life in this world. He moved amongst men after it just as he did before (John 12: 2). In keeping with this, Jesus ordered that the stone be removed from the tomb before He spoke the lifegiving word (John 11: 39-41), for Lazarus was raised a natural body, subject to earthly limitations, fitted for earth, and not for heaven.

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus carried Him as Man into a new region and order of life altogether. An angel descended from heaven and rolled back the stone from His tomb, but it was in order that there might be no doubt on the part of His disciples as to His resurrection, but that they might see and believe (John 20: 8). The first words of the angel were: "He is not here, He is risen." It was not needed in order that Jesus might come out, as was plainly proved on the evening of the very day (see, John 20: 19). He had come forth from the dead clothed in a spiritual body, fitted for the heavenly, resurrection sphere into which now He had entered, and the great stone presented no greater hindrance to His movements very early in the morning than the shut door did at the evening of the day.

Now the resurrection of the saints will agree in character with that of their Lord. Lazarus evidently died again, else he would be on earth to-day: but "Christ being raised from the death, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him" (Rom. 6: 9); and of the saints it is said, "They which shal1 be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more" (Luke 20: 35, 36).

Resurrection involves then — and it is important fully to recognize it — our entering upon a totally new order of life, under new conditions and with changed bodies. We have all of us borne the image of the earthly man — Adam; we shall bear the image of the heavenly Man — Christ. And inasmuch as flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor corruption inherit incorruption, in the great day of God's triumph over the last enemy, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we — the living — shall be changed (see 1 Corinthians 15: 48-54)

The change which will be needful in the case of the living saints when the Lord comes will finds its counterpart in the resurrection of the dead. Both classes will reach the same blessed goal — a body of glory like Christ's (Phil. 3: 21), though by a somewhat different route in detail.

It is impossible in this connection to separate between the resurrection of Christ, and His ascension and glorification in heaven. In Him, risen and glorified, we see expressed God's full thought for the saints of this church dispensation. We must of course make one reservation, viz., that in this as in all else, He has the pre-eminence. He is glorified at God's right hand. We shall know the fulness of joy which dwells in the presence of God, though there be "pleasures for evermore" at His right hand which will be the special portion of the Saviour alone (cf. Psalm 16: 11 and Heb. 1: 9). This special place we gladly yield Him, with eternal homage to His blessed Name!

Allowing fully for this, however, we may truly say as we gaze in faith at the risen and glorified Jesus, "His place is the pattern of ours." "As He is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4: 17), as to the love into which we are brought, and our position before God, and with regard to judgment; and what He is so shall we be as to our bodies at the resurrection day. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3: 2).

In all this future glory every true lover of Christ will assuredly rejoice, yet we must not fail to dwell upon the way in which His resurrection bears upon our present state. This however demands a chapter to itself.

ITS PRESENT BEARING AND APPLICATION.

The epistle to the Colossians deals with the privileges and responsibilities of Christians while still on earth. We are "risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised Him from the dead" (Col. 2: 12). In His resurrection, faith already sees ours in association with Him. Inasmuch as we are circumcised, or cut off, in His "cutting off" (Col. 2: 11), we have lost the old status or position we once held before God as men in the flesh connected with Adam. In being "risen with Christ," we have obtained through grace a new status in connection with Him, altogether different from the old, and the bearing and character of that new position is all expressed in Him as the risen One.

Forty days elapsed between the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus, and a very remarkable and peculiar position was His during that time. He had not left the earth in bodily presence for heaven, yet He was no more of the earth than He was of the great world-system which had crucified Him, and which then as now dominated the earth and held it in subjection. He never had been of the world, and though He had been on earth and moved in earthly surroundings and relationships, He was always a heavenly Man, but these earthly links were now snapped. Mary, His mother after the flesh, was committed to the keeping of John (John 19: 26, 27), and Mary Magdalene was not allowed to touch Him as the One in whom earthly hopes were centred (John 20: 17). He is no more known after the flesh (2 Cor. 5: 16). In the list of His appearances during those forty days recorded in 1 Cor. 15: 5 - 8 and elsewhere, there is no mention of His ever having been seen by the world or any who were of the world, but only by His own. He was "otherworldly" indeed. His interests were not here but there, and all His conversations with His disciples during that time were "pertaining to the kingdom of God" (Acts 1: 3).

We are "risen with Him," yet we are still here upon earth. We walk through the old surroundings and find ourselves subject to adverse circumstances as much as ever. We are still in our natural condition, with bodies subject to death and decay, but our souls have been quickened into the life of the risen Christ, and we can enter in spirit into the new region where Christ actually is. The Christian, properly speaking, is a man whose thoughts, interests, and affections are outside the vain show of this world and lifted above the plane of earthly things. His politics are in heaven (Phil. 3: 20).

With this truth before us, let us survey the actual condition of things in the church of God. How lamentable it appears. The whole effort of many, who take the place of being Christian teachers and preachers, seems to be to drag Christianity down to an earthly level, to lop off every branch which stretches itself forth heavenward, to pare down — if not to falsify —  its truth, so that it shall be palatable to unclean and unregenerate man, altogether apart from new birth. The Saviour may indeed have said, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God"; they mean, however, so to shape their teachings that a man shall "see" them without any such change!

The result of this is equally sad. Multitudes live to-day who, deceived by these teachings, go on complacently in the world and in their sins, with vague hopes and expectations that all will be right, and that eventually an improved world system will be evolved, wherein they will be perfectly happy without God and without Christ. Man (written by them with large capitals), world and earth, are the centre and circumference of their religion.

But what about true Christians? Alas! the leaven of all this has spread. Once having been inserted in the three measures of meal, the whole has been leavened (see Matthew 8: 33). We are none of us altogether free from it. We very easily drop in our thoughts and ways from a heavenly to an earthly level.

The thought is all too common even amongst true believers that the mission of the Christian is to improve, and in this way, if possible, convert the world; hence they fling themselves, often with great ardour, into all sorts of schemes for the betterment of humanity, and plunge earnestly into political controversy, endeavouring to further the cause which they deem to be right.

If we could draw such aside from their busy endeavours for a moment, and bid them take time to gaze in faith upon the risen One whom they call Saviour and Lord, and breathe into their ears those words, "Ye are risen with Him," what would they say?

Some would say — almost shout at us — "Unpractical!" They would adopt those ancient words from Genesis, "Behold this dreamer cometh!" and accuse us of diverting attention from positive works of charity and civic righteousness to visionary ideas which nobody quite understands.

Others would admit the truth of what we say, for there it stands on the page of Scripture, and they accept the Scripture, but they would tell us, it is a beautiful theory set before us for contemplation and admiration, but not intended to practically affect us, to be woven into the fabric of daily living.

Colossians 3 & 4 completely answer all such. In Colossians 2 we are risen, and Colossians 3 begins, "If ye then be risen with Christ." It is the "if" of argument introducing the consequences and results flowing from this fact. As risen with Christ we are bidden to "seek those things which are above" and to set our "affection [mind] on things above, not on things on the earth."

It is noticeable that even when on earth the Lord Jesus refused to touch, or interfere with, men's social inequalities (see Luke 12: 13 - 15) or their political affairs (see Luke 20: 20 - 26). As risen He is entirely apart from the course of this world — "hid in God." As risen with Him, our life "is hid with Christ in God," and our attitude towards these matters should be the same as His.

Let not anybody say that to speak thus is to put an extinguisher upon all Christian sympathy and effort, and upon all zeal in evangelization. It does nothing of the kind. Nothing that is of God is extinguished if the light of God's truth fall upon it. Indeed, to get hold of God's thoughts acts as a great incentive to well-doing, while it saves one from running unsent and wasting valuable time.

Read Colossians 3 and 4. Mark the kind of life lived upon earth by the saint who is risen with Christ, and whose mind is set on things above.

First of all, he is marked by intense personal holiness (Col. 3: 5-12). He puts to death his members upon the earth — certain grosser forms of evil are mentioned; but inasmuch as the risen man is a new kind of man in nature, he puts off many other things, not so often branded as sin amongst men, and he puts on the very graces and features which marked the blessed Lord.

His relations with his fellow believers are of a gracious and heavenly order (Col. 3: 13-17). The divisions, the endless contentions and bickerings of Christendom are the direct products of our not having retained this truth in our souls.

He carries out all the relationships of life with the Lord before him (Col. 3: 18 — Col. 4: 1). He is no fanatic. He quietly goes on through life, and carries out his responsibilities in a very much better way than he otherwise would. Domestic relationships — wives, husbands, children, fathers — and business relationships — servants and masters, are mentioned. Nothing is said as to any other. No directions are given as to how to behave when trying to help govern this world's affairs, or how to conduct one's self becomingly while involved in political agitation. The silence of Scripture is eloquent! It does not suppose evidently that the risen man will put himself in either of these positions. He is a pilgrim and a stranger, and does not undertake to meddle with the noisy affairs of "Vanity Fair," though he passes through it.

But though that be so, he earnestly labours, both by prayer and preaching, to declare the truth and the grace of the Gospel, so as to rescue men out of the world on the one hand, and establish them in the truth on the other (Col. 4: 2-6). Does then the truth of "risen with Christ" slacken our zeal in the Gospel. No! It takes a man whose heart is already outside the world to rescue people from the world, and to show, even to the worst, the grace of God.

These are some of the results flowing from the practical acceptance of this great truth. Who would not desire to enter a little more into its power and blessedness? For this we must turn our eyes not in upon ourselves, but up to Christ, and learn our new place as risen, in the contemplation of Him.

THE TRUE BEGINNING.

More than one beginning is spoken of in Scripture. Its opening words go back to the start of all created things; "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen. 1: 1). In the first verse of John's Gospel we travel into a yet more remote past. "In the beginning was the Word," i.e., He existed before creation began. Go back in thought to the farthest conceivable point which could possibly be called a beginning — He was there.

Then in John's first Epistle we read, "That which was from the beginning." There it is the commencement of the manifestation of eternal life in the person of Christ in this world, carrying us back to His incarnation.

Again in Matthew 19: 4-8. The Lord Jesus speaks of "the beginning," referring evidently not to the actual beginning of Genesis 1: 1 but to the creation of man and woman as recorded in the close of Genesis 2 and the setting them in their respective places in regard to each other, and the creation beneath them.

Adam, however, is "the figure of Him that was to come" (Rom. 5: 14) and his deep sleep and awaking, out of which sprang the woman, was a type of the death and resurrection of Christ, out of which has sprung the Church which is His body and His bride. As the Risen One, He is the beginning.

"He is the Head of the body, the Church; who is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence" (Col. 1: 18). The glorious Head of the body is the centre. Here we find Him as Man come forth in resurrection. He is "the firstborn from the dead," and, as such, "the beginning." All and every thing that forms part of that new creation finds its origin and takes its character from Him.

In whichever sphere we look, whether creation in verse 16 or redemption in verse 18 He stands absolutely alone. The pre-eminence is His in all things.

The great fact, however, with which we are immediately concerned is that in Christ risen we see the beginning of the vast new creation system, even as it was in His death that its foundations were laid.

Ephesians 3: 15 indicates that in the coming day there will be various "families," various circles of relationship and privilege, some heavenly and some earthly in character, "The Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every [R. V.] family in heaven and earth is named."

In keeping with this the Lord Himself said, "In My Father's house are many mansions [or abiding-places R.V.] . . . I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14: 2).

We get a glimpse of some of these various families in Hebrews 12: 22-24. The heavenly Jerusalem is mentioned, angels, the church of the first-born, and also the spirits of just men made perfect; while in Revelation 21 and 22 the veil is drawn aside from the future, and we are permitted to see in detail a little of that creation of which Christ is the beginning in resurrection. It is worthy of note that twice in these two chapters we get the words, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 21: 6 and Rev. 22: 13), and in both cases the speaker is our Lord Jesus Christ. He it is who in John's vision sits upon the throne and makes all things new (Rev. 21: 5), and He is the coming One whose reward is with Him (Rev. 22: 12).

In the first case the setting is that of God's sovereign purpose. The end of man's little fevered day has been reached. The ragings of the heathen, the vain imaginings of the kings of the earth, have been hushed in judgment. Evil has been dealt with in Satan its source, as well as in its outworkings in the self-destroyed children of men. The last enemies — death and hades — have been destroyed. Then the eternal thoughts of God find their accomplishment. The very heavens and earth are new. The Church, as the bride of Christ, the holy city, New Jerusalem, is set in her appointed place; men on the new earth find their place and portion with God. Every dark result of sin disappears. The former things are passed away, and God's new creation system is launched forth upon a radiant sea of endless life and light and love, where He Himself is all in all.

But there is One — well known through grace — who sits enthroned at the centre. He it is who in sovereign might brings all this to pass, and says, "It is done." He is the great end of all things. He is also the beginning. It is even as if He directed every eye, filled with the glory of that new creation world, back through the centuries, the changing scenes of time, to that moment when, as risen Man, He stepped forth from the lonely sepulchre by the side of Golgotha's hill, and said, "There you see the beginning." In that Man and His resurrection from the dead there abode potentially the glory of that eternal day.

In the second case our responsibility is the setting. He again emphasizes His speedy coming, and this time not so much in connection with the affections of His bride, leading her to say "Come" as with the responsibility of His servants. He says, "My reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." lt is in connection with this that He again presents Himself as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Every man's work will be greatly coloured by the measure of recognition given to this great fact. That service is most acceptable to God which not only has Christ as its end, but Christ as its beginning; taking its rise and source in Him.

The real value and importance of this part of the truth cannot be easily over-estimated, especially in view of the actual condition of Christendom to-day. There is an extraordinary indifference as to Christ, though everywhere there are to be found those who love and reverence His blessed Name. In many quarters anything is tolerated in the way of doctrines, so long as the man is intellectual, cultured, and likely to add influence and lustre to his denomination. Men can call themselves ministers of Christ and yet teach from the pulpit practically nothing but the old heathen philosophies, using Christian phraseology to express their terms, and do so with impunity.

Viewing the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3 as a prophetic outline of the history of the professing Church upon earth, we have evidently reached the Laodicean stage where these features are exactly described. Outwardly "rich and increased with goods" and having "need of nothing," really "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," because neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm when Christ is in question.

It is to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans that the Lord presents Himself as "the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God" (Rev. 3: 14). This is surely very significant, and gives us in few words the antidote to the poison at work. Let us take good heed to it.

Laodicean doctrine has man as the beginning — if it does not go back to the ape, or even the protoplasm — and it certainly has man, deified man, as its end; and if Christ is brought in, it is as an example, an incentive and helper to man in his struggle on the upward road of progress.

In contrast to this, the truth of God, as revealed in the Scripture, declares man to be lost because hopelessly defiled and corrupted by sin. It brings in the cross of Christ as that whereby sins have been atoned for, and man — the corrupt sinner — judicially dealt with and crucified in the death of the One who took up man's place and state before God. It sets forth Christ in resurrection as the beginning of all those things summed up in "the creation of God." Once let the truth get possession of the heart and the self-complacency of Laodicea is destroyed. May its preserving power be known to every one of us!

One thing more. Apart altogether from this preserving power, and its great importance for that reason in the present day of departure from truth and incipient apostasy, there is the blessing that flows to the soul from thinking the thoughts of God, and viewing things from His standpoint.

Man in his unconverted state is an absolutely self-centred creature; beyond his own very limited horizon his thoughts never rise. Even after conversion it is natural for us to dwell a good deal upon ourselves, our forgiveness, our deliverance, our blessing — and the beginning from which we reckon everything is the hour of our own conversion: that is the great red-letter day for us. We would not wholly condemn this. The moment when, turning to God, we first learned the value of the precious blood of Christ to shelter us was indeed a beginning. It was typically fore-shadowed with Israel in Egypt. When the first-born was smitten and Israel sheltered by the blood of the passover lamb, the Lord said, "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you" (Ex. 12: 2). It is well that we should recognize that all the days that went before the hour of our turning to God are lost days to us. Until then we never had a beginning. But then it was our beginning: notice the words twice repeated, "to you." Having made our beginning we should advance and begin to learn things as God sees them.

When we do not make advance in the things of God we become stunted, and lapse even as Christians into a self-centred condition, which is always deplorable, because leading to unhappiness and lack of spiritual understanding. We are like the old astronomers who formed many conflicting theories to account for the motions of the heavenly bodies, none of them very illuminating or satisfying, and it was not until, breaking away from the traditions of the ancients, it was discovered that not our earth, but the sun, was the centre of the system, around which the planets were revolving, that every thing was explained, and that which appeared to be complex and chaotic was seen to be simple and harmonious.

Who can measure then the blessing of travelling in thought out of one's own littleness into the immensity of the thoughts of God? Be it ours to view things, not with the eye of a caterpillar whose horizon is bounded by the green leaf on which it feeds, but, with the eye of an eagle soaring into the blue dome above the mountain tops. This we shall do if we start forth with the risen Christ as the beginning and centre. Every thought of God in connection with Him is imperishable, and will find its full consummation in the coming day of glory.

We have thus surveyed in these papers — though imperfectly — a little of the wealth of spiritual meaning which must have been conveyed to the ears of heaven when the angel said, "He is not here, for He is risen," on the dawn of that never-to-be-forgotten day.

"He is not here! Hushed are our woes for ever;

The Victor's shout hath made the welkin ring.

All heaven rejoices, for again shall never

The creature suffer from the serpent's sting.

The keys of death and hell are in the keeping

Of Him, who from the foe my soul hath f reed,

With exultation great my soul is leaping —

HE IS NOT HERE! THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED!"

The Lord's Yoke

The Lord's Yoke

Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 29, 1937, page 217.)

I can divide what I have to say under four headings. First of all, a few words about the exceeding grace and beauty of the One who speaks these matchless words, then the invitation that He issues; the instructions He gives, and lastly the assurance that He offers.

The Speaker we all know. "At that time Jesus answered and said ...." He was named Jesus before He came on the scene because, as the angel said, "He shall save His people from their sins." His miraculous birth took place that the word of the prophet might be fulfilled, "They shall call His name Emmanuel," which being interpreted is, God with us." It is indeed a marvellous thing that God should come amongst us thus; that there should appear a Man — a proper, a genuine, a perfect Man — and yet that Man should be Emmanuel.

When we come to this eleventh chapter we find Him accepting the fact of His rejection. There are no plaudits from the people; the multitude is not moved in His favour; there is a singular lack of appreciation both of Himself and of everything He brought. The same spirit had been manifested in regard to His forerunner, John the Baptist. He was the one who "mourned" unto them, for he had about him that severity of aspect that had marked Elijah. He was austere and separate and in his ministry continually put his finger upon the weakest spots in the lives of his hearers. They paid no real attention to him and did not "lament." Then came the blessed Lord Jesus Christ with tidings of grace. He mixed with men, He went to their feasts, He wrought miraculously in grace on their behalf. John did no miracle, you remember, though he said the most searching things, for his ministry was pungent to the last degree. Jesus in word and in deed was overflowing with grace.

The woman had said, "If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole." She was right, for Jesus was like a vessel full to the brim with water and the least touch will cause it to overflow. She was one of the few exceptions; the great mass saw nothing desirable in Him, and would not "dance" to His "piping." Yet He was "God with us."

Just at that time, when we might have expected Him to assert Himself and force men to pay Him attention, Jesus looked up to the Father as the Lord of heaven and earth and accepted this rejection as from His hands. The Pharisees and scribes were the wise and prudent folk who saw nothing in Him save a new teacher of religion who was both unauthorized and objectionable. The "babes" were the people of a simple and child-like spirit, uninstructed according to human standards, yet with opened eyes, seeing something of what the Father was making known. All this Jesus accepted in the fullest way. Manhood in perfection is seen in Him — lowliness of mind, and absolute subjection to the Father's will.

This is the more wonderful as at the same moment He spoke of all things being delivered into His hands of the Father. Most wonderful words! Here stood the One who had a whole universe of glory at His finger-tips. Ten thousand times ten thousand worlds were His, and ten thousand thousand more. All things came from His hands in creation at the outset. Now He is on earth that He may accomplish redemption, and all things are delivered to Him of the Father. He it is Who becomes the Revealer of the Father.

The word, "knoweth," which the Lord used twice in verse 27 is a very strong one, meaning to know thoroughly. But though the Father and the Son cannot be thoroughly known by creature minds, the Son is the Revealer of the Father. He came forth for that very purpose, and has accomplished it to perfection.

Two revelations are mentioned, in verses 25 and 27, and I think we can differentiate between them. There is the revelation made by the Father to the babes, and also the revelation of the Father made by the Son on earth. This latter is an objective revelation, inasmuch as the Son is before us as the Object in whom the Father is made known. The former is a subjective revelation, the things of God being made effective in those who are the subjects of the Father's work. The taking of a photograph may illustrate the difference. The sitter is the object and his face is accurately revealed if the lens is a good one. But so long as the lens only reveals the sitter's face on the screen of ground glass there is no subjective revelation: no picture is captured, nothing is retained. Put in a sensitized plate, make the suitable exposure, and under proper chemical treatment the subjective revelation is made.

That is only an imperfect illustration, but it may help us to see that only in and through the Son can the Father be known; and also that only by the Father's work do the babes receive the revelation into their hearts. The hearts of the scribes and Pharisees were hard and unresponsive, the babes possessed the humble, simple, child-like spirit that made them ready to receive. All this was the Father's will and the Father's work, and in it Jesus delighted, having not one thought apart from the Father's will. He rendered thanks to the Father in it all.

Now this is the One who issues the invitation, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." We will consider these choice words in the light of the situation that existed at the moment they were uttered, and in so doing we shall not for one instant rob them of their gospel application today. Who were these labouring and heavy laden people whom the Lord addressed? He spoke in the midst of a people who for many generations had been under the law of Moses. They knew it well, for as James said in the council, "Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day." Moreover the scribes and Pharisees bound the law as a heavy burden upon men's shoulders, while they themselves did not touch it with one of their fingers.

The godless and indifferent in Israel paid but lip service to the law; the God-fearing ones made a conscientious attempt to keep it. The "babes" of whom the Lord spoke were doubtless just these simple souls who listened to the holy law of God, applied it to themselves, and consequently became burdened. They laboured to keep the law, and were constantly convicted of failure. It was to just these that the Lord Jesus opened wide the arms of His invitation, bidding them come to Him that He might give them rest. There was no rest in the law nor in themselves. There was rest in Himself and in the work He was about to accomplish. It is just the same for us today.

Then notice the instruction He gave in saying, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me." Now in that council in Jerusalem Peter spoke of the law as "a yoke . . . which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear." This was a very graphic figure. Many years ago I remember seeing the huge South African wagons drawn by twelve or even sixteen oxen yoked in pairs. They were magnificent beasts with mighty horns, but they seemed to groan as they lumbered forward with heads pressed down by the yoke. They looked desperately uncomfortable, but not more so than many a sinner borne down in conscience under the holy law of God.

In these circumstances how welcome is the Lord's gracious invitation that we should come to Him! But we must not dissociate it from His instruction that we take His yoke upon us; that is, that we wholly and unreservedly bow to His supreme authority. A moment must come in the history of each of us when we realize and acknowledge that He is our Lord and when we whole-heartedly accept His control. Has that moment come with each one of us here?

Taking His yoke upon us we may learn of Him. Sometimes we hear Christians both old and young bemoaning themselves as to the slowness with which they learn. Why have I learned so little of Christ? These words of our Lord may discover the reason to us. He said, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me," and we cannot reverse the order of the two parts of the sentence. He did not say — learn of Me, and ultimately you may take My yoke upon you. The taking of His yoke is the preliminary to the learning of Him. Even in earthly matters things work in that way. Except a lad submits to the rule of his master he is not likely to learn anything from him. Our hearts must be bowed in the presence of Jesus as our Lord, for the taking of His yoke is the preliminary to learning of Him. Our Lord has no use for triflers.

Have we all of us known a moment when, alone and in His presence, our souls have bowed before Him saying, "Lord Jesus, Thou hast an absolute right to me? I am a creature of Thy hand, and not only that, I have been redeemed as the fruit of the travail of Thy soul. Let me be loyally Thine, now and for ever." I am not coming to my last point for a moment yet, for I am going to say that even had His yoke been as heavy as the yoke of the law, it would have still been only right that we should wear it on our necks. Only as we do wear it do we learn of Him, the meek One and lowly in heart.

The exact opposite of the meek man is the self-assertive man, and the opposite of the one who is lowly in heart is the one who is highminded. We were all of us highminded and self-assertive according to nature, and these features were specially prominent in Saul of Tarsus, for looking back he writes of himself as "a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent, overbearing man" (1 Tim. 1: 13. N. Trans.). In the same passage he called himself "the chief of sinners." He was a born leader, and he did not scruple to use his powers to assert himself. Jesus was Emmanuel — God with us — yet He did such a thing never, NEVER. God dwelt among us in Manhood, and so we see Manhood in its own proper perfection, for He was meek and lowly in heart.

The prophet had said that when the King came He should be meek and having salvation. It is not the self-assertive man who brings salvation, but the meek One; and in keeping with this we are told in Heb. 5 that the Son, who learned obedience by the things He suffered, having been perfected, became the Author of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him. King George V., when a young man, did a full naval course from a midshipman upwards, and thus learned naval obedience. The Son had ever commanded obedience from His creatures; now having become Man, He learns obedience, though ever the perfect One. We obey the One who was obedient unto the death of the cross, and find salvation in Him. It is the yoke of the obedient One, meek and lowly in heart, that we take upon us.

The first man, Adam, travelled on the up line of self-assertion. A crash is the inevitable outcome. for there are accidents on that line! We all have travelled on it too. There is only One who has travelled on the down line from the outset, and in perfection. He is now gone up into the heights far above all others. His yoke it is that we are to take upon us.

Once more I must appeal to you young Christians. Have you ever had a moment in your history when quietly and on bended knee you have spoken to your Lord and have told Him that you are absolutely His through grace from that moment to the days of eternity? Some of us need a moment like that. If I had not had such a moment in my young days I could not speak to you thus — though I have to confess how very feebly I have followed it up through life. If you have never yet had such a moment, see that you have it to-day. It will make a big difference in your life, and set you free from other yokes.

The yoke of the world still rests upon too many of us. The yoke of worldly customs still lies heavy upon this one; the yoke of fashion upon that one. But the ways of the world are not to have any authority with me. The word of my Lord is the only authority that is to command my heart. If He says it, then I am to gladly obey. I do not regulate my thinkings, religious or otherwise, by what even the scientists say. If all the scientists of earth, multiplied ten thousand times, contradict my Lord, I believe my Lord and not the scientists.

Why is it that we so often hang back and do not heartily take His yoke upon us? Often, I suppose, because we have a feeling that He will tel1 us to do something that we do not wish to do. He may indeed direct you to many things that run counter to the desires of the flesh and the ways of the world, but never counter to that new nature which is yours as newly created in Christ Jesus. Upon that fact is based the assurance that He offers in the last verse of the chapter — "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." He will never lead you into any way that runs counter to the desires of that new nature which is yours; and more and more, as you walk in His ways, you will find how happy and delightful they are. You will come to love them, and so find His yoke and His burden easy and light.

Taking His yoke upon us we are yielded up to Him, and then can proceed to yield our members as instruments of righteousness unto God, as Romans 6: 13 puts it. Instead of doing our own wills, which would only be sin, we set out to do His will, and in that there is rest. The One whose yoke is upon us was in the perfect rest of subjection to the Father's will. We may know that rest, then our kickings against circumstances, our fretful irritations will be over, the questionings, the strivings, the anxious labourings will cease. Let us make that whole-hearted committal of ourselves to Him, which will ensure it.

Did you ever read that story of Carey, the missionary of a century ago? After long absence he came back to this country from India, a rather famous man. Someone, who was really an opponent, wishing to humiliate him, seized a very public occasion to say to him in loud tones something like this, "Let me see Mr. Carey, before you went to India you were a shoe-maker, were you not?" Carey at once replied with a completely unruffled spirit, "Oh! no. I could not say I was a shoe-maker. I was only a cobbler!" Under the yoke of Christ, he had learned something of the lowly mind.

That incident furnishes us with an example of a man who found a sufficiency in Christ and was content with lowly things. What trouble comes into our lives when we aspire to high things, especially when we do it in connection with Christian things. It is when we have the yoke of the meek and lowly One upon us, and we are learning of Him, that we have rest.

If the result of our meeting is that our hearts come more definitely and firmly under His gracious yoke, we shall indeed be greatly blessed.

Be a Man of Purpose

Be a Man of Purpose.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol.  41, 1962-64, page 165.)

The Apostle Paul in his epistles revealed himself to be a man marked by intensity of purpose. Being filled and controlled by the Spirit of God, he embraced the purpose of God. Here in the actual words of scripture are some of the deep longings of his heart.

"

That I may know

Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death" (Phil. 3: 10).

"

That I may

apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3: 12).

"I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (1 Cor. 9: 22).

"I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established" (Rom. 1: 11).

What are the objects that we set before us in our lives? Are we anything like the Apostle Paul? Or do we fritter away our lives, pursuing little objects of pleasure, or of present and temporal gain in the world? Let us each seriously consider this matter.

From Man's Wretchedness to God's Greatness

From Man's Wretchedness to God's Greatness.

Psalm 77.

An Address by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 11, 1919, page 74.)

Introduction.

One of the attractive things about the Psalms is the way they present to us experimental truth. We are permitted to see the practical working of the truth in the experience of favoured saints of old, so that, no matter what our experiences may be, we can always find in the Psalms some allusion to feelings of a like kind. We are made to feel that after all our experiences are not absolutely unique, and that there are others who have tasted the same things.

Now this 77th Psalm is as highly experimental as any we can find. You will notice it is a Psalm of Asaph. There are a group of these Psalms, all written by the same sweet singer. They begin with the 73rd. The second Book of Psalms ends with that magnificent millennial Psalm, the 72nd; the Psalm which gives us such a wonderful view of the glories of the coming kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the Psalmist himself felt he had nothing left to pray for. He saw the consummation of all his desires in the day of the King who was coming. The glimpse he got by the Spirit of the coming kingdom was so satisfying that it left him without a prayer on his lips. The next Psalm opens in a very different strain. It is the perplexity of Asaph, the godly man, at the apparent prosperity of evil on the earth. He could not understand it. The godly seemed to be perplexed and plagued, and the wicked to flourish. He felt tempted to utterly abandon all faith in God; his steps had well-nigh slipped. But at last he went into the sanctuary of God, and there, in the presence of God — as far as he might know it in those days — he found the solution of the problem.

I think you will find there is a distinct progression in these Psalms. Psalm 74 is a lament. It is the kind of lament which the godly Jews in a coming day will take on their lips, when they see the devastation wrought on the earth by the powers of evil, headed up in Antichrist. Then we pass on to Psalm 75, which announces God's judgment, and Psalm 76., which anticipates the divine triumph at the beginning of the millennial age, when "the stout-hearted are spoiled . . . they have slept their sleep . . . and none of the men of might have found their hands." This probably had a preliminary fulfilment in the great deliverance wrought in the days of Hezekiah, but its exhaustive fulfilment will be in the coming day. That will be the time, as the ninth verse says, when "God arises in judgment, to save the meek of the earth," to make manifest before men at large the truth which Asaph says he learned in the sanctuary of God in Psalm 73.

Mental and Spiritual Difficulties.

In Psalm 77 Asaph unfolds to us the mental and spiritual difficulties through which he passed. He went through a very depressing and trying time, and he rehearses the matter to us from the beginning. "I cried unto God, with my voice, and He heard me." A saint never does cry to God without being heard.

From verses 2 to 6, Asaph tells us what was the state of his mind. The fact is, he was afflicted with a dreadful attack of introspection, which is only another word far self-occupation. Some of us may get occupied with ourselves because we are naturally of that turn of mind and therefore very apt to turn in upon ourselves. We think that in doing so we are seeking the Lord, as Asaph did, for he says, "In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord." As a matter of fact, however, he was seeking some point of rest and comfort in himself, for he goes on to tell us, "My sore ran in the night, and ceased not; my soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God, and was troubled." Think of that! You would expect that a saint could not think of God without a song on his lips. No, he remembered God, and was troubled, because, although he remembered God, what was filling the vision of his soul was simply himself. "I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed."

He felt absolutely at the end of his resources; sleepless by night, and as though he could not speak to anybody by day (ver. 4). We might well have asked, "Asaph, what have you been dwelling upon?" If we want to be happy, we must dwell on happy subjects. If you come across one who is always dwelling on unsavoury things, you will find such a one a very unsavoury individual. A person who is always dwelling upon mournful subjects, invariably goes about with a long face. You may say, "I do get so depressed and cast down." Do not dwell on the gloomy side. Is it not possible to have the eye of your heart lifted off to that which is bright?

He tells us in verses 5 and 6 the things that had been occupying his thoughts. "I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times." I have been thinking about bygone history. Old Christians are very apt to be troubled like this. They think the former days were vastly better than these. It is doubtless true that twenty-five years ago there was more interest among the saints of God, and in the work of God. We look back, and say, "Ah, those bright days of twenty-five or thirty years ago." We find Asaph had known brighter days personally. If conditions had been better, as connected with his circumstances, conditions had also been brighter in his soul. "I call to remembrance my song in the night." I was so happy; I remembered when I could have laid awake on my bed, and sung to God." "I communed with my own heart." "My spirit made diligent search." Yes, but in what direction? Evidently within.

Now this is most depressing work. Some of us have experienced it. Some of us may not be as bright to-day as we might have been, because of this habit of looking within. We consult our own feelings, and are occupied with ourselves or our circumstances. There are many dear children of God being robbed of their birthright in the way of spiritual joy, and happiness and power, because of that habit. Such is the subtlety of this kind of thing that its effect is to make us doubt, not ourselves — not to make us so conscious of our own utter worthlessness that we say self is no longer worthy of being cultivated — but to make us doubt God.

This was the effect with Asaph. It raised a whole host of questions — not about himself, but about God. He says, "Will the Lord cast off for ever? Will the Lord be favourable no more? Is His mercy clean gone for ever? Does His promise fail for evermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Here are six questions, all casting reflections upon God. You will find that is the spirit in the world around. All these calamities that have come upon the civilized world are being seized upon and made an excuse to blame God. Here Asaph actually doubts the Lord. There may be some one here who has had an experience of that kind. You have felt you would almost doubt God Himself.

Then there comes that little word "Selah" — stop! It is about time we did stop when we can actually question the mercy and graciousness of God.

In verse 10 Asaph appears to start as a man awakening out of sleep, and he says, "This is my infirmity." Perhaps he had been thinking previously that all this self-occupation with its attendant misery was very pious and very right. There are dear Christian people who are in a state of inward misery, and they in a way pride themselves on being in that state. If they were not miserable, they would begin to be miserable because they were not miserable. The fact is that all this kind of thing is our infirmity. It is a great thing to label things by their right names. This is INFIRMITY, and not piety!

The Cure.

Now what is the cure? I am afraid our circumstances have occupied a great deal of our thoughts, and we get no strength whatever from being so occupied. Look at the contrast in verse 10: "I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High." This is something which stretches far outside the little course of time's history. The mind of Asaph was lifted up to things beyond the stars. He left himself with his wretchedness and littleness behind him when he began to remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. "I will remember," he says, "the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old." He is speaking of the God who marches through the circumstances. "I will talk of thy doings."

Suppose, brethren, we could walk a little bit in Asaph's footsteps, what a transformation it would produce. Suppose we fix the eye of our hearts, not on the seen things, not on the failings of our brethren and on the peculiar things they say and do, but on the God who marches through the circumstances, who works His sovereign will, who has revealed Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is going to let the right hand of His power be seen in a way we have never yet seen it: we should be transformed! There could not be a greater contrast than between the spirit of these early verses of the Psalm and the spirit of verse 13. He says, I will get before my soul the works of the Lord. "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God as our God." The man begins to triumph. If I may adopt the language of Romans 7, he was previously saying, "Who is so wretched a man as I am?" Now he says, "Who is so great a God as our God?" We see here the change that was wrought in a man when he got the eye of his heart off his circumstances, and on to God. It is like Psalm 73, where Asaph went into the sanctuary and got the problems and difficulties solved. So he says here, "Thy way is the sanctuary." If we seek the presence of God, we shall understand His way. Then he tells us God's way is a redeeming way: "Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known."

Let us take it to heart. God's way is in the sea. Amidst the masses of mankind, amidst all the jangle and strife of the various races that inhabit Europe, so like the sea, which represents people in unrest and anarchy; God's way is there. His path is in the great waters. When men are agitated, and start their movements, not in the least knowing where they are going, God moves through all the conflict. His footsteps are not known. In another way they are known, because He has led His people "like a flock, by the hands of Moses and Aaron." Moses and Aaron have been superseded, as the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, by One who is infinitely greater than Moses and Aaron, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus. He is the true Moses, the true Revealer: and the true Aaron, the true Priest who holds up His people and leads them on.

These are His footsteps through the raging billows of Europe today. While His people are here, He leads them. If you and I get into the sanctuary with God, if we get our eyes on God and His things — the eternal things, we shall see more clearly what His way is. We shall learn His strength — that which will supply us with the energy we need.

"A more excellent sacrifice."

"A more excellent sacrifice."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 31, 1939, page 84.)

All that we know of Abel is compressed into a few verses in Genesis 4, supplemented by one verse in Hebrews 11. His name is mentioned in a few other verses of the New Testament, but not in a way that adds anything to our knowledge of him. The facts concerning him are given in Genesis, and then Hebrews 11: 4 illumines the facts, making clear their deep significance.

We might almost have written fact, rather than facts. We are told that he was "a keeper of sheep," but this merely makes it certain that when he brought as an offering "the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof," it was an offering of lambs. We are also told that "the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering," and this shows that he and his offering were accepted in the sight of God. The central fact is that he found the way of acceptable approach to God by means of a sacrifice, which involved the death of the victim. He was the first man to die, yet, because his act set forth the true ground of approach to God, his name is still remembered and his voice is still heard.

Cain's offering and his hatred, culminating in murder, furnish a dark background to the picture, against which Abel's sacrifice stands out the more clearly. Cain brought his offering on rational and natural grounds. His father Adam had been driven forth from Eden "to till the ground from whence he was taken," and of the two brothers Cain was the one to follow this out, for he "was a tiller of the ground." In this he was quite unimpeachable, but, in assuming that God would be pleased with an offering of some of the fruits of his tillage, he evidently forgot that the ground had been cursed, and that he himself was under the sentence of death, and that no fruit of the labour of his hands, not even the best could lift that weighty sentence and put him right with God. Since God paid no attention whatever to his offering, he found himself rejected.

The excellence of Abel's sacrifice lay in the fact that it was of such a nature as to acknowledge his own place as a sinner before God under sentence of death. He did not bring the firstlings of his flock alive, as is shown by the words which follow, "and of the fat thereof." Read these words in the light of such a verse as Numbers 18: 17, and the significance of them is clear. By bringing an offering of this character Abel owned the truth as to himself and took his true place before God. He did in principle what the publican did, as related by the Lord in Luke 18: 13, and the same happy result followed in both cases.

And further, the greater excellence of his sacrifice is seen in this: it was the first clear foreshadowing and type of the death of Christ. We say, clear, because there was a dim announcement of His death in the words of the Lord God, as to he bruising of the heel of the woman's seed, and a dim type in the clothing of Adam and Eve in the coats of skins. Now however what was involved in these two things comes clearly into view, and there can be no mistaking the fact that Abel's slain lambs, with their fat offered to God, pointed on to the great sacrifice of Calvary. The excellence of a calm full moon in winter is borrowed from the sun, which is for the moment invisible to us, so the excellence of Abel's sacrifice was largely attributable to the fact that at the dawn of the world's history it was radiating the light of the far-distant sacrifice of Jesus, which was yet to come.

Consequently, in Abel's sacrifice God found pleasure. Finding pleasure in his gifts, He testified to His acceptance of them in no uncertain way. Genesis tells us that God "had respect to" his offering, and Hebrews states that God testified "of his gifts," but in neither place are we told how God rendered this testimony. It may have been by fire from heaven, as on other occasions, or it may not. The mode by which He did it does not signify, the fact that He did it is of the utmost significance.

It meant much to Abel, since thereby he "obtained witness that he was righteous," or, in other words, that he was right with God. It means much to us also, since in just the same way do we get evidence of our own justification. God did not testify to Abel or to the excellence of his character, but He did testify to the excellence of the sacrifice which he brought, and on the ground of which his approach was based. The moment that Abel knew that his sacrifice was accepted, he knew that he was accepted, since he stood or fell by the offering that he brought. His sacrifice being accepted, he knew that he was right with God.

Our assurance of being right with God, if it is to be solid and lasting. must be based upon the fact that our approach to God is on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ, and that His sacrifice, made once for all upon the cross, has been accepted by God.

How did God testify His acceptance of the atoning sacrifice of Christ? We can answer this question, thank God! without any element of uncertainty. We do not know exactly how God testified His acceptance of Abel's sacrifice, but we know without any doubt how He testified as to the sacrifice of Christ. Verses 12-14, of the previous chapter have told us that Christ "having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God . . . for by one offering He has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified" (Darby's New Trans.). His resurrection and session at the right hand of God is the Divine testimony to the supreme worth of His sacrifice.

God's testimony to His acceptance of the offering is evidence to the offerer that he is righteous. This is what Hebrews 11: 4 states in regard to Abel. The same thing exactly is true in regard to us. As the believer fixes the eye of faith on Jesus seated at the right hand of God, he has all the evidence he needs as to his complete justification before God. We cannot be too clear on this point. If we attempt to obtain evidence of being righteous in any other direction, focusing our attention upon our feelings, our experiences, or even our faith, we are bound to be landed into uncertainty. God bears no witness to any of these things, for none of them is perfect, and so any witness that may be borne as to them must be human at best. God's witness is borne to the perfect sacrifice of Christ. Perfect certainty is found in God's witness, and here we can safely rest.

Abel offered his more excellent sacrifice by faith. He brought the right kind of offering, but he did not do this by good fortune or a happy inspiration, but by faith. Now it was just this that Cain lacked. In desiring to draw near to God, he may have meant very well, but he had no understanding of God's way and his darkened mind led him to stumble along a way of his own. But, if Abel had faith, we may ask, in what did his faith rest? Faith simply takes God at His word, simply receives the light of the Divine revelation. Now where was the word or revelation that could be laid hold of by Abel's faith?

The only revelation which is disclosed to us in the Scriptures is that provided by God's action on the day sin entered Eden, when He clothed Adam and Eve in coats made from skins. These coats must have involved death falling upon the animals whose skins were taken for this purpose. So on the very day that sin entered the Garden, death entered too; only it was not the death of the man and woman who had sinned, but rather the death of innocent victims, whereby was provided the covering needed by the sinners. This action of the Lord God was deeply significant. It was one of those occasions when actions did indeed speak more loudly than words. God presented His mind in a pictorial way.

There was something very suitable in this since the human race was at that moment in its infancy. We all know that to human individuals in infancy a picture conveys much more than a multitude of words. God set forth His way of covering guilty sinners, so that they might be able to abide His presence, in this pictorial way, and Abel had the faith to grasp and understand the Divine way. It is only by faith that we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God; and only by faith did Abel understand the right way of approach to God, or do we understand it today. Again and again we witness the sad spectacle of the wise and prudent of this world fumbling in complete darkness where the way to God is in question, and quite unconscious of the darkness they are in. They have first-class intellects and even prodigious learning, but no faith.

Though in point of order we have dwelt upon faith last, it comes first in Hebrews 11: 4, since there everything begins on our side. On God's side the sacrifice of supreme and eternal value stands first: first in His mind, and first historically, if we think of ourselves, antedating our very existence by many centuries. Still on our side faith rightly stands in the first place, and there we begin, and then the other items fall into their places.

The order of our verse is this: — faith, sacrifice, witness, righteousness, speaking. Does not this order suit us exactly? Our faith being centred in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, we find in His resurrection and exaltation God's witness to its supreme sufficiency, and thus the peace! giving knowledge of righteousness takes possession of our hearts. Then, and not till then, can we open our lips in testimony, and speak that which we have discovered for ourselves.

Abel's blood spoke, and cried for vengeance. The blood of Christ speaks better things than that of Abel.

Modern Mystical Teachings and the Word of God.

F. B. Hole.

Note to the Reader

(ca. 1950)

The first edition of this pamphlet appeared in 1922, and for along time has been out of print. As the years have passed, however, the school of teaching, which we then examined briefly, has proceeded to further extravagancies, and the assertion of doctrines even more fundamentally false; so much so that a call has come for its re-issue.

This has involved considerable additional matter, and the omission of some things that appeared in the earlier edition. The omitted portions were considered of  lesser gravity, and for that reason only were expunged, so as to avoid any large increase in size.

All the extracts we cite are taken from publications of the last 40 years, though a few have only appeared very recently. The roots of this false teaching, however, can be traced a good way further back than 40 years, to a time when many brethren adopted the idea that God always has one particular man for the moment, to whose utterances peculiar value must be attributed. This idea soon reacted badly upon the individual who was considered to be the teacher for the moment, and in course of time he was incited to put forth novel things in an unbalanced way. These unbalanced teachings were hailed as new light by his followers. And so the process developed and enlarged until the teacher for the moment became invested with almost papal authority by his admirers.

The evil fruits of this movement are becoming increasingly plain. Teachings false to the vital fundamentals of our holy faith are being promulgated, and the end is not yet. Let us be warned. Scripture exhorts us to “shun profane and vain babblings; for they will increase unto more ungodliness” (2 Tim. 2: 16).

The Features that Characterize Mystical Teachings.

First of all it may be well to define the term we use.

What is mysticism?

It deals largely with ourselves, and our own state and apprehension of the truth. It is occupied not with divine realities themselves, but with how we become conscious of those realities, and of the way they work out certain results in us.

The Word of God deals with the state of His saints. It throws light upon the progressive work of the Spirit in our souls. All this truth, which we speak of commonly as subjective, is of great importance, and we do well to maintain it, firmly holding it in its true connection with the great objective realities themselves, since every action of the Spirit within us subjectively is in strict accord with the objective reality by which He works.

Mysticism, however, does not preserve the Scriptural order and balance as between these two sides of truth. In its eyes the subjective side appears so great that the objective realities are largely obscured. We say largely because it does not deny God's revelation in Christ, nor the reality of the work He accomplished for us, nor that which He will yet accomplish for us at His coming again. It admits these things theologically, and then relegates them into the background of the picture in order that the foreground may be the more effectually occupied with the Spirit's work within us. Consequently to the mystic this subjective side of things becomes the only thing worth consideration. The consciousness of the thing becomes in his thoughts virtually the thing itself. He talks therefore continually about his consciousness, his apprehension, his experiences; which is only another way of saying he is wrapped up in himself. He speaks of Christ, but views Him as the One, who produces these impressions.

Nor is this all. If people could be found marked only by these characteristics, it is doubtful if the term “mystic” could be properly applied to them. The essence of mysticism lies in this, that the seat of authority is transferred in the mind of the mystic from the external Word of God to the spiritual consciousness — the “spiritual man” — internal to themselves. Homage of quite an orthodox kind may be verbally rendered to the Scriptures, and yet they may be largely displaced. The spiritual conception of the mystic, who flatters himself that he is indeed a spiritual man, are all important to him. He soars above and beyond the Scripture. Its letter he disdains, even if he does not speak against it. It has little or no restraining effect upon the flights of his imagination. He quotes it of course, but only as supporting or illustrating or adorning his own conceptions of truth. His conceptions become the primary thing on which the main emphasis must be laid. Scripture must be interpreted in the light of those conceptions, and its words become of secondary importance.

At the opposite pole to mysticism lies a cold orthodoxy devoid of power. It is sadly possible to insist correctly on all the great objective verities of the faith without much exercise of conscience as to a positive entrance upon these realities in the power of the Spirit of God. Truth may thus be stated and Scripture correctly expounded without the warmth of the love of the truth. In this frame of mind people seem to fear what is subjective and experimental in ministry as though it in some way robbed them of truth itself, instead of it being only calculated to divest them of an easy-going mental acceptance of truth and of the self-complacency which goes with it, and plunge them into genuine exercise of heart before God. In all this tendency there is something poor and shallow, and earnest souls are by it repelled.

Mysticism has about it an apparent profundity of thought and utterance. It promises a far greater depth of understanding, which is alluring, and especially to minds of a certain contemplative type, fundamentally disposed towards introspection and self-occupation. Though the present age is one of turmoil and shallow reasoning, mysticism still makes its voice heard, and by its very contrast offers certain attractions. Hence we believe a few words of warning may be profitable, especially as its ultimate tendencies have always been towards not only indefiniteness of doctrine and statement, but to the maintenance of teachings quite foreign to and astray from the Word of God. As before, so again it has led to grave and fundamental error.

During past years books and magazines, wherein a certain form of modern mysticism is expounded, have come into our hands. Some of these are enumerated below, and any quotations from them in the text will be referred to under the respective letter allotted to each, so that space may be saved.

1. The Body; Holding the Head, and Union. — J.T.

2. How the Truth of the Assembly appeared in the Development of God's Ways, etc. — J.T.

C. Notes of Meetings in Chicago, January, 1919.

D. The Believers' Friend, July, 1920.

E.  Mutual Comfort, 1920 volume.

F. The Movements of the Testimony. — J.T.

G. The Way. — J.T.

H. Names of Divine Persons. — J.T.

I. The Sonship of Christ. — J.T.

J. Inscrutability. — J.T.

K. Notes of Readings in New York, 1939. — J.T.

L. The Testimony of Grace and Judgment.

M. Words of Grace and Comfort.

In many of these initials appear indicating various speakers. As, however, what is of importance and interest is not the speakers, but the truth or falsity of the views expressed, we have omitted many initials in the extracts quoted. We now proceed to deal with some of their salient features.

2.

The Eclipse of Objective Realities by One-Sided Subjective Impressions corresponding therewith.

This feature is very strongly emphasized. The great idea running through these mystical publications is the ALL-importance of the subjective as contrasted with the objective. This is elaborated and reiterated in many ways with great expenditure of words, consequently the only difficulty is to find it expressed in sufficiently compact form for quotation.

The following is an example:-

“Many have the Spirit, and are in the body [of Christ] from the divine side, but practical obligations here are not met, and therefore the thing is null and void to such.” (A. p. 4).

This is a pretty clear example of the teaching. The fact of believers having the Spirit, and thus being baptized into one body (1 Cor. 12: 13), is admitted. Yet it is admitted only to be dismissed as “null and void” to all such as do not meet their practical obligations here. On a previous page we are enlightened as to what is meant by the phrase, “practical obligations”:-

“God commends Himself to us, that is His side, now what can you be for God? So you take up the covenant, the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in you; you begin at the bottom.” (A. p. 2 & 3).

Here the allusion is to Romans 8: 4, where God's triumph in Christ is contrasted with the weakness of the law. The law could neither produce that which it demanded, nor condemn the root principle of sin, which was unrestrained by its demands. It could only condemn the open acts of transgression, and curse the transgressor. God, by the sacrifice of His own Son for sin, has both condemned sin in the flesh, and secured the fulfilling of the law's righteous demand in those walking, not according to flesh, not even according to law, but according to Spirit. It must be confessed with sorrow that many saints, who possess the Spirit, walk but little according to Him, and are little troubled as to their failure. This verse, however, states normal Christianity. It must also be confessed that none of us, not even the most spiritual, walk altogether according to Spirit, and thus altogether fulfil what the law righteously demands.

The extract we have quoted gives us no quarter, inasmuch as the statements are made dogmatically, and without qualification. Have we met these practical obligations? Do we walk according to Spirit, thus fulfilling the righteousness of the law? What can we say? Have we happy experience of the delivering power of the “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”? Yes, thank God! Yet alas! in many things we all offend, and we cannot flatter ourselves that we have “met our obligations.”

The author we have just quoted, however, wishes us to believe that if we are not subjectively in thoroughgoing accord with the objective reality, then to us the objective reality is “null and void,” i.e., nothing and empty, of neither force nor meaning. Truly, as we have said, the objective reality disappears, quite eclipsed by the overpowering importance of the subjective impression.

A little further on the author says:-

“I think we ought to be very simple about righteousness. The Spirit enables us to fulfil every moral obligation. There is no progress made in our souls unless these obligations are fulfilled.” (A. p. 11).

“The great point in Romans is the fulfilling of the responsibilities of the creature — man — towards the Creator.” (A. p. 14).

These words emphasize his standpoint. Until we reach subjectively the state he has in view, we are doomed to no progress, i.e., as the context shows, to no entrance into “assembly truth” as unfolded in other epistles. It is as if the subjective knowledge of truth is divided into diverse spheres, which must be completely passed through in a certain order, and we are left with the impression that however we may be ourselves conscious of failure, the speaker himself, at least, can lay claim to the requisite subjective condition.

The second quotation shows that to him, the subjective effect produced by the Gospel is the great point. On the contrary, we venture to affirm that the great point in Romans is the “Gospel of God,” which brings God in, acting both in righteousness and love for the deliverance of men from the grip of evil, to be for His pleasure both now in the midst of a groaning creation, and ultimately in a redeemed creation. The subjective work of the Spirit comes in incidentally to this.

Yet again he says:-

“It is of the utmost importance that, if you take things subjectively, we have nothing but what we have grown into, and that is by the work of the Spirit. On the gift side you have everything.”

It is indeed by the work of the Spirit that we grow up into the truth and possess it in power, but it is also true that no one is a Christian at all, nor possesses the Spirit, unless the subject of a mighty work of the same Spirit. Of the Spirit we are born (John 3: 6-8). There is consequently about us an “inward man” (Rom. 7: 22; 2 Cor. 4: 16). Through the Spirit there is soul-purification “unto unfeigned love of the brethren” (1 Pet. 1: 22). Indeed, “we live in the Spirit” (Gal. 5: 25) and upon this fact the exhortation to walk in the Spirit is based. It is quite true therefore to say that we have nothing apart from the work of the Spirit. It is not true that we have nothing “but what we have grown into,” for we have all that which is the fruit of the Spirit's initial work before we begin to grow at all. One might feel somewhat comforted by the admission that on the gift side we have everything, save that one remembers that we have just heard that apart from the proper subjective response the objective reality becomes “null and void”. This last extract would lead us to suppose that the great initial work of the Spirit in the soul is really nothing! The “inward man” is something we have, rather than something we are, — and yet our author says “we HAVE NOTHING but what we have grown into.”

Judging from previous experiences with this line of teaching, we quite expect that our remarks would be met by some disclaimers, and we suspect the author does not quite mean all he says. We can only, however, deal with what he does say.

“Formative” with its variations is a much used word in connection with the Spirit's work. For instance:-

“In John's epistles the saints are viewed as formed in the divine nature.” (A. p. 17).

“Having the Spirit is the very necessary equipment for the formation of Christ, but it does not say [Rom. 8] that you have been formed in Christ. Could persons have the Spirit and not have Christ in them? They could; the Corinthians had not Christ in them.” (A. p.18) .

“In Romans 8. . . Paul says, 'If Christ be in you,' and I think if the Spirit of Christ is there you can say Christ is there, but then it is of great importance for Christ to be formed.” (A. p. 107).

Here the “formation” of Christ is treated as a work of the Spirit of an advanced character. You may have the Spirit, and even Christ may be in you, since you have the Spirit of Christ, without Christ being “formed” in you. As a sample case the Corinthians are cited. They had not even Christ in them according to this teaching, let alone Christ being formed in them.

In all this we have travelled grievously away from Scripture, although on page 107 a little lower down we read:-

“The only way to arrive at the truth is from the way in which Scripture presents it.”

How does Scripture present it? We turn in the first instance to the case of the Corinthians selected by our author to illustrate his point. We read, “Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2 Cor. 13: 5). So Christ was in the Corinthians after all, as He is in every true child of God. The only exception according to the verse is the reprobate, the unconverted.

We turn to John's first epistle. There the saints are truly “viewed as formed in the divine nature” but it is as “born of God,” so that “the babe” possesses the nature as much as “the Father” in the family of God (1 John 2: 12-29). Here again this teaching ignores the great foundation work of the Spirit in order to attribute all its effects to the subsequent operations of the Spirit in our hearts.

But what about Christ being formed in us? This expression occurs but once in Scripture as follows:- “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. 4: 19). The Apostle's language here makes it certain that to his mind, — and therefore in the mind of the Spirit — “Christ formed in you” is an elementary thing. He stood in doubt as to these Galatian saints, as he tells them in verse 20, and hence he was passing again through birth pangs of soul-exercise over them — “until Christ be formed in you.” That accomplished, his birth pangs would end in deliverance. The Scriptural presentation of this truth is such as to place it amongst the elementary things that lie at the start. If Christ be not formed in those who take the place of Christians, an Apostle doubts if they are Christians at all! The way this phrase, as to Christ being formed in us, is wrested from its scriptural setting in these extracts is very mischievous.

Taking the plainest statements of objective truth and extracting from them false subjective meaning is sadly noticeable in these publications. Here are a few statements on the Epistle to the Colossians:-

“The Colossians were reconciled in their state. He would not have said it ['you . . . now hath He reconciled'] of the Colossians if it had not been true . . . He could not have said that of the Corinthians for example.” (C. p. 106).

“'If ye then be risen' -Yes, risen 'with' not 'in' . . . If it were 'risen in Christ' it would be objective.” (C. p. 37),

“It does not read 'If ye have died in Christ' . . . . 'If ye have been raised in the Christ.' That is the whole point of the epistle, viz.. that they had arrived subjectively at the teaching of the death of Christ. 'If ye have died with Christ.' " (C. p. 120).

“Although Christ is prominent in Colossians, the work of the Spirit is the main point.” (C. p.130).

When the Apostle wrote, “You hath He reconciled” to the Colossians he was stating what is true of Christians as such, and not something only true because they were conscious of it, having arrived at it in their state. What proves this is that the succeeding verses show reconciliation to be in view of presentation — “If ye continue in the faith . . .” Why that “if”? Simply because the Apostle viewed them as partaking of common Christian blessings — such as reconciliation — but still he had an element of doubt as to some of them. Had the Apostle meant “And you Colossians, having been brought by the Spirit subjectively into the truth of reconciliation, are reconciled,” he could never have added that “if.” Further, if souls are not “subjectively” in reconciliation they are not in the simple truth of the gospel. So “joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Rom. 5: 11) is just proper Christian state, lying at the beginning of things.

As to the distinction attempted between “with” and “in,” a glance at the passages involved shows that it does not stand. For instance, Romans 6: 6 & 8, clearly refers to what was accomplished objectively at the cross. According to this theory it should read, “Our old man is crucified 'in' Him” — “If we be dead 'in' Him.” Yet in both cases “with” is used. Indeed, we need not go outside Colossians to see the falsity of the distinction. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above” (Col. 3: 1), i.e., since you are risen with Christ let there be the subjective power of resurrection in practice. “Risen with Him” (Col. 2: 12), is the reality on which is founded an appeal to answer to it.

The statement as to the Spirit being the main point in Colossians is a characteristic example of the way the letter of Scripture is violated, under plea of extracting its spirit. The Spirit of God indites an epistle in which He extols the glory and sufficiency of Christ, the Head of the body, and mentions Himself but once, and that incidentally. (Col. 1: 8). We, however, are told that we are to understand that His main point is not what He speaks of, but what he barely mentions. We refuse to believe that the Spirit of God is marked by a singular inability to say what He means. Does this speaker desire to convey that the Spirit wishes to hide His meaning, whilst he feels himself possessed of that mystic inner light which gives sight and penetration into its recesses?

We, too, desire to dig beneath the surface of Scripture and reach the spirit of it. But then the spirit of the Holy Writings is not some sublimated essence altogether distinct from the actual words, but rather its spiritual drift and purpose as gathered from the actual words. We can only find the spirit of what is there in the letter, and not the spirit of what is NOT there.

This treatment of Scripture which we repudiate is all too reminiscent of the light and airy way in which the “higher critics” profess to discover two or more “Isaiahs” in Isaiah. They have no real proof. They just assume they have the critical insight enabling them to discover it, and then trumpeting abroad their imagined discovery.

3.

Belittling of Scripture in Favour of the Conceptions

and Impressions of “Spiritual Men”

Here lies, as we judge, the gravest part of the teaching under review. This feature was visible in the extracts we have quoted. It comes out more plainly in these we now proceed to give:-

“I would not be lawless as to the statements of Scripture but I am not exactly governed by statements of Scripture. For instance, I do not come to the Supper just because it is Scriptural . . . . What I said was, that I would not be lawless as to the statements of Scripture, but the unfolding of Scripture is in the hands of spiritual men . . . . The point I am pressing is this, that the Scripture can only be opened out by the Spirit of God, and the spiritual man.” (C. pp. 10, 11, 12).

“The mind of God is coming to us through spiritual men, not exactly through Scripture. Everybody has the Scriptures, but the mind of God is coming through spiritual men — men sowing to the Spirit.” (C. p. 31).

We have before now cast about in our mind for a sentence which would aptly sum up in a few words the attitude of this modern mysticism to the Word of God. Here we have found it in their own words. The Word of God is not denied. Its inspiration is upheld. Something from within its pages forms the text of every address, or is the starting point of every reading, but here you have in a nutshell the attitude which marks the exponents of this teaching, though not all make so plain a statement as this:-

“I am not exactly governed by statements of Scripture.”

The speaker, indeed the speakers, in the book we are now quoting from, are marked by rather more definiteness and vigour of expression. What is vaguely hinted at elsewhere is here presented boldly. Not only is the attitude clearly defined, but the reason for it is stated. The “spiritual man” is, we learn, the great thing for the unfolding of Scripture. Everybody has the Scriptures, but what we need is the mind of God, and that comes to us, it is stated, “not exactly through Scripture,” but “through spiritual men.” Consequently, a little further on we read:-

“I have sometimes said it is better to have one testimony in actual life, than a whole city full of Bibles.” (C. pp. 41, 42).

There are, of course, elements of truth in all this. It is the “spiritual” man, in contrast with the “natural” man, who receives the things of God; and the carnal believer is, in God's things, but a babe (1 Cor. 2 & 3). It is quite true, therefore, that only one who is spiritual is likely to minister the Word and open up God's mind with power. Yet plainly enough, the speaker here is carrying out his own theory and we are getting from his lips, not Scripture, but a peculiar and warped presentation of it. Not being just exactly governed by statements of Scripture he feels free to give us his own subjective impressions of Scripture, and we are left to accept them as coming from one who is presumably a “spiritual man.”

But what does Scripture itself say? It reveals to us our Lord Jesus Christ as absolutely governed by statements of Scripture (e.g., see Luke 4: 1-13; John 19: 28), and Paul likewise, (Acts 23: 5). It shows us a Scripture statement being accepted as final in the great apostolic council at Jerusalem (Acts 15: 15-19), and thus governing, not merely a believer (even allowing that he is a “spiritual man”!), but the whole Church of God.

But does Scripture say that the unfolding of Scripture is in the hands of spiritual men? No. It speaks of gifts given from the ascended Christ “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry” (Eph. 4: 11, 12). It indicates also that elders, who were, perhaps, not exactly “teachers,” might “labour in the word and doctrine” (1 Tim. 5: 17). There is one Scripture which speaks of teaching amongst the saints in a more general way, viz., Colossians 3: 16. But there it is “teaching and admonishing one another.” It is evidently teaching of a homely and everyday sort in which all may take some part. If we could speak of the unfolding of Scripture being in anyone's hands it would be in those of teachers and elders raised up of the Lord. We do not care, however, for the phrase at all. It is too suggestive of the mental attitude towards Scripture which we condemn. It infers that Scripture is in our hands, and we manipulate it; whereas really it towers above the greatest of teachers, and is supreme.

The theory that we are examining, however, is that the spiritual man is one who “arrives at” the truth by the action of the Spirit within him. There is the “formative work” of which they speak, by which he reaches “certain ground” in his soul. When coming to Scripture, he thinks he finds there what he has reached by “spiritual formation” and then he proceeds to put his conceptions and impressions into words. The following extracts give the theory:-

“It is a good thing to have the form of doctrine, to have the manner by which you arrive at things. I think that in the history of our souls, we are sometimes on certain ground, and yet we do not know the way we arrived there. Now doctrine gives you that . . . He [the Apostle Paul] describes the state and how they got there . . . You get there, and the teaching of the Epistle to the Colossians establishes you . . . . They needed a spiritual man to lead the way, to define the situation they had got to.” (C. pp. 121 , 122).

“John expects there is life in you, and that you will understand what this thing means. John does not write to the uninitiated-none of the Scriptures are written to such, John far less so” (C. p. 99).

According to this, Scripture plays but a very secondary part. It is quite subservient to this inward spiritual formation, this “inner light” as we may call it, Scripture being mainly of use as furnishing a suitable expression for it. The remarks on the Epistle to the Colossians are supplemented by a reference to John's gospel, which is quite remarkable in view of John's own statement: “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through His name.” (20: 31).

Our author tells us that John takes for granted that there is life in you. John himself informs us that he writes in order that his readers “might have life,” through believing. Our author says that none of the Scriptures are written to the uninitiated; John far less so than others. John himself states that he writes that his readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, not because they so believed. The fact really is, that, though the great mass of the New Testament Scripture was truly written to and for believers, John's gospel is the one book that avows as its object a purpose of world-wide dimensions.

To ordinary readers, uninitiated into such teachings, these quoted statements sound startling. Such would probably enquire, Does our author wish us to understand that he knows the object of John's writing better than John himself? or whether, on the other hand, he is so liberated from bondage to the letter of Scripture, that he can ignore its statements in favour of his own impressions and theories?

The latter is nearer the mark. He feels free to give that verse a rendering to harmonize with what he considers its “spirit”. That free rendering in the words of another of these instructors, is as follows:-

“The immediate occasion of this gospel [John's] was that the saints might be believers in the Son .  . . ” (B. p. 62).

There was nothing incongruous in this speaker's mind in the saints not being believers in the Son — believing in the Son being at that time considered by these mystics a spiritual attainment, which only some saints reach; nor anything incongruous in saints not as yet having life through His name; nor in this terribly incomplete belief and state of death marking saints generally wherever saints were found — for John's gospel is clearly not of local application like some of the epistles, but universal.

But John did not write that his readers might believe that “Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” as though they were yet defective in their faith as to His essential glory, as though while recognizing in Jesus the Messiah they had not risen to the faith of His Deity. Surely not, but that they might believe that, “Jesus IS the Christ, the Son of God.” (John 20: 31). So that if John really were addressing only “saints,” these “saints” did not even believe that Jesus was the Christ!! A truly preposterous proposition. Too preposterous, apparently, even for the author of this remark, for he discreetly omits the words from his quotation of the passage.

This is a sad example of how these modern mystics treat the Word of God. Nor is this an isolated example, an exception to the rule. The same attitude of mind persists, as seen in an example taken from a publication dated a quarter of a century later.

“I venture to bring forward the word of God. I am not now speaking of the Scriptures; of course, they are included. What Paul is speaking about is the word of God; its living character as spoken. The Scriptures, of course, are of supreme value, only the word of God here is the mystery, which men ordinarily know nothing of, whereas lovers of God and lovers of Christ make much of the mystery.” (F. p. 139).

“So I would urge the matter of the word of God, the completeness of it; not merely the Scriptures, but the full scheme that is in the mind of God, to include the whole scope of the assembly and its working out in the service of God in these last days . . . . There is nothing missing now as to the scheme in the divine mind: made known in writing, but made known in ministry. Ministry is effected by the Spirit of God in the power of gift, and that is where the thing comes in for us; God is opening it up to us through the number of brethren that are capable of ministering, . . . . So the word of God is known in its effectiveness. These meetings are a prime matter with God and the Holy Spirit is down here. . . .” (F. p. 143)

The Scriptures are acknowledged as the Word of God in these extracts. But according to their thoughts, a good deal more is included. The ministry of capable brethren is included, and the meetings where these capable brethren speak are considered to be a prime matter with God and the Holy Spirit down here. In these extracts there is a measure of what is true. The supreme value of Scripture is acknowledged, yet there is great danger in the way the Scriptures and the sayings of teachers are bracketed together.

We assert, on the contrary, that the God-breathed writings tower far above all uninspired utterances, however spiritual the brother who makes them may be.

The whole attitude of these teachers to the Scriptures was well summed up as follows:-

“Does the strict interpretation of the passage [Col. 1: 12] refer to the saints on earth, or in heaven? . . . . I am not prepared for too strict an interpretation.” (C. p. 69).

That is just it. In that case their thinking would have to be subject to God's Word. As it is, their minds are left free to move at the dictation of the inner light, and Scripture can be used (sometimes quoted, and even misquoted), to adorn their thinkings and wrap them round with an authority they would not otherwise possess.

4.

The Consequent Glorifying of a Priestly Caste, who come

between an ordinary saint and the Lord.

Any thoughtful Christian, who has followed thus far, will by now conclude that the drift of this teaching, and this treatment of Scripture, must be in the direction of greatly magnifying the importance and authority of the exponents of the teaching themselves. The “inner light” becomes the great authority, which involves, of course, that the real authority is vested in those in whom the “inner light” is most largely developed.

We now proceed to show that not only is this the case — and it runs in a kind of sub-conscious strain, yet most clearly, through all the utterances of this school, — but that it leads to a special priesthood being assumed for the “spiritual man” of whom so much is said. We read:-

“Where there are spiritual men in a meeting, there will be sure to be some priest break the bread who will put the saints in touch with Christ? . . . That is what the Supper is for in the mind of the Lord . . .” (C. p. 16).

“When what was intended in the Supper has not been availed of, the priest can bring in recovery and the Father be reached just the same.” (C. p. 17)

“Undoubtedly there is touch with Christ that the priest gets that every Christian does not. The priest has His mind because the priest has His life.” (C, p. 20).

“You would discourage certain brothers taking part in the morning meeting, then? . . . . Not a simple soul, but one that habitually goes on with a thing. They are not subject nor watching the priests . . . . They are just believers.” (C. p. 51).

“A great deal depends on the man that gives it [a hymn] out, whether it is a simple brother or a priest.” (C. p.55).

“All the saints will get great refreshment if you allow the priests to take the lead.” (C. p. 59).

The above extracts speak for themselves. The contrast drawn between the “simple brother,” or those that are “just believers,” or “the saints,” and a “priest” is unmistakable. It is again a carrying out of what we have previously noticed, viz., the subjective consciousness so magnified that it quite eclipses the reality itself.

Yet amidst many such remarks as the foregoing, one or two words are found which give a ray of hope that the reality of what God has effected is not totally lost. We read for instance:-

“In the run of meetings, how many priests are there (that is in priestly condition)?” (C. p. 16).

We welcome that little bracketed addition though it is ambiguous; it may simply mean that the speaker's definition of “a priest” is “one in priestly condition,” a meaning abundantly clear in all these extracts. On the other hand it may indicate that he qualifies his usage of the word “priest” by restricting its meaning in that way, and so that he may recognize the possibility of using the term in a larger sense. Our hope that this second sense may be his meaning is slightly increased by the following:-

“Would it be possible to be a son and not a priest?. . . . Yes, and No. Every man who has the Spirit has title to sonship, and in the thought of God he is a son — 'Because ye are sons' . . . . but to be consciously in sonship is a different thing.” (C. p. 85).

So it may be that he also admits that in the thought of God every man who has the Spirit is a priest. Albeit, any satisfaction we attempt to derive from this thought is largely discounted by our remembrance of the first extract we gave, wherein an authoritative exponent of this school assured us that we may have the Spirit and be in certain things “from the divine side,” but that if we do not subjectively meet our obligations these things become “null and void.” So that if these admissions were far clearer than they are, and greatly multiplied in number, they would not really amount to much.

Further, it is quite clear that these “spiritual men,” these “priests” hold in the minds of the speakers a kind of mediatorial position; they act as mediums between the simple or ordinary believer and Christ.

“What would mark a priest? . . . . A priest puts you into touch with Christ?” (C. p. 4).

“Young souls who want to walk with me . . . . They might not be able to explain things, possibly, but they get their eye on that man [i.e., a priest].” (C. p. 20).

“I think if there is a divinely given form you had better follow it. But as there is none, the next best thing we have is spiritual men. You may think I am giving spiritual men too much place, but I am not . . . . The best thing for me then is when a brother, a priest, who knows what he is doing, gets up to pray or give thanks, to follow him closely. I want to know how he addresses Divine Persons, because he is in the life of Divine Persons, and has the intelligence of what suits these Persons.” (C. p. 31).

“Why does not that soul grow? . .  . They are not paying attention to and learning from the priests.” (C. p. 50).

“What you said about the brother giving thanks for the loaf is encouraging. It is an honour to open the door for the Lord to come in. . . . To join the saints, yes. . . . But if the Lord is brought in the Supper, you have what follows on that. Before He knows about it, the affection He finds there carries His spirit right away, and He joins Himself to them. . . . .    We do not want doctrine, but if I were to break the loaf,  do you know what I would say before I arose? 'Lord  help me to open the door for Thee!' . . . . To open the door to let Him in as Head.” (C. pp. 89, 90, 91).

All these sad wanderings in fields of thought and speculation are totally foreign to Scripture. In the speakers view, a “priest” is one who “puts you in touch with Christ,” and consequently you  “get your eye on” him: failing a divinely given form as to approach to God in prayer or worship, you “follow him closely,” and observe “how he addresses Divine Persons.” You should be  “paying attention to, and learning from the priests,” for when a priest ministers at the actual breaking of the loaf in the Lord's Supper, he “opens the door for the Lord to come in.” It is held apparently that the Lord does not and cannot “come in” as Head except there be a “priest” to open the door for Him, and except He “come in” we do not partake of “the Supper,” though it is freely conceded that we may “break bread.”

The tendency to read into the Lord's Supper ideas not found in Scripture still persists, for in much later publications we read such as the following:-

“There is great need for careful analysis of the Scriptures that treat of the Lord's Supper. One observes that the idea of a memorial is hardly touched with many. We hear of the Lord being remembered in His death, whereas the memorial is of Christ in heaven, alive as He is now; it is to recall Him, to bring Him back to mind.” (F. p. 13).

“We find constant allusions in our statements to the Lord, such as “to remember Thee in Thy death,” whereas, it is to remember Him, not anything He has done; not that that would be belittled, but it is to remember Him . . . .

“Would it be right to say that the calling of Him to mind brings before us Christ in glory? . . . Quite so. It is the Lord in glory really; it is the Lord's supper, really a heavenly matter.” (F. pp. 24/27).

The above may be a sample of what we may hear, if we listen to these “priests,” but we prefer to adhere to the words of Scripture. We have “the knowledge [not the remembrance] of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4: 6). The Lord Jesus instituted His Supper on the night in which He was betrayed. He was not then in glory and the remembrance of which He then spoke could have had no reference to that. The broken loaf and the poured out cup were clearly symbols of His death, and we are ever to remember Him where once He was. Nothing can be clearer than His statement that the cup was to signify, “My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matt. 26: 28).

This is a very glaring instance of how the words of Scripture are set aside in favour of the impressions of “spiritual men.”

In another recent publication we find the following:-

“'We, being many, are one loaf, one body.' The bread being alluded to in that way as referring to the saints would mean we have to appropriate the saints. I am using the word appropriate in the sense in which we would appropriate food. Hence the question is raised, Are brethren worth appropriating? persons nominally Christians, are they worth appropriating? are they clean? In the types we have food that can be eaten; animals that are clean and can be appropriated. Hence the word fellowship implies that we appropriate one another.” (G. p. 55).

Here 1 Corinthians 10: 17 is referred to by the speaker. If that verse be read with care, it will be found to state that we, who rightly partake of the cup and the loaf, are one bread -or, loaf — that is, one body; and the sign, indicating that fact, is that we all partake of the one loaf. The loaf is the symbol of the holy body of our Lord, yielded up sacrificially in death for us all, and of that alone. The oneness of the saints is set forth in that they ALL PARTAKE of the ONE loaf.

We judge that the adjective that fits the extract we have just quoted is — fantastic. Some may regard it as the utterance of a “priest;” if so, it is an example of “priestly” extravagance.

But how immensely all this magnifies “the priest” in question! What a wonderful person he must be! The speakers are acutely conscious of it, for one of them remarks:-

“Somebody said to me 'I do not see much glory.' I see a lot of glory about a priest in the morning meeting, and that is what is coming out, — just that.” (C . p . 129) .

Painful as it is, we beg our readers to pause and realize the point to which we have travelled, that of seeing a lot of glory about a “priest” who has so effectually officiated, as they claim, at the Lord's Supper.

It is the same sad story! The supreme glory of the great Head, — a living, bright objective Reality, — eclipsed by “a lot of glory” about a man!

Yet all is perfectly consistent in their eyes. Thus the priesthood of the saints is beclouded, and a special and limited class of “priests,” by whom ordinary believers can get into touch with the Lord, is mentally created. What was veiled or merely hinted at, has now been stated plainly.

5.

As a Further Consequence a Vein of Self-occupation

runs through all their Utterances.

It may not take the glaring form so visible in what we have just considered. It may take the form of magnifying their own particular company, or the yet far more plausible form of magnifying the assembly as a subjective formation, in an idealistic way. For instance:-

“We ought not to be content that we are an intelligent company of Christians; there are a good many absent, and we ought to miss them.” (A. p. 108).

Here the speaker's own particular company is in question. But further:-

“As sons they [i.e., those in the body] are formed in the divine nature, and are intelligent; and they are associated with Christ as wisdom in working out of every problem in the universe, and they display Him, for they act exactly as He would. It is not only that they do right things, but they do them as He would and so they are His body.” (A. p. 109).

“It is Christ's assembly, and competent to express intelligently His mind for the universe . . . . A company capable of intelligently giving the mind of God on any question that may arise in the universe. It will be the highest court of appeal in the coming age.” (A. pp. 109, 110).

“The prayer in chap.1 [Eph.] is that we may know the will of God and see the greatness of His power, but that in chapter 3 is that we may be great ourselves.” (A. p. 110).

“I look upon the assembly as being composed of spiritually intelligent persons. What is the idea of an assembly if it is not for counsel? You see He is Head over all things to it, not to the body but to the assembly. But then the assembly is His body. It has intelligence.” (A. pp. 110, 111).

According to Scripture, the saints, who compose the assembly, will have positions of authority and administration in the age to come (1 Cor. 6: 2, 3). In them Christ is to be glorified and admired (2 Thess. 1: 10), and as the heavenly city of Revelation 21, the assembly will be the light-bearer in that day. Hence “the nations . . . . shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.” Yet the light is not the light of the church, “for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”

Yet the speaker in these extracts does not hesitate to go much further, and tells us that of which Scripture knows nothing. The “sons” will unquestionably be publicly associated with Christ in that day, but these details as to that association extending to “the working out of every problem in the universe,” or that assembly “intelligently giving the mind of God on any question that may arise in the universe,” and being “the highest court of appeal in the coming age,” we must accept (if indeed we do so at all) upon the speaker's ipse dixit alone. Can the speaker have really given a minute's quiet consideration to his own words? How could the assembly be capable of giving God's mind on any question that may arise in the universe, except it has a mind as big as God's? How can it be the highest court of appeal in the coming age so long as God exists? — Or does He abdicate His judicial position in its favour? We have indeed “come unto . . . . the church of the firstborn which are written in heaven” but not to the church of the firstborn, as judge of all, as these teachings infer. “But ye are come unto . . . . GOD, the Judge of all” (Heb. 12: 22, 23). We prefer to leave the self-centred thoughts of mysticism for the solid rock of Holy Scripture.

Again we read:-

“It is not exactly that you are dependent on the Head, nor are you independent of Him, but you are dependent on that living organism of which He is the Head, and in that you get the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. . . And you feel it is a living organism, you feel the living truth coming out, you are in touch with the temple where the light is. The light is there, the body is there, and the truth is coming out from the Head through that living organism. The men through whom the light is coming are in direct connection with the Head . . . . and you feel the gain of being put in touch with the spirits of men that have been moving in touch with the Head.” (C. p. 112).

Previously it had been remarked:-

“Mary [John 20] was qualified for the greatest company on earth. It goes without saying that the Christian company is the greatest company in heaven, but it is the greatest on earth.” (C. p. 69).

“You feel how perfectly you act as under the influence of Christ . . . . There is moral dignity. There is nothing like it on earth.” (C. p. 92).

Comment is hardly needed. The self-occupied, self-conscious, and one must add, self-complacent strain, is not even hidden beneath the surface, but is plainly visible. The speakers feel these things; they feel how perfectly they act, and they are glad to tell us so.

6.

Speaking according to the Light derived from the work within them, rather than from the Light of Scripture without, many Fanciful and Extravagant Ideas are produced, and some that are Fundamentally False.

A number have come to light in the extracts already quoted. We append further and worse examples with our comments.

“The point in Romans 8 is not only having the Spirit. I think from this point of view the affections developed by the Spirit are covenant affections. We have to distinguish between covenant affections and family affections. I think covenant relationships involve that we are equal to the obligations of the contract entered into.” (A. pp. 4 & 5).

This alludes to Romans 8: 4. The believer walking in the Spirit fulfils those things the law righteously required of man. This is spoken of as “a covenant,” and these righteous requirements are alluded to as “the obligations of the contract entered into.” This far-fetched idea is derived from an attempt to make the giving of the law in Exodus a type of the believer taking up certain obligations before God as a fruit of being redeemed; and of this “type” Romans 8: 4 is supposed to be the “anti- type.” This once accepted, you advance to the transference of the word “covenant” from the “type” to the “antitype;” you transmute the word “covenant” into a “contract,” and further you proceed to contemplate “covenant affections” and “family affections,” and to differentiate between them; and in result instead of a pyramid of truth broad-based on the Scriptures of Truth, you have a pyramid of fancy, precariously poised upon a very slender apex. But not only have you thus travelled into regions of fanciful and extravagant ideas, but of very serious and fundamental error. What is this contract as to which the New Testament is silent? A covenant involves two parties, as Galatians 3 tells us. A contract involves penalties for its breach. 2 Corinthians 3: 6-18 sweeps away all these unsteady theories. Obligations there are, resting upon the believer as the result of grace bestowed, yet even so they do not stand upon a legal or covenant basis. Christianity is not a system of obligation ending in death and condemnation, but the positive ministration of righteousness and of the Spirit.

Elsewhere this teacher says:-

“I believe in making resolutions. The Lord holds you to them . . . . He calls you to your vow. You make a vow, and that vow is valued according to Moses' valuation, according to the currency of the sanctuary. In the book of Leviticus, chapter 27, God puts a distinct value on your vow; . . . . He will discipline you if you depart from the resolution, . . . The Lord loves you to go forward and make your resolution; you owe it to Him to do that. He did that on our behalf.” (B. pp. 64, 65).

We most heartily believe in purpose of heart in the things of God. We welcome all that stirs up our souls to the diligence of which Peter speaks in his second epistle (ch. 1: 5), but we are not going back to the Galatian error of “holiness by law,” even by so specious a route as that opened up to us here.

Another idea frequently appearing in these publications, is that truth could not be ministered by the apostles except that the state which the truth involves was already present in those to whom they ministered. For instance:-

“There was a company formed there [Ephesus] in which Christ was expressed. 'I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.' There were conditions at Ephesus which enabled the Apostle to do that: to open up the counsels of God. He could not do that at Corinth. There was not the state. Having that state is necessary for the revelation of the truth.” (B. p. 10).

We have long recognized that the servant of Christ cannot really minister truth from mere head knowledge. He must himself possess it in power. Here, however, we are told that he cannot minister truth, if his hearers do not already possess it in power.

Carry the idea a little further and you reach this travesty:-

“'I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.' A Man speaks from heaven, owning the saints on earth as Himself; and He could do it truthfully, because Stephen was like the Lord in that sense; he acted entirely in the spirit of Christ, when he was put to death . . . . James himself testifies 'Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.' So that the Lord can truthfully own such people as Himself.” (B. pp. 25, 26).

If this be true, then it would be untruthful if the Lord owned as Himself those who fail to display the traits that characterize Himself; which is only another way of saying that our place in relation to the Lord is determined by what we are for Him; and this is of course the exact principle of law, and not grace at all.

Two alternatives face those who come under the influence of this teaching. Either they will be a prey to legality, earnestly endeavouring to reach the state necessary if the truth is to be ministered to them, — a state which is really only produced by the Spirit through the very truth which is thus denied them; or they will relieve their oppressed minds by dropping into the habit of assuming they are in the state because they are able to analyse matters, and speak about it with a certain easy familiarity, and thus they will reduce all these mystical teachings to the merest theories, quite unrelated to what is their own real state before God. Either alternative is bad. The second is the worse of the two.

These publications are full of extravagances of statement, which have no Scripture support, and are sometimes in opposition to it. For instance, alluding to John 20, we read:-

“Well, the testimony of resurrection has not gone out yet. . . . . Do you mean it is not expounded? It may have gone out in gospel testimony but not to the world. . . . Publicly? . . . . It is known and enjoyed in the Supper . . . . It is only known to affection.” (C. p. 34).

What can one say to statements such as these ? Simply this: They are NOT TRUE. The resurrection of Christ was the great theme of Apostolic testimony to the world as recorded in Acts.

“Quickening is the climax of the work of God.” (C. p.39)

Is it? Read Ephesians 2: 4-7 and see. According to these verses God's work lifts us from death in sins to a seat in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, and quickening, far from being a climax, is but the first step upwards. Again:-

“Is your thought that we do not need to wait for the rapture? . . . My thought was this, that what will be enjoyed on the morning of the rapture is ours to enjoy in the night of the Lord's rejection.. I once heard a brother say we could have the rapture every Lord's Day morning. . . . Is there not just this difference between the morning meeting and the rapture? The rapture is like a military call, whereas Eutychus, who was recovered by an embrace, suggests the state for the Supper?” (C. pp. 43-46).

Some of our readers who have not followed this kind of teaching may be puzzled as to what all this really means. We cite it as an example of that kind of fantastic application of Scripture which may ultimately lead one almost anywhere. Again:-

“The Supper is the most real thing in the universe today.” (C. p. 57).

If this brother had contented himself with telling us that it was the most real thing in the world, we should have demurred and suggested that the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures were at least as real. When, however, he quits the world and soars forth into the spacious universe with his sweeping assertion, we simply do not believe him, and deplore the intemperate character of an utterance like this, though we recognize it is quite consistent with his theory. Conscious of the movings of the “inner light” and untrammelled by any exact interpretations of Scripture, not exactly governed indeed by ITS statements, such statements as these are easily accounted for.

We may remark here that as far as we noticed in this book from which we are now quoting, the Lord's Supper is uniformly printed with a capital 'S', and Scripture with a small 's'. Is this intentional? If so, it is significant.

We now cull an extract from a different direction; the chapter under discussion is 1 Corinthians 15:-

“The burial of Christ clears the ground entirely of the man who was offensive to God in view of a new beginning for God; He having in grace taken the place of man according to the flesh. It reminds you in that way of 2 Samuel 21, where all the bodies of the offenders had to be buried. . . . . Christ has died vicariously, and was buried — has submerged the offending man — 'But now is Christ risen from the dead.' It suggests Genesis 6, 'The end of all flesh is come before Me.' All flesh was submerged. If He was buried, all flesh was removed from before the sight of God — nothing left of man according to the flesh. . . . . There is no revival of that kind of man, so 'God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him.' It is a question now of resurrection. . . . . Resurrection involves that what comes up pleases God. The going down refers to what displeases, hence His burial is part of His vicarious work, and the coming up is on account of what He is.” (D. pp. 193, 194).

Truth of a very important character is here being dealt with so that the introduction of details based upon the writer's own thoughts, and not stated in Scripture, is the more to be regretted.

We have only to turn to the Scripture which forms the basis of these remarks to see that when the death of Christ is mentioned, its vicarious character is made evident. He died “for our sins” (v.3). He took them up in His death as our Vicar or Substitute, but no such thought is attached to His burial. It is simply “and that He was buried.” Nor is such a thought anywhere in Scripture connected with His burial. Nowhere is His burial presented as “part of His vicarious work.”

But we are said to be “buried with Him” in two passages (Rom. 6: 4 and Col. 2: 12). Yet notice carefully how it is put. “Buried with Him by baptism unto death.” “Buried with Him in baptism.” In neither case, nor anywhere else, does it say, “Buried with Him in His burial,” as it would if He were buried vicariously as is taught here. We do reckon ourselves dead unto sin insomuch as He died to sin. His death was our death for God and for faith; but then His death was vicarious. His burial was not vicarious.

We further remark that when Scripture speaks of His death, which was vicarious, and in which “sin in the flesh” has been “condemned” (Rom. 8: 3), there is a certain definiteness about its utterances very unlike the mystical vagueness of the passage under review.

For instance:-

It is “our old man” that is crucified with Him. (Rom. 6: 6).

In dying “He died unto sin once.” (Rom. 6: 10) .

It is “ye” [i.e., believers] who have become dead to the law by the body of Christ.” (Rom.7: 4)

“I am crucified with Christ.” (Gal. 2: 20).

“The world is crucified unto me and I unto the world,” (Gal. 6: 14),

“Ye [i.e., believers] are circumcised . . . . in the circumcision of Christ.” (Col. 2: 11).

Note that these statements are restricted to believers. It does not say, “the old man,” but “our old man,” has been crucified. If it had said, “the old man,” then it might be maintained that everybody is “dead to the law,” “crucified with Christ,” and “crucified to the world.” It would be introducing into this matter the confusion of thought so frequently found in other circles between propitiation and substitution when sins are in question. It does say that “sin in the flesh” has been “condemned,” which involves, of course, the condemnation of man in the flesh himself, — the condemnation of the Adamic race. There, however, Scripture stops. To say that man in the flesh is condemned in the cross of Christ is to state important truth. To say as we read here, that Christ has “taken the place of man according to the flesh,” is to say what Scripture does not say, and to open the door to false inferences. We believers rejoice that Christ has taken our place, for as a consequence we escape the judgment that belongs to our place as sinners and get His place. The logical consequence of Christ taking the place of man after the flesh would be, that man after the flesh escapes the judgment that belongs to his place, which is exactly what he does not do. The truth is that he is condemned, inasmuch as sin is condemned, in the Cross.

One more thing we have to remark on this extract. It completely ignores the facts on which the doctrine is based, a characteristic error of mysticism. The doctrines of the gospel are not mere theorizings, not the building of ideas which have no foundation in fact. All those great Scriptural doctrines, we have just quoted, are securely based upon the great FACT of Christ's death. The doctrine springs out of the fact, and must be tested by it. If a doctrine is advanced which purports to be based upon Christ's death, but involving a falsification of His death, or denying any of its details, then the doctrine stands condemned ipso facto as false.

Now here is advanced the doctrine that the burial of Christ was the putting out of sight from before God of what was offensive to Him. The speaker makes it clear that in his mind Christ only thus became — or perhaps we should say, His sacred body that was buried became — offensive to God in a vicarious sense. This is a statement serious enough, and fundamentally false.

On the cross Christ was “made sin for us, who knew no sin.” (2 Cor. 5: 21). Here the doctrine fits the fact, for He was, though Himself perfect, treated as sin when He vicariously stood in our place, and hence He was forsaken of God. In His burial He was not buried vicariously for us as an offensive thing even though perfectly holy Himself. This doctrine does not appear in Scripture for the very simple reason that it has no basis in FACT. The fact of His burial was that His sacred body never saw corruption. This important fact is foretold in Psalm 16, and quoted and enforced in Acts 2: 25-31 & 13: 35-37. Hence in keeping with this, though men appointed His grave with the wicked and would have laid His body with those of the two malefactors, God ordered otherwise, and “He was with the rich in His death” (Isa. 53: 9). Every circumstance connected with His burial suggests that which is the very opposite of corruption.

Had corruption touched His body then there would have been a fact upon which to rest the doctrine that in His burial what was offensive was submerged, or that the “going down refers to what displeases.” The speaker makes his meaning clear by referring to the burial by David of the putrid remains of Saul's sons as recorded in 2 Samuel 21. He treats this as an illustration of his subject, which “reminds” him of it. Well, it may remind him “in that way” of the fanciful doctrine he is enunciating, but it is as far removed from any resemblance to the facts of Christ's burial as can possibly be.

The whole quotation is a sad illustration of how mysticism can imperil the most important truth by dealing in imaginative details which only mix error with it. There is then a double danger. First that the error will be imbibed by those who unthinkingly accept all that the teacher in question says, and hence, even if still holding in the main to what is true, they have to rest it upon an altogether insecure and imaginary foundation. Secondly, it may lead others, who do enquire and test what they read and hear, to reject not only these untenable ideas, but also important truth which they are used to support.

The fact that man in the flesh is judicially condemned in the cross of Christ; that consequently he now has no status before God; and that the last Adam, the second Man, does abide before God in His risen glory, and that we believers stand in the risen Christ: — all this is truth of the last importance. How necessary then to let it stand on its own proper Scriptural foundation, and not imperil it by these mystical imaginings.

We now give a number of extracts which show that this modern mysticism deals in unscriptural fashion not only with the work, but also with the Person of Christ.

“Our Lord Jesus, though really Man, begotten of the Holy Ghost, born of the divinely-overshadowed vessel, was uncreate, though He entered His own creation, and His holy humanity had no link with that of fallen man. As to His spirit, it was Himself — the Son.” (E. p. 172)

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. The omission of “in spirit” in verse 40 is important as confirming that His spirit was Himself personally and could not be spoken of as in our case.” (E. p. 199).

With these words our author launches us into deep waters. It was during the fourth century that one Apollinarius, in opposing the Arians, who emphasized Christ's Manhood and denied His Deity, formed the theory that in Christ the Word (Greek, Logos) took the place of the rational element in man; or in other words that our Lord assumed only a human body, and that the Divine nature in Him took the place of the rational human soul or mind. By this he hoped to meet the Arian heretics on their own ground, and give a rational explanation of the otherwise inexplicable mystery of His Person.

Here we have a twentieth-century attempt to solve this great and precious mystery, and in result it is hardly distinguishable from the speculations of Apollinarius of the fourth century.

Some of the readers of these words detected the speculative element, and raised questions as to it; whereupon further explanation is given, as follows:-

“Every soul that loves Him and bows to scripture would surely admit that while in becoming flesh He changed His estate He could not and did not change in any way His personality, and still more would reject any suggestion that henceforth there became embodied in Him two personalities. The thought is abhorrent! Nor would any reverent soul assert that He received, as we, a created spirit. Yet, HE HIMSELF, THE SON, became and abides for ever really, actually Man, in all that holy manhood involves. Having become Man how could His spirit be other than human though never ceasing to be divine? for He brought into manhood all that was perfect in manhood according to God. It was surely as was said, Himself, for passing into death in Luke, He commends His spirit to His Father. His death was a reality, as His burial attests.” (E. p. 279).

On the same page there is added a footnote, which says:-

“At the same time, to speak of Him having a human spirit savours of dividing up what scripture does not, and might seem to imply something added to Him.”

At first sight these explanations appear to approximate more closely to Scripture than the writer's original words. We are thankful to read that “the Son became and abides for ever really, actually Man, in all that holy manhood involves,” since 1 Thessalonians 5: 23 makes it quite certain that holy manhood involves the “whole spirit and soul and body.” The sentence that follows, though couched in the form of a question, also has a pleasing sound about it, if read in a casual way. If, however, we read it with greater care we soon become conscious that it is strangely ambiguous.

The whole point turns, we must remember, upon a differentiation between what is Divine and what is human, and no question as to any other kind of spirit has been imported into the discussion. The writer asks us how could Christ's spirit “be other than human though never ceasing to be divine” — i.e., how could it be other than human though never ceasing to be what is not human! What strikes us as being really serious is the evident effort by these ambiguous words to pacify minds that are alarmed, or at least enquiring, by assuring them that in some obscure or mystical sense, humanity can be connected with the spirit of our blessed Lord, while at the same time stoutly maintaining his theory as to the point in question, viz., that Christ's spirit was “Himself — the Son” — as shown by the still later sentence, and also the footnote, as quoted.

What then is the point at issue in these articles? Just this, did our Lord in becoming Man assume a full and proper humanity, or only in a modified and imperfect form? Proper humanity involves spirit and soul and body as we have seen, and of these the spirit comes first both in importance and in Scriptural order. If He did not assume spirit as well as soul and body He clearly was not man in a full and perfect sense.

Our author reasons somewhat as to this matter. He attempts to render his own theory attractive by setting up, as a repulsive background, other theories which may be even worse. We too do not believe that our Lord “changed” His essential personality, nor that in any sense His incarnation involved the embodiment of two personalities in Him: still our rejection of those ideas does not in any way dispose us to accept his alternative. Nor do we feel inclined to follow his example and mainly support our assertions by reasonings.

The whole matter is emphatically one which demands not reasoning but absolute subjection to what is revealed in Scripture, and the humble confession of ignorance where Scripture is silent.

Does Scripture afford us any light as to the way in which our blessed Lord was pleased to assume humanity? It certainly does. Our author has quoted one passage, and drawn a deduction in favour of his own thoughts from the fact that the words, “in spirit,” in Luke 2: 40, are open to question as some old manuscripts omit them. As to this, we have only to remark that verse 52 of the same chapter affirms that “Jesus increased in wisdom,” and it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to understand these words if He did not assume a human spirit in becoming man, since wisdom is an attribute of spirit rather than of soul or body. He was indeed Wisdom incarnate! and if, as our author affirms, “His spirit was Himself,” in what sense could He grow in wisdom?

His deduction, however, such as it is, is based upon what possibly should not be in Scripture. Shall we turn for a moment to what is in Scripture? Our Lord Jesus uses these words, “My spirit” (Luke 23: 46). “My soul” (Matt. 26: 38). “My body” (Matt. 26: 12), so that there can be no question that He possessed all three. When however it is said that though we may understand the third and even the second in an ordinary sense, we must import an altogether different meaning into the first, we must search a little further into the Word of God.

We will cite but three passages. The first occurs in Hebrews 2, in a passage dealing directly and explicitly with the incarnation of the Lord. The “children” given to Him of God being “partakers of flesh and blood He also Himself likewise took part of the same” (Ver. 14). Two words are used here, the first being of stronger force than the second. We partake of flesh and blood, i.e., we have it in common, for it is our original condition. He “took part” of the same, for originally He was otherwise and He assumed it, with a view, as the context shows, to the accomplishment of death and the taking up of the High Priestly place. Now it is just here that the Spirit of God has granted us a little light as to what this taking part of flesh and blood involved, and we have inspired words which would seem to have been written in view of such speculations as those we are considering:- “Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren” (Ver. 17).

The words we emphasize are these:- “IN ALL THINGS.” With this before us how can we accept our author's statements? They may be plausible, and they may offer an explanation of what is really beyond all explanation, but judged by this Scripture, — THEY ARE NOT TRUE. If He was made like to His brethren in all things, — sin apart, as chapter 4 shows — then clearly He was so not only in body or in soul but in spirit too.

Hebrews 4: 15, corroborates and strengthens the testimony of the above Scripture. In connection with His qualifications, on the human side, for the High Priestly office, we read that He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Here there is one great exception to the general statement. He was altogether apart from sin. This one exception made, however, the statement is all-comprehensive. He was tempted IN ALL POINTS. Historically the Gospels confirm this. Take for example Luke's account of the temptation in the wilderness. There the temptations are presented in ascending order: the first being addressed especially to the body, the second to the soul, and the third to the spirit. Indeed we are safe in saying that by far the fiercest temptations are those which assail the spirit in man. Our blessed Lord met them all, and triumphed in them all, in perfect manhood. This blessed truth also is robbed of its glory by these sad speculations.

We have one more passage to quote, 1 Corinthians 6: 17. “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” The previous verse shows that it is not exactly the Holy Spirit that is alluded to here, for the term “one spirit” is in contrast to “one body,” though it is of course by the Holy Spirit that we are one spirit with the Lord. Adopt the idea advocated in these extracts and how near one comes to deifying the saints!

We may be asked of course how we explain the great wonder of the incarnation, if we do not accept these explanations, which have been offered? Our answer is very brief and simple. We do not explain it at all. We thankfully accept what is revealed, and desire prayerfully to weigh these revelations that we may arrive at their meaning and discern what is involved in them, but we dare not go beyond Scripture and trespass on forbidden ground. Nor would the writer, we have been examining, have thus trespassed, we fully believe, had he not been of this mystical school. Being of it, however, he apparently feels himself inwardly competent to travel into regions of which Scripture is silent.

The extracts we have considered were taken from publications of over 30 years ago. We now pass to teachings that were issued more recently, and which display even worse features. Our quotations must be of some length in order that the main features of the teaching may be displayed.

“Luke clearly bases our Lord's sonship on the great divine transaction of the incarnation. The angel says to Mary, 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and power of the Highest overshadow thee, wherefore the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God.' The 'wherefore' links sonship with the transaction of the Holy Spirit mentioned. Were He Son already, this could be stated, and the passage would read, 'is Son of God,' the 'wherefore' being unnecessary. These remarks apply in measure also to John 1: 14, If the evangelist by the Spirit wished to teach eternal sonship he could have said, 'He who was Son became flesh, and so we contemplated Him in this relation with His Father.' But Scripture contains no such statement.” (H. p. 16).

* * * * *

“The first direct presentation of sonship in John 1 is in verse 18. . . . Verse 18 tells of the position of the Only-begotten Son as declaring God. It is a position reached as indicated by the preposition 'in' (the Greek, as is well-known, meaning 'direction towards, motion to, on, or into,' etc., etc. — Liddell and Scott) . . . . Some would remove this important evidence against so-called eternal sonship by saying that this preposition has not its ordinary meaning here. But why not? If we bear in mind that in becoming flesh, Christ came under God's eye, not only as His equal in Deity, but as Man, expressing all loveliness, moral and personal, answering to eternal desire and purpose, it is quite intelligible that the Spirit would convey this in indicating, by the preposition He employs, that the Lord had come into the bosom of the Father.” (H. p. 17),

* * * * *

“In the light of these considerations, with many others that could be mentioned, there cannot be a doubt in a subject mind that the sonship of our Lord is contingent on His incarnation.” (H.p.18).

* * * * *

“There is nothing in the Scripture here [John 5] to show the preincarnate sonship of Christ. The chapter teaches the personal equality of the Son with the Father, but also that, in sonship, He has taken a place of inferiority in subjection to the Father.” (I. p. 3).

* * * * *

“Scripture teaches, as has been variously pointed out in recent years, that while His Person remains unchanged, the sonship of our Lord denotes subjection, and thus does not rightly apply to Him viewed in preincarnate Deity, when He was eternally in the form of God, which cannot imply subjection.” (I. p. 8).

* * * * *

“It may seem pious to attach names to Him as in absolute Deity, but we cannot go beyond what is revealed. No true lover of Christ will go beyond that. It may be done in ignorance, it has been done in ignorance for centuries, but if the Spirit of God challenges us as to it, and we disregard the challenge, it is very serious . . . . So if there is a showing, a calling attention to a thing by the Spirit, we can no longer plead ignorance.” (J. pp. 5, 6, 7)

* * * * *

“The designation 'The Word,' as characterizing One who expressed the mind of God, obviously applies primarily to Christ as Man, and hence precludes its application to Him as a title in pre-incarnate Deity in the past.” (J. p.7)

The author of these extracts has revived a false and heretical idea, which in the past has afflicted the church. He clearly asserts the Deity of Christ; indeed he advances this theory as to His non-eternal Sonship because he supposes that to assert His eternal Sonship would logically lead to a weakening of His Deity. On the contrary we affirm that the denial of His eternal Sonship will weaken the hold of believers upon His full and proper Deity, and be likely eventually to lead to its abandonment. The present generation, who imbibe this teaching, may hold to it; but what about another generation, who may be found here — if our Lord comes not — half a century later?

Our affirmation may seem severe. But we make it for this reason: God has revealed Himself in a variety of ways through the ages, but only in these last days, when He has spoken to us “in Son,” has He been revealed in Trinity. The Old Testament gives indications of three Persons in the Godhead, by using the word for God, Elohim, which is in the plural. Indications, yes; but no revelation. In the New Testament the Trinity stands fully revealed, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and ONLY thus.

Frequently we hear and read about the First, Second and Third Persons of the Trinity, but they have never revealed Themselves to us thus, and the use of such terms is decidedly open to question.

So the bare fact is this: if the One commonly spoken of as the First Person only became the “Father,” and the Second Person only became the “Son,” by reason of the incarnation and the virgin birth, we have no real revelation at all. In that case, in Father, Son and Spirit, we should only have the knowledge of various parts assumed by the Divine Persons; of what They were pleased to become, not what They really are. If we have no Eternal Father and no Eternal Son, and no Eternal Spirit, then the revelation of the Trinity is largely shorn of its glory. What we had believed to be a glorious and all-illuminating Sun, becomes pale and nebulous, and likely to be ignored in fifty years time.

To put the matter in another way — if you tamper with the ONLY revelation we have of God in Trinity, you can only maintain the thought of the Trinity by substituting some other description, which is the fruit of human thinking and not of Divine revelation, or by claiming, as our author seems to do, that God, as He really is, is not only inscrutable but unrevealable; which means, we do not really know God at all.

These are preliminary remarks. Let us now scrutinize the above extracts, and we shall see that the denial of our Lord's eternal Sonship is based upon human reasoning to the effect that sonship must of necessity signify subjection and even inferiority. That reasoning being accepted as beyond question, every passage, that on the surface seems to state or imply eternity of Sonship, must be explained away.

It is worthy of note that the ancient Arian heresy, and its modern revival under “Pastor” Russell and Judge Rutherford and “Jehovah's Witnesses,” had and has a similar basis of reasoning. They avoid the supposed difficulty by an even worse explanation: that the Son is not properly God, but the first of all God's creatures, and the Creator of all else beneath Him. Our simple statement is that neither this theory nor that of our author is needed, for the difficulty lies only in their false reasoning.

It has been remarked that truth as to unknown objects may reach us either by resemblance or by analogies. Now man was originally made in the likeness of God, but this likeness has been sadly marred by the fall, and the true knowledge of God lost. As a consequence men have groped after God and sought to attain some knowledge of Him by resemblances or likenesses, and that to their undoing. Hence we are warned against the attempt to liken God to anything in such Scriptures as Isaiah 40: 18, 25; 46: 5-7. On the other hand, the names “Father” and “Son,” as applied to the Godhead, are used in an analogical way; that is, their meaning would have been lost upon us had we not known something of the analogy of fatherhood and sonship in relationships of this life.

But every analogy has limits which must not be exceeded. To reason back from the human to the Divine, so as to impose upon the Godhead limitations, which govern the human, is a gross fallacy; a piece of false reasoning which vitiates the teaching we have before us.

It is asserted that, “the sonship of our Lord denotes subjection” and again that, “in Sonship, He has taken a place of inferiority in subjection to the Father.” It is true of course that, coming into the world, the Son took a subject place. But why attribute that subjection to His Sonship? Amongst men a son is subject until he becomes of age; but even so, it is quite incorrect to state that a father, as such, exists before his son. The relations are correlative and simultaneous, and the one cannot be either without or antecedent to the other, though the individual, who becomes a father, is antecedent to his son.

Among men not infrequently a son turns out to be superior in mind and action to his father. We are safe in saying that sonship does not imply inferiority of fact and nature, but on the contrary equality and identity of nature. Even if it did, we should have to point out that the reality in the Godhead is far greater than that which is used as an analogy, and not to be circumscribed by it. Thus " King " is used of God, not because He is just like a human sovereign, but because He has the original Pattern of infinite and eternal royalty. Thus the relation of “Father” and “Son” in the Godhead form the original Pattern of such fatherhood and sonship as exist among men.

We have endeavoured to point out the fallacies underlying this reasoning, but now let us emphasize that which is far more weighty than any reasoning. We read in John 5: 18, that by the very fact that Jesus said that God was His Father, He was “making Himself equal with God.” Doubtless the Jews said this of Him, and wished to kill Him for it, but in this verse it is not stated as an utterance of the Jews, but as a statement of the Evangelist. It is not the Evangelist recording what they said, whether right or wrong, but stating an historic fact, and giving an inspired comment upon it. If a man was stoned for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, it was certainly breaking the Sabbath to command a man to pick up and carry his bed. This the Lord deliberately did. And the assertion that God was His Father was an assertion of equality and not of inferiority, as claimed in these extracts. One word of Scripture is more weighty than any amount of argument.

In the above extracts Luke 1: 35 is fastened upon as giving us the true and complete explanation of the Sonship of our Lord. But it is argued that the “wherefore” (in the A.V. it is “therefore”) links sonship with the action of the Holy Spirit there mentioned, and that had He been Son already the “wherefore” would have been omitted, and it would simply have stated that He is Son of God. But notice, first, that there was also the overshadowing of “the power of the Highest;” and second, that it is “that holy thing which shall be born” that is to be called Son of God. The august Name is attached to “that holy thing” born of the Virgin. Because of the marvellous miracle of the virgin birth the designation Son of God belongs to Him even in His physical manhood. This we all gladly confess. It is the effort to tie down the name, “Son of God,” to this; to evacuate it of all meaning save this, that we strenuously resist. This also applies to such a Scripture as Psalm 2: 7.

Then John 1: 14 & 18 are referred to, and as to the former verse it is contended that if the Spirit had wished to teach eternal Sonship it could have read, “He who was Son became flesh, etc.” It is then asserted that Scripture contains no such statement.

Is this true? Is there no such statement in Scripture as that “He who was Son became flesh”? We ask our readers to turn to Romans 1: 3. Read it in the A.V. or in Darby's New Translation — as quoted from in these extracts — for the sense in both is the same, to the effect that “according to the flesh” or, as we often say, by incarnation, God's Son was made [or came of] David's seed. Here is the exact truth, which, it is asserted, Scripture does not contain. Not in the exact words chosen by the speaker in the extracts, it is true; but in the very words chosen by the Holy Spirit, which are much better. That the Son of God by incarnation became Son of David is truth Divinely stated. That a Person in the Godhead, who cannot be named or described, became by incarnation the Son of God, is simply human imagination and, what is worse, very serious error of a most fundamental nature.

Notice further that it is denied that “The Word” applies to Christ “as a title in pre-incarnate Deity in the past.” So we must not speak of Him as the Eternal Word; and that in spite of what is written in John 1: 1, 2 & 14. To our minds it seems perfectly plain that the Word, who was God, and was with God in the beginning, became flesh and dwelt among us. There is what He was, and what He became; and “The Word” is what He ever was, and “flesh” what He became. The statements are quite definite. Can they be avoided?

Yes, this denier of our Lord's eternal Sonship endeavours to avoid them. It is said that “The Word” is just a title by which the Lord Jesus became known among the early believers. He argues that it was given to Him, or assumed by Him, in becoming flesh, just as the title “king” is assumed when a man takes an earthly throne. It is argued that if we say, for instance, “When the king was a child . . . ,” we do not necessarily mean that he was king when he was a child. So when Scripture says “In the beginning was the Word . . . ,” we need not understand it to mean that He was the Word then; only that He whom we now know as the Word existed then, though unnamed and in a condition inscrutable to us.

Thus the plain force of these inspired words is explained away and an exactly opposite meaning foisted upon them. The same argument can be applied moreover in other directions. Take, for instance, Romans 1: 3, which we have already referred to. “Son of God” is what He was: “Son of David” what He became. These mystics would reply, Yes, but Son of God is only a title that He acquired in Manhood, and used after this fashion without meaning that He really was Son of God before He became Son of David. In the extracts quoted it is suggested that, if the Spirit by the evangelist had wished to teach eternal Sonship He could have said, “He, who was Son, became flesh . . .” But supposing He had said this, what would have prevented the author of this error saying, Yes, but since Son is a title He acquired in Manhood, this only means that He, whom we now know to have become the Son, was made flesh?

There would have been nothing to prevent this. This subtle and dangerous argument could be used in many directions if it suited anyone's purpose to do so, and a Scripture, expressly forbidding the argument, would be needed; and even that might not suffice, for an argument might be discovered to nullify the prohibition. Now it is not God's way to hedge about His plain declarations with clauses forbidding all possible misunderstandings. Alas! there have always been teachers, “handling the word of God deceitfully” (2 Cor. 4: 2); a very solemn consideration.

There are a few more points to notice: John 1: 18, for instance. If our Lord only became the Son in incarnation, it was only then that God became the Father. Hence the statement that being, “in the bosom of the Father,” indicated “a position reached,” and hence also the reasoning as to the preposition translated “in.” The point as to the preposition is purely a matter of translation which must be left in the hands of really competent scholars. The Liddell and Scott lexicon deals with classical Greek, whereas the New Testament is written in Hellenistic Greek, the language of Greek-speaking Jews and the common people, the speech of the market place. Competent translators agree with what we have in our Authorised Version. The force of the preposition, we are told, is governed by the verb, “is.”

It is not what our Lord became but what He abidingly is. “Timeless duration,” is the phrase used by an undoubted Greek scholar. Moreover, it is not correct to speak of the Father's bosom as a “position.” God the Father is a Spirit, and though corporeal expressions are used as to Him, the words have a spiritual import. John 1: 18 signifies that the only-begotten Son dwelt from all eternity in the full affections of the Father, was the Sharer of every thought and purpose of His heart, and hence was wholly competent to make Him known. He ever was in the Father's bosom; He was in it while serving in Manhood on earth; He is in it in His glorified Manhood today, and will be in it for ever.

One word as to John 1: 14. The expression “Only-begotten of the Father,” and His “glory,” coming in parenthetically, only enhance the wonder and fulness of all that was found in the Word become flesh. Now if “Only-begotten” only referred to His incarnation, it would be no enhancement of His glory, but rather the sign of His humiliation, and simply a reiteration of what had just been stated as to the Word becoming flesh. This is the first usage of the term, “Only-begotten,” and it shows its significance as setting forth His supreme and infinite greatness in the Deity.

The doctrine that distinguishes the Gospel of John is the Deity of Jesus, coupled with the fact that in assuming Manhood He has taken the subject place. The Gospel was written that we “might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God " (John 20: 31) — “Son of God” being, as we saw in the fifth chapter, an assertion that He was equal with God, and therefore God. If He only became Son of God by reason of the virgin birth it is almost unthinkable that this Gospel, if written to convince that He did become the Son of God, should not mention the virgin birth.

A similar remark may be made as to Matthew 16: 16, 17. The recognition of Him as “Son of the living God,” is not to be reached by “flesh and blood,” though that was what He took by the virgin birth. It is reached only by Divine revelation, since that great Name connotes Deity and not humanity.

In this denial of the eternal Sonship, there appears to be an element, if not of unreality, at any rate of strange inconsistency. The denial was first uttered in 1929 and a few years after the “Little Flock” Hymnbook was again revised, so that all allusions to the eternal Sonship might be eliminated from it. We open a copy of this revised edition, and we find that the very first line of the first hymn is the following,

“Eternal King of those who reign,”

which is, “Eternal King of kings” slightly paraphrased, a phrase that we do not find in Scripture. We read of God as “the King eternal” (1 Tim. 1: 17), but if we speak with care how can we attach eternity to the title, “King of kings”? For a title it is, assumed when kings had come into the realm of creation.

If it could be shown that kings have existed from eternity then the first line of the hymnbook might be accepted as correct. The Person, who is “King of kings,” is indeed eternal, but the title is one which clearly has reference to time when kings existed, so that as to it we can rightly apply the argument, which he wrongly applies to His sacred name, Son of God.

It strikes us as most extraordinary that a man, who put forth his denial of eternal Sonship as being new light shown by the Spirit, should sanction such an inconsistency in the very first line of the hymnbook so meticulously purged of what they considered to be a wrongful use of the adjective, eternal, as referring to the Son. His “light” must indeed have turned to darkness when he sanctioned this.

We close our remarks on this subject by saying that “Son” is not a title but a name, as Matthew 28: 19 shows. In that verse “name” is in the singular, and “Son” is a component part of that one great Name, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The Name Son is of most illustrious renown. The incarnation was an act of infinite condescension. To teach that His place of subjection is consequent upon His becoming the Son is false teaching of the gravest kind. The truth is that in becoming MAN He took the subject place, since subjection is of the very essence of perfection in man. He was made “a little lower than the angels,” not by becoming the Son, but by becoming Man, and that was, as another has said, “the assumption of a rank in the scale of being inconceivably more remote from His original glory, than is that of the meanest reptile from the loftiest angelic intelligence.” It is incongruous to the highest degree that so immense a stoop should originate a Name of most august import. No! From eternity to eternity, He is the SON.

We now turn to another matter. Years after the launching of this attack on our Lord's Sonship, there were reiterated teachings, as might have been expected, which challenged the full completion on the cross of His expiatory work.

Commenting on Genesis 3: 19:-

“The Lord had to go into the grave and enter into the full extent of God's judgment on man. It is important to keep the grave in mind as part of the vicarious sufferings of Christ in connection with the judgment of God.”

* * * * *

“I believe this type is to impress upon us how real the Lord's death and burial were as atoning suffering.” (K. p. 46).

We have already given an extract in which this false idea occurred years ago, but this reaffirms it in a more definite way. To refute this false teaching, it will be quite sufficient to quote the Lord's own words, uttered upon the cross a moment before He delivered up His spirit “It is finished.” In claiming that burial and the grave were part of His atoning work, and so that work was not finished as He died, the speaker commits himself to a contradiction of our Lord's own words.

Again passing over some years we come to such extracts concerning the Holy Spirit as the following:-

“So I come now to the finish; that is, to this matter of singing in the wilderness at a certain time. It is a continuation of what began in Exodus, 'Then sang Israel this song, Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it.' The 'it' is something — the well — and the well is a type of the Spirit, no less than that, and the Spirit is in mind, in that sense in our song. He is a divine Person, and He is worthy of our acclamation in that sense.” (F. p. 234).

* * * * *

“In dealing with the service of God and having part in it, we are to have discernment, to have intelligence in it, so that we know how to speak to God, to speak to Christ, to speak of the Spirit, and even to speak to the Spirit, although it is very rare in the Scriptures it is right, because Numbers 21: 17 says, 'Sing unto it.' 'Rise up well! sing unto it.' The 'it' is an allusion typically to the Spirit. Therefore, as knowing these things, we know how to speak to the Father, know when to speak to Him, and we know when to speak to the Son and how to speak to Him, and so we may speak to the Spirit as a divine Person, equal with the Father and the Son.” (L. p. 253).

* * * * *

“The Lord is calling attention to the Holy Spirit in faithful and devoted service, for the end is near, and the Spirit has in mind that the assembly should go along with Him as Rebecca went with the servant. It was a question of committing herself to the servant . . . . and as she did so the servant took her on, and I am sure if we will, in our minds and hearts, commit ourselves to what the Lord is raising at the present time the Spirit will help us. . . . . It is all a question of sensitiveness and spirituality, and for that we need to do what Paul did, 'I bow my knees to the Father,' he says. It was no casual prayer but real genuine exercise, because the matter was so urgent. If we go on these lines we shall find the Spirit will serve us, and we shall be drawn out in our affections to Him, and as moving forward we shall find liberty and power to address Him. It is there in the Scriptures.” (M. for May, 1949).

* * * * *

“Many things may seem new to us, but as the Lord is in what is being said as to the personality of the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit is in it, we may be sure that confirmation will come, and if we are adjusted by the truth we shall be found in the current of it, so that our words will, in fact, become the word of God for the moment.” (M. for July, 1949).

What is here advocated is not new, for in the prayers of Christendom and in some of its hymns, the Holy Spirit has been invoked. Christians, however, who have been observant of the way Divine Persons are presented in Scripture, and of Their respective functions, have always refrained from addressing the Spirit. They have recognized that He is presented as the great subjective Worker in us, rather than the objective Person set before us.

We recognize that He dwells in the church as well as in the individual believer: that in the church He is sovereign in His manifestations and actions, according to 1 Corinthians 12 & 14. In both these chapters the Spirit is presented as operating in the various members of the body, but not as the One addressed by the members. So also in Philippians 3: 3, where the better reading is that we “worship by the Spirit of God.” Uniformly in the New Testament we find the Holy Spirit presented as the Power by which we worship and serve, and that as regards both the Father and the Son, but not as Himself the Object of worship or service or prayer.

In these extracts an attempt is made to support this wrong idea by referring to the incidents of Genesis 24 and Numbers 21. We quite believe that in both these Scriptures we have types of the Spirit and His service, but the deductions made from these types are unwarranted and far-fetched and destructive of the way the Spirit comes before us in the full light of the New Testament.

Any direct Scripture support for this idea is not to be found, and there is another display of that, which we saw much earlier in this pamphlet, a subtle belittling of Scripture in favour of the impressions of “spiritual men.” We are to find liberty and power to address the Spirit since, it is claimed, it is all there in the Scriptures concerning Rebecca and the servant; but even so, “it is all a question of sensitiveness and spirituality.”

Scripture is not entirely dispensed with, but the main emphasis is laid on “sensitiveness and spirituality,” or, what the speaker considers to be such. It comes to this: that if we are spiritually sensitive we shall accept the teaching, and to refuse it merely displays spiritual insensitiveness. Scripture is relegated to the background in order that mystical impressions may occupy the foreground.

The last extract of the four goes even further. The Spirit is assumed to be in the teaching in question, and confirmation of the teaching is expected, evidently by “spiritual sensitiveness” rather than from the Scriptures. In result, the words of those, who accept the teaching, will become “the word of God for the moment.” So apparently the words of those who accept and propound the teaching are to be regarded as on a par with the Holy Writings which have been given by inspiration of God.

This kind of talk is false and serious beyond anything that we can say. It comes dangerously near to that adding to the Divine words that is strongly denounced in Revelation 22: 18.

Another recent sample of how Scripture is contradicted is the following:-

“This dispensation is maintained by priesthood: The system as we spoke of it, for it is a system, is maintained by Christ in heaven. He is High Priest above, High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, which denotes that He is a divine Person. On the other hand, the system is maintained by the Holy Spirit here on earth. . . . So that we may count on the maintenance of the system until the end of the dispensation . . . . in the types, we have allusions to Christ ceasing to be High Priest. 'The death of the high priest which was anointed with the holy oil' is referred to in Numbers 35. That is, a certain thing happens; it is the termination of something. That would be so in the type, which refers to the ordinary high priest in Israel, but now we are speaking of Christ; not that He dies. He has died for sin once, but now He lives for ever. The figure just means that He ceases to be Priest.” (G. p. 251).

It has long been recognized that the death of the high priest in Israel, indicating a change in the priesthood, had a typical significance. When it occurred in the case of the manslayer (Num. 35: 25) he was free and could safely leave the city of refuge. So it will be for those “who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb. 6: 18). When Christ comes forth from the heavenly sanctuary at His second advent He will take on the full Melchisedec character and cease functioning after the pattern of Aaron.

But though acting at present after the pattern of Aaron, as the Epistle to the Hebrews shows, He never was of the order of Aaron, which order is done away. He has been from the outset, “called of God an High Priest after the order of Melchisedec.” Now the original mandate from the lips of Jehovah ran thus: “Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110: 4). If Jehovah has said “a Priest FOR EVER,” how solemn the responsibility of the man who says, “He ceases to be Priest.”

This is another example, and a glaring one, of how these mystical teachers elevate their “spiritual sensibilities” and “impressions,” lowering thereby the Word of God to the point of contradicting it.

Yet remarkably enough, the speaker from whom we have just quoted, and from whom we have quoted a good deal, recently committed himself to this:-

“I would here warn against novelties. I am ashamed and alarmed at the novelties that are put out in readings and private conversations without any effort to support them by Scripture.” (M. for July, 1946).

This is a most remarkable utterance, and that for two reasons. First, because the speaker is known in the circles that follow him as the great purveyor of what they deem to be “new light,” in other words, he has himself originated more of “the novelties that are put out in readings” than any other person. We are left wondering why he should now be ashamed and alarmed about any such thing, unless it be that having helped to set the fashion, he now wishes to curb his followers, who are outdoing him in this line of things. We have long been ashamed and alarmed at the novelties that have appeared in his printed remarks, and even more so at the errors into which they have led him. We could wish that there were some sign of repentance as to what he himself has put out.

Second, the last clause strikes us as inferring that attitude to the Holy Scriptures that we have been resisting. He is troubled because those who are guilty of propounding these novelties make no attempt to support them from Scripture. If that really be so, his followers go further than he in their disregard for the Word of God. But has it been a satisfactory proceeding when, after putting out some novelty, the speaker has made an effort to support it from Scripture? It has only led to “handling the Word of God deceitfully,” such as is reprobated in 2 Corinthians 4: 2.

We have glanced at a small amount of the printed matter put out by this mystical school, and what have we found? Novel teachings are put out, which overthrow what has previously been taught as the Word of God — and the more they bear this character, the more eagerly they seem to be welcomed — and then Scripture is searched in the vain effort to find something to support them. That something is usually thought to be found as fancy and reasoning come into play. Is this the way we should handle the Word of God? Are we to expound our “spiritual impressions,” and then twist Scripture to support them? Our answer to this question is an emphatic — NO.

We take as ours the words of the Psalmist, and say, “How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God!” (Psalm 139: 17). They are infinitely preferable to our thoughts — even our spiritual ones — and they are enshrined for us in the Holy Scriptures. Hence that great closing word from the Apostle Paul, “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3: 15-17). If we want teaching or need correction or instruction in righteousness, to the Holy Writings we go, and there we get it. To put out our thoughts, and then search Scripture in the effort to support them, is a certain road into error and false teaching. The road that leads to truth is that of having our thoughts formed by the Word of God, while distrusting our own.

We refrain from making further quotations, though they might be greatly multiplied. We have given ample to show the tendencies and errors of this school of opinion. Their whole treatment of Scripture shows that they scan it through glasses set at a peculiar focus of their own. Anyone who has aimed at adjusting his own thoughts by the Scriptures and thus, thinking God's thoughts after Him, to have his own focal point set by the Word of God, may well be puzzled at first by many of the things we have quoted. This is because all their utterances are based upon a reading of Scripture through glasses set at the “subjective” focus, which makes all indefinite and hazy and mysterious, and many details positively wrong.

After all the Word of God did not come out from us. It came unto us only. Hence the really spiritual man neither originates nor authenticates anything. He acknowledges that the Scriptures are of binding importance as the commandments of the Lord. (See 1 Corinthians 14: 36, 37) This, we repeat, is the real spiritual man according to Scripture. He absolutely bows to Scripture. How different to the “spiritual man” of modern mysticism as revealed in these writings.

7.

A Brief Survey of the Teaching as a Whole, and of the

Positive Testimony of the WORD OF GOD

Before closing we invite the reader to take a broad and general survey of the field we have been traversing, so that we may end with some definite impression of what is at stake, and of what is truth as contrasted with mere imagination.

We observe that this teaching is nothing if not systematic. It is in fact a highly elaborated system, which true to the very nature of mysticism, keeps the thoughts of its votaries continually revolving around themselves. At first sight all seems very novel and original, but on closer inspection we find that the element of novelty mainly lies in the language, and that the underlying thoughts have very little originality about them. It is equally true to say that the spirit which breathes through both thoughts and language is that which is always found when systems or schools of opinion are founded. Alas! that men who have had as their birth-right so choice a setting forth of the full-orbed truth of God should have descended to this unbalanced and sectarian setting forth of one segment of the whole.

We do not write thus without some reason. As showing this, we append some extracts, all of which were written years ago before this particular school sprang into being. Each extract is from the pen of one whose words are of great weight — the late J. N. Darby.

“The mystic never has rest, because he vainly seeks in man what he ought to seek in God, who had accomplished all before he ever thought about it. . . . . This is why the imagination plays so great a part in mysticism, and Satan can so often deceive by it, because the imagination and the heart of man are called into play. I do not say that spiritual affections are never there: . . . . but you will find him after all, occupied with the affections and not with God Himself. It is the chief defect of mysticism. In a word, I see it in an effort of the human heart, trying to produce in itself something strong enough in the way of affection to satisfy a heart awakened by the excellence of its object. . .”

Again in writing of a very definite perversion of truth which in his day he had to encounter, he says:-

“This is one of the sad circumstances, as it strikes me, . . . . important truths dealt with in so rash and daring a manner and the authority of the teacher leant upon for them, and his wildest notions put upon the level of certainty with justification by faith; so that were his authority once shaken there would be danger that no one would know what was certain. It would be scepticism as to everything. So I have seen it with Roman Catholics. . . . I may add from my own experience that most decided legalism took the place of Christ and grace. . . . As to the teaching I heard  . . . the one undeviating object seemed to be to teach differently from what brethren had taught . . . . As at  --- they treated what wonderfully blessed new light they had got as to their church position, so here it was taught that, as the brethren had first learnt brotherly unity and fellowship now they had been, as fresh instruction, led to church order. This church order was the authority of the teachers. . . .  This came to such a pitch in these quarters that one brother, on these points being mooted, having urged that after all the Bereans were more noble than those of Thessalonica, because they searched the Scriptures whether these things were so, he was answered by a young, and, as far as I know, very nice-hearted young man, who was associated in the ministry there, that it was Jews searching Jewish Scriptures, but that, now that God had raised up teachers and given gifts, all that was changed, and they must listen to the teachers . . . . "

At different times and in different connections, he also penned the following:-

“There are things which we enjoy by experience which are not acquired by experience; every sealed believer is in Christ before God, and his place is to know it (John 14), but there are those who do not through imperfect teaching. . . . We take the place by faith (beyond Jordan), but when taken we realize being in it by the Holy Ghost; and this is experience. It is not based on experience or progress in it. We are in it if in Christ.”

“Christianity depends in its work on what it brings, not on what it finds; our side and relationship to God by it, wholly on what we find, not on what we bring. In a word, it is grace, not man, though he be formed and led by it. Thank God it is.”

“Universal consent is another form of the substitution of man's authority for the Word of God, and the teaching of the Spirit of God in and by the word, and the responsibility of each saint to receive that word by such teaching; which alone constitutes faith. . . . It is the judgment of men, be they ever so many, and not the direct responsibility of the soul to God in receiving the word; nor the direct operation of the Spirit of God on the soul in respect of the word, which alone produces divine faith. It is faith in men. . . . For the mass of saints it must result in faith in the statements of the teacher, which is not faith in God at all. It will always be connected with receiving from teachers what they teach because God has raised them up . . "

“If ministry is real it brings God directly to the conscience through the Word, whereas that which is false stands between God and the conscience.”

These quotations bear as directly upon the points at issue as though they had been written today, and we ask the reader thoughtfully to consider them.

We believe that one of the worst features of the system of teaching we have been reviewing is its tendency to bring in man whether as a teacher or a “priest” between the conscience of the “ordinary believer” and the Lord, instead of bringing God directly to the conscience. It does indeed put man and ministry between God and the conscience. In a word, the whole system is, in effect, we judge, a highly elaborate, though perhaps unconscious effort, to divert saints from “holding the Head.” (Col. 2: 18).

We now turn aside from the consideration of these teachings, for the review of what is unscriptural is more or less negative, and in conclusion we briefly summarize the positive testimony of the Word of God.

Take, for instance, the Epistle to the Romans. The order is first the objective setting forth of what God is, and has done for us in Christ; then second that which is to be wrought in us experimentally by the Spirit by way of response. Later in the Epistle (chapter 12), we find exhortation, to the end that the saints may be stirred and moved towards the fulfilment, in their own cases, of all that which God purposes for them subjectively. To what does the Apostle appeal? What is the lever calculated to produce such mighty results? “I beseech you therefore, brethren,” he says, “by the mercies of God.” All that which God is objectively towards us is the lever, not what we may be subjectively towards Him.

Do we therefore belittle the work of the Spirit of God carried on progressively in the hearts of the saints? By no means. We believe it to be a very important part of truth, and one of the great objects of all true ministry, but at the same time we recognize that it is clearly the complement to truth that is objective.

In 1 Corinthians 2 we find that there are the things of God, which no man knows, “but the Spirit of God,” — “things that are freely given to us of God.” The Spirit Himself is given to us, “that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God.” These wondrous things are given. They are ours, blessed be God! And we are to know them, not intellectually merely, but in spiritual power and enjoyment by the Spirit of God.

The same presentation of truth meets us in Galatians 4: 6, 7. “Ye are sons,” said the Apostle, thus setting forth the great objective fact, and he added, for that very reason, “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.” The Spirit gives not the relationship, but the conscious response to the relationship. The Galatians had made but little progress subjectively. Indeed they had as a whole slipped back into legalism, and were “fallen from grace.” Still the Apostle does not hesitate to apply to their hearts objective truth, and that twice over, saying not only, “ye are sons,” but also, “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” (Gal. 4: 7).

We pass from Galatians to Ephesians, and though a far more exalted presentation of truth meets us here, yet we find the same order; it is first, the calling of God, a thing wholly above and outside of us; second, we find that we are to have the eyes of our understanding enlightened, that we may know what is the hope of His calling.

Lastly, we refer to the closing epistles — 2 Timothy; 2 Peter; and 1  John. In each the last days are contemplated, and we are confronted with just the same feature.

The Apostle Paul, in writing to Timothy, was addressing one who beyond all contradiction was a “spiritual man.” The whole purpose of the Epistle is to lift the thoughts of Timothy from himself to God's “purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began;” by which purpose and grace we have been saved and called with an holy calling. That which is irrevocably and eternally established “in Christ Jesus” characterizes the whole Epistle, as does also the value of the God-breathed Scriptures. We may well speak of “The impregnable rock of Holy Scripture.” There is nothing impregnable nor rock-like about the conceptions and impressions of the “spiritual men,” about whom we have heard so much.

The Apostle Peter begins his second Epistle by referring to that which has been bestowed upon us by God and by our Saviour Jesus Christ. We “have obtained . . . precious faith.” By His Divine power there have been given unto us “all things that pertain unto life and godliness;” and also “exceeding great and precious promises.” Here are glorious objective facts, and upon that basis we are exhorted to the development of a suited subjective state: to “add” to our faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity. Peter's ministry was a pastoral one, and he closes by reminding us that the state and behaviour proper to the faith of Christ is only produced in the power of those great realities which the grace of God has bestowed.

The Apostle John from another standpoint witnesses to the same truth. For him everything hinges upon the revelation that has reached us from the beginning--from the incarnation of the Son of God. Then the Father was revealed; then the life was manifested. The manifestation was in a Person so objectively revealed that He could be heard, seen and handled. Everything is to be tested by that. The thing is now to be “true” not only “in Him,” but in us also (2: 8). The life in absolute fulness is in Him: in us it is for the present modified by the fact that still we have the flesh in us. But to tamper with that which came out in its fulness in Him from the beginning is the spirit of antichrist, as chapter 2 shows. In the Epistle there are many references to what “we know.” Yet the closing word is to present the only One, who is the great Object for our hearts — “This is the true God, and eternal life.”

No wonder the Apostle's closing word is “Children, keep yourselves from idols.” An idol is anything that would dethrone Christ in our hearts. Let us beware lest we make an idol of a “spiritual man.”

Many other Scriptures might be adduced. What is really needed is to avoid making one's subjective impressions any kind of a standard, to cease imputing to them any kind of authority. If we have Divinely-given impressions well and good; let us be thankful. Let us remember, however, that Scripture alone is the infallible standard, and consequently that it alone will enable us to test our impressions and determine whether they really proceed from the Spirit of God, or whether they are but the fruit of mere mentality.

May the Lord be pleased to own this small effort to contend for the simplicity of the faith. We close with the following words of another well-known servant of God:-

“Occupation with our state will never bring us one whit nearer the Lord; it will only distress, enfeeble and enslave our souls. Occupation with Christ will produce every moment increasing conformity to His image. The true remedy therefore for a bad state is Christ so completely filling our vision, Christ in what He is and in what He has done, that self cannot be seen in the light of His glory. State is not everything, but CHRIST IS EVERYTHING: and in proportion as we learn this lesson will our state meet His mind.”

"New things do I declare"

"New things do I declare"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 36, 1948-50, page 116.)

When the eternal state is reached everything will be made new in the fullest possible sense, according to Revelation 21: 5. But at the present time God's work is characterized by newness, whether we think of the work of Christ for us or the work of the Holy Spirit in us. And even in the Old Testament there are prophecies concerning the new things God proposed to do. This is particularly marked in the three major prophets — Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

If Isa. 42: 8-16 be read, and then Isa. 65: 17, 18, it seems plain that we may speak of him as the prophet of the new things. Between these two passages we get the prediction of the great and glorious basis on which the new things will securely rest.

All attentive readers of this great prophetic book have been impressed by the way that it naturally divides into two parts; the second starting with Isa. 40, and consisting of 27 chapters. At the beginning of Isa. 42 Christ is introduced as the true Servant of the Lord who will not fail nor be discouraged till He accomplishes God's will on earth, and He it is who will introduce and establish the new things of which verse 9 speaks. In the chapters that intervene before we reach Isa. 65: 17, Christ is introduced in a variety of ways, but particularly as "the Arm" of the Lord, and as "the Servant" of the Lord.

The 27 chapters are divided into three groups of nine, each ending with a solemn assertion that there is no peace for the wicked. (See Isa. 48: 22; Isa. 57: 21; Isa. 66: 24). The centre section of the three is therefore chapters 49-57; and the centre chapter of that centre section is Isa. 53, which really begins with Isa. 52: 13. So the prophecy of the One who is Jehovah's Servant, who goes even into death for the transgressions of God's people and comes forth in resurrection, lies at the heart of everything. The twenty-seven chapters begin with, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God." Having read the first thirty-nine chapters with their many denunciations and woes, we might wonder where the comfort is to be found. It is fully indicated when Isa. 53 is reached. If we believe the report and discover the mighty "Arm of the Lord" in the suffering "Servant," the comfort will flow into our hearts in abundant measure.

He it is who will introduce the new things of which Isa. 42 speaks. He will not fail nor be discouraged till He has set judgment in the earth and brought them in. All the servants of God, who were merely human, have failed in greater or less degree and have been discouraged. To the outward observer His course would end in what looked like the greatest failure of all. Chapter 49 contemplates this, and shows us that though He apparently failed and spent His strength for nought and in vain, He was not discouraged, knowing that He would be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and His God would be His strength. Israel would ultimately be gathered as the fruit of His work, and meanwhile God had wider and larger purposes of blessing, bringing light to the Gentiles and salvation to the ends of the earth.

As far as Isaiah is concerned the new things predicted are connected with blessings on the earth. The new song that they provoke is from both land and sea, from the far distant isles and from the wilderness and the top of the mountains. For heavenly blessing we have to go on to the New Testament.

Again, in Isa. 65, the promise of the new heavens and new earth that shall be created must be read in the light of the verses that follow, where millennial conditions are described. The heavens will be new for they will be in direct touch with earth, as described in Hosea 2: 21, instead of being severed and silent as now. In consequence the earth will be blessed. Jerusalem will be a rejoicing, instead of a heartache, as now. Her people will be a joy, instead of "contrary to all men" (1 Thess. 2: 15) as now. Sorrow will depart and prosperity be established All creation will be blessed, and man's life greatly prolonged, since, "as the days of a tree are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." It will be new heavens and new earth indeed as to its character.

This golden age will be brought to pass by the Lord Jesus Christ and by His work alone. Let us get that firmly fixed in our minds, so that we may be preserved from meddling with present schemes to bring such an age to pass, be they political or otherwise. It will only come to pass when He, who came first as the Servant to suffer, comes again as Jehovah's mighty Arm to bring salvation for the earth by solemn judgments.

Following the great prophecy of Isa. 53, Isaiah does mention the covenant to be founded on the death and resurrection of God's Servant. We have the words, "the covenant of My peace," which shall not be "removed" (Isa. : 10). He does not however gives us any development of this matter. We have to turn to Jeremiah for this.

Of all the prophets Jeremiah had perhaps the hardest task. All his words seemed to fail. He had one or two who helped him but no one seemed to listen to him or be converted through his word. He must have been endowed by God with a very high measure of moral courage. To the Israel of his day he had to say, "Thus saith the Lord, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous" (Isa. : 12). So there was no hope at all for them under the old covenant of law, and the mailed fist of Nebuchadnezzar was about to sweep them away.

Yet in the very next chapter he is commissioned to utter words of hope. There is to be "a new covenant," which will stand upon a basis entirely different, indeed entirely opposite, to the old. Isa. 31: 31-34 must be read to get its scope. To the old there were two parties, God Himself and Israel. God demanded obedience, and if it were rendered in all particulars and all the time, the promised blessing would materialize. The preamble was, "Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed . . . " (Ex. 19: 5). There was that fatal "If."

In Jeremiah's beautiful prophecy there is no "if." Rather the characteristic words are, "I will." Israel and Judah come into the picture it is true, but as passive recipients and not as important actors. The new covenant will come to pass when God acts in the sovereignty of His mercy upon the righteous basis laid down in the sacrifice of Christ of which Isaiah has spoken. God will so put His law within them and so write it on their hearts that it will be as natural for them to keep it, as formerly it was natural for them to break it. They will come into the light of the knowledge of God with all their sins forgiven and the very remembrance of them dismissed. And all by an act of God's sovereign mercy, as is made so plain in the closing verses of Romans 11.

Though this new covenant is to be made in a day yet to come with Israel, God's earthly people, the blessing of it is all ours today, as the Epistle to the Hebrews shows us. All that we have has reached us on new covenant principles, for the blood of the new covenant has been shed at the Cross. The blessing that has come to us however is of a higher and heavenly character. It includes all predicted as marking the new covenant but goes a long way beyond it. Let us see that we do not slip into the error that ensnared the Galatians — the idea that though we are under the new covenant for justification, we must go back to the principle of the old covenant for practical sanctification.

But what, we may ask, is really signified by this putting of God's law in the inward parts, this writing of it in the heart, of which Jeremiah speaks? To answer this question we must pass on to the prophecy of Ezekiel.

In Ezekiel 36 greatly enlarges our thoughts as to this part of the work of God. He still speaks figuratively, for the time had not yet come to speak with the plainness we find in the New Testament. If verses 25-31 be read, we notice such terms as "sprinkle clean water," "a new heart," "a new spirit," and the following verses indicate what is going to be the result of this great work of God. The Israel of that day will be entirely cleansed and renovated. In the words of our Lord, recorded in John 3, they will be "born again."

Here then we have, not the new things, of which Isaiah speaks, nor the new covenant of which Jeremiah speaks, but the new birth and this completes the picture. The new birth is an integral part of the new covenant, and without it the new things never could be enjoyed, even though they be righteously established by and in Christ.

In the natural creation water has been given of God as the cleansing agent. It cleanses internally when we drink it. It cleanses externally when we wash in it. Used figuratively, it sets forth quite simply the idea of moral cleansing, as we get it in Ezekiel 36. To this scripture the Lord Jesus alluded when He spoke to Nicodemus, as recorded in John 3. In answer to the question, "How can these things be?" the Lord said, "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" He should have known them, for there they were in Ezekiel 36, which mentions both the "water" and "My Spirit."

When we reach the New Testament the water stands clearly revealed as the symbol of the word of God: such a passage as John 15: 3 shows this. When Israel is thus sprinkled, the clean water will come into contact with each and all of them, and the new heart and new spirit be produced. Then in addition to this God will put His Spirit within them. This surely is the gift of the Spirit which other prophecies envisage at the opening of the millennial age.

As the result of all this there will be found a new born nation, that will simply loathe the things they formerly loved, and loathe themselves for having indulged in them. They will also love the things they formerly had no desire for. It will be a completely new Israel that will enter into the blessings of the kingdom.

Hence in John 3 we have the Lord Jesus saying to Nicodemus, "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?" The new birth of which He spoke is an absolute necessity for entrance into the kingdom of God, when established on earth. It is equally needful if there is to be an entrance upon heavenly things.

We may indeed thank God that we have come by the Spirit of God under the cleansing action of the word of God, and thus are born again. We may thank Him further that the Gospel has reached us, bringing us into blessing on the lines of the new covenant. We have thus a new nature and we are cleared of our guilt. In other words, we are both washed and justified.

But we must further thank God that we are brought into new things, and by faith we have the knowledge of them — new things of a heavenly order rather than an earthly. The Son of God having come and accomplished redemption we are all sons of God by faith in Him, and God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, giving us the consciousness of this new relationship and ability to answer to it.

As Christians, let us be careful to live in the power of these new relationships, free from the defilements in which once we found our pleasure.

No Compromise

No Compromise.

1 Kings 13: 1-19; 23-25; 30-32.

An Address to Young Christian Men by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 20, 1928, page 150.)

What I have to say tonight may be summed up in the two words "No compromise." This is dead in the teeth of the modern spirit, because among men the best road to a bargain is through compromise. Starting with our thoughts rather widely apart, we can by degrees get together, whereas if you maintain your point of view, and I maintain my point of view, our differences will be irreconcilable. Compromise is responsible for many successful things in the world of business and the world of politics, but it is the secret of failure in the things of God. If you want success there, you have to seek out what is the divine way, and stick to that without a shadow of compromise. You remember that word in 2 Cor. 6 where the Apostle Paul wants the believers to be enlarged, and then you have that most striking passage which begins, "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers." He had spoken to them with wonderful delicacy about various matters in the earlier epistle. He had given a good deal of personal information in the early chapters of the second epistle. He had found that which encouraged him, because he saw signs of the working of the Holy Spirit, and he felt that he could now tell them what was at the bottom of all their troubles. Why had they been so shaky on the great fundamental points of doctrine? Why this grave immorality in their midst? Why this importing into their assembly the methods and ways of the heathen? The reason was that they had their links with the world very largely uncut. They had broken down in their insulation. Instead of being like an electric cable well charged with heavenly electricity, and insulated from the world, the insulation had broken down and the energy was escaping. They were allowing in their midst many evil things from the world with which they were compromising. I might turn to that verse in Ephesians, "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." The Christian has to be uncompromising when it is a question of sin, evil or the world.

We get wonderful illustrations in the Old Testament. The man who stands for God is the one who takes an uncompromising attitude in the presence of the world. Perhaps Enoch is the first great example. We know he lived little more than one-third of the span of human life in antediluvian days. His days were very short compared with his contemporaries, and he walked with God. But when you come to the New Testament you find this man was an uncompromising witness. The world became rather an awkward place for Enoch to dwell in. Did you notice Hebrews 11, "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death"? I often read that before it dawned on me that it was a remarkable thing to say. In the ordinary course he would have had the expectation of another 500 or 600 years. I believe if he had not been translated he would have been put to death for talking such talk in those lawless days when corruption and violence filled the earth. He told them the Lord was coming with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment. It is the man of faith and of uncompromising faithfulness who leaves his mark for God. Compare Abraham with Lot, and you have the thing set before you almost in perfection. Lot becomes a warning, while Abraham is called the "friend of God."

Now in the incident we have had read in our hearing to-night an unnamed man of God is called upon to witness at a great crisis in Israel's history. The division between the two tribes and the ten had just been consummated. Jeroboam, with a good deal of worldly foresight, had said: "After all, religion is a most potent force, and in spite of all the feeling that has been generated by the tyranny of Solomon's day, yet after all anger does not burn for ever. The old links will assert themselves, and the pull of the old relationship, and the hearts of my people will be sneaking back to that king who is of David's line. Most of all, there are those feasts of the Lord, where every male is supposed to go. Can I let them go and come under the influence of the great house that Solomon made? It is not policy to permit it. I must manage somehow to divert them to a new centre." Therefore he set up the calves in Bethel and Dan. He carried it out very effectively. He says, "Behold thy gods, O Israel." False gods. He made a house — false temple. He made priests — false priests. He ordained a feast — a false feast. He had false sacrifices, a false altar, and false incense. He diverted the minds of his people in the mass to these false things. This was a great crisis. The larger part of Israel were being totally diverted from the true God. God called an unknown man. Mark you, not every prophet is called a man of God. He was no mean individual, though his name is not given. He had specific instructions to eat no bread and to drink no water, and not to return by the way he came. He had to appear like a meteor in the sky, drop in and deliver his message, and have no fellowship with the accursed thing. Do not even eat bread or drink water. Do not go back by the same way, where you might meet somebody who recognized you as having passed through a day or two before. He was to go right into the hornet's nest. He was to deliver his message without the smallest degree of compromise, and he was to return.

THE FIRST TEST.

Now he was sorely tested. I think you will see how the test divides itself into four stages. The first test, which was a very serious one, was when he appeared suddenly in the presence of Jeroboam, who was there at the false altar, and delivered his message. God was going to raise up, in days that were yet distant, a certain individual of the house of David, whose name was given, and he would desecrate that altar. The bones of the very men who were burning incense upon it would be burnt upon it. He most explicitly prophesied the total dishonour and overthrow of this idolatrous thing that Jeroboam had made. The first test came. Jeroboam was a forceful man. He had led a revolt almost immediately after the palmy days of Solomon, and must have been a man of strong character. He says, "Lay hold of him!" There was the man of God absolutely defenceless in the presence of the great king. He has now to face the violence of the world. It is a great test. Many a good man has quailed before it. The violence of the world is often the first test. Well, the man of God did not give way. The power of God was manifestly with him. Jeroboam stretched out his hand, but he found his arm paralysed. Every vestige of strength went out of that one member. There stood the king absolutely impotent to bring his arm to his side. In a moment or two the king is at the prophet's feet, begging him to ask the Lord that this blight might be removed. The prophet successfully negotiated the storm which arose out of the world's violence. We may have to stand in the presence of the violence of the world, and very often it puts backbone into us instead of taking it out. I remember a servant of God speaking of a young fellow who had been converted. His old friends to whom he told it shook their fists in his face, and said, "We will take that out of you." He said, "They tried, but they did not knock it out: they knocked it in." He was strengthened, and the world's violence did not move him.

THE SECOND TEST.

A few minutes more, and the prophet has a more severe test. Verse 7 is the world's patronage. Now that the prophet has established a certain claim on the king by healing him, the situation is changed. The king said, "Come home with me and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward." Now, man of God, take care! He did take care. That brought forth this striking pronouncement, "If thou give me half thy house, I will not go in to thee." The world is now fawning and smiling upon him. "Come and sit at my royal table," says the king, "I will give you a reward." It is a very difficult thing to refuse, yet he did refuse. He stood the test. The world sometimes swings round, and would fain patronise us. It is much more difficult. Many Christians would have fallen where the Apostle Paul stood in Acts 16. A damsel with a spirit of divination came forth and in a moral way patted the apostles on the back. She said, "These men are the servants of the most high God, telling us the way of salvation." That was a beautiful advertisement from the devil, but the devil's advertisement will not help the work of God. No servant of God is going to be helped by it. If you were interviewing an employer for a situation, and just then a man with as shady a character as he could possibly have were to drop in and treat you as "hail, fellow, well met," your chances of employment would vanish to zero. The employer would say to himself, "He is on the very best of terms in that quarter," and you would not get the job. In the same way, the devil's patronage is no good to you and me.

THE THIRD TEST.

Now in verse 15 you have the third test, by the old prophet, who repeats the king's invitation almost in the same words. "Come home with me and eat bread." This is the test of religious associations. Here is a prophet, a man who shines in the religious sphere, a man who, to take him at his face value, speaks on God's behalf, yet who dwells serenely in the midst of all this idolatry, as we do not hear that he uttered one word of protest. Maybe in his heart and mind he did not like it, but it is pretty clear he did not say anything against it. One wonders at his going on in the midst of all these things if he had much care for his God. He sends a message to the man of God to come home with him and eat bread. I am religious. I am not an idolatrous king. Once again the man of God resisted the temptation. He stands in the presence of this further test of religious associations. That is a test which comes to us again and again. "It is for a good cause," they say; "it is religious." Beware of worldly compromising religion. Once more the prophet has grace to shake his head and say, No. It is not so good nor so strong as the way he speaks to the king. He says to the old prophet, "I may not," as if he would very much have liked to. He did not say, "I will not," as if his will was in it. To the religious man he says, "I may not. It would be very nice, but I am not free."

THE FOURTH TEST.

He refuses until the old prophet with his wiles says once more (verse 18), "I am a prophet as thou art; and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thy house, that he may eat bread and drink water." But he lied unto him. He was tested this time by what was in its substance the very thing he was sent to protest against — false religious imitation. Here was a man who had all the outward trappings of being a true prophet. "I am a Christian, as you are," they say; "I am quite happy here. I can settle down amongst these people. I have words from the Lord. I have seen an angel." He was lying. Whether he was consciously lying may be questioned. He may have been the victim of delusions. He did not see an angel that came from heaven. It may have been an angel from the pit. The man of God ought surely to have said, "God never goes back upon His instructions." He never begins an enterprise not foreseeing all the eventualities, and in the middle countermands His programme. God begins by foreseeing everything, and His instructions at the beginning stand to the finish. He ought to have known that what God begins with He carries through. Taken on the ground of this religious imitation the man of God fell. God intervened, and He used those lying lips to tell the man of God his doom — a doom which fell upon him in the government of God. You find how God at the beginning of things makes a drastic example of somebody. You can find various illustrations of that: Achan in Joshua's day, at the beginning of the conquest of the land, and Ananias and Sapphira at the beginning of the church's history. Although the man of God failed on the fourth test, it pleased God in His government to make an example of him, that you and I might learn the lesson of no compromise. Be very careful when the compromise comes to you by the way of religious imitation. It may be someone who was like the old prophet of Bethel. Perhaps they were once true prophets of the Lord but have backslidden, and take a terrible pleasure in drawing aside others. It makes them feel more easy in their minds if they can get others back in the compromising path. You may be tested in this way by some poor backsliding saint, or possibly — I do not want to pronounce on the old prophet of Bethel  - someone who only makes a religious profession.

You have heard a good deal of truth and unfolding of the word of God. My appeal to you is this: if you desire to be for the Lord and stand for Him, see to it that you are not sidetracked by the way of compromise. While you go through the world men will say to you, "We know as much about it as you. We are as true Christians as you." Yet they are going on with the world, endorsing the world, speaking the things the world loves, introducing those false things which are sweeping professing Christianity. By the grace of God, let "no compromise" be our watchword. Be obedient to the instructions that God has given us in His Word. Obedience would have saved the man of God who came from Judah.

"No profit" - "Great gain"

"No profit" — "Great gain"

Ecclesiastes 1: 16-18: Ecclesiastes 2: 1-11. 1 Timothy 6: 6.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 24, 1932, page 236.)

I need not point out the contrast, for it lies upon the surface. Let me read once more the last verse read in Ecclesiastes and then our verse in 1 Timothy:

"Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was NO PROFIT under the sun.

"But godliness with contentment is GREAT GAIN.

You do see the contrast of course, and you can have either of these contrasted alternatives as the sum total of your lives.

If you want to live a life which shall be of no profit, well, you can follow in the steps of Solomon; only it will be not merely at a respectful distance, but at a very great distance indeed. God gave that remarkable man the most astonishing opportunities of digging into every possible source of human enjoyment, such as you and I will never know. By position, by the especial wisdom conferred upon him, by his magnificent mental equipment, by the fact that he was a king, and that he entered into the kingdom made splendid by the labours and conquests of his greater father David; with wealth rolling in upon him from every side, with every possible luxury and opportunity for self-indulgence, the very world lay at his feet. You have been hearing his own words. He has put on record what he determined to do and how he found things. He was able to investigate every world that there is within this great world, as far as it existed in his day.

The mechanical world of his day was a very small affair, whereas our mechanical world is gigantic; but the intellectual world of Solomon's day and the worlds of wealth and splendour and luxury were very great.

No man, I suppose, has had such a marvellous mental equipment as Solomon. You may remember how his very songs were as many as a thousand and five. One is preserved for us in the Song of Solomon, but that is only one, though perhaps the chiefest, out of all that immense number. Then there are his proverbs, of which he spake three thousand! You have read his book of Proverbs. If any one of us in the course of a long life were to coin a pithy terse sentence of value, which captured the public imagination, and passed into a proverb in the English language — well, we should have done something. But, my friends, Solomon kept on doing it over and over again. He uttered so many that we find it most difficult to think of anything further to say! He rolled out proverbs like a mass-production machine! Then he spoke of trees, from the cedars of Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall, for he was a great horticulturalist. Moreover, he was a great naturalist, investigating and speaking of "beasts and of fowls, and of creeping things and of fishes.''

I do not intend to dwell upon the details of the passage from Ecclesiastes which I have read in your hearing, but you can see how he went into things most intellectual' connected with wisdom and knowledge. Then what was even more wonderful, he also had a knowledge of God. The queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is a very significant word as to this in 1 Kings 10. When she "heard of the fame of Solomon" she came. But the fame she heard was not concerning his poetic powers, his literary skill, his wide knowledge of natural history in all its forms, but "concerning the name of the Lord." So she came down to see this extraordinary king raised up to reign over the people of Jehovah. She discovered he had an extraordinary knowledge of God, and he answered all her questions, which were not about natural history or horticulture or proverbs or poetry — but ABOUT GOD. When she had heard and seen "there was no more spirit in her."

So much for Solomon's wisdom. But then he said, I am going "to know madness and folly." If there is any pleasure in a thing, I am in for it. He turned to wine — a dangerous thing; he married wives; he executed great works; he gathered riches; he not only sipped but drank deeply of every sparkling cup. He tried every imaginable pleasure. He not only ruined his testimony, but very largely wrecked his kingdom. In all this self-gratification, in all this heaping to himself every delectable thing, making everything minister to himself, his aim was that he should be able to say, "So I was great."

Now in all this he landed himself into the flattest possible disobedience to the Word of God. Turn to Deuteronomy 17: 14-20 and you will find that the Lord, who knows the future before it arrives, had laid down instructions for Israel's kings. They were not to multiply horses to themselves, because that meant going down to Egypt again — re-opening communications with the land out of which they had been brought. Also the king was not to multiply wives and not to multiply riches unto himself. David multiplied riches, but he multiplied them for the glory of the house of God which was to be.

In 1 Kings 10 and 11 we are told all about Solomon's doings. He did send to Egypt and he did multiply horses. Apparently before his time a few horses, just stragglers, came into the land, but the ass was the ordinary beast of burden, and Absalom was only riding on a mule when his hair was caught in the oak. Solomon had his horses and his chariots. David won his great victories without horses since God was with him. Solomon had horses, and from that point Israel began to say goodbye to victory. He multiplied horses and wives and riches. He did most flagrantly the three things the king was told not to do. The consequence of all this self-aggrandisement, this idea that the way of life is to get everything possible for self-gratification, is a solemn one — you are entrapped into disobedience and you forfeit the support of God. Solomon did not act in ignorance of God's Word — it was simply staring him in the face, and consequently he did it outrageously.

I do not know, but perhaps Solomon had very plausible excuses for what he did, when he read that passage in Deuteronomy. He may have said — Ah! but those instructions from the Lord through Moses were written so long ago. Times have changed. All the other nations have horses. What are we going to do without horses when all those chars lots come against us? I can quite imagine the plausible reasoning that might have come in concerning each of the three prohibitions. But if was all false.

Thank God, ere Solomon ended his career his eyes were opened and he was led to write this striking book in which he puts on record the results of the experiment. He was not inspired in doing what he did, but he was certainly inspired to put on record the result of the experiment. Listen to what he says: — I have investigated on a grand scale — on a scale that others can never touch — others might have one per cent of it — I have had the whole hundred per cent, and the verdict is, there is not a bit of profit in it. There is "no profit under the sun."

Now we turn to the New Testament, and here is a much greater man than Solomon. He is getting near the end of his remarkable life. He has been through great sufferings. He too was a man who had a most wonderful mental equipment and a wonderful equipment also from a religious standpoint. He was the very highest grade specimen of his age — a Pharisee — an observer of all the rites and ceremonies of his most holy religion. He had a good conscience and an earnest desire to serve God.

A moment came when all these things were forgotten — he came into the light of Jesus, revealed to him from the glory. He was blinded: and now he absolutely loses life as regards this world. You can read for yourself in 2 Corinthians 11 what he endured. Five times he was beaten of the Jews, receiving forty stripes save one. Thrice beaten with rods — that makes eight fearful floggings in all! Thrice was he ship-wrecked, and he had not been ship-wrecked, as recorded in Acts 27, when he wrote this. He must have been shipwrecked four times at least. A night and a day he spent in the deep — picked up by no one knows who out of the Mediterranean. Troubles, persecutions, trials, worries came upon him morning, noon, and best part of the night. But what marked him? Why, the very thing that he recommended to Timothy, in saying, "Godliness with contentment is great gain."

What is this godliness? someone may ask. I do not want to give you a theological definition, but I can say that godliness is very much connected with God-consciousness. A godly man is a man upon whose soul God is impressed. He acts, he lives, he thinks, in relation to God. The fear of God is upon his spirit.

You may remember what Nehemiah said after describing a great many things that went on in his day. He described the way in which the rulers were behaving how they oppressed the people, getting all sorts of things out of them to which they were not entitled; even their servants bearing rule and oppressing. Nehemiah said, "So did not I, BECAUSE OF THE FEAR OF GOD."

There are not a few countries today, where financial profit is the great end of politics. If you were a governor there you would find it so easy to feather your own nest and in a few years retire a wealthy person! But what of God? If God is to control, and if my life is to be lived under His eye, then that alters the whole matter. Now godliness — this God-consciousness, this living as under the eye of God, this having God as the trust and the glory of our hearts — with the contentment that flows from it, is great gain.

I have to ask myself — we cannot get away this time from these practical questions — Am I going to be content to accept as from the hand of God that which He allots me, not making it my great object to make myself something other than I am, or to attain to higher or greater things than I possess? If so, that is great gain.

I do not think the Apostle Paul was in prison when he wrote these words, though his captivity was near. Here he is, living his life in the fear of God — absolutely content, as he tells us in the Philippian letter, written when he was in prison — "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." Paul was a great gainer; he had Christ for his gain, and his eye is upon the coming glory, when his great gain will be manifested. Paul, rather than Solomon, is going to be crowned in that day.

If it is permissible to think of anyone other than our Lord Jesus Christ when we get to heaven, I hope I may be permitted to salute the Apostle Paul. I would like to say — and I think I should say it with tears on my cheeks — "Thank you, Paul, thank you a thousand times for being so devoted to the Lord Jesus and His gospel. Thank you for going through fire and flood; thank you for coming to Europe; thank you for the thrashing at Philippi, for the triumphant song in the jail; thank you for thinking of the regions beyond, where my ancestors were but poor savages. I thank you for the zeal which led you to carry forth the gospel, in the teeth of the greatest opposition, in obedience to that word of the Lord, 'Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles'; and for enduring that furious shout, 'Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.'"

Here, then, is Paul, who must have been amongst the finest intellects of his age; he had suffered the loss of all things. He had been living in the fear of God. God had dominated his life. Do you say, "It is all loss"? It is not: it is all gain — great gain. We shall never be Pauls, but we may tread in his footsteps, we may be imitators of him.

So I am going to close with an appeal. Let us yield ourselves to God in accordance with that word we have just been hearing. Let us go in for godliness; let us have God before us in this God-forgetting age. Today God is being put out of everything, out of the world's great scheme of things, especially Intellectual things. Men refuse to see God anywhere, they don't see Him in nature. They feel entirely independent of Him, and rule Him out of all their plans. Shutting God out, men fall a prey to superstition. Everybody wants his mascot — a polite word for a fetish. The more they forget God, the more the fetishes of the heathen come in.

But we are of those who "trust in the living God, who is the preserver of all men, specially of those that believe." We have God and His Word before us — the Word which bid us yield ourselves to Him, that we may be the servants of His pleasure. Depend upon it if we yield ourselves to God, we shall not be losers. We shall say, — Thank God, I have great gain, great gain even in this life — for godliness is profitable for the life that now is as well as for that to come.

In view of the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ, in view of the passing of the world system and of the things that dominate it, what great gain to be connected through grace and by faith with that great system of things to be brought in with the Lord Jesus Christ when He steps forth, God's anointed One, God's great Administrator for the coming age. Oh! my friends, when He comes, in His splendour,

"It will be glory then to say,

That He's a Friend of mine."

Let me tell you, however, a little secret: — if you and I see things in their right light, it is equally glory to stand by His side in the day of His rejection and to say, after the language of one of the great men of David's day, "Thine are we, Jesus, and on Thy side, Thou Son of God!"

"Not by works of righteousness."

"Not by works of righteousness."

F. B. Hole.

Scripture Truth Vol. 2, 1910, page 227.

Man's Patchwork and Christ's Seamless Robe.

After the great earthquake of January, 1907, which practically destroyed the town of Kingston, Jamaica, large numbers of homeless people flocked to the old race-course, and there, in the course of a few days, sprang up a small town of huts of every description.

Great ingenuity was displayed in their construction. Old crates and packing-cases were largely used, doors and broken framework from ruined wooden houses were requisitioned. Here and there biscuit and oil tins beaten out flat or patches of canvas or clothes were worked in, and since each man built his hut just where he fancied, the general effect was very quaint. Amidst such scenes we frequently preached the gospel to attentive audiences.

One day, on crossing the race-course, I noticed that practically every hut boasted a flag of some kind. Flags of many nationalities and of no nationality fluttered in the breeze, though the Union Jack largely predominated. In the distance was one of unusual size, and failing to make out its design, curiosity tempted me to walk across to inspect it. On drawing near I saw the black owner seated complacently beneath it, and the flag I discovered to be his patchwork quilt mounted on a pole!

This thing instantly resolved itself into a kind of parable before my mind, and I thought sadly of many of my fellow-creatures who are travelling to eternity under the patchwork flag.

"Are you right for heaven?" is a question often asked.

"

I hope so

" is the almost invariable answer.

"But under what flag are you? Upon what does your hope rest?"

An average reply runs somewhat as follows:-

"Well, you know, I was always well brought up (1); and I have lived a decent and respectable life (2); I always pay my way (3); I do nobody any harm (4); I attend public worship (5); I say my prayers (6); and read my Bible (7); I am a member (8); a communicant (9); a Sunday-school worker (10); I give as much as I can to good causes (11); and I trust that if I come short at all before the judgment seat the merits of Christ will make good my deficiencies (12)."

Do you perceive the patches that go to make up this flag under which so many are sitting today? I have numbered them that you may clearly see them.

Now let me plainly say that to work in the merits of Christ in this way as part of the patchwork is adding insult to injury. It is an injury to the glorious atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ to be linked up with any paltry effort of our own, but to bring it in last of all as a kind of make-weight for the scales, as the last patch, entirely subservient to the others and only added to make the symmetrical outline of the flag complete, is an insult indeed!

Depend upon it, this patchwork flag is entirely meaningless and unintelligible. Heaven does not recognize it. It will never enter there.

The red of the atoning blood; the white of a soul which that blood has cleansed; the blue of a heavenly life upon earth; or the stars of glory which result from the strifes of Calvary, will have a place there: this miserable patchwork business — NEVER! In truth it is the flag of a rebel against God, for "going about to establish their own righteousness [they] have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God" (Rom. 10: 3).

Let us change the figure as we assert the positive side of this matter.

The ground of the Christian's safety and peace is the one indivisible work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that alone. It is like unto His coat of which we read: "Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout" (John 19: 23). Nothing could be more opposite to patchwork than that. Being without seam there was no natural line of partition. It must be cut or rent to divide it, but that would mean its destruction. Therefore it was that the soldiers said, "Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be" (John 19: 24).

Even so is it with Christ's glorious work. From the top — Godhead's highest glory in heaven — it was woven in one piece throughout down to Calvary's depth of woe, until He cried out "It is finished." Then without a seam the work was done! His work was the "one righteousness" (Rom. 5: 18). "This Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God" (Heb. 10: 12).

My reader, let me say with all reverence — it is a case either of take it or leave it. Accept it in its undivided entirety, making it altogether and only your resting-place, or turn from it altogether, for if it is not everything in the matter of your salvation, it is nothing. You cannot detach a small piece to weave into patchwork of your own. To do so is to destroy — not THE WORK, but the effect of the work as regards your soul.

Man's love of patchwork was manifested very early. Immediately sin entered the world, Adam and his wife made an ineffectual attempt to hide their nakedness from the eyes of their Creator. "They sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons" (Gen. 3: 7). An apron made from fig-leaves must have been patchwork indeed! Any of my readers who is familiar with the shape of a fig-leaf will agree with me in this. This is the first mention of the fig-leaf in the Bible, afterwards it becomes symbolical of man's good works (so called), the outward profession of religion (compare Mark 11: 13, Luke 13: 6-9). Yet when Adam wore his fig-leaf apron and found himself in the presence of God he was the first to condemn it and treat it as though it did not exist. He said, "I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself " (Gen. 3: 10).

When a little later both Cain and Abel desired to draw near to God the same thing became manifest. "Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord" (Gen. 4: 3). See him approach with his offering of choicest fruits heaped together! Do you not recognize the "patchwork" idea once more? Let each separate fruit represent a patch and you have it.

Abel, on the other hand, "brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof" (Gen. 4: 4). Recognizing the death sentence which lay upon him, he drew near with that which spoke of death accomplished in his stead — of the one finished work of Christ.

"And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect" (Gen. 4: 4, 5). Man's patchwork is rejected, Christ's one offering is accepted. Thus it must ever be.

Where are you resting, dear friend? and on what is your hope based? Solid rest and peace can never be yours until, abandoning all else, your faith looks up to the one finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ ALONE.

Not Miracles, But Truth

Not Miracles, But Truth

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth, Vol. 3, 1911, pages 119-22.)

"John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this man were true" (John 10: 41).

That was the verdict on John the Baptist's ministry shortly after his death. A large number of people who had been fairly familiar with John and his ministry found themselves powerfully drawn after the One to whom John had pointed, and resorted to Him while He was staying at the very place where John had at first baptized. This evidently awakened reminiscences of John, and as they recalled his life and sayings and then considered the One to whom those sayings had reference, they bore ungrudging witness to the truth of John's testimony. Evidently, then, their verdict was no mere flattery, but based upon well-considered facts. It falls naturally into two parts — the negative and the positive. Both parts are well worth consideration.

"John did no miracle." He was the last of a long line of prophets (Matt. 11: 13), and though last, by no means least. If not greatest, he was at all events amongst the greatest, for none were greater than he (Luke 7: 28). Seeing, then, that he stood in the very front rank of prophets, comparable only for spiritual vitality and force with men whose miraculous deeds rang throughout the centuries of Israel's history, and bearing in mind that his lot was cast in the hour of the most supreme crisis of all, one might naturally have supposed that of all the prophets he would have been marked by the performance of the most striking wonders. But it was not so. John did no miracle.

How astonishing! Are we to suppose that, after all, John was on a low spiritual level? Was the absence of anything sensational a sign of weakness, or was there something that accounted for it? Why was it that John did no miracle?

The answer undoubtedly is: Because his lot was cast at the end of the dispensation of law, when miracles were no longer a part of God's testimony.

The supernatural element was strongly in evidence at the inauguration of the law dispensation at Sinai, and also in connection with Israel's entrance into possession of the promised land. Later on, when the great national apostasy was developing and Jehovah set Himself by the prophets to recall His erring people and stem the rising tide of idolatry, there was another great display of miraculous power, particularly in connection with Elijah and Elisha. When, however, the apostasy was so complete that the Babylonian captivity resulted miracles disappeared. God did indeed miraculously preserve the three Hebrew lads in the fiery furnace and Daniel in the den of lions. He still, up to the time of Malachi, about 350 B.C., sent His prophets, and there was of course a miraculous element in the revelations which reached them and the inspired writings that came from their pens, but they themselves did no miracles. The time for such had passed.

There is nothing surprising in this. Is it likely that God would allow that which was a notable symbol of His presence to remain connected with a nation that had rejected Him? If the fleet mutinies it can hardly expect to be permitted still to fly the Royal Standard or the Union Jack!

The miracles performed by the Lord Jesus when on earth, those which marked the Pentecostal era, or even the miracles which happened during the Babylonian captivity, were not inconsistent with this.

The miracles of Christ were unique. They came after long years during which not one is recorded, and they signified the actual presence of Jehovah in the midst of His people. The Sovereign Himself having arrived, in the midst of His mutinous fleet, the Royal Standard is of course unfurled by His side!

The miracles of Pentecost marked the inauguration of the church period, just as formerly they had signalised the beginning of Israel's national history. The "church" ship was launched and the flags flew fittingly enough. When once launched other and sterner work awaited her than flag-flying. With regard to the miraculous preservation of God's witnesses in Daniel: the dominion had passed from David's line to the Gentiles, and the haughty Gentile monarchs must learn to respect the faithful remnant of God's people, and God intervenes out of the accustomed order on their behalf. But thenceforward amid the increasing defection and gloom amongst those who had professedly gathered to the divine centre — Jerusalem — the godly had to be content to pursue their way without any outward manifestations until John.

John blazed like a meteor across their sky. He observed the most rigid separation from the hollow religious profession of his day. He preached with astonishing fervour and power. He drew the attention of multitudes for a time, but he wrought not one sign in attestation of his words. "John did no miracle."

"But all things that John spake of this Man were true." Here we reach the positive side which reveals to us at once the secret of John's greatness. He never swerved from rendering true testimony to the One who is the great subject of all testimony — CHRIST. NO wonder that John ranks amongst the greatest prophets that have ever lived!

Let us not suppose that to render true testimony to Christ is an easy or simple thing. It is not. Within the best and greatest of God's servants there has been the flesh with all its inveterate tastes and habits. Hence the dangerous tendency to put self in the foreground and Christ in the background, even when ostensibly witnessing of Him. John the Baptist was remarkably proof against this, as the first three chapters of John's Gospel prove. As the forerunner he pointed steadily to his Master. As "the voice" he spake only of Christ. To Him he witnessed as the Messiah, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Bridegroom.

Splendid opportunities were presented to him of exalting himself at his Master's expense (see particularly John 1: 19-27; John 3: 26-30). He turned them into striking occasions for exalting his Master. He proclaimed Him as so great that His shoe latchet he was unworthy to unloose (John 1: 27). He testified to Him so forcibly that he detached his own disciples from himself and attached them to Christ (John 1: 37). He plainly said, "He must increase, but I must decrease " (John 3: 30), and said it evidently with joy.

A great servant of God was this man, in spite of his non-miraculous ministry. The secret of all was this: "All things that John spake of this Man were true."

Is it not evident that we live in days strikingly analogous to the times of John's ministry? The last days of Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy are upon us. We have reached the Laodicean stage of the church's history as recorded in Revelation 3. — that which corresponds with the Malachi stage in Old Testament history.

A distinct analogy undoubtedly exists between the course pursued by Israel betwixt their start as a nation under Moses and the first coming of Christ, and that of the church between Pentecost and the second coming. For the sake of clearness we may summarise them in separate columns:

_______

ISRAEL

A bright start under Moses, Joshua, and the elders, who outlived the latter.

Declension sets in, only checked here and there by God's dealings in chastisement.

Steady and increasing conformity to the abominations of the surrounding nations.

The Babylonian captivity sets in.

A remnant returns to Jerusalem, the divine centre of Israel, in various detachments under Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, and Ezra.

Sad defection appears in that remnant until comparatively few among them fear the Lord. The majority of them reject their Messiah when He appears.

THE CHURCH

A bright start under the apostles and some faithful men who were instructed by them.

Equally rapid declension only checked by the fire of persecution allowed by God.

Steady assimilation of the church and the world.

The full-blown Romish system arises, capturing Christianity as an outward profession.

Beginning with the Reformation (so called) God begins to deliver a remnant in varying stages over the course of years.

Equally sad defection: Sardis and Laodicea (Rev. 3.) express it. A few hear His voice and open the door. But as regards the mass He is yet outside.

_________

Seeing, then, that John the Baptist's day and our day have so much in common, may we not take this witness concerning him as special instruction for us? We believe that we may, and there is — unless we wholly misjudge the signs of the times — every reason why we should.

At the present moment many excellent Christians are filled with a great longing for some display of spiritual power of a wholly extraordinary sort. Impressed, doubtless, with the low estate of the professing church, they long for something unprecedented — at all events in these latter times — something miraculous which may rehabilitate her in the eyes of the world, rally her scattered forces, and close the mouths of her critics. The desire runs particularly into two channels just now — miraculous powers of bodily healing and speaking with tongues.

We do not, of course, presume to say either that God cannot or that He will not bestow such gifts upon His church or individual believers in these days. We remember that Scripture declares His judgments to be unsearchable and His ways past finding out, and asks,

"Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor?" (Rom. 11: 33, 34). We do, however, unhesitatingly affirm three things:

1. Scripture gives no support to the expectation that such gifts will be revived. Indeed, as we have seen, the very opposite. In the closing days of the professing church, when apostasy is ripening, miracles would be no more fitting than they would have been at the end of Israel's responsible history up to Christ. Further, and yet more positively, the miracles and signs predicted in Scripture for the end of this age are evil and Satanic in origin (see Mark 13: 22; 2 Thess. 2: 9-11; 2 Tim. 3. 8).

2. The genuineness and divine origin of such manifestations as have occurred (particularly in connection with tongues) are, to say the least, open to the gravest suspicion. We need name but two significant features: The almost total omission of reference to the Lordship of Christ in the recorded utterances and in the literature connected with the movement (1 Cor. 12: 3) — "Jesus" is continually used with irreverent familiarity. Secondly, the disregard of Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 14: 22, 23 we are distinctly told that the normal use of the gift of tongues is in connection with the unconverted: "Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not." That believers should come together in one place and there speak with tongues as a kind of spiritual exercise is discouraged. Their proper use is in keeping with that which took place when first they were given, as recorded in Acts 2.

These apostolic instructions given in 1 Corinthians 14 cannot be lightly brushed aside; they are "the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14: 37). Yet the modern gift of tongues (so called) is exercised in just that way which the Apostle here forbids, whilst we wait in vain for tidings of their use amongst the heathen, or even amongst the many nationalities which throng our great seaport towns at home. Scripture, we repeat, is disregarded.

3. These gifts of such sinister aspect are diverting many frown that which really is their great business. At the present moment attacks, more persistent than ever, are being made upon the very citadel of the faith of Christ. New cults are springing up by the dozen. Beneath the jargon of discordant sounds there is, however, an undertone of harmony. They ALL agree in denying the true Christ of God! Use His name — omitting His titles — they may. Confess the truth of His person, they do not.

Moreover, the tide of apostasy from "the doctrine of Christ" (2 John 9) runs strongly in the hitherto "orthodox" denominations Many religious leaders are crying "Hail, Master!" and imprinting the kiss of professed admiration on His brow, whilst they treacherously betray Him by the denial of all that He really is. One would have supposed that every earnest believer would have fervently repudiated such men and their teachings and made it their supreme business to render true testimony to Him. Alas! no. Many are wasting their energies in seeking miraculous endowments. They think of nothing but gilding the turrets of their castle when the enemy is sapping the foundations and thundering at the gates.

Enough, however, of these things. It evidently behoves both writer and readers to look carefully to themselves.

Such are Satan's tactics in these days. Let us not play into his hands.

We are just simple and ordinary Christians without any claim to distinction or note. We have never wielded miraculous powers, nor do we perhaps expect to. Miraculous power is one thing, SPIRITUAL POWER another, and vastly more important. John the Baptist had none of the former, in the latter he excelled. And the secret of such power is — what? Simply unswerving fidelity in the testimony of life and lip to Christ. As His representatives are we left in this world. To speak true things concerning Him, be this, then, our chief concern.

The Spirit of God, the Comforter, is here that this may be so. "And when the Comforter is come . . . the Spirit of TRUTH . . . He shall testify of Me" (John 15: 26). He, then, is our only sufficiency for this holy business. He is still with us and in us. Miracles have gone, but He remains, and with Him remains the ability of the simplest and weakest believer to rightly testify of Christ.

Life first, then lip. That is the order. The character of Christ written upon the inner man of the heart, godly behaviour flowing therefrom, and then faithful adherence to the whole truth of Christ as enshrined in Scripture, and courageous proclamation of the truth publicly and privately — these are the things which go to make up a true testimony to Him.

"John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this Man were true." A splendid epitaph that!

If a few more years shall roll and He for whom we wait has not yet come, and we in our turn need an epitaph, may one similar be truthfully ours!

Notes on Galatians

Notes on Galatians.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 18, 1926, page 8.)

Galatians 1.

The Epistle to the Galatians was written to defend the truth of the gospel against the inroads of error. In this respect it differs from the Epistle to the Romans, which is the orderly unfolding of the gospel, in the way of simple instruction. It also differs from the other epistles inasmuch as it is a letter not to a church, nor to an individual, but to a group of churches comprised in one of the ancient provinces of Asia Minor — "the churches of Galatia" (verse 2).

In the course of Paul's second missionary journey he went "throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia" (Acts 16: 6), and there it was that he appeared amongst these Gentiles preaching the gospel, "through infirmity of the flesh," but this temptation in his flesh they did not despise, but received him "as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus" (Gal. 4: 13, 14). They were evidently an impulsive and enthusiastic people, receiving the gospel he announced with such joy that had it been possible "they would have plucked out their own eyes, and have given them to him" (verse 15).

It is usually the case that the person easily impressed is not very stable, and so it was with the Galatians. Along came other teachers when Paul had departed and these "troubled" them with law teachings constraining them to be circumcised (Gal. 5: 12, and Gal. 6: 12); they were evidently men of the kind we read of in Acts 15: 1. The Galatians swung round and readily embraced these new ideas and started off to make Jews of themselves; if not exactly seeking salvation by law, at least seeking holiness by law.

These Judaizing teachers came from Jerusalem and, of course, presented themselves as coming with all the authority of that great apostolic centre behind them. Paul they represented as an upstart apostle, not embraced in the original apostolic band, and therefore lacking full and proper authority. Hence the apostle begins his letter by a certain amount of personal history. In verse 1 he declares that his apostleship is not "of man, neither "by man." In verse 12 he states the same two things, in slightly different words, of the gospel he preached. If not "of men," then men were in no sense the source or originators of either his apostleship or message. If neither were "by man," then both were received directly from the Lord, and man was not even the channel of their communication.

Paul's apostleship, then, sprang from a higher source than Jerusalem, even from Jesus Christ the risen One, and God the Father who raised Him, and the apostle is careful to add quickly the object before the Lord in giving Himself to death for our sins — "that He might deliver us from this present evil world" (verse 4).

Of old, God did not shelter Israel in Egypt through the blood of the paschal lamb in order to leave them in Egypt. He took them clean out of Egypt and brought them to Himself. That was the type, and the antitype is still more wonderful. To-day God is gathering individuals out of the nations, and not a nation out of the house of bondage, (see Acts 15: 14), and those individuals are thereby brought to God as 1 Peter 3: 18 says, and consequently they are delivered from the world, as we find here. This is an affecting thought. The great object our blessed Lord proposed to Himself in dying for us was to introduce us to God, His Father, setting us before Him in the nearest of relationships and thus establishing the happiest communion and intercourse between our souls and Him. Are we really in the enjoyment of this? Do we live in the happy consciousness of the relationship and of the communion?

But here in Galatians the converse of all this is pressed upon us. These blessed links with God being established, we are consequently severed from the world and our old links with it are snapped. To deliver us from the world was equally His object in dying for us. This great truth, alas! we often shrink from. We hanker after the world and its injurious joys and are very reluctant to break our links with it. Consequently our enjoyment of God and His things is but small. We all know that one great secret of harnessing electricity in the service of man is wrapped up in the one word insulation. If insulation breaks down and the live wire runs to earth, much electric energy may be generated and yet all is lost. Links with the world and its evil mean a breakdown in the believer's spiritual insulations, and then, as a result, feebleness in his communion with God — and good-bye to spiritual energy and power.

In verse 6, the apostle comes straight to the main theme of his letter. He does not mince his words, but speaks with tremendous energy in denouncing these false workers who were perverting the gospel of Christ. He had tremendous and dogmatic certainty as to the gospel he had carried to them. From verse 11 and onwards he recounts the way in which he received his message from the Lord. His course at the time of his conversion and for years after was such as to preclude any idea of his having sat at the feet of other apostles and having learned his message through them. No! he got what he got direct from God. He was raised up as a fresh and original witness to the glorified Lord Jesus. God revealed "His Son," not merely "to" him, but "in" him. The revelation made was, as it were, written on the fleshy table of his heart and thus impressed upon his very being — a profounder and deeper thing than merely receiving an external revelation written upon tables of stone.

It is a very certain thing that Paul did not think one gospel as good as another. He was no believer in what is miscalled "charity" in the twentieth century, which exists in an easy-going toleration of any and every theory however false. He knew THE TRUTH, he preached it fearlessly, and here he anathematises all, men or angels, who lend themselves to the propagation of the lies that deny the truth.

Incidentally, we may gather from this chapter what are the marks of the genuine and authentic gospel of God. Let us gather them up ere we close.

First, then, it has God's Son as its theme. He is preached as glad tidings among the heathen (verse 16).

Second, His death and resurrection (verses 1 and 4) are its foundation and "our sins" are in view, not our trials, nor our troubles, nor the injustices of our social systems, or any other of the thousand and one minor ailments that afflict sinful men. The so-called "social gospel" is just another of those "other gospels" which are NOT another real gospel but a spurious deceit.

Third, the true gospel is not "after man" (verse 11). It is not the kind of message that would have originated with man. It does not flatter him nor conform to his standards. Hence the herald of it cannot expect to please men. Those rational "gospels" which men applaud as being so eminently reasonable are not the gospel of God.

Fourth, the true gospel when received has the effect of delivering the recipient from the world (verse 4). The false "gospels" invariably have the effect of confirming those who believe them in the world; they leave their votaries as part and parcel of the world system. The true believer is crucified to the world as Galatians 6: 14 says, and that because he is "crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2: 20).

With these marks of the true gospel before us we shall have no difficulty in discerning it when we hear it, nor of detecting the false gospels when they are presented to us.

Galatians 2.

In the opening part of this chapter Paul continues the story of his early years of service with the object of showing how little contact there had been between himself and the other apostles. In the providential ordering of God, no less than fourteen years elapsed between the fifteen days he spent with Peter, a few years after his conversion (see Gal. 1: 18), and the visit to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus. This is, of course, the visit of which Acts 15. speaks, and hence during those fourteen years had come his time of service at Antioch (Acts 11: 25, 26), and his first missionary journey (Acts 13 and 14). Hence when he went up he was no mere novice who wished to be instructed in what he was to preach, but rather a well-tried apostle with a definite and original message.

Yet, as Acts 15 shows, the contention that arose at Antioch, and necessitated this journey to Jerusalem, all raged around the gospel which he preached. It was just because there was in his preaching a note which was barely audible, if not altogether absent, in the preaching of the twelve that the dissension arose.

In those early years at Jerusalem there was the fullest possible proclamation of forgiveness and salvation in the name of the risen Christ, and the preaching was powerfully blessed of God. From the beginning thousands believed and gladly identified themselves with the rejected Messiah without cutting their links with "Judaism," i.e., the whole system of things instituted through Moses, which was a shadow only of "the good things to come" (Heb. 10: 1). We read, for instance, such things in the Acts as "a great company of priests were obedient to the faith" (Acts 6: 7). "Certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed" (Acts 15: 5). "Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law" (Acts 21: 20). Doubtless these believers, whether priests, Pharisees, or zealous lovers of the law, were in the main true souls with sincere faith in Christ, yet nothing that they had heard in the gospel to which they had listened had made them feel it to be inconsistent to link up the faith of Christ with priestly service in the worn out and desolate temple or with Pharisaism, or with zealous law-observances. They had listened to the gospel melody, indeed, but the note which involved their being lifted up and out of all these things had not as yet clearly sounded in their ears.

Now it was just that note which the Apostle Paul fearlessly and distinctly struck. If we read the first eight chapters of the Epistle to the Romans wherein he gives us an orderly exposition of his gospel, we shall see. He proclaimed both Jew and Gentile equally "guilty before God," shutting both alike up to God's mercy. He proclaimed God's righteousness as unto all and upon all who believe, irrespective of their Jewish or Gentile origin. He further declared that now the fundamental cleavage on racial lines amongst men was not as to being of Abraham's seed or not of Abraham's seed, but as to being in Adam or in Christ; and that this being in Christ involves identification with Him in His death, and consequently the crucifixion of "our old man" — the judgment of all that we were as men in the flesh — and the finding of both new life and power in the Spirit of God now given to all who believe.

Here was doctrine, to the Jewish mind, of a most revolutionary order! It cut at the roots of all their ancient prejudices. It showed the whole Mosaic economy, in which they so boasted, to be but "a shadow," a provisional system introduced whilst awaiting the arrival of the substance in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. It consequently aroused bitter hostility from some "Christians" who were no true believers at all — "false brethren unawares brought in" (Gal. 2: 4) — and even opposition from those who were true believers.

In our chapter Paul makes it plain to us, firstly, that he took up a most inflexible attitude in regard to the matter, for he knew that in it the whole truth of the gospel was at stake (verse 5); and secondly, that in conference with other apostles and leaders, they were not able to add anything to him, as though he were deficient in his teaching or had omitted any detail. Rather they gladly recognized the grace given to him of the Lord, and the special sphere of his service, and gave to him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. Acts 15 bears full witness to this, for in the circular letter issued by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem at the close of this conference they maintained the liberty of grace as declared by Paul's gospel as against the Jewish bondage advanced by others, and spoke of "our beloved Barnabas and Paul."

In verse 11 of our chapter Paul proceeds to relate what happened at a later date, when Peter was visiting Antioch. The liberty of the gospel had been clearly established in principle by the decision reached at Jerusalem, yet under the pressure of contrary opinion Peter fell into a snare brought by the fear of man. Wishing to stand well in the eyes of certain who came from Jerusalem, he denied in practice what he admitted in principle. Others followed his bad example, until even Barnabas was carried away, like an anchor which begins to drag. Paul, however, proved himself to be the sheet anchor and stood firm. He withstood Peter to his face.

Formerly Paul had firmly withstood the Judaizers, "that the truth of the gospel might continue." Now he perceives that Peter's action was "not . . . according to the truth of the gospel." Hence in rebuking Peter and convicting him of his inconsistency, he takes care to make very manifest the truth of the gospel, both doctrinally and experimentally.

We might almost call verse 16 "the gospel in a nutshell," and that particularly as it presents itself to a Jew. It begins by exposing the utter futility of law-keeping for justification. No flesh is justified by the works of the law. (The next chapter, notice, carries the point a step further, and shows that all flesh under the law is under the curse, verse 10.) Justification is only possible by the faith of Christ, and we Christians have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be so justified.

But in the last three verses of the chapter the apostle shows the working out of the truth of the gospel in an experimental way, and hence he speaks in the first person singular. He drops the "we" of verses 15, 16 and 17 and adopts "I" The truth experimentally realized comes to this, that "I am crucified with Christ." In my case crucifixion was richly deserved, and was but the carrying out of the just sentence of the law. But then, in thus dying under the law's sentence I have died out from under its power, and that in order that I may now live unto God; that is, with God as the great End and Object of my every thought and movement.

All this, however, involves a paradox which the apostle states in verse 20. "I am crucified," says he, "nevertheless I live." Crucifixion has reached me, yet has it left me a living man. It has reached me in identification with Christ, and its effect is the displacing of self, the old "I," in favour of Christ; so that He, vitally in us now by His Spirit (see Rom. 8: 9 and 10), may live in us characteristically — that is, that His character may be seen in us.

Such a life is not possible apart from instant and continuous dependence upon Himself. If Christ is to live in me, and consequently be displayed as to His character by me, He must be abidingly my Object. Hence Paul adds, "The life which I now live in the flesh [that is, in the body, as a man in this world] I live by the faith of the Son of God." By-and-by, when out of the flesh, and in bodies of glory, we shall live by the sight of the Son of God; now we live by the faith of Him. Faith makes Him a living, bright reality to us, and that which acts as the motive force in it all is His love. "The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

Thus Paul speaks to us of that which was livingly and experimentally true to him at that moment. He does not say, "I was crucified with Christ," as referring simply to what was accomplished at the Cross. That would have been perfectly true, and is what he virtually says in Romans 6: 6. It is "I AM crucified with Christ." The great fact wrought outside him at the Cross was a living and present reality in the experience of his soul.

In conclusion, notice the way in which verses 19 and 20 may be summarized by the prepositions used: —

1. "I . . . live unto God."

2. "I am crucified with Christ."

3. "Christ liveth in me."

4. "I live by the faith of the Son of God."

5. "Who . . . gave Himself for me."

Each preposition has its own peculiar force: —

"Unto" expresses the end in view.

"With" expresses association or identification.

"In" expresses life and character.

"By" expresses object.

"For" expresses substitution.

How happy for us each if we can simply say: "Christ the Son of God became my Substitute in His mighty love, that, identified with Him in His death and with Himself in glory before me as my Object, He might be livingly displayed in my life, and thus my whole life and existence have God and His glory as its end."

Galatians 3.

Having thus vindicated the truth of the gospel the apostle appeals to the Galatians in a very forcible way. Their folly was very manifest in the light of what he had just stated, and he brings it home to them by a series of rapid questions, appealing to what had already been accomplished in their midst and in their hearts. Christ crucified had been set forth among them, and they had believed in Him, and received the Spirit of God, and suffered for their faith. Had all this been ministered to them, and even miracles wrought in connection with it, by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? and on which of these two principles had they received it all?

There was but one answer possible. It was all by faith and not by works, and the apostle might well clinch his argument by crying out, "Are ye so foolish? — having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Again there was but one answer, No. God's ways with us are not haphazard, nor the subject of caprice. They are based upon His own determinate counsel, and what He starts with that He continues with. If He saves us by the hearing of faith, on that principle He will continue with us to the end, and we shall not be made perfect by the flesh.

Before leaving these early verses notice two things. First, the way in which the law and the flesh are linked together, as also faith and the Spirit. The law was originally given that it might curb the flesh (that is, the sinful nature which attaches to man as a fallen creature) and act as a corrective, and hence in result it made very manifest the true nature of the flesh, which is "not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8: 7). Still the law recognized the flesh and assumed for the moment that it might be capable of improvement. Faith, on the other hand, fixes its gaze altogether upon God and His work, and recognizes the condemnation of the flesh in the cross of Christ, and the Spirit is given as the seal of faith.

Secondly, notice that the question in verse 3, "Are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" infers that the particular error which was troubling the Galatians was not so much justification by the works of the law, as holiness by the works of the law. They had been beguiled into thinking that though justified by Christ and by faith, they were to reach sanctification by law-keeping. Still sanctification involved justification, and hence the apostle proceeds to go into the whole question of justification, and to show the place that the law held in the ways of God.

He begins with Abraham in verse 6. He believed God and was accounted righteous in virtue of his faith, and the true children of Abraham are those who are "of faith," that is, believers. But this blessing of Abraham by faith had in view what God would introduce many centuries after, what is being verified amongst the heathen to-day, and all who have Abraham's faith are blessed equally with him, whoever they may be (verses 8 and 9).

After Abraham came the law, but 430 years had elapsed, as verse 17 points out; and when the law was given no man was justified by it in the sight of God (verse 11). Verse 10, however, goes further than this in stating that to be under the law is to be under the curse, for the curse of the law rests on everyone who fails in the least of its demands.

Verses 13 and 14 bring us to the two great realities which characterise Christianity, viz., redemption accomplished in the death of Christ and the consequent gift of the Holy Spirit. It will be for our soul's good if we lay hold of these things in a very clear way. The blessing of Abraham was righteousness, so that he stood before God a justified man. This blessing of his was to extend even to the Gentiles, as the Scripture had foreseen. But presently the law was given through Moses, and all who came under it fell under its curse. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared and wrought redemption, not only from sin and Satan but also from the law and its curse. As a consequence, the blessing of righteousness comes to all who believe, even though they be Gentiles; and further, they receive the Spirit who also had been promised before. Into what a wonderful place of security and privilege we Christians are brought! How great the folly of the Galatians in turning back to law-keeping, even for holiness, in the light of this.

The rest of the chapter is taken up with a further developing of the effect of Christ's advent and work as regards the law. The effect of the gift of the Spirit is dealt with in the early part of Galatians 4.

There was this definite promise to Abraham which centred in Christ, for He was "the seed" contemplated (verse 16). The coming in of the law in no way nullified this earlier promise. It might then be asked, What was the object of the giving of the law? The answer of verse 19 is very striking. It was not given to men as a possible way of getting to heaven. It was not given to enable men to inherit even the earth. "It was added because of transgressions," or "for the sake of transgressions." Men had from the beginning been sinners, but the coming in of the law made their sins positive transgressions, and hence they stood convicted in a degree impossible before. Moreover it was given provisionally "till the seed should come." It was, as verse 24 expresses it, "our schoolmaster" up to Christ.

The fact is, under the law before Christ came, the choicest saint that lived was treated as a child under age, and hence was kept under the schoolmaster, convicted of sin and shut up to the faith to be revealed by the coming of Christ. Now faith being come, inasmuch as Christ, the Object of faith, is revealed, we are taken out of our tutelage and take our place as sons in the Father's house. We are "all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (verse 26).

Such is a very brief outline of the contents of this wonderful chapter. May every reader of these lines enter into the blessedness of this place of relationship which is ours through the work of Christ.

Do not omit to notice how, in verse 16, the Apostle Paul founds his argument as to Christ being the "seed" of Abraham upon the word in the Old Testament being in the singular and not in the plural. By that slight difference the Spirit of God indicated His real meaning. Paul evidently believed in the full and verbal inspiration of Scripture, an inspiration extending to so minute a matter as that.

Let us stand with Paul in this vital matter of the verbal inspiration of Scripture.

Galatians 4.

In the previous chapter the apostle had likened the position of the believer under the law of Moses before Christ came to that of a child of noble parentage kept under a schoolmaster. To this figure he reverts in the opening verse of our chapter.

Whatever a child may be, even if he be the heir, yet is he kept in a place of subjection and under rules and regulations, so that in that respect he differs nothing from a servant. He cannot as yet be entrusted with the freedom of his father's house. When, however, he comes of age all is changed. He then leaves the nursery regime behind, and the time of his tutelage is over. He takes his place as a son, in the liberty and nearness which befits that intimate relationship.

So it has been for us, as the apostle indicates in verse 3, "we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world." The "we" here indicates the believer of Jewish stock; and the apostle speaks impersonally, as though there had been wrought out in the lifetime of one saint what actually transpired in a period covering many generations. Such, in their days of "childhood" under the law, were in bondage to the elements or principles of the world. It is worthy of note that according to this the principles on which the law was based were the principles of the world. This helps to explain why, in spite of the curse it pronounces, the law and the root principle of it, viz., all our blessing or otherwise depending upon what we can be and do for God, is so persistently clung to by sinful men. The law does not totally condemn and displace the world. It recognizes it, and assumes it may be of some worth by its very recognition.

The great divide between the old dispensation and the new was when Christ appeared. Then was the "fulness of time" and the Lord Jesus came "made of a woman," i.e., really and truly Man; "made under the law," i.e. come of the chosen stock of Israel, who were by Divine appointment under law's dominion. He came under the law, not that He might keep it for us, and atone for our failure to keep it by so doing, but that He might redeem those that were under it. How He thus redeemed has been told us in verse 13 of the previous chapter. It was by "being made a curse for us," that is, by bearing the penalty which the law inflicted. This is redemption by death or by blood, after the type of Abel's offering. The idea that disobedient sinners can be redeemed by another producing the fair fruit of obedience on their behalf is more after the type of Cain's bloodless offering.

By death, then, we are redeemed from the curse of the law. Galatians 4: 5, however, carries us on a further step. We are redeemed not only from the law's curse but also from its dominion. We are set free from the reign of the schoolmaster and from schoolroom regime, in receiving the "adoption of sons." We leave the schoolroom for the liberty of the son of full age, who knows the mind of his father and moves without restriction in every apartment of the house.

But not only are we redeemed by the death of Christ and brought into Sonship as knowing the Father, but God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. The Holy Spirit is here spoken of as "the Spirit of His Son" because just as the Lord Jesus took up His place as God's Son, even as Man in this world (see Luke 1: 35), in the energy of the Spirit, so is that same Spirit the source and energy of the life and thoughts and feelings of a son of God in each believer whom He indwells. By Him we cry "Abba, Father." He gives us the consciousness of the relationship and a suitable response to the Father's love. A wealthy philanthropist might lift a poor child out of some charitable institution and legally adopt him as his son. He could not, however, beget within him the proper feelings of a son of his, nor create a suitable response on the child's part. That might be forthcoming in some degree from the child, or it might be almost totally lacking to the distress of the benefactor. What man cannot do, God has done.

The Divine order is — first the relationship established as the fruit of redemption; then the consciousness of, and response to, the relationship as the fruit of the Spirit's indwelling, and work in our hearts. We have received the Spirit because we are sons, and not vice versa.

Notice in passing that in verse 5, it is "we" — only those believers who were of Israel's race could properly be spoken of as redeemed from the law, and Paul, the writer, was one of them. In verse 6 it is "ye," for the Galatians were Gentiles and they as redeemed (though not exactly from the law) had equally with the Jews received the Spirit of God. The Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, is no more a servant like the saints of the bygone dispensations, but a son, and even an heir of God through Christ.

What an astounding dignity! What unparalleled relationship and privilege! We read and write the words, but how little do we take it in. What holy elevation would it give us if we did, and how should we appreciate the warm and almost indignant expostulations of the apostle which follow in verses 8 to 18.

Once the Galatians had served false gods (verse 8) and now they had been brought thus to know and be known of the living and true God, and known of Him in such wonderful fashion as this. Were they, after this, going to turn back to the old order of things which he characterizes as "weak and beggarly elements"? Strong language this, yet not too strong. The law was holy, just and good, yet just as the moon is a weak and beggarly affair in the presence of the sun, so is the law in the presence of the grace and power of the gospel. In the language of the great parable of Luke 15, the Galatians had been received into the Father's house and set in the son's place and not among the hired servants, and here they were with false humility going back, not exactly to the care of the swine in the far country, but to the drudgery of menials in the kitchen, as though that were the way to retain the love which the Father had showered on them!

Yet, apparently the Galatians were guilty of no very great lapses. The apostle specifies here only the matter of observing "days and months and times and years"; a thing which we might have considered beneath notice. It was, however, a symptom of a deep-seated disease. The Apostle James has told us that though a man keeps the whole law save one point which he breaks, yet he is guilty of all. On the same principle a man may wish to have the benefit of grace, but if he takes up the law in regard to one point, he must be under it in regard to all; as indeed verse 3 of Galatians 5. explicitly states. This is something that we must bear well in mind. We cannot put a patch of grace on the old garment of law, nor put the new wine in the old bottles. In our relations with God we must be either altogether under law and its curse, or under grace and its blessing. But then grace makes absolutely nothing of us, and everything of Christ.

The Apostle proceeds to recall how the Galatians had at first received him, and now, alas! they had swung round and almost treated him as an enemy. But all this came to pass under the influence of these false Judaizing teachers. In verse 17 the apostle alludes to them, though he does not name them. They were very zealous in their attentions to the Galatians but with no good intent. They simply wished to exclude them from the apostle Paul so that they might become zealous partisans of themselves. This is always the way of the false teacher. He does not aim at attracting souls to Christ, but to himself. The true servant of God, on the contrary, is like Paul, and travails in an agony of spiritual desire that CHRIST may be formed in those amongst whom he labours. The false servant aims at placing his own impression on the plastic heart of the convert; the true servant labours that Christ may be formed there.

As a closing argument, Paul goes back to what the law itself recorded in an allegory. The Galatians seemed so enamoured of the law that perhaps they would listen to it. In the history of Hagar and Ishmael, of Sarah and Isaac, we have an allegory. Abraham's first son, born according to the flesh of the bondwoman, was a figure of the legal system and its bondage. Isaac, the child of promise, born by resurrection-power of the free woman, typified grace and those who are under it. In this allegory furnished by the law, the first was superseded by the second. The legal system had to go that grace and the children thereof might be supreme. Even in the law itself there were these intimations that it was only a provisional system and to be set on one side when God introduced that which had been His thought and purpose from the beginning.

We Christians whether formerly Jews or Gentiles are "children of the freewoman," children of grace and not of law. We are not "servants" but "sons," as the earlier part of the chapter stated. No credit attaches to us in connection with this wonderful privilege. It is all, from first to last, the grace of God.

Galatians 5.

Having unfolded the true place of relationship and privilege in which the believer is set, the apostle exhorts the Galatians to stand fast in it. He speaks of it as "the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free." The law he calls "the yoke of bondage"; and anyone who slips away in his mind from the liberty of Sonship before the Father, to the bondage of law-keeping as determining his relations with God, has indeed become "entangled." In his own mind he may intend to take up only one small item of the whole number of legal observances, such as-circumcision, but if he touches law-keeping for justification at all, he becomes entangled in the whole system and cannot free himself.

Moreover, he thereby becomes "fallen from grace" as verse 4 says. He takes up a ground before God which practically makes Christ of no effect unto him. The words "fallen from grace" are sometimes wrongly used as though they meant that a believer who once stood in the grace of God has now been ejected from it by God because of his bad behaviour. The point of the passage is rather that anyone who has once taken up his position before God in grace, as these Galatians had, and then abandons it in his own mind and consciousness for law has had a bad fall. To step off the grace platform on to the law platform — if we may so speak —  involves a descent that amounts to a fall, for the one is far lower than the other. In the case of a true believer being entangled thus, the fall, we repeat, is in his own mind and consciousness. God's grace and the relationship established by grace remain the same, for "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Rom. 11: 29).

In the case of one who has professed Christianity without being a true believer, he was never in any vital relationship of grace with God out of which to fall.

In contrast to all this, verse 5 gives the attitude that properly marks the believer. We, through the Spirit —  given to us as the Spirit of Sonship —  wait by faith for the hope of righteousness, which is the shining out of the glory at "the manifestation of the sons of God," as Romans 8: 17-19 puts it.

Now the Galatians had once run well. They had been, however, hampered in the race by the adoption of the legal ideas which the apostle is combating. From the point of view of the athlete these ideas were like entanglements, from another point of view like leaven, a little of which leavens the whole lump. Still, Paul, when he thought of the Lord, felt confident as to the Galatians, and regarded their defection as only temporary, and he states that the individual or the men who were responsible for the mischief would have to bear their judgment in due season.

In verse 13 the apostle guards an important point. Liberty must not be taken to mean licence. Christian liberty is not licence for the flesh to act but liberty for Divine love to act. We stand in the liberty of the sons of God and our nature as "sons" is the Divine nature, which is love. The "flesh" is the nature which attaches to us as children of Adam. If we as Christians are living thus in the happy liberty that characterizes our relationship with God, and our hearts are consequently filled with love, we shall fulfil, as verse 14 tells us, what the law demanded but failed to produce from the flesh. Verse 15 seems to infer that, on the contrary, the Galatians who had turned back to law were far from keeping its demands; they were biting and devouring one another rather than loving and serving one another.

But the Galatian believer having read the apostle's argument thus far might wish to say, "Well, Paul, we thought that the way to repress the lusts of the flesh and promote holy living was by diligent observance of the law. If it is not the way, tell us plainly what is." The apostle answers in verse 16, "This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." In verse 17 he adds that there are the two opposing forces in the believer, the flesh and the Spirit. They are contrary and totally opposed, and the Spirit of God is the superior power, so that under His influence we may not do the things that otherwise we should.

Here then we have conflict indicated. Yet while the conflict is inevitable, since the nature and desires of flesh and Spirit are altogether contrary, it is not supposed that the conflict is continuous; but rather the reverse. The point is that walking in the Spirit one is lifted above the desires and activities of the flesh, and for so long as the believer does walk in the Spirit he is not in conflict but in deliverance and liberty.

What is it to "walk in the Spirit"? Walking indicates activity. To walk in the Spirit is to have one's activities in the Spirit; to have one's thoughts and words, one's behaviour, ways and works springing from the indwelling Spirit as their source, and energized by Him. This is a very exalted standard of practical life, surely, but it is proper Christian living and not something of an exceptional nature to be attained to by only a few. Alas! how little do we know of it in experience and practice! How little proper and normal Christian living there is amongst us twentieth-century Christians!

Walking thus, however, we should indeed be led of the Spirit, and if so, verse 18 tells us, we are not under the law. We cannot be under both regimes at the same time. It is the privilege of the sons of God to be led by the Spirit and not by the schoolmaster. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom. 8: 14).

Both flesh and Spirit express themselves in a practical way and at once their totally opposite nature is revealed. Verses 19 to 21 give us "the works of the flesh." Verses 22 and 23 "the fruit of the Spirit." Those who do the works of the flesh thereby betray their nature and character and such shall not inherit God's kingdom. That nature is excluded thence, and how thankful we may be that it is. It has caused enough havoc in this world. It shall never cause like havoc there!

In contrast thereto is the fruit of the Spirit. It does not even say fruits, for all these excellent features are considered as a cluster of fruit, all so many varying manifestations of the same life. In nature, fruit is the highest expression and crown of vegetable life So here the life of the Spirit comes naturally and quietly into expression as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. When we think of works we have a mental picture of bustle and noise. When we think of fruit we think of the silent processes of nature. There is no law against the fruit of the Spirit. It is rather the very thing which the law approves and desires.

At the end of the chapter we are reminded of two great facts. Firstly, we have only become Christ's as those who have solemnly ratified in our own hearts the sentence executed against the flesh with its affections and lusts. It was crucified in the cross of Christ, whether we realize it or not. The Christian is one who has accepted and consented to that act, and therefore has crucified the flesh so far as he is concerned. Secondly, the Christian lives in the Spirit, as verse 25 indicates. The crucifixion of the flesh is putting the death sentence on the old source of life. The Spirit in the believer is the new source of life.

Do we all realize this? Have we learned to know and treat the flesh as a condemned and crucified thing? It is only what is normal and elementary in Christianity according to the Bible. If we have, we shall recognize that our life as Christians is in the Spirit of God, and consequently, we are to walk in the Spirit, as verse 16 has already exhorted us. It is like the process of grafting. When the cultivated rose is grafted on to the wild briar stock it means death to the life of the briar, in order that the plant may live in the life of the rose. To the gardener you would say, "If that plant is now living in the life of the rose let us cultivate and encourage the rose shoots and branches, and let us ruthlessly cut back any attempted shooting forth of the condemned briar stock." Further you cannot have a rose so that it belongs to the gardener and is worth a place in his garden without putting to death the old briar nature with all its buddings and sproutings.

We trust the reader can make for himself the application of this illustration to verses 24 to 26 of our chapter.

Galatians 6.

Wonderful as is all the truth of an experimental and practical nature unfolded in chapter 5, someone might at once say, "But, Paul, you set before us a very exalted life. we are sure to fail in it." The apostle himself recognizes this and so chapter 6 opens with instructions which have failure in view.

The Scriptures never suppose that a Christian is under the power of sin, but the very reverse. The Apostle Paul elsewhere asks, "Shall we continue in sin . . . ? God forbid" (Rom. 6: 1, 2). The Apostle John asserts, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin" (1 John 3: 9). The word translated "commit" has the force of "practise" — he does not practise sin, — it is not a habit with him. It is supposed, however, that a Christian may be overtaken in sin, as the first verse of our chapter shows. The flesh is still in the believer, and if prayerfulness and watchfulness are relaxed it will break out into open sin.

Now when such a thing occurs, what is to be the attitude of others? Do not let us miss the connection between the last verse or two of Galatians 5 and the first of Galatians 6. If the flesh is working in others, they, desirous of vain glory, will simply provoke the flesh yet more in the offending brother. If, on the other hand, there are those who are spiritual; that is, those who in their thoughts and affections, and consequently in their judgments and behaviour, are governed by the Spirit of God and not by the flesh — those who are "walking in the Spirit," then these should restore such an one in the spirit of meekness. They may well be meek in the remembrance of their own liability to temptation. In thus humbly getting down alongside the erring brother and bearing his failure on their hearts they would be fulfilling the law of Christ, which is love.

If, on the other hand, instead of acting in meekness a man fancies himself to be something, he is sure to be nothing and self-deceived. Rather let him test himself and his own work and thus discover his own true value before God, for each must shoulder the burden of his own responsibility. There is no contradiction between verses 2 and 5.

Verses 6 to 13 are occupied with a fresh subject. The believers who receive instruction in the Word of God should remember the temporal necessities of those who devote their time to instructing them. Receiving spiritual things they are to reciprocate in all good things of a temporal sort, and they are not to be weary in so doing, for in due season they will reap the reward of their giving. Further, such giving should be extended towards all men, as opportunity serves; though those of the household of faith have the first claim.

Now it is in connection with this simple and everyday matter that the important principles contained in verses 7 and 8 are enunciated. The apostle knew that such is the natural selfishness of our hearts that nothing would prevail but weighty considerations, which, acting like a powerful lever, would lift us out of a niggardly spirit. We may think we see a dozen good reasons why we cannot or need not give, and thus deceive ourselves, but the law stands that as a man sows he reaps. As a matter of fact he reaps both in kind and in quantity.

That we reap in quantity as we sow 2 Corinthians 9: 6 states, whereas this scripture emphasises the former consideration. If we "sow to the flesh," that is, indulge the desires of the flesh and follow its bent and cater for its gratification, we reap its corruption. If we "sow to the Spirit," that is, yield to all those thoughts and desires of which the Spirit of God within us is the source, we reap life everlasting.

Everlasting life, be it remembered, does not only mean a new life within us of which God is the source, and the duration of which is eternal, but it also covers all those blessed relationships, all that communion, and all those joys in which the life expands and expresses itself. If it did only mean the new life within us which we possess as born again, then indeed we might quote this passage to prove that we gain new birth as the result of something which we can do. Rather the life is ours by the gift of God, and we reap the enjoyment of the relationships and communion, which is the life according to this verse, as we sow to the Spirit who is the energising power of life. It is life in the practical and experimental sense, the sense in which men use the word when they talk of "seeing life" in the world.

This verse then gives us the secret of spiritual prosperity. To gratify the flesh and deny the Spirit is the way of corruption; to deny the flesh and to gratify the Spirit is the way by which we lay hold on the things that are life indeed.

With verse 11 we start the closing section of the epistle. The apostle's final word is in the nature of a home-thrust. He unmasks the real motive which swayed the Judaizing teachers in their opposition. It was not that they were genuinely concerned about obedience to the law, for they themselves did not keep it (verse 13). It was rather that they desired to escape the persecution connected with the cross of Christ, and they desired to glory in flesh. The apostle follows this exposure by the boldest possible declaration of his own position. For himself the Cross stood as the great line of demarcation between him and the world. Crucifixion was a death of penal judgment and of shame, and by Christ and His Cross the world had died a judicial death of shame in his eyes, and He had died a judicial death of shame in its eyes. The world and Paul mutually reprobated each other. Both were to each other a dead and worthless thing. Mutually they took leave of each other without regrets, glad to be rid of bad rubbish.

The "world" in this verse of course signifies the world system, and not the people in the world as in John 3: 16. But let us pause and ask ourselves whether we are of one mind with Paul in this matter. Is the world experimentally and practically crucified to us and we to it? Or are we finding a part, if not the whole, of our life and enjoyment in the world system, in spite of it being a judged and condemned Thing, as John 12: 31 states?

One thing is certain, the world does not count with God. Nor do such things as circumcision and uncircumcision which are outward in the flesh. What does count is "a new creature" or "a new creation." Every true Christian is a part of that new creation as the fruit of God's workmanship (see Eph. 2: 10) and the great thing is to walk according to that. The Galatians, as we have seen, had been entrapped into looking upon the law of Moses as the rule of their life, and walking as under it. No, says the apostle, the true rule of the believer's life is new creation. We walk, not as servants under a code of rules imposed from without, but as sons of God, a new creation in Christ Jesus, indwelt by the Spirit of God's Son. We walk according to the principles of that new creation in which we participate.

Upon all such the apostle calls down peace and mercy. These things are indeed their portion. How great the grace that has set us before God in such favour and liberty! He desires also similar blessings upon the true Israel of God's election rather than upon these mischief-makers who had been at work seeking to Judaize the Galatians.

The Epistle ends abruptly. The "marks" or "brands" of the Lord Jesus were on Paul's body, as of old masters branded their slaves. He bore honourable scars in Christ's service which branded him as His slave beyond all dispute. He could hardly let his affections flow out freely to the Galatians seeing the condition in which they were, but he desired the grace of the Jesus Christ to be with their spirit, which would effectually set them free from the bondage of the law of Moses.

"The obedience of faith"

"The obedience of faith"

Romans 1: 5

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 264.)

It is worthy of note that this expression, which we have taken as our title, occurs twice in the Epistle to the Romans; first in the opening verses, in connection with the Gospel, that Paul was commissioned to preach, and then again in the closing verses of the epistle, in connection with the Mystery, that he also had to make known, among all the nations.

Now the Roman saints were dwelling in the city which at that time dominated the civilised world, and imposed obedience upon the many and various peoples it had subjugated. Very easily therefore they might have been somewhat infected by the masterful spirit that surrounded them, and so have not sufficiently realized that genuine faith commits the one who possesses it to a life of obedience. The spirit of disobedience is rampant in the world of today, so we modern Christians very much need to come face to face with the importance of obedience in the things of God.

Most of us, we venture to think would hardly begin by linking together in our minds faith and obedience: We would more probably think of faith as producing blessing -whether salvation, or intelligence, or consolation. It may be healthful for us therefore to consider for a moment how obedience does spring out of faith, whether in connection with the Gospel or the Mystery.

The epistle to the Romans is, as doubtless we know, the orderly unfolding of the Gospel for the instruction of believers. In it we discover first of all how a just God can yet justify ungodly sinners, clearing them from all their offences and reconciling them to Himself. We read on to the latter part of Romans 5, and another matter confronts us, equally serious, if not more so. We possess fallen natures, from which all our sins have sprung. We learn that God has introduced Another — spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15 as "the Last Adam" — and we believers are identified with Him in His death and resurrection. Our "old man" — all that we were as fallen children of Adam — has been "crucified with Him" and we are now brought into His risen life. Does this impose any obligation upon us?

It clearly does. Though believers, the old Adamic nature has not been eradicated from us, and therefore we may all too easily be governed practically by it, obeying its lusts which are simply sin. And all the time we have been brought into this new risen life in Christ, and indwelt by His Spirit. Hence this definite instruction now reaches us, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord;" or, more correctly, "in Christ Jesus."

Now this demands obedience on our part, and it must be the obedience of faith. Faith apprehends that of which the previous verse speaks; namely, that Christ "died unto sin once: but in that He liveth He liveth unto God." He had no sin in Him, but it was on Him, in its bitter judgment when He died on the cross; but having exhausted its judgment, in His risen life He lives to God. Now in all this we have been identified with Him through grace. Have we in faith laid hold of this? Then how shall we in faith obey it?

Obviously, by the complete reversal of our former mode of life. In our unconverted days we shared the life of the men and women of the world. We were very much alive to sin in its multifarious forms and wholly dead to God. The reckoning of faith sets before us the exact opposite of this: and the obedience of faith makes the reckoning of faith a practical reality in our lives. Were this so with all of us, and all the time, what a tremendous contrast there would be visible between the lives lived by Christians and those lived by the world that surrounds them. The practical effects of the Gospel would be very clear to all. And this is as God intends it to be.

The Mystery, which is alluded to at the end of Romans, is not expounded there, but rather in the Epistle to the Ephesians, so there we may find how the obedience of faith may be rendered in connection with it. If the opening verses of Ephesians 2 be carefully read, we notice that in verses 1 and 2, it is "you," — Gentiles — who are considered, whereas in verse 3, it is "we," — Jews — that are scrutinized. The verdict on both comes to the same thing, "dead in trespasses and sins." Out of both these classes some are being reached, and are "quickened . . . together with Christ," by the rich mercy of God. Now to quicken is to bestow life, and this life which is ours together with Christ is a work of new creation, as we see when we reach Ephesians 2: 10 — "For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works." The word for "create" occurs again in verse 15, though there translated, "make." The enmity between Jew and Gentile is for the saints today abolished since God's present work is "to create in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace."

In Old Testament days the law demanded a rigid separation between Jew and Gentile, that the Jew might not be infected by Gentile idolatries. That a day would come when God would introduce a new creation order of things, in which this separation would be completely abolished, could not then be made known, but had to remain a "mystery," or "secret." Now however among all nations, where the Gospel penetrates, this mystery is revealed, and the faith that receives it leads to obedience, for it imposes a responsibility upon all those brought into it by the mercy of God. Obedience is therefore required.

Take, for instance, Ephesians 4: 3. The clashes that damaged the early Christian assemblies sprang largely from the introduction of Jewish rigidity and ceremonialism on the one hand, or Gentile laxity and intellectualism on the other: Romans 14 is a chapter that emphasizes this, as also do verses 3 and 16 of Colossians 2. In our day, nineteen centuries later, the Jewish-Gentile clash may not be so evident; but if we found ourselves in an assembly, wherein were converts from Asia and Africa, as well as from America and Britain, we should soon discover how needed is the injunction to keep "the unity of the Spirit."

This unity being the creation of the Spirit of God, we could never have made it, nor can we break it; though as a matter of practical life we may "keep" it, or we may ignore it. In the measure in which we yield the obedience of faith to that which the mystery has established and revealed, we shall be keeping it.

How we need then to stir one another up to the yielding of the obedience of faith, both to the Gospel that we have received, and the Mystery, that has been revealed to us.

Obeying the Truth

Obeying the Truth.

Galatians 3: 1

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 16, 1924, page 38.)

In the Old Testament, obedience necessarily has a very prominent place. The law of Moses had been presented to Israel as the basis of their relationship with God, and obedience was what it demanded. Life was conditioned upon obedience since the word was, "This do, and thou shalt live." The New Testament records the introduction of grace and truth by Jesus Christ, and the establishment of a new order of things on that basis.

This does not, however, mean that obedience is superseded as being no longer necessary: we find, on the contrary, that obedience is prominent just as before. What it does mean is that obedience changes its character. Legal obedience is one thing; the obedience which grace enjoins and produces is quite another. The former means the carrying out of the obligation imposed in order that one might thereby live and continue in the favour of God. The latter means a deliverance effected by God, a new relationship established, a new nature produced, with obedience as the happy fruit of this; and that obedience, not as of a servant with a master merely, but as a son with a father, taking its character from the obedience of Christ. We are "Elect . . . unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1: 2), that is, to obey as Christ obeyed.

Obedience lies right at the beginning of the Christian's history. He believes the Gospel; but faith, if it is real, eventuates in obedience, and hence Scripture also speaks of obeying the Gospel. The Apostle Paul tells us he "received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His Name" (Rom. 1: 5); and in the Acts we read of those who were "obedient to the faith" (Acts 6: 7). "The faith" is that whole body of truth which has been revealed in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ, but which has not yet been established in any visible or public way. It is "the truth," but inasmuch as at present it can only be apprehended by faith it is "the faith." That faith is now being heralded among the nations, and from amongst them a people for His Name is being gathered out; they are manifested by yielding the obedience of faith to "the faith" when they hear it.

The Gospel is, of course, the foundation. The Epistle to the Romans does not, however, close without a mention of that which was, in Paul's ministry, the top-stone. He desired that the saints should be established not only "according to my Gospel" but also "according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith" (Rom. 16: 25, 26). Thus, whether it be the foundation or the top-stone of that which the Apostle Paul was called to minister, all was presented to faith, and further, all that was so presented to, and received by, faith was to be expressed in obedience.

In the Epistle to the Galatians, the apostle twice uses an expression which we must note. He says: "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth?" (Gal. 3: 1); and again, "Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" (Gal. 5: 7). In the former passage the words "that ye should not obey the truth" are by many omitted as lacking in authority, but there is no question about the latter passage. Evidently, then, truth is made known to us not merely: that we may be sure as to what is reality and be able to distinguish it for our own soul's good from what is merely outward appearance and vain show, but also that the realities which the truth presents may govern our lives in actual present practice, that we may give some actual expression to those realities while as yet the world is imposed upon by unrealities.

Have we given sufficient weight to this? We venture to say that there are not a few Christians who are quite aware that in the New Testament, as in the Old, there are many plain injunctions and commands, many clearly formulated statements of the will of God for His saints, disobedience to which can only involve them in spiritual loss and confusion, who yet hardly recognize that all the truth revealed in the New Testament, whether it concerns the individual saint, his privileges and the relationships in which he is set, or whether the church of God as a corporate body, makes its demand upon their obedience. It makes its demand indeed upon each saint individually in either case, for in the latter each saint is an integral part of the church, a stone in the building, a member of Christ's body, and no amount of failure or break-up in the visible body of Christians absolves the individual member of the body from walking in obedience to the whole truth that concerns the church.

Turn again, however, to the two passages in Galatians and observe more particularly the context of the former. This may help us to see more clearly just what the apostle meant in that instance by obeying the truth. The outburst, "O foolish Galatians," sprang from the depth of his love and concern on their behalf, but it was prompted by the inspired recapitulation of the truth of the Cross of Christ in its practical bearings, which he had just penned.

In Galatians 2: 11-21, we are given a little bit of history concerning Peter's visit to Antioch. Owing to the fear of man, in the persons of certain brethren of strong Jewish tendencies from Jerusalem, Peter withdrew and separated himself from the Gentile believers. This was "not according to the truth of the Gospel" and hence was strongly resisted by Paul.

The uninstructed onlookers of those days might have asked with a measure of surprise, "What has the Gospel got to do with such a question as whether or no Jewish believers should eat with Gentile believers?" It had, indeed, everything to do with it, as Paul proceeded to show with unanswerable logic. He simply expounded afresh, step by step, what the truth of the Gospel really is.

Let us formulate a few items of that truth which lie on the surface of this Scripture:-

1. Whether "Jews by nature" or "sinners of the Gentiles," none of us has any standing before God on the ground of "the works of the law," that is to say, we all alike are sinners, coming short of God's glory. There is really no difference.

2. Whether Jew or Gentile, having believed in Jesus Christ, we are justified by the faith of Christ.

3. That justification has a righteous basis inasmuch as the believing sinner' be he Jew or Gentile, has died —  "crucified with Christ."

4. He has died under the law's sentence, but as dying "through the law," he has died "to the law" — i.e., from under the whole legal system — that he might "live unto God."

5. He lives to God not in the life of the first Adam but in the life of Christ, which is so really his that Christ lives in him and shines before his soul as the object of his faith.

Here, then, we have "the truth of the Gospel" to which Paul alludes in Galatians 2: 5. It was that which had cost him much conflict. It led to his journey to Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts 15, that he might boldly face the men whose teachings imperilled it, as also it led to his conflict with Peter at Antioch as recorded here. The truth of the Gospel is that man, whether Jew or Gentile, has no righteous standing before God, is in fact totally condemned; and that the Cross of Christ is the definite legal execution of that condemnation and the bearing of the curse which the law had pronounced; and that the believer, now cleared by death from the condemnation and from the law system which pronounced it, lives in the life of the risen Christ unto God, controlled and governed now, not by the demands and regulations of the law, but by "the faith of the Son of God," i.e., the Son of God made a living, bright reality to the soul by faith. Of this new life, love is the motive force, the compelling power, for the Son of God, it says. "loved me, and gave Himself for me."

With this truth of the Gospel, Peter at Antioch was plainly inconsistent. He does not appear to have at all denied it in his teaching. Theoretically he admitted its truth, but his action in withdrawing from the Gentile believers, and no longer eating with them, was disobedience to the truth. It practically erected again the "middle wall of partition" which the Cross had demolished; it inferred that believing Jews still lived in the life of Judaism, and believing Gentiles in the life of Gentiledom, instead of both now being in the life of Christ.

Peter's deviation from the truth of the Gospel in this practical way might seem on the surface to be but a small thing; it had nevertheless a very serious side, and this the Apostle Paul makes manifest in the last verse of the chapter. Having defined his own position which was in strict accord with the truth of the Gospel, he said: "I do not frustrate the grace of God." The emphasis is evidently to be laid on the "I" — "It is not I who am frustrating the grace of God" — the inference being that it was Peter and those influenced by him who were committing themselves to this sorry work. The grace of God had brought both Jews and Gentiles together in this new and exalted privilege and they were frustrating this in practice by separating them! Moreover, they were in principle going back to law, and if one goes back to it at all, one goes back to it for all; and to go back to it for righteousness means that Christ has died "in vain" or "for nothing."

"Christ has died for nothing" (N. Tr.). His toil, His sorrows, His death under judgment, as a sacrifice for sin, all for nothing, inasmuch as after all righteousness can come by the law. God takes a most toilsome and expensive way to accomplish a certain result, and lo! man can achieve the same result in a much simpler way. Then the death of Christ is simply a tragic blunder!

What a fearful conclusion to reach! But Paul is simply carrying the meaning of Peter's action to its logical end. No wonder he turns to the Galatians with such an appeal. Jesus Christ crucified, had been most evidently set forth, as before their very eyes, and here were they too, disobeying the truth; accepting the truth of the Cross in theory, and denying it in practice.

The Galatian error is not extinct: rather it flourishes exceedingly. We need not be of those who boast the Cross and lift it high as a symbol in their services, and wear it upon their persons, while maintaining as a principle a Jewish order of things and alliance with the world, to be involved in this error. It creeps in far more subtly. Easier still is it to be inconsistent in practice with the truth of the Cross even though avoiding the exact form of inconsistency seen in the Galatians. How easy to maintain theologically the Cross as the moral judgment of men after the flesh, and of man's world, and yet in practice to allow and foster in large measure both one and the other!

But we have referred to this passage in Galatians 2 and Galatians 3 firstly to establish the principle that truth, all truth, demands obedience, just as surely as definitely formulated commandments or instructions do; and secondly, to illustrate how obedience is yielded to the truth of God, the way in which it can be rendered. Once let us grasp these two things and we shall see how all that which is presented to us in Scripture as truth in the abstract, is to be obeyed, by being translated into concrete form and shape in the lives of Christians, whether individually or collectively.

As to what is individual in its nature, no great difficulty exists. The path of obedience is comparatively simple. All that hinders us is lack of exercise as to what is the will of the Lord as revealed in Scripture, and lack of that spirit of devotion and love and simple-hearted subjection which sets aside our own wills in favour of the will of the Lord.

That which concerns us collectively as belonging to the church of God, as members of the body of Christ, is not so simple, inasmuch as here we are each but a part of a whole, and that whole, viewed as a public body, is in a state of failure and consequent ruin, shattered externally into hundreds of fragments. As a result a very complicated situation exists. The truth as to the church of God in its corporate capacity as revealed in Scripture shines as clearly as it did in the first century when the Pauline epistles were written; but the present state of affairs in the midst of which we Christians of today are responsible to act in obedience to that truth as found in Scripture renders much prayerful exercise upon our part necessary, lest we fail in its application; lest in translating one part of the truth into practice we miss by reason of modern complications the proper translation of another part of the truth which is of equal importance.

Many of our readers, we fear, have given but little consideration, if any, to this side of things. Some have never yet sat down, Bible in hand, to discover what is the truth as to the church of God, its calling, character, privileges, responsibilities, and destiny.

Others, again, may have some idea of these things, but they relegate what they know to an impractical region, a region of pure theory as far as the present is concerned, by speaking of the "invisible church," the "mystical body." The Scriptural truth of the church is to them of this mystical and invisible order, to be turned to account doubtless in the coming age, but of no practical use today. Hence no question of obedience to it arises in their minds. They keep it, so to speak, pigeon-holed in one compartment of their minds whilst many other compartments are occupied with the details of the troubles and struggles occasioned by the broken and unscriptural disorder of the so-called "churches," and the rapid progress of the apostasy in their systems. With all the evil and drift and apostasy they perhaps manfully struggle, doing their best to stem the tide and maintain the truths of the Gospel.

We rejoice in every faithful effort on behalf of the truth and heartily give thanks unto God. Yet should we ourselves be lacking in faithfulness to the light of the Word of God, if we did not point out once again that contending against error and evil is at best but negative, and that what is far more potent and specially approved of God is obedience to His Word. Today, as ever, in the confusion which marks the church, simple obedience to the truth concerning the church as unfolded in Scripture, is what will please Him. It is more really efficacious in its practical results than the performing of great exploits could ever be, especially if those exploits are in any way divorced from the knowledge of and obedience to the Word.

As to all this we can adopt the words of the wise in Proverbs 4: 24, 25, and say: "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee" — at the truth of God as we have it in Scripture. Then, "Ponder the path of thy feet" — that it may be in accordance with that truth —  "and let all thy ways be established."

"Of God and not of us."

"Of God and not of us."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 257.)

We do not easily learn the lesson that all power is of God, and that the greatest of the servants of the Lord is but a vessel of that power, and nothing more.

In 2 Corinthians 3 the Apostle Paul institutes a striking contrast between the old covenant of demand and that ministry of new covenant blessing which he was appointed to carry on; the one glorious in its measure but transitory, the other of surpassing glory and abiding: the one bringing with it death and condemnation, the other bringing righteousness and the Spirit, and resulting in transformation for those who come into the light of the unveiled glory of the Lord.

In 2 Corinthians 4 he turns from the character of the ministry to the character of the minister, and shows that the latter was in keeping with the former. As entrusted with such a ministry he not only rejected all the discreditable artifices so common amongst men when they are engaged in pushing "a cause" (verse 2), but he kept himself in the background. "We preach not ourselves," he says, "but Christ Jesus the Lord" (verse 5). That "knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," which is the power of transformation in the believer, is also that which shines forth from the servant of the Lord as he carries on this new covenant ministry (verse 6).

The apostle then adds that this treasure, great as it is, reposes in "earthen vessels" (verse 7) and in the succeeding verses he shows how God Himself dealt with the earthen vessel, and permitted all manner of trying circumstances to come upon it, so that in everything the sentence of death might lie upon the vessel, and the excellency of the treasure contained therein be thereby the more clearly manifested. In this way it was shown beyond dispute that the vessel as such was nothing and the "excellency" or "surpassingness" of the power was "of God and not of us."

In the allusions here to the light which shines forth, and to the earthen vessels, and to the dealings of God with those vessels, some have seen a reference by the Apostle Paul to the Old Testament incident of Gideon and his men with the pitchers and lamps inside them, likening the breaking of the pitchers, which permitted the light of the lamps to be seen, to the dealings of God with the earthen vessels, reducing them to nothingness that the light may shine.

Be that as it may, it is very certain that the book of Judges, which contains the story of Gideon, does furnish us with very striking illustrations of the fact that it is God's way to take up instruments and vessels of such a sort as to make it very plain that the power which operates is in no wise that of the instrument or vessel but purely of Himself.

There are at least seven such illustrations in the book.

1. Ehud, the Benjamite, raised up of God to be the deliverer from Eglon, king of Moab, was "a man left-handed" (Judges 3: 15), or as the margin has it, "shut of his right hand." Another translation gives "bound as to his right hand" as a literal rendering of the Hebrew idiom. The "right hand" has become almost an equivalent of "power" or "strength" in ordinary speech. Here was a man "bound" as to his strength, a man quite unlikely to deliver by one powerful blow the whole nation from the oppressor. Yet that was what he did, and as the result of the stroke of Ehud's left hand the land had rest for no less than eighty years.

2. "And after him was Shamgar . . . which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad; and he also delivered Israel" (Judges 3: 31).

Of this Shamgar we know very little. The Philistines sorely oppressed Israel, at least the southern part of the land, for in his days "the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways" (Judges 5: 6). Apparently too they pursued the policy, adopted by their descendants several hundred years later, of extirpating all smiths from the land of Israel, so that the Israelites might be without weapons and defenceless (see 1 Sam. 13: 19-21). Shamgar was consequently reduced to an ox goad for a weapon of war. See him as he confronts at least 600 men armed only with a long stick, on the end of which is a small spike of iron! For the farmer or drover an excellent implement, of course, but when Shamgar turned from his oxen and stood as a warrior with this as his only weapon, the thing became supremely ridiculous. Yet the stars looked down that night on 600 Philistines stark dead, slain every man of them by this primitive weapon. Shall we praise the ox goad? Nay, the excellency of the power was not of it.

3. Again the people fell under the power of their foes, and Jabin, king of Hazor, enslaved them. His oppression is described as "mighty." Yet God began to work, he fell and was subdued. The elect vessel for this fresh service was Deborah, a prophetess. She roused up and inspired the tremulous Barak. There was another vessel used in a secondary way, and this was Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, again a woman; and yet again there was an instrument used, particularly as regarded Sisera, the captain of Jabin's host, and this was "a nail of the tent" — just an iron spike used for holding the ropes.

Directed by a woman, Barak and his ten thousand men confronted Jabin's mighty host and utterly defeated them, though they were fortified by nine hundred chariots of iron. "All the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left" is the terse record of Scripture. To crown the defeat, the great Sisera, the hero of so many victories, fell before a woman and a tent pin! Barak had been told previously that the enterprise he so reluctantly and timidly undertook should not be for his honour; and so it turned out. The very weakness and insignificance of the means employed made it clear that all the honour and glory was God's.

4. Yet again Israel sinned and the Midianites oppressed them. God now selected as deliverer Gideon, who himself confessed, "My family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house" (Judges 6: 15). Presently we find Gideon the leader of 32,000 men, and so the hosts of Israel began to assume respectable proportions. Yet before they were usable by God they were reduced to a paltry 300; and to make this contemptible little army really ridiculous their sole weapons were trumpets, pitchers and lamps!

Gideon and his feeble 300 men, however, utterly discomfited the great Midianitish host. They were like "a cake of barley bread" which "tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along" (Judges 7: 13). Trumpets, pitchers and lamps are wonderfully effective weapons if God is pleased to use them, but then manifestly the excellency of the power is not of them but of God.

5. Following Gideon came Abimelech, his very unscrupulous son, who became a real scourge to the nation. They were now afflicted from within and not from without, and for a few years there was unrest and civil war. Abimelech, however, was a forceful character, and it looked as if his tyrannical yoke would be only the more securely fastened on Israel's shoulders, when suddenly deliverance came. Abimelech had taken Thebez, and in desperation its surviving inhabitants had taken refuge in a tower. Just as fire was about to be applied to their destruction Abimelech was smitten down. And how? A woman threw down from the tower a piece of a millstone. It struck his head, "and broke his skull" (Judges 9: 53).

Again a woman became the vessel of God's power, and a worthless fragment of a once useful millstone became the instrument.

6. Once more Israel fell under foreign domination and Ammon became their oppressors. This trouble stirred up Israel to a measure of repentance and confession, and the putting away of strange gods. Finally they rose up to shake themselves free of the enemy, but a leader was lacking, and the question was as to where one was to be found.

Upon whom did God lay His hand for the leadership in this work of deliverance? Upon a most unexpected individual. Hitherto we have noticed how He was pleased to use weak and insignificant and even ridiculous things. Now we see Him selecting one whose very origin suggests not insignificance but shame.

"Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot" (Judges 11: 1). Truly in these things God's ways are different from ours.

7. Last on the list of Judges came Samson. In physical frame he was by far the strongest of them all: in character he appears to have been the weakest of any.

His remarkable physical powers were clearly not his own, however. They lasted for just so long as he preserved his Nazariteship intact. Then the presence of danger nerved him and in moments of crisis "the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him." True to God's way, even then the instruments used to accomplish his mighty feats were of the simplest. On one occasion we read "he had nothing in his hand" (Judges 14: 6), and on yet another, when an instrument was used it was but "a new jawbone of an ass" and therewith he slew a thousand men (Judges 15: 15).

We should all agree that viewed as an instrument the jawbone of an ass, new or old, is about the limit of inefficiency, yet even so it is after all better than nothing at all!

How fully, then, do these incidents from the book of Judges illustrate that great Scripture in 1 Corinthians 1 where we are told that "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, . . . the weak things, . . . the base things, . . . things which are despised, . . . yea, and things which are not . . ." — the nothings of the world. Not only has God chosen such to be His saints, but also in His work He chooses such as His servants.

The Corinthian saints, being carnal, thought far too much of man and of his qualifications and powers. Eloquence and wisdom mightily appealed to them. The Apostle Paul expressly disclaimed such things (1 Cor. 2: 1). To him they were only an encumbrance, as Saul's armour was to David. He laid them aside as definitely as he did the disreputable artifices which men sometimes employ to achieve their own ends, as we have seen in 2 Cor. 4: 2. The weapons of his warfare were not carnal at all (2 Cor. 10: 4), for he recognized that only the power of God suffices for the accomplishment of the work of God. But let us remember that God does not vary the fundamental principles of His procedure. His way of working is just the same today.

We have often heard much surprise expressed, and felt it ourselves, when God has manifestly wrought through what were to us most unlikely and unsuitable channels. We listened to a gifted servant of the Lord who preached the Gospel with much faithfulness and point, and with an intelligent grasp of its foundation principles that delighted us; yet no striking results followed. Another came with none of these qualifications; we could but regard him as sadly lacking in ability and in understanding, and yet very notable effects were produced. We need not have been astonished, however, for such a dealing on God's part was in strict keeping with what we have seen in the book of Judges.

The truth, we judge, is this: that since the power that really does God's work is "of God and not of us," the thing of prime importance is that what is done should be manifestly by God's power and to God's glory. Ability and gift and intelligence on the part of the servant are desirable, and not to be despised, but if the servant possessing them be at all tempted to rely on them, or, what is even worse, parade them, God will pass him by and use some foolish or insignificant instrument to our astonishment.

God has frequently done this in the past and is frequently doing it today — sad evidence this of how rarely any of us do possess ability or gift or intelligence without our being tempted into relying upon it.

Let no one imagine that we are issuing a kind of plea against intelligence and understanding in the things of God. We are not. Were we doing so we should be advocating what is quite opposed to Scripture, since the apostle's prayer for saints was that they "might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding" (Col. 1: 9). Further, let no one say to themselves, "Well, then, I shall not aim at Scriptural knowledge. I shall go in for what aims at the conversion of souls, but I shall not attempt to travel beyond that." To deliberately stunt one's growth in spiritual understanding in that fashion is to ask for ultimate trouble and disaster.

We do, however, earnestly pray that we may all remember that the first qualification in a servant of Christ is that he thoroughly takes the servant's place of insignificance and nothingness: that while exercising what gift he may possess with all the intelligence he may have gained, he, in his own mind, divests himself of all the appearance of power and éclat which his gift may give him, so that as to his own state and consciousness he is like a left-handed man, or an ox goad, or a tent nail, or trumpets, pitchers and lamps, or a piece of millstone, or the son of a harlot, or the jawbone of an ass, or even nothing at all.

Thus pre-eminently was the Apostle Paul. Who had such mighty spiritual gifts as he? Who such intelligence in the whole counsel of God? Who such forcefulness of character? Yet as an earthen vessel he was buffeted and reduced to nothingness. Hence the accomplishment through him of such results as have never been equalled in the church's history. He and his companions were known as "These that have turned the world upside down" (Acts 17: 6). There was a power about them that none could deny, and the excellency of that power was very manifestly OF GOD.

The apostolic age is long since passed, and we are in days very analogous, in many respects, to the time of the Judges, and this only accentuates what we have been saying. "My glory will I not give to another" (Isa. 42: 8) is ever God's word, and we may depend upon it that in these days, the days of the church's unfaithfulness and consequent confusion, God will accomplish His work in such a way as to manifest His glory and make nothing of man.

One Loaf: One Body

One Loaf: One Body.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 49, 1986-8, pages 33-7.)

When saints endeavour to walk according to the truth of the church as set forth in Scripture, and thus come together in practical fellowship according to the apostolic pattern, we must not expect that they will be left in peace. The adversary of God and His people is too watchful and untiring for that.

More to be feared than open and gross breaches of God's trust or order are the more subtle deviations from truth and simplicity which spring up almost imperceptibly in the course of years, and entrench themselves in peoples' minds or ever they are aware of them; until finally the deviation becomes accepted as the original main road of truth, and is tenaciously contended for as such.

By way of illustration we mention three specific matters which have come under our own observation.

The first concerns the truth of the 'one body'. The chapters in which this truth is alluded to are Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 10 and 12 to 15; Ephesians 1 and 4; Colossians 1 and 2; and if these be carefully read and considered, it will be found that the bearing of this truth is in the direction of unity, love, consideration, mutual forbearance, and the like, and that nothing in the nature of church order and discipline stands connected with it. Ephesians 4:1-4 may be taken as summing up the apostolic application and bearing of the truth in question.

We have, however, lived to see a very different use and application of it. Years ago, when believers walking according to the truth of Scripture somewhat increased in number, and groups of them were found in many parts, it was recognised that the truth of the unity of the body, equally with other truth, should regulate their dealings with one another as much as it would have done, if instead of being a small and insignificant remnant they had been the whole church in their various localities. From this it was deduced — rightly as we judge — that in such matters as cases of discipline, or other assembly acts, the local gathering acted for all, and hence its actions were bound to be respected unless evidently contrary to Scripture. The unity of the body was thus rightly invoked to prevent independency, and consequent confusion of action.

Of later years this last-named ecclesiastical application of the truth of the one body seems in many minds to have been so magnified out of all proportion that it has quite eclipsed the primary application as Scripture presents it. With some it seems now to be regarded as the truth itself, instead of a secondary application, which is deduced from Scripture, rather than plainly stated in it.

Hence in some difficulties that have arisen, an altogether disproportionate amount of effort has been expended in trying to show that this or that group of saints is 'off' the ground of the one body by reason of their having made some false ecclesiastical step, such as the non-recognition of a judgment, or act of some other meeting, and the like.

Moreover, by the magnifying of this secondary application to the obscuring of the primary, the truth of the unity of the body has become the great ground of excommunication or rejection, rather than that of reception. Who, for instance, has heard of a meeting receiving someone and then demanding that all other meetings shall receive him under penalty of being regarded as 'off' the ground of the one body? Such dealings are always entered upon in order to produce acquiescence in acts of excision or rejection.

Thus, by over-emphasising the secondary, the primary force of the truth is overlooked, indeed is nullified. Similar cases by which the Word of God was made of none effect were common in the time of our Lord, as the Gospels show.

The above naturally leads one to inquire whether there may not be a further misconception underlying this diversion of the truth from its proper setting. We submit that one such misconception entertained by not a few is the assumption that the fact of saints gathering in the light of the truth upon the ground of the one body confers upon them a corporate status, distinct from that which belongs to the church as a whole.

Certain parts of Scripture contemplate the breakdown in the professing church, and indicate our path and resources in view of it. Such are Acts 20; 2 Timothy; 2 Peter; and 2 John and 3 John. What have these to say, bearing upon this point?

They make it clear that though wolves would enter from without, and there would be no safety in the elderhood (i.e., rule as originally established by God) within, yet God and the Word of His grace are always available: that no matter how high the tide of evil might rise, the foundation of God would stand sure, and faithful men be found able to teach others; and not only so, but that to the end there would be some calling on the Lord out of a pure heart, if only a few: some who love the truth, and have a good report of the truth itself. There is, however, no hint that such faithful souls by so doing acquire any special corporate status. They may enjoy much collectively which they would not as single individuals; but corporately they have nothing apart from the whole body of Christ.

Indeed, whether in the Old or New Testaments, when once an institution of God fails it does not appear that at some subsequent date He grants any renewed or special incorporation to any fragment of the whole, however godly or enlightened the individuals composing it may be. It is always a case henceforward of individual faithfulness, together with a reverting in heart to the original status, in which status the faithful individual has part by reason of his forming part of the original institution, and not because he may take up with others a true remnant position.

Notice for instance:-

When Israel made the golden calf, they could only proceed from that point as upheld by the individual faithfulness of Moses (see Exodus 33: 12-17).

When in the land and Joshua dead, they rapidly fall away. Revivals were granted, but always in the power of individual faith and action. "When the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge" it does not say, then the Lord was with the people! and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge" (Judges 2: 18).

When after the captivity some returned from Babylon, they were evidently led by the faith and energy of individual men of God, such as Zerubabel, Ezra and Nehemiah. Under the influence of these men they began brightly, afresh embracing God's thoughts as to all Israel, and holding themselves as connected with such. See for example Ezra 6: 17; Ezra 9: 4-15. It was just because later they began to arrogate to themselves a special position far more exclusive and lofty than Israel's original calling that they developed the frame of mind that prepared them to reject the Messiah when He came.

In the New Testament the truth of the mystery was committed to Paul. He was also the "wise master-builder" who not only laid the foundation, but afterwards in his Epistles treated of matters connected with order, discipline, and administration in the churches. It is especially striking, therefore, to find that in his farewell Epistle to Timothy he addresses simply a faithful individual, and that he designates the aggregate of faithful individuals, not by a phrase which indicates any special corporate status as belonging to them, but by one which indicates their moral character. "Them which call on the Lord out of a pure heart."

The position of a remnant, then, in all dispensations, is an individual one. The present moment is no exception. Saints who in later years have rallied to the truth and met on the ground of the one body have not acquired any special corporate status by so doing; at best they have been but faithful individuals walking in the truth. The fact that they have no status beyond the original status of the church, which all the saints share with them, does not give them licence to disregard any part of the truth. Though individuals they are responsible to be governed by 'assembly' truth, because by ALL truth.

The third thing to which we now refer is the fact that the cup and the loaf of the Lord's supper are linked with the oneness of the body. The cup and the loaf represent the blood and body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 10 they are spoken of as the communion of His blood and body rather than the representation of it, inasmuch as "we being many are one bread, one body"; and hence not only is there the thought of our identification with the death of Christ, as the Jew is identified with his altar, or the heathen with demons, but also the thought that we are all so identified together as one body, for as it adds, "we are all partakers of that one bread" (verse 17).

It should be carefully noted that these words simply indicate that the partaking of the one loaf in the Lord's supper is the expression of that unity, and therefore may be appealed to as the sign or proof of it. It does not mean that our eating of the one loaf is the cause of the unity. We say, for instance, "It will be fine tomorrow for the barometer is rising", and by this we mean not that the barometer produces the fine weather but that it is the sign of it. So our common participation in the one loaf is the sign and setting forth of the fact of our being one body.

This is important, because the almost certain result of believing that saints who meet upon a Scriptural basis thereby obtain a special corporate status will be to connect the Lord's Supper and its communion with that "inner circle" instead of with the whole body; making it thus the expression of 'our' fellowship instead of proper Christian fellowship. This in turn creates a tendency to the exclusion of people from the Lord's supper apart from the authority of Scripture, because they do not please us, or are out of harmony with the aims we are pursuing, or for other similar reasons.

If an individual sits down and partakes of the Lord's supper, he is thereby recognised as a member of the one body and as fit for Christian fellowship; no such point is raised as that of whether all can agree with all his views and actions. This is pretty clearly indicated by 1 Corinthians 10: 23-29.

It is a striking fact, and one for which we beg careful and special attention, that the very chapter which most enforces the fact of fellowship or partnership in connection with Christ's death and His table, does not close without dealing with matters in which liberty for the exercise of individual conscience and faith is claimed. A clear proof this that the extreme view of fellowship which makes all in it responsible for and identified with every individual act, has no foundation in Scripture. We are not, of course, supposing views and acts that challenge the truth.

If one contemplated breaking bread with saints assembling in a certain place, in view of the foregoing, it would be a pertinent question to ask — Do you wish me to regard myself as thereby linked up with an association which you have formed, and committed, so to speak, to your platform; or is it that you wish to receive me as a member of the body, that is, linked up with the association which God originally formed, and committed to identification with the death of Christ?

In practice a great deal hangs upon this. In the one case it is just sectarianism, though the members of the sect may be very enlightened and commendable. In the other case it is walking, so far at least, in the truth.

Outward Circumstances and Inward Grace

Outward Circumstances and Inward Grace.

From Notes of an Address by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 38, 1953-5, page 97.)

There are many remarkable stories concerning the saints of God recorded for us in Scripture. Those in the Old Testament are often instructive because of their typical value. Joseph in his humiliation and then in dominion and glory is one of the most perfect types of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we shall all agree that there is no more extraordinary story than that of the Apostle Paul. In 2 Corinthians 11 we get his list of sufferings and trials, every one of them a great test. His outward circumstances were all against him; yet in 2 Corinthians 12 we discover he received a mighty compensation of such inward grace as made all these trials very much worthwhile.

Reading the whole Epistle at a sitting we find ourselves conducted on a geographical tour. We start with Asia in 2 Corinthians 1, where Paul refers to the great riot, recorded in Acts 19. His preaching at Ephesus was so truly in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that there was a pronounced overthrow of Satanic practices, and the devil became furious and stirred up his servants. In 2 Corinthians 11: 23 Paul speaks of being, "in deaths oft," and this was one of those occasions. God came in for his deliverance, but the whole episode brought home "the sentence of death" in his own experience. He realized indeed that he was a dead man, and all trust in himself was dissipated.

Acts 20: 1 records that, the riot having subsided, Paul departed for Macedonia, but it makes no mention of his stay at Troas on the journey, which is recorded in 2 Corinthians 2: 12. There he found himself in very different circumstances, but he did not escape trial.

He moved into an outward calm, but found himself plunged into conflict of an inward sort. He had written his First Epistle to the Corinthians and expected at Troas to meet Titus, who would bring him news as to the effect of that letter upon them. Titus failed to appear, and his anxiety as to them was such that he had no rest in his spirit. From the outward dangers of Ephesus he had plunged into inward distress of spirit, so much so that he was incapacitated for service in the Gospel there. This inward distress was as decisive in its effects as the outward. The one sent him off in haste from Ephesus; the other in haste from Troas.

We pass on to 2 Corinthians 7: 5, and we find ourselves with Paul in Macedonia, where still he was kept in suspense, waiting for the arrival of Titus. Things were getting worse and worse, rather than bettered by his leaving Troas, for he says, "our flesh had no rest but we were troubled on every side." At Ephesus the trouble was outside; at Troas it was inside; but in Macedonia it was on every side. It was like Ephesus and Troas rolled into one, as he says, "without were fightings, within were fears."

We may pause a moment to reflect that we are today in very different circumstances. For a couple of centuries now there has been little or no persecution in Britain. As a consequence we almost have to reverse the statement and say we have become soft and timorous, so that we have had fears without and fightings within. If we were hammered at more by the world without we should be less inclined to quarrel within.

In Macedonia, however, Paul's fears were alleviated by the arrival of Titus with good news as to the repentant state of the Corinthians as the result of his letter, so that he felt himself free to survey the state of things amongst them. Our thoughts are thus turned to Achaia the province in which Corinth was situated, though Paul himself was not actually there.

Although there had been a measure of recovery, things were still not too bright. In the matter of a collection, then being made for poor saints, they had made a promising beginning but it had not been carried to completion, and they had been quite outstripped by the Macedonians, who were far less enriched in worldly possessions. The Apostle was still fearful lest their minds were being corrupted from simplicity as to the Christ by the activities of men who were not true followers and servants of the Lord. He does not hesitate to use strong language as to such men. They were "false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ" (2 Corinthians 11: 13).

These false men magnified themselves by fording it over the saints. When Paul writes, "if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face" (2 Corinthians 11: 20), he was describing exactly what these false apostles did. By way of contrast to this he is led to relate his own experiences, as we see in verses 23-33. And what a contrast it is!

We now in our thoughts leave Achaia and travel far round in that circuit "from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum;" to which Paul refers in Romans 15: 19. Trials, trouble and disaster seemed to be piled upon him mountains high. Five times of the Jews he received forty stripes save one — 195 stripes administered in five doses. Thrice beaten with rods; apparently at Gentile hands. Once stoned; that we know was at Lystra. Thrice he had suffered shipwreck, and when he wrote that he had not been taken prisoner and sent to Rome. So the shipwreck, recorded in Acts 27, must have been at least the fourth. And one of the shipwrecks was so desperate that for a night and a day he was being washed about in the sea. All this was enough to kill most men, but it was not all the story.

For there were things that affected his mind, as these had affected his body. There was "the care of all the churches." There were the weak, and those who gave and those who took offence; and these things pressed in upon him daily. The churches were not little paradises, even when Paul was among them. Too often nowadays when people find something not right in a meeting, they run away. Paul did not run away; he prayerfully addressed himself to meeting the difficulty.

As the Apostle ends his recital of these outward circumstances he brings us to Damascus. The incident he mentions happened, we suppose, at the close of his second visit to that city, which he referred to in Galatians 1: 17. Anyway it happened early in his history. The basket must have been a big one to contain a full-grown man — the sort that one often sees filled with dirty washing! A few years before he had been the proudest of the proud Pharisees of Jerusalem, and now he has descended to this! He himself writes, "in a basket was I let down." Yes, but do not miss the contrast that greets us directly we read on into 2 Corinthians 12. The man who was "let down" on earth was "caught up" to the third heaven.

But let us note how, in this connection, he speaks of himself. His own name, whether Saul or Paul, drops out entirely and he is simply "a man in Christ," — a description which applies to every true believer. Such an one has a new life, derived from a new Source — not Adam but Christ — and who in the power of that life stands before God in a new place, even Christ's own place. In the third heaven, which is Paradise, there was granted an abundance of revelations, and the hearing of unspeakable words, things that could not possibly be communicated to others in this lower realm.

It is stated that there are 700 languages or dialects in Africa alone, and perhaps 2,000 in the whole world; yet not one of them has the words in which could be communicated to others what was revealed to Paul. Until we have the thing or the idea the word to describe it is not needed. If someone could have invented the word "aeroplane" and used it in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, it would not have conveyed to them what it describes to us in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. So Paul was introduced into a region of things for which we have no words.

Yet there were revelations entrusted to Paul that he could and did reveal, such as the mystery concerning Christ and the church, that he alludes to in Ephesians 3: 3, and that concerning the rapture of the saints, of which he speaks in 1 Corinthians 15: 51, and 1 Thessalonians 4: 15-17. So the inference we may draw from these unspeakable revelations is that they were intended to convey to Paul personally an abundance of inward and spiritual grace, that would support him under the exceptional trials he had to face.

But again, when once more Paul found himself in the circumstances of earth trial came upon him. The flesh in him had not been eradicated by his sojourn in the third heaven. Its tendencies to pride and self-exaltation were still the same, so the "thorn in the flesh" was given to him. We understand that the word "thorn" is hardly strong enough, though we remember seeing in South Africa mimosa thorns five or six inches long and as hard as the hardest wood. The Greek word indicates a sharp stake. It was God's preventive discipline, and the exact form of it we do not know, and do not need to know. It was a "messenger of Satan," and yet it came permissively from the hand of God, on the top of all the trials that came upon him from the persecuting world and the defects and failures of the saints.

Though thrice he prayed for its removal it still remained, but it became the occasion for a fresh assurance of an abundant supply of inward grace in those immortal words, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness." It is not only grace, but MY grace, not only strength, but MY strength. The immensity of the grace and. the strength can only be measured by the divine and eternal fulness of the One whose grace and strength it is. In the presence of this greatness how small was Paul, who was indicated by the "thee," — and we are even smaller than Paul. There is an infinitude of grace and strength with our Lord. It carried Paul to the finish, and enabled him to triumph with martyrdom just before him, as we see in 1 Timothy 4: 6-8.

So let us take courage, my brethren, and be assured that though there are outward circumstances that test us there is abundance of inward grace and strength to carry us through. When we get to glory, we shall all be saying we would not have missed any of the testings, which provoked the inflow of the grace and the proving of the strength. In our earthly circumstances we may be "let down" like Paul, but when our Lord comes again, with Paul we shall be "caught up."

Overcoming

Overcoming.

1 John 2: 14, 1 John 4: 4, 1 John 5: 4, 5.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 29, 1937, page 260.)

It has been noticeable how evening after evening the addresses have been of a practical order. My first thought as to this closing address was to have dealt with another practical theme, but, after listening to the wholesome and important exhortations that we have had, I have concluded that our closing moments ought to be given to the consideration of great, and blessed realities, which form the basis upon which a life of spiritual victory can be built.

Now, depend upon it, the Christian life, normally speaking, is a life of victory, for God has set us up with everything which conduces to that end. In the three passages we have read overcoming is spoken of, and to overcome is of course to get the victory. I think I can point out in them four things — a kind of fourfold base — on which the life of victory rests, and all four are things provided and supplied of God to us. We have to be much more concerned as to how we utilize what God provides so the practical note will not be absent from what I have to say. John's Epistle, though containing many warnings, is an epistle of victory; though the great victory book of the Bible is the book of Revelation, for there the climax is reached and the victory of God is manifested.

I am not going to speak on the theme that comes before us in Romans 7 and 8. We often speak of "victory over sin," but as a matter of fact the word, victory, does not occur in that passage: the word that does occur is, deliverance — "who shall deliver me?" This is what we need if it is a question of the working of sin in the flesh — deliverance from this state of internal slavery and confusion, into which sin has plunged us, and this we get in Christ and by His Spirit. When that deliverance has reached us, then we are prepared to face the foes of an external sort, and find that the victory is ours.

In the few words that we read from 1 John 2, we heard of those who had got the victory over the wicked one, we all know who he is, our great adversary, the devil. In 1 John 4, it is getting the victory over the false prophets. Men were speaking by another spirit than the Spirit of God, and the children of the Divine family had overcome them. In 1 John 5, the matter is very plain: it is overcoming the world. I propose to begin at the end, and to work backwards.

The first thing I point out is that, "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." Some of you may have been thinking that victory belongs only to the older and more advanced Christians, but this word applies to all of us. It is a wonderful fact that, if you are a Christian, you have been begotten of God, and hence you have a nature which is in keeping with God who is love, and which is entirely out of keeping with the world — which is in fact entirely superior to the world — so as to get the victory over it. The world has vast attractions for the old nature; it has none whatever for the new.

Some of you may take up this statement and reason from it backwards, in a way I used to do myself. The statement alarms you, because you say to yourself — I do not overcome the world, therefore the inference is that I am not born of God. Now as to that I must remind you that in our Bible Readings on this Epistle we repeatedly dwelt upon the abstract nature of the statements which the Apostle John makes. This is one of them. The Apostle is like an analytical chemist, but of a spiritual order. He is resolving things into their primitive elements and he is showing us what are the essential properties of those elements. He is not asking us to think of all the combinations and mixtures in which the elements are found in the ordinary way. The essential property of the new nature found in those who are begotten of God is this — it gets the victory over the world.

You know the story of Noah's Ark: how he liberated two birds as the waters began to abate. One was a raven, and one was a dove. One had an unclean nature with a very depraved taste, loving nothing better than carrion. The other, a bird of a very different order, found nothing attractive in the raven's food. The raven soon found something to satisfy its taste and did not come back. The dove found nothing till dry land began to appear. The flesh in us is like the raven, and feeds on carrion, but that which is begotten of God is like the dove, feeding only on that which is pure — the dove, we may remember, is in Scripture an emblem of the Spirit of God. Now just as the dove got the victory over the carrion, so does whatsoever is born of God get the victory over the world. It must do so: it is in its very nature to do so. We are viewing things abstractly, as I have said.

If however we view things practically we have at once to admit a different state of affairs. As born of God we have new tastes and desires, we see a whole world of things we never saw before, yet we know only too well the terrible downward drag of the flesh within us and how it loves the world and its evil. As born of God we are to have the victory, and the secret of it in practice is this — feed the dove, and starve the raven!

This is just what the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 6, only using another figure, when he speaks of our sowing to the flesh or our sowing to the Spirit. I think I see a man going forth to sow with a seed basket on either side. In one basket there is wheat, and in the other tares. He may sow one or the other, and the crop depends upon which. We may be frequently dipping our hand into the basket of tares and scattering that on the soil of our lives: if so, we must not be surprised at the ugly crop we have to reap. The exhortation of the Holy Spirit is that we sow that which is of Himself so that we reap everlasting life: in other words, that we do not feed the raven but the dove. But look at this, young Christian, and take courage from it  - as begotten of God we have a nature of such a sort that it overcomes the world.

But we have a second thing in 1 John 5. The victory that overcomes the world is "our faith." As the next verse shows, the allusion here is to the Christian faith that "Jesus is the Son of God." Jesus is indeed the Christ, but our faith travels beyond that to the glorious fact that He is the Son of God. John wrote his Gospel that our souls might be established in that faith, and if He shines before our faith as the Son of God, we know Him as the One who came from that world — the Father's world — into this world. Who is he that gets the victory over this world but he that has by faith discovered the Centre of a very much brighter and better world than this? It is not a question of having the Sonship of Jesus as an article of our creed, of accepting this truth theologically, but of having it as a vital power in our souls.

A story is told of a man much used of God in days gone by. When young and at college he swept up a lot of prizes, and was complimented by the Heads. They said, "If you will do this and this, and take that course, we will make a great man of you." But he had recently been soundly converted and the answer he gave was something like this, "Gentlemen, I thank you, but I have one question to ask — if you make a great man of me, for which world?" They had no other world in view than this, so that rather surprised them no doubt. He did not pursue the course they had mapped out for him, since he had that other world in view. He spent his life in serving the Lord and he was much used in the expounding of the Scriptures. The fact of the matter was that he really believed that Jesus is the Son of God, the Master and Centre of a brighter world than this, and, in the light of that, this world lost its attractive pull, he got the victory over it.

It would indeed be good if we went from these meetings with something like that about us. God give us grace to cultivate it.

Then working backwards I come to the verse in 1 John 4. The false prophets are in question here, men who are agents of the devil and energized by the spirit of antichrist. The children of God overcome them because indwelt by the Spirit of God. The last words of 1 John 3 are "the Spirit which He hath given us," and we know that He is given us to abide with us forever. That Spirit is referred to when we read, "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." He who is in the world is that spirit who is designated in Scripture the god and prince of this world. The Lord Jesus said, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me." He has something in us for we have the flesh within, but being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we have One in us who is greater.

The spirit of darkness works in the world, and speaks through the false prophets who are gone out into the world, and who are by no means extinct today. They abound, alas, in the pulpits of Christendom — a Christendom which has become indistinguishable from the world. When the "New Theology" was brought out some thirty or more years ago, Robert Blatchford, a notorious infidel of those days, wrote to this effect, "Why, the Rev. So-and-so (naming its leading exponent) is as much an infidel as I am, and I am as much a Christian as he is. The difference between us is that he wears a white tie and I do not." The false prophets of old were inspired by the spirit of darkness, and that spirit is still at work; but He who is in us is greater than he. In that fact lies the victory for us.

Once more I step back, this time to 1 John 2. Here we have the Apostle addressing those whom he calls "young men," and telling them that they are strong and have overcome the wicked one; the ground of it being, "the Word of God abideth in you." We must emphasize that word, "abideth," for it has great significance. The Word could not possibly abide in me except I know it. I must read it; I must gain acquaintance with it; not only mentally — excellent as it is to have it stored in one's memory by constant reading — but so that the truth conveyed in the Word really dawns upon the inward eye of my soul. Then it is that the Word gets into my affections, I love it, I treasure it, it commands my conscience, it begins to extend its governing power over my life. That is where strength lies. That is the way of victory over the wicked one.

I need hardly remind you that the Lord Jesus Himself gained the victory over Satan by the Word of God. He was indeed God over all blessed for ever, yet having become a Man, He fully took man's place of subjection, and did not crush him by the might of His Deity. As the humble and dependent Man He had instantly the appropriate reply from the Word of God, and thus He gained the victory. That was the only weapon He wielded, and it is the only effective weapon available for us. If it abides in us we become skilful in using it.

Now a brief summary of what has been before us is this: As John presents things in this epistle, the adversaries are three: "the wicked one," the "false prophets," and "the world." The victory for us however rests upon a four-fold basis. First there is the work of God, by which we are begotten of Him. Second, the Son of God, as the Object of our faith. Third, the Spirit of God, indwelling the children of the Divine family. Fourth, the Word of God, which is to abide in us. And these things are all presented to us, as we have noticed, in an abstract way, so that we may grasp their real nature and character, without our minds being distracted by the mixtures and complications that we meet with in practice.

But having said that, let us be very careful to take up these things in a practical way. Let us not go away saying we have had a very good time considering a wonderful vision, a delightful kind of Utopia, in which victory is theoretically ours. No! These things are made known to us in the abstract, in order that we may turn them into concrete reality.

We are born of God, but then as this very Epistle enforces, the flesh is still in us; so the secret of practical victory in this connection is going to be — to go back to my figure — the feeding of the dove and the starving of the raven. Feeding on the Scripture will feed the dove. Prayer will feed the dove. Service for the Lord will feed the dove. Light and trashy literature won't feed the dove but the raven, and so with many other things; only I cannot settle all the points for you. Here is a problem, says someone, I wish you would tell me what to do and relieve me of the bother in my mind. But this "bother," this exercise of mind is good for you, and it will be easily settled if you judge of a thing by asking, Will it feed the dove or the raven? These simple practical things are the hinges on which the matter turns. Victory will be yours as you go in for that which feeds the dove, and say, no, to that which feeds the raven.

And then "our faith" that Jesus is the Son of God. The Jew expected the Messiah — for that was his faith — who would appear on earth and restore all things here. His faith in the nature of things did not carry his heart outside the world. But that is exactly what "our faith" does. We are called to know the Son of God in glory. Oh! to have Him clearly, brightly shining before the eyes of our hearts. Then the world will at once be in our eyes but a very little thing, and victory over it will be ours.

Then, the Spirit of God. My word to you in that connection is the Scriptural one, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God," because if you do you will be absolutely powerless. Left to your own resources you are but a little pigmy in the presence of false prophets, controlled by the spirit of antichrist. Only the Spirit who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Lastly the Word of God, and this not merely in our hand or even in our minds, but enshrined and abiding in our hearts, when it governs and controls our lives.

Now, God grant that it may be so for every one of us. We want a life of victory — do we not? Well, these Scriptures have indicated to us the way. If by Divine grace we walk that way, we shall pass from defeat to the sweetness of victory.

"Patience and comfort of the sscriptures"

"Patience and comfort of the sscriptures"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 37, 1951-2, page 1.)

The Holy Scriptures present to us the truth of God in a way that is designed to bring the power of it to bear upon our state and behaviour. A good deal of history is woven into the Old Testament, but only so much as will illuminate the ways of God and impart deep lessons of a moral character. Again, in the Gospels only that is recorded of our Lord as will give us a four-fold portrait of Him, and of God the Father revealed in Him.

So also, in the Acts of the Apostles we are permitted to see the workings of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles and others, which brought about the practical transition from Judaism to Christianity in its proper character. And in the Epistles we have the full truth ministered to us; but never in a merely theoretical way, as though it was a mental scheme of Divine philosophy. All the truth made known is applied to the state and behaviour of the saints so that the power of it shall affect our lives and bring them into conformity to the will of God.

This is particularly noticeable in the Epistle to the Romans, where Romans 12 to 15 are full of directions and exhortations based upon the truth of the Gospel, unfolded in the earlier chapters. It is there that we get the great verse, "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Rom. 15: 4).

The allusion here is clearly to the Old Testament Scriptures, for there it is that we find the things written "aforetime." They had their bearing of course upon the generations that first received them, but also God had us in view, when they were given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They are for our learning, but that learning is not to be academic — the mere acquisition of right information — but very practical. It is to promote patience, or endurance, to minister comfort, or encouragement, and to imbue us with a hope that endures. And if that can be said in regard to the Old Testament Scriptures, it can be asserted with even more emphasis in regard to the New Testament.

How impatient and unenduring we are by nature! The world is full of men in a hurry to reach their objectives, whether good, bad or indifferent. The same spirit is manifested all too often by true saints of God, who want to reach what is right and scriptural, and yet pursue it in fleshly energy without giving God time to act and bring it about in the power of His Spirit. We must not forget that in 2 Corinthians 12: 12, the first thing mentioned as being a sign of an apostle, even before wonders and mighty deeds, is "all patience." Now if we learn rightly from the "things written aforetime" we shall see how God reaches His end with infinite patience, and often through what looks like defeat, for He is "the God of patience," as the next verse of Romans 15 says. It will engender patience in us.

This will introduce us to the comfort or encouragement of which the Scriptures are so full. The outlook in the world is very black. In the church the outlook cannot be called encouraging. Be it so, yet God is "the God of consolation," or of comfort, and therefore the Scriptures are full of that comfort for the man of faith, for the simple reason that they set before us God Himself. Meditating upon the Scriptures we get our eye fixed upon God, what He has done in Christ and what He yet will do. Then it is that in our thoughts man shrinks into his proper insignificance, and God revealed in Christ shines forth in all His sufficiency before our spiritual eyes.

Then through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we "might have hope." To this point we are conducted in spite of the disillusionment that fills the world. The history of the world is really just a record of blighted hopes, and if we look abroad in the world today what basis is there on which to rest any hope, since mankind is obviously sinking into a state of mass brutality, unheard of since the world began.

Alone amongst men, the man of faith has a basis for his hope which cannot be shaken. The God whom he knows is the "God of hope" (Rom. 15: 13), to whom he has been introduced by the Spirit through the Scriptures. While we wait for the coming of the Lord, which will be the consummation of all our hopes, let us give the Scriptures, and the truth that they minister to us, a commanding place in all our thoughts.

A Pattern Ministry

A Pattern Ministry.

Acts 20: 19-27.

(Notes of an Address, South Norwood, S.E.)

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 19, 1927, page 174 etc.)

The apostle was inspired of God in thus reviewing his ministry in the midst of those elders of Ephesus who were gathered around him. He was reviewing the pattern ministry that he had exercised as a free man; free, I mean, to move about at the Lord's dictation. He knew full well that soon his period of free service was coming to an end. His ministry was not a perfect ministry. Only the Lord Jesus exercised a perfect ministry. But it was a pattern ministry, for he was a man of like passions to ourselves, and only in the power and grace and support of the Spirit of God could he have done what he did.

Now every word in this remarkable review of the apostle is full of meaning. May I just go over with you the verses which give the spirit in which the apostle was serving, and then the verses which give us the subjects of his ministry.

First of all, as to his spirit. Verse 18: "You know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons." The first thing that marked him was the most extraordinary constancy. He could say, "You have found me from the first minute to be altogether what I was all through and all the time." Oh, how terribly condemned are we moderns in the presence of that! We go forward by fits and starts. How sweet we are in one direction, and how sour and bitter in another direction. It was not so with the apostle Paul. What he was he was everywhere and all the time. It was not a kind of surface veneer. He was what he was from the centre to the circumference.

Then he says, "Serving the Lord," not exactly, serving the saints. The Lord was before him, not serving humanity. If we serve according to this pattern we keep the Lord as the sole Object of our service, and we serve "with all humility" — not of behaviour, for a man may be only a hypocrite, humble on the exterior, but not that in mind. "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind."

The great mark of this pattern servant was a humble mind. He did not enter amongst the people of God with great parade and much flourish of trumpets. He did not come to advertise himself and to impress everybody with what a by man he was. He was unostentatious, quiet, with no pretension about him.

Further, he served "with many tears." Those tears were the expression of very deep and genuine soul travail and exercise, and if there were more of that spirit today it would be good. "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews." A pattern ministry does not mean that it is one leading from success to success, and a continual round of triumph. There were all kinds of trials, temptations and obstacles. He was "cast down but not forsaken," for the Lord stood with him. We must not imagine because of the easy circumstances that surround us that Christian service is a kind of triumphal procession of large meetings and enthusiastic throngs. The pattern minister — this servant of Christ — was continually running into what appeared to be gigantic obstacles. He had all kinds of testings and trials; those very testings proved the spiritual stuff of which he was made. If you hear that somebody is serving and getting into innumerable difficulties, you need not always shake the head and say he is no good. He may be good in extraordinary measure.

Then he tells us, "Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greek repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." The Jew would highly resent that message. He would say it was obvious that the Greek should be told to repent, but to come and tell them, the people of God, to repent was very objectionable. But Paul testified calmly and straightly in both directions what was the truth of God.

"Now," he has to add, "the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me." There was more trouble for the pattern servant, but he says, "None of these things move me." He was a man of extraordinary stability and faith. "Neither count I my life dear unto myself." Here was a man devoted unto death for the name and the service of the Lord. We know very little of it. The brethren in Jerusalem said in Acts 15 of Barnabas and Paul: "Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of the Lord Jesus." If you turn to another translation you will find an even more striking rendering: "Men that have yielded up their lives for the name of the Lord Jesus." There was no hazard about it at all. They had not an even chance. It was a foregone conclusion. They were men that would go into the breach and lay down their lives. In that spirit the apostle speaks here. He does not count his life dear that he might finish his course and the ministry he had received of the Lord Jesus. I think we might well say, when we review the life of this pattern servant: "No wonder that the work of God prospered in his hand. No wonder he could say that in a circuit from Jerusalem round to Illyricum he had fully preached the gospel of Christ."

Of what did he speak? Let me allude to this for a few moments. He testified of "the gospel of the grace of God." First and foremost the gospel, and the gospel of God's grace. As to that we have all heard much that is very profitable, and therefore I shall not enlarge upon it on this occasion.

He goes on to say, "Ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more." Did you notice the rather smaller circle, for here is something that is preached amongst those that are converted. The apostle went amongst those who had believed the gospel of the grace of God and who had in truth been converted, and among them he preached the kingdom of God. Now someone may ask, "What does that exactly mean?" It does not mean that Paul went about preaching the millennium or giving prophetic addresses, expounding the day which is surely coming when this earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. It does mean that wherever he went among the people of God he was enforcing kindly, gently and lovingly on the consciences of the saints the divine authority. He was saying in effect, "You have believed the gospel. You are now enrolled amongst the people of God. As such you are subject to Christ and subject to the Word of God. You are brought into the kingdom, that God's authority as expressed in His Word may be dominant in your heart and life." He expounds the gospel in the Epistle to the Romans, but he does not finish without giving us Romans 12 to 15, which are sometimes "taken as read," and hence skipped over, instead of being diligently read, pondered and obeyed.

I have a feeling that of recent years we have been sadly defective, in not fully preaching the kingdom of God. Perhaps some of you would be rather angry if I were to try to do so. It is very easy to acquiesce in the spirit of the age, and to do what everybody is doing, but that is not what should govern us as Christians. We are brought under divine authority. Does the Word of God absolutely command the obedience of my heart and life? That is the kingdom of God, and everywhere the apostle went preaching the kingdom of God. May God give us grace to preach the kingdom more.

Now notice, in verse 24 he says, he preached the gospel of the grace of God; in verse as, the kingdom of God, and in verse 27 he says: "I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." He says in effect, "You have got all this blessing. The gospel has brought you into this favoured place of nearness and relationship. The divine authority is established in your hearts. You are under the sway of God. You obey His word. But remember all that God has done He has done with certain great counsels or purposes in His mind." He has actually made those purposes known to us. They are not yet brought to fruition. They are not yet carried into effect as they will be in the ages to come, but they are made known to us that we may live our whole earthly lives in the light of what God purposed from before the foundation of the world.

Have you ever asked yourself why the apostle says here, "I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God"? We might say, "Why, Paul, using that word 'shun' would make us believe there was a kind of reluctance in your mind to speak about these things." Paul would have said: "Yes, there is. Nothing will bring me into more difficulty than expounding faithfully the whole counsel of God."

Why was this? Well, for one reason, it was just this faithful declaration of God's counsel concerning the bringing in of the Gentiles to church position and privileges that raised the furious hostility of the Jews and led to his imprisonment. Then again, there is nothing that really, after all, makes such demands on the hearts and consciences of God's people as the understanding of God's purposes. You cannot possibly with a sincere heart and conscience get any understanding of those great things God has purposed for His saints without finding yourself in this world responsible to walk according to the principles of another world. You cannot possibly entertain these wondrous revelations without being made uneasy if you walk in such a way as to flatly contradict them. The truth always makes demands upon us to walk in this world as men who have heavenly hopes and destiny.

Well, God help us to keep these things in view. We need the gospel. We need the truth of the Kingdom, and we need the counsel of God. When first we begin to entertain these things it is like eating the little book of which we read in Ezekiel and Revelation. It is in our mouth as sweet as honey. It is very inspiring and very delightful at first taste, but when you come to see the practical workings of it there is a bitterness about it. It makes demands. It gets at the conscience.

After all, that is what we want. We want a little bit of the word of God that gets at our conscience, pulls us up, and positively alters our lives.

"A place for the Lord."

"A place for the Lord."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 36, 1948-50, page 1.)

At first sight it has been to many a matter of surprise that the Lord should speak of David as "a man after Mine own heart," seeing he sinned so grievously, and gave such occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. Yet, on the other hand, the Scriptures do show that he was characterized by many excellent features, of which one of the most striking comes to light in the early part of Psalm 132, where we are given a glimpse of him in his earliest days.

Many a youth, possessing a strong character, vows that when fairly launched in life he will do this or that, in order to secure wealth or fame, and so establish for himself a secure place in the world. As a youth David made a vow, but it was to "find out a place for the Lord," and not a place for himself. In this he was in strongest contrast to his predecessor, who was made to "sit in the chiefest place among them that were bidden" by Samuel, when the Lord had told him that Saul was to be king. That chiefest place Saul clung to, and for it he fought with bitterness. Saul's motto was "A place for myself." David's was, "A place for the Lord."

"Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah" (verse 6), and Ephratah was the ancient name of Bethlehem, and David's birthplace. But what was the "it"? Clearly, the ark, which is mentioned in verse 8; for verse 6 adds, "we found it in the fields of the wood;" for thus he describes Kirjath-Jearim, whence ultimately he did bring up the ark to Jerusalem.

This Psalm therefore reveals to us that David, knowing that the ark which was God's throne in Israel, had been lost to the Philistines, and though recovered had never been properly reinstated, vowed in his earliest days that he would give himself no rest until he found that place for the Lord, where the ark of His presence might rest. Now that is the kind of man that suits the heart of God, and not the man that is merely seeking a good place for himself.

Shall we test our own hearts and live in the light of this as another year opens before us? We shall find it spiritually healthy to do so. The earth was never more full of place-hunters than it is today — nations, classes, individuals are all in the furious competition. Moreover, there are not a few who have considerable ground for their place-seeking, for they belong to the unhappy category of "displaced persons," for whom we may all feel the sincerest sympathy.

The fact is that in the present epoch everything is out of place, as far as the earth is concerned. Christ is not yet in the place which is rightly His, reigning as King of Israel, and over the whole earth as Son of Man. The church is not in the place of her destiny — the heavenly places — but still in the place of her pilgrimage. Israel is not in the land where her place is. The Gentile nations are not in the places which God has assigned them as subsidiary to Israel. Nothing will be in its place until the Lord gets His place. We may well cry "Come, Lord Jesus!"

But we do well to remember that while we wait for Him there is a way in which we may give Him His place, for has He not said, "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them", (Matt. 18: 20). When He comes there will be "our gathering together unto Him" (2 Thess. 2: 1); but while we wait we may gather together in His Name, to the exclusion of all other names; owning His authority, and recognizing His presence in the midst. In doing this, we shall in a spiritual way be happily finding "a place for the Lord." Having so done we must carefully see that He has His rightful place in all our thoughts, our heart's affections, our service, our lives. This will be pleasing to Him, and to the Father from whom once He came.

The men of the world will look upon us as fools. They will tell us that if we do not bend all our energies to establishing our place in the world no one is going to do it for us, and we shall lose our footing. We quite understand their thinking and speaking thus. How foolish the disciples must have looked as the Lord drew to the end of His earthly path. They had given up all — fishing boats, the table for the receipt of custom, and other things — to follow Him. They had lost their footing in Palestine, and now what was before them! Their Messiah was going to die!

Amongst His closing words, however, were these: "Let not your heart be troubled . . . I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14: 1, 2). And the place He prepares and guarantees is infinitely preferable to any place any of them lost. And we can say the same.

Let us then step forward with good courage. The place He has prepared for us is sure and excellent beyond words. Be it ours to catch a little more fully the spirit of David, and, while we wait for His Advent, neither to seek our ease nor to slumber, but rather to seek our Lord's interests and be concerned to find a place for Him.

The Primitive Church

Acts 4: 23 — Acts 5:6; Acts 5: 11-14

F. B. Hole. (An address given in Lowestoft in 1960)

Here is a picture of the church in Jerusalem as it was at the outset. There are some very interesting and striking features to be noted as having marked these early saints. The picture shows us what was God's mind when, for the moment, the power of the indwelling Spirit of God was very powerfully felt.

The first point I would like you to notice is this, that being let go Peter and John went to their own company. They had been hauled up before the authorities, but they were let go. We are told in the earlier verses of the chapter that they found “nothing how they might punish them” (Acts 4: 21). They found that what had happened was really beyond their criticism and reluctantly, having given them a beating, they had to let them go, and being let go they went to their own company. There was to be found in Jerusalem at that time a number of people who formed a company, so that the apostles, released by the antagonistic authorities, knew where to go. The church of God is a company distinct from the world. That has been forgotten. Through the years the object of the adversary has been to mingle the church with the world. If possible, to swamp what is of God in worldly circumstances, and all too often he has succeeded in that kind of thing. But before there was any very widespread failure we see there was a distinct line drawn between the church and the world. That line still exists today and you and I have to recognise it. The church is not a part of the world's religious system. The church is a called out company. That is what the word translated church, or assembly by Mr. Darby, really means. The Greek word has been brought in to our language, albeit as an adjective. You might go to London and find the offices of the ecclesiastical commission: people who have to do with church affairs. The Greek word ekklesia comes from “ek”, meaning “out of”, and “klesis”, from “kaleo”, meaning “to call”. It simply means the called out people. That has always been God's way. He calls out His own, and we notice it right in the beginning of the Bible. If you read those early chapters in Genesis you find that after the flood, when perhaps a century had passed and they were beginning to multiply once more, they said, “Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven” (Gen.11: 4). They said in effect, “we can't achieve what we want as individuals, we must achieve it together. We must have something collective and not merely individual”. In the Darby translation, rather more homely and striking, it is rendered, “Come on”. The world is saying, “Come on, let's all come together. You can accomplish a lot more if you come and join us, and give a kind of Christian push to what we're doing”. That's what they were saying when they started to build the tower of Babel. One man couldn't do it but all of them together could, and they started to do it. Against that background God said to Abraham, “Get thee out...” (Gen. 12: 1). The thought of calling out has marked God's work all through. He called Israel out to make them a distinct nation. That is why the word “ekklesia” is used in connection with that nation in Acts 7: 38: “This is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness, with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sina, and with our fathers...” It was a people called out of Egypt. We belong to the ekklesia, the church, the called out family. Immediately after Pentecost this became manifest in Jerusalem, and Peter and John “went to their own company”.

What marked this company? The first thing I notice is that they were familiar with the Word of God, and their thoughts were governed by the Word of God. In this emergency, brought face to face with the opposition of the powerful religious leaders, they found light and direction in the Word of God. They didn't have the New Testament Scriptures, but they had the Old Testament and they went back to what David had written in the second Psalm. Here's a remarkable case of how Scripture often has a double fulfilment. There is a preliminary fulfilment, before the complete fulfilment comes. When Peter preached on the day of Pentecost he said, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2: 16). If you read the prophet Joel you will see he is predicting what will happen on a greater scale at the opening of the millennial age. Peter was saying that the outpouring of the Spirit and the speaking in tongues on the day of Pentecost was a kind of sample of what is yet to be. So it is here in connection with the quotation from Psalm 2. When the climax of the age is reached, and the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing, and the anti-Christian powers are all apparently at the top of their form, God will intervene, and He will set His anointed on His holy hill of Zion. They only quote this part, “Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ”. Exactly what was predicted then had happened. Jew and Gentile had crucified the Messiah, but they had only done what “Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done”. Although they didn't know it, they had only succeeded in accomplishing what had been predicted concerning the suffering of the Christ. But what fortified the early church was the knowledge and the counsel and direction of the Word of God. That is equally true for us who belong to the church of God today. The Word of God should be the governing factor.

There was also prayer. They were in touch with God. They didn't appeal to the ruling powers or try to cultivate things with the men of the world. No, they cast themselves wholly on God, and there is no doubt that when saints do that there is sure to be a gracious answer. They lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and what did they ask? They didn't complain about the antagonism of the rulers or the difficult time they were having. They certainly didn't ask God to judge or to stop them. They viewed things from what we might call the divine standpoint. They said, “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings”, but also, “and grant unto Thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak Thy Word” (Acts 4: 29). They asked God to stretch forth His hand and make His power felt, so that they might be able to do what they knew they were commissioned to do. They were to go and preach repentance and remission of sins among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24: 47). It was as if the Lord said: “You are going to begin at the most difficult place of all, the place where sin has reached its climax”, because there never was a sin before, and never could be again, like the rejection and death of the gracious Messiah. It was the supreme sin of humanity and it was perpetrated at Jerusalem, the city that had slain the prophets. When our Lord wept at the graveside of Lazarus with the sisters, the word translated “wept”1 means to shed tears silently. When He wept over Jerusalem the word used for “wept” means loud lamentation. He knew what lay before the city (Luke 19: 41-44). Yet the gospel was first to be preached in this very city, and there its mighty power and efficacy were first to be shown. Knowing what their commission was, and not thinking for the moment of the nations, they prayed for boldness in speaking the Word of the Lord, and that is exactly what they did. We're told that “they spake the Word of God with boldness” and “with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4: 31, 33).

Consequent upon prayer there was the working of the Holy Spirit in their midst. That is one of the great marks of the primitive church. The Holy Spirit is come and the power is His. Let us not forget that. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that accomplishes the work of God. We are living in an age when man is thought to be very great and his thoughts and doings are around us on all sides. We may forget that power doesn't lie in human abilities but in the Holy Spirit of God. That is made very clear in a doctrinal way in Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. It is the Holy Spirit of God who, by His power, operates in the assembly of God. People may sometimes be inclined to say of so-called “brethren” meetings that they appear to be a kind of democratic institution where any brother can get up and speak. We should say that no one can get up and speak, except under the gracious power and direction of the Spirit of God. I do not deny that it is difficult to practise. I feel it often when I sit in a meeting. Should I be right in perhaps rising to my feet to give thanks or to speak or to pray. We have to be exercised. I may make mistakes and others may make mistakes, but it is better to do the right thing even imperfectly than the wrong thing in a first class style.

1This is the only time that the word is used in the New Testament.

Alas, Christendom has largely drifted away from the simplicity of the primitive church, which was marked by the power of the Spirit and consequently by great oneness of heart. Do we see that today? All too often we do not. In the beginning they were “of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4:32). The divergence that we see today tells us how little we have known of the controlling power of the Spirit of God. There was great oneness of heart amongst the saints and there was powerful testimony to the world. These two things, the oneness inside and the testimony flowing to the outside, are more intimately connected than sometimes we imagine. The oneness of heart meant care for the saints. People have often spoken about this remarkable outburst of generosity. We must remember that the saints were an outcast people. Nevertheless, there was a great outflow of divine care and compassion. This generosity wasn't something laid on them as a divine demand. Peter said to Ananias: “Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?” (Acts 5:4). He was under no compunction. He might have sold it and kept the money, not pretending anything, but he came acting a lie. Poor Sapphira told one. When “as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet”, Ananias brought money pretending it was the full price, but keeping back a part of it. It is often the way, when that kind of sin comes into the circle of the saints, at the outset you see a very drastic exhibition of holy discipline.

The church is a place of discipline. It was shown in the primitive company when the first outbreak of selfishness came. There was pretension and unreality. It was lying to the Holy Spirit, as if the Spirit of God didn't know the truth of the case. He was powerfully active in the church and manifested His power in holy discipline. He illumined the mind of Peter so that he was able to speak as he did and Ananias died. He had been behaving as though you can deceive the Spirit of God, and you can't. Often, at the beginning of an epoch, God gives a very drastic exhibition of power and of disciplinary judgment. Some will remember the case of Achan, when the children of Israel were entering the land. It is important to learn this lesson. The church of God in its primitive state was not only marked by the features we have already considered, but also by holy discipline. The church is the house of God and God dwells there by His Spirit. Here was something that no ordinary person could have detected, but the Holy Spirit knew about it, and He proved the reality of His dwelling in the church, the house of God, by acting in this way. Peter simply spoke the words that the Holy Spirit gave him to speak and both Ananias and Sapphira died. The fact that God dealt with them shows that they were His saints. God doesn't deal with the world in that way. That is the great thing in Psalm 73. The poor psalmist says, “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Ps. 73: 2-3). He was troubled and plagued and chastened every morning while the people of the world were doing things and seemed to be unchecked. But when the psalmist went into the sanctuary, then he understood their end. He saw things from God's standpoint. The people of the world may appear to get away with many things in this life, but then they plunge into a lost eternity. The child of God doesn't get away with it. One has often seen that. A child of God has done something that isn't right, and God has allowed it to be found out. You may say that that thing has been done again and again by other people in that place and they've got away with it. A Christian does it and is caught. Why? Because God deals with the Christian. If a saint dishonours the Lord he's pulled up. That is what happened here in Acts 5. Such discipline having come in, it had a restricting effect. In the first place, “great fear came upon all the church” (Acts 5: 11). They were reminded that God doesn't want the believer to do the kind of things that the world does. They were committed to a life of holiness. As saints of God we are committed to a life of another order that isn't marked by the ways of the world. The eye of our Lord is upon us.

Then there was something else. This fear came upon “as many as heard these things”. God's power was manifested through the apostles and “of the rest durst no man join himself to them” (Acts 5: 12-13). There may have been those who were impressed with the generosity of the saints, who would have joined themselves to them, while being no true members of Christ and only sources of trouble and weakness. This disciplinary action hindered the inrush of mere outward professors, but it didn't stop the true work of God. “Believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women” (Ch. 5:14). That is what we ought to see. Believers brought under the Lordship of Christ. Such become a source of real help and joy.

Acts 11: 19-26; Acts 15: 1-11, 28-29

We have previously considered the picture of the primitive church at Jerusalem which is given in Acts 4: 23-5: 6; Acts 5: 11-14. But one very prominent detail connected with God's present work in calling out the church is lacking in those verses.  In writing to the Ephesians, in chapter two of his epistle, Paul reminded the believers there that God has abolished in the flesh of our Lord Jesus, through death, the breach that there was between Jew and Gentile. At the present time He is making of the twain one new man. The word for make, “for to make in Himself of twain one new man”, is actually the word to create. The same word is used earlier in the chapter, in verse 10, were we read, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works...”. Both Jew and Gentile are brought on equal terms, and in the same way, into a new position which God creates, and this is as valid today, near the end of the church's history, as it was when Paul wrote those words, very near the beginning of the church's history. An election from the Gentiles is brought into this new position equally, and exactly on the same footing, as an election which God is making from the Jews. That, of course, was absent in the fourth chapter of Acts. God began the work in the midst of Israel. The masses who were gathered on the day of Pentecost were Jews, with perhaps a sprinkling of proselytes as they would have been called; people who were Gentiles originally in origin, but who had attached themselves to the Jewish synagogue. The gospel was preached and three thousand souls were converted. No doubt these too had got busy for the Lord, and then the apostles had been apprehended and other troubles had come to pass. Then we read that lovely account of the assembly in Jerusalem. I suppose that if we had been there at that time, and had examined the thousands who were found in “their own company”, we would have found them practically to a man and a woman to be of Jewish extraction. The book of Acts gives us what we sometimes call the transition period. God doesn't do things in a hurry. No, quietly, the Divine thought was worked out. That is why I have read these verses about the work at Antioch. It was at Antioch that God began this remarkable work, in a very obvious way, of gathering out from the Gentiles a people for His Name.

I began reading at the point where many went forth, scattered abroad because of the persecution that arose after Stephen was martyred. The majority of them still had the Jews only in their thoughts. They preached the Messiah, crucified and risen from the dead, and they preached Him to Jews only. But there were some who went beyond that. These men of Cyprus and Cyrene spoke to the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus (Acts 11: 20), and the hand of the Lord was with them (Acts 11: 21), and a great number turned to the Lord, and much people was added unto the Lord (Acts 11: 24). There was then a very powerful work among the Gentiles at Antioch, and the Lordship of Christ was evidently very much pressed and made plain. When Peter was talking to Cornelius he said: “The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (He is Lord of all:)”. He is Lord, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. Certainly His Messiahship more particularly applied to the Jew, who had got the holy writings, the prophetic announcements of the coming of the Messiah. But when we consider Him from the point of view of His Lordship, then all other distinctions vanish. He is Lord of the Jew, but He is equally Lord of the Gentile. They preached the Lord Jesus, and people turned to the Lord. If I turn to the Lord I shall at once admit myself to be under His authority. My place is subjection beneath His mighty Word. There was therefore a very remarkable work among the Gentiles in Antioch, almost parallel to that work which had taken place among the Jews on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem.

When Barnabas came down he saw the grace of God and was glad. He was a good man. He saw how greatly God had blessed the labours of someone else, and though it didn't cast any credit on Barnabas, he was glad because he saw that the Lord was being exalted. He “exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord”. We couldn't have much better advice than that. Let there be a living link between my soul and the Lord, and your soul and the Lord, and don't let anything come in to divert you from the Lord. “Cleave”, says this good man Barnabas, “cleave unto the Lord”. He came amongst them and it gave further impetus to the conversion work because the next verse, verse 24, says: “and much people was added unto the Lord”. Then Barnabas went away and found Paul, and brought him to Antioch, and for a whole year they were there, ministering and teaching.

The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. What do you think they were called in Jewish circles?  We find the answer to that in Acts 24. There comes this Tertullus, and he accuses Paul in the presence of the Roman power. He says of Paul, “...we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes”. There were the Pharisees, who were terrific sticklers for the law and rather full of themselves. There were the Sadducees, who were very analytical and critical and didn't believe this and didn't believe that. And there were the Herodians, who didn't bother their heads so much about these things, but who went along with the ruling power because they knew it would be profitable for them in worldly things if they did so. The Jews had these sects among them and they were saying: “Now we've got the Nazarenes, the followers of this remarkable Person, Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified”. But another thing now arrives. Here where there was this work among the Gentiles, those who were converted owned the authority of the Lord over their hearts and lives and it put the stamp of Christ upon them. Others looking at these believers said, “We can't talk about them with a long rigmarole of explanation, we shall have to have something short and to the point. Well, they are Christ's ones, they are Christians”. It has often been pointed out that that word only occurs three times in the New Testament. Agrippa knew it (Acts 26: 28). The name Christian had clearly travelled into high circles. Agrippa didn't say, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Nazarene”, but, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian”. And it is endorsed by the Holy Spirit of God because in the first epistle of Peter you have the Spirit of God saying, “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf” (1 Peter 4: 16). The Spirit of God, so to speak, accepts this name as a very good definition of those who are swept into this new and mighty work of His.

Here then we see God working among the Gentiles, and gathering out of them a people for His Name. Then the adversary gets busy. There were those, we sometimes speak of them as Judaising teachers, who wished to make all things, especially the Gentiles, conform to a certain Jewish pattern. That is why I turned on to chapter fifteen. Some of these teachers came down to Antioch and said, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15: 1). Circumcision was something that, “after the manner of Moses”, or according to the law, attached the circumcised person to Judaism. In proposing this these teachers were seeking to bring in the middle wall of partition which God had broken down. There is no such partition in the church, and we who form part of it are on a new basis altogether, because whether Jew or Gentile we're made one new man. We are brought together, and the adversary, of course, is out to mar the work of God. So these men came down and they said in effect, “You will have to make these people kind of second rate Jews. You'll have to incorporate them into our legal system, or they'll never be saved.” If you read chapter fifteen carefully you will notice that there was a good deal of disputation. It doesn't mean that they were all flying at each other's throats and arguing in a very noisy way, but the whole matter was being thrashed out in discussion. Peter rose up and said: “Ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe”. When was that?  When he went to the house of Cornelius. Three times God gave him a special vision, to deliver him from preconceived notions that would only hinder him, and at last Peter went. It is a remarkable thing that not only do we have the divinely inspired account of it by Luke the historian, in Acts chapter ten, but in the next chapter it is repeated again, though from a somewhat different angle. When Peter returned to Jerusalem he was challenged about what had happened, and we have an account of it in chapter eleven from the lips of Peter, though recorded of course by Luke, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. Now for the third time, here in chapter fifteen, Cornelius is referred to. It was an epoch making event. The Pharisees were very particular about the washing of this and the washing of that, but they didn't bother much about their hearts. Peter said as it were: “My dear brethren, look what happened when God made choice among us that by my mouth the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles. Why, the Holy Spirit decided the question. You say they are unclean Gentiles, but their hearts were purified by faith. God has purified their hearts, and He who knows the heart gave them the Holy Spirit, even as He did unto us.” If you read the tenth chapter of Acts you may be struck by the fact that no word was said as to their being baptised until they had received the Holy Spirit. In Acts chapter two, in answer to the question “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”, Peter said: “Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. Baptism has a very special place in connection with the Jew.  If I was asked to give in one word its great significance I should give the word disconnection, though it has a new association in view. In the context of Acts chapter two it is cutting the link with the Nation that had rejected the Messiah. Peter says as it were: “Cut your links with the Nation that has killed the Messiah; stand out from it. Save yourselves from this untoward generation.” And they were baptised; they cut their links with, there was disconnection from, the apostate nation of that time. But when you read Acts chapter ten you find that while Peter was preaching the word that pointed them to the risen Christ, the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard. Has there ever been again an occasion like that? Many of them were doubtless God-fearing, pious persons, but not really converted. You start with all that were there unconverted, apart from Peter and those who went with him, and one hundred per cent they're converted. The Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the Word. Cornelius, soldiers, friends and family. And Peter had to say: “How can we refuse to baptise these people?  Let them cut the links with the old life, and come amongst us as Christians.” God had settled it. That's what they say later in chapter fifteen: “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us...”. The Holy Spirit decided the question of the reception of the Gentiles by falling on them just as they were, as the light of the gospel dawned in their hearts. On the day of Pentecost there were three thousand, but here there was only a room full, but they were “by one Spirit... all baptized into one body”. Here we see things taking shape according to what was later unfolded doctrinally in the epistle to the Ephesians, God's present work in calling out of the Nations a people for His Name. It started in a very remarkable way in the case of Cornelius and his household, and continued in Antioch by the labours of these humble people. They were not great preachers; just men of Cyprus and Cyrene. What their names were we are not told, though I hope we shall be permitted to know in the coming day when the Lord assesses all His servants and rewards them for what they have done for Him. These humble and unknown individuals who were driven abroad by the persecution that arose about Stephen and had, perhaps, to flee for their lives, they began talking to these Gentiles. And, as it was the purpose of God to go out to the Gentiles (He had made that perfectly plain at the outset to the apostles), of course the hand of the Lord was with them. A great number believed and turned to the Lord, and were brought into the church of God.

When you come right to the end of the book of Acts you find the apostle in Rome, a prisoner. He gathers the Jews together and it seems that a few believed, but alas the great mass were rejecting the gospel testimony. To them Paul had to say a very solemn thing, after quoting some verses from Isaiah chapter six, “Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it”. There is no doubt that through this long age in which our lot is cast, while still God works and gathers out of the Jewish circle, the main work has been the out-gathering from the Gentiles. Hence we get the Scripture that “in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus”. The word “exceeding” might be translated “surpassing”. Something that surpasses everything else. The grace of God that is working today, and gathering out of the nations a people for His Name, and bringing them into this wonderful position of nearness and favour and ultimately of glory in association with Christ, it is a surpassing display of the grace of God.

F. B. Hole.

193

Christ: the Prince of Peace

Christ: the Prince of Peace.

Frank B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth, 1915, Vol. 7, page 28.)

It is hardly possible to imagine a greater spectacle of unrest and discord than that which the world presents at the present time. In every sphere the same phenomena are observable. Politically and industrially the whole civilised world has been shaken of late, nowhere more so than in Great Britain, where disorder of the gravest kind was only just averted by the outbreak of the colossal war of nations which is now engaging every one's attention. With religious strife and discord we have long been unhappily familiar.

Under such circumstances it is not surprising that the drift of men's desires is in the direction of peace, and that the scriptural picture of a golden age of a thousand years' duration, when there shall be "abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth," and "quietness and assurance for ever," has caught the popular fancy, so that the "millennium" is often referred to by people who have little idea what it means, and very mistaken notions as to how it is to be brought to pass.

It is the object of this paper to point out how the age of peace is to be reached, and also how, during the present age of evil and unrest, peace amongst the saints of God may be promoted.

If reference be made to the passages from which the two brief quotations above were made it will be seen at once that millennial peace depends for its realization upon authority and power being vested in Christ, and consequently righteousness being established in the earth. Psalm 72 begins with "Give the King Thy judgments, O God . . . He shall judge Thy people with righteousness," and it is "in His days" that there shall be "abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth" (ver. 7). Isaiah 32 declares that "the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever" (ver. 17).

What lies at the root of all the discord so painfully manifest? The perverse and wicked will of man, which manifests itself in a thousand ways. At the present time Europe resounds with the fearful clash of national will-power, millions of units bound by racial and national ties focussing their wills upon a common end, and giving expression to them by their representatives. This is, perhaps, the most powerful display of human will, but it is seen in ever-varying degree in every kind of society and sect in which men have banded themselves together, and in every individual, down to the little child who kicks and screams and destroys the peace of his nursery, because he cannot have his own way. Moreover, self is the centre around which every thought of our wills revolves; hence God is dethroned, and all that is right displaced. To-day it is man's will and unrighteousness instead of the rule of Christ and consequently righteousness.

The history of the world is one long and dismal story of human schemes and struggles to find a satisfactory solution of the present state of things. This is particularly the case since the coming of Christ, when by rejecting Him men refused the divinely given solution. They killed the Prince of Life, who is also the Prince of Peace. Things will never be right until He returns.

To the day of Christ's return and glory the Old Testament prophets make abundant reference, and again and again they connect the peace that will characterise the millennial age with the judgments that will precede its establishment, and the strong and righteous government that will mark its duration. A couple of passages may be cited as examples of this:-

"Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end" (Isa. 9: 6, 7).

"In the way of Thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for Thee . . . for when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. . . . Lord, Thou wilt ordain peace for us" (Isa. 26: 8, 9, 12).

The times of the Gentiles started with the most absolute autocracy the world has ever witnessed, in the world-wide dominion of Nebuchadnezzar, and prophecy indicates that they will end with the autocratic power of the "beast," in spite of the fact that at present democracy is all the rage. This latter, which has been defined as "government of the people, by the people, for the people," is about as far as possible from the divine ideal, which, as indicated in the scriptures above quoted, is government of the people, by Christ, for God; and therefore for man's true blessing.

At the present time not a few are cherishing the false hope that this war will be the last: the idea being that the curse of militarism is largely bound up with the autocratic ideals cherished by the Kaiser, and that the overthrow of his power will pave the way for the spread of broader and more democratic ideas, under the influence of which war will become impossible. Democracy and peace are to the minds of such almost synonymous terms. How pitiful a delusion! Such a thought can only be held by ignoring the fact of the essential sinfulness of human nature, attested by thousands of years of human history. The idea is denied also by experience, for the only time in the past when pure democracy held sway blazes like a lurid beacon of warning upon the page of history: I refer to the great French Revolution, with its reign of Terror. Last, but not least, it is absolutely denied by Scripture.

I refer to these matters because they are by no means unimportant for the Christian. Far too many of God's saints have never seriously reviewed the position in the light of the Word of God, and hence accept these great world movements, political or otherwise, at their face value without investigation, and get caught in the current of the world. As a result, they yoke themselves unequally with unbelievers, in plain disobedience to the Word of God, and they consecrate their energies to the laborious building up of systems which the coming of Christ will destroy  - just as children labour in the erecting of sand castles, which the next tide will wash away. Would to God that each of His children were diligent and untiring in His work! — the work that is in keeping with His plan for this dispensation: viz. the bearing of witness to Christ unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1: 8), and the taking out of the nations, as a result, a people for His name (Acts 15: 14).

Peace upon earth, then, will be reached when by judgments God shall remove every peace-disturber, purging out of His kingdom all things that offend: it will be maintained throughout the millennial age by government exercised in the hand of Christ. The original peace of an innocent creation was broken when man forsook his allegiance to God, and by disobedience withdrew himself from His direction; it will only be regained when men come back with chastened spirits, and submit once more to the control of God. The divine purpose to "gather together [or, head up] in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, "will then be fulfilled. The will of that great and glorious Head will prevail to the exclusion of every other will — "of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end."

During the present age the church, which is the habitation of God by the Spirit, is left in this world of unrest as an abode of peace. Had it maintained this character with ranks unbroken what a testimony for Christ it would have been! We cannot, however, read further than the sixth chapter of the Acts without discovering the first symptoms of that disease which has since developed into a raging and destructive epidemic. The murmuring that arose amongst the Jewish converts to Christianity because certain Greek-speaking widows were neglected, as compared with their Hebrew sisters, might have seemed a small thing, in reality it meant a great deal.

When we turn to the Epistles we find that in nearly all of them some allusion is made to the danger that threatened by reason of the inveterate tendency of the flesh toward dissension, bickerings, and fratricidal strife. In some cases, such as those to the Corinthians, to Timothy, James, and 3 John, the warnings and rebukes lie upon the surface, and occupy a substantial part of the Epistle. In other cases it is more a question of reading between the lines; comparatively minor allusions, showing us that the same danger threatened other churches in the apostolic age, amongst them the brightest and best. It will be sufficient to specify passages which may be referred to in verification: Rom. 16: 17-20; Gal. 5: 15; Eph. 4. 31-32; Phil. 2: 1-3, Phil. 4: 8, 9; Col. 3: 13; 1 Thess. 4: 6, 1 Thess. 5: 15; 2 Thess. 3: 11-16; Titus 3: 9; Heb. 12: 12-15; 1 Peter 3: 8-9; 2 Peter 3: 14.

A very slight acquaintance with church history suffices to show how greatly the warnings contained in these scriptures have been needed, and how much the testimony of the Lord has been marred by dissension between His saints. There have been, of course, separations which have become a divinely sanctioned necessity in order to preserve God's truth from corruption. Of these we do not speak.

By and by all the saints will stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, that everything there may be brought into the light. Read Mark 9: 33 to 37 for a fore-shadowing of that day. When we are safely housed, not in Capernaum but in heaven, will He not have good reason to say to us, "What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? — What is it that through all these centuries of My absence has caused so much contention and strife? And shall we not have to hold our peace as they did: 'for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest'?"

What, then, is the root of all the trouble? Self-importance, or, in other words, pride in one or other of its many forms, never more subtle and dangerous than when acting under the cloak of religion.

And what is the remedy? In one word, CHRIST. This is indicated in the passage above quoted; for the Lord's reply was to take up a child in His arms, saying, "Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth Me." By which He showed that the only importance any one of them had was that which belonged to them as representative of Himself. Nothing else counts. They were each nothing; He was everything.

All this finds strong confirmation in the Epistles. We will confine ourselves to the two passages cited above from the Philippians. Having exhorted these earnest, devoted disciples to "be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind," and having warned them against strife and vainglory, He sets before them that which will produce the lowliness of mind so much to be desired. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," and there follow those verses of incomparable beauty, setting forth the mind of Christ in contrast with the mind which is in Adam and his fallen race. The first man attempted by robbery to lift himself on to an equality with God, and fell into ruin and degradation; the Second Man humbled Himself even to the death of the cross, and has been by God highly exalted. The rest of the chapter concerns three men, Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus, each of whom had the mind of Christ, sinking their own interests and importance in whole-hearted devotion to Christ and His people.

If it be further inquired how this mind may be produced in us we may turn for answer to the verses in Philippians 4. Think, says he, on things that may be characterized as true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, praiseworthy. We are not here told to meditate upon so many abstract qualities, but rather upon the things that bear that character; and there are, thank God! many such things to be found, in Scripture, in the work of the Lord, and in the saints. There is only One, however, in whom all these excellent qualities shine in equal lustre — CHRIST. Let us think, and think much, of Him. Then to your thinking add doing, practising such things as are sanctioned by the apostolic example, and the result will be this: "the God of peace shall be with you."

Peace will rule amongst the people of God when their thoughts are fixed much on Christ, and their ways are regulated by apostolic example. There is no other way.

Subjection to CHRIST, then, is the way of peace, whether presently in the millennium, or now amongst God's people.

One word more remains to be said. As Christians we must never adopt the policy of "peace at any price." To refuse to make a stand when the vital interests of Christ are at stake is an error of the first magnitude. On the other hand, let us beware of magnifying smaller matters, largely perhaps personal in character, until they become matters of grave contention. The former is the special danger of the indifferent, worldly-minded believer: the latter that of the earnest and devout.

Not long ago there was a great whirl of controversy in the Isle of Man. It concerned the sum of £1750 to be spent in advertising the island as a pleasure resort. A wise man of the world commented on it as follows: "Everybody appears to agree that this is a wise outlay. The only point is whether it should be laid out at once or divided into two parts; one for now, one for later on. No doubt a grave principle is involved! There always is in these peddling disputes. Men are past-masters in the art of justifying their littleness by reference to principle. Anyhow, the trivial difference of opinion has been sufficient to bring the Legislative Council and the House of Keys to mortal pompous opposition, It seems too silly to be true."

When I first read those words my mind instantly travelled into a different sphere, and applying them to that which has often transpired amongst believers, I felt inclined to hang my head in shame. It does seem too silly to be true, and yet, alas, how sadly true it has been. Let us accept the rebuke, even though it come from the lips of one of those children of this world who is "in his generation wiser than the children of light."

Oh for that gaze of faith fixed on Christ, that happy heart-occupation with Himself, which will lift us up above all such littleness, and cause a peace, heavenly in its origin, to dwell among the people of God.

Propitiation

Propitiation

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth, 1915, Vol. 7, page 248.)

In view of present-day tendencies the frequent restatement of fundamental truth of the simplest nature is never out of place. It is indeed against such fundamental truth that the most subtle attacks of the devil are directed, for if a destructive blow reaches the foundations the whole building of truth is shaken and weakened.

Nothing is commoner at the present time than statements from professed teachers of Christianity as to the redemption work of Christ which are loosely worded and vague, if not positively erroneous. And the former are generally more mischievous than the latter.

To juggle with the word "atonement" is an old device, leading to positive error. It is a simple matter to insert two hyphens and print it "at-one-ment," and this proceeding adopted, nothing is simpler than to evacuate the word thus mangled of all its proper meaning. It is not surprising if the unwary and unlettered are deceived by such dishonest playing with words, for they may not have means to hand whereby the fraud may be discovered. But what shall we think of those who perpetrate it? Are these would-be teachers without understanding also? We would fain think so, for the only alternative is to regard them in the light of those who wilfully corrupt the Word of God.

For what are the facts of the case? They are these: "Atonement" is an exclusively Old Testament word. It appears once in the New Testament of the Authorized Version, viz. in Romans 5: 11. But there it is a manifest mistranslation. The marginal reading "reconciliation" being the correct word. In the Old Testament it frequently occurs, and there, as may be easily verified by the simplest reader, if a good concordance such as "Young's" be at hand, always as the translation of the Hebrew word the simple significance of which is "to cover."

"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered," was David's exclamation in Psalm 32: 1. Here we have the great Old Testament thought as to God's dealing with sin in forgiving mercy. It first appears in Genesis 3: 21, where after the ineffectual efforts of Adam and Eve to cover their sinful nakedness from God's presence by fig-leaf aprons of their own manufacture, God Himself covered them by coats of skins — such coats necessarily involving the death of a victim. The thought so clearly enshrined in this picture, suitable to the infancy of the human race, recurs again and again in Scripture. The meaning of the word "atonement" is thus clearly established as the covering of sin by sacrifice.

There is thus about the word no thought at all of making two parties one in mind and purpose — men being lifted by Christ and His example to the level of His own high ideals and conceptions of God — which is the thought attempted to be derived from "at-onement." The fact is the real and simple meaning of the word is just that which this new spelling was expressly designed to avoid.

But in Old Testament times Christ was as yet unrevealed; His work as yet unaccomplished. It was the age of forecasts, types, and shadows, and such necessarily lack the sharpness of outline which we expect in the substance. The term "atonement" therefore is, as one might expect, general and comprehensive rather than detailed and particular. When we come to the New Testament therefore we find that the Old Testament term is dropped and other terms of more special and limited bearing take its place.

One such term is "Propitiation," which stands at the head of this paper.

The word propitiation occurs but a few times in the New Testament scriptures, yet as presenting to us the redemption work of Christ in its bearing Godward, rather than manward, it is of the greatest possible importance. It is the first and most fundamental thought connected with the death of Christ.

The Epistle to the Romans presents us with an orderly unfolding of the Gospel. Its first two and a half chapters are occupied with the assertion and proof of universal sin and corruption. Every kind of man is condemned, all pretension to goodness is demolished, and all the world is brought in as "guilty before God" (Rom. 3: 19). From that point the gospel of God, which alone meets this condition, is unfolded, and in this unfolding the first great landmark is found in the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, meeting every claim of the righteousness of God. "Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness" (ver. 25).

The reader is asked to read carefully the whole passage, verses 21 to 26 inclusive, whence the above quotation is taken. He will find the following: —

1. The Righteousness of God.

i.e. The maintenance by God of all His rights in a right way. This necessarily comes first into prominence inasmuch as sin is lawlessness, i.e. the assertion of man's will as against God's rights. It is fitting then that the first word of gospel after the terrible unfolding of man's sin should be "the righteousness of God" (see Rom. 3: 21).

2. The Law of Moses Superseded.

The righteousness of God is manifested "without the law." The law was the careful declaration of God's rights first and foremost, and of those duties which in a secondary way man should render to his fellows. The smallest infringement of God's rights under law brought condemnation and death.

3. "Righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all, and upon all those who believe."

(New Trans., J.N.D.)

Here we have the wonderful fact that in connection with Jesus Christ, and not law, by faith and not works, God has so maintained His rights that He approaches all men favourably in a right way; and as regards all who believe, His righteousness is upon them, that is they are justified or made right in His sight. Under law there was no satisfying of God's righteous claims, no harmonising of the "light" which had been outraged by sin with the "love" which delights in mercy. In Christ, there is all this. In Him, "mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other," and God can exercise His rights of mercy in a right way, i.e. without jeopardising the display of any attribute of this character.

But how so? At what particular point in connection with Christ do we find the "righteousness of God" established. The answer is, we find it in

4. Propitiation.

"Christ Jesus . . . set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood." The word used here is one which signifies the place where propitiation was typically accomplished under law, viz. the mercy-seat. Christ Jesus then is set forth as the mercy-seat, and the propitiation is made in His blood.

The type may help us as to this. In keeping with the instructions given in Leviticus 16. it was the duty of the high priest to enter the Holy of holies once a year, "not without blood," as Hebrews 9: 7 says, "which he offered for Himself and for the errors of the people." This blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat and before it seven times. In virtue of this blood-shedding, which was the witness of death — the original sentence on sin — executed in a flawless victim, God was propitiated or rendered favourable by having His righteous claims met.

In the type all was provisional and shadowy, in the mighty sacrifice of Christ all was real and eternal. The one was like a promissory note, valid in view of its redemption at the due date, yet intrinsically valueless, being only a piece of paper and a little ink. The other is like the whole sum in fine gold of perfect intrinsic value wherewith the note is redeemed.

"Once in the end of the world [the consummation of the ages] hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. 9: 26).

Propitiation is also mentioned in two other New Testament books.

In Hebrews 2: 17 we should read that Christ is "a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people." Here again we have it emphasised that whilst propitiation is needed on account of "the sins of the people," it is essentially Godward in its bearing.

It is also alluded to in 1 John 2: 2 and 1 John 4: 10. And here a point of great importance stands clearly out, viz. that Christ's sacrifice viewed as a propitiation covers not only the believer's sins, but also the whole world.

In connection with this care is needed, for it is very easy here to speak unscripturally. Nowhere are we authorized by Scripture to speak of Christ dying for the sins of everybody in the sense that He was everybody's substitute. On the other hand, we are nowhere authorised to limit the bearing of His sacrifice viewed as propitiation. In this connection its scope is nothing less than the whole world.

A clear understanding of this simple distinction is the key to the interpretation of scriptures which appear to clash. Such as, for instance: —

"To give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20: 28).

"Who gave Himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2: 6).

The former has in view a substitutionary work. He died as a substitute for all who believe, hence they must go free; righteousness demands it. He did not die as a substitute for all, else all must go free.

The latter has in view a propitiatory work, i.e. the meeting of the divine claims apart from the question of its application to individual cases. The death of Christ being of infinite value meets God's claims in regard to the question of sin regarded as one whole. It stands good therefore for all, as far as its intention is concerned.

The two points of view are brought together in the words already quoted from Romans 3. Righteousness is truly "upon all them that believe" —  that is substitution in effect; it is just as much "towards all" in intention and offer, and this is connected with propitiation.

No illustration "runs on all fours," but there is a distinct analogy traceable in the schemes of insurance which have become so common in connection with publications such as diaries. On obtaining one at the new year the purchaser finds that by filling up a small coupon enclosed and remitting it to the office of the insurance company, together with a few stamps to cover cost of registration and reply, he is entitled to free insurance benefit for accidents, etc. The benefits offered do not appeal to some and they neglect it, others register and qualify for them if an accident befalls them.

Behind the thousands of small registration transactions, however, lies the one transaction between the publishers of the diaries and the insurance company. A cheque running into thousands of pounds has been paid by way of premium. It is not paid by way of covering any individual claim, for at the moment no one knows what claims, if any, there will be; though of course in effect it does cover every individual claim which can be sustained under the terms of the policy. It is paid rather by way of satisfying the claims of the company as a whole in regard to the liabilities they assume. Being thus satisfied they are favourable — propitiated if you will — towards all who purchase the diaries and therefore willing to consider them as definitely insured if registered.

Let the many small registration transactions represent that which takes place in conversion. Then it is that we each for ourselves, one by one, register under God's great salvation scheme, and discover that the price paid in Christ's redemption work suffices for us, so that we may look back and regard Him as our Substitute. Then it is that we gladly sing: —

"'Tis done, the great transaction's done,

I am my Lord's and He is mine."

We sing rightly, for the transaction between the soul and God at conversion is indeed great.

Infinitely greater, however, is that other transaction. ONE in contrast to many. The one paying of the great premium price which the claims of God's righteousness and outraged holiness demanded — the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. Its primary object was, we repeat, the satisfying of divine claims, its bearing Godward; though in its ultimate effect the need of the repentant sinner is met.

At the same time, be it clearly understood, both propitiation and substitution were accomplished in the one sacrifice of the cross. It was there that He stood as the "ransom for all." There too that Jehovah "laid on Him the iniquity of us all" — i.e. of all repentant believers.

The foregoing scriptural distinctions are of great importance to those who preach the gospel. They should be carefully observed by those who would present the divine message without obscurity.

The great theme of the preacher going forth as a herald into a world of sinners is propitiation. He preaches Christ's work in that aspect, showing that thereby a righteous way has been made by which judgment against sin is deferred whilst forgiveness and salvation are made available for all, and are being preached amongst all nations. He speaks also of repentance and faith, and announces that "all who believe are justified from all things," thus leading up to substitution. This latter truth is, however, more particularly that which is needed by the awakened and anxious sinner to lead him into peace with God.

In so saying we do but follow the order divinely worked out in Scripture. Propitiation is found in Romans 3: 25. Substitution in Romans 4: 25. Peace with God in Romans 5: 1.

One thing more. Behind the truth of propitiation lies the fundamental fact of the anger of God against sin, which expresses itself in penal retribution. In this behold the real reason why every teacher of "modern" tendencies avoids the subject even if he does not attempt to flatly deny or explain it away. And yet how oft reiterated in Scripture! Terrible indeed, yet staring us in the face upon almost every page of our Bibles. God "hates wickedness," He is "angry with the wicked every day" and ultimately "the wicked shall be cast into hell" — whether men believe it or not.

Let us boldly maintain this great truth of Scripture and suffer no strange or misty statements to loosen our hold upon it. Depend upon it, it is fundamental to the last degree.

Questions as to Prayer

Questions as to Prayer

Answers by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 9, 1917, page 216.)

Upon what Scripture ground may the "nation" be invited to pray to God for His aid or intervention (or for thanksgiving) in the present or any other crisis?

It seems evident from the book of Jonah that God deals with nations and not merely with individuals. God is "Father" to His children. He is the "Preserver" or "Saviour" of all men (1 Tim. 4: 10). He is also the "Governor" among the nations (Ps. 22: 28) who have been set in their appointed spheres by Him (see Acts 17: 26). It is also evident from the book of Jonah that when Nineveh took nationally the ground of repentance as commanded by their king God had regard to their prayer and action.

To this extent, therefore, there seems to be scriptural warrant for a national turning to God in connection with His governmental dealings. We do not know of any scripture which lends support to the idea that by adopting "the Christian religion" a nation may become "Christian" and therefore specially entitled to pray for God's aid. True faith without which there is no true Christianity, is individual and not national.

Is a person having been baptised and professing Christianity on that account entitled to call upon God in time of stress, apart from repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Does God listen to His creatures as such apart from faith in Christ — either in socalled worship or in supplication?

These two questions are virtually one. Psalm 107 shows us how under stress of various kinds men do cry out to God and how in mercy He delivers them. Of this the redeemed of the Lord are special witness, and if they are wise men they discern God's loving-kindness in His intervention. It is also true that anyone who is baptised and professes Christianity thereby takes the place of calling on the name of the Lord (Acts 22: 16). Yet only repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ put the soul into right relations with God and render possible that intimate and confiding prayer which is the privilege of His children.

Evidently if men, whatever their professions may be, deliberately turn from God and cast His words behind them, He is silent to them (see Ps. 50: 16-22). On the other hand, God evidently listens to the cry of the most unlikely and undeserving, as evidenced by the behaviour in this world of the One who said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." He indeed proved Himself to be "kind to the unthankful and to the evil."

What is the scriptural view of the position of persons who have not definitely repented and accepted Christ as their Saviour — either ignorantly or designedly?

Many scriptures might be quoted as an answer to this, but none more comprehensive than Ephesians 2: 1-3 and verses 11 and 12, which deal with the Jew, with his outward position of privilege, as well as the poor outcast Gentile.

At public and so-called "united prayer meetings" it sometimes happens that apparently "good earnest Christian men" pray for blessings and certain things which appear contradictory to each other — how do you account for this?

When good Christian men pray contradictory prayers one accounts for it by the fact that so frequently even Christians are woefully deficient in their understanding of the will of God as expressed in Scripture, and so frequently their vision is blurred by the world without or the flesh within, and so communion with God is but little cultivated.

And at the same time in accounting for it thus one has a chastened spirit, conscious how frequently one has oneself prayed equally contradictory prayers in private if not in public. Acquaintance with the Word of God is necessary if we are to pray intelligently. And even then we do not know what we should pray for as we ought (Rom. 8: 26). Yet we may make our requests known to God (Phil. 4: 6). If united public prayer is made according to God, it will be as instructed by His Word and in the Holy Ghost (Jude 20), and then all will be in harmony and without contradictions.

Renunciation and Communion

Renunciation and Communion.

F B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 127.)

It is a well-established fact in the Scriptures that the initiative always belongs to God. Illustrations of it abound. Turn where we will in the histories of men of faith and action in the service of God we find that the source of all lay in God Himself. The impulse in the strength of which they acted came from Him. The start of everything in each case was when some revelation from God, or as to God, reached them. The most striking New Testament illustration of this is the case of the Apostle Paul. The fountainhead of all his Spirit-energized activities was "when it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. 1: 15, 16). The most striking Old Testament illustration is the case of Abraham. All his remarkable life took its rise from, and was characterized by, the fact that "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham" (Acts 7: 2).

REVELATION, then, is the mainspring of spiritual life in the believer. The life flowing from the revelation may be considered in a two-fold relation: one negative and one positive. Here again we may take Abraham as a striking example.

From one point of view, then, the whole life of that man of faith may be summed up in the one word RENUNCIATION. That was its negative character — renunciation as regards the world.

His story in Genesis begins with the statement, "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee" (Gen. 12: 1). These, according to Acts 7, were the words with which "the God of glory" appeared unto him. The revelation and the renunciation were as cause and effect. The latter was possible in the strength and joy of the former. The glory of Ur of the Chaldees paled before the God of glory. In eagerly stretching out his hands towards the one, Abraham turned his back upon the other.

This was, as we may term it, Abraham's conversion. It is an essential feature in every true conversion, though alas! the majority of conversions are shallow compared with his. Abraham most decisively "turned to God from idols," as did the Thessalonians in a later day, and there is no true conversion without this.

Abraham's course was not, however, only marked by renunciation at the outset; the same feature marked him all through. Having started forth "not knowing whither he went," and having finally reached the land "which he should after receive for an inheritance," he sojourned in it "as in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise" (Heb. 11: 8-10). In these words the Spirit points out that having abandoned the glories of Ur for the land of promise, he never enjoyed what he set out to possess. He renounced any immediate or personal hold upon it, and as Genesis shows he contented himself with a tent and altar, thus declaring himself still to be seeking a country — desiring "a better country, that is, an heavenly" (Heb. 11: 14-16). This second renunciation was perhaps more remarkable than the first.

But there was yet more. Abraham, with Lot his nephew, though not formally taking possession of the land of promise, yet had a day-by-day use of it as they traversed its length and breadth with their flocks and herds. Then there came a time when "the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together," and consequently "there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle" (Gen. 13: 5-7). As the outcome of this there was another act of renunciation on Abraham's part. Though the senior, he gave place to Lot and yielded to him first choice in the use of the land, saying, "If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left" (verse 9). In result, Lot chose the well-watered plain and left Abraham on the less fertile hill-tops.

In Genesis 14 we find Lot carried captive by the confederate kings, and read of Abraham's remarkable victory and the recovery not only of his nephew but of other persons and goods captured from Sodom. The grateful king of Sodom said, "Give me the persons and take the goods to thyself." Now note Abraham's answer: "I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine" (verses 21-23). The patriarch is in the happy conscious knowledge of the "Possessor of heaven and earth," hence the goods of Sodom had no peculiar attraction for him. He could firmly yet happily twice utter the decisive words, "I WILL NOT."

In turning his back upon Ur of the Chaldees, with its idolatry and worship of the powers of darkness, we see Abraham renouncing the devil and all allegiance to him In these subsequent acts we see him renouncing the world in its various forms; whether as an abiding place of settlement and ease, or a place of fertility and prosperity, or as a provider of every object of utility or ornament, but all debased by the service of sin.

Another great act of renunciation lay ahead, apparently as severe in its testing as any which had preceded. It sets forth in type the renunciation of the flesh. The promise of the seed had been given and Abraham's faith had embraced it, but impatient for its accomplishment, he sought for its fulfilment "after the flesh," and Ishmael was born. Fourteen years afterwards the promised seed appeared in the person of Isaac.

Abraham's heart yearned over Ishmael. His cry was, "Oh that Ishmael might live before Thee!" And not only so, but Ishmael was circumcised, and thus outwardly was the mark of the Covenant put upon him (Gen. 17: 18, 25). All was, however, unavailing. It had been said of Ishmael, "He will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." A wild, intractable and quarrelsome fellow he remained — fit type of the flesh, for as James says, "From whence come wars and lightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?" (James 4: 1). Ishmael's term of probation ended, however, when he proved himself to be not only wild, but a despiser and a mocker in regard to the promised seed, Isaac, who was a type of Christ. Then came that word which is so illuminatingly commented on in the New Testament, "Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac" (Gen. 21: 10; Gal. 4: 21-31).

Thus in type we see the final testing of flesh by the presence of Christ. The flesh simply mocks HIM: hence there is no good thing in the flesh, and the flesh must go!

Here was a severe test for Abraham. "The thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son." Yet he responded to it. The renunciation was made. "Abraham rose up early in the morning" — here we see the energy of his faith — "and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away" (Gen. 21: 11, 14).

In type, then, we have seen Abraham renouncing the devil, the world, and the flesh, and we might well suppose that there would be no further renunciation beyond. Yet one further act of a supreme sort remained.

Genesis 22 is the record of it. Isaac, the seed, with whom were bound up all the promises, was left with his father. The divine word now was, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering." The story of this chapter is well known. Isaac is in type yielded up to death, only to be received again as though risen from the dead. So Christ, once known after the flesh, is henceforth known no more after that order. The believer's links with Him are of a spiritual order and in resurrection, and because of it, "henceforth know we no man after the flesh" (2 Cor. 5: 16). When Abraham thus yielded up the promised seed, we may say that the crowning point of his path of renunciation was reached.

If, however, revelation was the spring and starting point of his career, and renunciation its prominent feature in a negative way, on the positive side it was a life of most blessed COMMUNION with God in the light of the revelation He had made of Himself.

In the chapters, Genesis 12 to 22, we have the record of no less than nine occasions when God appeared to Abraham and put Himself into communication with him, and other occasions are also recorded when Abraham put himself into communication with God, either in worship or prayer. This was a wonderful record, only the history of Moses is comparable with it. God not only blessed Abraham but let him into the secrets of His dealings with men as His "friend."

The blessing that rested upon Abraham was very great. It more than recompensed him for all the renunciations he made. If he gave up earthly prospects in Or, he became an inheritor of blessing that should ultimately spread out to "all families of the earth" (Gen. 12: 3). If he yielded the fairest parts of the land to Lot, directly afterwards came the word, "Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee" (Gen. 13: 17). If he totally refused the smallest recompense from the goods of Sodom, there came immediately the word, "Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward" (Gen. 15: 1). If he had grief as to Ishmael, he presently heard the words, "I am the Almighty God: walk before Me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17: 1). If he ultimately yielded up not only Ishmael but Isaac, he got that great promise as to THE SEED, in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed (Gen. 22: 18).

A most elevated and striking example showing the intimacy of Abraham's communion with God is recorded in chapters 18 and 19, where he is let into the secrets of God's governmental dealings with the cities of the plain, and the Lord Himself says, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" adding "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." What in the Old Testament bespeaks greater intimacy than the further record, "But Abraham stood yet before the Lord, and Abraham drew near and said . . . ," and again, "The Lord went His way, as soon as He had left communing with Abraham"?

Read carefully the whole passage beginning with Genesis 18: 23 and continuing to the end of the chapter. Note the blending of deep reverence and simple familiarity in Abraham's remarkable pleadings; and then remember that all that he says is concerned not with himself nor any purely personal interest, but with the reputation and glory of the great "Judge of all the earth," in the first place, and with the deliverance of Lot and his family and the plight of the sinners of Sodom, in the second.

Thus did Abraham have communion with God about His things, rising out of his own littleness into the holy elevation that marks them, and thus as a privileged intercessor he gained the title, afterwards conferred, of "the friend of God."

And God treated Abraham as a friend; for we read, "It came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow" (Gen. 19: 29). Abraham had not definitely asked for this. Still, in pursuing his intercession until he had obtained the promise that the cities would be spared if only ten righteous were found within, he doubtless had Lot and his family in mind. There were not found fen righteous, but all the same God answered Abraham's prayer in the spirit of it by rescuing the one man who could be spoken of as righteous.

Genesis 22, which shows us the climax of Abraham's renunciation, equally gives us the climax of his communion, for there pre-eminently we see him as the man of faith moving amidst agonising circumstances with the serenity which comes from a clear intelligence of the mind and ways of God. What but spiritual understanding, the fruit of communion, could have prompted such a word to the young men who attended Abraham and Isaac as, "I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you"? This was no remark made at random under the stress of the moment, as Hebrews 11: 17-19 shows. He "offered up Isaac . . . accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead."

In those days life and incorruptibility had not "come to light " as they now have through the Gospel (see 2 Tim. 1: 10), yet as the fruit of communion and intercourse with God Abraham knew Him as the God of resurrection.

A little later comes Isaac's question as to the lamb. Abraham calmly answered, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering"; uttering thus, possibly without knowing it, a prophecy the scope of which went far beyond the immediate matter in hand. It became one of the great Old Testament predictions of the coming of the suffering Messiah, so greatly amplified when Isaiah 53 came to be written. Again we may say, how full and elevated must have been the communion which expressed itself in this calm certitude of faith! In very deed, God did not hide from Abraham the thing that He was about to do.

A third exhibition of faith and communion was seen in Abraham naming the place Jehovah-jireh — the Lord will provide. The spot became "the mount of the Lord," the site of the future temple.

It was all this that called forth the special approbation of heaven. "Thou hast obeyed My voice" was the Lord's commendation, for true communion always has its fruit in obedience. In connection with this there was that giving of the Divine oath as well as of the word — those "two immutable things" of which such important things are said in Hebrews 6: 13-20.

Clearly, then, Abraham held communion with God, even about things which were not in his day the subject of public revelation. He rejoiced in the coming Lamb of sacrifice, and in resurrection, in the city which hath foundations, and in the heavenly country — but all as a matter of anticipation, and held as a secret between his own soul and God.

We today are come to these things (see Hebrews 12: 22-24). They are fully revealed. The Lamb of sacrifice has appeared. Resurrection has come to pass in Him, being established beyond all dispute and now announced as an integral part of the Gospel. What glorious light, what heavenly privileges, are the portion of the Christian!

But what about our communion?

Do we let God talk to us about these things in His Word and by His Spirit given to us? Do we responsively talk to Him about them? Or are all our communications Godward occupied with our own trials and troubles and needs and wants?

Depend upon it, communion and renunciation go hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other. As we are in touch with God, so are we out of touch with the world, and vice versa. To happily embrace both is the way of joy and power and blessing.

The Result of the Ministry

The Result of the Ministry

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 97, also Vol. 7, page 97.)

The question is sometimes asked; Why should so small a result be seen in true godliness and growth in grace, from the ministry of the Word, addressed to believers? Let us consider it briefly, and begin by admitting with sorrow that the result of all our ministry, whether by voice or pen, is very small. To face facts is always right, as also it is to enquire concerning the cause, and seek to apply the remedy.

It will hardly satisfy any exercised conscience to be reminded that we are living in days when the utmost that could be said as to saints generally is that they have but "a little strength" (Rev. 3: 8); end to infer that consequently we cannot expect anything beyond that which one sees at present. We should reply at once that such statements made with prophetic insight as to the mass, are never rightly used, if quoted to hinder the exercises of the individual, or his desires after that which is better. A "man of God," in the Scripture use of the term, is one who proves himself to be an exception to the rule by standing for God, and caring for His interests, when the mass is marked by declension and indifference.

So let us together face the question, Why so small a result in godliness and growth in grace from all the ministry? Is it the fault of the ministers, the ministry, or those to whom the ministry is addressed? In attempting an answer, we can only speak according to our knowledge and experience; bounded by our circle of acquaintance, which is of necessity very small compared with the great circle of the church of God.

First then, the ministers, and by this term we mean, as undoubtedly Scripture means, all who do the work of the Lord, no matter in what sphere their service may lie. We judge that neither ministers, ministry nor those ministered to can be absolved from blame; but if we attempt to differentiate, we should lay the greatest stress upon the minister — including of course the writer of this article. —  inasmuch as no ministry, whether spoken or written, is likely to be of a better character than the channel through whom it comes.

If any desire proof of this statement, let them read 2 Corinthians 5: 18 - 7: 3, and realise the force of the Apostle's words. The ambassador for Christ could approach the worldly-minded Corinthians, and urge upon them a thorough-going separation from the world, with his own heart enlarged and his mouth opened, because his own life of out-and-out devotion and separation was such as to give immense weight and power to his words.

Many of us may only minister the Word in small and obscure ways, but even so, let us see to it that first of all the truth has its proper effect upon ourselves, so that our lives exemplify the truth we minister. Too much stress cannot be laid upon this. Have we not learned by experience that only the man of solid Christian character is capable of speaking words of real weight, and that such words have impressed us far more deeply than words marked merely by eloquence, or originality, or intellectual power?

In the second place we do well to examine our ministry. We would all freely admit that it has imperfections. But in what do they consist? While admitting that they are many, we confine ourselves in this article to one which, working in a twofold way, is a source of much weakness. We refer to the strong tendency to ignore the link between the doctrinal and the practical sides of truth. We can perhaps best illustrate what we mean by referring to Romans 6, and pointing out therein the three words we often refer to:- "know" (verses 3, 6, 9), "reckon" (verse 11), and "yield" (verses 13, 19).

"KNOW" stands first, and plainly indicates the prime importance of doctrine. Nothing can be right if we are not rightly instructed in the great truths of Christianity. The believers at Rome either knew, or should have known, the meaning and spiritual bearing of baptism (verse 3), the cross (verse 6), and the resurrection of Christ (verse 9). They set forth the sentence of death on our old life, and the introduction of a new, so that we are "alive unto God."

Then "RECKON," which indicates the continuous action of faith, which accepts the knowledge, and appropriates it as bearing upon oneself, thus laying the basis for new and properly Christian experiences in the power of the Spirit of God. The Spirit endorses the faith, which accepts the Divinely-given position, by giving the experience suited to it.

Lastly, "YIELD," indicating that practical surrender of oneself to God, which involves the complete subjection of one's own will, and of all that one possesses, to the will of God. Without the yielding this will not be maintained, even though the position be accepted in faith.

Now there are Christians who lay great stress upon this last point in their ministry, calling continually for surrender or consecration, and yet fresh consecration, until sometimes, it is to be feared, the doctrines which lie at the foundation of all are obscured, or even very imperfectly held. When this is so, a good deal of result may be produced, but result hardly of a kind to satisfy one who judges of things in the light of what was accomplished in the death and resurrection of Christ.

On the other hand, to dwell very largely upon doctrine, while omitting, or largely obscuring the definite call to surrender, is equally a distinct defect. The doctrine may be most clearly and scripturally expounded and much helpful instruction may be added as to faith and the experimental teaching of the Spirit of God, but without this yielding, the hearers will after all be left with many a link with the flesh and the world uncut, and what is worse, perhaps without any exercise as to it. They will see things more clearly in their minds; that is all. This, we venture to think, has been a great defect in our ministry.

That a considerable measure of grace and power is needed to exercise such a practical ministry is very certain. Still such words are needed, for most of us but slowly perceive the force of truth, when presented only in an abstract way whereas if presented in concrete form we cannot miss its practical bearing. When Nathan set before David the evil principles that had marked his conduct, presenting them abstractly in parabolic form David listened and approved, and yet failed to see the practical application to himself. The quiet words that followed, "Thou art the man," gave the thing concrete shape and force in David's mind, broke through his self-complacency, and humbled him in true repentance.

It is worthy of note that Old Testament prophets exercised their ministry in the most personal manner. They not only set forth God's mind for Israel, but dealt with the people as to their practical condition in a most searching and faithful way. Nor did the New Testament apostles and prophets do otherwise. The Epistles bear witness to this. In each case the unfolding of truth is followed by instructions and exhortations, which apply the truth in the hearts, and to the lives, of the saints. Should not our ministry be formed after this model? We think so. Has it always been? We fear that all too frequently, it has not.

Lastly, the hearers. They must bear some share of the blame, for the parable of the sower applies as much to the saint as to the sinner. Were the ministers beyond reproach, and their ministry all that it should be, we fear there would still be but little result with many. Some there are who seem to be possessed of shallow minds and affections, incapable of much exercise: others there are, so immersed in the cares or riches of this life, or the lusts of other things, that the word does not become fruitful in them.

There have always been these unfruitful hearers of the word, even when presented not only in doctrine but also in practice, and it is not surprising that in the present day they are more common than ever. In this twentieth century life has become amazingly complex and exacting, and "the things that are in the world," have multiplied greatly both in number and in attractiveness. "The things that are seen," are so many and so enticing, that "the things that are not seen," easily fade in our minds and fall into a back place, though we are Christians.

With some of us too there is this added danger, that we have been brought up from our spiritual infancy under much sound doctrinal instruction, and find ourselves linked up with others, whose position is scriptural. As a result of this we may easily fall into the mistake made by the Jews of old, and assume that nothing more than a correct outward position is needed.

If we fall into this snare, we may be inwardly counting on our ancestry and position, just as the Jews in our Lord's time boasted of being children of Abraham. Nothing more effectually deadens the conscience and exercise, and that practical answer to the truth, which produces fruitfulness, than this.

May God look upon us all in His mercy, and revive His work; first in us and then through us. And to Him shall be the glory.

What is Righteousness?

What is Righteousness?

It is a thing very difficult to define if before us as an abstract quality. Take it up, however, in a concrete shape, and an answer is easier. A righteous man is one who is RIGHT in all his relations with God, and consequently with his fellow-men also. It may be asked, “What about the expression “the righteousness of God’” found in the epistle to the Romans? It stands in sharpest contrast to man’s sin. It would seem indeed that if sin had not invaded creation God’s righteousness would hardly have been drawn out into display, it would have remained latent in Himself. Holiness on God’s part is absolute. It is His nature; what He is irrespective of all creation outside Himself. Righteousness on His part is relative; it is the quality stamped on all His activities, what He is in every dealing and relation with others. Sin is the infringement of rights, His own rights. Righteousness is the maintenance of rights, His own and all others.

F.B. Hole

S.T. 1919

Root, as well as Shoot

Root, as well as Shoot.

"And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall be fruitful.... And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse." (Isa. 11: 1, 10. N. Trans.)

F. B. Hole.

The raising up of David to be King marked a distinct epoch in God's dealings with Israel. It was an extraordinary manifestation of His grace when everything had been forfeited and lost through national apostasy. Let Psalm 78: 56-72 be read attentively and this will become very plain. The divine action is likened to a giant waking from sleep and mightily roused. The ark had been carried captive by the Philistines but, "He chose David also, His servant," and through him He rolled back the tide of disaster, and there was safety, food, and guidance for His people. Now that intervention of about three thousand years ago is typical of the far greater intervention of God, through Christ, which is yet to come.

David was of course a "rod" or "shoot" out of the stem of Jesse, the last and least of the eight shoots that appeared in Jesse's lifetime. He soon however, became the pre-eminent shoot of his day and generation. He is wholly eclipsed by the Shoot of whom Isaiah prophesies.

As "the seed of David according to the flesh," our Lord Jesus is "a Shoot out of the stock of Jesse." He is the supreme "Branch out of his roots," that has been fruitful to the glory of God. He is the Man of the Divine purpose, in whom the whole will of God will be accomplished. If Isaiah 11: 2 to 9 be read there unfolds before our view the delightful picture of the earth as it shall be beneath His righteous yet beneficent sway in the coming millennial age.

It is clear that as the "Shoot" He is contemplated in His Manhood. Hence in verses, 2 and 3 He is seen in the strength of the anointing of the Spirit of the Lord; but here not so much "doing good and healing" (Acts 10: 38) for that was connected with His first advent. Here it is, "judging," "reproving," and even "smiting," and "slaying" evil and evil men, in righteousness.

As the supreme Judge, He is to be invested with the Spirit in His sevenfold character and might. The golden candlestick in the Tabernacle typified the Spirit from this point of view. There was the main shaft of the candlestick — the Spirit of the Lord. There were the three pairs of arms — (1) "the spirit of wisdom and understanding," (2) "the spirit of counsel and might," (3) "the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." It is in keeping with this that when we open the book of Revelation, which is the book of judgment, we at once encounter a similar presentation of the Spirit of God: — "the seven Spirits which are before His throne" (Rev. 1: 4). And again the Son of man, taking the judicial place in the midst of the seven churches, speaks of Himself as "He that hath the seven Spirits of God" (Rev. 3: 1); and taking His place as Judge of all the earth, He, though standing "a Lamb as it had been slain" has "seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." (Rev. 5: 6) This consideration alone — that He is the "Shoot" out of the stock of Jesse, invested with the sevenfold Spirit of God — assures us of the Divine impartiality and rightness of every act and every edict; as the result of righteousness, peace will ensue.

In Isaiah, as generally in the Old Testament, the earth as the scene of God's righteous dealings is in view. Hence the prominent thought as to the coming Messiah is this which we have just indicated, and which is so marvellously portrayed in the first nine verses of Isaiah 11.

Yet we are not permitted, even in the Old Testament, to be in ignorance of the fact that still larger purposes of God lay in the background, and that there were still richer aspects of, still profounder depths in, the wondrous Being, who should in due time appear as the Messiah. Hence verse 10 of our chapter. As the Shoot out of Jesse He is the true King of Israel. As the Root of Jesse, He is an ensign for the rallying of the peoples, even Gentiles, and His rest shall be glory.

As the Root of Jesse He is the One from whom David originated. He is not the product, but the Producer. And this He is not by reason of His Manhood, but by reason of His Deity.

It could indeed be said of Him "come of David's seed according to flesh" (Rom. 1: 3. N. Trans). But of whom was this affirmed?" concerning His Son," as the same verse states. Inasmuch as it was God's Son who thus came, He was "the Root."

We beg our readers to let this truth sink well into their minds and hearts. It cannot be stressed too strongly in view of the erroneous philosophic notions, which are revived in our day as though they were deep truth to be the glory of the select and spiritual few. It may be urged — with much philosophic reasoning to back it up — that the correct presentation of the matter is to say that a Divine Person, unnamed, and unidentifiable save by a number, became the Son in the act of coming of David's seed. The Scripture simply states that the Gospel is concerning God's "Son, come of David's seed according to flesh." We have not a moment's hesitation in making our decision. He did not become the Son in becoming flesh: the Son became David's seed in becoming flesh. Scripture is right, and the philosophic reasoning is wrong.

When we turn to the closing chapter of Revelation, we pick up the thread from Isaiah 11: 16 "I Jesus . . . am the Root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." The thought enshrined in "offspring," is so close to that of "shoot" as to be practically identical. Only notice that the order of the two thoughts is reversed. In the Old Testament "shoot" comes first. The main theme is the coming King of David's line, in whom all God's purposes for Israel and the earth will be made good. The fact that He is also the Root whence proceeded all David's power, success and glory, is mentioned but not developed.

In the New Testament we have a far wider range of vision. We are not allowed to forget that Jesus is the offspring of David, and consequently holds, even in His Manhood, all kingly rights on the earth; yet the fact that He is the Root of David becomes of surpassing importance. From Him David sprang. All that David was he owed to Him. He brought to pass David and all that David represented for Israel. He who did this can originate and bring to pass all blessing for both the heavens and the earth. Not only earth, be it noted, but heaven also.

And, so, He is the bright morning Star. We look up to the heavens to see Him. In the heavens is He set, and from the heavens we await Him, before He shines forth as Sun of Righteousness. There have been luminaries on earth. A Moses, an Elijah, a Paul, shone each in their day, as a lighthouse casts its beams into the darkness. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the bright morning star.

And the morning star is the coming King as offspring of David, the Shoot out of the stock of Jesse. He is also the Root of both David and Jesse — the Originator of their power and glory, and of all glory and blessing for heaven and for earth. So,

"Let him that heareth say, Come!"

Royal Service

Royal Service.

2 Kings 5: 1-4; John 6: 5-9.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 25, 1933, page 227.)

The normal and proper result that should flow from our meetings is that we should on our part be stirred up to serve more diligently our Lord Jesus Christ. I remember, of course, that there are two ways in particular in which we may serve Him. We may serve Him in what the Apostle Peter speaks of as our "holy priesthood" capacity. Thus there is a service, the main drift of which is upward, in responsive praise, adoration, worship; end there is the service, the main drift of which is outward, in which we show forth as royal priests, the excellences of the One who has called us out of darkness into His marvellous light (1 Peter 2).

This evening I am going to deal with the second of these two ways in which every one of us is privileged to serve the Lord, and I want to begin with the fact that everyone of us is privileged to serve Him. So I have chosen a Scripture in the Old Testament that shows the way in which a little maid served the interests of her God, as also a Scripture in the New Testament which shows how a small boy did likewise.

The little maid, and a small boy. Speaking generally, little maids are not noted for anything of a striking order. You do not expect the little maid, the little drudge of the household, to make very striking remarks. But if she is taught of God that is what she does. You do not expect much of a small boy. He is generally considered a very troublesome appendage. He makes a noise and distracts the proceedings when he should be quiet; and, as the older people would say, makes himself a regular nuisance. But again a small boy may be a vehicle of very, very good things; and if the little maid and small boy may serve the interests of God then no doubt there is hope for everyone of us.

Let me point out one or two things about the little maid, which show how very strikingly she was characterised by the essentials of true service; in other words, how excellent was her spiritual state. It is only, of course, when you sit down and think about it, that these things strike you. Here was a little maid who had been captured by a marauding band of Syrians. Poor thing — carried ruthlessly away and possibly her parents slain — separated from her loved ones, and now a little slave girl whose duty it was to wait on the wife of the man, who above all others in Syria was the cause of her troubles. The irony of it! That of all people in the world she should be the little slave girl to wait on the wife of the man who had taken her away from her home. I ask you, how would you have felt? I fear I should have been nursing very dark thoughts of revenge in my heart. I should not have loved Naaman, or Naaman's wife.

One day the news goes round the household that Naaman was smitten with the dread disease of leprosy. He had allowed the fact to leak out, and even the most menial in his household knew all about it. It touched the heart of the little maid, and one day evidently in the most artless way possible, when waiting on her mistress she said, "Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy." She had a great heart of compassion, and here she is desiring the welfare of the man who might be considered her greatest enemy. There was something of the kindness of God in her little heart. She was little but morally and spiritually she was great. She evidently had great thoughts of God, and she had entered very largely into His divine compassion. She desired blessing for the one that most she might have hated; and not only had she very great love, but she had the most amazing faith. Elisha, said she, "would recover him of his leprosy." How did she know that? Even had she lived somewhere in the vicinity of Elisha's house, she had never seen the good man do it. She had never even heard of it. The thing had never been done.

Our Lord has told us that, "Many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian." Naaman came in and seized the blessing that possibly a thousand Israelitish lepers missed. Now what possessed her to talk like this, and assert that the prophet would recover him of his leprosy. It was either madness or very great faith. I can tell you what it was — it was very great faith, and underneath that very great faith lay very great courage. She added to her faith that virtue or courage of which Peter speaks in his second Epistle. She had the courage of her faith.

Why did she not say to herself, "Well I think our God is a very great God. He is infinitely greater than those sordid gods of the heathen world. I believe our God could cleanse a leper. But would He? Well, I think He would. But I had better not say anything, because supposing I make some remark of this kind, and supposing Naaman pays attention to it, and in consequence starts to the land of Israel, and supposing he does not get it, my life would not be worth ten minutes purchase"? No, she rather said with sublime assurance, without the flicker of an eyelid, without a tremor of doubt: "He would recover him of his leprosy." AND SO HE DID! God took the little maid at her word. He accepted her bold witness.

What great faith! Behind the curtains in the quietness of her life, whether before her captivity or afterwards I do not know, she must have had transactions in her spirit with the God that Elisha knew and served. And she had such sublime confidence in the compassion of God! She boldly spoke as she did not on a public platform but in the quiet of the women's quarters, in the presence of her mistress; and by these few words she set in motion the whole sequence of events which was for Naaman's blessing and to the glory of God.

The little maid ought to teach you and me this lesson, that which counts in the service of God is that we know the God whom we serve, and we have faith in Him, and courage to confess our faith, and that our hearts are overflowing with love and compassion for those whom we seek to serve. I verily believe that the secrets behind the words of the little maid are those which lie behind successful service. He serves best and most effectively in this world who has faith in the greatness and glory and grace of our God) courage with his faith and a heart of compassion that leads him to speak as the little maid spoke.

Then we turn from the little maid to the small boy. Here was the Lord Jesus Himself, multitudes thronging around Him. The incident is well-known for it is recorded in all four Gospels. The Lord distributed the loaves and fishes through His disciples, for normally He carries on His operations through His people, but only in John's Gospel do we read about the small boy. How was the multitude to be fed? "Whence shall we buy food for this great multitude?" He said it to prove His disciples, because it significantly adds, "for He Himself knew what He would do." The initiative ever lies with Him. He knows, but He delights to take up and to use His people, and He would even use a small boy. Andrew said, "There is a lad [small boy] here, which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes." From the human standpoint that sounds a very ridiculous proposition. Yet the little boy brought these to the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I would like all of you to remember this, especially those who are young in the faith, that the Lord is not looking for great people to serve Him. He is great enough Himself. The greatness, that is required, is found in Him. He is so great that He can afford to take up and use what is very small. Our Lord Jesus Christ is supremely great. He carries on His service with very small instruments. He can afford to do so. As one looks over the history of things we see again and again the most disastrous things happening — things turning in the wrong direction. Again and again evil raises its head, threatens to engulf everything. Again and again just those people, whom you and I would have marked as being the key men, are removed from the battlefield.

It so happened at the very beginning of the world's history. If we had to choose which of the patriarchs before the flood should live a long life of witness, we should have said, "Enoch of course, Enoch is the man. He is the man who walks with God; he is the man who bears unswerving witness." We should have been wrong. Enoch was taken in early life. Look at Methuselah — 969. Enoch has 365 years and he is gone. The very man we want is gone! Have you found that happen? You have seen it again and again.

Ever since sin entered it has looked as though our Lord is fighting a losing battle. His greatest servants go when most needed, yet He will bring victory out of what looks like defeat. We have an immensely great Lord, One who is big enough to bring about glory all along the line. Consequently He can do with very small servants.

You should not be precluded from serving the Lord because young and likely to make mistakes. Do not be like the boy who would not come into the water until he had learnt to swim! You remember that Solomon said, "Where no oxen are the crib is clean." Here is Solomon's recipe for a clean stable — keep nothing in it! Those who keep no oxen, however, lose their useful labour. Let us not do nothing, for fear we will make mistakes. Go ahead in dependence upon God.

It says, "Jesus took the loaves." If Andrew had tried to take them or if impetuous Peter had grabbed the little boy's bag, there would have been a commotion! No one could say the Saviour nay. The little lad was brought near — "There is a lad here." He was on the spot when wanted; he was ready. Would to God that we were like this little boy. What a lovely thing to be as he was, on the scene when wanted and able to see and hear the Lord Jesus. "A living dog is better than a dead lion." A small boy who is here with his loaves and fishes is better than a whole convoy of provisions ten miles away.

The boy was small, the loaves were only of barley and not wheat, the fishes were small, yet when the Lord Jesus said, "Let me have your loaves," how quickly he handed them over; and in His sacred hands the loaves and fishes were multiplied, and the great crowds were fed, and more was recovered than they had at first. They started with five loaves and two fishes and they ended with twelve baskets full of fragments. Remember the normal way of the Lord Jesus is to work through His people, especially now that He is seated in His glorious seat in Heaven. He is God's right-hand Man; He knows all, and all the planning lies with Him, but He works through His people.

God help us so that we may not miss the opportunity. You and I have got opportunities now that we shall never have in Heaven. We are not going to speak a word to a weary soul in Heaven: there are no weary souls to speak to. There will be no opposition in Heaven: there is no one to oppose. If we miss these present opportunities of serving the Lord Jesus Christ, if we don't yield ourselves to Him, that our members may be His servants in righteousness and holiness, we shall miss them for ever. Don't let us miss the opportunity.

We shall praise Him soundly above, but we shall never be able to serve Him as we are given the opportunity of serving here, in the place where He was rejected, and in the day when the great masses forget Him and turn their backs upon Him.

God give us greater affection for the souls of men and for the God whom we serve. God give us grace in our day to be humble and simple, not waiting for the opportunity to be great or to do something great, but being little and doing the little things brought to our hands in devoted service to our Master. In due season, if we are faithful, He will find greater things for us to do.

Safeguards for the Soul

Safeguards for the Soul.

F. B. Hole.

The great majority of us are simple. A large proportion, converted within recent years, cannot in the nature of things be anything else; whilst there are many more who, though believers for long, have not made much headway in the Christian life, and in the matter of spiritual growth remain but babes.

In the second chapter of his first epistle the Apostle John divides up the family of God into three classes, which he names respectively "fathers," "young men" and "little children" or "babes," indicating in this way three stages of growth; and from 1 John 2: 14 to 28 of that chapter we get his special messages to each of the three classes.

To the fathers he speaks in the first part of the 14th verse; to the young men from the middle of the 14th down to the end of the 17th verse; to the babes from verse 18 to 28. It is quite likely that the space devoted to each class is directly proportioned to the numerical importance of each, then, as well as now.

Many dangers beset the path of the "babe" or simple Christian, but of them all the worst is that connected with false or anti-Christian teaching. A moment's reflection will show why this is so. Such teaching has nearly always an inoffensive appearance, it is merely a question of imbibing certain ideas, there is nothing about it repulsive or immoral, yet its effect is to subvert the soul and place it practically under the domination of Satan, the god of this world.

The breakdown of a young Christian — let us say in a matter of morality, serious as that would be — is to a breakdown of this character only comparable to the difference between a "battle-cruiser" being struck by a shell, and its being captured entire by the enemy without a scratch upon its paint! The merest tyro in naval matters knows well which of the two events is the greater disaster.

At the present moment the activity of Satan in the matter of anti-Christian doctrines is very great. The various propagandists work with feverish energy which puts us Christians to shame. They thrust their literature beneath your door or into your letter-box. They hawk their books from door to door extolling their virtues and securing many a purchase from the unwary. They worm their way into houses, if by any means they may capture souls for their cause.

Their name is really becoming Legion. At first sight it may seem strange that there should be so much disagreement amongst different portions of the great army of the evil one, since in so many cases their conflicting doctrines are mutually destructive. Yet after all the differences are of a surface nature. The devil is like a fisherman who throws out a long line covered with many different kinds of bait, so as to entice as many different kinds of fish as possible. Take notice, however, that beneath each morsel, whether to you tempting or the reverse, there is an identical hook.

The Satanic origin of these many and conflicting evil systems is clearly seen in the fact that, one and all, they agree in overturning the grand foundations of Christianity — such as the Deity of Christ; the reality of His expiatory and vicarious sacrifice; the true nature of sin and its gravity, involving eternal punishment.

It is no small task to take up these systems in detail and expose their evil so that the simple may be saved. Such a work would demand a number of separate pamphlets each of respectable size, and this paper does not attempt it. Moreover, this work has already been done by others with considerable effect.

We do aspire, however, to point out certain great safeguards, suitable for defence against all such evils, and available for the feeblest and most unlettered believer. They are all indicated in the epistle to which we referred at the outset; only to 1 John 2: 18 to 28 we must add 1 John 4: 1-6.

Of these, the first is the fact that even the babe in the divine family has received

AN UNCTION FROM THE HOLY ONE.

The effect of this is that he knows "all things" (v. 20), or as verse 21 puts it, he knows "the truth . . . and that no lie is of the truth."

The "unction" or "anointing" is of course an allusion to the Holy Spirit of God, who indwells all who believe the gospel of their salvation (see Eph. 1: 13); but we shall understand these statements better if we see that the Apostle John is not here considering Him exactly as a distinct Person indwelling us, but rather as the source of a new life which produces in us new faculties and new powers.

"What!" exclaims some horny-handed son of toil, hardly able to read his own name, "I know all things!"

"Yes," we should reply, "in this sense you do, if you are a Christian." The very word "know" used here has in the original language the force of "be conscious of," "know intuitively" rather than "be acquainted with" or "know in detail."

The human infant opens its blue eyes and surveys things, from its mother's smiling face to a twinkling star, with a consciousness which no puppy or kitten could ever possess. All its knowledge is truly embryonic as yet, still the human spirit with its faculties and powers is there.

O babe in Christ, just born of God into His family, this Unction you possess! The faculties formed by the Spirit of life are yours.

Are you aware of this? Do you realize that the little you now know practically of God, together with the much which we trust you may yet know, is only yours because you have the Unction? To acquire all human learning from the kindergarten to the Rectorship of a great University only human reason together with the possession of ordinary faculties is needed. To touch the veriest fringe of Divine things you must have a faculty which the one not born of God does not possess — the anointing of the Spirit of God.

From this let us learn two important practical lessons.

1. Never trust your own reason in the things of God. As a Child of God you can place much more reliance in your spiritual conscience or intuitive perception, though even that is not given to us as a guide.

2. Never trust anybody else's reason. Never be in the least disturbed by the sayings or writings of the most learned men if not believers. Their human learning may be colossal, their real knowledge of divine things, if they are not converted, is absolutely nil.

In verse 27 we again have the Unction referred to, and in a way which is more suggestive of the Spirit of God as a Person. It is said to teach us of all things and to be truth. It is evident therefore that we not only have by the Spirit of God the new faculties capable of knowing the things of God, but we have in Him a thoroughly efficient Teacher.

There is no thought in this verse of belittling the importance of human teachers, gifts raised up by Christ for the blessing of His people (see Eph. 4: 11). The point is that after all they are not the essential thing. Apart from the action of the Spirit the best of teachers does not really teach anything, and on the other hand many a humble saint in isolation has been very deeply taught of God.

If then we simple Christians utilize our first safeguard we shall be delivered from dependence upon all human reason, our own or other people's, and cast for instruction essentially upon the Spirit of God.

A very good beginning!

In the second place, we are safeguarded by that which we have heard from the beginning abiding in us according to verse 27. That is to say,

DIVINE PRINCIPLES OF TRUTH NEVER VARY.

They are always the same, equally valid under all circumstances, so that what we really learn of God when we receive the simplest elements of the gospel, we never have to unlearn; and nothing that we have to learn in our subsequent Christian career ever denies or is inconsistent with the simple truth with which we started.

Let us not pass this over lightly, for it is more important as a safeguard than may be at once perceived.

For instance, when in very early childhood we gazed at alphabet picture books, and placed our fingers upon big A's and little a's, we did not think that we were tracing the foundation on which is reared the superstructure of both language and literature; but so it was. When a little later we struggled with the rules of addition, subtraction and division, and almost wept over the multiplication tables, we little realized the vast scope of mathematical science, but of this we may be sure, that the genius who in later life finds himself a foremost authority, such as an Astronomer Royal, has never had to learn one fact in mathematics at variance with the four simple rules of arithmetic with which he started.

Nor have any of us, though far from being great students of arithmetic. If a plausible individual approached you offering for your adoption a new and up-to-date method of book-keeping, but on a cursory examination you found it assumed that twice twopence are fivepence, what would you do? Promptly reject it? Of course you would!

Even so is it in the things of God. "Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning." The gospel of God which brings salvation presents a divine Saviour who died for our sins, was buried and rose again (1 Cor. 15: 1-10), and upon that, which, if saved, you have indeed heard from the beginning, everything rests. God's Spirit will never teach you anything that is inconsistent with that.

Therefore if any plausible individual presses upon you, by literature or by word of mouth, any teachings which undermine or are inconsistent with these great foundation truths on which you have rested your soul, he is a deceiver. Fall back upon your safeguard and, without the least hesitation, reject his teachings.

Consistently with this we find in the early verses of chapter 4 that the truth of Christ's Person, the confession of His true Deity and real humanity is made the touchstone of everything. If that be not owned the spirit can at once be set down as "not of God."

In the same chapter, verses 5 and 6, we find the third test which will safeguard us. The test of

APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY.

Nothing could be sharper than the contrast between the anti-Christian teachers and the apostles. "They are of the world." "We are of God." Their teachings were of the world, appealing to worldly principles and sentiments, and the world listens to them. The apostolic teachings were of God.

Further he says, "He that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error." That is to say, a person's own secret attitude towards God was revealed by his attitude towards the apostles and their testimony, since they were the duly authorized witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If any are tempted to think that this particular test has become obsolete as the apostles have long since disappeared, let them remember that in a very practical sense we have them today in their writings. The whole of the New Testament has come to us through the pens of the apostles and a few of their associates. The principle enunciated above therefore stands good in this twentieth century with this slight modification: A person's own secret attitude towards God is revealed by his attitude towards the apostolic writings, the New Testament scriptures.

The third test then resolves itself into this: Does this would-be teacher bow absolutely to the authority of the New Testament scriptures, or does he reject them in whole or in part; or does he while professing to accept and found his teaching upon them, yet handle them deceitfully, twisting them when inconvenient for his theories rather than reverentially allowing them to speak for themselves? And, further, are his teachings "of the world," according to worldly principles and maxims, confirming people who imbibe them in the world rather than delivering them out of it? If so, no hesitation need be felt. He himself and his teachings are not of God.

"If that be true, sir," says a young and inexperienced Christian, to one of these, "how do you explain this verse in the Bible?" And he quotes a text from one of the epistles.

"Oh!" is the jaunty reply, "that is merely what Paul says. He was of course a wonderful man, but then don't forget he lived in the first century, and we live in the twentieth. It is no good setting his rather obscure words against our modern light and knowledge."

Do you need anything further to tell you whether or no you should lend an ear to that speaker? You do not. You may safely label him "NOT OF GOD"; and then leave him severely alone.

This use, however, of God's Word through the apostles is, if we may so call it, a negative one. God's Word, by its very existence, compels the would-be teacher to declare himself as either absolutely subject to it, or as against it. More valuable still is its positive use to the believer. No safeguard can exceed in importance that of having the mind and heart well saturated with God's thoughts as set forth in Scripture.

In proportion as we become acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, and the truth they contain, so also do we become proof against the wiles of anti-Christian teachings. These systems of error gain their successes as the direct fruit of ignorance of Scripture on the part of professing Christians.

Let us all therefore more earnestly read and study its pages in true dependence upon the teaching of the "Anointing" of the Spirit of God.

In order that we may see how amply we are safeguarded from the evil by God's gracious provision, we will close by a summary, recapitulating the points outlined above.

1. We have in the Unction a new source of spiritual understanding with its new faculties and powers.

2. We have in the same Unction, or Anointing, a Teacher of truth, who is Himself the Truth; the Holy Spirit of God.

3. The gospel which we have believed from the beginning has already given us the grand outline of truth, or to use another figure, is like a seed containing within itself the germs of all that is to be presently developed. Nothing that we subsequently have to learn demands that we unlearn the gospel either as a whole or in part: no item of the most advanced truth but is perfectly in harmony with the most elementary.

4. Absolute loyalty to the New Testament scriptures marks the true teacher in contrast to the non-recognition, or only partial recognition of the apostolic authority on the part of the false.

5. Divine teachings bear their character upon them. They are divine and heavenly and emphatically not of the world. False teachings are always of the world with the world for their end.

God has thus provided us with what we may call the "Holy Spirit" safeguard (1, 2); the "Gospel" safeguard (3); the "Holy Scriptures" safeguard (4); and the "World-test" safeguard (5)

Happy shall we be if we carefully and prayerfully use them. Thus shall we be preserved.

The Secret of the Dispensation

The Secret of the Dispensation.

F. B. Hole

The word dispensation occurs twice in our authorized version of the epistle to the Ephesians, — viz., Eph. 1: 10 and Eph. 3: 2. In both cases the Greek word so translated is one which means the law or arrangement of a house. Being closely allied with the word for steward it is sometimes translated stewardship. Speaking in general terms we may say that a dispensation is that regime or ordering of affairs which God is pleased to institute at any given time.

Ephesians 1: 10 looks on to the glorious regime to be established in the coming age, which will have as its crowning characteristic the gathering together in one and heading up of all things in heaven and earth in Christ. In connection with this there has been a secret, "the mystery of His will," as verse 9 shows; though the secret is now an open one to "us," i.e. His saints of this dispensation. This coming age is the theme of many a glowing Old Testament Scripture which must have warmed the heart of saints living in pre-Christian times, and which still fire and animate our hearts today; still it will be found that such Scriptures view the age as being that of Messiah's glory, with Israel gathered under Him as the head of the nations, and the Gentiles ordered and blessed subordinately to Israel. Only in very rare instances — as Hosea 2: 21 — is the heavenly sphere alluded to. God's will as to it however embraced more than earthly things. He purposed in Himself according to His good pleasure a wider and more wonderful unity of glory. Not only all things on earth — including Israel and the nations, but all things in heaven, — including the church and angelic hosts, are to find their unifying Head in Christ. No Old Testament saints would have divined that secret, though it is fully made known to us.

That dispensation is future, but in Eph. 3: 2, we have a present dispensation, and one far more limited in its scope though far more intimate as to its character. The apostle speaks of it as "given to me to you-ward" — that is, he was the steward of it as far as the Gentiles, such as the Ephesians, were concerned. This being so, and bearing in mind how utterly lost and hopeless the Gentiles had been, as stated in Eph. 2: 12, it is easy to see that it is indeed a dispensation of the grace of God; the coming age will be rather the dispensation of His glory.

This dispensation, too, has a "mystery" or "secret" connected with it — a secret, that is, from the standpoint of all who lived previous to the death and resurrection of Christ, the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, and the subsequent passing of the period of transition and the revelation of God's first thought in connection with the church. At the time of writing the Ephesian epistle the secret had been divulged by the Spirit to apostles and prophets (verse 5), though it was revealed independently to Paul (verse 3), and he alone was the steward of it as regards the Gentile saints (verse 2).

What is this special secret of the dispensation now revealed to us? Only three passages furnish us with its details, though others allude to it. The three are Ephesians 2: 9-22; Eph. 3: 6; and Colossians 1: 27. That the first of these three Scriptures is an unfolding of the mystery is proved by Eph. 3: 3-4 where the apostle appeals to that written previously as showing his knowledge of the subject. It is worthy of note, by the way, that he calls this passage previously written "a few words" though it is the longest and fullest passage of the three. This shows us that it is a condensed summary of the matter, and we may expect to find in it great fulness and depth.

The secret of the dispensation has then to do with God's work among the Gentiles by which an election from amongst them is brought, equally with an election from amongst Israel, into the fulness of blessing in Christ. Both come in on equal and identical terms, and not only so but also upon a footing and into relationships which are altogether new.

These things being of the very essence of the matter we first point out how they are stated in this Scripture.

(1). Both Jew and Gentile are made one, "the middle wall of partition" and "enmity" being abolished "in His flesh" i.e. by the death of Christ (verses 9 and 15). Both are reconciled "in one body" (verse 16). Both have access to the Father by one Spirit (verse 18). This warrants us in saying that both come in on equal and identical terms.

(2). They do not, however, come in upon the old footing as propounded in the law given to Israel. It is not that Gentiles are now to be admitted to share in Israel's standing before God. The blood of Christ has made them nigh in Christ Jesus (verse 13). His death is indeed the efficacious ground of it, but thus He has created "in Himself of twain one new man" (verse 15). The word used here is really "to create" though translated "to make." Both are brought to God in one body, but it is as reconciled by the cross (verse 16), both have access to the Father but it is by one Spirit (verse 18) and not by ordinances as of old. It is evident then that both are brought in on a new footing. The old fleshly Adam standing in which both shared is set aside, the national standing as the people of Jehovah which belonged exclusively to the Jew is also set aside, and the election front both comes in "reconciled by the cross," "one new man," "in Christ Jesus."

(3). The relationships into which they come are far beyond any in which Adam stood even in innocence, and equally beyond Israel's national relationship with Jehovah. They are not one nation but one body (verse 16), approaching the Father (verse 18), rather than Jehovah. Further, such are "of the household of God;" built into that which is destined to be "an holy temple in the Lord," and "builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" as a present thing (verses 19-22).

This then is the secret of the present dispensation stated in few words. Ephesians 3: 6, gives us the same in fewer words; and Colossians 1: 27, presents the same great theme in even fewer still, but from a different standpoint, when it says that "the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles," is "Christ in [or among] you [i.e. Gentiles] the hope of glory." The prophets had predicted that the Messiah should be amongst His people on the basis of redemption, and that earthly glory should be established in connection with it; but that Christ should be in, or amongst, an election from the Gentile world was an unheard of and amazing thing, awakening the liveliest expectation of His ultimately shining forth in a glory of yet wider dimensions.

Other Scriptures there are, which though not exactly or directly referring to the "mystery" or "secret," yet throw additional light upon it. The whole of 2 Corinthians 3, for example, casts light on Colossians 1: 27.

These other passages we must however pass by, our present object being to reach the practical bearing of all this truth upon the lives of the saints who compose the church.

The whole of Ephesians 3, save verse 1, is in the nature of a digression. About to write instructions as to their behaviour the apostle evidently felt it needful to enforce them by a statement of his peculiar authority in regard to such as themselves. He had not merely knowledge of the mystery by direct first-hand revelation from the Lord, but authority, since the dispensation or "house-arrangements" in respect to all mentioned in the latter part of chapter 2 was, as far as Gentiles are concerned, given to him (verse 2). Of it he was made a ministering servant (verse 7), his work as such being to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all see what the "fellowship" (or "administration" — Darby's New Translation) of the mystery is. He not merely enunciated the newly revealed truth in its terms but saw to it that in practical fellowship or administration the truth was exemplified among and carried out by the saints, so that whether nationally Jews or Gentiles they were together, altogether above and apart from the racial and religious animosities which characterized them by nature, in the happy recognition and consciousness of the new footing established in Christ, and the new relationship with the Father, with Christ, and with one another, in the power of the Spirit of God. There was then a practical expression upon earth, of that which is the real secret, the great characteristic thought of the present dispensation, and thereby to heavenly powers, the manifold wisdom of God was displayed. The unity thus established in the church between Jew and Gentile still abides before the eyes of the heavenly powers and still shows forth God's wisdom, for there has been no splitting of the church into a Jewish section or a Gentile section. Cleavages there have been, alas! — almost without number — setting forth all too clearly before heavenly eyes the folly of man, but none of them have been along the lines of that original great fissure removed so wonderfully by the wisdom of God. We are speaking, remember, of the administration of the mystery and not of the vital oneness of the body.

Then, is recorded, verses 14 to the end, that wonderful prayer of the Apostle, in which he asks for a mighty work of the Spirit in the inner man of these Gentile saints that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith, and that with all saints they might enter into the fulness of these things. A mighty work within was indeed needful if these erstwhile worshippers of Diana were to be lifted in their own soul's knowledge and enjoyment to the level of these serene and holy things while still they lived in Ephesus and trod its streets. No less a work is needed within ourselves.

Ephesians 4: 1 picks up the thread from Ephesians 3: 1 and the apostle commences his practical instructions in the tenderest tone, yet with all the weight and authority of chapter 3 behind him. The great business of these Ephesian saints and of ourselves is to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called. A superhuman task indeed! which is only possible as the apostle's prayer is fulfilled in us.

The central point of endeavour is to be the keeping of "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." The "unity of the Spirit" was and is an actual subsisting fact. We did not make it, nor can we break it, but in the actual wear and tear of daily life and walk, we may keep it or we may let it go. The exhortation is that we keep it in the uniting bond of peace. Verse 3 is then the main exhortation of the passage, verses 4 to 6 enforce the exhortation by reminding us how unity is the outstanding feature of Christian life and profession in all its departments. Verse 2 gives us the all-important moral features absolutely necessary, if the main exhortation is to be carried out in practice.

A brief consideration of how all this must have appealed to the Ephesian saints may help us. The assembly in that great city was predominantly Gentile (Eph. 2: 2; Eph. 4: 17), though with a Jewish strain in it (Acts 19: 1-7; Acts 20: 21), hence there was ample scope for friction and trouble. Yet peace between them had been established in Christ (Eph. 2: 9-15) and the uniting effect of that bond was to be felt in their endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit — so called because the one Spirit is the vital and animating principle of the one body into which they had been called.

The keeping of the unity calls into exercise four great moral characteristics: —

1. Lowliness. That mind which is the exact opposite of the mind of Adam. He would exalt himself; the lowly mind goes down as Philippians 2 shows. This is most essential, and particularly important for the Gentile in his dealings with the Jewish saint. The remembrance, to which the apostle called them in Philippians 2: 11, 12, was calculated to produce it.

2. Meekness. The opposite of the pushful self-assertive spirit. Again very important for the Gentile since there was the divine order even in connection with the gospel, of "to the Jew first and also to the Greek."

3. Longsuffering. The patient and long-continued acceptance of personal discomforts or even wrongs, a thing only possible to one of a lowly and meek spirit.

4. Forbearing in love. Intimately connected with the third, and its complement — the love that bears with that which might offend in others, instead of seeking redress by violent methods.

All these things would be much called for on the part of the Gentile in his dealings with the Jew. By legal training and the hereditary instinct of centuries the latter carried within himself the tendency to take the narrow, self-centred, legal view of things; the matters mentioned in Acts 15 and in Romans 14 show this. Nothing but long-suffering coupled with the love that heareth all things would enable them to abide together in peace.

That the Jew would equally need these things in his relations with his Gentile brethren goes without saying. Indeed, experience shows that the disposition to push things to extremes and let go the unity of the Spirit is more deeply ingrained in the narrow Jewish type of mind than in the broad Gentile type. These four excellent features were indispensable on both sides.

They are not less indispensable for us today but more so, if it were possible. At the present moment difficulties and points of cleavage as between Jew and Gentile do not exist, yet with the lapse of centuries the very fact that the church is a unity established by God is largely lost sight of, whilst the essential character of that unity as set forth in chapter 2: 9-18 is recognized in even less degree. Never did we need in deeper measure the apostolic affirmation that "there is one body and one Spirit" and the exhortation "to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Some of our readers who have for long been "gathered on the ground of the one body" may regard such remarks as superfluous as far as they are concerned, but we are persuaded that they are not so. The tendency to overlook the fact of one body and one Spirit reaches our minds in many subtle forms.

Take a case in point: — Certain believers, and therefore members of Christ's body, become awakened by the Spirit of God through the Scriptures to those parts of the circle of truth that concerns the church, its position, privileges, and destiny, together with its responsibilities as the witness on earth for Christ during the period of His rejection and absence; and in order to practise what they have learned they withdraw from many religious organizations of purely human origin, and revert to the simplicity of that divinely instituted through the apostles. All this is done in simple fidelity to the Word of God without thinking of themselves at all, but as the years pass and the energy of faith somewhat declines, self-occupation re-appears, and the question of what position they themselves now hold as a result of so acting is raised in many minds. Nothing now will be easier than to assume that by their forsaking a man-made position and occupying the ground of the church according to the Scriptures they have thereby acquired a renewed corporate status, which is all their own and in which other Christians do not share.

The subtlety of this idea may be seen in the fact that it is very possible to entertain it whilst strongly insisting on the truth of "one body." This latter may be proclaimed and contended for, and yet people may so idealise it in their minds as to see nothing inconsistent with it in the idea of another "body" — especially when this other "body" lies within the true "one body" which the Spirit originally formed.

Thus very easily we may take for granted in our minds what has no existence in God's mind as revealed to us in His Word. After all there is one body and one only. It therefore should go without saying that we should have nothing corporate outside the one corpus, and even the fact that certain members of the one corpus revert to the truth of that one corpus, after centuries of diversion from it, does not reincorporate them as a small inner corpus within the one corpus. ONE body God has made, and never more than one will He entertain whatever we may do.

We pursue this no further, but merely remark two things: First; we have not been combating a mere notion, an abstract idea of no practical consequence. This thought, if entertained, leads to consequences in conduct, and especially what we may call assembly conduct, of great gravity. Second; we emphasise the fact that we have been speaking of that which is corporate and not that which is collective. God does indeed entertain the idea of a collective life and testimony and that in days of failure and ruin, and He clearly sets it before us in such a Scripture as 2 Timothy 2: 22. The gist of the foregoing remarks is that when those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart, are most ardently following righteousness, faith, love, and peace, they acquire no special corporate status by doing so. They have a corporate status truly, but it is that of members of the "one body" originally instituted by God. Having thus briefly considered our present day need of the Apostle's affirmation "there is one body and one Spirit" it only remains to point out the exhortation which the Apostle founded upon it. In religious circles unity is all the rage, yet the "unity of the Spirit" is unthought of, and to come closer home — how shall we keep the unity of the Spirit if we have in our minds this second lesser unity of which we have spoken? To say the least there will be some occasion when the claims of the two unities will clash, with the almost certain result that we yield to the claims of the smaller, yet more tangible, "body" of our own creating, as against the claims of the larger and less realisable "body" of God's creating.

And then the spirit and manner in which the unity is to be kept! Here is the mind of Christ, and it is to be exhibited in the members of His body. These are not things to be passed on in a hurry so as to meet some disuniting crisis, but things to be wrought into the fibre of our souls by the Holy Ghost. We need them always. They are as necessary in carrying out a solemn Scripturally ordained act of excommunication, or of departure from the iniquity of a Hymenaeus or Philetus, as in confirming Christian love to a once sinning but now repentant saint.

LOWLINESS, MEEKNESS, LONGSUFFERING, FORBEARANCE IN LOVE. Surely a marvellous quartet of Christ-like graces! Almost, we might say, a condensed summary of 1 Corinthians 13. Possible for us only as LOVE, the divine nature, is produced in our hearts. We stand convicted. Here has been the failure. Here must be the recovery. May God work it in us by His Spirit.

Serving and Waiting

Serving and Waiting.

1 Thessalonians 1: 9, 10.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 35, 1945, page 189.)

These words were written to young Christians — first century converts — by the Apostle Paul, the greatest evangelist of all time. We, who are assembled here, are mainly young Christians — twentieth century converts — but what was true for them then is true for us today. The Apostle went back to the beginning of things, when they turned to God from idols. At the end of the verse he went on to the glorious finish, when God's Son will be revealed from heaven. But between he indicated what is intended to fill the interim for each and all of us. In the past we were converted; in the future we are to meet the Son of God from heaven; between we are to serve the living and true God and wait with expectancy. There is the serving and there is the waiting; and if we close our meetings on this note it may be profitable for us.

"Ye turned to God from idols," this is what really constitutes conversion. Again, you see, first the positive, then the negative. If we turn to God, we must of necessity turn from the idols that once charmed and enslaved us. Why did these people turn to God? Some of them undoubtedly were Jews, whose forefathers had been frightened and turned away from Him at Sinai. They turned to Him because He had been made known to them in Jesus Christ our Lord, rather than in the earthquake and thunders of Sinai. We have turned to him for just the same reason.

We know that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself," and all was so perfect that Jesus Himself could say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." God has become delightful in our eyes — everything that is beautiful. Some people mistakenly think that Jesus is the embodiment of all that is gracious and kind, but that God is so awesome that they cannot think of Him with any peace of mind. The truth is, in seeing Jesus we are seeing God manifested. We see His heart — His love and His holiness.

In turning to God, we turn from idols. These Thessalonians turned from the idols of the heathen world with all its unclean practices and evils. How do we turn from idols? Well, what is an idol? It is anything that usurps in the heart of man the supreme place that belongs alone to the Creator. Idolize nothing, for God alone must be sanctified in your heart and mine. The danger with us is that we may grow cold, and then things that we idolized before our conversion begin to reassert their power over us. Many of us have seen with sorrow a young believer, who made so bright a start a few years before, grow cold; love for the Saviour wanes and the old idols reassert themselves with enslaving power. Let us see to it that conversion is a reality with us, and that the things that once inspired our devotion — not necessarily evil things  - have no place in our hearts and minds.

Our journey terminates at the coming of God's Son from heaven. He is our Deliverer from the wrath, that will be ushered in when He is revealed. Wrath is coming. Many would say, "You don't believe in that, do you?" I should have to reply that looking on the earth as it is today, I could believe in nothing else. Such shocking evils fill the earth that sinful men are moved to wrath and punishment against them. I could understand any right-minded man, who knows nothing of Scripture, saying, "If there is not a Power in the universe to intervene and break the evil, there ought to be!" We know there is a God of everlasting righteousness and truth, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the appointed Executor of the wrath of God, and at the same time the Deliverer of His people. Knowing the blessedness of conversion to God from idols, you have the assurance that Jesus is your Deliverer from the wrath to come.

But my point more particularly is that which is to fill up the interim. Our life is to be one of serving and waiting. The serving of something or somebody characterizes everybody. The men of the world mainly serve their own lusts and passions, and in so doing they are really serving the great adversary himself. We are called to serve the living and true God, and there are ways in great variety in which we may do so. If we are devoted to God, and His will is supreme with us, we shall be led by Him into the service that he pleases, while we tread our way to glory. The world and its lust pass away, and it is he that does the will of God who abides forever. We serve the living God, who notes every item of service rendered to Him, and will ultimately reward it.

Then, we wait for the advent of the Deliverer. For thousands of years men have been scheming to produce an ideal state of things in the world; and they are scheming still. They never have reached it, and they never will. We know that, and so we do not join in the scheming, and the contention and strife that it brings. Instead of that we wait for the coming of the Lord Jesus. He only has the power that can subdue the devil himself, the originator of sin in God's fair creation. He did it in one way at His first advent by His death and resurrection; He will do it in another way at His second advent, when He will bind the devil and deliver the groaning earth. He will deliver His church by removing it to heaven.

Some of you may be thinking that this talk about the Advent sprang to life during the first great war, that it resulted in "Advent Testimony," and other movements, but that it has not come to very much. Well, I can go back much further and remember extravagant notions of more than fifty years ago, and extravagant guesses as to the mystic number 666 in the Revelation, just as many of us remember with sorrow extravagant advertisements in the daily papers, not so many years ago, making predictions as to a near date for the Advent, all of which came to nothing. It is a sad fact that earnest Christians may become unbalanced, and forget that the pendulum of God's great clock of the universe swings with majestic slowness. God marches across the ages, and is never in a hurry.

Yet, that Christ is coming is a certain fact of revelation. The attempt to fix a date is a forbidden, and therefore a fruitless thing, but I venture to believe that His coming is drawing very near. We are asked sometimes whether we can produce any evidence from Scripture to support such a belief. So I will give very briefly three Scriptural reasons for my belief that such is the case.

Glance first at the Lord's own words in Luke 21: 27-31. His allusion to the fig tree is said to be a parable. Now parabolically the fig tree alludes to Israel. "All the trees," would indicate the many other nations surrounding that people. A revival of nationality in Israel and the peoples is a sign that the summer of His visible presence is near. We do undoubtedly see just that revival of nationality today. Racial feelings have been roused to the utmost, and the Jew is stirring as never before.

Then there is 2 Timothy 3: 1-5. The people described here are not atheists nor agnostics, for they have a form of godliness. They are folk with Christian profession, yet really lovers of their own selves, of money and of pleasures. The state of Christendom today could not be more accurately described than by these words. It is a case of, "We're all doing it." Everybody out for themselves or their class, for money and pleasure. Let us all see to it that we are not entangled, and much less engulfed by these things. But notice, this is to be in "the last days." The inference surely is that we are in the last days.

Thirdly, there is 2 Peter 3: 3, 4. Here we have the prediction that a time will come when men will scoff at the idea of a second Advent on the ground that nothing catastrophic has ever happened, or ever will, since everything proceeds by evolutionary changes so small as to be imperceptible — I am just trying to state this prediction in the language of today. They are willingly ignorant that there has been in the past the catastrophic intervention of God by means of the flood. Once admit that, and the theory of evolution, by such imperceptible stages that it can neither be proved or disproved, would collapse. The second Advent has provoked the scoffers for many a day, but only during the last half-century or so have the scoffers scoffed because of their theory of evolution. And the time when they will so scoff is stated to be "the last days." Again the inference is — we are now in the last days.

Young people, go from these meetings with serious thoughts of the coming again of the Lord Jesus, and don't fritter away the years that may remain to you. Many things point to the fact that we draw near to the moment when He will again intervene in the affairs of this earth. His coming means glory to us, but it also means the closing of the day of grace. God give us to be filled with zeal to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, who will deliver us from the wrath by calling us into His presence for ever.

Shakings - "Yet once more"

Shakings — "Yet once more"

"Yet once more I shake not the earth onlybut also heaven" (Heb. 12: 26).

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol.  41, 1962-64, page 1.)

In these words the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews gave a free rendering of a prediction first uttered by the prophet Haggai, and he quoted them to lay stress on the word, "once." Let us mark it well! "Once more;" then of course, since no further shaking will take place, it will be the final thing. It will be an act of God, and hence the next verse of the chapter explains that, "this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." We know therefore what the end will be of everything that has been undermined by sin; and we need not be surprised if there are shakings today.

When an earthquake smites some part of the earth's surface it comes as a bolt from the blue. Without the slightest warning the catastrophe falls, and people are hurled off their feet by the fearful convulsion of nature which takes place, and then for weeks and even months after there are subsequent shakings of a minor sort. The earth has had its great displacements, but there are a number of lesser jolts before it settles down into its new position. That is the way in created matter, but God's way in dealing with men seems to be the reverse.

When, for instance, God shook Egypt to its centre by the death of the firstborn, He heralded the approach of this major disturbance by the nine preceding minor disturbances, which we call, "the plagues." These were providential judgments with a tendency to increase in severity. Then lastly came the great shock, when by the angel of death God Himself came down in judgment.

So it is to be once more on a vaster scale. The book of Revelation is the forecasting of the shakings, which grow in intensity, until they reach the heavens as well as the earth, and eventuate in the glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus in judgment. But we may feel inclined to enquire, Why shake the heavens as well as this sinful earth?

The answer to that question is clearly this, that the heavens are the seat of Satan's power. He is called, "the prince of the power of the air" (Eph. 2: 2), and under him there are "principalities" and "powers," "the rulers of the darkness of this world" and "spiritual wickedness in high [or, heavenly] places" (Eph. 6: 12). The evil movements that fill the earth are largely directed from Satan's seat of power in the heavens. God is going to deal in judgment not only with the sin and the evils that fill the earth below, but also with the Satanic powers above, whence all is directed.

So in reading the book of Revelation, we see the Divine hand beginning to shake things on earth, when we reach Revelation 6; and when we reach Revelation 12, we find the heavens are shaken, and Satan dispossessed and cast down to the earth; and then this final shaking from the hand of God reaches its completion in Revelation 19.

At the present moment it is manifest that the affairs of men are in a very insecure position. Was there ever a moment in the history of the world when the spirit of self-assertion, unrest, insurrection was more powerfully displayed in every quarter of the earth? What we may call earth-tremors are becoming more and more distinct. Nations, govemments, organisations, the whole world-system, in fact, has become like a building showing ugly rents and fissures, awaiting, as we know, the final shake — "yet once more."

Now, is the Christian to be alarmed and down-hearted? Indeed he is not! He receives "a kingdom which cannot be moved," as verse 28 of our chapter states. A careful reader of the whole epistle can hardly fail to note the adjectives that frequently occur — "eternal salvation" — "two immutable things" — "an unchangeable priesthood" — "eternal redemption" — "an enduring substance" — "the everlasting covenant." In faith we have already come to a region of blessed realities, as set forth in verses 22 to 24, of this twelfth chapter. In chapter eleven faith is strongly stressed, since only! by faith are these abiding realities really embraced by us at the present time.

What then is our business, living as we do in the midst of this shaky world? It clearly is, as the close of our chapter states, to "serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." To be acceptable, our service must be in accord with His revealed mind and will for the present time. We are not sent to prop up the crumbling world-system, since God as "a consuming fire" will deal with it in its season. God's expressed purpose for this time is the taking out of the nations "a people for His name" (Acts 15: 14). And His purpose further includes, "the perfecting of the saints . . . the work of the ministry . . . the edifying of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4- 12).

May God stir us all up to serve Him acceptably with reverence and godly fear, while we still find ourselves amidst these preliminary shakings that mark this present evil age.

A Significant Injunction

A Significant Injunction.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 161.)

Of all the many injunctions that fill the pages of the Old Testament none is more significant than the last — Malachi 4: 4.

When Malachi prophesied many centuries had passed since the giving of the law at Horeb, and the nation to whom it had been given had seen many vicissitudes and disasters. This had been so much the case that there would surely have been with many the tendency to reason that legislation given when the people were in wilderness circumstances could hardly be binding in all respects when they were settled in a land of their own, or when later they were scattered in Assyria or Babylon, or even later still when a feeble remnant were permitted once more to dwell in the land of promise. In its main provisions it might stand, but hardly in all its subsidiary enactments. Thus they might have said.

Knowing this tendency, the final injunction was given. The remnant in the land were reminded that the law had been given to "all Israel," and therefore it applied to them. Moreover all the "statutes and judgments," that had supplemented the main commandments, stood in their integrity, neither repealed nor altered. Changes in human circumstances do not impose any change upon the Divine requirements.

It is not difficult to see that this must be the case. The law given through Moses dealt with the fundamental evils and disorders that mark men and their hearts and ways as the fruit of SIN. Changes in circumstances may produce a few ripples on the surface of the darkflowing river of sin, but they do not alter its destination nor enlighten its darkness. In His holy law with its statutes and judgments God had in view fundamental facts and not surface changes.

Now something very similar to this verse in Malachi meets us when we turn to the closing words of the New Testament. True, it is not a vindication of the original law of Moses, but it is a warning of a very stringent and solemn kind against in any way tampering with "the words of the prophecy of this book." Primarily the warning applies no doubt to the words of the book of Revelation, but coming as it does at the very end, we believe it applies in a secondary way to the whole of the New Testament if not of the whole Bible. We are neither to add to it nor to take away.

In the light of this we are bold to affirm that the instructions given to the saints of our dispensation — the church — stand unchanged, though many vicissitudes and disasters have marked its history as a professing body on the earth. We are not at liberty either to disregard or to alter the commandments and instructions left for us.

We have, of course, to recognize dispensational changes. The coming of Christ inaugurated a new day, since He was, "the Dayspring from on high" (Luke 1: 78), bringing light into the midst of the darkness. And further, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was the beginning of a new dispensation. In His farewell discourse in the upper chamber, recorded in John 13 — John 16, our Lord spoke of new things that the Spirit would bring to pass, and of the further revelations that would reach the disciples through Him. But what has thus been made known abides with its full authority for us today.

Our standing before God is not on a legal basis. The Scripture statement is very definite; "Ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6: 14). So the commandments that we find connected with our Christian faith are not given in order that by our obeying them we may achieve acceptance before God. Yet commandments there certainly are; and it is remarkable how much is said about them in John's Gospel, chapters 13 - 16, and in John's Epistles.

In the Gospel chapters we have the Lord's farewell discourse with His disciples around Him. He spoke of a "new commandment," which He gave them, and "My commandments," and also of "the Father's commandment," which had been given to Him and which He had kept. Their obedience was to be fashioned after the manner of His. He spoke also of His "word" and His "sayings," for He had indicated His mind and will for them in many things He had said, though not expressed in definite commandments. To those who really love Him, His will for them, no matter in what form expressed, comes with authoritative force.

In John's first Epistle we find "commandment" mentioned about a dozen times, and the last mention is a significant one —  "His commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5: 3). The Epistle has strongly emphasized the fact that the true believer is born of God, and hence has a nature which expresses itself in love and in righteousness, and therefore finds delight, and not a grievous burden, in the very things which are commanded.

Another fact is worthy of our very careful thought. When the Apostle Paul wrote his first Epistle to the saints at Corinth, instructing them as to many things that had been very disorderly in both the private lives of many of them and in their assembly gatherings, he called upon them to recognize and acknowledge that the things he had written to them were "the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14: 37). This applied no doubt to all the instructions he had given to them in the Epistle, but with special force to what he had laid down in chapter 14.

Now that chapter is specially concerned with the order to be observed by the saints in Corinth when they were gathered together as the assembly of God in that city. If they carried out the instructions given, things would be done "decently and in order," as the last verse of the chapter says. And not only so, but the church would be edified and God glorified; and this latter in such a powerful way that an unbeliever coming into their assembly would be greatly affected and constrained to confess that God was indeed amongst them.

The church, according to Ephesians 2: 29, is "an habitation of God through the Spirit," therefore in the assemblies of the saints the Holy Spirit is to be supreme, and to act as He may see fit. It is He who produces all the gifts that may enrich the church, as is stated in chapter 12, and it is He who is to control their exercise as we have laid down in chapter 14.

The tendency today, we venture to think, is just the same as it was in the days of Malachi. Many centuries have rolled since the Apostolic letters were written, many defections and disasters have supervened in the history of the church. Are these ancient instructions valid today? We have, on the one hand, reached a very advanced stage in the process of human civilisation and scientific discovery, and, on the other hand, fallen upon very broken and divided conditions in Christendom, so are we still to observe what the Apostle has laid down? May we not accommodate things to agree more with the spirit of our times?

The answer clearly is — No, we may not. It is a remarkable fact that in this same epistle Paul was inspired to give the Corinthians his judgment on certain matters as to which they had written to him, as we see in 1 Corinthians 7. In verses 6, 10, 25, 40, he differentiates between things definitely commanded by the Lord, and what he judged to be right and pleasing to the Lord, though there was no distinct command given. Having given his spiritual judgment, he says very significantly, "and I think also that I have the Spirit of God." That being so, I trust that none of us wish lightly to set aside Paul's judgment.

But when we do have definite commands the case is decisive. Yet how often are the commands of chapter 14 set aside, or at least forgotten and ignored. All too many treat them as being merely Paul's notions, which we may disregard with impunity. Others would not lower the word of the Lord to that extent, but would nevertheless say that though suitable for the Apostolic age they are hardly the thing for the twentieth century.

And if any would say to us, Yes, but these commands were given to one special church — Corinth — and not repeated in epistles to other churches; we should have to reply, that 1 Corinthians 1: 2 shows that all in the Epistle, though addressed primarily to the church at Corinth, was secondarily addressed to "all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." The commands applied universally to all true saints in those days, wherever they might be. They apply just as universally to all true saints today.

Are we obeying them?

Signs and Wonders

Signs and Wonders.

F. B. Hole.

Edification Vol. 2, 1928, page 309.

Of recent years a number of sincere and earnest Christians have been much taken up with certain remarkable doings and manifestations, which, they claim are a revival of those spiritual gifts of a divine and miraculous kind which were comparatively common in the Apostolic age. In 1 Corinthians 12: 7-10, we get a list of those gifts, but the claims as to a modern revival are centred mainly in two only, the "gift" of healing and the "gift" of tongues.

Where these "gifts" are exercised a stir is created, and this is particularly so in regard to the former. Huge crowds assemble for healing campaigns and this is not surprising; nor is it surprising that many zealous believers are attracted to it all. Feeling keenly the low spiritual state of the mass of believers, to say nothing of the condition of the immense number of people who are Christian in name only, they naturally long for something that will act as a spiritual tonic, something so supernatural and divine that the incredulous may be convinced and Christianity itself freshly vindicated in the eyes of a sceptical world.

In these modern signs and wonders they think they have found the very thing that their souls desire. But have they? — that is the question.

We are not among those who assert that such gifts as those mentioned in Corinthians are quite impossible in our days, for who are we to place limits on the power of God or to take it upon ourselves to say what He will or will not do? We are responsible however to discern the true character of all that presents itself to us as being of God. We may face undoubted facts judging of them in the light of the Word, which if really understood will put us on our guard, save us from being deceived and lead us only to accredit what is unmistakably of Himself. May we point out a few things that Scripture indicates?

In the first place have you noticed what is said as to the wonderful display of miraculous powers which characterized our Lord Himself. Said Peter, "Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs" (Acts 2: 22). Men despised Jesus of Nazareth but God approved Him; and the miracles which marked the whole course of His public ministry were God's attestation to His worthiness and to His claims, the seal of God's approva1 placed upon Him. This verse is like a key, unlocking for us the real force and meaning of all miraculous signs and gifts.

The only miracles we read of in Genesis are those connected directly with God Himself or His Angel. Not until we come to Exodus and Moses do we find miracles performed by a man. Why was this? Because not until this point in the history of the world did God intervene through a man to unfold and establish His Word.

Now however He sends Moses to boldly confront earth's mightiest monarch, to rally and lead out of bondage His oppressed and disheartened people, and to be for them the mediator of the old covenant, the covenant of law. Moses was consequently accredited by a wonderful display of miraculous gifts.

Again did God intervene through men in matters of great importance when He raised up Elijah and Elisha. Both were amply accredited by miraculous gifts. Indeed their times and the time of Moses were the two epochs of Old Testament history when the miraculous was strongly in evidence.

After a long period of silence John the Baptist, one of the very greatest of the prophets, appeared; yet, "John did no miracle" (John 10: 41). Why? Because, great man though he was, he was only the humble fore-runner of the infinitely Greater, the Lord Himself. Then it was that the miraculous blazed forth as never before, as God signified His approval of Jesus. Yet in spite of it He was rejected.

His rejection however was followed by His resurrection, His ascension to heaven and the consequent descent of the Holy Spirit, which resulted in the formation of the church. It now became necessary for God to show that He had moved beyond the weak and beggarly elements of Judaism, that His presence was no longer to be found in Jerusalem's temple, nor indeed in any temple made with hands, but in the church which had become His house. Hence the era of miracles extended onwards from the time of our Lord through the apostolic age. The apostolic witness to the resurrection and glory of Christ was in this way fully approved of God amongst the people.

The object of these miraculous manifestations then, whether healings or tongues or anything else, was not that believers might enjoy them as their own special privilege their preserve, so to speak — but that they might be a testimony to the world, authenticating whatever is God's testimony at any given time as being truly and unmistakably of Himself. Understanding this, we shall not be surprised to notice that the healings recorded in the Acts of the Apostles were all of people not known as believers when they were healed. We are not forgetting the cases of Dorcas and Eutychus and Paul with the venomous viper, in so saying. The last was a case of miraculous preservation of the apostolic messenger; the two former were cases of the raising of the dead which is something reserved for believers. No unconverted person has been brought back to life in this world during this gospel age, else indeed they would be having a second chance after death. Let believers in a second chance note this!

Notice further that in the Epistles various cases of sickness or infirmity amongst believers are mentioned: — amongst the Corinthians — the very people with whom the gifts of healing were found (1 Cor. 11: 30); with Paul himself (2 Cor. 12: 7-9; Gal. 4: 13), with Epaphroditus (Phil. 2: 25-30); with Timothy (1 Tim. 5: 23); with Trophimus (2 Tim. 4: 20); amongst the scattered Jewish believers generally (James 5: 14-16); with Gaius (3 John 2); yet only in James is there any word as to a way of healing, namely prayer and confession. If sick we are to pray for one another with confession, and if the elders of the church can pray in faith for the sufferer, having anointed him with oil, he shall be healed. It is the faith of those who pray that is in question not the faith of the sick person.

It is an evident fact that by the close of the apostolic age these miraculous gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 had ceased. The Apostle Paul indicated that they would in 1 Corinthians 13: 8, just as the miracles of the days of Moses and Elijah had passed away. What happened when the apostles were gone? Just what happened when Moses was gone and when Elijah and Elisha were gone — rapid declension. If bestowed to accredit a people and a message as being indubitably of God, what is likely to happen when both people and message begin to be corrupted? Obviously, the withdrawal of the authentication. From a worldly church and a defective or corrupted gospel, no longer "approved of God," the signs and wonders were withdrawn.

At this point we make an assertion: — In spite of faithfulness here and there, and possibly "a little strength" (Rev. 3: 8) in certain directions, that which can be called "the church" was never more worldly than it is today; the gospel was never more flagrantly and publicly corrupted.

We now ask a question: This being so is it likely that God would select this moment for a revival on any substantial scale of such gifts as marked the church at the beginning when it was in the days of its first love? The answer is very obvious: — It is in the highest degree improbable.

Notice another Scriptural fact bearing upon this matter. Whilst there is no prediction of a restoration of signs and wonders from God at the end of this age, there is a prediction that there will be a working of Satan to that very end. Read 2 Thessalonians 2: 8-12, and see.

This passage evidently refers to what will transpire after the Lord has come for His saints, and the restraining influence exerted by the Holy Spirit, who indwells them, is removed from the earth. Still it is frequently the case that before any system or power of evil reaches its climax and full expression there are sundry preliminary manifestations of its working. We believe that it is exactly something of that kind which is taking place before our eyes today. About a century ago in connection with a movement known as "Irvingism" there began to be signs and wonders in the form of what purported to be speaking in unknown tongues and "inspired" prophecies. One of the chief actors however afterwards confessed that the power under which he spoke was not of God. From the days of Irvingism until now there has been a succession of similar things, until today we have a regular epidemic of them, particularly in the way of healings, connected with teachings fairly sound in some cases, and in others with teachings utterly unsound — such as Christian Science. We have no hesitation in saying that as it was a century ago so it is today: the great mass of these wonders are not of God.

We have one more remark to make, and it is this: — the great mass of these "signs and wonders" are not genuine. Time and again the supposed results of these great healing campaigns have been subjected to a calm investigation months afterwards, when all the furore and excitement have died down. Invariably the final residuum of real healings has been painfully small — if any existed at all.

We fully believe that occasionally it pleases God to intervene on behalf of the sick in ways that are supernatural, on the lines indicated in James 5: 14-16. We believe that there have been cases even in our days of wretched victims of demoniacal power out in the heathen world being delivered by the faith and prayer and fasting of devoted servants of God. These things have come to pass as the fruit of dealings with God in secret just as they did, only far more commonly, in apostolic days. But we also fully believe that false cults can present us with lists of equally well attested wonders, especially in the form of healings — take for example the Romish cures at Lourdes, and the cures of Christian Science and of Spiritism — which are not of God at all.

Amongst the miraculous gifts at Corinth was one called, "discerning of spirits" (1 Cor. 12: 10). Had that gift been revived we should not see so many carried away by these modern crazes. A word for us to-day is, "Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children but in understanding be men" ( 1 Cor. 14: 20).

Sin in the Flesh Condemned

Sin in the Flesh Condemned.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 13, 1921, page 182.)

The contrast between the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans is very pronounced. In Romans 7 the Spirit of God is not so much as mentioned; whereas Romans 8, brings Him in again and again — the first 27 verses are full of Him. The bearing of this is quite evident: all proper Christian life and experience is in the power and energy of the Spirit of God.

This being so, the old source of energy, the energy that characterized our unconverted days, stands condemned and counteracted.

Romans 8: 2, names the old energy of our unconverted days, "the law of sin and death." It names the new energy that properly characterizes the Christian, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"; and it asserts the superiority of the latter to the former. Let "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" but exert His "law" or "control," and the control of sin and death is broken. The superior law counteracts the inferior.

Then verse 3 gives the basis for this new control in the great act of God in the sacrifice of Christ when He "condemned sin in the flesh." "Sin in the flesh" was the old tyrant. We say tyrant advisedly, for the law of sin and death was tyranny indeed, as witness the miserable experiences of Romans 7, where the workings of its "law" are detailed for our instruction. There is no tyranny, thank God, in the new "law," for it is the law of a new life — "life in Christ Jesus" — and not only so but the law of the Spirit of that life.

Then has the believer two lives? Not from the Divine viewpoint. The new life is his on the basis of the condemnation of the old by God Himself in the sacrifice of Christ. "God . . . condemned sin in the flesh." The law could never do this. It could condemn very fully the man dominated by sin in the flesh, the man in whom it impersonated itself. God has condemned sin in the flesh — the very essence of the Adamic nature — and done it in such a way as to deliver the poor child of Adam who believes. This He did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sacrifice for sin. We turn to the cross, and in the sacrifice of Christ as bearing the judgment of sin we behold sin in the flesh condemned.

"Sin in the flesh" remember. The Lord Jesus was made flesh — holy flesh. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh. Sin has invaded the angelic ranks, we learn; but sin in spirit-beings lies quite outside this verse.

Remember also that sin in the flesh is condemned and not forgiven. In the administration of human justice there may be forgiveness expressed in the remission of a sentence, yet even so the law maintains its condemnation of the lawless and criminal instincts from which the crime in question proceeded. Thus also it is in the administration of Divine justice, for the human in so far as it is good and right is but a feeble reflection of the Divine. The sacrifice of Christ truly provides the basis whereby forgiveness of offences may reach the believer righteously. It equally sets forth the Divine abhorrence and condemnation of the corrupt nature from which the offences sprang. "Sin in the flesh" — the very essence and nature of the life of fallen Adam and his race — is condemned.

And here are we believers "in Christ Jesus" as to our new position before God, and not in Adam at all! And not only have we this new place, this new standing, but we also have "life in Christ Jesus"; there is a new spring of life within as well as a new position without. And yet, further, we possess "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," and His law or control ensures that there shall be power to carry out the instincts and desires of the new life, even though the flesh and sin are still actually within us.

No wonder, then, that those "in Christ Jesus" are altogether clear of condemnation! The flesh and sin, still in them while yet dwelling here in mortal bodies, are indeed incorrigibly evil and merit nothing but the fullest condemnation; but in the sacrifice of Christ the Divine condemnation has fallen, and the believer in Christ Jesus is beyond it for ever. For us there is no condemnation. It has exhausted itself in the cross!

"Death and judgment are behind us,

Grace and glory are before;

All the billows rolled o'er Jesus,

There they spent their utmost power."

We can, indeed, exultingly speak of ourselves as "free, because beyond our doom."

While praising God for this, let us not, however, overlook verse 4 of our chapter, where the practical consequences of all this is shown. All is in order that those things which the law so righteously required, and never got, might now be fulfilled in us "who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit."

Find us a Christian who recognizes how God has condemned sin in the flesh at the cross, who ratifies that great act in his own soul, and consequently disowns the flesh in its activities, i.e., he does not walk according to it; and who also rejoices in the possession of the new life in Christ Jesus and the Spirit of that new life who is the power and energy of it, and consequently allows and delights in the Spirit's activities, i.e., he walks according to the Spirit; and we will at once show you a Christian who is fulfilling what He had so righteously required of men. Indeed we will show you one who is going beyond those requirements, for he is learning to walk as Christ walked — and that is a far higher standard than the law of Moses.

"The Son of God is come."

"The Son of God is come."

1 John 5: 20-21.

An Address given in Glasgow, January 2nd, 1930.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 22, 1930, page 77.)

When we remember that these words are the last words of apostolic instruction that the Church of God has had, we at once feel that they are worthy of very great attention. The apostles have spoken to us by the Spirit of God, as He indicated in His farewell words in the upper chamber in Jerusalem. He indicated that He had many things to say to His disciples, which He could not say at that moment, but that when the Holy Spirit was come He would lead us in all truth. The Holy Ghost is viewed as acting on behalf of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The One who has gone on high has received the anointing, and shed the anointing forth; so that in the energy of His Spirit and as the fruit of redemption there has been through the apostles this telling out of all that which the Lord Jesus, in the nature of things, could not say while He was still here upon earth.

We all know that the second and third Epistles of John are little supplementary ones of a more private nature, but the first is a general Epistle written to all the saints. Here we have the last apostolic instruction, for the very last words of the Spirit are those given to us through the Apostle John. When he laid down his pen the apostolic writings ceased.

I say again, we have got to pay very great attention to the last word, for right down through the ages there has been ringing in the ears of the church this word, "Children, keep yourselves from idols." Oh, how little have we obeyed that word! But you see the apostle gives us that which will help us to obey it; he gives us that which really received would so fill our hearts that we should say like Ephraim, "What have I to do any more with idols?"

Now the Apostle John closes his Epistle with a very confident note. Again and again he says, "we know." Here are things which are proper Christian knowledge, but I only ask you to look at that which we know according to the twentieth verse.

First of all he says, "We know that the Son of God is come." There you have a most amazing fact — a fact indeed that we get in his Gospel. Nothing in this world can be the same again if that be true. Into this world, which had broken away from God in rebellion, the Son of God is come. Is that true? Why, it carries everything with it, does it not? If I believe that the Jesus, the rejected Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, who was treated as of no account and refused — if I believe that He was indeed the mighty Son of God, then I say no event in this world's history is worthy of mention in the same breath with that! So we say, "We know that the Son of God is come!"

Supposing we could have got John aside, and said, "How do we know it? What can you give us to show that the Son of God is come?" Well, he tells us why he wrote his Gospel. He says, "These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name." So we read his Gospel from this standpoint, and see how he points out for us the features of the Lord Jesus. All His miracles are signs of the Son of God. All His words and works indelibly stamp Him as the Son of God. His Gospel really falls into three sections. First we have the great "life" section, John 1 to 7; then the great "light" section, John 8 to 12; and then the great "love" section, John 13 to 17.

He sets before us the Lord Jesus Christ as the One in whom is life and who is the Life-giver. He gives the life, for if any man comes to Him and drinks the water which He gives, he is so satisfied that he shall never thirst again for ever; and further, out of his inner parts shall flow rivers of living water. Who then is this One who brings with Him the solution of the great "life" question, being Himself the Giver of life? Why, we bow down before Him and say, "Lord, Thou art the Son of God."

Again He was here as the Light of the world; and men felt it, too — proud, religious men though they were. They came into His presence gloating over a case of sin, but the Lord turned the light, the effectual search-light of His presence, upon them and that sent them scrambling out of it like creatures of darkness. They rendered testimony to His light: they could not stand it. Who is He? He is the Son of God; for who can bring light into the scene like Jesus? Then we bow down before Him and say, "Thou art the Light as well as the Life-giver. Thou art the Son of God."

Who can bring the love? We are in a world of hatred. Who is the embodiment of love? Jesus. Then we bow down before Him and say, "Lord Jesus, Thou art the Son of God." We have got the Father delineated in the Son.

There is a very striking story in European history which suddenly springs into my mind. In the days when Sweden was a great power in Europe and was using its strength in the Protestant cause, one of her kings fell and, as far as the people knew, he died without any successor to the throne. It was announced when all the nobles assembled in council that there was an heir. The nobles said, "Can he be produced?" "Yes," said one who was in the secret, and he retired, drew aside a curtain, and in came the Queen leading a little boy. She stopped and lifted him on to a table, and said, "There he is." The story is that one of the old nobles, feeble though he was, got up at the head of them all, came up to the child and peered at him. He looked into his eyes, looked him up and down, and then he said, "Nobles, the likeness is unmistakable; that is the son of our king." They all raised their swords and shouted, and they put the crown royal on his head. They were right. The life of the king was there, for they saw it reproduced. They knew the son because they knew the father — there was no mistaking him.

I merely use that story as an illustration of this point: there was the delineation of the life, and they said, "We know him." We know that the Son of God is come, because God has been manifested in Him; His life has been delineated in the Son. Divine life, divine light, and divine love have been manifested in Him.

Well now, knowing that, we are in the simple truth of Christianity. But not only do "we know that the Son of God is come," but He has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. In Him we have the setting forth of truth itself; all truth is come to light in a world which is very much not what it appears to be. It is the most difficult thing, as you may know, to get at truth of any sort in this world. It is most difficult in most ordinary matters to get what you want. You try to buy something of a special sort — no matter what. Well you may get it, but you may not. You are living in a world, you may depend upon it, where you do not usually get what you want to get, and the more you get the faked thing, the more you realize things are not what they appear to be in this world of unreality. We all see the vain show of this world; but, says John, do not love the world, and do not love the things that are in the world: they are all passing away. It is only he who does the will of God that abides for ever.

Now the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. He has brought us a revelation, but — blessed be God! — He has given us an understanding so that the revelation may be received by us, otherwise it had been displayed before our eyes and we had received nothing. You may have the loveliest scenery imaginable, and you may have a very costly camera with a lens which costs a great many guineas, but you must have the plate or film chemically treated so that it has a sensitized surface; and only then can you capture the picture. You might throw the image through the most expensive lens on to a clear sheet of glass a thousand times and nothing would happen. Throw it once on to a sensitized surface for a tenth part of a second and you have caught it: it is sensitized so that it can capture the thing that it sees.

Now apply that to our Scripture. Not only have we in the Lord Jesus Christ the full setting forth of God Himself — "the Son of God is come" — but we have seen the light, we have seen the life, and all that is characteristic of love. He has given us the understanding. We are born of God; we have received His Spirit. In John's Gospel we have an indication of this in that being come forth in resurrection He breathed into His disciples and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," that is life in the power of the Spirit of God. John tells us that, you remember, at the end of his Gospel; Luke tells us at the end of his Gospel that He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. We may connect together those two things: the inbreathing of the Spirit, and the opening of the understanding. At any rate, we are born of God and, possessing as the fruit of His work the Spirit of God, we have an understanding that we may know Him that is true.

Even that is not all, for it says, "We are in Him that is true." We are in Him, that is Himself the truth. We are of His life, nature, and order; we have not been created into the old but into the new; we stand in another order. Once we were in Adam — the man of sin and disorder, and failure and rebellion — but not today, for we are in Him that is true. That at once gives us a very personal connection with Him. We may see wonderful things like a man walking round a gallery and seeing the pictures, but yet have no vital connection with the wonderful things that we see. The marvellous thing is, however, that if the Son of God is come, we have got the understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ.

Here at the end of the Epistle we have God Himself and the Son of God so brought together as to be almost indistinguishable; we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ, and, says John, "This One is the true God and eternal life." I say again, here you have the last bit of apostolic instruction. Thus the apostle sums up the whole situation for us in few words, in a succession of brief sentences.

This One, who is the Son of God, who has given us an understanding, in whom we stand, this One is the true God and eternal life. Everything that goes to make up life is found in Him: He is the life, to be known and enjoyed by us forever. You must remember, dear friends, that not only is there the life by which we live, but there is the life we live; and when you read of the eternal life, you have to take both these things into consideration. How many people today are saying, "I want to see life." Well, we want to see life, and the Christian through grace has the power to see and know it and enjoy it. If we had not life in our souls of course we could not see it. But then we are to see life; we are to know what the life is, and it is summed up for us in the Son of God Himself. He is the true God and eternal life.

No wonder the apostle says that last word "children" — not "little children," for it is the whole family of God — "Children, keep yourselves from idols." Somebody may say, What is an idol? I do not want to attempt a definition, but I am sure I can say that an idol is that which creeps into the affections and usurps in the heart that unique place that belongs to God alone. God is only revealed to us in Jesus; if anything creeps into my heart and usurps that supreme place that has been kept for the Son of God and He whom the Son of God has revealed, then it is an idol.

Do not idolise your business, or your children; let nothing grip you and hold you and dominate you until your mind and thoughts are subject to it. There is only one Son of God; He is made known to us, we know Him, we are in Him: He has set before us the true God and eternal life. If you want life, go in for the things that centre in Jesus. "Children, keep yourselves from idols."

Sovereignty and Responsibility

Sovereignty and Responsibility.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 4.)

That God is sovereign and that man, though fallen, is a responsible creature, are two facts that stand out clearly in the Scriptures. It is when we study these two facts in their implications that we run into intellectual difficulties. It is easy to lay such stress on the one as almost completely to ignore the other. The two extremes are known as Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism.

Hyper-Calvinism is that system of religious thought that sees little else in Scripture than God's sovereignty in election. The responsibility of man is so little thought of, if not denied, that he is reduced to a mere puppet. He is a plaything in the hand of fate. If he is elect, he must be saved, come what may; if he is not, he must be damned, and there's an end of it.

Arminianism, on the contrary, sees little else than the fact of man's responsibility, often to the total exclusion of God's sovereign and gracious work by His Spirit in the souls of men. Man is a free and unfettered being in the exercise of his own will: hence anything is lawful that will persuade him to exert the force of his will in the right direction.

The Hyper-Calvinistic spirit is fatal to all zeal and energy in the work of the Gospel. Those who possess it necessarily and logically decry such energy in every possible way. Men are spiritually dead: why preach to dead men? Why say, "Repent!" to men who can't repent? or "Believe!" to men who can't believe? Moreover, is not God able to look after His affairs? Does He require our busy interference in the saving of His elect? Supposing we compass sea and land in our zeal for souls, not one more than the elect will be saved; and if we fold our hands and do nothing, not one less than the elect will be saved. Masterly inactivity is then the only possible policy, and all the energy of the servants of the Lord is only so much unprofitable waste of time and breath.

One wonders sometimes why this kind of argument seems to be only used against evangelistic effort. If valid at all, it is just as valid against all forms of Christian service. Is not God able to care for the souls off His elect without our endeavours to edify them? Will not the sovereign work of the Spirit in building up their souls progress without the labours of pastors and teachers, or such small efforts as producing this magazine? The exponents of such ideas seem blind to the fact that they are cutting the ground from beneath their own feet.

At the present time the Arminian extreme is perhaps the more frequently held by truly Christian people. They feel the need of sinners and rejoice in the glad tidings of forgiveness through the crucified and risen Saviour. The great question now is, how best to get at sinners and persuade them into a definite act of their own will, in accepting Christ and choosing life. The more in earnest such Christians are, the greater the danger of their using questionable or even unscriptural methods. The great end which they feel they must reach, is considered by them to sanctify the means employed.

The practical results of this are very different from those of the other extreme. There all is stagnation: here all is movement and apparent success at the beginning. We are concerned however with the ultimate results. At the close of a large mission in London, a good many years ago, the pastor of a large chapel had over 50 names given to him of people who professed conversion. The pastor was a warm-hearted, evangelical man, but a year or so after he sadly confessed he could only regard one as truly converted. Thank God for the one! But how sad that nearly fifty should be led on to a wrong road in order to direct one into the right.

Let us by the grace of God maintain firmly both these great facts — God is sovereign in His gracious actings: man, though fallen, is a responsible creature and addressed as such. The truth of Divine sovereignty is plainly stated in Scripture. Read such passages as John 6: 37-44; Romans 9: 10-24; Ephesians 1: 4; 1 Peter 1: 2. Equally plain is man's responsibility Read such passages as John 3: 16-18; Romans 2: 6-16; 1 Peter 4: 5-6, Let us then accept both, even if as yet we do not see far enough to discern exactly how they fit in with each other.

We may however discern this that man's will, if he is left to himself never turns toward God. The fall has given it a permanent twist away from Him. This is definitely stated in Romans 3: 10-12. It is stated first of all that "there is NONE righteous;" that is, none "right with God." Yes, we might say, that is true, but surely some people are more sincere and understanding than others, and so these get converted. Not so, for there is "NONE that understandeth." This makes man's plight much worse — nobody right, and nobody understands their desperate position. But again we might say, Yes, but surely some will have an innate sense — a kind of intuition — that they need God, and so begin to seek after Him. But once more, not so, for, "there is NONE that seeketh after God."

This word, "NONE," thrice repeated, closes every avenue of deliverance if man is just left to himself. God must intervene. In other words, God must exercise His sovereign action on a man's behalf. He must work by His Spirit in the hearts of men' if any are to seek after Him and His salvation. This He does, as pleases Him, when the Gospel is faithfully preached, since it pleases God, "by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe (1 Cor. 1: 21).

If any would say to us, If God in His electing mercy is pleased to save this one and that one, why should He not elect and save all? — we have no answer to give. What lies behind His decisions is not revealed to us, who are but His creatures; but He has revealed Himself to us in Christ, and so we are sure that what He decides is right, and ultimately all will see how right it has been.

Instead of seeking to probe into the secret of the Divine decisions and acts, which are beyond us, let us more diligently and fervently publish abroad the Gospel, since He has revealed that through this He is pleased to save those that believe, as the result of the work of the Spirit of God in their hearts.

Sowing and Reaping

Sowing and Reaping.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 16, 1924, page 117.)

The Epistle to the Galatians was written in defence of the truth of the Gospel. The particular errors it meets were those introduced by men of a legal type, coming from Jerusalem, whose aim was to subject all Christians to the law of Moses, and thus to make Christianity but a new and vigorous off-shoot and development of Judaism.

In meeting these errors the Apostle Paul draws very striking contrasts between "the Jew's religion" and "the truth of the Gospel"; and we might sum up those contrasts, we think, under three heads, viz.:-

Law and grace,

Works and faith,

Flesh and Spirit;

the three former are linked together as inseparably connected with "the Jew's religion" in which Paul "profited" above many of his contemporaries (Gal. 1: 14); the three latter combine in connection with Christianity.

The Jewish nation had its birth in Abraham, the Jewish kingdom in David, but the Jews' religion started when the law was given at Sinai. In the law of Moses God formulated His righteous demands upon men. He joined with these demands much in the way of ceremonial observance, which had the effect, if observed by Israel, of making them a peculiar people and hindering their free intercourse with the nations. These barriers were purposely erected to act as a kind of insulation so that the test which the law proposed might be carried out under the most favourable circumstances. He also connected with His demands the system of sacrifice which foreshadowed the way in which all the questions which the law raised and left unanswered, would in due time be settled to His glory.

The requirement of the law may be summed up in one word — works. Its demands, whether positive or in the form of prohibitions, were to be met by simple obedience. It was "This do, and thou shalt live." It called not for discussion of its terms, nor for promises of future improvement, but for instant obedience in works to its behests.

Yet it addressed itself to man in his fallen condition and therefore to the flesh — the Scripture term for that degraded moral condition, or nature, which lies inherent in man's material and physical flesh as the result of the fall. Here lay the secret of the whole breakdown as far as man was concerned. In the law, life was proposed to man as the result of obedience. Yet that "which was ordained to life" turned out "to be unto death" (Rom. 7: 10). The law could not produce compliance with its demands "in that it was weak through the flesh" (Rom. 8: 3). This Scripture statement casts no discredit upon the law, which was "holy, just, and good" (Rom. 7: 12); the fact is that in the flesh dwells "no good thing" (Rom. 7: 18), and hence it is hopeless material for the law to operate upon. If a sculptor were presented with first-class tools and an excellent block of marble on which to work, and the result were a hopeless botch, the critics would rightly attribute blame to the sculptor. If, on the other hand, he were presented with a heap of dry sand on which to exercise his skill, they would exonerate him from all blame. In that case all the failure is in the material and not the sculptor. Thus was it with the law and the flesh.

Hence, though there was breakdown, there was no breakdown in the law. God presented it as a way of life to man, in order to demonstrate to man that it was a way he could not take. God intended it to convict man, stop his mouth, and shut him up to the grace that was coming. This it most effectually did.

"The truth of the Gospel" is that grace has come in Christ and through His redemptive work. It is presented to faith, for the Gospel does not call upon man to do anything, but rather to look in faith upon what Christ has done, and consequent upon faith is the gift of the Spirit; and the Spirit being received He is to be the active energizer of the believer's new life, and not the flesh.

The unbeliever, then, acts according to the flesh, for he has no other principle of life within him. The believer still has the flesh within him, for it is the nature inherent in his mortal body, in which he lives after conversion as truly as he did before conversion; yet he possesses the Spirit of God as the energy of that new life which is his in Christ. Here is an altogether different energy of life as to character, and altogether superior as to power. If the believer walks in the Spirit he does "not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5: 16). A new Power is present which then supersedes the old and renders it impotent, "that ye should not do those things which ye desire" (Gal. 5: 17, N.Tr.).

Scripture, then, clearly recognizes the presence in the believer of both the Spirit and the flesh. It also recognizes the individuality and personality of the believer, the "ego" as it is sometimes termed. The flesh is not myself, for it is "my flesh." Needless to say, the Spirit is not myself. Yet there is myself — I - the responsible individual; and as far as practical Christianity is concerned, everything turns on the relation which I, myself, hold in regard to the flesh and the Spirit.

This practical side of things is summed up for us in Galatians 6: 7 and 8, under the figure of "sowing" and "reaping." Our thoughts, our words, and our actions are viewed as so many acts of seed sowing. All depends on whether we sow to the flesh or to the Spirit, i.e., whether the tendency and intent and end of our sowing is to the gratification of the cravings of the flesh or of the desires of the Spirit. This it is which determines the character of our sowing, and consequently the character of the reaping.

It is, of course, true that we reap as we sow as to quantity. 2 Corinthians 9: 6 emphasises this side of the question. "He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully." Our Scripture is enforcing the truth that as surely as God is God, we reap as we sow as to character or kind. We cannot sow one kind and reap another kind. There is no such thing as "transmutation of species" in the material creation, though evolutionary philosophers have eagerly sought it. Men cannot sow thistles and reap wheat, or cockle and have a harvest of barley. Neither is there transmutation of species in the spiritual realm. If we sow to the gratification of the flesh we reap corruption, always corruption, and nothing but corruption. If we sow to the Spirit we reap everlasting life. Let us not deceive ourselves on this point, for we are apt to do so, as the apostle's warning implies.

Flesh and corruption are thus inseparably connected as cause and effect. This has been true as to man's physical flesh ever since the fall. His flesh then became mortal flesh with corruption as its inevitable end. It became equally true of his moral condition and nature which is "the flesh" in the passage we are considering. Its workings always issue in moral and spiritual corruption. The "old man" is "corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts" (Eph. 4: 22), and so deceitful are its lusts that what appears to be the most intellectual and refined philosophic speculation may really be the wanderings of human minds that are controlled by the lusts, that is, the desires, of the flesh. Such persons just end by thinking what they want to think; and all the corruption which fills the world to-day originates in thought: words and actions follow after.

The world then is full of corruption, but how solemn for us believers to think that whenever we pander to the flesh and its desires we lay up for ourselves a harvest of corruption, and that the amount of our sowing in that direction will determine the quantity of the harvest. We may rejoice that these principles are equally true if we turn to the other side, if we sow to the Spirit.

To some of our readers it may appear strange that the term "everlasting life" should be given as the antithesis of "corruption"; and the very idea of everlasting life being "reaped" by anyone as the fruit of a previous sowing may appear to be difficult of explanation; and more difficult and remarkable still that all this should be addressed to believers. Such may ask if this passage does not contradict those statements as to eternal life being the portion of the believer which are found in the Gospel of John.

There is, however, no contradiction; and there is no real difficulty if we grasp but something of the fulness of meaning which lies in the term "everlasting life." If we speak but of natural "life" as we have it in this world, we know it to be a term of great fulness as to its meaning.

For instance: Here on a bed lies a prostrate form. The patient is critically ill, unconscious, and breathing but feebly. A doctor stands by the bedside, and in answer to an anxious enquiry he pronounces that life is still there, and that while there is life there is hope. We all know what he means. Life in the primary sense, the vital spark, so to speak, is still there and may yet be fanned into a flame. Yet that primary meaning by no means gives a full and proper idea of what human life is. No artist who painted a picture of such a scene, however beautiful and full of pathos it might be, would dream of hanging it in the Academy under the title "Life." No! He would select some subject expressive of human life in its full energy of expression, of the way in which that life may be developed in favourable and happy surroundings. He would paint, perhaps, a picture of healthful and happy children racing along the golden sands in summer sunshine, for we frequently and rightly use the word life in the secondary sense which implies all those relationships and surroundings in which we are set and in which human life develops. The Scriptures themselves speak of human life in this secondary sense when they say, "What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?" (Ps. 34: 12).

Life in its primary meaning has been spoken of as "life potential," i.e., in its potential form, containing within itself marvellous possibilities, as yet undeveloped; in its secondary meaning as "life phenomenal," i.e., as expressed in its phenomena; or even as life in its pregnant form, i.e., full of significance as to all the relationships and enjoyments which are its proper portion.

In just the same way "everlasting life" in Scripture means far more than eternal existence. It is, indeed, ours as a new life in the potential sense, but it is equally ours in the phenomenal and pregnant sense, as this Scripture which we are considering shows. In this secondary sense, while ours, it is to be entered upon experimentally and enjoyed, and the more we "sow to the Spirit" the larger our experimental entrance into the relationships and occupations and joys which are essential to it, and which are of such purity and holiness as to be the exact antithesis to the corruption which is the outcome of "sowing to the flesh." Other Scriptures which show that this fulness of meaning is contained in the term "everlasting life" may be turned to. Conspicuous among them are 1 Timothy 6: 12, and John 17: 3.

This digression has been necessary that we should understand and fairly grasp the nature of the alternative presented to us. To the three sets of contrasts pointed out at the beginning of our paper we may now add a fourth,

viz.:-

Corruption and everlasting life.

The character of the believer's life will have its answer in the coming age in the shape of loss or reward, but this Scripture is enforcing the present effects. It is a tremendously solemn consideration that every act of our lives has its tendency, sows its seed, in one or other of these two. directions. A hundred times a day we stand either in thought or word or act at the parting of the ways and yield either to the desires of the flesh or of the Spirit. Many Christians are puzzled by the happenings that crowd into their lives. All seems a strange jumble of events and experiences, like an allotment patch which is a tangle of useful vegetables and noxious weeds. Is there, however, any real cause for wonder?

Alas, no! We have made the tangle ourselves. We have sowed to the flesh, often with lavish hand. Had our hearts been under the constraining influence of the love of Christ we should steadily have said, "No" to the flesh, and "Yes" to the Spirit of God, and the result would have been far different.

This sowing, be it noted, comes down to what we might consider very ordinary matters. The immediate context of the passage (verses 6 and 9, 10) shows that what gave rise to the enunciation of these weighty principles were practical matters connected with the temporal support of teachers of the Word, and acting in generosity to all men, especially fellow-believers.

In conclusion, let us take it to heart that the option in this matter, the responsibility of deciding one way or the other, rests with us. It is not something which we can settle for ever by one decision. The flesh is in us and, except we habitually live as those who have been crucified with Christ, it bids for recognition and gratification. The Spirit of God indwells us as "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." But it is WE who sow, and sow in one direction or the other. Our spiritual prosperity hangs upon our sowing. In which direction is it to be?

To decide aright there must be earnest and prayerful dependence upon God Himself. Let us pray.

Spiritual Growth

Spiritual Growth

1 John 1: 1-4; 1 John 2: 12-29.

Condensed notes of an address by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 38, 1953-5, page 257.)

It is very evident that the Apostle John wrote this epistle late in the first century, when the other Apostles were gone and antichristian teachers were appearing, doing their utmost to seduce and corrupt the saints, particularly those more recently converted, whom he calls "little children," or "babes."

There are in this epistle two words both translated "little children." The one used in 1 John 2: 12 and 28, is simply "children," embracing all believers, since all are children of God. The other used in 1 John 2: 13 and 18, is really, "babes," the beginners in the Christian life. These are the ones who are told that it is "the last time;" that is, the last epoch, in the last days of which the Antichrist will appear, so that already men of antichristian character were at work.

Because of this the Apostle opens with the words, "That which was from the beginning:" not the beginning of creation, as in Genesis 1 and John 1, but of the revelation that has reached us in the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. If any entertain doubt as to this, let them turn to John's Gospel and read John 15: 27. The previous verse mentions the coming of the Holy Spirit and the testimony He would render. His testimony being marked by perfection, would any further testimony be needed? Yes, there were men chosen to bear witness of the things they were privileged to hear and see and even handle, as they companied with their Lord from the beginning, in days before the Spirit was given.

We must remember that, unlike man, God never has to experiment, or amend, or improve, in any revelation He makes. It is perfect from the outset, and if men attempt to add to it or subtract from it they do so to their own ruin. These first century "antichrists" were known as "Gnostics," — the "Knowing-ones" — the opposite to the Agnostics of our days, who confess that they do not know and who even aver that nobody can know.

The first century Gnostics doubtless urged that seeing the original apostles were "unlearned and ignorant men," the saints ought now to pass from the cruder ideas that were at first promulgated to the more intellectual and philosophical things they had to say. John was the survivor of the apostolic band and was used to recall the saints to the original revelation. Hence also, again and again he uses the word "know;" using the Greek word which signified not mere intellectual, head knowledge, but inward knowledge, based on experience.

It is true of course that there has been progress in Divine revelation. God made Himself known to Abraham and then through Moses in a further way. But His full revelation was in Christ, completed by His witness through the Spirit after He was glorified, as He promised in John 16: 12, 13.

That which was manifested in Christ was real and objective, capable of being apprehended by three out of the five senses with which man is endowed. This is clearly seen at our Lord's baptism. Then the Father was audible, but that only. The Spirit was visible, but that only. The Son was audible and visible and tangible, which is just what John tells us in his first verse.

And not only that; another wonderful thing follows: the life has been manifested. To the apostles was given the power to see it, so that they could declare to others the eternal life, which, ever with the Father, had now been made known. So truly made known that the Apostle can end the epistle by saying of the Son of God, "He is the true God and eternal life."

The first point before us then is the wonder and perfection of the revelation that has reached us in the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot improve upon it nor can you add to it. The eternal life which is in the Son of God has been manifested, so that we may come into the communion and blessedness of it, in the knowledge of the Son, who has revealed the Father.

But now there is a second point. Though there is no growth in the revelation, since it is perfect and complete, there is to be a great deal of growth in the apprehension of the revelation.

That is why we have to read those verses in 1 John 2. The forgiveness of sins, spoken of in verse 12, is a blessing shared in common by all the children of God, yet there are measures of growth to be found amongst them, as verse 13 shows — "fathers," "young men," and "babes." The characteristic feature of the first of these is that they are mature in their knowledge of Christ, and of all that has been manifested in Him. The second are characterized by victory over the adversary by the word of God: the third by the simple knowledge of the Father, which is where we all start at the beginning of our Christian lives.

Having stated the characteristic feature of each of the three, the Apostle proceeded to give a message to each, but to the fathers he merely repeated what he had said before. Why was this? Because the very climax of our blessing is found in the knowledge of Christ. A friend who worked among the very poor in one of our great cities, told me of a woman taken from the rationing and scarcity and privations that surrounded her to a North Wales resort, where for the first time she saw the sea. She stood and stared and a tear ran down her face as she said, "Thank God, I have at last seen something of which there is more than enough!" The fathers had reached the ocean revealed in Christ, and they had but to move on more deeply into that boundless and eternal life, since that life consists in the knowledge of Him that is from the beginning, as stated by the Lord's words in John 17: 3.

The young men had not attained to the maturity that marked the fathers, but they had overcome the wicked one in the antichristian errors he had introduced through his servants. This they had done not by the power of their own intellects but by the word of God abiding in them. That does not mean just a mental grasp of the contents of Holy Scripture. It means that what they had apprehended had sunk down into their very being, controlling their thoughts, and expressing itself in their lives.

But even so there was a danger that threatened them; the world system in which they had to live, and more specifically the many attractive things with which the world was filled. It is often in middle life that the pull of the world is most powerfully felt. All too many who were real and devoted in their early days, fail in middle life. Marriage perhaps has not helped them, and then a growing up family around them wants the world and they themselves are dragged in that direction.

What is the world? Here its underlying principles are analysed for us. They are three. First, the lust of the flesh; that is, the desire after that which gratifies man's fallen nature. Second, the lust of the eyes; not merely the desire for outward shows that appeal to the eyes in our heads, but even more the restless desire of the human mind for the acquisition of knowledge, for probing into things undiscovered as yet. Men wish to see the deep secrets of nature, and it is amazing what they have discovered.

Third, there is the pride of life; the lustful desire for self-exaltation, that is natural to every child of Adam. It is the alliance between the pride of life and the lust of the eyes that threatens to wreck the very earth on which we live. Sober men of the world begin to fear this. We know that the whole world system will pass away; but that will be under the judgment of God.

When the Apostle turns to the "little children," or "babes," it is to warn them against those who would seduce them, turning them aside from that which they had "heard from the beginning," which he tells them is "the truth." The germ of all truth, if I may so put it, lies in the Gospel; so in believing the Gospel they knew the truth in its essence, though they had not yet had time to explore the truth in all its vast extent. As born of God they had the nature that responds to the truth of the Gospel.

And further, they had "the Unction," or "the Anointing;" that is, they possessed the Holy Spirit of God, and thus they had the capacity to know and enjoy the things of God as much as the young men and the fathers had. By that same Unction also they had the power to detect and refuse the error into which the antichrists would lead them. As we now draw near to the end of the age, antichristian teachers abound, and since most of us — both speaker and hearers — are but babes, we do well very earnestly to heed the exhortation of the Apostle.

His main exhortation we find in verse 24, in which the word for "abide" occurs three times, though in our version translated also as "remain," and "continue." That which we have heard from the beginning is to abide in us, and if it does we shall abide in the Son and in the Father, and this abiding conducts us into the power and practical experience of "eternal life," as the next verse indicates.

We all of us have the flesh — the old Adamic life  - in us, and it is all too easy for us to be dominated by it. If we are, we live a life much like that of the men of the world and we easily fall as victims of error. Our proper life is "in the Son," in whom we know the Father. If we abide in that life which is the eternal life that has been promised, we shall be preserved from the seducers.

So my closing exhortation must be, Let us live that life which is properly ours  - and I am exhorting myself as well as you. If we do, this eternal life will manifest itself in two main characteristics, in righteousness and in love, as the rest of the epistle shows. We could not have anything more wonderful. If the whole world were so ordered that in every relation righteousness prevailed, and in every heart was love, we should have the days of heaven upon earth. That is just what will be brought to pass in the Millennium, in the early days of it at least. And it is just what should prevail in the Christian circle today. If we know that He is righteous — and of course we do — we know those that are born of Him by their practise of it.

Well, may the Anointing, the Holy Spirit of God, teach us these things. He alone — and not any man — can really do this. This does not set aside the teachers mentioned in Ephesians 4, the gifts of the ascended Christ. They are the human instruments or vessels of the Holy Spirit, yet the vital and effectual teaching power is not theirs but His.

Subject to the teaching of the Anointing and abiding in the Son and in the Father, though we may indeed be but babes, we shall grow up in the power and joy of that eternal life which is ours.

Standing, State, and Service

Standing, State, and Service.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 38, 1953-5, page 132.)

That the creature has been called into existence to serve the will and pleasure of the Creator is a statement that hardly requires proof, yet the fact is plainly stated in Scripture, when we read, "O Lord . . . Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created" (Rev. 4: 11). When this sinks into our hearts, we begin to realize how great is the havoc produced by sin, in that corner of the universe into which it has entered.

Now, sin is "lawlessness," as 1 John 3: 4 should read. It is the creature asserting itself against the Creator, declining to be subject, striking out to do its own will and pleasure. At the outset and for many centuries rebellious man was left to himself, when he lapsed into such a state of violence and corruption that the earth had to be cleansed by the flood. In the succeeding centuries conditions rapidly deteriorated, with the added menace of idolatry. This state of affairs God met by calling out one man, Abraham, and from him raising up a nation, that should be under His special instruction.

When He sent Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt, God said to him, "Ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (Ex. 3: 12). During the controversy with Pharaoh the word repeatedly was, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me." And when the people were at Sinai, the word was, "Ye shall serve the Lord your God" (Ex. 23: 25). The law was given that the people might know God's will for them, and serve by obeying it.

But one thing the law was not designed to do. It did indeed give them a certain standing as the acknowledged people of God, but it could not produce within them that state, which would dispose them to obey. As the Apostle Paul writes, "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law" (Gal. 3: 21); and there is no righteousness in the creature save in obedience to the Creator. So, if we are to serve God, we must not only have an assured standing before Him but also be endowed with a spiritual state, which enables us to do His will.

What the law could not do or provide has reached those of us who have believed the Gospel of our salvation, and who have consequently been "sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1: 13) Let us observe how this is worked out in the Epistle to the Romans.

The opening verses of Romans 5 not only declare our justification by faith, in virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ, which means we are cleared from all imputation of guilt before the throne of God, but speak also of "this grace [or, favour] wherein we stand." Our standing is in the favour of God, but inasmuch as there is nothing appealing to sight, in us or about us, declaring this wonderful fact, we only at present have access into it by faith. When the Lord has come and we are glorified with Him the favour in which we stand will be manifest to the sight of all.

In the latter part of Romans 5, further light is cast upon this favour in which we stand. We have received reconciliation by our Lord Jesus Christ, and even beyond this, He has become to us a new Fountain of life. Before conversion we were just living in the natural life we had derived by generation from Adam; now we have been brought into that "justification of life," of which verse 18 speaks, and look forward to "reign in life by One, Jesus Christ" (verse 17). In short, our standing before God is now "in Christ Jesus," and it is so stated in Romans 8: 1. Our standing is of surpassing wonder; "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1: 6). Our service, then, without a doubt, must have an elevated character in keeping with it.

Consequently, we do not travel far into Romans 6 before we are confronted with the obligation to "walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6 : 4). We pass on into Romans 7 and find we are to serve in "newness of spirit." (Romans 7: 6). This is the obligation laid upon us, and the basis for it is found in the death and resurrection of Christ, both in Romans 6, and in the beginning of Romans 7. For us there is deliverance both from the service of sin and the bondage of the law. We have become "the servants of righteousness," and "servants to God."

This new and holy service is set before us as flowing from our new standing in Christ Jesus. This doubtless we all acknowledge, but at the same time we have to confess that at the outset we found ourselves painfully unable to serve as we desired. Hence the experience which the Apostle details for us in the latter part of Romans 7. The flesh is still in us and proves its strength, so that we have to say, "when I would do good, evil is present with me." To dwell upon this painful experience is not our present object, but rather to pass on into chapter 8, where is expounded the Christian state, that corresponds to and is connected with the Christian standing.

The deliverance which is at last found, by the "wretched man" of Romans 7, is "through Jesus Christ our Lord," but also it is wrought in the energy of the Spirit of God. The believer receives the Spirit in order that He may take control. Too often we think of Him only as One who comforts us and is a Helper in our infirmities. He is all this, but He is more. Just as Christ is our sovereign Lord on high so the Spirit holds sovereign rights within us. The word "law" in Romans 8: 2, has the significance it carries when we speak of "the laws of the universe," meaning thereby certain forces, ordained by the Creator, that exercise their power uniformly and constantly.

We have a new life — "life in Christ Jesus." But not only so, we have the Spirit, who gives energy to that life, indwelling us. And it is His controlling power that sets us free in experience and practice from the power of sin and death, that used to control us in our unconverted days, and that, apart from the control of the Spirit, would still work havoc in the life of service: to God to which we are dedicated.

In keeping with this, we find the further statement in Romans 8 that while "they that are in the flesh cannot please God," we are not "in the flesh, but in the Spirit," if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in us (Rom. 8 and 9). He indwells us that He may control us, giving us the capacity to walk in newness of life and serve in newness of spirit, producing thus within us a state that corresponds to our standing without. If "in Christ Jesus" expresses our standing, "in the Spirit " expresses our state.

The flesh still being in us, we may all too easily pander to it, and thus grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are sealed to the day of redemption, and this to our spiritual loss. We may also lose the sense and confidence of our standing in Christ, also to our spiritual loss, but no failure of this sort on our side impairs what God has wrought in His wonderful grace. In Christ we stand, no matter what our feelings may be. If we sow to the flesh we shall of the flesh reap corruption, but the Spirit as the Comforter abides with us forever, and if we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. In Him we possess the power that enables us rightly to serve God.

Hence, though we have our service mentioned in Romans 6 and Romans 7, it is not until the proper Christian state is revealed, in Romans 8, that the thought of our service is unfolded in detail. Immediately we reach Romans 12 it comes before us. The first step is the presenting of our bodies as "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," which is described as our "reasonable," or "intelligent" service.

For every one of us the body is the vehicle of thought, speech and action, but it is the Spirit of God who is to control us and not the body. The body is to be livingly devoted to God, as of old sacrifices were devoted to Him in death; and. thus devoted, the ways of the world cease to form us, our very minds are renewed; and doing the will of God, we prove how good, acceptable and perfect that will is. The way of God is ever to work from the within to the without. The diversion from the way of the world to proving for oneself the good way of God, is not something imposed upon us from without, but something produced as the fruit of the renewing of the mind within.

The rest of Romans 12, together with Romans 13, Romans 14 and the early verses of Romans 15, all give us the various forms that the service of God may take, in regard to ourselves, our fellow-Christians, governments, and the world without generally. Romans 14: 18 may be taken as applying to all these forms of service, inasmuch as they all lead practically to "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," which is the outcome of the service of Christ.

The Christian standing being of so elevated a character, and the Christian state being so far in advance of what was possible before the work of Christ was accomplished and the Spirit was given to indwell believers, it is not surprising to find that the service opened out to us has a character about it that was not known in earlier days. Like the Thessalonians we serve "the living and true God," who has been revealed to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Be it remembered that though we distinguish between our standing and our state and consider them separately, we do not divide between them, as though it were possible to have one without the other. They go together. The entrance of sin shattered man's original standing before his Creator. It also disrupted him internally; his innocence was lost and sin began to reign in his mortal body. In the work of Christ and in the gift of the Spirit both these disasters have been met, and much more than met.

Let us see that in the grace and power of what God has thus effected our lives are devoted to the service of our Lord.

"Stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 16, 1924, page 199.)

In many respects a distinct likeness can be traced between the state of things which existed in Corinth and in the Corinthian assembly, as depicted in Paul's first epistle to them, and that which prevails to-day amongst the Christians, and in the lands where English is spoken.

Corinth was a city of learning, luxury and licentiousness, and by these three things the assembly in that city was affected. The apostle put it on record that when first he came amongst them he deliberately abstained from anything like "excellency of speech or of wisdom" because he knew their tendency to over-rate human learning. "I determined," he says, "not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2: 2). He spoke "wisdom" elsewhere, "among them that are perfect," but he had not done so at Corinth. A little further on in the epistle he says to them, "Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you" (1 Cor. 4: 8). So that evidently they had plenty of this world's goods and used them largely for self-gratification. 1 Corinthians 5 is evidence of how licentiousness had crept into their midst.

Living, as we do, in lands where similar conditions prevail, we are very liable to be affected similarly to the Corinthian saints, and, there can be no doubt about it, we have been so affected. The apostle plainly told the Corinthians that he could not address them as spiritual, but as carnal, though there were some among them who were approved. He appealed to the parties which existed among them, with their consequent envy and strifes, as proof of their carnality. Their strifes were even brought into connection with the Lord's supper and marred the character of that holy ordinance, as 1 Corinthians 11 shows. Where has division in the professed church of God been carried to greater lengths than in the English-speaking lands? Where has more contention raged round the supper of the Lord, which is properly a symbol of unity?

The Corinthian saints combined a certain intellectual arrogance (see 1 Cor. 8: 1 and 2) with considerable intellectual and spiritual instability, and consequently some among them were so far carried away as to deny the resurrection of the dead (see 1 Cor. 15: 12), not perceiving that thereby they were destroying the very foundations of their faith. An intellectual and speculative religion, rather than a practical, had attractions for them; and one of the necessary features of it was that of progress or novelty, and that which appeared to be firmly held one year might be abandoned next year as new ideas were introduced. Here again, we fear, the Christians of English-speaking lands have in modern times gained an unenviable notoriety.

Ought we not, therefore, to pay particular heed to the exhortation with which Paul closed his first epistle to the Corinthians? Twice he repeated it with somewhat varying words. First he said:-

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15: 58).

And then again:-

"Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity" (1 Cor. 16: 13 and 14).

The main idea in both these passages is that of stability. We are to be stedfast or firm, and unmoveable, and if this is to be we must stand fast in the faith. There can be no stability of Christian character unless our faith strikes its roots down deeply into the faith, and for this we must be well instructed in what the faith is: "nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine," as the apostle says to Timothy. If we are to attain to this we must be diligent in our reading of the Word of God, and give it its proper place of authority in our souls. To approach it with any degree of confidence in our own intellectual abilities is fatal. We shall then begin to read our own thoughts into it rather than extracting God's thoughts from it, or we shall feel inclined to fall out with it and dispute its instructions as the Cornithians did. There seems to be almost a touch of sarcasm in the apostle's words, when he wrote, "What? came the Word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14: 36 and 37). In truth the Word of God came unto us only, never came out from us. Our place is to receive it humbly and implicitly, and the more spiritual we are the more fully we shall do so.

What stability is imparted to the soul that is rooted in the faith and grounded in the Word of God! The believer of worldly mind is necessarily unstable. He is more or less at the mercy of the strong currents and cross currents of human thoughts and opinions, for there are prevailing fashions in the world of thought as well as in the world of dress. Not so the believer whose faith reposes on what has been aptly termed, "the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture."

The verses that immediately precede the exhortations we are considering are very significant. Let them be carefully read. Having established the truth of resurrection as exemplified in the resurrection of Christ, the apostle shows us that we who by nature were simply of the order of the first man,; Adam, are now of the order of the second Man, the last Adam, by His own quickening action, and that for us resurrection will be the taking up of the image of the heavenly Man. Then all will be complete, as far as we are concerned, and in immortality and incorruptibility we shall be in all the victory which characterizes that resurrection world. But the victory is already ours by faith, since that resurrection world and its glory already shines before us through the resurrection of Jesus.

"THEREFORE," says the apostle, "be ye stedfast, unmoveable," and stedfast we are, as the risen Christ and the world of glory connected with Him, shine brightly before our faith: we then become unmoveable. Facing bonds and afflictions, and even the inroads of wolves among the flock, and an impending breakdown amongst the shepherds, the apostle could say, "But none of these things move me" (Acts 20: 24). But this was the man who could write the third chapter of Philippians as the expression of his own heart experience, which means that the risen Christ in His world of glory was the object by faith of his soul.

Further, we are to be "always abounding in the work of the Lord." The Christian who, as to the faith and as to character, is most unmoveable, will be, as to service in the Lord's interests, most mobile. He will not be erratic, pursuing the uncertain zig-zag course that marks the flight of a butterfly; he will move rather with the business-like precision which marks the flight of a bee.

The Corinthians were saints who were enriched in both knowledge and utterance. (See 1 Cor. 1: 5.) They knew much and could talk well and abundantly. In his second epistle Paul mentions that they abounded "in utterance and knowledge" (1 Cor. 8: 7), but evidently they did not equally abound in the humble and laborious service of work. It is not otherwise today.

For one saint who really abounds in the work of the Lord we often find half a dozen who abound in talk or discussion, or in knowledge of how things should be done, without doing them. Yet we have the weightiest incentive to diligent work in the Lord's interests in the knowledge that our "labour is not in vain in the Lord." Vain it may appear to be as far as man and his little world are concerned; but in the Lord and as connected with the order of things established in resurrection it is not in vain.

What a story of failure is presented to us in the history of the church and of the individual servants of the Lord. Not a movement, however spiritual its beginnings, but it has collapsed or been perverted! Not a servant but there has been failure — more or less — in his mission! And in so saying we do not necessarily condemn the movement or the servant. Let the Apostle Paul be witness. A prince among faithful servants, he; and yet in his closing epistle he writes, "All they which are in Asia be turned away from me," and "Demas hath forsaken me . . . only Luke is with me.... Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.... At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me." Thus was he permitted to live just long enough to see his labours ending in what men would call defeat; and thus it has been ever since, only that subsequent servants less instructed and less faithful have themselves sown the seeds of defeat in the inherent defects of their own work. A Luther, for instance, is instrumental in working a great deliverance for many a saint in setting them free from the domination of the Papal system, but only to bring them into bondage by an unscriptural subservience to the State.

Yet Paul's work was not in vain. Nor was Luther's in so far as it was "in the Lord." Nor is ours today, subject always to the same qualification. Not one item of the work of the Lord done by any of us In the Lord will be found fruitless or in vain in the day when we enter the resurrection world with all the saints. Jeremiah; who was chosen of God to be His witness in the last decadent days of Judah's history, had a most heart-breaking experience as disaster after disaster and failure after failure rolled in upon him. No word of his seemed to prosper, yet the coming day will reveal that the Word of God put into his lips did prosper in the thing whereto the Lord sent it (see Isa. 55: 11), and he will find that his work was not in vain. And then see what stability and unmoveableness marked him! What other Old Testament servant of God was made "a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land"? (Jer. 1: 18).

We live in the last days of the church's history on earth, and the times are difficult, yet we have far more abundant sources of encouragement than ever Jeremiah had. The resurrection world was not full in view of his faith as It is of ours. The victory through our Lord Jesus Christ is given to us as it never was to him. We may well watch and quit ourselves like men in this our day. The Corinthian saints were all too frequently quitting themselves like children, playing with the spiritual gifts entrusted to them as with new toys and using them to show themselves off, the meanwhile often quarrelling amongst themselves. The same tendencies are in our own hearts. Let us watch against them, and quit ourselves like men — men of faith to whom the resurrection world is more real than the poor passing world that is — and let us not sacrifice love in so doing.

"Let all your things be done with charity" or "in love" is the apostolic word; and this directly follows the word "be strong." The tendency of the strong man of the world is to carry his firmness and strength to the point of brutality. If we quit ourselves like spiritual men and are marked by spiritual strength, we shall always act in love and be characterized by the grace that love begets. There are no exceptions to this rule, for all our things are to be done in love. We are no more at liberty to sacrifice love in the display of strength in ecclesiastic matters than in our ordinary and private affairs. This the epistle itself shows, since amongst the all things to be done in love was the excommunication of the erring brother, as directed in 1 Corinthians 5. Indeed, if comparison at all be permitted, we are less at liberty there, for in matters ecclesiastical we act, at least professedly, in the name of the Lord, that is, as His representatives.

"The sufferings of this present time"

"The sufferings of this present time"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 214.)

The words that form our title are taken from Romans 8: 18, and from that point till we reach verse 27 we find ourselves in an atmosphere charged with groaning. That word occurs three times in these verses, which is not surprising, since the contrast is drawn between the "bondage of corruption," which marks the present age, and the "liberty of the glory," which will mark the age to come.

First of all, "the whole creation" groans and travails in pain together. This was the case when the Apostle Paul wrote these words, and it certainly is so now. In these words the fist reference is to the lower creation, which has been dragged down by the fall of man. Dominion was given to Adam over all, and by his sin he ruined all. He was, so to speak, the top link, intelligently connected with the Creator, with all other links in the chain dependent on him. When he fell, all creation fell with him; animals became wild and destructive. We may not have ears to hear the groan of the lamb or kid as the leopard pounces upon it, or of the fly as, entangled in the web, it feels the spider's bite; but the groaning is there.

And what about the human race? Well, as we write the newspapers give us a daily record of revolutions, whether accomplished or only attempted, of strifes, disorders and contentions. In the English-speaking world, many would tell us we "never had it so good," yet the daily story is of accidents, robberies, strikes, with an all-too-frequent murder thrown in. Added to this the marvellous discoveries of the scientists, which make the almost total destruction of the human race a possibility, cast a dark shadow upon us. They who know most of what is being developed, are most conscious how dark that shadow is. Yes, creation groans from the lowest intelligence to the highest.

And what about the saints of God? Verse 23 answers that question. We are indwelt by the Spirit of God, and He is Firstfruits of the coming day of glory, yet, while we wait for that day, we groan as well. You notice, it says that we groan "within ourselves:" that is, our groaning is of a quieter, less demonstrative kind. The sincere and earnest and instructed believer feels things deeply; he groans in his spirit and in his prayers, but he is not found amongst the noisy, demonstrating, shouting throng, that expresses in this way its grievances and discontents. But just because this is so, our groans are deeper and more sincere.

The Christian is called upon to suffer in this world, as is so frequently stated in Peter's first epistle. We fear that in our present easygoing circumstances this fact has rather eluded us, and we are apt — especially with the young — to present the Gospel, as an introduction to a life of pleasant goodness, and almost of Mollification, in the company of other converted and like-minded young people.

As presented in Scripture the case is far otherwise. There is abundance of joy in God, coupled with suffering for Christ, and with Christ, as we share in a measure His feelings as He passed through this world of death and doom.

A third groaning is mentioned in the passage we have before us. It is that of the Spirit of God. He has come to earth, indwelling the saints, and therefore is found in the midst of the groaning creation. He is not insensible to this, nor is He to the needs and sorrows of the saints in whom He dwells. Hence He intercedes for us in our infirmities. Though Christ is our Intercessor on high, He takes the place of Intercessor below, and He carries out this ministry, "with groanings which cannot be uttered."

This strikes us as a remarkable expression. When Paul was caught up to the third heaven, he "heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter" (2 Cor. 12: 4). No words were found in any human language which could convey these things; and equally no words can be found to convey the depth of the Spirit's groanings for and in the saints. He, to whom they are uttered, knows what is the mind of the Spirit in these groanings, for the mind of the Spirit is the mind of God the Father, and equally, we may say it is the mind of Christ.

This is illustrated for us in the record of John 11. Twice in that chapter do we read of His groaning. As Mary and others with her wept, "He groaned in the spirit;" and further we read, "Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself," went to the graveside of Lazarus. Here we have the Son of God marked by a groaning in Himself — in His spirit — too deep for words; an exact counterpart, we judge, to the groaning of the Spirit of God, which cannot be uttered.

Let us each ask ourselves, Do I groan, as I pass through this world so sadly blighted by sin? Possessing the indwelling Spirit of God, the answer must surely be, Yes. Only let us honestly confess how slight our groanings are — how little we live in the light of the glory to come and the liberty it will bring, so that we but feebly realize the darkness and the bondage of corruption that fills the earth at present. The more brightly we anticipate the coming "liberty" the more keenly we shall be sensible of the present "bondage" that fills a corrupt earth.

And the more desirous we shall be to stand apart from the bondage helping our fellow-Christians to do the same; and also to win souls for the coming day of "the liberty of the glory of the sons of God."

Tarry One for Another

Tarry One for Another.

The Evil of Individualism

by F.B. Hole

Just as it is necessary to avoid sectarianism if we would walk in fellowship after the apostle's pattern, so it is also needful to shun individualism, which is in some respects the opposite extreme.

To clear away possible misapprehensions, let us again affirm that we fully accept the oft-repeated statement that in days when the outward unity and order of the professing church has broken down, the path of faith becomes an individual one; by which we mean it is a path which must be entered upon and maintained in the energy of individual faith. 2 Timothy 2: 19-22 are clear evidence of this. The responsibilities. and privileges there enforced lie upon "every one" "a man", and the whole passage is addressed not to a church but to Timothy, a faithful individual, and consequently, when verse 22 is obeyed, those thus pursuing righteousness, faith, love and peace are only individual members of Christ's body who are walking together in the truth.

All that we fully grant, and yet it must also be maintained with equal clearness, that such members of Christ's body who are thus together will only walk in the truth as they are governed by it in its entirety. To ignore the truth as to the Church of God will not do.

Let us assume that such a gathering of saints exists before us. We would then point out to them that, in the first place, they must not assume to be what they are not. They are not the Church, nor are they a Church, in the sense of being a corporate body with a constitution of its own. They are simply members of Christ's body (which is the Church) who aim at gathering together and walking according to its original constitution.

But, in the second place, we should point out that the break-up and failure which has supervened has in no wise relieved them of the responsibility to walk according to all that Scripture indicates as the will of the Lord for His Church. We are not at liberty, if we would obey and please Him, to assert our individual action, or judgment, or ministry, to the over-riding of practical fellowship in these things, whether it be the individual person or the individual gathering of saints.

The believers at Corinth, as the Apostle Paul wrote to them were carnal and walked as men, consequently they had fallen into sectarianism by forming schools of opinion round favourite leaders. It is equally plain that they also were asserting themselves as individuals in a wrongful way and that this individualism was working havoc in their midst. We will now point out the evidences of the working of this false principle we have them in the First Epistle.

In 1 Corinthians 10 the question of association with idols and idolatry is being discussed. The apostle begins with the history of Israel as the professed people of God, and shows how ruinous such association had proved in their case. This leads up to the exhortation of verse 14. From verse 15 onwards the apostle appeals to them on the ground of that which is set forth in the Supper of the Lord. The true character of the cup and of the loaf is that they indicate Christ's blood and body; and moreover of His blood and body they are the communion or fellowship. We all share in that one loaf as one body (verse 17) not as so many individual believers. Here we have the Supper of the Lord viewed in its abstract nature and bearing, and individualism is clearly excluded in connection with it.

In 1 Corinthians 11: 17, the apostle carried his corrective ministry further and turns to mistakes and abuses which were amongst them in their actual comings together — their assemblies. We must distinguish, of course, between the church at Corinth and their actual assembling together in that character. Throughout this article we use the word 'church' for the former and reserve the word 'assembly' for the latter. The saints at Corinth gathered together sometimes in connection with the ministry of servants of the Lord — to listen to Apollos and receive help through him for instance (Acts 18: 2) — these meetings were not 'assemblies' in the sense in which we now use the word, (but they were) i.e. actual convenings of the church as such in subjection to their risen Head acting by His Spirit in their midst. The church might thus meet in assembly for discipline (1 Cor. 5), for eating the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11), for ministry to edification, exhortation and comfort (1 Cor. 12 and 1 Cor. 14: 1-5) for prayer and worship (1 Cor. 14: 9-17).

First of all, then, in connection with their assemblies, he turns to the parties which existed among them and which were clearly visible when they came together 'in assembly' (verse 18) (see N. Trans.) This sectarianism may result in select parties of a very rigid and exclusive sort grouped round the chosen teacher or preacher, but evidently it is, after all, closely connected with individualism, in as much as it springs out of an exaggerated sense of the importance of the individual who is made the centre of the party. It ends in saints "holding" the party leader instead of "holding the Head".

In verse 20 the apostle turns to the assembly for eating the Lord's Supper. Here there were grave abuses existent, but we are now only concerned to point out that in eating what they professed to be the Lord's Supper they were really eating "every one his own supper" (verse 21). They so individualized that sacred memorial that it became a scene of unseemly disorder, every one eating for himself. Hence the apostle's injunction in verse 33, "Wherefore, my brethren .... tarry one for another".

All this is extreme and horrifying, and would be utterly inexcusable if occurring now that we have the Word of God in our heads in a way that the Corinthians had not. Still we have to watch against subtler workings of the same thing. We do, indeed, break the bread and drink the cup individually, but we do so as those who belong to the one body, in keeping with the one loaf of which we partake,

In 1 Corinthians 12 the gift or manifestations of the Spirit are in question. These were found in different members of the body as the Lord in His wisdom was pleased to ordain, but they were given to individuals in view of the whole "To each the manifestation of the Spirit is given for profit" (verse 7 N.T.) and that profit the profit of the whole body as the subsequent verses show.

Now if the gifted member is to sink himself, his self-importance which would naturally be formed by the possession of a gift, and the self-pleasing which might guide him in the use of it, he must be thoroughly under the sway of Divine Love. Hence the magnificent chapter, 1 Corinthians 13 which comes in as a parenthesis.

1 Corinthians 14 picks up the thread from 1 Corinthians 12 and gives us a glimpse of the Corinthian assemblies for ministry, prayer and praise. The individualist got up and speaking with an unknown tongue, he edified himself (verse 4) whereas the Divine purpose in the assembly was that the Church should be edified.

Verse 26 is very illuminating. In their assemblies every one of them had a psalm, a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, an interpretation. The following verses give instruction regulating the use of these gifts, and from these verses and verse 31 in particular, we gather that there was nothing wrong in each of them having something to contribute; since all might prophesy one by one — not on one occasion, doubtless, but there was liberty for all as the Lord might direct on different occasions. The trouble rather lay in that individualism that led them to degrade the Lord's Supper into each eating his own supper. They degraded that which was the assembly of the Lord where He ruled and directed by His Spirit into a free and easy meeting of a lot of individuals each with his own ideas and his own little bit which he eagerly desired to throw into the common pot.

The difference between the assembly in function as directed by the Lord and the individualist meeting of the Corinthian stamp can be likened to that existing between a fine-woven linen bedspread and a patchwork quilt. The Bible itself consists of 66 books written in different epochs by different men. Yet a Divine unity pervades it because written under inspiration of the Spirit of God. A similar unity of ministry as prayer or worship will be discernible in the assembly as controlled in its activities by the Spirit of God, and the more so controlled the more it will be discernible.

So completely was the Spirit of God to be in control in the assembly that if a prophet were on his feet, presumably having arisen as controlled by the Spirit, and a further revelation were made to another prophet sitting by, the earlier speaker was at once to accept it as a signal that the time had come for him to stop; and resuming his seat he was to give place to the other.

Under the existing conditions of one-man ministry, and liturgical forms and customs, which hold sway in the religious organisations, all this part of Scripture has been reduced to a dead letter. But it is sadly possible to have gatherings of saints apart from such restrictions and with freedom of ministry, and yet for it to result only in meetings of this individualistic Corinthian type. Indeed it must so result unless we are prepared to keep before us the truth of the Church in its practical fellowship and working. No assembling together of saints today, we repeat, can be more than the gathering of a few of the members of Christ's body, but so gathered they must act in the light of the whole truth of the church if they would be obedient.

In concluding our brief review of the Epistle, we might note that the use of discipline and exclusion mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5 also involved assembly action. Apostolic energy and action is indeed prominent in verses 4 and 5, for as yet the consciences of the Corinthians were asleep, but the final action to be taken in verse 13 was of an assembly character.

The second Epistle shows us that such action was taken, and that "the many" or the mass of the saints put their hands to it. (2 Cor. 2: 6). They were so stirred to zeal by the first Epistle (2 Cor. 7: 11) that the great mass of them came together and solemnly put the offender away from their midst. Today, alas! saints are often so lethargic that only a few come together to act if such a sad occasion arises and the punishment is inflicted of the "few" rather than the "many".

If we now consider for a little how these apostolic corrections and instructions apply today, we shall be quickly aware of how much need there is of attention to the instructions of 1 Corinthians 14. It is still possible for a few saints to gather together on "assembly" lines though only a fraction of those comprising the Church in their town. Thus assembled they may break bread, or pray, or wait upon the Lord for ministry through two or three of His servants — what we call an "open meeting". Are we free from individualism on these occasions? By no means. How often do we notice thanksgivings and particular hymns of praise and worship, quite excellent in themselves individually considered, yet obviously quite out of keeping with what has gone before or what follows, complete misfits if judged from the standpoint of the Spirit's action in the assembly! How often times of prayer when the same petition is voiced again and again by various brothers, seemingly forgetful that the first who was led to ask it did so as the mouth-piece of those present, to be ratified by all saying "Amen" at the end of his requests; and that therefore, save in exceptional cases, such constant repetition is needless since all have already asked it! How often again is there that tendency to coming together, each having his hymn, his prayer, his Scripture portion to be got out at all costs!

Further we have to beware of the individualism which takes a form which has been sometimes spoken of as "independency". This may take the form of an individual saint asserting himself, his judgement, his actions against the assembly where he is found, or the form of an individual assembly acting in complete indifference to, and as having no connection with, other assemblies equally walking in subjection to the same Lord.

Here some may at once object that we find little in Scripture as to these errors. We grant it. The case of Diotrephes (3 John) bears upon it, but generally speaking these troubles are such as have afflicted the church in these later centurions. Apostolic authority acted as a cheek on that form of individualism at the beginning. We have become more exposed to it in these last days, when saints have essayed once more to walk according to the truth but without apostolic authority in their midst other than the apostolic writings and even without an appointed elderhood as at the beginning. Their position is similar to that of the Jews who returned to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, Nehemiah and Ezra, who had no king and a very imperfect priesthood. These externals they had lost, and it would have been folly, if not worse, to have assumed power they did not possess in ordaining a king and more priests for themselves. The loss of these externals did not, however, exempt them from obedience to the whole law.

Hence today, we submit, we have special need of grace and wisdom in this matter. we have no wish to hinder the servants of the Lord, but they must remember that they are members of Christ's body, and if they profess to be walking, with as many as are available, in a path of obedience to the whole truth of the Church, they must bear these things in mind. That which is right for the individual is clearly right for the individual gathering of saints also. We must carefully avoid, therefore, the position of independency that is commonly called "Congregationalism".

It is perfectly certain that failures have often occurred in the past both with individual saints and individual gatherings as to these very things, and if the Lord comes not for a while they will occur again. "What then", it will be asked "are we to do?"

Our responsibility is to act under the Lord, that is in obedience to His word. Powers of discipline still remain to the saints collectively, as indicated in Romans 16: 17 and 18, 1 Thess. 5: 14; 2 Thess 3: 6, 14, 15. Even in the very flagrant case of Diotrephes, the apostle contents himself with threatening action if and when he came. He did not urge Gaius or Demetrius to attempt strong counter-action themselves. Individualism or independency is not to be met with counter-independency. The spirit of division cannot be overcome, according to God, by the spirit of counter-division. If in mistaken zeal we attempt so to meet it we always run the risk of making the remedy worse than the disease and of swallowing a whole camel in our endeavours to strain out the gnat.

In writing the above we bear fully in mind that a time may come, according to 2 Timothy 2: 16-21, when individual action is not only permitted by Scripture, but actually enjoined. That time is when evil, having come in, is of such character as to overthrow faith by attacking the foundations. Then, assuming that it gets beyond all assembly action, the individual must act for himself in faithfulness to his Lord.

We owe our position, if indeed we do gather to the Lord's Name, to such individual action in faithfulness to the Lord. In the position we are bound to act as governed by the whole truth as to the Church and the apostle's fellowship, and not act on an individualistic basis. If by reason of unfaithfulness the position be abandoned or corrupted, then once more individual action according to 2 Timothy 2 becomes incumbent upon us in order that a place according to God may be taken up and personal

purity maintained.

We have one more application to make of the truth which is before us. A good deal has been said and written during the past fifteen years as to the unscriptural character of the "circles of fellowship". In so far as such "circles" are the kind which says "I am of Paul" etc., or formed to champion some special truth or truths, we quite agree. Yet we must not forget that there was a circle of fellowship in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. In the early morning it consisted of about 120 names, by nightfall it was expanded to over 3000. That circle of fellowship was "the apostle's fellowship".

Later on at Corinth the Divinely-formed "circle" was imperilled by sectarian "circles" not yet openly separated from each other, but parties formed within the Church, the fruit of their carnal condition. In this connection 1 Corinthians 11: 18, 19 are very illuminating. "Among you" says the apostle, "there must also be sects". There was no such must in the case of the Philippians or Ephesians, where the prevailing state was one of spiritual freshness and power. If saints walk in the flesh, fleshly tendencies must be manifested. But on the other hand such fleshly manifestations only serve to throw into relief such as faithfully adhere to what is divine and thus are approved of God. There were evidently some in Corinth who would not range themselves under any of the party standards.

Now it is more than likely, when the "Paul" and "Apollos" and "Cephas", parties were forming themselves at Corinth, and some of the more spiritual and faithful souls were declining to join in their movements, that to the careless or worldly-minded onlooker they only appeared to be forming another party. But even if they found it difficult or impossible to prove they were not, and thus vindicate themselves, they were approved of God and in the view of the inspired apostle. With that they had to be content.

While, therefore, we have no more desire to form "a circle of fellowship" than we have to form "a church", we suggest that it may be well to find out first of all exactly what is meant by people when they use the term "circle of fellowship", and secondly that we should make very certain that the proposed remedy for the "circles" of fellowship, against which protest is raised, is not that of each individual being allowed to form his own circle of fellowship. Otherwise we are only practising Corinthian-like individualism under a new guise.

We do not want "a circle" of fellowship, but fellowship we do want. It is a precious treasure. Let us be careful, therefore, lest as an old proverb puts it, we "throw away the baby with the bath-water." Human ideals often incrust themselves upon the truth. In discarding the incrustation it is all too easy to let slip the truth. Rather let us "tarry one for another" as Scripture enjoins.

(Extract from Scripture Truth Supplement in the Circular of June 1966.)

"Ten times better"

"Ten times better"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 197.)

At the present time great stress is being laid upon science. We are frequently told that scientific training is of the utmost importance, and that not enough scientists are being produced in Universities and Technical Colleges, to cope with and develop the immense fields of human knowledge and discovery, that have opened out during the past half century.

Those of us who are advanced in years can appreciate how tremendous the progress has been, and those who are young, and who consequently have stepped into a world where these amazing devices have become commonplace things, may yet tremble, if they dare to think, at the prospect that lies ahead. Destruction of life and property can now be easily achieved on a gigantic scale by evil-disposed persons. And such persons have never been lacking in this sinful world, nor are they lacking today.

In our Bibles (A.V.) the word "science" only occurs twice, once in the Old Testament and once in the New, and both occurrences are instructive. In ancient Babylon, 2,500 years or so ago, science was highly esteemed. It ran in different channels from today, but was great in its own selected regions of thought and achievement. A friend who visited the ruins of Babylon a few years ago, gave us a picture he got there, showing how the city must have appeared, according to modern architects, who have examined the ruins. Looking at it, one could only say that, if at all correct, no modern city would approach it in magnificence.

Into this gorgeous treasure-house captive Jews were brought, and amongst them Daniel and his three companions, as related in Daniel 1: 3-6. They were picked as, "Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans." The great Nebuchadnezzar meant to get out of his captives all the profit and progress that their scientific ability and reaming could produce. He was just like the leaders of the nations today.

The middle verses of Daniel 1 reveal that the educational and technical training of three years duration — very like a University course today — involved their being fed on rations from the king's table which were doubtless connected with idolatrous rites which he practised. This led Daniel and his friends to decline these luxuries and be content with the simplest food and drink. God honoured the separation that they practised in this matter, and He "gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom," as we see in verse 17. The "science" they possessed they got not from man but from God.

The day came when they with others were brought in before the king, that their science might be tested, and in result Nebuchadnezzar found them "ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm." A great deal of the "science" of Babylon was obtained through various arts, by which men trafficked with demonic powers, so that Daniel and his companions were in competition with a "science" that proceeds from Satanic sources, as well as that evolved by clever men. And the verdict, pronounced even by the heathen king himself, was that the knowledge and science and wisdom that comes from God, was ten times better.

The knowledge that was given to Daniel was great, as we see when we read the second chapter of his book. Gaining his science from God, he was able to reveal to the king not only his forgotten dream but also its significance, outlining as it did the whole course of Gentile dominion in the earth and its catastrophic end, when the God of heaven should set up His kingdom, which will never be destroyed. Into science of this sort no element of human conjecture or deduction ever enters. The same note of Divinely-given certainty is struck throughout all the revelations contained in the book.

Yet the knowledge that is available today for the simplest Christian goes far beyond anything that was made known to Daniel. It has reached us in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. Here we have knowledge of a high and heavenly sort, which is available for us as the fruit of Divine revelation and not human investigation: knowledge which confers untold blessing of a spiritual sort, as the Apostle Peter wrote, "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord" (2 Peter 2: 1). The Psalmist could say, "I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Thy testimonies are my meditation" (Ps. 119: 99), If that were true of him in his day, the same thing will be more abundantly true in our day of those who make the New Testament Scriptures of Truth their meditation.

In the New Testament the word "science" occurs by way of warning. No sooner had the true knowledge of God been revealed than the adversary began working to corrupt it. Hence the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy, telling him to "keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called" (1 Tim. 6: 20). The Greek word, which here is translated as, "science" is the usual word for " knowledge," and we are told that the earliest corrupters of the faith, to whom the Apostle John more particularly referred in his epistles, were known as the Gnostics meaning "the knowing ones," since their title was derived from this word.

In those days there was of course "science" of the Athenian type as we see in Acts 17. Their scientific philosophies were continually seeking "some new thing," and expanding or altering in accordance therewith. What Paul preached with Divinely-given assurance was "ten times better" than all they could produce. But what Timothy was warned against was a more seductive type of "science" than that, though doubtless both types were in view.

The early Gnostics came under cover of a Christian profession. The apostles of our Lord, such as Peter and John were "unlearned and ignorant men," (Acts 4: 13). So they were able to claim that they presented a more refined and intellectual version of the Christian faith, and what they advocated was really the "scientific" thing. But in clever fashion it cut away the foundations of the faith. It was in opposition, and its so-called "science" was false.

Why should we concern ourselves with things such as these in a magazine entitled, Scripture Truth? Because "science" of a false kind, in both these forms that we have briefly considered, is very much the vogue today; and the volume of it is ten times greater than it was in the days of old. There is of course much science which is sound and demonstrably true and effective. It is not of this that we speak; but of the other type, which is really speculative philosophy. And there are a great number of religious cults astray from "That which was from the beginning" (1 John 1: 1), which was the theme of the apostolic testimony.

The remnant of the Jews, who had returned to Jerusalem were admonished by the prophet Haggai that God's word and His Spirit remained among them. This we see in verse 5 of his second chapter. It is, thank God, the same today, only in larger measure. As a new year opens, may we exhort all our readers to renewed zeal in the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures, with an increased sense of dependence upon the teaching of the Holy Spirit, who now indwells them.

If all of us are moved to act in this direction, we shall find ourselves possessed of, and by, a spirit of understanding and true science, which is "ten times better" than all we can derive from any other source.

Testings and Trials

Testings and Trials.

1 Peter 1: 3 - 9

F. B. Hole.

(Outline of an address, Extracted from Simple Testimony, Vol. 35, 1918-19, page 181.)

I want to emphasize one side of the future which we are apt to forget. Our portion is a heavenly one, and when we get to heaven it will be a day of rejoicing. But remember, we are to stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in the body.

There is heaven, the Father's house, the abode of love, into which the children of God are to be introduced. But there is also the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We shall enter the Father's house because of the divinely established relationship which is common to us all, and in which we stand irrespective of the measure of our growth in grace, as a result of the work of Christ. But when it is a question of entrance into the kingdom, it is very different. Scripture speaks of an abundant entrance into the kingdom, and by inference there may be those whose entrance is anything but abundant. The apostle in 2 Peter 1 exhorts us to give diligence that we may grow, that we may develop a sturdy Christian character, that as a result of that growth and development we may have an abundant entrance into the kingdom when it comes.

Meanwhile our lives down here are very largely made up of testings and trials. Why is it that the Lord allows so many of these strange happenings, these trials, these occurrences which naturally we so much dislike? We have an answer to this question in the Scripture before us. It is written to those who have been begotten again to a living hope, not a hope like that of the disciples before Christ died, a hope connected with His Messiahship and the establishment of the kingdom in power. That hope was shattered when Messiah, instead of mounting the throne of David and reigning gloriously, was crucified. We have only to read Luke 24, that pathetic story of two distracted disciples who were drifting away to Emmaus, to realize how utterly their hope had died within them.

By the abundant mercy of our God and Father WE have a hope that is anchored within the veil, a hope that will never be disappointed, a hope that lies on the other side of death and is fixed in resurrection. We have an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. The inheritance that Israel entered into was rapidly defiled and corrupted, but ours is reserved in heaven for us. We are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation ready to be revealed in all its completeness in the last time.

What about the meanwhile? What of those who are in heaviness through manifold temptations?

How these testings do come! We are none of us immune from them. Notice two little clauses in connection with them. "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season." Thank God for those words, "for a season." For a season we are in heaviness. Our hearts, while we rejoice, feel a certain sense of oppression. Perhaps we personally have suffered very little, but every heart which is capable of any degree of sympathy must surely feel oppressed. In Hebrews 11 we find Moses making his immortal choice. He says, "Give me the reproach of Christ, with the glory which is to follow, and let me not go in the track of the pleasures of sin-they are for a season." The pleasures of the world, and the trials and afflictions of the saints are both only for the same brief space of time-"for a season." The heaviness of manifold temptations is but for a season, and when the pleasures of the worldling die within him, the heaviness of the saints will end as well.

The next little bit is sweeter still. It is sweet to know that the heaviness and the trials are but for a season, but it adds, "if need be." We do not get these temptations and trials unless there is a need for them. They are "for a season, if need be." Is there a weight on my heart? I ought then, evidently, in the light of this scripture, to turn to my Father and God and say, " There is a need for this, or I should not have it." There is never a trial nor a testing, never a heaviness in the hearts of God's people, but there is a need for it. What that need may be in my case it might be difficult to say. It is very like that scripture in Romans 8, where it says we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. The verse which follows should begin with a "but." "But we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." There is a need. Let us remember that.

We get light as to what the need is in a general way in the seventh verse of 1 Peter 1. "The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth." Faith is much more precious than gold, though it be tried with fire, referring to the most intense form of testing. Faith is never lost. How often it has happened that a devoted missionary has gone forth, filled with love to Christ and souls. He has been like a shining lamp for a brief hour, and has been called home. We say there must have been some mistake. Here was that devoted man, who went to China and had just begun to acquire a command of the language; it looked as if he would be greatly used of God, but he has died. All that is lost.

No, not lost; it is going to be found! It says, it "shall be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." The thing that seemed to be lost is going to be found. What a finding it will be when that hour is reached! It will be found unto praise and honour and glory. Whose? That of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the hour when He appears in glory, though He will have His own glory, and the glory of the Father, and the glory of the holy angels, He will not be too great to wear a little glory that has been brought to Him by these things which we imagined were lost.

I hope that each one of us will have our hearts fired by a holy ambition to share in this. I think we see very plainly, if we read the New Testament, that service is going to be rewarded in that day, down to the very smallest act, if it be really for Christ. A cup of cold water will not be forgotten. But we find also that character will be rewarded. We read in 2 Peter 1 about adding to our faith, virtue. That is really growth, the development of Christian character. The most beautiful graces were all seen perfectly in our Lord Jesus Christ, and you and I are instructed to give diligence that we develop these things, and if we do, there will be an abundant entrance for us into the kingdom which is coming. In other words, though we perhaps do not perform any great service we can develop the character which is brought out in that Scripture. A saint may lie on a bed of suffering. What can he do? He cannot preach to the heathen 3000 miles away. He cannot even do much in the way of speaking to the heathen in this favoured land. But he may by patience in suffering develop that Christlikeness which is exceedingly precious in God's sight. It will be rewarded "in that day." It is a question in 2 Peter 1. Of the development of Christian character rather than the accomplishment of any great act of Christian service.

There is another thing. If there is one element which is going to weigh heavily in the adjudication of rewards in the kingdom it is not mere service, nor even in a certain sense character; it is those who have suffered that are going to reign. We ought not to trade on grace. Grace is grace, thank God, or we should never be in heaven at all. Though we are sure of that, remember there is the kingdom, there is the appearing of Jesus Christ, there is the judgment seat, which will put all things to the test. If we are in circumstances that test us, and if manifold trials and heaviness press upon our spirits, remember there is a need for it. Let us get to our knees and seek that we may know God's purpose in it. It is only for a season, but it is designed to do its blessed work in us, so that all might be to praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Christ. God grant that we may be stirred in our hearts to play our little part as those who fear and love the Lord in these days, which we have such strong reason to believe are the last.

The Perfect Day

The Perfect Day.

Proverbs 4: 18.

Substance of an Address at Bath, by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 21, 1929, page 202.)

The verse I have read compares the path of the just to "the shining light," but the words more literally translated would read, I understand, "the light of dawn." This makes Solomon's allusion far more clear and striking.

The wicked have their "path" as the four earlier verses indicate. This figure of speech is a familiar one: life is compared to a way. The living of our lives is, therefore, like the treading of a path. The path of the wicked is the order of life that the wicked live, and that is to be avoided at all cost, for, as the nineteenth verse indicates, it leads into the darkness of night, where stumbling is certain sooner or later.

The "just" — those in right relations With God — live another order of life and pursue quite different objects. They have their "path." It is like the light of dawn, which though it comes up softly, yet increases in brightness and strength. The sun rises and sheds its beams, which increase in power as it mounts the heavens to its zenith at mid-day.

There the allusion stops. In nature the sun is only at its zenith for an instant, and then begins the inevitable decline towards evening and night. Not so in grace; for the path of the just is not going to arrive at "the perfect day" until glory is reached, and when glory is reached our sun will no more go down. It will remain in the splendour of its zenith for ever. The path of the just is like that.

This is a remarkable assertion, truly! Have we all taken it in? If so, the remark most likely to spring to our lips will be: " Well, the path of the just may be like that, but usually it does not look like it!" Usually it certainly does not: indeed, we believe we might go as far as to say it never looks like it in this world.

First of all, let me remind you of One who was pre-eminently "the JUST One" (Acts 7: 52). No other just one can be mentioned in the same breath as He. He is beyond all comparison; solitary and alone in His perfection. What was His path? Well, it was prophetically anticipated in Isa. 49, and we hear in that chapter His voice saying to us, "Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent My strength for nought, and in vain" (verse 4). We turn to the Gospels and we see how fully these words of His were verified in His life.

When first He came forth in public service His sun appeared to be rising in the heavens. At Nazareth, when first He spoke in their synagogue, the people marvelled at the words of grace He spoke. Yet very soon His faithfulness stirred them to fury, and they would have killed Him. Again and again later there were moments that gave promise of more prosperous things  - times when the people wished to make Him a king, or when they met Him shouting, Hosanna! at the entrance into Jerusalem on the foal of an ass, and His enemies ground their teeth in impotent rage saying the world was gone after Him. Yet these moments were exceptions; the general trend of His path was in the reverse direction. He was more and more hedged about with foes and apparent failure, until that last fatal week in Jerusalem which ended in His death.

The secular historian dwelling in Jerusalem in those days would have put it on record that the Jesus of Nazareth, who had excited such large hopes in the breasts of a few visionary folk — fishermen from Galilee and the like — suffered a rapid and sensational eclipse. His sun set amid dark thunder clouds. His path was not at all like the light of the dawn that shone more and more unto the perfect day, but rather like the dim light of a very stormy winter afternoon that faded more and more into the inky blackness of the night. That clearly enough was the verdict of the world.

Which was right? The verdict of the world or the verdict of the inspired Preacher of Israel? Do he not sometimes sing:

"Thy path, uncheered by earthly smiles,

Led only to the cross"?

Only to the cross? Yes, certainly, if we confine our thoughts to His earthly path as the hymn so sweetly and appropriately does, in its place. If, however, we lift our eyes beyond His earthly path, then we can say with triumph it did not lead to the cross alone, but to the glory also, as Ps. 16 makes so manifest.

The fact is, of course, that the divine eye sees in every path what is not known to the mere historian. As the Father looked down upon His beloved Son, what did He see? He saw everything that was beautiful in its season. Grace was shining everywhere; in His infancy, His boyhood, His early manhood, His maturity. As He increased in wisdom and stature so the light that had dawned in Him increased in strength. When He came forth at length in public ministry, then the "great light" burst forth upon 'the people which sat in darkness' (Matt. 4: 16). Heaven's sun had risen upon them. And in spite of all that was done against Him the light continued to shine against the dark background of man's sin. The more He was tested the more the light shone to the glory of God. When at last it looked as if man had finally extinguished Him in death, then really His shining reached its zenith, for it was in anticipation of death that He said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him " (John 13: 31, 32),

As man saw it, His death was the end of everything for Him. As God saw it, it was the beginning of everything. To the one it was the lowest point of His humiliation: to the Other the highest point of His glory. To the one it was the quenching of His sun in night: to the Other the permanent establishing of His sun in its zenith of splendour, for the display of moral glory to an infinite extent which took place in His death was immediately followed by His exaltation into the Father's glory, which will yet be displayed in this world and before the universe.

The path of "the Just One," in spite of what it appeared to be, has reached "the perfect day" in the Father's presence. His path is a finished path in a sense which can be so spoken of no other. No other has completed it as He has. Yet all who have been privileged to be servants of God have been alike in this, that apparent defeat and failure have followed their steps, and this not always because of their own personal failure, but sometimes just because of their personal faithfulness. This stands true whether we think of Old Testament or New Testament saints.

Think of Moses. What a marvellous beginning when in God-given faith and courage he withstood the mighty Pharaoh and his magicians. See him standing on the further bank of the Red Sea with the rod of God in his outstretched arm! Listen to the chantings of victory from a million throats! Was it not splendid! Should we not all have said that his sun had reached noontide height? But then we trace the story of the forty. years in the wilderness. His meekness and patience were truly remarkable; yet the people beneath his hand were increasingly trying and disappointing, until nearly at the end of that long testing time the great Lawgiver broke down and spoke unadvisedly with his lips. Let us not marvel at this. We should have broken down before forty days had gone, whereas he endured it for nearly forty years. At last, however, he broke forth with, "Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?" smiting the rock twice in his anger.

Alas! poor Moses. Those lips of his which had been taken up by God to be His mouth, had emitted angry words which were emphatically not God's words, but misrepresented Him. His sin, therefore, was great and his punishment correspondingly great. He lost his entrance into Canaan. The triumphal entry into the land of promise, which he must have looked forward to as the fitting sequel to his triumphant exodus from Egypt, was never to be realized by him. What would the secular historian say? He would unquestionably have said that while the sun of Moses' prosperity reached high noon at the time of the exodus, it declined during the wilderness sojourn and set in clouds on the confines of the promised land.

But was it really so? Turn your eyes to the Mount of Transfiguration, as recorded in the Gospels, and see him appear in glory in companionship with the Son of God. Did his sun decline? No, it shone more and more unto the perfect day.

Think of Elijah, another outstanding Old Testament figure. In his case do we not see things working in exactly the same way? When we see him, alone and unaided, confronting the eight hundred and fifty prophets on Mount Carmel, with Ahab, Jezebel. and the people at their backs, he appears the most heroic of all Old Testament heroes. When the fire fell from heaven, what overwhelming triumph! It was high noon indeed with him. Yes, but behold him a few days after, under the juniper tree and filled with fear of Jezebel. His sun had indeed gone down while it was day. And after that Horeb, and another prophet anointed in his room. How his light appeared to have been quenched! But was it?

On the Mount of Transfiguration he too stands with Jesus. He too has glory shining on his head. It is not night for him after all. It is the perfect day.

There is only one amongst the followers of the Lord of whose life much is recorded in the New Testament. But there is one, the Apostle Paul. What was his path like?

His path as a Christian started when the Son of God, brighter than the noonday sun, shone upon him from glory. He became the chosen vessel for bearing the Saviour's name to the Gentiles, and we all know something of his devoted labours. We remember how he evangelized from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum with great power and God-given success; so much so that to his bitterest opponents he and his helpers became known as, "These that have turned the world upside down." We think of the churches that he founded as a wise master-builder, and how for a time it seemed as if nothing could stay his progress.

But suddenly a halt seemed to be called. Bonds and imprisonment not only awaited him but actually held him fast. And then defection definitely set in amongst the churches, and his own children in the faith turned away from him and deserted him in the hour when most they might have been a comfort to him. At last he stood, aged, war-worn, forsaken, like a poor old beggar who was of the offscouring of the world, before the powerful Caesar, and ended his career under the axe outside the imperial city. The path of this pattern Christian was no exception to the rule. It also appeared to be like the setting sun, declining more and more unto the darkest night.

Thus it appeared to be. But in reality it was far otherwise. To Paul himself his approaching martyrdom was but his offering up, his departure, and his eye was by faith on the "crown of righteousness" which awaited him when the upward path he trod should end in the perfect day of the Lord's appearing.

And now I have a question to ask. Why should we twentieth-century Christians expect that the path should be different for us? Is it our prescriptive right to be carried to heaven on downy beds of ease, amid sunshine and flowers, whilst all others sail through stormy seas of trial and persecution? Is it for us to feel shocked and scandalised if difficulties seem to dog our footsteps? By no means. It is just what we should expect. It is as true today as nineteen centuries ago that "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14: 22). We may not get the tribulation in the form of outward persecution from the world. Still we get it within the bosom of the professing church, if not from without.

There are many difficulties today. They throng thickly around us — church difficulties, business difficulties, family difficulties — all of them difficulties which we should not feel were we not Christians, with some desire to walk in a way that is pleasing to God. What do they mean?

Do they mean that our poor little sun is fast declining and our day is nearly over? They do not. Only go through them in faith, and with the courage begotten of faith in God, and they will work out patience, experience and hope within us. Thus there will be made room within for the inshining of the love of God, shed abroad in our hearts like sunlight by the Spirit of God given to us. There will be great spiritual gain.

Instead of the shining of that light growing less and less, paler and yet paler with days' decrease, it will be more and more, brighter and yet brighter with the day's increase — unto the perfect day.

The perfect day will have fully and finally arrived when Christ is established in His place of glory according to the counsels of God. For that moment we all wait, whether Moses, Elijah, Paul or ourselves. When the king is crowned in Westminster Abbey the peers of the realm are present, every man with his coronet in his hand; and in his hand it must remain until the king is crowned. Then, when the crown imperial rests on the sovereign's head, each peer assumes his own coronet and not before.

This is as it should be, and as it will be in the age that is coming. When Christ is glorified in public we shall be glorified with Him. When He is crowned "the perfect day" will have arrived for Him, and for us as well.

The Second Established

The Second Established.

Frank B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 12, 1920, page 93.)

Some of the great contrasts in the Epistle to the Hebrews are as follows:-

IN JUDAISM.

Moses the apostle.

Aaron the high priest.

The law with its hopes.

The first covenant.

The tabernacle — "the example or shadow of heavenly things."

The many sacrifices, "the blood of bulls and of goats."

"The way into the Holiest not yet made manifest."

IN CHRISTIANITY.

Christ the Apostle (Heb. 1 and Heb3).

Christ the High Priest (Heb. 2, Heb3, Heb5 and Heb7).

A better hope and better promise (Heb. 7 and Heb8).

The new covenant (Heb. 7).

The true tabernacle — "the heavenly things themselves" (Heb. 8 and Heb9).

"His own blood," "the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once" (Heb. 9 and Heb. 10).

"Boldness to enter into the Holiest" (Heb. 9 and Heb10).

The epistle to the Hebrews is essentially the epistle of contrasts. In it we have the pure light of a heavenly and spiritual Christianity shining against the comparatively dark background of Judaism with its earthly hopes and carnal ordinances. In its own day Judaism had been the bearer of light for God. Like the moon, it caught and reflected the rays of good things to come, while as yet "the true light" had not arisen; but with the advent of Christ all was changed, and just as the edge of the moon is turned to blackness the moment it touches the sun's disk at the beginning of an eclipse, so the light of Judaism became but darkness, or to use the exact Scripture phrase, "Even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth" (2 Cor. 3: 10).

In the case before us the natural process is of course reversed, for it is the sun of Christianity which eclipses the moon of Judaism, and the process of this is set before us in detail in Hebrews. Item after item is mentioned only to discover that in Judaism there was but a shadow, or a reflection of the true and abiding thing which comes to light in and through our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is when the Spirit of God comes to deal with the great sufficient and final sacrifice of Christ — and here we touch indeed the very foundation of everything — that we get the remarkable statement: "He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second" (Heb10: 9).

Here we have clearly revealed a great principle which characterizes all God's ways, and once it is revealed we can see how it has done so from the beginning. From the very outset of man's history as a sinner, God framed his dealings with men after this pattern, showing that His action in raising up Christ, sending Him as a sacrifice for sin, and consequently introducing spiritual and heavenly blessings, was no afterthought, but a determinate purpose before man's sad history began.

The illustrations of this great truth which the early books of the Bible afford are numerous. We mention some which lie upon the surface.

Cain, the first man born into the world, was set aside in favour of the second, Abel, and subsequently when he had revealed himself as a murderer in favour of Seth, who took Abel's place, typifying Christ as the risen "seed" —  Abel having typified the "seed of the woman" slain.

Ishmael, the seed after the flesh, set aside in favour of Isaac, the seed according to promise.

Esau, the profane despiser of the birthright, set aside in favour of Jacob, who esteemed it, though filled with crooked scheming in order to obtain it.

Leah, the "tender eyed," set aside by Rachel, "beautiful and well-favoured,"

Aaron the elder, but of weak character, set under the strong authority of Moses the younger.

Manasseh, elder son of Joseph, whose name means "Forgetting" displaced in favour of Ephraim, whose name means "Fruitful."

Saul, head and shoulders above the people, and their choice, judged and set aside for David the stripling, but the "man after God's own heart."

It will be noticed that the above-quoted foreshadowings of this great truth are all in connection, not with things, but with mankind. This is appropriate enough, for though in Hebrews the Spirit of God sets before us the application of the truth to details in thus contrasting Judaism and Christianity, yet we must turn elsewhere, and notably to 1 Cor. 15 to find the full truth stated in more general terms. Not only must Judaism go, as a system suited to man in the flesh, but the ruined earthly order of man, which Judaism recognized and appealed to, must be set aside, in order that a new heavenly order of man should be established to enter into the spiritual and heavenly blessings of Christianity.

The passage we refer to in 1 Cor. 15 runs from verse 45 to the end.

Verse 45 contrasts the first Adam and last Adam. The one a living soul as Genesis states, the other a life-giving Spirit. In this verse clearly the body is not in view. It states respectively what Adam was and what Christ is, viewing both essentially. Not first and second in the verse, but first and last, because "Adam" sets forth the "racial head," and Christ is not only the new and second racial Head, but the LAST, thank God! In that capacity He is perfect — as in all other capacities — and no further Head will ever be needed to all eternity!

Verse 46 gives the character stamped upon the respective heads, natural and spiritual, and emphasizes the fact that the natural is first as to God's ways, and the spiritual second, though the last was always first in God's purposes, and is the only one to abide and be established.

Verse 47 names the two as the first and second man, and gives their further character as "out of the earth made of dust" and the "Lord out of heaven," (or perhaps "out of heaven" only). Here the thought of the body so prominent in all the earlier part of the chapter, evidently again reappears in connection with Adam.

Verse 48 states the truth, wonderful as far as we are concerned, that those ranged under the respective heads partake of the nature and character of their heads.

Verse 49 tells that "we," i.e., Christians, are the subjects of this glorious transference from Adam to Christ, and fully returning to the thought of the body, it declares that as we have in body borne the image of Adam, the man made of dust, so we shall bear the actual physical image of the heavenly Christ.

Verse 50 emphasizes other considerations which connive to show that some mighty miracle of power is needful to transform believers into Christ's image for the day of glory.

Verses 51 to 58 supply us with the special revelation Paul had received on this subject — the change effected in both dead and living saints in. the twinkling of an eye, the instant before all are rapt into the air to meet the Lord. Every saint will then have a body immortal, incorruptible and glorious; all together will stand forth as monuments of God's victory.

* * * * *

The above sets forth a side of truth which is all too little recognized. Go to "the Christian in the street" — if we may be allowed thus to adopt a common phrase — and ask him if his sins are pardoned and he has hopes of heaven, and he may probably enough answer affirmatively with certainty and some degree of cheerfulness. Ask him, however, if he daily pursues his pilgrim way in the happy knowledge and consciousness of belonging to that new and heavenly order of humanity of which Christ is the supreme expression and Head, and in the triumphant expectation of sharing His physical likeness and glory as a consequence, and he will probably answer like a man floundering out of his depth, or else gaze upon you as one who has left sober realities behind and gone soaring off into dreamland.

Why should it be thus? Truth of such elevating and transporting power as this must inevitably be eagerly listened to and embraced, we might have supposed, and yet it is not so. Many Christians simply ignore it, others almost, if not altogether, deny it. Again we ask, Why?

In the first place, we are far too prone to judge everything by the standard of our necessities. Pardon of offences and deliverance from judgment we need, hence we lay hold upon these favours with comparative ease. To be taken up in Christ, indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, and therefore of Christ's order, this goes far beyond our needs. It is rather a necessity of God's love and of those far-reaching purposes which He has formed for Christ's glory. Pardon and deliverance are negative. This is positive in the highest degree, and we are slow to embrace it. Shall we not humble ourselves and ask help of God concerning this thing.

Further, it is clear that this truth involves the total eclipse and setting aside of the first Adam and his race. "He TAKETH AWAY the first that He may establish the second." No part of God's truth cuts more directly across the grain of human pride and self-sufficiency than this.

The law addressed its prohibitions and instructions to men who were responsible to hearken and obey. No one did perfectly obey; still, while the reign of law lasted there was, in the very nature of the case, a recognition of the human race as being at least worthy of such a time of probation, and of still possessing a status and sustaining relations with God. Christ's death on the cross — hanging there, substantially under the curse of the outraged law, for His people — was the end of law's reign and of man's probation, the disowning of the race, and the destruction of any status it had before God. The Adamic race stands judicially convicted and morally judged at the cross, though the last trace will not disappear until the destruction of the heavens and earth that now are, and the creation of all things new.

The grace of the Gospel comes forth to men on precisely this ground. Instead of appealing to men to "do and live" — in which case they would, in spite of endless failures, still flatter themselves with chances of future success — it sets forth what God has done for those who are ruined. The grace of God does indeed bring "salvation to all men," it is the fact of that salvation being brought to them on the assumption that they are RUINED that cuts their pride to the quick.

Hence that pronounced tendency on the part of mankind to reject the Gospel. Hence, too, the tendency on the part of those who are Christians to tone down the truth to suit their natural tastes and avoid the keen edge of this doctrine of the Bible.

And, lastly, there is the fact that the truth we have before us involves responsibilities of a very high order. If the first hindrance is of a moral order, as springing from the natural selfishness of our hearts, and the second of a doctrinal order, this is of a severely practical nature. It is plain enough, surely, that if we are of Christ's order, and therefore heavenly, a heavenly line of conduct becomes us while still in this world.

A further illustration of this is found in Romans 5, 6 and 7. In the latter part of Romans 5 the two heads with their respective races are contrasted. Adam, entailing sin, death and condemnation on his race; Christ, entailing justification, life and glory on His. At the beginning of Romans 6 the question is raised as to how we who are of Christ's race shall respond to the wealth of grace bestowed upon us, and we discover that a twofold obligation lies upon us:-

1. "We . . . should walk in newness of life" (Rom6: 4).

2. "We should serve in newness of spirit" (Rom7: 6).

Much is involved in these two solemn obligations, but we content ourselves here with noticing that the fact of our standing "in Christ," and not in Adam, places us under responsibility to walk in the newness of spirit which is ours as possessing the Spirit of God, and being thus "not in flesh but in spirit" (Rom. 8: 9).

Three Apostolic Principles

Three Apostolic Principles.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 104.)

The existence of small divergences of thought and judgment amongst Christians is a frequent source of much weakness and discouragement. No acute observation is needed to perceive these differences of judgment, and their mischievous effects today; nor have we to read far in the New Testament Epistles before we find full and frequent allusions to the existence of these very troubles in the early church, together with divine instructions, which, if followed out, effectually counteract them.

We make no apology for referring our readers to these instructions. The need is all too urgent on every hand. The matter may seem small upon the surface, but it is very easy to "fail of the grace of God," and consequently there is found through some small divergence a "root of bitterness" which, springing up, troubles us all" and thereby many be defiled" (Heb. 12: 15). A great conflagration may proceed from a little fire, as the apostle James reminds us.

The epistle which stands first in order has a whole chapter devoted to meeting disturbances, and the underlying tendencies which produced them, springing out of such matters, and in it we find the Apostle Paul laying down three very definite principles which directly bear upon such questions. In each case the dogmatic statement of the principle is followed by an exhortation which shows the practical bearing of the principle thus laid down. We refer to Romans 14.

The subject of this chapter is the importance of receiving one who is "weak in the faith" (verse 1). Such an one will have defective thoughts of many things and he is not to be received in order to start arguing with him over points of difference. Such argumentations would indeed be "doubtful disputations," or the "determining of questions of reasoning," and those who are strong have to remember that the weak brother is weak not in his reasoning faculties but in his faith. What he needs therefore is some larger apprehension in faith of the whole truth of God. If this be patiently ministered to him many of these questions of reasoning will settle themselves.

The chapter gives us some indication of the nature of those questions which agitated the primitive church. There were: (1) Questions as to meats (verse 2). One man was assured that he might eat all things. Others had scruples; some going so far that they would only eat herbs. (2) Questions as to days (verse 5). One man specially regarded certain days. Another esteemed every day alike. Both these sets of questions would be most acute where Jews and Gentiles freely intermingled in the same assembly. There were also (3) Questions as to "things offered to idols" as brought before us in 1 Corinthians 8, and 1 Corinthians 10: 19-33.

This matter would continually be raised. Some with knowledge might go as far as sitting at meat in the idol's temple (1 Cor. 8: 10). Others, bidden by an unbeliever to a meal might be disposed to go (1 Cor. 10: 27), or even in buying their meat in the markets (1 Cor. 10: 25), this question might be raised, for much of the meat offered for sale was the flesh of animals killed in connection with heathen sacrifices.

In each of these cases no definite instructions are given from the Lord. He evidently intends that each disciple shall act according to his own faith, and thus profit by the individual exercise that is needful.

First and foremost in Romans 14. stands the great principle of

Liberty

,

which is stated in verses 3 and 4 in connection with the questions as to the eating of meats. When divergences of judgment arise our first natural impulse is to start interfering with one another. He who eats will despise him who eats not, for his scruples appear to him narrow minded in the extreme. He who eats not will judge and condemn the eater, unable to see his freedom in any other light than unwarrantable licence.

"Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" asks the Apostle. A pertinent question indeed! The thing that is really unwarrantable is neither the apparent narrowness of vision of the one nor the apparent breadth of licence of the other, but the assumption of judicial functions that belong alone to the great Master of all of us. To that Master we stand or fall, and indeed we may count upon His support as the latter part of the verse encouragingly states.

Do we all realize this? Fully assured though we may be that we have the Lord's mind on some particular point it is not ours to legislate for others. The Lord insists upon His rights in dealing direct with His own servants, and we are to keep our hands off them. The business of each one of us in these matters is to have to do with our Master, and to consult His Word, and thus to reach assurance in our own minds as to what is His will as to our own course.

This principle of Christian liberty is summed up in the words, "To his own master he standeth or falleth" (verse 4). The exhortation based upon this is "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" (verse 5).

This brings us to the second principle laid down which is that of

Responsibility

of a direct and stringent sort to the Lord Himself. It is evidently of more importance that a saint should act with loyalty in regard to the will of the Lord as they know it — even supposing their knowledge of it to be defective — than that they should have a more perfect knowledge of that will. We say this with verses 6 and 14 before us.

The former verse shows that he who regards the day or eats as the case may be does so unto the Lord; and he who does not regard the day or does not eat refrains equally unto the Lord. The mind of the Lord is one, and cannot therefore lie in two opposite directions; but in acting or not acting both alike were governed by loyalty to the Lord as far as they understood His wishes, and this was pleasing to Him, and counted for more than correctness of understanding.

The latter verse shows the importance of thus acting in accordance with one's light, not in regard to the will of the Lord objectively as verse 6, but in regard to its subjective effect upon one's own conscience. If, believing a certain thing to be unclean or wrong, I yet indulge in it, my conscience is defiled. It is unclean to me, whatever it may be in the Lord's estimation.

These things Scripture brings before us, not to put a premium upon ignorance, nor to discourage our diligent inquiry as to what the will of the Lord is as to such matters, but the very reverse. We are to inquire, and being fully persuaded as to what the Lord would have us do, we must act in reference to Him. Thus He will be thanked and honoured whether we eat or regard the day, or whether we do not. We are the Lord's, and to Him we live (verse 8). He, by death and resurrection, has established His Lordship over both dead and living (verse 9), and before His judgment-seat we all shall stand (verse 10). In that solemn hour "every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (verse 12). In these words we get a dogmatic statement of our second principle. Each shall give account of himself, and not another. Our responsibility is direct and personal, solitary, and alone.

Upon this is based the exhortation, "Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block or any occasion to fall in his brother's way" (verse 13).

The liberty which is ours in Christ is, then, to be held in connection with the responsibility which is ours toward Christ. Each believer is so directly accountable to the Lord that he must not be interfered with by other believers, nor must he interfere with them.

Is, then, the attitude of each saint and servant of Christ towards his fellow saints and servants to be one of lofty detachment or superiority? By no means. The Apostle now introduces a third principle to complete the balance of truth — that of

Fraternity

.

The chapter opens with "Him that is weak in the faith." We soon discover that he is "another man's servant": he is "the Lord's." In verse 10, we discover that he is our "brother," and this is alluded to again in verse 13. Verse 15 dwells upon the fact in more detail. There he is said to be "thy brother, . . . him . . . for whom Christ died." This is a very clear dogmatic statement of the third principle.

Here we have not only the fact that this brotherhood exists, but we discover that it rests upon the death of Christ as its basis. Looking upon our brother in this light we cannot be indifferent to his welfare. He is an object of the love of Christ which carried Him even to death. If Christ loved him even to death, what shall our attitude towards him be? Shall we grieve him, or cause him to stumble? Shall we flaunt our liberty — that liberty which is ours, as an unchallenged right, according to the early part of the chapter — before him in such a way as to destroy his good conscience? No, indeed! We shall walk towards him "charitably" or "according to love."

We shall recognize, moreover, that these questions of eating, or regarding days, of meats sacrificed to idols, and feasts, and shambles, and the like, are, after all, of minor importance. The kingdom of God does not consist of such things, but of "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (verse 17), and hence these are the things to be diligently pursued as of prime importance. It is therefore well to maintain a spirit of yieldingness in regard to the minor matters, rather than imperil righteousness, or peace, or the spiritual joy of saints, by standing on one's rights. Liberty may be mine but it is well to waive it for the sake of fraternity so long as responsibility towards the Lord is not impaired thereby. This is emphasised not only in verse 21 of our chapter but also in 1 Corinthians 8: 9-13, and 1 Corinthians 10: 23-31.

In Corinthians the Apostle sums it up by saying "all things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient." In the light of this we must ask ourselves not only "Have I liberty to do this thing?" but also "Is it expedient that I should claim and use my liberty in this case?"

Connected, therefore, with this third principle we have the exhortation, "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" (verse 19). Our attitude is therefore not to be the negative one of merely avoiding friction and discord and damage to weak souls by the yielding up of one's liberties on certain occasions, but the positive one of earnestly pursuing all that makes for peace and edification. In this a certain amount of self-denial is certainly called for, and there will be times, especially for the strong believer, when he will have to hold his faith in private before God and keep in check its manifestation in acts before men as verse 22 infers. The latter part of that verse would indicate that such a check upon the strong believer is wholesome, since in the exuberance of faith it is easy to rather overshoot the mark in embracing one's liberties, and consequently in calmer moments be uneasy and condemned in conscience over things one has permitted oneself to do.

Romans 14 may be a chapter that some of us are very inclined to skip. Yet it is full of most important instruction which, if assimilated and practised by us, would be of great benefit to the church at large. We beg our readers to very definitely lay it to heart.

Three Divinely Established Principles

Three Divinely Established Principles

F. B. Hole

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 40, 1959-61, page 33.)

Edited from Three Apostolic Principles, Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 104.)

The existence of divergences of thought and judgment amongst Christians is a frequent source of much discouragement and weakness. No acute observation is needed to perceive their mischievous effects today. In the Epistles of the New Testament we find frequent allusions to the existence of such troubles in the early church; together with inspired instructions, which, if followed out, effectually counteract them.

We make no apology for referring our readers to these instructions. The need is all too urgent on every hand. The matter may seem small upon the surface, but it is very easy to "fail of the grace of God," and consequently there is found through some small divergence a "root of bitterness" which, springing up, troubles us all, "and thereby many be defiled" (Heb. 12: 15). A great conflagration may proceed from a little fire, as the Apostle James has reminded us.

In Romans 14 the Apostle Paul has laid down three very definite principles, which directly bear upon such matters. And further, the statement of the principle is in each case followed by an exhortation which shows its practical bearing.

The subject of the chapter is the importance of receiving one who is "weak in the faith" (verse 1). Such will have defective thoughts as to many things, and they are not to be received in order to start arguing with them over points of difference. Such argumentations would indeed be "doubtful disputations," or the "determining of questions of reasoning." Those who are strong have to remember that the "weak" brother is weak not in his reasoning faculties but in his apprehension of "the faith." What he needs therefore is some larger understanding of the whole truth of God. If this be patiently ministered to him, many of these questions will settle themselves.

The chapter gives us some indication of the nature of those questions which agitated the primitive church. There were: (1) Questions as to meats (verse 2). One man was assured that he might eat all things. Others had scruples: some going so far that they would only eat herbs. (2) Questions as to days (verse 5). One man specially regarded certain days. Another esteemed every day alike. Both these matters of dispute would be most acute where Jews and Gentiles freely intermingled in the same assembly. There were also (3) Questions as to "things offered to idols," for this, we gather, is what is signified by the word, "unclean," in verse 14. The same point is brought before us in 1 Corinthians 8, and 1 Corinthians 10: 19-33, for this was a matter that continually would have been raised. Some with knowledge might go as far as sitting at meat in an idol's temple (1 Cor. 8: 10). Others, bidden by an unbeliever to a feast, might be disposed to go (1 Cor. 10: 27); or even in buying their meat in the market (1 Cor. 10: 25), this question might be raised, for much of the meat offered for sale was the flesh of animals killed in connection with heathen sacrifices.

In each of these cases no definite instructions were given from the Lord. He evidently intends that each disciple shall act according to his own faith, and thus profit by the individual exercise that will be created thereby.

First and foremost then in Romans 14 stands the great principle of

Liberty

,

which is stated in verses 3 and 4 in connection with the questions as to the eating of meats. When divergences of judgment arise, our first natural impulse is to start interfering with one another. He who eats will despise him who eats not, for such scruples appear to him narrow-minded in the extreme. He who eats not will judge and condemn the eater, unable to see his freedom in any other light than unwarrantable licence.

"Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" asks the Apostle. A pertinent question indeed! The thing that is really unwarrantable is neither the apparent narrowness of vision of the one nor the apparent breadth of licence of the other, but the assumption of judicial functions that belong alone to the great Master of us all. To that Master we stand or fall, and indeed we may count upon His support, as the latter part of the verse encouragingly states.

Do we all realize this? Fully assured though we may be that we have the Lord's mind on some particular point it is not ours to legislate for others. The Lord insists upon His rights in dealing direct with His own servants, and we are to keep our hands off them. The business of each one of us in these matters is to have to do with our Master, and to consult His word, and thus to reach assurance in our own minds as to what is His will as to our own course.

This principle of Christian liberty is summed up in the words, "To his own master he standeth or falleth" (verse 4). The exhortation based upon it is, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" (verse 5). To reach such full persuasion will entail, for each sincere and true-hearted servant, much prayerful searching of the Scriptures.

This brings us to the second principle laid down, which is that of

Responsibility

of a direct and stringent sort to the Lord Himself. It is evidently of more importance that a saint should act with loyalty in regard to the will of the Lord as he knows it — even supposing his knowledge of it is defective — than that he should have a more perfect knowledge of that will. We write this with verses 6 and 14 before us.

The former verse shows that he who regards the day or eats as the case may be, does so unto the Lord; and he who does not regard the day or does not eat, refrains equally unto the Lord. The mind of the Lord is one, and cannot therefore lie in two opposite directions; but in acting or not acting, both alike were governed by loyalty to the Lord as far as they understood His mind, and this was pleasing to Him, and counted for more than correctness of understanding.

The latter verse shows the importance of thus acting in accordance with one's light, not in regard to the will of the Lord objectively, as verse 6, but in regard to its subjective effect upon one's own conscience. If, believing a certain thing to be unclean or wrong, I yet indulge in it, my conscience is defiled. It is unclean to me, whatever it may be in the Lord's estimation.

These things are stated, not to put a premium upon ignorance, nor to discourage our diligent enquiry as to what the will of the Lord is as to such matters, but the very reverse. We are to enquire, and being fully persuaded as to what the Lord would have us do, we must act in reference to Him. Thus He will be thanked and honoured, whether we eat or regard the day, or whether we do not. We are the Lord's and to Him we live. He, by death and resurrection, has established His Lordship over both dead and living. Before His judgment-seat we all shall stand. These things are stated in verses 8-10.

In that solemn hour, "every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (verse 12), In these words we get a dogmatic statement of our second principle. Each shall give account of himself, and not of another. Our responsibility is direct and personal, solitary and alone. Upon this is based the exhortation, "Let us not therefore judge one another any more; but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way" (verse 13) .

The liberty which is ours in Christ is, then, to be held in connection with the responsibility which is ours toward Christ. Each believer is so directly accountable to the Lord that he must not be interfered with by other believers, nor must he interfere with them.

Is, then, the attitude of each saint and servant of Christ towards his fellow-saints and servants to be one of lofty detachment or superiority? By no means. The Apostle now introduced a third principle to complete the balance of truth — that of

Fraternity

The chapter opens with, "Him that is weak in the faith." We soon discover that he is "another man's servant:" he is "the Lord's." In verse 10, we discover that he is our "brother," and this is alluded to again in verse 13. Verse 15 dwells upon this fact in more detail. There he is said to be, "thy brother . . . him . . . for whom Christ died." This is a very clear and dogmatic statement of the third principle.

Here we have not only the fact that this brotherhood exists, but that it rests upon the death of Christ as its basis. Looking upon our brother in this light, we cannot be indifferent to his welfare. He is an object of the love of Christ, which carried Him even to death. If Christ loved him thus, what shall our attitude towards him be? Shall we grieve him, or cause him to stumble? Shall we flaunt our liberty — that liberty which is ours, as an unchallenged right, according to the early part of the chapter — before him in such a way as to destroy his good conscience? No, indeed! We shall walk towards him "charitably" or "according to love."

We shall recognize, moreover, that these questions of eating, or regarding days, of meats sacrificed to idols and feasts, and shambles, and the like, are, after all, of minor importance. The kingdom of God does not consist of such things, but of "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (verse 17), and hence these are the things to be diligently pursued as of prime importance. It is therefore good in the sight of God that we should maintain a spirit of yieldingness in regard to the minor matters, rather than imperil righteousness, or peace, or &e spiritual joy of saints, by standing on one's rights. Liberty may be mine, but it is well to waive it for the sake of fraternity, so long as responsibility towards the Lord is not impaired thereby. This is emphasized not only in verse 21 of our chapter but also in 1 Corinthians 8: 9-13, and 1 Corinthians 10: 23-31.

In Corinthians the Apostle summed it up by saying, "all things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient." In the light of this we must ask ourselves not only "Have I liberty to do this thing?" but also, "Is it expedient that I should claim and use my liberty in this case?"

Connected, therefore, with this third principle we have the exhortation, "Let us therefore follow after the things that make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" (verse 19). Our attitude is therefore not to be merely the negative one of avoiding friction and discord, and damage to weaker brethren by the yielding up of one's liberties on certain occasions, but also the positive one of earnestly pursuing all that makes for peace and edification. In so acting, a certain amount of self-denial will certainly be called for, and there will be times, especially for the "strong" believer, when he will have to hold his faith in private before God, and keep in check its manifestation in acts before men, as verse 22 infers.

Let this verse be carefully considered, especially the latter part of it, and we shall see that such a check upon the strong believer is a wholesome thing for himself, since in the exuberance of his faith it is easy to overshoot the mark to some degree as he embraces his liberties. If any of us have done this, we shall probably agree that as a consequence in our calmer moments we have been uneasy, and perhaps condemned in our consciences, over things that we have permitted ourselves to do.

Romans 14 may be a chapter that many of us are inclined to skip over in our reading. The writer has to confess that in his lengthy period of Christian life and experience, he has no recollection of ever hearing an address given upon it. Yet it is full of most important instruction, which, if assimilated and practised by us, would be of great benefit to the church at large, and nip in the bud many divisive forces.

So may we earnestly entreat our readers to lay it to heart in very definite fashion.

Three Parallel Lines

Three Parallel Lines

F. B. Hole.

Edification Vol. 1 1927, page 287.

THERE are three of them. They are as follows:-

1st. The line of fact — God's facts. In the cross of Christ certain things have become accomplished facts before God.

2nd. The line of experience. Every Christian has an experience, good, bad, or indifferent. It is a secret thing, hid from the eyes of his fellows, but very real to the individual himself.

3rd. The line of behaviour. This is more or less public — scanned by the eyes of all.

In an ideal Christian life these three lines are exactly parallel. In every life the third runs approximately parallel to the second, that is, our behaviour is largely controlled by our experience. We write in our public behaviour the secret history of our experience within,

It may be that every Christian who reads these lines is prepared to confess that our life and witness for Christ is not what it should be. We want it more in accordance with God's facts — the Cross and its results — more controlled by the Spirit, more fragrant of Christ. How shall this be produced?

It will never be produced by self-occupation, though many Christians think so, and spend weary months and years in the vain effort to work themselves into a more satisfactory state. You will not succeed in drawing a line parallel to another by concentrating all your attention upon the line you propose to draw. No! Fix your eye upon the line which serves as guide, adjust your rule in accordance with that, and the thing is done. To make progress we must maintain the divine order. Our behaviour is regulated by our experience, and our experience should be regulated by the knowledge of divinely accomplished facts.

The sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of the epistle to the Romans are largely occupied with both experience and behaviour, and yet the line of fact runs through each of them like a golden thread.

Permit us now to inquire after your spiritual health. How are you getting on? and do you find the joy in your Christianity that you were led to expect when you first trusted the Lord? Perhaps not. It may be, like many others, you have defeat and not victory, gloom and not gladness. But you may take comfort from the fact that in Romans 7 an individual testifies concerning himself, and you could hardly sink lower than he. His experience was wretchedness itself; he sums it up thus: "I am carnal, sold under sin" (Rom. 7: 14). His behaviour was, as it is to be expected, no better: "The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do" (Rom. 7: 19).

What helped this wretched man? Why, just that which will help you — the knowledge of divinely accomplished facts. In each of these chapters there is one verse which states a fact. These facts are in no way dependent upon us. Be our experiences what they may, their truth stands unchanged. They are as follows: —

"Our old man is crucified with Him" (Rom. 6: 6).

"Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ" (Rom. 7: 4).

"God; sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8: 3).

In one thing these verses coincide, viz. they, all refer to what God accomplished for Himself at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then and there our old man was crucified; we were made dead to the law and sin in the flesh was condemned.

Make your reckoning with these facts. If our old man — the apostle personifies all that we were as children of Adam — was crucified with Christ, then God has done with it, and there is no reason why you should mope over its delinquencies any longer If we have been made dead to the law, then you need not lash yourself with legal scorpions every time you fail, but rather judge yourself in the light of God's grace. If sin in the flesh has been condemned, then it is evident that God has in the Cross gone down to the root of things, and executed His judgment upon sin, the root of the mischief; so why not now spend your moments considering the great love which His death expressed, rather than the sin which His death condemned?

Do not run away with the idea that the mere knowledge of these facts, valuable as that is, will of itself do anything. No; unless your knowledge of them leads to this — that you give up all hope of more satisfactory experience or behaviour in yourself, and fix your eye upon Christ by the Spirit's power, it will avail you nothing. As you are prepared to allow the blessed Spirit of God to fill your heart with the excellence and glory of Christ, the scene will change, and both experience and behaviour will be elevated to an altogether different level.

An electric tram aptly illustrates this. It runs by the aid of three parallel lines, two beneath and one charged with electricity above. Everything depends upon its being, by means of its long arm, kept in contact with the live wire above. You see one upon a dark night. How swiftly it runs! How brightly it shines! Lo! it vanishes. What has happened? The contact is broken, and when contact is broken its motive power is gone and its lights go out. So long, and only so long, as the blessed Spirit of God keeps us in contact with the line of divine facts, shall we run our heavenly race and brightly shine for Christ.

In conclusion, notice that all the three lines appear in these chapters in Romans. If through grace we are kept in touch with God's facts, we shall taste the blessedness of the experience thus described:-

"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8: 2).

We shall breathe the air of the liberty of an enjoyed Christ, and as for our behaviour, we shall act in keeping with this injunction:-

"Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Rom. 6: 13).

Four Types in Genesis

Four Types in Genesis

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 211.)

Moved by the opening words of the Lord's prayer, recorded in the first verse of John 17, the late Sir Edward Denny wrote a beautiful short poem, which he entitled, "The Hour." The opening verse is,

One hour there is in history's page

Pre-eminent o'er all the past

'Twill shine and shine from age to age,

While earth, while heaven itself shall last.

The closing verse runs,

Christian, 'tis thine alone to know

And prize it more than all beside;

So bright with love, so dark with woe

The gracious hour when Jesus died.

In so writing he expressed the spirit that breathes through the whole Bible; for the first type of the death, that signalised that hour, was given the very day that sin entered into the world, and in the last New Testament book, recording God's ultimate victory, we are never allowed to overlook "the Lamb," in whose sacrificial death the foundation of the victory was laid.

For the moment, let us consider the four earliest types of the death of Christ.

The first is found in Genesis 3: 21, The record is very brief. Having pronounced judgment on the serpent, on the woman, and on Adam, the Lord God covered the guilty pair, who had found their own hand-made fig-leaf aprons of no value, with coats from the skins of animals. Now, though not stated in so many words, this clearly implies DEATH — the death of the animals that furnished the skins. When this was done, there stood before God two guilty sinners, covered by that which spoke of the death of a victim.

The word used here in the Hebrew is the ordinary one for clothing, but it is well for us to note that the Hebrew word, signifying a covering, is the one used for "atonement" throughout the Old Testament. In the light of the Gospel truth revealed in Romans 3: 25, this is significant, for as the margin of our Bibles shows, the word, "remission" in that verse is really, "passing over." Until propitiation was actually and eternally made by the death of Christ, God was passing over the sins of the saints, in view of what Christ would accomplish. Their sins were covered from His holy eye by the offering of the appointed sacrifices.

So the first of these atoning sacrifices was made by the hand of God Himself. It was provisional and typical of the great Sacrifice to come. It foreshadowed the death of Christ in what we call its simplest and most primitive aspect: that of providing a covering, which enables a sinful man to stand before a holy God.

But immediately we pass from Genesis 3 to the next chapter another type confronts us, which carries our thoughts a step forward. Being sinful, we need, as we have seen, the covering which averts the judgment stroke that we deserve, but we need more than this. Sin has raised a barrier between us and God and, separated from Him, we shall never be happy. Is there any way by which approach to God may be realized?

Not understanding the dire effects of sin, Cain evidently thought that approach to God was quite a simple matter, to be attained by presenting to God the best fruits of his own labour. Abel on the contrary had some sense of the fact stated in Romans 6: 23, "The wages of sin is death," for he brought, "of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof." The words we have printed in black type reveal to us that these firstlings or lambs had died. It was by faith that he did this, as is stated in Hebrews 11: 4; and by it he got evidence that he was right with God and accepted in his approach.

This second type has carried us a distinct step forward. It is one thing to be effectually covered from any stroke of judgment that otherwise would come from the hand of God: it is another, and yet more wonderful, to be able to approach God and find acceptance there. Moreover, here the action was Abel's as the fruit of his faith; whereas with Adam and his wife the action was wholly God's, and nothing is said as to faith on the part of the guilty pair. Thus far then we have seen the death of Christ typified as averting judgment on the one hand, and as the righteous basis of approach to God on the other.

But now we have to move forward to Genesis 8: 20-22, where is recorded Noah's sacrifices after the judgment flood had subsided. The clean beasts and fowls had been taken into the ark by sevens, and now the seventh of each is offered as a burnt offering. The record is that "the Lord smelled a sweet savour," or as it literally is, "a savour of rest." As a result of this a new order of things was established, though the evil imaginations of men's hearts were unaltered, and blessing descended on Noah and his sons.

In this third type therefore we have our thoughts further enlarged as to the significance of the death of Christ. In it God has in the fullest sense discovered "a savour of rest." When His millennial rest is reached, and when even beyond that He rests in those new creation scenes, predicted in Revelation 21: 1-6, all will be secured on no other basis than that of the sacrificial death of Christ; even as on the same basis the old fallen creation will have been removed.

We may say, therefore, that just as the first and second types have portrayed the death of Christ, meeting our needs — whether as covering our sinful nakedness or enabling us to approach God in acceptance — so this third type has indicated that same death as meeting the necessity of the heart of God Himself; even the establishment in righteousness and holiness of an incorruptible order of things, the old corrupted order having been judged and removed for ever.

In Genesis 22, we have the fourth of these early types of the death of Christ, granted before the law and its sacrifices were given. It is characterized by great fulness in its details. Let us note a few of them.

First, in this picture there appear both a father and a son — Abraham and Isaac. Isaac is called, "thine only son" (verse 2); though Abraham's son Ishmael had been born years before; and again in Hebrews 11: 17, he is called "his only begotten son." The type is made the more striking by the fact that Isaac was a child supernaturally born, for both parents were dead from a reproductive standpoint.

To the sacrifice, it is recorded, "they went both of them together," the great display of faith being on the part of Abraham, while Isaac, the son, was marked by subjection. It was Abraham who told the servants that he and the lad would "come again" to them, for he accounted, as Hebrews 11 tells us, that God was able "to raise him up, even from the dead." The only remark of Isaac recorded being the question as to, "where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"

The moment came when the son was bound to the altar ready to be offered and no word is recorded as coming from his lips, prefiguring the One who, as Isaiah prophesied, was to be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and who would be dumb as a sheep before its shearers.

Viewed, as we have been viewing it, the type ceases at this point, for the death stroke on the son never fell. Abraham's hand was arrested and instead his eyes fell on the ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. The record is that "Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son." So here from another viewpoint we see a remarkable type, for the words "in the stead of," are equivalent to, "as a substitute for," and thereby we are permitted to see that the application and efficacy of the work of Christ would be on the principle of substitution.

The strength of a ram lies in its horns, and by its horns the ram was held, and brought to its substitutionary death as an offering to God. So here really we have a double type, and dropping the first part, which we have considered, we now look at Isaac as he was, a sinful lad, and see him exempted from death by the offering of a substitute. The cords that bind the sacrifice to the altar, spoken of in Psalm 118: 27, were, in the case of our Lord, the strong cords of His invincible LOVE. The strength of that brought Him to the place of sacrifice, when as the Substitute He died, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God " (1 Pet. 3: 18).

This fourth type completes the picture, granted in those far-off days, of God's way of blessing through the death of Christ. How far the types were understood by the early saints, if at all, it is impossible for us to say, but in the light of the New Testament they should speak loudly to our hearts. It is remarkable that there are four of them, foreshadowing such truth as was suitable to those days, just as we have four Gospels, completing for us the picture of the Lord Jesus when revealed on earth. We can view Him four-square, so to speak; observing Him from all four points of the compass of truth.

So it is in these four types that we have briefly considered. His sacrificial death was prefigured as the only way in which sinful man can be covered from judgment; as the only basis of approach to God and acceptance with Him; as the foundation on which God's eternal rest will stand. And fourthly in a twofold way: not only as to be faced by the Son in subjection and obedience to the Father, but also as really brought to pass on the principle of substitution.

Let each of us therefore more and more rejoice and worship, in that we can say with adoring hearts — not in the light of the typical shadows only, but rather in the light of the accomplished sacrifice of our Saviour — "The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2: 20). We shall never forget, "The gracious hour when Jesus died."

Four Types in Israel's Journey

Four Types in Israel's Journey

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 230.)

Not only do we discover four types of the death of Christ as we open Genesis and read the earliest records of the fallen human race, but again four types are seen as we follow the history of Israel, from the time of their departure from Egypt to their entrance into the land of promise. Indications of the power and significance of His death are seen more clearly in a prophetic way.

The first type is found of course in Exodus 12, when on that night much to be remembered, the Passover was instituted, and the firstborn were sheltered from the death-stroke that fell upon the Egyptians. What was instituted that night was ordered so that, "ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." (Ex. 11: 7). The fact that it was needful for the Lord to put a difference plainly infers that by nature no difference existed. Here then we see typified the "no difference" doctrine of Romans 3: 22, 73.

The difference was established by the blood of the slain lamb; but notice, that blood not only shed but also applied to the outside of the house for the eye of the destroying angel, while the inmates fed on the body of the lamb, roast with fire, with bitter herbs and with the absence of all leaven. Thus, the no difference statement of Romans 3 is at once followed by an unfolding of the propitiatory efficacy of the blood of Christ, to be realized by those who believe.

So also we have the Apostle Paul writing, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast . . . with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5: 7, 8). The type therefore gives some indication not only of the objective virtue of the blood of Christ, before the eye of God, meeting His claims so that the sinner is sheltered from judgment, but also of its subjective effects in the one who is sheltered  -  the meaning of His death inwardly digested with the bitterness of repentance, as well as faith, and the leaven of malice and wickedness put away.

These things being indicated in Exodus 12, Exodus 13 begins with the assertion of God's claim upon the firstborn, who had been sheltered from death. They were now to be "sanctified;" that is, set apart for God, as belonging to Him. Of each firstborn God said, "It is Mine." But for many a year Pharaoh had been saying of them and of all Israel — "They are mine; slaves to do my pleasure." Among men, when two parties claim the same object, conflict is bound to ensue.

So it was here. Hitherto it has seemed to be Pharaoh versus Moses and Israel, but now it is revealed to be Pharaoh versus Jehovah; and Exodus 14 relates the Red Sea episode when the people had to "stand still and see the salvation Of the Lord." That salvation furnishes us with the second type of the death of Christ, and we may say, of His resurrection also.

The decisive step in this story took place while Israel stood still. The angel of God, signalised by the visible pillar of cloud, having indicated the way, planted Himself between the Egyptians and Israel, so that to strike Israel they would have to face God. Then came the march through the Sea. To live, man must be immersed in air: immerse him in water and he quickly dies. But the waters of the Sea rising up like walls on either side of them, completed their security. No direct attack from the rear was possible because of the pillar of cloud, and none from the flanks because of the walls of water. By an act of God the waters of death were turned into a means of salvation and life, as the Angel of God with Israel passed through to the further shore. They were equally death and destruction to Pharaoh and his hosts. Consequently every harrassing fear vanished from the hearts of the Israelites. They were brought into peace and they rejoiced in the hope of their inheritance in the land of promise, as Exodus 15 shows.

There is no difficulty then in seeing here a type of the death and resurrection of Christ bringing us into peace and the hope of glory, as stated in Romans 4: 24 - 5: 2. A type also of that deliverance from the world and from the power of Satan, who dominates the world, as stated in such scriptures as Galatians 1: 4, and Hebrews 2: 14, 15.

As however we read Exodus 15, we cannot help but be struck by the sad descent from the triumphant song of the early verses to the murmuring of the people, recorded before we reach the end. This people, redeemed by power from the hand of Pharaoh, revealed their perversity right through their wilderness journey. When we reach Numbers 21, we find a third type of the death of Christ, which has special reference to this.

To Nicodemus our Lord said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3: 6), and Israel's journey served to display its incorrigible character. In their terrible complaints, recorded in Numbers 21: 1, things came to a climax, and the people were bitten by the fiery serpents. Their poison burnt like fire in the bodies of those bitten, and so we have an apt type of what the New Testament calls, "sin in the flesh." And further we are told that, "sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death." This is prefigured in the fact that, "much people of Israel died."

The remedy that God ordained was the brazen serpent, made by Moses, and lifted up on a pole — a type of the crucified Christ, as so plainly claimed in John 3: 14. The brazen serpent was made in the likeness of a serpent which had the fiery bite, just as Christ came, "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8: 3), so that in His sacrifice "sin in the flesh" might be condemned.

Another feature of the Gospel is emphasised in this type — the necessity of faith. There was no obvious connection, such as human reason could appreciate, between looking at a brazen object on a pole and the cure of poison working in one's veins. Those who looked did so because they believed the word of God in the lips of Moses, bidding them so to do. We venture to think that those who did not look, and died, were the highly intellectual who could not demean themselves so as to act on instructions that seemed so completely irrelevant to their need. The child bidden by his mother to look, would do so in his simplicity; and so would those who were prepared in this matter to become as little children. So it is in the Gospel today.

How appropriately then does this type appear, as the wilderness journey of Israel was nearing its end. Sin being lawlessness, disobedience had been fully manifested as dwelling in their flesh, and there is prefigured the death of Christ as the condemnation of sin in the flesh. Had it not been condemned in His cross there would not have been for us that deliverance from its enslaving power, which the Gospel announces; connected also with the gift of the Holy Spirit, typified in the springing well. We may note too that it was after this that God defeated Balaam's machinations, and made him bless Israel instead of cursing them; and also declare that God "hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel." Sin being judged, the saint is beyond condemnation, and may be viewed in the light of the purpose of God.

For the fourth type we pass on to the Book of Joshua, to consider Israel crossing the Jordan, to plant their feet on the land of promise. If Joshua 3 and Joshua 4 be read, we notice that here the ark of the covenant is prominent. There was no ark at the crossing of the Red Sea: there it was rather the Angel of the Lord, who had acted as Destroyer at the Passover, acting as a Deliverer through the waters of death. At Jordan the waters roll back before the ark, directly they were touched by the feet of the priests who bore it.

On this occasion Jordan was running in flood, yet the waters failed before the ark, and the bed of the river was dry until all the people passed over. But the people were identified with the ark, since, where it had stood, twelve stones were placed, representing the tribes just as twelve stones, taken from the spot where the ark had stood, were erected as a memorial in the promised land. In after days a God-fearing Israelite might stand at the spot and say: There, immersed in the waters our twelve tribes lie while at the same time we stand, as risen from the waters, in the land that was promised to us from God.

Here therefore we have a type of the death and resurrection of Christ with which the believer is so truly identified that he can be spoken of as not only "dead with Christ " (Col. 2: 20), but also "risen with Christ" (Col. 3: 1). We consequently are to "seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Nor is this all, for we are so truly identified with Christ in His risen life and glory, that as the Epistle to the Ephesians declares, God has, "made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2: 6).

At the end of Joshua 4, the people are found in the land that God had given them, but immediately we read Joshua 5, we find that there were kings of the Amorites holding the land, and that they had to be dispossessed. Israel was consequently committed to a time of conflict. This also is typical, for the Ephesian epistle, which shows the believer seated in Christ in heavenly places, ends with a chapter on conflict, indicating the need of spiritual armour for it. In our case it is not that we have to fight to get possession, but that, being in possession, we are in conflict to retain it. Hence in Ephesians 6, the "armour" is mostly defensive, against ''the world-rulers of this darkness" (R.V.), whose aim is to dislodge us, and having done all we are to "stand."

To sum up: it is remarkable how comprehensively these four types prefigure the wonderful results of the death and resurrection of Christ. Their significance doubtless would not have been plain, until He had come and accomplished His mighty work, but we now read them in the light of the New Testament, and discern something of their meaning.

They set forth firstly, shelter from judgment in virtue of the blood-shedding of the Lamb of God. Secondly, salvation by His death and resurrection from the power of Satan and his world, so that we are brought to God. Thirdly, the condemnation of sin in the flesh, so that in the energy of the Spirit, given to us, we may be delivered from its thrall. Fourthly, our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection, so that entering in spirit into our heavenly possessions, we may live our earthly lives with our minds and affections set on things above where Christ is.

Many of us may say we have heard these things often. Yes, but how have they affected us? What kind of life are we living?

The Seventh from Adam

The Seventh from Adam.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 34.)

There is nothing superfluous or redundant about the inspired Scriptures. Every sentence, every clause, indeed, every word that is there has its own purpose and reason. We often clog our remarks with meaningless, or at least unnecessary, verbiage, but never so the Word of God.

A striking example of this occurs in Jude 14, where we read, "Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these . . ." That Enoch was number seven in the line of descent through Seth is a fact easily ascertainable from Genesis 5, but one may be tempted to wonder why Jude should expend even four words in calling our attention to that fact. Is there any point in it?

There evidently is. Seven is in Scripture the number of perfection and completeness, usually as regards that which is good, though sometimes in regard to what is evil. It was fitting, therefore, that of all the ten antediluvian patriarchs number seven should have been the one in whom faith and the life of faith came out in its completeness.

But there is more than this. If we refer to Genesis 4, and count the antediluvian patriarchs mentioned in that chapter, we shall discover the illuminating fact that number seven in the line of descent through Cain is Lamech. In Genesis 5 the list through Seth is given to us, without comment other than their ages, until we reach Enoch, when the Spirit of God pauses to record certain details as to him. In chapter 4 the same thing takes place.

After Cain, merely names are given until the seventh, Lamech, is reached, when the Spirit of God turns aside to give us details as to him.

The line of Cain was composed of men in whom the flesh and the principles of the world found expression, whereas in the line of Seth God preserved a godly seed in men of faith. In both lines the man of outstanding character and power, the man in whom the respective tendencies found their complete expression, was number seven. In Lamech (Gen. 4: 19-24) we have set forth the world in its main features: in Enoch (Gen. 5: 21-24) the believer's pathway through the world. The order in which the two are presented by the Spirit of God is worthy of note, for it is the order consistently observed all through Scripture and explicitly stated in 1 Corinthians 15: 46: "Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. "First, that which is merely of man, and fails; second, that which is wholly of God, and abides. Hence that other word: "He taketh away the first that He may establish the second" (Heb. 10: 9).

The antediluvian age was pre-eminently an age of lawlessness. Death reigned "from Adam to Moses" (Rom. 5: 14), for sin abounded, yet there was no transgression, since there was no law to transgress. But not only this, there was also no divinely constituted authority in the earth. No one was as yet empowered to wield the sword of justice against his fellows as representing God. This was introduced when post-diluvian conditions were established (see Gen. 9: 1-6). Under these earlier conditions every man was apparently a law unto himself, and this tendency reached a climax in Lamech.

In connection with this man of great originality and forceful personality three things are recorded.

1. He broke through the marriage ordinance as ordained by God at the beginning, when one man and one woman were united. Apparently Lamech was the first to set aside this and take a plurality of wives. What God had arranged was nothing to him! True, he only took two. From that to the state of things we find with a Solomon or an Ahasuerus may seem a great descent, but it was Lamech who opened the flood-gates! What led him to pioneer the entrance of this great evil into the earth? The lust of the flesh.

2. By the two wives he had a remarkable family. The second characteristic came out in his children, and the lust of the flesh eventuated in the lust of the eyes. One son became a pioneer in trade and commerce, for those who dwelt in tents and had cattle were the nomadic folk who did not settle down as tillers of the soil, but wandered with their beasts and became a people of trade and of transport.

Another son became the great pioneer in the arts and sciences. He was "the father of all such as handle the harp and organ," thus cultivating the intellectual and aesthetic side of life. The third was a pioneer in craftsmanship. In his family, artificers in brass andiron were found.

A sister's name is even recorded. The meaning of Naamah appears to be "pleasure." She, evidently, true to her name, set forth the pleasant side of worldly life, and became a leader in worldly pleasure.

The "lust of the eyes" we must remember is an expression embracing not only the "lust of seeing" with the eyes of the head but with the eyes of the mind It covers all that insatiable and restless spirit of inquiry which marks man away from his true source of knowledge — GOD. Today men are more feverishly than ever pushing their investigations and bringing fresh worlds of discovery and thought within their field of vision, yet always is it a case of "ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth." In Lamech and his family we see emerging from the earth as a trickling stream what is now a torrential river.

3. But not only was Lamech a pioneer in corruption as the first polygamist, but he was also a leader in violence. He was a tremendous egotist, and there comes plainly into view the pride of life. Verses 23 and 24 may not seem very clear to the ordinary reader of the Authorized Version; other translations, however, render it "I have slain a man 'for my wound,' and a young man 'for my bruise.'" From this it would appear that some hapless young man inflicted some bodily injury upon Lamech, who thereupon revenged himself upon him by slaying him.

Generations before there had been Cain's wicked outburst, and this brought him so manifestly under the condemnation of men and the judgment of God that for some centuries apparently men were awed into respect for human life. Again it was Lamech who broke through the restriction. And not only did he slay the young man, but after the deed was done he returned to his wives in a spirit of exultation and boasting. He gloried in the deed, and to give his wives an idea of his importance he made irreverent allusion to the divine protection thrown over Cain, by which Men were not allowed to touch him — as stated in verse 15 of the chapter. He affirmed that if vengeance for Cain should be sevenfold, for him it should be seventy and sevenfold; thus ranking himself as eleven times more important than Cain! — truly the pride of life!

What is all this but just the elements of the world?" For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 John 2: 16). Upon these three things is the whole of the world system based. In our day we see them to well-nigh their utmost ramification, but in Lamech's day they were quite distinctly revealed.

Now, while Lamech was thus disporting himself in the earth about a thousand years before the flood, and breaking down the barriers which let loose the torrent of human corruption and violence, so that ultimately it came to pass that "the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence" (Gen. 6: 11), another man began quietly to pursue his earthly career. Enoch began to live, and after the birth of his son Methuselah, for 300 years he walked with God.

Of this remarkable man two things are recorded in Genesis and two in the New Testament — four in all. Let us note them, for we shall thereby be learning the true character of the pathway of the saints through the world as set forth in this "seventh from Adam."

1. "And Enoch walked with God." What a world of meaning is compressed into these few words! "Walking" signifies not rest but activity, whether of mind or of body. Enoch's activities of mind — in the way of intercourse and communion — his activities of service also were "with God." When Adam was in an unfallen condition the Lord God had walked with him in the garden, as Genesis 3: 8 implies. Enoch, however, was in the midst of a scene of increasing corruption and violence; no longer was it possible for God to walk with him as once He did in an unfallen creation, so Enoch walked with God. God Himself he knew: in God's things he lived and moved and had his being. In body he trod the earth that was no longer a place fit for the walking of the Lord God in the cool of the day: in spirit he moved with God in His own place, and amongst His own things.

He was, however, no recluse or dreamy mystic, for the record is that "Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters." He entered into ordinary human life and knew all the usual trials and vexations as well as the joys of bringing up a family, and families in those days of vigorous longevity were usually large. In spite of that he walked with God, not by fits and starts, but with steady persistency for three centuries! A wonderful walk, the longest walk on record was that! Moreover, while walking with God in spirit, he walked amongst men in bodily presence and well knew their ways and their sins, and bore trenchant witness to God and against them. But this brings us to the second feature that marked him.

2. He witnessed for God. This we are informed by Jude, who has put on record for us the subject of his testimony: "Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints...." Even at that early stage in the world's history a clear ringing witness was given to God's intervention in glory, an intervention which would bring conviction to the ungodly. Enoch did not spare his hearers. Ungodly they were both in deeds and words. The threefold use of the word ungodly in Jude 15 is very striking. We do not read that Enoch had any converts, but his witness was evidently marked by the utmost faithfulness and power.

3. He was "translated" to God. The terse record of Genesis is that at the end of the 300 years "he was not; for God took him." This is amplified in the New Testament, "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him" (Heb. 11: 5). Here we learn that faith was the energy in which Enoch walked with God, and in which finally, he was transported into God's presence. After three centuries of walking with God it must have seemed a simple and natural thing when one day "God took him," and Enoch exchanged his earthly dwelling for the very abode of God Himself.

Every word here is worthy of note. He was translated "that he should not see death." Was he then threatened by death? In the ordinary way it would hardly seem so, since his father lived 962 years and his son 969, and the average life of the nine antediluvian patriarchs excepting himself was well over 900 years. Again, it says, "he was not found," which infers that he was sought.

The language, however, is explicit. His translation took place "that he should not see death," which can hardly be the statement of the obvious truism that had it not been he would ultimately have died. No, it carries with it the glorious moral import that the power of God through faith could lift a man clean out of the domain of death. It could sustain him in spiritual life whilst walking through the sphere of death's operations, and ultimately forbid the touch of its blighting hand, and land his feet in the presence of God for ever beyond its power. It carries also, we judge, the inference that but for translation his death was imminent, that in fact he was translated just as the blow was impending. In other words, that Enoch was left by God in his path of faithful witness until the last possible moment, and then just as the lawless antediluvians, angered by his plain and fearless words, were about to silence the witness, and sought him in order to slay him, "he was not found, for God had translated him."

If we are right in so reading these words, Enoch's translation must have been a presage of judgment for the world, but also a public witness to the fact that God was on his side. This brings us to the fourth feature.

4. "He pleased God" — a thing which is impossible apart from faith. The world saw evidence of this in the fact of his translation. He had the testimony of it "before his translation" (Heb. 11: 5). Verse 4 tells us that before Abel was slain he had the testimony that he was righteous. Verse 5 that Enoch before he was translated had the testimony that he pleased God. One was right with God and he knew it. The other was agreeable to God and he knew it. Both knew on Divine testimony.

"He pleased God." After all, what more could be said than that? The life that can be summed up in those three words is the life worth living, even though, as in Enoch's case, it is a life that mightily displeases the world.

Here, then, sketched in the early dawn of the world's history, is a very complete picture of the world on the one side, and on the other, of the believer's pathway through the world to glory. Some fifty centuries have passed and the world has immensely developed. The young sapling of Enoch's day has become a gigantic tree. Its three main shoots as revealed in Lamech — "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," have become three main trunks, each bearing branches and twigs innumerable. The great tree now shows signs of weakness. Shall we let you into the secret? The interior is a mass of decay and rottenness. The imposing tree is doomed. Upon it this sentence is written: "The world passeth away and the lust thereof" (1 John 2: 17).

Shall we lament it? No, indeed. Being what it is, the passing away of the world-system is a subject for rejoicing, and the above quoted verse does not close without adding, "but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." It is men of the Enoch stamp that will abide.

Enoch is peculiarly an instructive type for us. Just as Noah sets forth a godly remnant of Israel carried safely through the flood of judgment to the renewed earth beyond, so Enoch sets forth the Church's path of obedience and witness, with translation at the end before the judgment comes. Shall not we, who live in the light of a far more wonderful revelation than ever Enoch knew, be imitators of his faith?

Depend upon it, our great business is to WALK WITH GOD, not to run before Him, nor to lag behind Him, but to keep pace with Him, rejoicing in Him as He has revealed Himself in Christ, and responding to all He has revealed, in the power of the Spirit who has been given to us. It is all a matter of individual exercise and faith.

As we walk with God so shall we witness for God, and please God. The end, thank God, is sure. We shall go to be with God, translated into His very presence.

The Two Headships

The Two Headships.

(An Address at Edinburgh, evening, April 6th. 1921)

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 13, 1921, page 126.)

"And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth earthy: the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Cor. 15: 45-49).

First of all I want to ask, Do you know that there are two races in the world? — two peoples of quite distinct origin, having quite different heads, and travelling in quite different ways. That great fact lies clearly on the face of these verses. There is a first Adam, and there is a last Adam; there is a first man, and there is a second Man.

Adam is the man who was the great progenitor of our race; mankind springs from him; he is the source and fountainhead, and upon the race his impress is clearly seen. Through the ages Adam has been simply disclosing himself, unrolling himself in the history of his descendants in detail. So when we think of Adam, we think of him as the great head, the head that dominates this poor fallen race, and to which everyone of us by nature belongs. And when we think of Jesus, we think of the last Adam, last, mark you, for there is not a third. I am very glad it says last, because evidently that infers that in the second Man who is the last Adam, God has reached finality. He is the last, — no successor, no need for a successor. First came the natural, then came the spiritual, and we may extract a little remark from its setting in the 10th chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, "He taketh away the first that He may establish the second".

If you have a fairly general knowledge of the contents of the Old Testament, you will note on reflection that God gave indication of this by again and again choosing not the first but the second, — not Cain but Abel, not Ishmael but Isaac, not Esau but Jacob, not Aaron so much as Moses, not Manasseh but Ephraim. I have only just given to you a few cases that instantly come to my mind, and probably you could add some more. Again and again God makes it manifest that His thought was first the natural, and then the spiritual, and that the second is what God had before Him. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is the last Adam, the great Head of a new race, humanity truly, but new and altogether according to God. So perfect is He that never to all eternity will there need to be a third, the second is the last. Cain was only Adam reproduced in the first generation. You and I are Adam's representatives, perhaps, somewhere about the 150th generation. You travel down the stream of time, and you never meet "the second man" until you come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now here lies the great importance of that truth which was previously alluded to in these meetings, the truth of the Virgin Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. People sometimes say unthinkingly, "Well, what does it matter whether we accept this or not? Have we indeed to enshrine this as a great cardinal fact of the Christian faith? "My answer is, indeed you have; let go this, and you let go everything.

To make my meaning clear, turn to the first of Genesis one moment, will you? I am not at all surprised that the infidel leaders now-a-days, the religious infidels in particular, are very keen against the 1st of Genesis, for it gives the lie direct to four of the most popular heresies of the present day. First of all it gives the lie direct to UNITARIANISM, inasmuch as the word used for God throughout the chapter — Elohim — is in the plural. Now Hebrew, unlike English, has not only a singular, but a dual, and then also a plural. That is, we find its nouns in three forms: a singular form to indicate one, a dual to indicate two, and a plural to indicate three or more. The Spirit of God has not used the singular, He has not used the dual, He has used the plural thirty-two times in the 1st chapter of Genesis concerning God. There is also what we would consider a grammatical error in the first verse of the chapter. We have God in the plural, and then the word 'created' in the singular. How do we explain that? Quite simply. There we have the Trinity in unity — one God — therefore the verb may be indeed in the singular. Yet the very name of God is in the plural, signifying at least three, so that Unitarianism is clearly negatived.

Another thing that is negatived is the very popular idea of PANTHEISM, that God is not to be thought of as outside nature and above it, but as only dwelling in nature, somewhat as the electrical current dwells in insulated cables. God is immanent — that is the word they use — and they do not believe in a transcendent God, a God that stands outside of and distinct from nature. You must merely think of Him as a Supreme Mind, a Sense dwelling in all things; that is the 'New Theology'. This Pantheistic idea is plainly denied. You have God before creation, and God outside of nature. The 1st of Genesis clearly presents Him not as an immanent God, but as a transcendent God, One that stands outside of and distinct from creation.

Another thing: you have the root idea of CHRISTIAN SCIENCE denied in the 1st chapter of Genesis. That idea is that matter is evil. Spirit is good, and matter, according to that false religion, is but an illusion. Why, again and again in the 1st chapter of Genesis we read of material things, and  God saw that it was good" — the lie direct to Christian Science.

And lastly I particularly want you to note, that it gives the lie direct to that great idea that has done so much mischief, even in the minds of Christians — EVOLUTION. Over and over again, as a matter of fact, ten times over, in the 1st of Genesis we have the immutable law of God's creation that all things reproduce themselves "after his kind". Ten times over it says "after his kind", and there is not one fact known that denies it.

Now I want you to fix your mind on that for a moment. It is the immutable law of God's creation that everything reproduces itself after its kind, and when Adam became a fallen sinner that law worked with deadly operation in all his descendants. We may be, as I said, the 150th generation from Adam, but we are just simply "after his kind", and we might go on reproducing ourselves, and thus project the first man and his race indefinitely into eternity, we should still only have fallen man. When the fifteen hundredth or the one hundred and fifty thousandth generation was reached it would still be "after his kind". You see — I think — what I am driving at. The awful entail of sin and death connected with the first man has ruined everything it touched with its blighting hand; and there never was a real and original second man until Jesus was born, and then the entail of sin and death was broken. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost's power. Discard the Virgin birth, and you have lost this great foundation truth of the Gospel.

Another, then, has appeared — the second Man is the Lord from heaven —  and He appeared here truly a Man, but a Man of another order, a Man of a heavenly order, a Man not after Adam's kind, perfect, spotless, undefiled. He stepped into the scene, and in Him, thank God, there is salvation for such as ourselves. He is the Founder of a new race, and I want you all to get hold of this, and thus learn to regard the Lord Jesus Christ in this light.

You may ask how do we come to be of His race? Well, we are told in the very verses that I read, "The first man Adam was made a living soul". As a matter of fact he had a spirit by the breath of the Divine nostrils, as we read in the 2nd chapter of Genesis; but what characterized him was that he was a living soul, though possessing spirit, whereby he was put into intelligent and personal intercourse with God. When we turn to the last Adam, we read not that He is a living soul, but that He is a quickening or life-giving Spirit. The Lord Jesus steps into the scene, a life-giving Spirit, and if you and I are brought into contact with Him, thank God we have been quickened by Him. We have been made to live by Himself, and in Himself as the one who has suffered and died and risen again. In resurrection He has become the life-giving Head of a new race. Oh! to realize that this is actually a fact! We are not taking flights into dreamland; we are talking about things which have actually come to pass on the basis of the death and resurrection of Christ, and by the energy of the Spirit of God. How little we know their transporting power in our souls!

You and I, then, who have come to Him as the Saviour, have come under the life-giving power of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the last Adam, and we live now in Him and we belong to His race, and to His order. True it does not yet appear on the surface. No halo of glory surrounds your head, nor does it surround mine. We go through the streets of Edinburgh with nothing distinctive about us to manifest at the present moment that we are the children of God. The apostle John himself tells us that now are we children of God, but what we are going to be does not yet appear. We are like the caterpillar crawling on the edge of the leaf and eating it. There comes a dainty butterfly and perches beside the caterpillar. Could she pour into the caterpillar's ear how she too was once creeping on a green leaf, the caterpillar would hardly believe it, but it is true. There you have the caterpillar, and there you have the butterfly. We may be in the caterpillar stage, but we have got the life that is coming out in butterfly colours in a day that is coming. It is not yet manifest what we are going to be; what we do know is that we are going to see Him as He is, and then we shall be like Him. We have got the life of Christ who is the last Adam, and so we are told in these verses that ultimately we are going to bear the image of the heavenly.

In verse 47 we get the first man and his character — he is of the earth 'earthy' or 'made of dust'. Then he says, as is the earthy such are they also that are earthy. We partake of Adam's life and fallen condition. The ugly features that are latent in the Adamic nature come out more powerfully in some than in others, but all of them lie dormant, to be developed into one set of ugly features in one person and another set in other persons; but we all possess that condemned life, and its condemned nature. But it then says, "The second Man is the Lord from heaven", and it adds that, "as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly". Those who are of the heavenly race partake of the character of their great Head. Then there is further added that "as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly". The infinite grace of God has given us a place and portion in the heavenly Man. A day is coming when we shall come out in our true character, when we shall leave behind us this caterpillar stage, and we shall be the butterfly with all its glorious colours. The grub is essentially an earthy creature; it belongs to the earth; it crawls on the earth; it eats the leaves, and it probably buries itself in the earth, but it comes forth as the perfect insect and the air is its sphere. That is only a rough illustration, mind you; you must not attempt to make it run on all fours; but here we have the great fact that we Christians who have believed upon Jesus and who know His love, and who have had all our sins put away have also got His life; we stand in His risen life; He is our glorious and exalted Head.

If you want to see what the Christian is going to be, look at Christ, risen, exalted, and already glorified as the heavenly Man. As we have borne the image of the earthy, so are we also going to bear the image of the heavenly. We should bear the impress of His character now. We shall perfectly bear it then, even as to our bodies. In this, as in all beside, Christ is everything.

The Word and the Throne

The Word and the Throne

Hebrews 4: 11-16.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 38, 1953-5, page 1.)

As we enter upon another year we are reminded that the pilgrimage of the church is going to end in the rest of God, and we do well to listen to the exhortation, "Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest." And the more so, since the exhortation leads us to the great High Priest, who is on high, and connected with Him we find the word of God on the one hand, and the throne of grace on the other.

The word of God is indeed profitable for doctrine and instruction in righteousness, as we learn in another scripture, but here it is its living, powerful, piercing, discerning character that is emphasized. As we are conscious of these features, we become aware of how much we need the ministry that flows from the great High Priest, who is in the seat of supreme power and yet is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. It is because of what He is that the throne has become to us a throne of grace, whatever it may be to others.

When we read the word we are listening to God speaking to us, but to the throne we are to come with boldness, for here we have the privilege of addressing ourselves to God. We must however in our minds lay as much emphasis on the fact that it is a throne as upon the fact that it is a throne of grace.

If we rightly appreciate the fact that it is a throne we shall at once be impressed by His majesty, and gain a sense of our own littleness. Grace indicates that those who receive the favour are undeserving, and we are therefore awakened to the fact of our sinfulness and His mercy. We do indeed need that all these things become increasingly real to us.

Let us exhort one another to give the word of God a larger and more authoritative place in our thoughts and lives Thus we may more clearly judge our own motives, and give a more simple obedience to God's will and way for our steps.

Let us also have more recourse to the throne of grace, that we may obtain the mercy and seasonable help that we need. Only, let us maintain in our hearts, and express in word and attitude, a due sense of the majesty of the One to whom we come, so that in our prayers, and more especially in public prayer, we avoid all undue familiarity of address, while maintaining a sense of that nearness in which grace has set us.

Let no one think that this brief word of exhortation is unnecessary. Bibles indeed are multiplied, but the consistent and prayerful study of them seems to be less frequent. Consequently the need of prayer and the desire for it seems to be less felt. If God in His mercy granted to us some reviving in both these directions, a benefit to the whole church of God would soon be manifested. And not only so, for we believe there would be an overflow, which would produce an out-gathering from the world. So may it be to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessing of many.

The Word and the Touch

The Word and the Touch.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Simple Testimony, Vol. 32, 1915, page 225.)

"And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in nowise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." — Luke 13: 11-13.

I want to deal as briefly as possible with a particular difficulty that affects many Christians, though happily not all. Some of us are naturally light-hearted, and manage to go on our way without much thinking of ourselves. Now that may be a danger. It is possible to go through life light-heartedly and miss the exercises that others have, and to lose the profit that these exercises yield. On the other hand, it is the tendency of some to turn in upon themselves and to be everlastingly scrutinizing their own feelings. They are always in a state of self-occupation, which neither tends to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ nor to their own spiritual good.

If you are suffering as a Christian from being occupied with yourself you are like a man who is ever looking at his own feet and stumbling just because he does so. Your thinking about yourself does not produce the power you would fain possess. The more you search for it in your experience and in your service the less there appears to be.

Now this poor woman is a striking type of souls in your condition. She was evidently a child of God, and not an unconverted sinner, for the Lord speaks of her as a daughter of Abraham. There is a spiritual significance in those words, as we may learn from Galatians 3: 7, "They who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." This woman was a daughter of faith, for she walked in the steps of that faith which Abraham had, who was the father of the faithful. They are truly his children who follow in his footsteps spiritually, in other words, those who are believers. This woman was one of them, and the astonishing fact is that for eighteen long years she had been bound by Satan. From this we learn the power that Satan may have over one who is really a true child of God. In her case it was a physical infirmity. She was bent double, and so bent that she could see nothing but herself. You might perhaps go a long way before you find a Christian so wholly occupied with himself as to be unable to see anything else. Most of us have our bright times, when we seem to get away from ourselves. Then something happens, and we get again into the old rut.

Now the Lord Jesus was equal to this terrible case. The affliction which this woman had is spoken of as a spirit of infirmity, and the spiritual affliction of which I am speaking may be so described. Those who suffer from it seem to live always in the shade. They feel morally bowed down, and are occupied with themselves. They say, "I am such a failing creature and is it not right to be conscientious and to scrutinize my motives and my behaviour?" Yes, but it is not right to allow this to become a continuous process.

This woman came into the synagogue. It was the custom for men to worship in the main body of the building and the womenfolk in a gallery, behind a sort of grille. You will agree with me that a woman who "could in no wise lift herself up" was a most unlikely person to come under observation. But such is the beautiful grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that she was the only person that He singled out. His eye rested on the sufferer. To her He said, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." Then the Lord put His hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God.

The same Saviour can deliver you from your unsatisfactory experiences or your fancied good experiences — the worst thing of all.

There are some verses in the Psalms which exactly describe this state. The Psalms give us every kind of experience. Sometimes we are carried down to the depths of despair. Then again we are on the mountain top, finding all our resources in God. Almost every experience that can be thought of may be found in the Book of Psalms.

Let us turn to Psalm 77: "I cried unto God with my voice, and He gave ear unto me." That is the theme of the Psalm. God did give ear. " In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted." Evidently the Psalmist was passing through a very gloomy time. Then he makes this extraordinary statement: "I remembered God, and I was troubled." This is not the experience that is normal to a Christian. Properly speaking, he would say, "I remembered God, and my heart overflowed with joy." Here he says, "I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed." He felt crushed beneath a load that he could not support. "Thou holdest mine eyes waking; I am so troubled that I cannot speak." He could find no words to express his inward misery.

If you met a man with a doleful face you would say, "You look very down to-day. What is troubling you?" Now the mind has a very great effect on the body. The Psalmist was so troubled that he could not sleep. He could not pray, and he hardly liked to talk to his fellow-men. What has he been dwelling upon? He tells us. "I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times." People often speak of the good old days, and exaggerate the blessedness of them. He says, "I call to remembrance my song in the night." But that does not help him. He adds, "I commune with my own heart, and my spirit made diligent search." He was trying to find something to lay hold of as a source of happiness in the old days. What will that do for him? The next verse shows us. "Will the Lord cast off for ever? Will He be favourable no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? Does His promise fail for evermore? . . . Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" It seems to me as if these questions came out like a torrent, tumbling over one another. What is the man doing? He begins to judge God by his own miserable experiences? He doubts God. Will the Lord cast off forever? Wherever is there anything to give the smallest idea of such a calamity as that? He asks these questions: "Is His mercy clean gone for ever? Does His promise fail for evermore?" We can answer these five questions and say "No" to every one of them. He doubts God because of what he finds in his own wretched heart. Now that is the tendency of us all if occupied with ourselves. It may be that to-day you fear that you have deviated from the right path. The devil would like you to brood over that. It is right to confess this failing, but God desires that having confessed it you should have done with it, so that the happy link of communion between your soul and the Lord may be restored. The enemy would use these things to bend us double, to make us look morbidly within. Nowhere are we told to brood over our failures. We are told to confess our sins. God is faithful and just to forgive them, so that we may go on in communion and in power.

Is there any hope for a man like this? Look at verse 9 of our Psalm. That little word "Selah" marks a pause. Now stop and think. Think of the length to which a man will go in his doubting and questioning of God. Now the scales fall from this man's eyes, and the first thing he says when he comes to himself is, "This is my infirmity." That is the very word that is used in regard to the woman in Luke 13. Lay hold of that, and it will do you good. The spell is broken as soon as we label the thing with its right name. God's way is that you should judge yourself, and condemn yourself in thorough accord with the cross of Christ, where all that you are as a man in the flesh was condemned. God's desire is that you should confess and be forgiven, and go on in communion. In the days when the Psalmist was looking within, he remembered God, and he was troubled. Now he says, "I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember" — not "my own miserable failures," but — "the works of the Lord. Surely I will remember Thy wonders of old." He thinks of better things.

Just as there are caterpillars which always take the colour of the leaf on which they are feeding, so there are Christians who are always characterized by that upon which their minds are dwelling. If you dwell habitually upon mournful things, you will have a mournful face. Do you want to be happy? Dwell upon happy things. That is a simple recipe, but a very good one. Do you know how to be miserable? Dwell always upon that which is dark. You say, "There are plenty of these things, and are we not to recognize them?" Of course we should. But having confessed them to God, let us dwell upon the things that are good and right and blessed. Let us remember the works of the Lord. Let us remember His wonders of old.

And now the Psalmist raises his eyes to heaven, and he says, "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God as our God?" You would hardly believe it was the same man. His heart and mind are dwelling upon God, and instead of mourning about his own feebleness, he is rejoicing and praising God. "Thou art a God that doest wonders. Thou hast declared Thy truth among the people."

Well, thanks be to God, we can go a great deal further than the Psalmist. God had revealed Himself then in His greatness in creation, and in righteousness, but we know Him as revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the God that we know, and in whom, through infinite grace, we may rejoice.

Now for one moment I take you back to the woman. How did the Lord produce this wonderful change in her, so that instead of always looking at herself she could stand upright and give glory to God? By His word and by His touch. These, I believe, are symbolic. What liberates our souls and sets us in happy liberty before God? It is first the word of the Cross. The gospel comes to us with a word of forgiveness. It tells us most emphatically that all who believe are justified from all things. No one in the world is, on God's side, shut out from this great gospel offer of forgiveness, but at the same time only they who come in faith and receive it actually have it. It rests in its efficacious and cleansing power upon all that believe. The gospel message comes to you pointing to the cross of Christ, not merely saying, "Behold in the cross of Christ the paying of your debt," but "Behold in the Cross the condemnation of all that you are in yourself." It settles not merely the question of the guilty things you have done, but of the guilty root from which they all come. The Cross is the great Magna Charta of the believer's liberty. I see the condemnation of all that I am in myself there. If I were speaking to some believer who has never yet stepped into this happy condition, I should say, "Here you are in this distressful condition. The cross of Jesus is the loosing of you from that dreadful clinging thing — self." Then came the touch. The Lord laid His hands upon her, and the work was done. There is the union of the two things, the word and the touch. You find in Romans 6 what answers to the former. There the cross of Christ is seen not only in relation to your sins, but to yourself. Then when you come to Romans 8 you have the indwelling Spirit, empowering us for happy occupation with God and with Christ. You can now go through this world upright and glorifying God. I look upon the word of the Lord as being similar to the word of the gospel that we have in Romans 6, and His touch as being symbolic of the blessed gift of the Spirit of God.

Well, may God grant that what has been said may be for the help and blessing of somebody. Since we have escaped the snare of the fowler, and are no longer in danger of hell, the adversary is set upon engaging us with something else rather than that which should normally occupy us. If he can get hold of a conscientious believer, and tie him up in a knot, if he can keep him always looking within, he has gained a victory. He has spoiled that Christian, so far as his witness for Christ is concerned. That poor bowed woman would have been no advertisement for the doctors, but a scarecrow to frighten away any likely patient. It may be that if you are a Christian of this kind your unconverted friends will say, "Look what religion has done for him! Look what a face he pulls!" That is no advertisement for the grace of your Saviour. You are somewhat of a scarecrow to frighten anybody away who is inclined to turn their attention in that direction. The Lord wants you to be bright and happy, to be in the enjoyment of His love, to glorify God. It is not a great mark of saintship to be in this miserable condition. Let your heart dwell on the glories of Christ. and the fullness there is in Him, and the excellencies there are revealed in His word. The more you get your soul filled with these things, the happier, the brighter and more blessed it will be for you, and the more likely that those who see you will glorify God.

The World: Our Position and Attitude in it

The World: Our Position and Attitude in it.

John 17.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 37, 1951-2, page 98.)

What is the believer's position with regard to the world as it exists today? And what should be his attitude towards it? The answer to the second question must be dependent upon the answer to the first. Our attitude in present circumstances must be governed by our position. It is futile for us to assume to settle things if we are not in a position to do so. So in considering what our attitude should be in regard to the remarkable and peculiar circumstances through which we pass, we must ask: What is my position in regard to them?

Let me point out that this group of chapters (14-17) has one under-lying thought, that is, that the believer is absolutely identified with Christ, before God the Father. We are identified with Him in a new relationship, a new joy, and a new position which He takes up as risen from the dead.

But in John 16 we get another side of the story. The Lord tells His disciples what treatment they are to expect from the world. He says, as it were, "Not only are you identified with Me in My position before the Father, in all the favour and blessing that attaches to that position, but you are identified with Me in My position of reproach and rejection before the world. If you have all the assets connected with My place before the Father, you must not be surprised to find you have got My liabilities in connection with the world." He intimated to them that they were to make up their minds to share His path of rejection even unto death. Does this sound strange to our ears? We have been so accustomed to a quiet peaceful life in this land, where Christianity has greatly modified the standards of behaviour, and have for generations past had such a time of ease, that we are apt to forget what the truth is as to the position we hold, a position of the greatest possible blessing before God, but a position of persecution and reproach, if we are true to our Master, in this world.

Now in John 17 we have the whole case presented with perfection. The Lord Himself lays down in the clearest possible way what our position is. Look first at verse 6. We have to remember that we are among those given to Christ by God the Father out of the world. Doubtless those words had special reference to the apostles, but verse 20 shows that they have every believer in view. The Lord prays for all His own right through the church's history, up to and including ourselves. It is a very touching thought that when the Lord Jesus paused outside the walls of Jerusalem, before crossing the brook that led to the garden, with His awe-struck disciples about Him in the quiet night, He uttered this prayer. His eye swept the centuries, and He embraced us all in that for which He prayed on that never-to-be-forgotten occasion. We too have been given to Christ by God the Father out of this world. He foreknew us in the past eternity, for as we read elsewhere, we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. His thoughts for us antedate the establishment of this material earth on which we tread. We need not be surprised, then, to find that our ultimate destiny lies outside it.

When the Lord was here, His own were under His continual guidance and care, but the moment had now come when He was to leave them. He is in spirit here already beyond the cross. He says to the Father, "Now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee." He left the world, as we know, by way of death, and resurrection, and ascension. He left it because rejected. Let us never forget that.

There are people who say, "If there is a God in heaven, why does He not interfere? Why does He look down calmly on the atrocities that are being perpetrated?'' Many answers might be given to these questions, but one very sufficient answer is, Because Christ has been rejected. The only One who can put things right has been here, and has been rejected, and until He comes again you need not be surprised at anything that may happen. Nothing can be right until the only One who can put things right takes them in hand. But when He does, it means judgment, and that is why God waits. God is never partial. In our wrongs and disappointments we would like God to interfere on our own particular and special behalf; but why should He? When God intervenes, He will do so in a far-reaching manner, and it means the day of judgment. When the time comes for wrongs to be righted, all wrongs will be righted. If God is going to interfere in judgment, we can only say, "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified" (Ps. 143: 2). It would mean an end of us all, apart from the provision that God's grace has made, so meantime He keeps silence. But the hour of His mercy is fast running to its close, and then He will intervene to put things right.

Here are a few humble folk, who love Him, and He loves them. They are going to be left without Him in the world, and the next thing is what we get in verse 14: "I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." We are left in the world on the distinct understanding that we are not of it. We are not part of the world-system by which we are surrounded, and for that reason the world hates the Christian. Notice the Lord here makes Himself the standard. We are identified with Him in this.

Now notice a further thing in verse 18: "As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." We have been taken out of the great world-system. We speak of a man being a "man of the world." By this we do not intend to emphasise the fact that he lives on this planet in contrast to dwelling in the moon, or being an inhabitant of Mars. We mean that he is absolutely and in every sense a man of the world-system that is all around us, so that he bears its stamp and impress. The Christian is taken out of the world in that sense. Notice here again that He, Christ Himself, is the standard. If it is a question of our separation from the world, it is even as Christ Himself is separated from it; if it is a question of being sent into the world, as in verse 18, that also is measured by the same standard. The Lord takes us out, breaks our links with this world, and then sends us back that we may be here for Him.

He Himself came into it with one great thought before Him. The supreme object that dominated the life of the Lord Jesus was the glory of God. Our benefit, great as it was, was not the primary thought before Him. He came into this world which at the instigation of Satan had cast off divine allegiance, always rightly representing God, always perfectly revealing Him, and ultimately working out redemption for sinners. In reading the Gospels, we see how again and again there was the temptation presented to Him to turn from the main line of God's purpose and run into a siding, but He never did so. I mean such instances as when a man came up to Him and said, in effect, "I have got a brother who is not straight speak to him that he divide the inheritance with me." The Lord's answer was, "Who made Me a judge or a divider over you?" His business was not to deal with social matters and to remove those inequalities which are so pronounced. Socialists actually wish to claim Jesus as one of themselves, even with a scripture like this staring them in the face. Here is a great social problem presented to the Lord, and He declines to touch it. It would have been leaving the main track of that for which He was here. There was also a national or political question raised about paying tribute to Caesar, but the Pharisees did not get the answer they expected, for the Lord only used the occasion to throw into relief that which was the supreme question: the rights of God.

Now we Christians are left here on those lines. The Lord has sent us into the world that we may represent Him rightly, and promote His interests. Remember what the Apostle said in 2 Corinthians 5 "Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ." An ambassador is a gentleman of very considerable knowledge and skill, who is entrusted by the Government with the important task of representing king and country in a foreign land. He does not belong to that land. The British ambassador in Paris is not a Frenchman. His business is not to see that the streets of Paris are perfectly swept. He does not concern himself with the latest social improvements of that land. He may be invited to do some things here and there, but if so he does them as an outsider. He is there in Paris simply to represent his country. His thought is, what will best further the interests of the king and country he represents.

Now the apostles, in a. very special way, were ambassadors for Christ. We may not be so, in quite the same sense, but we are attached to the embassy. In Paris there is the ambassador, but he has helpers. He has a considerable number of clerks and servants. The honour of the country is bound up with the behaviour of all, even the humblest. Everyone in the embassy will so act as to uphold the credit and further the interests of the country he represents.

Let us never forget that our place in this world is to be attached to the embassy of the absent King. We belong to His country. We have got His peace, His Spirit, His joys. We are here to represent Him. If we lay this well to heart, it will answer for us a hundred different questions as to what the Christian's attitude should be. I think if I were attached to the embassy in Paris, as a Briton I should be very glad if I had an opportunity to help individual

Frenchmen. (I use this as an illustration). I should be glad to serve to any extent within my power the people by whom I am surrounded. I should like to treat everybody with kindness and consideration, but I should always bear in mind that I am not there just to do that. That is incidental. I am there to represent my King, and everything has to be gauged by that fact.

I may be asked: Does not the Scripture say, "As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially to those who are of the household of faith"? Yes, indeed, just as I would at once assist a wounded man if I saw an accident in a Paris street. Still I should not spend my time walking about the streets on the chance of being able to do such things. Yes, and it does say, "especially to the household of faith." Do not let it be said in Paris that the embassy is starving. That would be a bad testimony. Always consider first that you are there rightly to represent your King.

Is my little parable sufficiently plain? Our great business down here is to rightly serve and represent our Lord. Let us seek grace to do it. We are not a part of the world system, in fact our interests are outside it. As Christians we have great interests, magnificent interests, though as yet invisible to mortal eyes, and with those interests we are identified.

If we keep clearly and constantly before us the fact that our citizenship — our life-associations — are in heaven, from whence we await the coming of the Saviour, we shall increasingly realize our separation from the world, and rejoice to serve our absent Lord.

"They howled upon their beds."

"They howled upon their beds."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Simple Testimony, Vol. 35, 1918-19, page 197.)

Who howled, and why? The record speaks of the people who then inhabited the northerly parts of Palestine, and what troubled them was an acute shortage of the necessaries of life, such as corn and wine. The multitudes assembled together in the scramble for the

wherewithal to live, and a kind of rationing had to be instituted.

It was a most vexatious business, as modern experiences have proved; unfortunately, however, they mistook howling for calling upon God to help.

Here is the entire quotation —

"They have not cried unto Me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against Me" (Hosea 7: 14).

There is all the difference in the world between a cry to God from the heart and a howl upon one's bed. The heart-cry sends a man to his knees in repentance toward God; the howl means but annoyance and distress, and rebellion against God.

In these hard times you have probably had a howl wrung from your lips; but say, has a real cry to God ever escaped your heart? If not, do not be surprised that no answer has reached you. Why should it? Do you yourself set much store by mere words when there is no heart nor reality behind them?

Be real: then God will speedily be found, for He is not far from you.

"Things which become sound doctrine"

"Things which become sound doctrine"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 52, also Vol. 16, 1924, p 78.)

In his epistle to Titus the Apostle Paul laid great stress upon two things: first, upon "sound doctrine" (Titus 1: 9); second, upon "the things which become sound doctrine" (Titus 2: 1). These two are closely related as cause and effect, so much so that each may be used as a test to the other.

In opening the epistle the Apostle wrote of "the truth which is after godliness," for all real "truth" has this as its effect and fruit. That which has not is thereby declared to be spurious and not "truth" at all. But, on the other hand, in writing, "speak thou the things which become sound doctrine," he indicated that any course of behaviour or speech not in keeping with truth and sound doctrine is thereby condemned. Sound doctrine and sound conduct fit one another like a die and the impression it makes in the wax.

Though this short epistle is mainly occupied with instructions as to conduct, there is yet given a very clear summary of sound doctrine, both as to the grace of God that has appeared, working redemption on our behalf, and also of the mercy that in washing and renewing us has wrought out our salvation. The former deals with the objective work wrought for us, and yet outside and apart from us, by Christ. The latter deals with the subjective work, wrought within us individually and severally by the Spirit of God.

In the first place then, sound doctrine sets before us the grace of God. In Crete were found, "unruly and vain talkers and deceivers specially they of the circumcision." These were full of, "Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth." Law was their theme, but law degenerated into human commandments; and they, while binding law upon other people, are stigmatised by a fine stroke of irony as unruly themselves. The genuine law had once appeared, but now it is the grace of God that has appeared.

Next, this grace has brought with it salvation for all men — the marginal reading here being the better translation. Grace overleaps the boundaries that were observed under the law. Then God made known His demands to one nation only. Now with the offer of grace He addresses Himself to all men. How many may humble themselves to receive His grace is another matter.

Further, the grace has been expressed in the Lord Jesus, who "gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us." Israel was typically redeemed from Egypt, the land of darkness and bondage, that they might be His servants and witnesses. Our redemption was a more vital matter, to deliver us from all iniquity, and purify us to Himself for His own special possession, a people zealous of good works.

Then also, the grace which has redeemed us teaches us in very effectual fashion. Formerly the law was schoolmaster, and it imposed upon man demands and instructions from without. Grace teaches by acting upon the heart and conscience within. If we look back to our school days, when many things were imposed upon our memories by books from without, we realize how much of it we have clean forgotten. Yet there were many things, which never taxed our memories but yet wrote themselves on our hearts and ingrained themselves into our characters. These things we have not lost and never shall. It is after this fashion that grace teaches.

Lastly, grace also directs our eyes to the future, so that we are "awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (New Trans.). The grace that has appeared redeems, instructs, and leaves us to await the glory; for the second coming of our Lord is an integral part of "sound doctrine."

The thought of what the Cretans were by nature lies as a dark background to this epistle. Paul quoted with approval the very uncomplimentary saying of one of their own prophets, "Cretans are always liars, evil wild beasts, lazy gluttons" (New Trans.). But in the third chapter Paul speaks not of the Cretans alone, but of himself and all of us. "We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." This being the case, thorough moral cleansing is our deep necessity.

This deep need has been met by the appearing of God's mercy and love to man — His philanthropy. We have been saved by a work wrought in us, a work of washing and renewing. The word translated, "washing " is one that literally means "bath" or "laver," and the only other place where it is used in the New Testament is in Ephesians 5: 26. In Leviticus 8: 4-6, we read how Moses brought Aaron and his sons to the laver and there bathed them all over. This is typical of our passage. Subsequently the priests had to wash hands and feet in the laver every time they entered the sanctuary; and this is more typical of the passage in Ephesians.

The word translated "regeneration" also only occurs twice in the New Testament, the other occasion being in Matthew 19: 28, where it signifies the new order of things which will be established when the Lord Jesus Christ reigns, and when "a nation" — Israel — will be "born at once" (Isa. 66: 8). We learn in Titus that though we have not yet arrived at the hour of this world-wide regeneration yet believers today are the subjects of the washing of regeneration individually. The new birth in all its cleansing power is theirs.

Connected with this is "the renewing of the Holy Ghost." The Spirit acted in our new birth, as John 3 shows, but this renewing is produced by the Spirit being "shed on us abundantly," as the fruit of which we have that more abundant life, of which the Lord spoke in John 10: 10. We have been saved from all the folly and moral filth, of which Paul had just spoken, by the new birth and the renewing effected by the indwelling and work of the Spirit of God. Thus saved and also "justified by His grace," according to the redemption previously mentioned, we are "made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." All this sets before us an outline of "sound doctrine."

Titus was to "speak the things which become sound doctrine," so that the converts in Crete might be characterized by them and not be displaying their bad national features. A believer today may try to excuse an outbreak of temper or some fleshly display by saying, "Oh, well, that is my make-up; that is the kind of person I am." "No doubt it is," we may well reply, "but have you not been washed and thereby saved from such things?" Godliness is to mark us; and that means displaying the Divine nature and not our own deformities.

We are informed as to the things that become sound doctrine in the latter part of Titus 1 and the earlier part of Titus 2. Bishops are first addressed, then aged men, aged women, young women, young men, Titus himself, and then servants. It is when we come to these last, who were really slaves, or "bondmen," that the most comprehensive summary is found.

The present "world" or "age" is still pursuing its degraded and unsteady course, and it will not be altered until the appearing of the glory. Today God alters the whole character of those whom He saves by grace, that they may pursue their course through the unaltered age upon altogether new principles; those of sobriety, righteousness and godliness.

"

Soberly."

This word occurs five times in the Authorized Version of Titus. On one occasion it is the translation of a word which means watchful or vigilant (Titus 2: 2). The other times the word used denotes temperance, prudence and general loudness of mind. The word "sound" also occurs five times, and is the translation of a word which has the sense of "healthful," which we have imported into our own language as "hygienic." The epistle to Titus may well be called the epistle of

spiritual hygiene

and

sobriety.

The force of "soberly" turns in upon oneself. It does not so much define one's attitude towards God or one's neighbour, as one's own personal mental poise. A sober man is one who has learned his own nothingness in the presence of God. He has been brought down from all those high and lofty thoughts of self which lie at the heart of every child of fallen Adam, and consequently he sees God in His true light. This being so he has learned to estimate himself and people and things in something of their true value, and is not imposed upon by mere appearances. This imparts to him a solidity and weight, the very opposite to the fickleness, instability and levity which are so natural to us all. Let us so live in the light of eternal things that we do not waste our lives over the passing frivolities of the hour.

"Righteously."

A righteous man is one who renders what is right to all outside himself; to God first and foremost. When the Lord Jesus said, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" He was preaching practical righteousness.

The men of the world do not concern themselves with the claims of God, but they keenly scrutinise the Christian to see if he acts rightly to his fellows. Hence righteous action on our part is of the greatest importance, for a breakdown here destroys much good, and an ounce of practical unrighteousness will outweigh a ton of eloquent preaching. Are we weak as to this point?

Except we walk prayerfully with God we may easily and almost insensibly be infected with the spirit of the present age. There is great clamour for one's own rights with a determination to shirk responsibility as far as possible. To get as much as possible in return for as little as possible is all the rage. Therefore let Christians beware! Grace teaches us to live righteously.

It teaches the Christian to give full and proper pay to those he employs. It teaches the tradesman to give full measure, and eschew any trick by which illicit gain may be made. It teaches the workman to give steady and honest work, as conscientiously when not supervised as when under supervision. And if any have a believing master, or conversely a believing servant, no advantage is to be taken of that fact, as 1 Timothy 6: 2 shows.

"Godly."

The bearing of this word is clearly in regard to God. Our business is to "adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." The doctrine is beautiful in itself, yet it may actually be adorned by us; and what will more effectually do this than the display of His character in those who profess it? We may safely affirm that nothing will.

If the Apostle's words through Titus had their proper effect, and there was found in the midst of the liars, evil wild beasts and lazy gluttons of Crete, a people who were visibly purified unto God for His special possession, characterized by these three things, and zealous of good works, what an effect must have been produced to the glory of God!

No less effect would be produced upon the men of this age, if these excellent things which become sound doctrine were more fully promoted amongst us, and in display for all to see.

What thoughts should govern my heart when sitting before the Lord to remember Him?

What thoughts should govern my heart when sitting before the Lord to remember Him?

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 12, 1920, page 185.)

It is difficult to answer a question of this kind without assuming a position of controller and director of the thoughts and affections of the heart which is altogether beyond one, and thus touching upon a prerogative of the Holy Spirit of God. He alone is the source and energy of all responsive thoughts and affections in the heart of a believer. He is the "unction from the Holy One" by whom we "know all things" and "the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie " (1 John 2: 20, 27).

But on the other hand we have the Word of God, and particularly those passages in the Gospels and in 1 Cor. 10 and 11 which refer to the Lord's supper, its institutions, and meaning, and we can safely submit our thoughts to its guidance, knowing that there will never be any clashing between the Spirit's unction within and His inspiration without us in Scripture.

We are safe therefore in saying that when remembering the Lord our minds may well be governed by such thoughts as are brought together in 1 Cor. 11: 23-29, for instance.

We think of the Lord Himself — "in remembrance of Me."

Of the "night in which He was betrayed." Its circumstances and all involved in it.

Of His body given for us symbolized in the loaf.

Of His blood shed symbolized in the wine, and of the new covenants connected with it.

Of His coming again — the grand terminus to which all leads.

F. B. HOLE.

"The trial of your faith."

"The trial of your faith."

1 Peter 1: 3-9.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 28, 1936, page 260.)

There are found in this short passage quite a number of things that have been occupying us very largely during this week. For instance, I notice that mercy is emphasized, and hope, and an inheritance, and salvation, and faith, and temptations, and trials. Now we have been in our thoughts moving amidst the first, second, third and fourth of these things, and thank God for an occasion like this when we can retire somewhat from the world and our ordinary duties and callings and give time to the consideration of the things of faith that circle around the mercy and hope and the inheritance and the salvation. Still, of course, we have got to come back to the ordinary, humdrum, and frequently rather trying circumstances of daily life.

We have got to the end of our week, and I want to have just a few words with you about this resumption of the ordinary duties of life. But, first of all, just a word on these four things. You see each of them is characterised in a certain way, each is mentioned with an adjective. For instance, mercy is abundant mercy. Thank God that we have received of the abundant mercy there is in our God, in that He has begotten us again. Most amazing mercy that we should be begotten of God, and begotten unto a hope which is connected with a risen Saviour. Here, too, we find an adjective, it is a lively hope. You know we might have been forgiven in a stinted fashion. We might have had mercy strewn to us but of a very limited order, as is always the case amongst men, but the mercy of our God is an abundant mercy. We can admire it, when we do see amongst men something that is a pale reflection of the abundant mercy of our God.

Some time ago I either read or heard a story told of a famous pianist. It ran something like this:- A young lady, who was a pianist of considerable powers, found it very difficult to get an entrance and earn her living as she desired. She was going to give a recital in a continental city and she fell into a very sad temptation. She was to play some of the works of the celebrated Abbe Liszt, and she felt, If I could somehow get the prestige of his name (he was at the height of his popularity at that time) it would greatly help me. So she had herself advertised as being a pupil of the celebrated man, when she had never even seen him. However, when she arrived at the town a day before and booked her room in the hotel, what was her horror to see the name of Abbe Liszt in the hotel books. The great man was there himself in the town. She had a fearful night, overwhelmed with horror and remorse. She said, Whatever shall I do? I am ruined. He will refute me. I am caught indeed. After breakfast the next day she sought an interview with the great man, she told him the truth and broke into tears. He said, "My dear young lady, what has possessed you to do a thing like this? Why wreck your fair name at the beginning of your career?" She told him of her struggles and of how she was tempted to do it. At last he quietly said, "My dear young lady, I forgive you. We will say no more about it."

That was good, was it not? It was mercy to forgive her, but he was going to show her abundant mercy. So he said, "What were the works of mine you were going to perform?" "Oh," she said, "so and so and so and so." He said, "I would like to hear you play them on the piano." In the presence of the master she had to play a piece. He said, "Yes, very good, but I should rather play it like this." And he played the piece so that she might get the idea. Then she played it again, and he listened and suggested this and that. Suddenly he said, "Look here, mademoiselle, you are my pupil for I have just given you a lesson; and as I happen to have a free evening, with your permission I am coming to your concert and I will introduce you to your audience. That was handsome, was it not? He had redeemed the situation, and she found her concert a brilliant success.

That comes to my mind as an illustration of abundant mercy. But how faint a shadow is that of this mercy. He had become her musical father, but here is One who has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The hope that is ours is a living hope because it is connected with a risen Christ, who being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over Him. He has come out of death, and the hopes that are centred in the risen Lord Jesus Christ are hopes that will never die.

We not only have a mercy which is abundant, and a hope that is living, but an inheritance. Now you have about four adjectives. Incorruptible, undefiled, unfading and reserved in heaven; that is to say, out of reach of man's interfering fingers, reserved in heaven for you. For that we are kept. Salvation is ready to be revealed and it is guaranteed by the power of God on the one hand and by faith as regards our side of the matter. The power of God is indeed infinite and unfailing. The inheritance is reserved for us in heaven, and we are preserved on earth for it by the power of God operating through faith.

Now faith has been very much before us in our meetings, and by it we are kept unto that ready-to-be-revealed salvation, which is coming. We greatly rejoice in that, though at the present moment we are plunged into these temptations and trials. They have an adjective you see — manifold. They catch us all unawares. The wind of temptation seems to blow from all points of the compass at once, a thing it does not do in nature. Satan has all kinds of artifices, he appears in all kinds of guises, and the flesh within is treacherous beyond all words. Manifold temptations, and God permits them. Many of us will be saying — That is the trouble. We come away from a season like this, from enjoying a spiritual retreat, we resume our ordinary duties in the old humdrum circumstances and there are the testings and the trials of every kind.

Your difficulty is not mine, very likely, and you may look at me with an envious eye and say, It is all very well for you. Well, is it? I may have testings of which you know nothing. Testings are so manifold. Because I don't visibly have something you have, it doesn't mean I have nothing at all. I may have that of which you know nothing. Indeed I am sure I have. There are manifold temptations, and we are oftentimes in heaviness through manifold temptations. We feel it. The weight of them comes- down upon us and we cannot escape the weight, and, let me tell you this, we are not intended to. We are intended to feel these things; so that we are tested by them. The test that they impose upon us works out things of value as the next verse says.

Verse 7 speaks of faith again, and every word of the verse is full of meaning. The trial of your faith is like the refining of gold; and, you observe it says, "of gold that perisheth." Gold does not perish very easily. No. When they dug up poor old Tutankhamen, with all his splendid surroundings, there were things of papyrus and fine linen of Egypt, brown with age and at a touch crumbling to pieces. But there were things of gold, and they were not much affected compared with all the other objects in that famous tomb. Gold is an enduring thing but it perishes; the inference evidently being that faith does not. Faith is much more precious than gold that perisheth. God treasures your faith, and that is the adjective He applies to it. In the sight of God faith is something of very, very great price.

Why does that goldsmith take all the pains and spend time over his crucible in which gold is being refined? Because it is such a valuable thing he wants to remove the dross and have it of the finest quality. God permits His people to be put into the crucible and tries them, even by fire, but it is because faith in His estimation is a thing of exceeding value. So we are going to look at our testings in the light of this, God is dealing with us for the refining of faith, and to strengthen it. The fact of the matter is, if we Christians suffer no testings we shall never be anything but weaklings in a spiritual sense: It is the very testings that make us spiritually strong.

Now I am going back for a moment to verse 6. There are two main clauses here. You greatly rejoice in the coming salvation though now "for a season" and "if need be" you are in heaviness through manifold temptations. It is a fact that we shall never be in heaviness through manifold temptations except there is a "needs be" for it. God does not test us capriciously. It is not that He delights in our testings and our heavinesss or even in chastening or rebuking or scourging; we are assured of that in Hebrews 12. So we each have to say to ourselves, If God did not see some spiritual need to be met I should not be face to face with, and under the heavy pressure of, this trial.

And then, look: it is only for a season. I expect you all will remember another place where it says something is for a season. "The pleasures of sin for a season" (Heb. 11: 25). Moses lived a long life; one hundred and twenty years. He turned his back on Egypt and its sinful pleasures at the end of forty years. He had forty years in the back side of the desert. Then a much worse forty years, worried and irritated by people who behaved in a very very perverse way. God suffered their manners in the wilderness and Moses, the meekest man in all the earth, broke down under it just before the forty years terminated. I could not have stood it forty minutes: Moses stood it forty years, and then he could stand it no more. But Moses never regretted turning his back on all the pleasures that could only have lasted another eighty years. The reproach of Christ that he embraced only lasted eighty years.

Your trials, your testings, which God sees to be necessary they are only for a season, because He is going to reach His blessed and glorious end. He is going to make them efficacious. They are going to accomplish blessed results, and the faith that has been tested in the crucible, and like being lost, is going to be found: "found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Ah! this puts a different aspect on things. We ought not to be so frightfully distressed when our faith is tried. Though we may feel we are being worn out with the same kind of difficulties and troubles and exercises week after week, month after month and year after year, there is a day coming when it will be found unto praise and honour and glory; primarily, no doubt, of the God who so patiently deals with us, but also, without a doubt, to the reward of the one who has stood the testings.

My mind reverts to another story, a musical one strangely enough. The story is told of a young man who went to take lessons under a very celebrated master, great on voice production. He had very good vocal chords. The great man heard him sing and then set him a long course of vocal exercises that he was to practice for hours every day.

Up and down his. voice went, up and down, in and out — a very tiresome kind of business. He went on and on, week after week, until he was absolutely sick and tired of the whole business. However, when he remonstrated the man said, You must go on. Months passed, and to his disgust he was kept on and on and on at the same extraordinary sequence of exercises. One day, when his patience was very nearly gone the master said, Now I think we shall be able to finish these exercises at the end of next week. The end of next week came round and he began to think, Now for some lessons that are new! But the master said, "Young man, I am finished with you. I have nothing more to teach you. Go. You are the finest singer in Europe." And it was so.

Something had been wrought in him. He had not realised it but the master knew what he was doing and he developed his singing powers by a very tiresome course of preparation. He was often in heaviness through the repeated testings, not quite realising what was being done, and it is often like that with us. Young Christian, you are likely to get impatient in learning your lessons, but depend upon it God is testing your faith. We have spent several mornings discussing faith as seen in Hebrews 11. It has been a serious business. It is very certain we shall be tested in faith and if we answer to the test it will be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

But before he appears we see Him by faith and we love Him. We cannot see Him with our natural eyes, yet, believing, He becomes a great reality to us. All these testings clarify the eye of faith, and hence we can rejoice. Our joy has an adjective with it — unspeakable: Not merely greatly rejoicing, as in verse 6, but now rejoicing with a joy impossible of expression, and full of glory, receiving the end of our faith — soul salvation, soul emancipation.

Let us not shrink then at the thought of the testings that are bound to come, because there is the power of God with our faith to carry us through the testings, and there is the glorious result produced by the testings as God works by them in our hearts. It is not lost exercise or waste of time. It is going to be found to His praise and honour and glory when Jesus comes.

The True Grace of God

The True Grace of God.

F. B. Hole.

Tuesday, August 28th

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 20, 1928, page 228.)

We have just been considering some of the main features of the house of God as it exists on the earth today. The previous speaker has been like an architect conducting us on a survey of a building and assisting us in our appreciation of its excellent points. I want, on the other hand, to be rather like a navvy who takes pick and shovel that he may uncover the foundations, and enable you to realize how great and solid they are, how well able to sustain the great superstructure that has been reared.

The Apostle Peter reminds the converted Jews to whom he wrote that they now stood in the grace of God. Formerly their relations with God had been upon the basis of the law, and upon that basis they did not stand at all; they fell. These converts were scattered all over the various provinces of Asia Minor, and though Peter was the apostle to the circumcision they had actually been evangelised by the Apostle Paul. Peter carried out his commission in regard to them by pen and ink, and wrote this letter to them, in which he corroborated the testimony that had reached them through Paul's lips, saying, "This is the true grace of God wherein ye stand."

Some of the strangers to whom Peter wrote were domiciled in Galatia, and turning to Paul's epistle to the Galatians we find that through receiving the gospel from his lips they had been called by God "into the grace of Christ" (Gal. 1: 6). Like the believers at Rome they had been justified by faith, and now had access by faith into "this grace [or, favour] wherein we stand" (Rom. 5: 1). It is a most wonderful thing that we should stand in the favour of God at all. It is a still more wonderful thing that the favour in which we stand should be the favour of Christ. We are accepted in the Beloved.

Now all this Peter confirms. You notice what he says, "I have written briefly, exhorting," — and you can see for yourselves how much exhortation there is in the latter part of the epistle — "and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand." His testimony to this grace is found in the earlier part of the epistle. Let us note a few details that are brought before us.

First of all, there is God's electing mercy, which is mentioned in 1 Peter 1: 2. This is followed in verses 3 and 4 by His abundant mercy which has begotten us again unto a living hope and to an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. The Jews had an inheritance which soon got corrupted; they had hopes, but there came a moment when those hopes died. What bright hopes burned in the hearts of the disciples when they accompanied their Master on the occasion of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem! It looked, indeed, as if the world were gone after Him. Surely the moment was now arrived when He would assert Himself, crush the Roman Empire and take His glorious throne. Then came the dramatic turn in events, the revulsion in popular feeling. His cause waned, to all appearance He fell a Victim, crushed between the upper and nether millstones of the religious machine existing in Judaism and the civil and military might of Rome. Hope died in the hearts of the disciples!

This is illustrated in Luke 24. Can you picture to yourself the two disciples going to Emmaus? I think I can see them. Utterly dispirited, hopelessly weary, they slowly stagger forward, hardly able to proceed in a straight line. Then Jesus joins them, and their steps are quickened, and then at last the little home over the hills is reached. Then Jesus enters, and there is the revelation of Himself as risen from the dead. Then and there they were like men born into a new world! A living hope as deathless as the risen Christ took possession of their hearts, and there was a new spring in their footsteps on the return journey to Jerusalem, which made the threescore furlongs seem but a little way! As they burst into the upper room that night amongst their fellow disciples, they might well have joyfully cried, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

The mercy that chose us, and the mercy that has called us to such an inheritance, bring before us the grace of God the Father. Verses 18 to 20 of the chapter bring before us the grace of God the Son. In the due time He was manifested for us as the Lamb of God and shed His precious blood for our redemption. We have been redeemed as the fruit of His work done for us. Notice that the last two words of verse 20 are "for you."

The end of the chapter brings before us the grace bestowed in connection with the Spirit of God. It is through the Spirit that our souls have been purified, being born again by the living and abiding word of God. The new birth is a work wrought in us and not for us, the Spirit being the Operator and the word of God the agent which He uses; but all of it is the fruit of the grace of God.

The earlier part of 1 Peter 2 shows that we who formerly were not a people have now obtained mercy, and that mercy has constituted us a holy and a royal priesthood. Such is the grace in which we stand.

And in that grace we stand. We are there by an act of God. In that grace He has set us irrevocably and forever, since that which He does He does forever. Hence, in that connection there is no such thing as falling from grace.

Yet the Galatians were upbraided by Paul for not continuing in the grace of Christ; they were bidden to "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," and they were told plainly that they were "fallen from grace" if they pursued the lines they were adopting. Though they were securely held by God in the place wherein He had set them yet they might fall in their own thoughts and inner consciousness from that place.

As an illustration of what I mean, take the parable of the prodigal son. When he returned to his father brokenhearted and repentant he was received in the fulness of grace. He deserved absolutely nothing, yet he was welcomed, robed, shod, treated not only as a son, but also feasted upon the fatted calf as an honoured guest. In such grace as that he was set. But suppose that on the following morning he had suddenly imagined that though his reception had been in this fashion, yet that if he expected to retain the favour of his father he must set to work to show that he deserved it. Why, he would probably have descended into the kitchen regions that he might undertake duties like a hired servant! And a very poor hired servant he would be, as must be any young man whose more recent occupations have been either the wasting of money in riotous living or the tending of a herd of filthy pigs.

But what would be the father's attitude in the matter? He would call his son up from the servant's quarters, and say to him, "My boy, however much you allow these unworthy thoughts of me, the effect of which is to make you fall from the grace in which I set you as far as your understanding of things is concerned, I intend to stand by my thoughts. Not your understanding of things but my understanding of things is going to prevail. I shall not adapt or conform the high thoughts of my grace to the poor low thoughts of your legal mind. Come up out of the kitchen and take up the place that is yours as a son in my house."

In the true grace of God we stand whatever may be the state of our minds. Some of us, perhaps, do not realize this. We may have fallen into the snares of imagining that what we are or what we succeed in being or doing for God determines what He is and does for us. This is a great mistake. It is, of course, the root principle of law that man has to obey and that what God does for him depends upon his obedience. But grace works just the other way round. God acts on our behalf, and out of that flows what we may be or do for Him. God is what God is whatever we may be. Let us firmly lay hold of that!

To lay firmly hold of it will be the greatest possible help to us, for nothing is easier for us than to slip away from it in our thoughts. As believers in Jesus we stand before God in His favour whatever the state of our thoughts and feelings. A well-known servant of Christ once quoted the words by a Christian poetess,-

"They that trust Him wholly

Find Him wholly true."

And added, "that is wonderful, is it not? Yet I know something much more wonderful than that." He paused as the folk sat up and looked at him with astonishment. Then he resumed, by quietly saying, "I know something much more wonderful than that, and it is this; that they who do NOT trust Him wholly also find Him wholly true!"

Is this to put a premium upon a small and defective faith? By no means: it is rather the knowledge of the full and unalterable grace of God which will increase our faith. It is to put a premium upon the fulness of the grace of God. The God of all grace has called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, and we stand in that true grace of God while we await the appearing of the glory. It is just the firm maintenance of this which will perfect, stablish, strengthen, and settle us in our souls to the glory of God.

True Greatness

True Greatness.

Notes of an address to young men by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Simple Testimony, Vol. 31, 1914, page 240.)

"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

- Matt. 11: 11.

This is undoubtedly a verse which at first sight is rather puzzling. There is something in it of the nature of a paradox; but a good many things in Christianity are just of that kind; and I want to point out, if I can, the meaning of this remarkable statement.

Perhaps it is necessary to start by saying that there are two kinds of greatness: moral and positional; or, to put it in another way, there is greatness of character and greatness of position, resulting from a change of dispensation. A dispensation is a period of time characterised by a certain mode of dealing on the part of God. We talk of the antediluvian, the patriarchal, the legal dispensations, and we now live in a dispensation that is marked by grace and the gospel. These dispensations are marked by different dealings. and God has in these days inaugurated that which transcends everything that went before.

The greatness of John the Baptist, to which the Lord alludes, was undoubtedly moral, coupled with official greatness in the prophetic office. Luke in the corresponding passage tells us there was no greater prophet than John the Baptist. Here it says that there was no man greater than he. Evidently, therefore, the Lord here speaks of the greatness of his character; and yet He adds that the least in the new dispensation that He was about to inaugurate would be greater than John.

I would like everybody to note what it is that makes a man great in the moral sense of the word. If we turn to the Gospel of John, we shall see what made John the Baptist great in the sight of God. In John 1: 19 to 27, we get a record of conversations between John the Baptist, and those who were sent to examine him on behalf of the Pharisees; and we find that John persistently refuses to talk about himself He prefers to speak of the great One who was to come. " He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me." At last, when they insist on John giving some account of himself, he says, " I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness." Nothing more — a very lowly place to take. In the Christian circle the mark of a really great man is that he does not talk about himself and his own exploits. His business is to keep pointing to the Master, and to bear witness to Him.

If you look at John 3: 30, you get another glimpse of John. "He must increase, but I must decrease." The people came to him trying to stir up his jealousy. They said, "Look here, John, you are being thrown completely into the shade. The One to whom you bore witness, He is capturing the people. His popularity is on the rise, and yours is on the wane." John says, "Very well; I am glad that it is so. My mission is to be but the forerunner, and immediately the royal chariot appears, and the King himself graces the procession, I am content to be out of sight." That is another mark of a really great man. When taken down and thrown into the shade by the Master Himself he gladly accepts it.

And then one thing more. In John 10, at the end of the chapter, we get another glimpse of this great man. "Jesus went away again beyond Jordan, to the place where John at first baptized, and there He taught, and many resorted to Him." Evidently the old place stirred up old remembrances, and their minds naturally reverted to John, who some years before had been the man of the hour, and so they said, as they thought over these things: "John did no miracle, but all things that John spoke of this Man were true." John never did anything wonderful. But I tell you what he did: he bore steady, unswerving and absolutely trustworthy witness to the blessed Son of God. And what can anybody on earth do more than that? This might have been his epitaph: "Here lies a man who, though he never did anything wonderful, never opened his mouth as to Christ but he said something that was absolutely true. He never swerved a hair's breadth from bearing true testimony to the Master." He concerning whom such things could be truly said is going to shine very brightly in the coming kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. John was such an one. He was a great man, not only in prophetic office as Messiah's forerunner, but morally — as to character — in the sight of God. I hope that every one of us will covet that kind of greatness, and covet it very much.

But when you have said all, and admitted to the full John's greatness, yet we have this astonishing statement, that the one who is least in this new dispensation is greater than he. The dispensation was ushered in when the King, having been rejected and having accomplished redemption, went to the right hand of God in the heavens, from thence to exert His blessed sway, not publicly, not with outward glory, but secretly over the hearts of His own.

Let me draw an imaginary picture. You see an aged Minister of the Crown, one of the most striking and distinguished men you ever set your eyes upon. You see him in the royal palace, and what is he doing? Sitting on one of the chairs with crossed legs, and giving a little lad a ride upon his foot! Would you believe it — with all his mental greatness and the wisdom of years, that little child riding on the aged statesman's foot is the greater of the two? How so? Oh, because he is the son of the King, and a day is coming when, if he lives, the very crown of the realm is going to be placed on his brow. If it is a question of moral greatness, then you must say the statesman is the greater; but if it is a question of destiny or relationship, or of position, then the child is the greater. The very least of the King's sons is greater than the very greatest of his servants. I think that is easy to understand, and it serves as a kind of picture of that of which the Lord was speaking here.

The fact is, John was the last of the long line of most distinguished men, but his career was shortened, and he passed off the scene, never entering into the kingdom of the heavens. That is the plain inference of our text. He died just before the mighty work of redemption was accomplished and the Saviour took His seat at the right hand of God, and when, as a consequence, the Holy Ghost came down to earth and formed that in which you and I have a part, through the infinite grace of God.

If it is a question of character and spiritual backbone, we are simply nowhere compared with a man like John the Baptist. We hear much about the physical degeneration of the race, but more pronounced than the physical is the spiritual. We have not got the Martin Luthers, the Whitefields, the Wesleys, and the men who were prepared to go to the stake for their convictions. Nowadays the fashionable thing is to have no convictions, to have no backbone. John the Baptist was a giant, we are but pygmies; but we must recognize that such is the grace of God to us that we have been called into the kingdom of the heavens. Out of the world which has rejected Christ we have been taken; and during the period that elapses between His rejection and His second coming in glory to take His rights we have been linked up with Him the rejected One, seated at the right hand of God in heaven; and though we have never seen Him, we have believed in Him in such a way that He becomes to us an object of faith. We live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us.

If anybody said to me, "Well, now, but how would you distinguish these blessings? In what respect has there been this great advance from John the Baptist's day until now?" I should say in the first place that there is all the difference in the world in the matter of REVELATION — the revelation of God Himself. The God who in previous ages let rays of His glory shine through the dark cloud has, so to speak, rolled back the clouds and shone forth like the sun in his strength. He did so in the person of Jesus become a Man here upon earth, that we might know the God of Sinai, not in Sinai's thunders, but in the gracious accents of the Man Christ Jesus. In the wonderful revelation — a revelation that throws everything that preceded into the shade, we find the first great distinguishing mark of the present dispensation.

Then think of REDEMPTION. Think of the great work being actually completed which has dealt with the whole question of sin. Do you say, "But what about the sacrifices? I thought they were offered for sins." They were valuable as a promissory note is valuable. I hold up a piece of paper. Now, what is that worth? You may say, "Well, I think you could buy about a hundred of those for sixpence." I reply, "That is worth one thousand pounds." Intrinsically it is a piece of paper, with a Government stamp on it, and some ink, worth practically nothing, but because of the name attached to it it is worth a very great deal. The sacrifices had value after that fashion. They were accepted as a provisional settlement, year by year, until the great moment when the Lord Jesus Christ should come, and by His own sacrifice of infinite worth should absolutely liquidate the whole debt. What a wonderful thing it is, that we live in a day when that work has been DONE. Redemption has been accomplished. We travel, so to speak, into an altogether new region, into which John the Baptist, blessed as he was, never entered.

Then there are the new RELATIONSHIPS, which I was trying to figure a few moments ago by imagining the aged statesman and the little boy. The new relationships are those which are established in the light of the revelation, and on the basis of the redemption work of Christ. The relationship in which we stand with God is, as you know, summed up in two words, on His side that wonderful word "Father," and on our side the wonderful word "Child" or "Son." If you were to read the Epistle to the Galatians, particularly the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth chapters, you would find a wonderful commentary on that point. You would find the apostle reminding them that Christ had come, born of a woman, born under the law, come to redeem those that were under the law that they might receive the adoption of sons. That is what we have received, and into that wonderful position we have now been brought. Do not these things, then, help us a little bit to understand how, as the Lord Himself said, he that is least in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than a great man like John the Baptist. We may be only like little children, but, thanks be to God, our lot has been cast in this dispensation, and we are children of God. We have the knowledge of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We can look up to the God who has perfectly revealed Himself to us and call Him "Father."

Well, I hope that these things will be more real to us. There are so many things that drag us down and obscure our vision. God help us not to forget, but to keep these simple yet profound realities brightly before us; because, depend upon it, it is as we do so that we are able to answer to the grace bestowed, and live lives of courage and backbone which will glorify God.

Truth is the Test

Truth is the Test.

From notes of an address on the Second and Third Epistles of John, by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 39, 1956-8, page 17.)

One can hardly read these two short epistles without being struck by the number of times that the Apostle John uses the word, "Truth." If I remember rightly it occurs five times in the Second Epistle and six times in the Third.

In the first chapter of his Gospel he tells us that, "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Of course God had shown forbearance and grace in Old Testament times, for He ever was a gracious God, and proclaimed Himself to be such. Again, many things that were true and real were made known to Israel through Moses, but when it comes to the absolute thing we have to turn to Christ. In Him the grace of God was fully revealed and the truth of God fully manifested. Many true things were made known in the law, but reality itself shone forth in Christ. In Him the revelation of both was complete.

Doubtless we have all discovered that we are living in a world that is very unreal. Again and again we find something that is imitation ousting the genuine article. This is what characterizes particularly the age in which we are living. Man is very clever and inventive and we discover things are not just what they profess to be, and there is a great element of unreality. Pontius Pilate recognized this, for as a Roman judge he was continually concerned with the crookedness of human life.

You remember his famous question, "What is truth?" But having asked it, he turned his back on the One who was the truth, and went out to the false and fickle world. Not many hours before the Lord Jesus had said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He is the way to God the Father; He is the truth concerning Him, and the life in which He can be truly known. It is no good talking to your dog about human affairs, for it does not understand them, possessing canine life only, and not human life. So, alas! multitudes around us, being dead in their sins, know not the truth. They only possess the life of Adam, and have not the life which is in Christ Jesus. But in Christ we are introduced into the world of Divine realities.

When the Apostle John wrote these two Epistles he was confronted with that which was imperilling the truth. The adversary was coming in very strongly and that in a twofold way. First of all, men had appeared actively propagating error as to Christ, and if teaching as to Him be falsified, everything is marred, since He is the truth. These first century deceivers were known as "Gnostics," a term derived from the Greek word for knowledge. They claimed to be the knowing ones. The Apostles of our Lord were as to the things of the world, "unlearned and ignorant men," so the Gnostics claimed to be able to lead on to improved and more intellectual teaching. They did not abide in that which was "from the beginning." The word translated, "transgresseth" in 2 John 9, really means "goes forward," that is, they claimed to be making an advance on earlier ideas in what they taught. In reality their fancied developments were destructive.

So the Apostle wrote to a certain Christian woman and her children, warning them against these false teachers. They evidently went from house to house, just as they do today. They were to be definitely refused entrance and no fellowship to be accorded to them even in a verbal way. If a woman and even children were to be so uncompromising in their refusal of such fundamental error, such an attitude to the false teacher and his teachings must mark every one of us. Here is practical instruction as to what to do when such men or women come knocking at our doors. Receive them not nor bid them God speed. I remember one of them coming to my house when I lived in Bath. I certainly did not receive him nor bid him God speed. I resisted him, and very soon he revealed an un-Christian spirit. The wolf threw off the sheep's clothing.

The five references to truth are in the first four verses. Love is in the truth and it circulates amongst all that have known the truth. Having known the truth, they love for the truth's sake, and so truth comes into display; not merely existing in pleasing notions or beautiful words, but expressing itself in love, which is the Divine nature.

Then again of true saints it can be said that the truth "dwelleth in us and shall be with us for ever." In his first Epistle John has told us that "The Spirit is truth" (1 John 5: 6). That being so, the truth dwells in us, since we are indwelt by the Spirit. But also Christ is the truth, and as we shall for ever be in His presence the truth will be with us for ever. In Christ everything is adjusted in its true light. God is fully revealed: man has been fully exposed: God's thoughts and purposes made manifest: all things set in right perspective. Hence grace and mercy reach us from the Father and the Son in truth and love.

One thing more remains, brought out in 3 John 4. The truth that is set before us objectively in Christ, and that dwells in us subjectively by the Spirit is to govern our actions. We are to walk in truth, and walking signifies activity. All our activities, whether in thinking, speaking or doing, are to be governed by truth. If these children of the "elect lady" were so governed, a similar life is incumbent upon all of us. A saint young or old walking in truth is a lovely sight. No wonder John rejoiced greatly when he saw it; and it is equally lovely when it is seen today. We must today, as much as in the first century, protect it by refusing the false doctrine that would destroy it.

But there is a second thing which imperils the truth and that comes to light in 3 John; not the propagation of false doctrine but the rigid maintenance of official status and what is considered to be outward correctness. Of this Diotrephes was a sad example, whereas Gaius, to whom the epistle was addressed, was marked by walking in truth and being a fellow-helper to the truth. As we read this epistle we see again that the truth is of the first importance and everything else is tested and measured by it. Gaius walked in truth because the truth was in him, and all this was the source of great joy to the Apostle.

In those days there were men of earnest zeal who went out preaching the word, just as those men of Cyprus and Cyrene did, when the disciples were scattered abroad, as we read in Acts 11: 19-20. Arrived at the place where Gains lived he received them hospitably and brought them forward on their journey after a godly sort, though he had not previously known them. At the end of 3 John 5 there are not two classes — first, the brethren, and second, strangers. It is rather, "the brethren and to strangers." Gaius did not receive and help these stranger-brethren because he had known them and liked them, but because they were devoted to the Name of Christ, and were separate from the world, not receiving help from that quarter, and because they were publishing the truth.

This latter point is made very plain at the end of 3 John 8. In helping these undistinguished servants of God, Gaius was helping the truth and all of us should do what he did. John does not say we may receive such, if we are so inclined: he says that we ought to do so. It is imperative and not optional.

And this emphasises another thing: what is important is not the man but the truth that he brings. There was the tendency then and there is certainly the tendency today, in some quarters at least, to make the man of all importance, so that if he is accredited as "spiritual," what he says must be accepted. The man accredits the message he brings. What we see here is the reverse of this. The message of truth that is brought accredits the man who brings it; just as in the Second epistle the error that is brought discredits the man who brings it.

The same thought underlies what is said of Demetrius in 3 John 12, since he had not only a good report of all but also "of the truth itself." Note, it is not that he bore witness to the truth, but that the truth bore witness to him. Demetrius was not the standard by which truth was tested. The truth was the standard by which Demetrius was tested; and having been so tested he stood approved.

With poor Diotrephes it was far otherwise. Just why he took so strong a stand against these stranger-brethren and others who received them, and even against John himself, we are not told. It may have been the uprising of clericalism, excessive zeal for imagined points of teaching or procedure, and the like; but what we do know is what underlay his high-handed doings. What was really the matter with the man? He loved to have the pre-eminence among the saints. That great and important "I," that we sometimes speak of, was to the fore. He was out to establish a dominating position for himself.

Like the Apostle we condemn Diotrephes, but let us not forget the fact, which confronts us in Jeremiah 5: 31. In the midst of Israel there was much false teaching and by it the priests acquired a dominating place, but, said the Lord "My people love to have it so." The people wanted their sinful pleasures and were quite content to let the priests do their religious duties for them.

That has been re-enacted in the history of the church, and a forceful modern Diotrephes may be quite welcome, even to saints, if they wish to avoid personal exercise of heart and live easy-going, semi-worldly lives. The fact is that history repeats itself. It does so since human tendencies are always the same. Following Diotrephes, we deny the truth instead of helping it. Great is the truth and ultimately it will prevail. The men who bring us the truth may be open to much criticism as to awkwardness of speech or manner. The truth criticises us.

We are living in days when the truth is being attacked on all hands. Let us remember that Christ is the truth, and as He Himself said to the Father, "Thy word is truth." That truth has reached us in "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3), and let us contend earnestly for it, since it is of priceless value. And may we have grace everyone of us to be so characterized by it that we walk in truth. The eye of the Lord is upon us, and that is what He looks for, as we wait for Him.

The Ups and Downs of Life

The Ups and Downs of Life.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth, 1916, Vol. 8, page 22.)

The fear of change, which carries with it apprehension in regard to the future, is a great hindrance to a vast number of believers. We started our Christian career by facing the sin question, and finding a divinely-given solution of it in the gospel. This was followed by the uprising of the self question, and to this perhaps we have found an answer, so that we taste in some degree the sweets of victory over sin. There yet remains the circumstances question, and we most of us find it the most difficult problem of all.

The year 1915 has drawn to a close. It has been marked by changes greater in number and more sweeping in their effects than any which this generation has known. The year 1916 dawns, and the portents are dark; changes, more and deeper yet, seem to be indicated. How shall we face them? Let us do so with the remembrance that by these very changes God is giving us an education, the benefits of which we shall carry with us for all eternity.

Change has always been an essential part of the education of God's saints. The biographies of the Bible bear ample witness to this, but perhaps no one life exemplifies it more strikingly than that of Daniel. Let us consider his history for a few moments.

He began life in an exalted station. He was "of the king's seed, and of the princes . . . in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them...." He was, in short, of royal descent, and perfectly suited to his high position both physically and mentally.

Early in life, however, a blow descended which brought him down very low. Jerusalem fell, before the military prowess of Babylon. Zedekiah, its last king, the head of Daniel's house, was dethroned, and Daniel, though spared with other young princes in the general slaughter, found himself a captive in a foreign land.

Did he repine? Did he, assuming that "all was up," abandon himself to a life of as much ease and pleasure as was obtainable under the circumstances? By no means. The very opposite. It was just then that in the fear of God he made his immortal resolve "that he would not defile himself" by the smallest complicity with the idolatry which permeated the very atmosphere of Babylon, cost what it might. Morally and spiritually he was far greater when down than when up.

The very advance which he made during this time of adversity only paved the way, however, for another change. His thorough-going separation to God from evil led to his acquiring a very remarkable measure of power with God in prayer, and soon an occasion arose which put it to the proof. When the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar had a remarkable dream, forgot it, and then threatened to slay all the wise men of Babylon because they were unable both to recall the dream for him and then interpret it, Daniel and his companions besieged heaven in prayer until the thing was revealed to Daniel, and he was able so effectually to meet the demands of the enraged king that the latter not only fell before him, doing him homage, but confessed the supreme glory of his God, and ended by making him "a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon."

Thus at a single bound did Daniel go up in the world once more. He was not spoiled by this sudden wave of prosperity; this is made very evident by what we have in the fourth chapter. No man save one who was walking with God would have been able to foretell disaster to, and also rebuke, the great king of whom it was said, "Whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down." Clearly then Daniel who was "set up" at that moment had no fear at the prospect of being "put down." It also stands to reason that no man would have been able to boldly counsel righteousness and mercy as he did save one who habitually practised those virtues himself.

In due time the next change came. We have no record of how it came, but that it did come Daniel 5: 11 to 13 declares. Apparently Daniel dropped into obscurity for many years. It may have been that with the death of Nebuchadnezzar, who respected him, he was forgotten; anyway, it is evident that he was living in complete obscurity in the days of Belshazzar. The queen-mother in Belshazzar's feast on that fatal night remembered him, and his divine gifts, but the very terms in which she describes him prove that to the king and his thousand lords he was utterly unknown.

What an immense compliment to Daniel was this! He had neither part nor lot in the riotous iniquities of Belshazzar's degenerate court. We see here — all honour to him! — the same Daniel as first appeared in Daniel 1, resolutely separate from evil. And there is more than this. It was in the latter years of this period of eclipse that he received the first two of those wonderful visions vouchsafed to him. They are recorded in Daniel 7 and Daniel 8. During this time when he was down he was evidently much in communion with heaven.

On that last dread night Daniel flashed like a meteor across the Chaldean sky. In spite of the terrible nature of his message, and his own contemptuous refusal of Belshazzar's honours, he was clothed in scarlet, with a gold chain about his neck, and he was proclaimed the third ruler in the kingdom. He was up once more.

Up, as he himself knew right well, only for a few brief hours. That night Babylon fell before the hosts of Darius, Belshazzar was slain, and the Chaldean empire was no more. As part of the governmental fabric by his new appointment, Daniel fell with it, and naturally lapsed once more into obscurity.

For the third time the period of being "down in the world" became a season of great profit. The first two verses of Daniel 9: 1-2 show us that Daniel used this fresh time of retirement in the study of Scripture. Reading attentively in the book of Jeremiah he came across the prediction in Jeremiah 29: 10 that the desolations of Jerusalem were on this occasion to be limited to seventy years. The discovery of this unexpected grace brought him to his knees in an agony of confession and prayer. Was not the judgment of the very power that had overthrown Jerusalem the dawn of hope? Was not the time of their weeping nearly at an end? His prayer vibrates with the spirit of hope and repentance, and he who can read it in cold print without emotion must have a hard heart indeed.

His prayer was that of a righteous man, fervent and effectual, and brought down an immediate answer. Further revelations reached him ere he had properly ceased, and through him there was given the prophecy of the "seventy weeks," the time-table of Israel's destiny on which was clearly marked the exact time of the death of their great Messiah, and our adorable Saviour.

In due time we once more find Daniel exalted. The man who steadily walks with God in adversity cannot be hid. We know not how, but somehow his excellent qualities become known to Darius, the new ruler, and in Daniel 6 we find him moving on the ascending scale, until as the chief of the three presidents over the princes he is next to the king in authority.

Once more in this exalted station we find the same fearless fidelity to God coupled with grace and meekness and the absence of self-advertisement for which he is deservedly famous. Nothing is a greater evidence of strength than the ability in a great crisis to proceed exactly as before. The weak man either trims his sail to catch the passing breeze, and alters so as to comply with what is popular, or else he attempts to signalise his non-compliance by becoming ultra and extreme and rude. Daniel proceeded just "as he did aforetime."

How dramatically he was flung down into the den of lions, every Sunday-school child knows, and we need not repeat it. By the next morning he was up again, up higher than ever if possible, and that to the great glory of his God. This period of exaltation lasted for long into the reign of Cyrus, probably to the end of his life.

As to this time of prosperity two things may be said. First he was permitted to see the prophecy of Jeremiah fulfilled, and the decree for the rebuilding of the much-loved house of God issued (see Dan. 6: 10, Ezra 1: 1). Indeed from his exalted place he may have had a share in bringing it to pass. Second, he was as much in touch with God during this last period of eminence in old age as ever. It was in the third year of Cyrus, two years after the issuing of the decree, that the final vision by the river Hiddekel was given to him, and that he was twice saluted as "a man greatly beloved."

That vision closed, as recorded in Daniel 12, by a plain intimation to Daniel that he was yet once more to go down, and that into a darker eclipse, according to nature's standards, than any he had yet known. And yet, though death should take him off the scene long before the advent of the promised glory, so that the last "down" he should ever know would be the quiet of the grave, even that sombre announcement was tinged with the gold of this thought, that his waiting time should be a season of rest, and with the yet far brighter thought that when the glory did dawn and its blessing flood the scene he should not be missing, for he should "stand in his lot at the end of days." This prediction clearly entitled him to close his aged eyes upon earth with his heart illumined with the light of resurrection.

In the day of Messiah's peaceful and changeless glory, thou, O Daniel, the man greatly beloved, wilt look back upon thy changeful life of ups and downs, and say, "Such experiences, though trying at the time, were well worth while, for they have enriched my soul to eternity with a knowledge of God, which is as gold seven times purified in a furnace."

Let us start upon the unknown 1916 with all its ups and downs with something of this spirit. Though conscious of how very inferior to him we are, we yet may sing

"Dare to be a Daniel,

Dare to stand alone."

But if we do we shall do well to couple with it that other hymn which says-

"The GOD that lived in Daniel's time

Is just the same today."

The Upward Way

The Upward Way.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 187.)

The fifteen Psalms (120 to 134) which are entitled 'Songs of Degrees' have a progressive character which is strongly marked. They set before us prophetically the various and progressive exercises and stages by which in the future a remnant of Israel will be restored to the land, the city, and God's dwelling-place in Zion, and enjoy to the full millennial blessedness. If the reader will quietly read the whole series he will doubtless notice this for himself. Our present purpose is to notice how strikingly the last five illustrate the upward way of the saint today. Let these five Psalms at least be read. If they are not, the reading of this article will probably be waste of time.

Psalm 130 commences with the words "Out of the depths." Thence have we all come, and what depths they were! The Psalmist, however, set the Lord before him and addressed his cry to Him. Consequently he found what we find: first, that "there is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared"; and second, that He not only forgives but redeems. "He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." In a much earlier Psalm there had been the cry, "Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles" (Ps. 25: 22). But troubles are, after all, only symptoms and results, while iniquities are the cause. We have not started on the upward way unless, having realized the depths in which we were plunged, we have cried to the Lord out of them and hence have tasted His forgiveness as to the guilt of our iniquities, and experienced His redeeming power in rescuing us from under their weight and oppression.

Nothing subdues the heart and weans it from the world save this grace. Psalm 131 gives us a picture of its blessed effects in the believer. In our unconverted condition our hearts were haughty and our eyes lofty; we did exercise ourselves in great matters, and esteemed nothing too wonderful for us; and further the world fascinated us, so that in the presence of its allurements we were then unable to restrain ourselves. Now things are otherwise for those who have received the grace of God in truth. Such can say with the Psalmist, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me" — for they have learned something of their own littleness, and instead of exercising their own minds they are content to accept in faith the mind of God revealed in His Word. Further, they can add, "Surely I have restrained and composed my soul, like a weaned child with its mother: my soul within me is as a weaned child" (N. Trans.). The unweaned child may happily play with others, yet, if placed with its mother, it loses all its restraint and composure. The weaned child, on the other hand, can be with its mother restrained and composed, no longer feeling the peculiar attraction which once dominated it, for other sources of nutriment and satisfaction are known by it. Just in this manner the soul is weaned from the world and the old loves connected with the world. The believer has discovered in Christ an Object of supply and satisfaction which gives him a calm superiority to worldly joys.

In Psalm 132 the way is upward still. We are reminded of David in his afflictions, and of that feature which distinguished him and largely accounted for his being designated "a man after God's own heart." From a very early moment in his life he set his affection towards the ark of God, even though it had gone into captivity in the land of the Philistines, and subsequently, though given up by them, had reposed in obscurity in the house of one Abinadab (1 Sam. 7: 1). That ark was the symbol of God's presence in the midst of Israel, and typified prophetically the way in which He would be amongst men in "the Man Christ Jesus" as Redeemer.

Now David heard of the ark at Ephratah (i.e., Bethlehem-Judah) — where he dwelt in boyhood's days, and ultimately he found it "in the fields of the wood" (verse 6) — a reference probably to Kirjath-jearim where Abinadab's house was. But between those two points of time came the long and testing period of his afflictions under Saul, when, though the anointed king, he was in rejection. As those years of trouble dragged their weary course, what was his supreme desire? For most of us would it not have been to reach an haven of rest, to have a house where we might abide in safety without continual alarms, and so be able to go up to our bed and give peaceful sleep to our eyes?

All this was doubtless as attractive to David as it would be to us, yet it was subject to a desire which overmastered it. So supremely did the other affection hold him that he solemnly expressed it in a vow to Jehovah, the mighty One of Jacob. His own security and comfort would be set aside until he should "find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob" (verse 5), and thus having found a suitable place for the ark, be able to say, "Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest; Thou, and the ark of Thy strength" (verse 8).

"Out of the depths" is drawn the soul of the saint, and as forgiven and redeemed from all iniquity his soul is freed from the lofty pretensions of the flesh within and the seductive attractions of the world without. This deliverance, however, has an end in view. We too pass through a time of affliction and patience as now identified with our rejected Lord, and beyond forgiveness and redemption and deliverance, beyond even the sweet rest which we do find already, while waiting for the rest of God which is to come, is this enshrining of CHRIST — the true "ark of the testimony" in our affections, so that "a place for the Lord" is our great concern while we wait for the day when the Lord will arise and fully and finally enter into His rest.

As a matter of fact, though David could say, "I have set my affection to the house of my God" and consequently "I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God" (1 Chron 29: 2, 3), he was not permitted to build the temple. He did find "a place for the Lord" in Jerusalem and pitched a tabernacle for it there, still that was but provisional and preparatory to the erection of the temple, and it was the lips of Solomon that actually pronounced the words of Psalm 132: 8, 9 as recorded in 2 Chr. 6: 41. In the same way we wait for the moment when Jehovah and His Christ — who is the true "ark of His strength" — shall enter into their permanent rest; the moment when in the symbolic language of Revelation "the throne of God and the Lamb" shall be in the heavenly city, and "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb" shall be "the temple of it."

Still even while we wait "a place for the Lord" has been secured in the scene of His rejection. He has built His church, and the gates of Hades cannot prevail against it. In spite of all human failure, the assembly as the house of God is on earth, and is of great interest to us. Of great interest, but not quite our chief interest. The church or assembly of God is indeed a place for the Lord. Still it ranks second to the LORD whose place it is. Apart from Him it would be nothing.

Dispensationally how great the change between David's day and ours! Still the underlying principles remain. God still deals with our souls after this pattern, leading us to find our supreme Object in Christ, and our great desire that while as the fruit of His rejection unto death He is personally absent, He may yet have a place here.

Have we all of us reached this point? Is it our supreme thought? Those of us who evangelise and labour for the winning of souls, do we find inspiration in it, and rejoice over every true convert with the thought — another soul in whom there is "a place" for Christ by His Spirit? Those of us who labour in the word and doctrine, or shepherd the flock of God, do we teach and pastor that Christ may practically have His proper place in the hearts of His saints and thus His life being reproduced, He may be visible in them? Those of us who have no gift at all and walk in quiet and shady paths, do we say with Paul, "My earnest expectation and my hope . . . as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death"? (Phil. 1: 20).

In the latter part of Psalm 132 we still pursue our upward way. Its characteristic note is blessing. "I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread . . . her saints shall shout aloud for joy." There is no blessing, no satisfaction, like that which is known by the soul in which Christ has His proper place of supremacy.

But then His blessing is not enjoyed by each saint as a solitary unit. We do not each eat our morsel alone. We rather share it in common. Hence in Psalm 133 we get a further step, that of unity, which is a good and pleasant thing. Practical unity is only possible under the guidance of the Spirit, "like the precious ointment upon the head." The unity that counts is the unity that flows in the grace of the Spirit from the great Head of the church above, as the precious ointment poured on Aaron's head flowed down until it touched and imparted its fragrance to the bottom hem of his garment. Or, to change the figure, it is like "the dew of Hermon that descended on the mountains of Zion" (N. Trans.). The mountains of Zion were but little compared with Hermon's lofty head; yet the dew that was Hermon's descended upon them and there was the blessing, even eternal life.

The New Testament doctrine of the unity of the body of Christ stands connected with the purpose of God and not with the experience of the saint. Psalm 133 deals with that practical unity amongst the saints as brethren which is so largely connected with their experimental entry into these things whereof we speak.

In Psalm 134 we reach the top of the staircase as regards these Songs of Degrees. It is worship, and beyond that the saint can hardly get. All that we may receive from God, and enter into by faith in the energy of the Spirit, must flow back to God in this way. The servants of the Lord bless the Lord even though they stand in the house by night. Night is the time of darkness and of sleep. All nature is quiet. The song-birds have gone to roost. The only voice is that of the servant who lifts up his hands in the sanctuary and blesses the Lord.

So it may be today. The night that settled upon this world when Christ was refused still persists. Yet may the saints have access to God and, like the nightingale, sing before the dawning of the day when-other songsters will awake. Our hearts may flow forth freely in the worship of the Lord. Alas! how little they do so. Christ so little has the supreme place in all our hearts that we but little enter into any part of the threefold result thereof — Blessing, Unity, and Worship.

The last verse of the Psalm says, "The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion." For even if we give to God, as is our privilege in worship, we always find what we give poured back to us again with added blessing, since God is no man's debtor. Having reached the climax of the upward way God has the last word, and that in blessing.

How could it be otherwise? Does He not infinitely transcend the sweetest experience that we ever knew? Of course He does.

"Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

"A very small thing."

"A very small thing."

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 14, 1922, page 85.)

The life of the Apostle Paul contained many remarkable happenings. Again and again moments of crisis and exercise had to be faced by him, so much so that, considering his life as revealed in his own Epistles, and in the Acts of the Apostles one might be tempted to think that from start to finish it was one succession of great things.

Such an impression, however, would be hardly correct. In 1 Corinthians 4, we have him face to face with a peculiarly trying difficulty that seems to have dogged his footsteps through the whole period of his apostolic service: yet he dismisses it as "a very small thing."

The difficulty itself was one that many of the Lord's servants have to face to-day, and almost invariably we are tempted to treat it as a very great thing; for naturally there is hardly anything that touches us to the quick more easily than criticism, and hardly anything that we cling to more tenaciously than our reputations.

The position at Corinth was a grave one when the first Epistle was written. Amongst other evils partisanship ran high, and criticism of the Apostle himself and other servants of Christ was rampant. The leaders of the parties in the assembly there were apparently local men, or Judaising teachers from outside, since 1 Corinthians 4: 6 would indicate that in using his own name, and that of Apollos. Paul was transferring to themselves what really belonged to others. With true Christian delicacy he thus avoided actually naming the men who were becoming the leaders of the different schools in that assembly, and he desired the Corinthians, as he says, to "learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another." And then just as they flattered the local gifts and held inflated or "puffed up" views as to their relative importance, so they looked down upon a gift from elsewhere with the disposition to criticise it, and even to flout apostolic authority.

These things were indeed grave enough as regards their effect upon the Corinthian assembly; yet when the Apostle considered their criticism and judgment of himself he dismissed it as "a very small thing" (verse 3).

Let us briefly examine the passage, with the prayerful desire that thereby we, too, may be helped to more largely share the holy elevation of the Apostle's spirit.

Verse 1 sets forth the true character of the apostles and their fellow-workers. They were not "men of renown" in an intellectual sphere, who would surround themselves with admiring auditors and followers. Their word was rather "Let no man glory in men" (1 Cor. 3: 21), and as to themselves they were but "ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." The word here translated "ministers" is the one which means an official servant, one with authority derived from a master.

Verse 2 emphasises the great qualification necessary in a steward. He must be faithful to the one from whom his place and authority are derived. His supreme achievement is to please his master and serve his interests, regardless of whether or not he pleases others in so doing.

In verse 3 the Apostle, who was indeed a faithful steward of God's mysteries, boldly faces his critics. "With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment" — or as it literally is, "of man's day" as noted in the margin. In 1 Corinthians 3: 13 he had told us that "every man's work shall be made; manifest: for the day shall declare it." Here we have THE DAY when God's opinion shall be heard. This is MAN'S DAY when men insist upon making their opinion heard, and it is wholly unfavourable to the Apostle and all like-minded with him. The opinion of "man's day" was a very small thing with Paul. He uses emphatic terms. The New Translation renders it, "It is the very smallest matter."

But was it not more serious that the Apostle should be judged of the Corinthians also? The New Translation renders the word "judged" by "examined," with a footnote to the effect that the Greek word "does not signify 'judgment' but the preliminary examination, at which the accused has to answer and give an account of himself." Then, should not a saint, even an Apostle, be deeply concerned if thus examined by his fellow-believers?

"But for me it is the very smallest matter that I be examined of you" (N.T.) — "of YOU": who were these? Well, sad to say, they were saints to whom it had to be said. "I . . . could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal" (1 Cor. 3: 1). They were carnal believers, and the judgment and criticism of a carnal believer approximates far too closely to that of "man's day" to be of any real worth. It all left the Apostle quite unmoved in his own judgment. As the succeeding verses show, he was not even ruffled in his spirit by it. Not a trace of annoyance marks his words.

Before going on to the succeeding verses, we digress for a moment to refer to a counterbalancing consideration.

Let no one deduce from what we have just referred to that any servant of Christ, however instructed or devoted, is to consider himself above all criticism, and refuse in any way to listen to remonstrance. The very opposite. The opinion of a carnal, worldly-minded believer is evidently of little or no value, but that of a godly and matured believer may well be highly esteemed. In Galatians 2: 2, the Apostle Paul himself furnishes us with an example of this. He was the Apostle to the Gentiles, and received his Gospel and: instructions how to preach it by direct revelation from the Lord: yet he was not above conferring privately with those who were reputed spiritual men in Jerusalem, lest, as he says, "by any means I should run, or had run in vain."

Evidently, therefore, the servant of Christ does well when in humility of mind he considers others as better than himself, takes counsel of them, carefully considers their spiritual judgment, or even listens to and weighs their criticisms. Yet even so he must not in the last resort be guided by their opinions but by the Word of God. The passage, Acts 21: 18-30, furnishes us with a warning as to this.

Resuming our chapter we find in verse 4 the secret of the Apostle's superiority to mere human judgment. He tells us at the end of verse 3 that he was not even occupied in judging or examining himself. He did not mean us to understand by this that he was not concerned to walk in self-judgment, but rather that he made no attempt even in his own mind to examine and appraise his own life and conduct. The fact was that he could say, "I am conscious of nothing in myself" — as the opening of verse 4 more correctly reads — "Yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord." Here we find the great fact that lifted Paul far above the fear of human opinion. He walked so habitually in the light of the judgment seat of Christ that no other judgment seat had any terrors for him.

This passage, then, speaks of judgment in a fourfold way.

1. The judgment of "man's day," i.e., of the popular opinion of the world.

2. The judgment of saints who are in a carnal condition, which is of not much more weight than that of man's day.

3. The judgment which a servant of God may form of himself. This is by no means infallible, though he who forms it may most earnestly endeavour to assume a detached and impartial frame of mind when conducting the investigation, and be conscious of nothing in himself contrary to the Master whom he serves. The fact that he is not conscious of anything wrong does not prove that he is right.

4. The judgment of the Lord Himself. Here we reach perfection and finality.

Verse 5 of our chapter opens with a word of instruction in view of these things: "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come." When tempted to express strong opinions in regard to each other, or to lay down the law with emphasis in regard to things concerning other people's lives and service which are not a matter of revelation but rather of spiritual judgment, let us remember that in doing so we are "before the time." "The time" will be when the Lord comes, for when He comes He "both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart."

How searching are these words! There are hidden things of darkness on the one hand; and if we now undertake to sit on the judgment seat we pronounce our opinion without knowing all the facts of the case and with no power to enforce their production. There are, on the other hand, the counsels of heart — the counsels of the inmost heart of him whom we are inclined to criticise, those secret springs and motives which we cannot see, AND — never let it be forgotten — the secret springs and motives of our own hearts: of him who is the criticiser in the case.

When the time comes, a proper investigation into the life and service of every saint will be conducted. The Lord will conduct it, and in His presence every hidden thing and counsel will come to light. Judgment when it is pronounced will be arrived at in the light of every factor which bears upon the case, "and then," says the closing line of verse 5, "shall every man have praise of God"; or as the New Translation renders it, "and then shall each have [his] praise from God": the thought being, not that every man shall somehow or other be praised in that day; but that each who is awarded praise at all will get his praise from GOD.

The Corinthians undertook to criticize Paul and censure him. Conversely they approved other leaders and lavished praise upon those that they favoured as the centres of their schools of opinion. Such party circles would soon become small mutual admiration societies as they still do to-day. How pitifully small the whole thing was, and is! Carnal believers belauding to the skies other believers, possibly more carnal than themselves!

The Apostle sets before us "the day." He speaks of "the time" coming, with the Lord on the judgment seat; of His presence before whom nothing is hid; and of "praise from God" as being the only praise that is worth while. And do not our hearts say "Amen" to this?

Two very important principles that are most wholesome in their practical workings stand out clearly in all this:-

1. They who are tempted to criticise and censure must remember that they do not know all the factors of the case, nor the motives of hearts — certainly not in the heart of him whom they criticise, and but imperfectly in their own hearts — hence it is wiser to offer counsel than to pronounce judgment.

2. He who is criticised may be conscious of no wrong thing in himself or in his ways; yet he must remember that this is no infallible criterion of the justness of his course. The Lord will judge him in that day; and meanwhile let him cultivate a spirit of humility in the presence of others.

Lastly, let it be again emphasised that what we have been saying above does not apply to matters in regard to which we have God's will revealed in the Scriptures, but only to matters which are left to the exercise and spiritual judgment of the individual saint or servant of God. In regard to all that Scripture says we have nothing to do but to OBEY.

Warning and Rebuke

Warning and Rebuke.

Luke 22: 31-34; Luke 10: 38-42.

From Notes of an Address by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 34, 1942-4, page 273.)

It is a matter of deep interest to trace in the Gospels how the Lord dealt with one and another of His disciples in His perfect love and wisdom. We have often dwelt upon the remarkable words He spoke to Mary when He revealed Himself to her on the resurrection day. She was just in a condition to receive those very exalted communications from His lips. But I am afraid we are not always in a condition that suits such communications, and if your experience is anything like mine you would say that all too frequently what we really need is a communication of another kind; more like, perhaps, the words spoken by the Lord to Peter and to Martha, which we have just read.

When the Lord repeated the name of anyone, He intended it to impart urgency to what He had to say. So there was something very urgent and emphatic in what He said to these two disciples, Simon Peter on the one hand, and Martha on the other. We sing sometimes — perhaps without sufficient thought and care — a verse which begins:

"Our hearts by Thee are set,

On brighter things above."

But they are not always set in that direction, are they? Mine is not, I must sorrowfully confess. It gets sadly deflected. Instead of remaining true, as the needle of the compass is true to the pole, I find my heart is like the compass when it gets violently jerked about and the needle vibrates in all directions. Counter-attractions come upon the scene and instead of the heart turning steadily upward it begins to turn world-ward. Then we find ourselves in need of a word of warning. How very good it is of our Lord to give us just that word of warning when it is needed.

Simon Peter was a great Apostle, but it was this that he needed — a word of warning against self-confidence. The trouble with him was that he was unconscious of his own self-confidence. He thought that he really was very devoted and very courageous indeed. He forgot that though he might be very impulsive, and withal keen and devoted, yet there was a spiritual foe a great deal keener and sharper than he, and if once he got into the hands of the devil he would stand no chance. Hence the Lord's word of warning, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat."

We do well, I am sure, to recognise that the spiritual forces arrayed against us are very great. Realizing this, we shall never speak lightly or slightingly of the devil. The very archangel, Michael, would not do that, and he is evidently the greatest of the heavenly dignities. I suppose the reason of it was that the devil, .though now a fallen potentate, was in his original condition one step higher than Michael himself. It is generally believed that in Ezekiel 28: 11-17, under the type of the king of Tyre, there is an allusion to the devil in his unfallen condition. If he was "the anointed cherub that covereth," he was in the very nearest position to God Himself. He aspired to be as God, and then he fell. In the presence of such power as this, what was Simon Peter?

The Lord knew all this, and that nothing but His more powerful intercession would prevail to save him. Hence He added, " But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." Faith is the link between the soul and God, and if that is maintained the situation is saved. Faith was what the devil struck at in the Garden of Eden. His object was to shake the creature's confidence in his Creator, and he succeeded. Hence the exceeding fitness of what we have in the Gospel — that you and I by faith get put into right relations with God. When God recovers the faith of His creature for Himself, blessing ensues; and faith being maintained the blessing abides.

We know what happened to Peter. Satan went forth and by a skilful combination of circumstances, adroitly led Peter into a position for which he had no real grace nor grit nor anything else. We know how he fell; denied his Master, got angry, prevaricated, cursed and swore. If it had not been that his Master was faithful and prayed for him, what would have happened to Simon? It was the intercession and action of the Lord that kept him from an end like that of Judas Iscariot.

So let us also accept this warning. Let us remember that the power of Satan is very great; and let us earnestly beware of self-confidence, which I suspect has something to do with nine-tenths of the falls that we suffer. Does someone say, "I do not think I am self-confident"? Wait a bit: do not settle that too quickly. If you are a young believer there is nothing that is more likely to be a snare. The very fact that you are earnest and enthusiastic after a bright conversion may lead you to feel you have a bright future, carrying all before you. But the Lord in His holy government, and in His kindness which teaches us lessons, removes His hand from us for a moment, and down we go! Self confidence is at the bottom of the mischief.

If we are older, let us not think that we are done with this terrible tendency of our hearts. We greatly need the warning still. There is nothing more easy than to be like those Jews, to whom the Apostle speaks in Romans 2. They took it for granted that they were, "A guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes." In our case the "babes" might be other Christians who do not know as much of the truth as in God's mercy we happen to know. How very easily we get self-confident as to our abilities and knowledge and the position we hold. If we do not walk in humility, and faith is not in active exercise, the devil can make fools of us. Indeed we know only too well how he has done it in times past, in the midst of Christendom. So I want this warning to ring in your ears as well as mine; but coupled with it the assurance of the intercession and power of our Lord.

The case of Martha was very different, for she was doing what was right. The house was hers and the Lord was her Guest, so had she not bustled about in the service of her house she would have failed in what was plainly her duty. The trouble was her getting burdened and distracted by "much serving." And what lay at the root of this? Evidently a self-centred spirit. She began to be annoyed with her sister, Mary, because she did not join in this excess of preparation, but rather sat at the feet of Jesus, enraptured with His word. Appealing to the Lord against her sister, the answer came, "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." This was most clearly a word of rebuke because of self-centredness.

Being self-centred, Martha misjudged her sister. This was bad, but it was even worse that she misjudged her Lord. What did she say? "Lord, dost Thou not care?" Evidently there was a veiled complaint, just as when the disciples in the ship said, "Master, carest Thou not that we perish?" It was really an insult to suppose that He did not care. It was doubting His affection, His sympathy, His grace. No wonder that the Lord repeated her name, thus making His reply one of extreme urgency.

We do well to take this Scripture very much to heart. When people become self-centred they make their service, because it is their service, the centre of their thoughts. A great many of the troubles we find among the saints and servants of God are caused in this way. We say, "This is my service, my work. I want my work to prosper." I begin to think this good brother does not give sufficient consideration to me and my work. Self in a very subtle way is the bottom of it all, and then I get querulous and quarrelsome, inclined to complain about other folk. Then, like Martha, I get careful and troubled about many things. Defects and difficulties seem to spring up in all directions. What is the cure for such a state of things?

Well, we must not miss the contrast between the "many things" and the "one thing." In this world we are bound to be confronted by many troublesome things. The real trouble is not that, but in the inward disposition that leads us to be troubled by the many troublesome things. We get anxious and troubled about many things because we are so self-centred. What is the desirable thing? To be Christ-centred. If Christ is the great Object before our hearts, if He is the Centre of all our thoughts and projects and undertakings and expectations, the many things become simplified and lose their power to worry. We should of course be prayerful and diligent, but having His will as our objective and His word for our guidance, we should have but one thing before us.

Mary realized that He had much more to give her by His word than she could possibly give Him by her service, so she chose the good part and sat at His feet It does not say, as so often mix-quoted, "the better part." A comparison is not instituted here; it is just "that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." By hearing His word we get to know Himself, and that intimacy with Him and His mind will abide to eternity. It is a thing which may be known on earth, but which will only extend and deepen and ripen in heaven. That is the one thing needful, and the Christ-centred spirit will deliver us from Martha's failing.

There is another place in Luke where you find the Lord repeating a name. He said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often would I . . . and ye would not!" (Luke 13: 34). As to this, I only say in closing that here we see the spirit of our Master, when at the end of that dispensation He had to predict the doom of those who refused Him. Into this spirit we need to drink. Our lot is cast in the closing days of another dispensation. The world-system is dying. We need to keep very clear of the world which is under judgment. We shall not stay its doom by mixing ourselves in its pursuits and politics. Our business is to win out of the world, and that we shall not accomplish unless we begin by keeping ourselves clear of it and its spirit, and go on to acquire the beautiful spirit of compassion, which shone to perfection in our Master.

Let us remember these things. I do want to sound this note of warning, so that we may be delivered from self-confidence, and be free from self-occupation which leads to the living of a self-centred life, and then enter more into the spirit and mind of our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is the Cross?

What is the Cross?

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth, 1916, Vol. 8, page 228.)

We must "hold fast" the truth of the Cross, for it lies at the very foundation of all our faith and blessing and there is a certain phase of popular "Bible teaching" which is well calculated to rob us of the true meaning of it.

This subtle teaching may best be indicated by a short extract put into our hands the other day. It is based upon a curious and we believe untenable rendering of Hebrews 12: 3, and runs as follows:-

"The deepest note of the Cross is not what our Lord suffered within His own person, but that which He suffered in comradeship with those who were sinning against themselves. He saw how their opposition to His high ideals was reacting upon themselves for their own harm and ruin.... He 'endured' the 'gainsaying of sinners against themselves.' That is the Cross."

Is that the Cross? If it be, it is a very much less wonderful thing than we had supposed! No divine Saviour is needed for such a cross as that, the Christ of the Unitarian will easily suffice!

The fact is that statements such as this weaken the whole arch of truth, and no surprise would be felt if any of its stones dropped out. Only, blessed be God, that is NOT the Cross and the truth as to the Cross is far too firmly embedded in Scripture for it to be rooted up — unless indeed the whole fabric of Scripture be destroyed.

Let us appropriate the skeleton of the above extract and clothe it with a scriptural body. It then runs as follows:-

The deepest note of the Cross is not what our Lord suffered as seeing the sin and degradation of men, great as that was, but what He suffered in His own person at the hands of a holy God when, to accomplish propitiation, "His soul" was made "an offering for sin." He saw indeed how men opposed the light He brought and ruined themselves, but far beyond that. He "poured out His soul unto death. He was numbered with the transgressors and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." THAT IS THE CROSS.

What Manner of Persons?

What Manner of Persons?

Notes of an Address on Hebrews 12: 25; Hebrews 13: 1; and 2 Peter 3: 7-18.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 33, 1941, page 141.)

F. B. Hole.

Careful comparison of these passages will, I think, show that in many points there is a striking likeness. If, as is commonly supposed, the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by Paul, we can see at once that the apostle Peter referred to it as corroborating that which the Spirit of God was giving by inspiration through His own pen. We get in both cases the heavens and the earth; the heavens referring particularly to the atmospheric heavens, which have been the seat of Satan's power, and are corrupted by sin, just as the earth has become the seat of man's power under the leadership of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the children of disobedience. The heavens have been defiled by Satanic iniquity, and the earth by human iniquity Both are going to be removed. Peter tells us plainly that the heavens are going to be dissolved, and the very earth is going to be burnt up. The Epistle to the Hebrews is no less explicit. It tells us that the one whose voice shook the earth, in connection with the giving of the law, is going to speak again, and he promises, "Yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." Yet once more so it is the last time. It signifies the removing of the things that are shaken. We can see how God is shaking the order of things which prevails amongst men, but the word looks on, and heaven is also going to be shaken.

Now I understand this to mean the final thing: the removal of those things which are shaken, so that the things which cannot be shaken will remain. God may give what I would call preliminary shakings. When an earthquake smites some part of the earth's surface it comes like a bolt from the blue. Suddenly people are whirled off their feet by the fearful convulsion of nature which takes place, and then for weeks and months there are subsequent shakings. The earth has had its great fall, and it has a number of little jolts before it settles down to its new position. That is the way in creation, but God's way seems to be the reverse. It was so in connection with His overturning of Egypt. Nine times He shook them by providential circumstances, increasing in intensity. The minor earthquakes came first, up to the point when the blow like a great earthquake fell and God Himself by the destroyer came down, and death passed upon the firstborn. God's ways now are the same. He shakes and warns, but the great shaking is coming, when the things that are shaken will be removed. Thanks be to God, the Christian has things which cannot be shaken! When God puts forth His hand, and shakes man's systems and man's organisations, there are things that cannot be shaken. There are all those things in connection with Mount Zion which cannot be shaken. They cannot be shaken because they have a divinely wrought foundation. Creation may be shaken if it pleases God to shake it, but these things are founded upon redemption. There you have something which cannot be shaken.

So he says, "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be removed, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire." Then comes that striking little word, "Let brotherly love abide." I think we often miss the connection. I should like to go through the Bible, and read on from the end of every chapter to the beginning of the next. We so often stop when the chapters stop. It is most convenient, obviously, and easy to remember, but we frequently miss striking connections. Here is an instance: he speaks of things being shaken, and then of those which cannot be shaken, so as to "remain" or "abide," and then adds, "Let brotherly love abide.''

We must not speak disparagingly of brotherly love. It does not rise to the supreme height of love, the Divine nature. It is the Divine nature working itself out through the saints, therefore it must be inferior to the Divine nature itself. Anything which comes out in human expression has not that absoluteness which Divine things have. You remember that passage in 2 Peter 1, where we are told to add virtue to our faith. We are taken through a list of those excellent characteristics, beginning with faith, and working up till we come to verse 7, which speaks of godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. There is an ascending scale, and you come to that which God is, and which crowns everything. When you come to Divine love you come to that which is absolutely perfect in every respect. Brotherly love is a very wonderful thing. It is the love of God flowing out through His people. It is the family love. "He that loveth Him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of Him." It is a love that springs from the divine nature. Even the apostle Paul was a human vessel, and therefore brotherly love, even in a Paul or a Peter, and certainly in ourselves, is not equal to the thing itself — love. But "Let brotherly love abide." That comes home to my soul with very considerable force. You know that when things are shaken around them, the people of God naturally and instinctively are drawn together. We are linked up with an eternal order of things. We are born of God, and redeemed. We are put into new and heavenly relationships which abide. We have a portion outside this earth which man has corrupted, and outside the air which the devil has corrupted. Our place in the Divine economy, in the new age and for eternity, lies outside the scene which is going to be shaken by God in judgment. "Let brotherly love abide." Let us see to it that it does abide in our own hearts. It may be fairly easy to love in the abstract saints a thousand miles away, but the test comes with the Christians whom we know, since the more we know them the more conscious we shall be of their defects, and the more easily brotherly love can take its flight from our hearts.

Then the apostle goes on to speak of the One who is ever the same. I believe the contrast is between Hebrews 13: 8 and 9. "Jesus Christ, the same; yesterday, and today, and for ever." Then he turns to the saints and says, "Be not carried about by divers and strange doctrines." The One who is immutably and eternally the same, and you, who believe on His name, are not going to be blown about by every wind of doctrine.. No, the stability and changelessness which marks the Lord Jesus is the character which is to be seen and followed in His people.

Now, with reference to the Scripture in Peter's second epistle, the Apostle tells us very plainly what the end of things, as we know them, is going to be. It is a very humiliating thing. It is very certain that the men of the world will not believe this, and it is a very serious question for us as to how fully we believe it. "The heavens and the earth which are now." Evidently the flood marked a tremendous cataclysm which altered the whole order of things in this world physically. The heavens and the earth, which are now, are by the same word kept in store, reserved unto fire. I wonder how much we really do in our own minds write those three words on all the things that we see and come in contact with every day. If a Christian is living in the light of eternity, as he looks at the great works of man he sees written across them, "Reserved unto fire." As he looks at all man's great schemes, their great organisations, their great trusts, their great unions, they are all covered by those three words. Men are most diligent about their schemes all the world over — like a great ant heap, where the ants are running in all directions in the most frantic fashion. Let a tractor come through, and the ant-world is hurled all over the place. So with all the schemes of men. What is to be the end of them? If you ask what the ultimate end of them is going to be, it is as certain as anything can be in the Word of God — they are all reserved unto fire. Fire is the symbol of God's judgment. They are reserved unto judgment. Men are building up their schemes to be destroyed by the fire of God's wrath. Do we believe it? I think we need not go far to seek an answer to the question. The apostle immediately indicates the conduct which will mark the one who does believe it. "Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness." Clearly if I walk through the world believing that the judgment of God rests on it, it will have upon me a very separating effect, both internally and personally, and also in all one's associations. It would make us walk in holy ways.

Well now, that is negative. The very fact that you know the judgment of God is resting upon things will make you a separate person, but then, we are filled with positive expectations. We hasten unto the coming of the day of God. We are like people with our hands out to the dawning of a new day. Nothing we can do will make the clock go faster, but we haste towards it in our hearts and affections. People are eagerly reaching forward to the new day that is coming. Men are talking about the new day which they think is going to be brought about by new schemes, but we Christians are hasting unto the coming of the day of God. We hasten to it, not merely because all that which is obnoxious and tainted with sin is going to come under the action of the fire, but we according to His promise look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Righteousness is going to have its abiding home, with nothing to disturb. It will not have to be upon a throne, casting its judicial eye around continually in case there be an uprising of that which it must condemn. That is the position in the millennial age, when you reach the new heavens and the new earth, righteousness will be able to descend from the throne — its work being done — and come down abidingly amongst men, without any thought of there ever arising again that which will be a challenge. It will dwell unhinderedly in the new heavens and the new earth.

"Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace." Peace, as you know, is the fruit of righteousness. "The work of righteousness shall be peace." Thank God, we are established in righteousness already. That which is going to be brought about in the coming age has been brought in with ourselves. You and I have been by the work of Christ put into the standing of righteousness already, so that we can be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless. But these are very searching exhortations. If we are people who really do look for such a blessed condition of things, you find the conduct which will instantly mark us; we shall not be led away with error, and fall from our own steadfastness. I see a great likeness to what we were looking at in Hebrews 13: "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today and for ever"; "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines." You and I are put into touch with Jesus Christ, who is the same. We have absolute righteousness in Him. Men invent and reason, because they have not anything that is absolute. It is only good as far as it goes, if it is good at all; but when you have Jesus Christ, you have One who is eternally the same. Absolute perfection marks Him yesterday, today and for ever. You and I are not going to be carried about by all these new ideas if we know Jesus in that way. We are not going to be led away with the power of the wicked, and fall from our own steadfastness.

"Wherefore then didst thou not obey?"

"Wherefore then didst thou not obey?"

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 16, 1924, page 11.)

As another year of our pilgrimage reaches its end, and we stand on the threshold of a new year, we are deeply conscious that the need of a reviving in the whole church of God is as great as ever. Our hearts rejoice in all that God has done and is doing, we gratefully acknowledge His mercy which still is converting and saving souls out of the world which steadily marches forward to judgment, yet we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the love of many Christians waxes cold, that much sinful lethargy exists amongst them, and that there is frequently much ignorance of the Word of God, and, what is worse, often a deplorable spirit of indifference and even open disobedience to the plain injunctions of Scripture. The church of God particularly needs a revival which shall take the practical form of a great awakening to simple-hearted obedience to the Word of God.

Naturally we are all of us adepts at finding out plausible reasons why we may ignore the commands of Scripture, not one of which will prove to be valid when the hour of testing comes. Scripture must of course be read in a spirit of prayerful subjection, so that we may each become "a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2: 15); then having intelligently ascertained the mind of God nothing is needed but simple obedience. There is nothing more damaging to spiritual prosperity, or disastrous in its final results, than disobedience to the Word of God.

If we turn to the Old Testament, that faithful mirror of the human heart, that wonderful instruction book which is able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, we shall find forcible illustrations of this.

Take first of all the case of King Saul. Here you have a man of splendid physical proportions who began his reign well. Elevated to the throne quite suddenly, he displayed both modesty and generosity in no small degree in the opening months, and yet only two years of his reign had passed before we find him a rejected man. Why was this? The answer is in one word — disobedience.

Having gathered the people together to fight the Philistines, Saul desired to approach God by way of sacrifice so that His blessing might be upon their enterprise, and Samuel the prophet had made a definite arrangement to meet him at Gilgal for that purpose after seven days. Now what happened was this: "He tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him. And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered a burnt offering. And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came.... And Samuel said, What hast thou done?" (1 Sam. 13: 8-11). Saul made his excuses: it seemed to him a politic thing to do in view of the people's tendency to scatter; moreover, he had done it reluctantly; "I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering" (verse 12) were his words. Samuel's answer was, "Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God.... Now thy kingdom shall not continue" (verses 13, 14).

But why had Saul acted thus? What had possessed him? Did he say within his heart something like this: "After all, that seven day appointment was only an arrangement that Samuel made; he may have forgotten it, or he may have been mistaken"? Perhaps he did. But stay! Samuel's arrangement was not everything. Long before his day just such a contingency had been anticipated and the Divine instructions were: "Thou shalt come . . . unto the judge that shall be in those days . . . thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand, nor to the left" (Deut. 17: 8-12). Moreover, in the same chapter it was enacted that the future king of Israel should familiarise himself with the instructions of the law by writing out for himself a special copy to be kept continually by him; so that he had no excuse for ignorance. Samuel was, without a doubt, the judge raised up of God for his days, and the Word of God enjoined implicit obedience to his instructions Saul disobeyed. He was swayed by what appeared to him to be expedient, and he treated the Word of God, through Samuel, as only Samuel's opinion.

This act of disobedience, bad as it was, was soon followed by a worse. Disobedience to the Word of God is a habit that grows upon one. A few years later we have God sending Saul a special word, through Samuel, as to the destruction of the Amalekites. 1 Samuel 15 records how he partially carried out the instructions, and then elected to use his own discretion as to certain details, preferring his own opinion to the Word of God. Without a question the Modernist of today would altogether agree with Saul. To his way of thinking the Divine instructions were the product of a barbaric age, and Saul's action represented the dawning of higher ethical ideas. God, however, knew what He was doing when He ordered their entire extermination. It was a sanitary measure of a spiritual sort. Their sins were pestilential, and they were to be stamped out like a pestilence. Saul however, had no scruples such as those of the Modernist; his excuses for his disobedience were not based on ethical grounds, they were of a more subtle order. He would like to preserve the best of the belongings of the Amalekites for himself, and would do so under cover of devoting them to the service of God.

Disobedience which springs from carelessness or indifference is bad; that which is sheer wilfulness is worse. Worst of all is that which while springing from willfulness — yet arrays itself in a cloak of pretended piety and zeal for the interests of the Lord. It was that of which Saul was now guilty, and hence the strong and drastic way in which God met it through the lips of Samuel, saying, "Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord? . . . Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king" (1 Sam. 15: 19-23)

Was Saul tempted to think of the instructions as to Amalek as being merely an expression of Samuel's opinion? We know not: but if he did he had absolutely no ground for so thinking. It was unquestionably the Word of God, for there staring him in the face were the Divine instructions of Deuteronomy 25: 17-19; the very remembrance of Amalek was to be blotted out from under heaven. His presumptuous disobedience resulted in his ruin and death.

Let us now turn from Saul to Solomon. How very different the circumstances! The former was in the position of a petty king struggling to maintain his feet. The latter was firmly established in his kingdom as the fruit of the faithfulness and obedience of his father David. He was an overlord to the kings of the surrounding nations, prosperous and marvellously blessed of God, with every inducement to continue in a path of obedience. Yet in spite of all this, and of the special wisdom with which he was endowed, he was guilty of most flagrant disobedience to the plain commands of God as recorded in the books of Moses: consequently he grievously damaged himself, and also sowed the seeds of the total ruin of his once splendid kingdom.

In the early part of 1 Kings 10 we have the incident of the Queen of Sheba and her visit. In reading it we get an idea of the extraordinary greatness and magnificence of Solomon's court and kingdom. The enquiring Queen of the south had her breath completely taken away, "there was no more spirit in her." In the latter part of the chapter many further details are given, which impress us yet more with the splendour of those days when all the vessels of the king's house were of gold and none were of silver, for silver was then in Jerusalem as stones;" it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon."

Yet towards the end of this striking chapter, wherein success is piled upon success and magnificence upon magnificence, a few remarks are quietly made which tell their own tale to the thoughtful reader. We begin to be suspicious, and when we turn to chapter 11 and note the significant "But" with which that chapter opens, our suspicions are turned into a sad certainty that something is seriously amiss.

First of all then, we notice that all this magnificent accumulation of gold and silver and ivory, of articles of value and objects of art and vertu, descending even to apes and peacocks, was all collected for his own pleasure and gratification. He was the centre around which all revolved. How different he was to his father in this. David truly collected immense stores of gold and other forms of wealth as the result of his victorious campaigns, but in his case Jehovah, as identified with His temple, was the Centre to which all was gathered. If David received large sums into his privy purse, as unquestionably he did, he still kept Jehovah's interests before him. He could say, "I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold . . . and the silver . . . and all manner of precious stones.... Moreover, because I have set my affection to the house of my God, I have of mine own proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house, even three thousand talents of gold...." (1 Chr. 29: 2-5). Further, having enumerated all these things, he gladly confessed, "Of Thine own have we given Thee," thus showing that he fully recognized that all belonged to God and that he was but a steward of all that which had been entrusted to his hand. Solomon was quite on different lines. All that he got he heaped up for his own benefit.

Secondly, we notice in the end of the chapter in 1 Kings that Solomon went largely in for horses. He "gathered together chariots and horsemen: and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen." This is emphasised by repetition a couple of verses further on, where it is said, "And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt." This is the more noticeable inasmuch as up to this point there is hardly any mention of the horse in connection with the history of Israel. The ass we often read of, and also the mule; Absalom, the son of David, the king, only rode upon a mule, it will be remembered, and the ox seems to have been the beast of burden. It was not, of course, surprising that Solomon sent to Egypt for horses, for he had already obtained his queen from there, and she naturally would desire to have the very superior animal to which she had been accustomed.

Thirdly, we come to that very significant "But" with which 1 Kings 11 opens. "But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go into them, neither shall they come in unto you." Here we have mentioned a matter in which he most grievously sinned. Not only was there polygamy of a very extravagant and outrageous sort, but there was, as pointed out, the breaking of the commandment which forbade intermarriage with the surrounding nations, lest the infection of their idolatry should spread amongst the tribes of Israel. This commandment applied to the people universally, and Solomon might have known, therefore, that as the leader of and example to the people, it applied fully to himself.

But there was more than this. Solomon was not left to draw inferences from the Word of God, however obvious and unquestionable those inferences were. In Deuteronomy 17, to which we have already referred, there lay clearly before him the most positive and clear commands from God on all the three points we have just noticed.

In verses 14 and 15 of that chapter it is foretold that a day would come when, settled into their own land, Israel would desire a king and propose to set one over themselves, and in view of that eventuality certain instructions are given. The Lord said, "He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold" (verses 16, 17). In the days of Moses, the great lawgiver, the all-seeing eye of God had traversed the centuries, and He foresaw the future kings of Israel and their special dangers, and He provided the needful warning in His Word, and also the antidote by ordering that the future king should write his own copy of the law, and have it always with him so as to read therein all the days of his life, and so turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left. (See verses 18-20.)

Yet, as far as Solomon was concerned, these commandments might as well never have been written. Precisely what had been forbidden, that he did! It is hardly possible that he was ignorant of what God had said. It is far more likely that he had arguments in his mind and reasons which he considered excellent, quite sufficient in fact to authorise him to treat the ancient Word through Moses as a dead letter. Had not the times changed? Had not military tactics advanced since the days of Moses, so that the horse which formerly had been a luxury had now become a necessity? — and so on. It matters little, however, just what specious excuses Solomon had in his mind. The fact remains: he met the plain directions of God's Word with flat denial and disobedience, and thereby he started rolling a snowball of destruction which did not stop until it had become an avalanche of judgment which swept Israel away.

When first we put together Deuteronomy 17 and 1 Kings 10 and 11 we confess we were astounded. Such a deliberate infraction of Scripture on the part of an otherwise wise man, like Solomon, seemed almost incredible. Many of our readers, perhaps, have a similar feeling on having their attention called to it in this paper. We must confess, however, that today we contemplate it without any surprise whatever. We know a little more of the insubject folly of our own hearts, and we have observed, too, a little of the free and easy way in which professed Christians, and even real ones, treat the injunctions of the Word of God. Apparently they are to be obeyed or not obeyed at their own discretion, for they are far from trembling at the Word of God.

How lightly, alas! do many young believers brush aside that solemn New Testament injunction, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6: 14-18), and contract a marriage — the most pronounced and enduring yoke known amongst mankind — with an unconverted partner. How often do Christians entangle themselves in a yoke of business partnership with unconverted men. How often do they entangle themselves in all kinds of trade and business and social alliances in order to further their own interests or to escape reproach and persecution.

How slowly, if at all, does many a Christian obey the instructions of the Word of God as to what the believer shall do when evil of a fundamental sort has entered and permeated the mass. This question was raised early in the Church's history through the false teachings of Hymenaeus and Philetus, and answered in Paul's second letter to Timothy. The instructions are, to purge oneself from these vessels to dishonour. This assumes that it is no longer possible to purge them out as old leaven according to 1 Corinthians 5. If this were universally observed and obeyed by all believers who are sound in, and true to, the faith, God would be honoured in His Word. But no, alas! multitudes of them find plenty of reasons, to their minds quite cogent enough, for staying where they are, and contenting themselves with protests and attempts at improving the existing corruption. If only every true believer cleared himself from all complicity with false and apostate teachings, and extricated himself from all corrupt and merely human systems, in obedience to the Word, what a revival there would be!

A third striking illustration of our theme occurs almost immediately after the days of Solomon. In 1 Kings 13 we have the incident of the man of God out of Judah who went by command of the Lord to prophesy against the altar at Bethel which Jeroboam had made. He courageously executed his mission in every point, save one. He had received very strict instructions not to identify himself in any way with the people or the place against which his prophecy was directed, there was not to be the smallest fellowship between them. "Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest," was the Word. This Word he disobeyed.

In one respect, however, he differed from the other cases we have considered. With them the disobedience was of an open and deliberate kind, with him it was not. He was decoyed into it after obeying at first. Remarkably enough, his punishment seemed far more drastic, and certainly was far more immediate, than in the case of the other two. This was doubtless because as a prophet and a man of God he was in closer contact with God than the others, and to whom much is given in the way of privilege of them more is required.

The first thing that this prophet had to face was the world's violence. "Lay hold on him," shouted the angry king. This did not deflect him from the path of obedience nor terrify him, and soon the king's spirit was subdued and he was glad to receive healing at the prophet's hands.

Immediately after the prophet was tested by the world's patronage. "Come home with me, and refresh thyself," was now the king's invitation. The prophet now had the opportunity of being the world's honoured guest; a far more serious temptation. Yet he firmly withstood it.

A little later, when the prophet had started back another way, in accordance with the Word of the Lord, the old prophet of Bethel came upon the scenes with his invitation, "Come home with me and eat bread." Here he was tested by religious associations, which are far more dangerous. How difficult to refuse the kindly invitation of one's fellow-prophet; yet he did it.

This, however, was immediately followed by a wicked act of religious imitation. The old prophet paraded before him the fact that he, too, held the prophet's office, and then he claimed a special revelation through an angel which had the effect of completely nullifying the original instructions under which he acted, and bidding him do the very thing he had been told not to do. "Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him." Before this deceit the man of God fell.

Oh, why did he listen! Surely a few moments reflection would have sufficed to put him on his guard. Does God usually fail to foresee the end from the beginning, and consequently have to countermand His instructions before His enterprises are finished? If originally God gave him his instructions direct, would He now fail to inform him direct of further instructions, and notify instead someone who had no part in the matter? It was easy and pleasant, however, to acquiesce. He did so, and disobeyed.

What a powerful voice all this has for us. The servant of God to-day may on occasions be called to go into strange places to render a word of testimony to His Lord, and thus find himself in unusual surroundings, yet he must be very careful as to his associations, and see that he fulfils the Divine Word, "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them" (Eph. 5: 11). To have fellowship is to become compromised oneself.

To entangle us the adversary will spare no devices. If one does not succeed he will try another, as we see in the case of the man of God. Some of us fall easily before the frowns of the world, or its smiles; others are not so easily caught, and religious enticements are brought into play. It is a sad reflection that for this dirty work no tool comes so readily to the devil's hand as a false professor of religion or a true child of God terribly back-slidden. The old prophet of Bethel may have been one or the other; which we cannot determine.

The sum of the whole matter is this: there is nothing so good and safe and pleasing to God as full and unquestioning obedience to His Word. All necessary instructions for the man of God are found in it, as 2 Timothy 3: 16, 17 affirms; therefore we may disobey by going beyond it, just as we may by falling short of it. We may easily become a little fanciful and think we are maintaining the testimony, or honouring the Lord, when we are only straining at gnats, to end by swallowing the camel of definite disobedience to what the Word of God does most plainly say.

Let us then accept the Old Testament warnings with searchings of heart, and so be made wise unto salvation from the sin of disobedience to the Word of God. The Lord has said, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My Word" (Isa. 66: 2).

Why Christ died for us

Why Christ died for us.

Address at Bangor, N. Wales, Sunday afternoon, July 30th.

1 Peter 3: 18. Galatians 1: 3-4. 2 Corinthians 5: 15. Titus 2: 13-14.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 31, 1939, page 218.)

There is only one thing that I am going to take for granted, and that is that all of us here present have looked in faith to our Lord Jesus Christ as the great Saviour who has died for us. We can take up the language which we have in each of these four verses. Christ, we read in the first of the four, "hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust." We should each say, "Though I was amongst the unjust, I know that Christ, the Just One, has suffered for me and for my sins"; or in the language of the little verse of four lines, so much blessed in days past, we might say,

"In peace let me resign my breath

And Thy salvation see.

My sins deserved eternal death

But Jesus died for me."

I do not know what you had in your mind when you trusted the Saviour. As far as I can remember I was filled with a mixture of fears and apprehension. I feared going to hell. That is old fashioned I know, but hell is terribly real. I feared it. I feared the power of my sins, and that drove me to Him. I have discovered since, that when I came to Him, He had thoughts in His heart about me. He had certain objects, and for many a long day now it has become to me a very great thought that my Saviour when He died and suffered for my sins upon the Cross, had purposes in His heart for me, since I am one of His own. Now what my heart says is this, "If the Lord Jesus Christ had certain objects in view when He died for me, and He has let me into the secret of what He desired and purposed, then by His grace I will make those objects my objects.

Now, each of my scriptures shows us an end which was in view, when the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, and I have read them in the order in which I wish to speak of them. We begin with Christ, who gave Himself for our sins; and that I might call the base of our operations. We shall have to come back to our base. We take an excursion in that direction, or in this, but back you will find, we come to our base.

The first excursion we make in this direction, He did it that (we shall have the little word "that" in each of our texts) He might bring us to God. Now that raises at once a question I would like to ask every young believer here. In your heart, in your own inward consciousness are you happily brought to God? Do you know and love God? Is He the One in whom you trust and confide so that, brought into nearness to Him, the distance that once was between you and God is gone for ever? There are to be found people, who do very sincerely trust the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet if they spoke very honestly what is in their hearts they would reply something like this: "Well, that is rather a question. If you had asked me if I have been brought to Jesus, yes, a thousand times, yes. Jesus is my blessed Saviour; He died for me. But God! God represents to me, awe, greatness, majesty, holiness and I am very glad that Jesus stands between me and God." Jesus is to many the embodiment of all that is meek and gracious and kindly and compassionate, but God of what is great, awesome, holy, infinite and, to tell you the truth, rather alarming.

Now if you have thoughts like that there is something wrong somewhere because, "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." Somebody may say, "Yes, but of course, He is going to do it. We are all going to heaven." And when you enter heaven do you expect to have that awesome feeling? Will you say, "Don't bring me too near. I have a feeling of fear. Bring me to Jesus, don't bring me to God." I am sure you would say at once, "I shall not feel like that." Then why feel like it now? What difference is there going to be as to what Christ has done between then and now? None whatever. No difference in the work He did when He gave Himself the Just for the unjust.

The fact of the matter is, the Lord Jesus Christ came that He might make God known to us. That is what we speak of as revelation. And then that He might work this great redeeming work on our behalf, He gave Himself for our sins. And the wonderful thing is He carried the revelation to its climax at just the point where He accomplished the redemption. The supreme manifestation of the love of God was when He died, and then it was the great redemption work was accomplished, and all that stood between us and God was removed in the power of His death and He came forth in risen life and in triumph, that He might bring us to God. Now, it does not state it here, but we know from other scriptures that He has brought us to God in a new relationship. He has introduced us to God in a new way. We were all God's creatures but now we are brought into relationship and nearness and favour of sons. And as Christians we find this lies at the very basis of our spiritual affections and happiness. While remembering His infinite holiness, we do not fear it but glory in it. God is righteous. Yes, that does not fill me with fear but with assurance.

The gospel is not that Justice stands with a great flaming sword anxious to smite me, and Mercy intervenes in kindly grace and succeeds in mollifying the anger of Justice so that he turns the other way and ignores me, like Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen, with his blind eye. That is not the gospel. The gospel is not Mercy at the expense of Justice, you know that I feel sure. Then is the gospel this? That the great flaming sword of Justice is plunged into the heart of our Saviour, so that He can turn to Mercy and say, "My every claim is met. I want no more. Mercy, you have a free hand, do what you like. Smother those worthless sinners with kindness cover them with kisses, if you like. I have nothing more to say." Is not that better? Yes, but it is not the full gospel. Then what is the gospel? Truly it tells us the sword of Justice has been sheathed in the death of our blessed Saviour, but also that His death and resurrection has turned, so to speak, the flaming sword of Justice into a bright and shining shield of protection for the believer. Justice is not dismissed from the whole question as though he had nothing more to say. Justice has a very big thing to say. Justice defies all comers. Justice says, "Anybody who touches this sinner has to smite through the shield of my righteousness." Justice stands on our side just as much as Mercy. Thus in righteousness we are brought to God. We know God. We glory in God. His very glory and righteousness are our boast as much as His goodness and His mercy.

But then, God and the world are at opposite poles — absolutely apart. If we are brought to God, if our relations are established on this righteous footing, you may depend on it our links with the world are broken. The apostle Paul in writing to the Galatians emphasizes that point. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins. There we are, you see, back again at the base of our operations. Back we came to this simple fact, and He gave Himself that — in order that — with this object in view — "He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father — according to the will of the One to whom we have been brought. Those who study their Bibles may know the word used for "world" is the word which means "age" — "this present evil age." The age means the whole organized course of the world and the organized course of the age at the present moment is evil. Now don't forget that. Rejoice, and glory in the fact that you have been brought to God, but don't forget the fact that the very Saviour who died for your sins did it with the object of breaking your links with the course of this age, just as He did it to establish your links with God.

It is just here that a great deal of spiritual weakness exists; in fact perhaps one of the very greatest causes of spiritual weakness in the Church of God today lies just at this point. I am not an electrician but I know a thing or two about electricity. I know you have to generate electricity, and also that you might have the finest power station in the land and generate and generate and generate, and use up a whole mine of coal but you would not have electricity sufficient to effect anything except you had something else. You must generate and perhaps accumulate. They have accumulators, have they not? But those could not meet the problem. You not only generate and accumulate but insulate. Break down the insulation and you generate electricity for nothing. As fast as you generate it disappears, it runs away to mother earth. Generate, accumulate, but insulate. Cut off from the earth. That is not only a little parable, but a parable worth remembering. Why doesn't the thing work? There is an earth line somewhere, and so you have not got the power, and you cannot expect to have it. Thus it is in the things of God. Many a Christian says, I want to be real and sincere, and the Lord to be glorified in me. I will pray and read the Bible and go to meetings. That's right — generate! Then what are you doing? Trying to accumulate? I have not a word to say against that. Go in for generation and accumulation but don't forget insulation. That was the desire and will of our Lord when He died on the Cross. We are redeemed by His blood and brought to God, really to know Him and find our glory in Him, but at the same time we are delivered from this present evil world.

You may say, "I shall be very peculiar if I don't go with the stream and do just as other people." You will. Instead of being a dead fish, you will be a live fish that has the energy to go against the stream. And the Saviour has called you that you may be for Him and that instead of being influenced by those who are slavishly copying what others do, and taking as your motto, "Everybody is doing it" you aim to please your Lord in all things, to be set now for His holy will, and to be delivered from the course of the world through which you pass. Through Vanity Fair you have to go, as Bunyan pictured in his Allegory, but remember you don't belong to Vanity Fair through which you go. Christian and Faithful, if I remember rightly, were rather curious looking folk, not dressed exactly as the inhabitants of Vanity Fair, a year behindhand and not quite in the fashion. That is what you have to expect when you have people delivered from this present evil world. Our Saviour died that this might be achieved.

Now the third picture. I think perhaps this comes more closely home even than that of which I have been speaking. It is not now my relations as a believer either with God or the world. I read Christ died for all so that we all are dead — dead to God. He died for all, and as a result of His dying there are those that live. Who are these? Those that believe in His Name. The youngest believer has a new life, and that new life of yours is like a little stream that is going to flow in an altogether new direction. They which live should not henceforth — from the hour when they began to live — live unto themselves but unto Him that died for them and rose again.

Of course, you recognise that we have again come back to the base of operations, the death of Christ. But we take another excursion now in a fresh direction; as it effects us in the secret of our individual lives. We now should not live unto ourselves. What is the significance of this little preposition "unto"? We have been brought unto God. In our unconverted days we did live unto ourselves, and in the nature of things we could not do anything else. Dominated by sin as we were, we had "self" as the great end and object of our existence. Think of it. Of course it was so! How did we judge everything in our unconverted days? Thus: Does it please me? Does it suit my taste? Do I like that? Will it a little bit advance my interests? Will it make a big man of me? But in our unconverted days did we not think of a community? Yes, if we belonged to it. There was our fraternity, society, or something or other, that was of interest to us. Self, self, self, was the great object of our existence. It was the little puddle into which our trickling streams ran, and unlike the Dead Sea (which we understand has all sorts of valuable things in it) there was nothing in it, — this dirty little puddle called "self."

Oh, my young friends! we have something here very glorious. Our Saviour has died for us that we may be diverted altogether from life of the old order and find a life with another Object and End altogether, living not unto ourselves but unto Him that died and rose again. There dawns upon us the vision of OUT living Saviour, the One who gave Himself for our sins; He lives to be the dominating factor, the new Object of the believer's life. Our lives, instead of all centring in some way upon ourselves, are to be centred on this new Object, the One who died for us and rose again. There is no deliverance greater, I believe, for the Christian than this of which I am speaking, the deliverance of being lifted clean out of yourself, and self-seeking with its likes and dislikes, so that instead of being centred upon yourself you are centred upon another, and that Other a worthy Object, a divine Object, an eternal Object. If I might offer a prayer for you it would be that you may very early discover in the Lord Jesus Christ, not merely a Saviour, to deliver from the penalty of sin (He is all that) but an Object of infinite love, excellence, glory, worthiness, to command your life and fill your heart. Oh! how excellent to be delivered from oneself and to be centred upon Him.

You can see a parable of these things even in the ordinary affairs of life. You know what an exceedingly trying person is that man or woman occupied with themselves physically. There are numbers who have their physical troubles, and their lives seem to be spent going from one spa to another spa, drinking waters that taste like ink and those that taste like sulphur, and they are always discussing illness and symptoms and temperatures, and it is carried to such a pitch that they become almost intolerable to everybody else. It is miserable to be occupied with yourself physically. It is easy to see that. It is not perhaps so easy to see it is equally miserable to be occupied with oneself in a spiritual way, to make self the centre and sun, round which everything has to revolve. Oh the blessedness of getting away from oneself and finding one's centre in Christ.

Long ago, in the Middle Ages the old astronomers studied the heavens and even before telescopes were introduced they discovered much, but they never could quite understand the movements of the planets. They believed that this earth was the centre of everything, that sun, moon and stars were careering round this earth of ours. But the thing did not work. There was a screw loose somewhere. One day a man of original mind rose up and dared to suggest that this earth was not the centre of everything. He even went so far as to say the sun was the centre and that we and other planets were revolving round the sun. And immediately that idea took root the apparent disorder disappeared and order was seen to prevail. It is like that very much with ourselves. It is wonderful how everything falls into place when we have found the Divine Centre, and discovered what we are here for.

When we get to heaven, Christ will be the Object that fills our hearts. His servants will serve Him in that day. We are being educated here for the great day that is coming when we shall serve Him perfectly and gladly and joyously. The trouble today, my trouble, is this — how that hateful thing self comes creeping in, into this address of mine as I am speaking, creeping in at all hours and everywhere except we refuse it. The old tendencies of the flesh are in us, but we are learning this lesson. The One who died purposed to captivate our hearts and divert us from the old self-centred life, that we might find our Centre in our Lord Himself. What a deliverance it is when the beginnings of this dawn upon us!

Now there is just that practical verse in Titus, and here I have to close. Our Saviour Jesus Christ has given Himself for us. Mark, that is the basis of operations. Here we are back again at the great fact of His death on our behalf. But He gave Himself for us "that", — in order that, with this purpose in view. What purpose? That He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify us to Himself. You see, we need very much purification — our hearts, our thoughts, our motives. The flesh is flesh and still within us, and we who have flesh in us and are redeemed and indwelt by the Spirit of God, are to be purified unto Himself a peculiar people, a people for His own special possession, and the hallmark of our being such a people is that we are "zealous of good works."

I think I need hardly say that if you can find for me a few earnest Christian people really zealous of good works they will be a very peculiar people. You do not pick such up like blackberries, in autumn. Zealous? Oh yes, you can find people zealous. But, zealous of good works; that is not so common. A peculiar people! That word, in our ordinary use of it today, means "odd", but it does not here signify that. The primary meaning is, a people for His own special possession. But then in a secondary sense we shall certainly be out of the ordinary. There are a lot of people very zealous for pleasure. Nothing peculiar there! Zealous for money, we find a lot of folk like that. There are a number of things we could mention easily and find people zealous of these things — nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary

But for us, we have been redeemed, been brought to God, delivered from this present evil age, and diverted from the old self-centred life to find our new life centred in Him, to be for His special possession marked by zeal for good works. A very searching word "Zeal", you know, has in it the idea of heat. The complaint of our Lord to that last church in Revelation 3 is, "Thou art neither cold nor hot." Neither for nor against. No warmth We are to have zeal of good works May that kind of zeal be greatly promoted. Our Saviour died that it might be so.

Shall we pray somewhat after this fashion, "Lord Jesus, if these were the objects Thou hadst in view, the desires of Thy heart for those who should be redeemed by Thy blood, then Lord I would like to make them my object. Before I get to heaven I would like to fulfil what Thou didst desire for me." You may depend upon it, when heaven is reached you will find people brought to God, delivered from the world, people who have found their centre in Christ for ever, and are zealous in His holy service. But now, in this adverse world, while we are in training, while we are waiting for our Lord, I exhort you my dear young friends, to take these things to your heart and to your knees. Meditate and pray over them. Make these things your object and in your life, whether long or short, God will be glorified, and you will be a blessing to others.

Will He really return?

Will He really return?

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Simple Testimony, Vol. 35, 1918-19, page 201.)

If the Bible be carefully read, and its words as to Christ's second coming accepted in their obvious meaning, there can be but one answer — Yes.

Doubt, however, exists in the minds of not a few Christians as to this hope in spite of the plainness of Bible testimony. The age in which we live was ushered in by the most wonderful displays of divine power and goodness, first in Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, and, secondly, in the coming of the indwelling Spirit on the day of Pentecost. After ample testimony had been rendered to the fact of the Spirit's presence by signs and wonders, these visible manifestations of divine power ceased, and for these long centuries heaven has been absolutely silent, and the world has pursued its way without any divine interference. God has said all He had to say in the way of grace, and for the present, while the Gospel is still being preached by His heralds, He contents Himself with indirectly over-ruling the affairs of men.

The fact is, we have got so accustomed to this non-interference on God's part that we find it difficult to imagine a fresh and mighty intervention, nay, more than difficult, impossible, apart from faith.

Will Christ really return then? we ask. He will, firstly, because He said so. "I will come again" (John 14: 3).

God's predictions in the past have always been fulfilled literally, actually, and to the very letter.

He announced long ago a flood upon the world of the ungodly. Did it come? At the end of one hundred and twenty years it did. He was not speaking figuratively and poetically. He did not mean the gradual loosening of a flood of new ideas in the world of men. A literal, actual flood swept the habitable earth, bringing destruction in its train. Traces of that flood, and more or less distinct reminiscences of it, are found in many quarters to this day.

Thousands of years ago the coming of the Christ in humiliation to suffer was announced. These prophecies were amplified as time progressed. Details were gradually revealed. The way of His coming — born of a virgin; the place of His coming — Bethlehem Ephratah; the date of His coming — see Daniel 9: 26; the result of His coming — despised, rejected, led as a lamb to the slaughter, hands and feet pierced, His soul made an offering for sin; all this and much more was foretold. Foretold and fulfilled to the very letter.

Thousands of years ago prophets also began to speak on God's behalf of a day when this same Christ should be publicly and manifestly glorified; when He should " be exalted and extolled and be very high"; when, coming with ten thousands of His saints, the shining forth of His appearing should be the overthrow of every enemy, the deliverance of a groaning creation from the bondage of corruption, and the establishment of a kingdom founded upon righteousness that should endure as long as the sun. Are these predictions fulfilled? Certainly not. Will they be? Assuredly they will. Fulfilled with as much exactitude as were the predictions of His first coming.

Will He, then, really return? He will, indeed. And secondly, the very fact that it is now fashionable to insist on the reign of unvarying law in the universe as a conclusive proof that He will not return, is really conclusive proof that very SOON He will. Read 2 Peter 3: 1-7, and see.

In recent years the teaching that "all things continue as they were" has become orthodox, according to science — falsely so called. Its exponents maintain the doctrine of evolution in the slowest imaginable stages, and ridicule what they are pleased to call "catastrophic changes." And when men, scoffers at heart, do teach thus, it is plain proof that a very catastrophic change is not far ahead, the last days are come — so says the Word of God!

Yes, He will really return, for, lastly, it is plain that the only hope of real peace upon earth is that He — the Prince of Peace — should be supreme. Let the world deceive itself into thinking that peace and a millennial condition of things is to be reached by democracy if it will. Let not us, my fellow-believer, fall into so foolish a snare. For peace to be established the Peace-maker must appear. For righteous government to be founded universally, there must first be the coming of the Righteous One, of whom it is said, " the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9: 6). Under His beneficent sway the golden age of this world's history will be reached, and not before.

One question, my reader. This mighty change, catastrophic indeed for the world of the ungodly, infinitely blessed in the way of previous translation to glory for believers — how does it appeal to you?

Does it mean the spoiling of all your worldly pleasures, and overturning of all your plans, or is it the gladdest and brightest hope your heart can entertain?

Does it signify arraignment in justice before the Judge who is coming, or glad union with the Bridegroom of the heart?

Is it all darkness and no light, or all light and no darkness, for you?

He is really coming. Exactly when we know not, as He Himself said. It may not be this year or next year or next half century. On the other hand, today may see the setting in motion of the mighty wheels of judgment as He rises from the Father's throne to fulfil 1 Thessalonians 4: 15-17, and long ere the half century is up all Scripture relating to His second advent may be fulfilled.

Be sure, then, that you are ready, having been cleansed in His blood and forgiven, and that as cleansed you are practically ready by holiness of life and devoted service for His Name.

Witness. Leader. Commander

Witness. Leader. Commander.

F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 34, 1942-4, page 100.)

Affairs on the earth, whether in war or in peace, have their ebb and flow. If we are overmuch occupied with them our spirits and feelings will be subject to a corresponding ebb and flow: we shall alternate between depression and elation. To be securely anchored in peace of heart our minds must be stayed upon the Lord; and the knowledge of His fulness, expressed in all the characters He wears and the capacities He fills, is a great help to this.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus were in the depths of depression. With them it was no ordinary ebb in the tide: events had the appearance of a tidal wave of disaster. Yet the exposition by the risen Christ of the "things concerning Himself" in "all the Scriptures" made their hearts to burn within them. We too may be disciples whose hearts are all aflame if we contemplate Him steadily and often in the same way.

We may safely assume that the great Messianic passage, Isaiah 52: 13-55: 13, had a prominent place amongst those to which the Lord directed the thoughts of the two disciples. In it, we start with a prediction of the coming exaltation of the once humbled Servant of Jehovah; passing to consider Him in His rejection when His soul was made an offering for sin. We discover that His shame and suffering instead of annihilating all prospect of His glory are the secure foundation on which for ever His glory shall rest. This is emphasized in the last verse of Isaiah 53: "Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great . . . because He hath poured out His soul unto death." Then in Isaiah 54 we read of the consequent restoration and blessing of Israel, when that hitherto barren nation shall burst into song. In chapter 55 follows a call to "every one that thirsteth," which must bring in the Gentiles. From the Old Testament viewpoint the blessing of Israel comes before that of the Gentiles, but in actual historical fact the cry to the Gentiles, which results in the calling out of an election from their midst, has preceded the national blessing of Israel.

In the coming day, of course, there will be an exhaustive fulfilment of Isaiah 55, in the millennial blessing of the Gentile nations in connection with Israel. Yet there is a present-day fulfilment of this chapter. Verse 5, for instance, foreshadows the announcement which the Lord made in Matthew 21: 43. So also "the sure mercies of David" (ver. 3) is quoted by Paul, in Acts 13: 34, as referring to Christ risen from the dead. Such mercies are now available to all who believe, whether Jew or Gentile.

This makes perfectly clear the bearing of verse 4, which may now occupy our thoughts for a few moments. In this verse the word for "people" is in the plural. Speaking of the once humbled Servant, who made atonement in His death, who is now risen and dispensing the "sure mercies of David," the prophet says, in Jehovah's name, "Behold I have given Him for a Witness to the peoples, a Leader and Commander to the peoples." In these characters He will fully be displayed in the coming age; we anticipate the spiritual blessing of that age, for we know Him thus today

As the Witness to the peoples He stands absolutely alone. He only is the Declarer of God, being the only begotten Son, who abides "in the bosom of the Father" (John 1: 18). He is "the faithful Witness," and again, "the faithful and true Witness" (Rev. 1: 5; Rev. 3: 14). Hence in Him we really know God as He is. There is much need to continually remind ourselves of this, since the men of the world always have the tendency to judge of God by what they find in the world. Thus they utterly misjudge Him, and formulate their complaints against Him; and we may often be tempted to make the same mistake in principle, complaining of His ways in permitting this or that to come upon us. If, however, we turn our eyes upon Jesus, and keep them there, we shall be dwelling in the light of the knowledge of God. In Jesus the light of His countenance has been lifted up upon us, and thus we have peace.

If He stands alone as Witness, we can discern a contrast when we consider Him as Leader and Commander. Here others are necessarily in view — those whom He leads and commands. As Leader He goes before us, marks out the path and shows the way. As Commander He issues directions and instructs us in all that is the will of God. We need both: we find both in Him, for God has made that same Jesus, whom men crucified, "both Lord and Christ" As Lord He stands on God's behalf, administering and instructing, which answers to "Commander." As Christ He takes His place as the risen and anointed Head of all redeemed creation, and Head of His church in particular. This is a fuller expansion of that which is set forth in "Leader."

His own words when on earth were, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me" (John 12: 32). This is a clearer statement of the fact stated in verse 5 of Isaiah 55. We Gentiles who were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise," have been called by Him, and are a kind of firstfruits of the nations that shall run unto Him, because Jehovah.

As Leader, then, He puts Himself at the head of His saints, and He is their great Representative before God: as Commander, He speaks with all Divine authority in making known to us the will of God. Others are in view, as we have noted, yet in both these capacities He is solitary and singular. The offices are exclusively His. To no other do we owe allegiance. By no other can the authoritative word be spoken.

The commandments He issues are not legal enactments, on the keeping of which our standing before God depends, as was the case in the law of Moses. But nevertheless they are commandments. No Apostle speaks more of them than does the Apostle John, both in his Gospel, recording the Lord's words, and then again in his Epistle. The Apostle Paul asserts that even detailed instructions as to what is becoming in the assemblies of saints, are the commandments of the Lord (see 1 Cor. 14: 37). "His commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5: 3)

The Work of the Spirit

The Work of the Spirit.

Exodus 32: 16; 2 Corinthians 3: 1-3.

Notes of an address in Edinburgh by F. B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth Vol. 15, 1923, page 127.)

It is a very sobering thought that for the carrying out of the purposes of God the work of the Spirit of God is as much an absolute necessity, in its own sphere, as is the atoning work of Christ. We certainly cannot do without Christ's finished work, nor can we do without the, at present, unfinished work of the Spirit of God. In the verses we have just read in 2 Corinthians, we find that there is a writing that is being inscribed in our hearts by the Spirit of the Living God. There is, of course, a great continuous work of our Lord Jesus Christ, a work which He is carrying on to-day, as it says in Matthew 16: "I will build My church," and this work He undertakes as the Son of the Living God. We rightly lay a good deal of stress upon that; He is the One that comes forth in the energy of life, and then it is He begins the work. He says "I will build My Church," since when He spoke that work was still in the future. Beyond death, in resurrection, He commenced that mighty work as the Son of the living God, and then there is the Spirit of the Living God and that Spirit is at work and, thank God, has wrought in our hearts — I trust we can say has wrought in the heart of each one of us here.

Now in connection with this, the verse in Exodus 32 is worthy of careful note, "The tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God," that is, it was Divine writing upon Divinely fashioned material. Now that always has to be the case. All must be of God. Our very hearts must be prepared by the Spirit of God. If there is to be any work at all of a permanent sort it must be His work.

If you turn to Ezekiel 36 verse 26, you will find that speaking of how He will presently gather Israel to their own land under the new covenant, God says, "A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh." The children of Israel, of whom we read so much in the Old Testament, were, as to their hearts, terribly like the stone on which the law was written. There was something very appropriate in the law being written on tables of stone, for though you can smash tables of stone, you cannot stretch them or twist them as though they were rubber. The law was written upon tables of stone and was as inflexible as the substance on which it was written. Alas! Israel proved itself to have a heart of stone. The material was not there upon which anything could be written, and so in this book of Ezekiel the Lord as it were says, "I am going to recreate Israel, I am going to work by My Spirit so that they shall be capable of receiving what I am going to write in a coming day." Consequently He is going to have some new material on which to write.

You find again the same two things in Corinthians: first you must have the material, and secondly you must have the writing done by the very Spirit of God Himself. So we find the Apostle saying in verse 3, "not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." The Spirit of God has been at work in new birth, and there is in you a capacity to receive and retain the writing that He is about to write. Let me give you a very simple illustration. In my younger days I learned a lesson or two in connection with photography. You are going to take a photograph, and get all ready as you think for a good picture: the plate with its sensitized surface has been put in, as you suppose, and the exposure is made. Now, then, you go into the dark room, but what a disappointment! You pore over the developing dish watching the result. Alas! you have got hold of a simple piece of clear glass instead of the proper sensitized plate, and consequently there is no result whatever. You had a first-rate lens, a good camera, the subject was calculated to make a pretty picture, and the light was perfect, but there was no proper material on which the light would write. There was not that which was capable of receiving the impression. The word photograph is derived from two Greek words, and means "writing by light."

God lets His light shine upon our hearts that He may write His writing, but you must have the right material upon which to do it, and unless the Spirit of God has been at work within you producing that "inward man" which is of Himself, there is not the "fleshy table of the heart" on which Christ can be written; you are like the clear sheet of glass. When the Spirit of God has wrought, then indeed there is a capacity for receiving the shining of the light, and that Christ may be written upon us. He is the One upon whom the light concentrates. He is the light.

Remember, the fact that you have received the grace of God is no credit to you; were it not for the gracious work of the Spirit of God your eyes would never have been opened; but now it is the work of the Spirit of God to write Christ upon your heart. That is the point of this passage here. Christ is to be written upon you. The world cast Him out. God says, I will write Him upon the fleshy tables of the hearts of My people. Alas, alas! how often the excellent inscription is blurred and indistinct with us.

I learned another lesson as to photography, when I was a boy, from a certain old gentleman. He took me into his dark room one day, and I watched with great interest as he was developing a photograph: very quickly the dark parts began to appear, but a few moments later everything became quite indistinguishable and we could not make it out at all, so we put it into a fixing bath and then held it up to the light. It was a picture indeed, but of a most confused sort. Heads appeared in all sorts of unexpected places; people and trees were mixed up in very awkward positions. What was the matter? "Ah!" he said, "I have taken two pictures on one plate!" It was a mix up, I can assure you. That is just like a great many Christians. They have been exposed to the clear shining of Christ; they have had the Word of God acting upon them, and then they go and very deliberately expose themselves to the world with its false light and seductive influences, and a strange mix up there is, like that plate which I remember so well.

Let us keep much in the light of Christ, for the work of the Spirit of God is to write Christ upon our hearts, so that consequently He may be seen in us and in all our ways. We need, therefore, to think much and often of Christ whilst not forgetting the work of the Spirit of God; that work which He carries on in our hearts. So we come to the last verse of this chapter in 2 Corinthians. You have Christ in glory, not a transient glory that shone in Moses' face, in connection with law and the Old covenant, the system of demand, but the abiding glory connected with grace and the New covenant, God's grand system of supply. Did you notice in that passage in Ezekiel, how God says, "I will," "I will"? It is God speaking of what He will do of Himself and for Himself. It is connected with a New covenant; not now God demanding of men what they ought to be for Him, but God saying what He will do for men Himself, and for His own glory.

According to the last verse of our chapter, we are, thank God, brought into the light of this glory. We look up by faith to that glory which tells of all that God is, of all that God is in Christ on our behalf. There is no veil over that glory as once was over the face of Moses. There is a transforming effect produced upon us, and thus is Christ written more deeply upon our hearts, that His likeness may be reproduced even in such as ourselves.

This is one of the great needs of the hour. It may be that we preach fairly clearly, but oh I that there may be a little more of this, a little more of the clear shining forth of the character of Christ written upon our hearts. Do you ever meet a Christian who strikes you at once as being Christ-like? It has a more powerful effect upon you than a good many eloquent sermons. That is the work of the Spirit of God. May we know more of Christ, and of this work of the Spirit, that we may be more like Christ.

The Work of the Lord in the World

The Work of the Lord in the World.

Plan — Process — Power.

Acts 1: 6-8

Frank B. Hole.

(Extracted from Scripture Truth, 1913, Vol. 5, page 56.)

When these words were spoken the disciples stood upon the threshold of a new dispensation. Great events, the death and resurrection of Christ, had just taken place, and one great event, the coming of the Spirit, was impending. The old order of things was evidently breaking up and ready to vanish away. The new order was rising above the horizon into view. Thus between two dispensations the disciples stood.

Under such circumstances it was only natural that they should wonder what character the new dispensation was to bear, and that they should raise a question as to the divine plan for the period on which they were about to enter.

The question which they addressed to their risen Lord was, however shaped by two considerations:

Firstly, they were still largely swayed in their minds by their national aspirations, which made ISRAEL, its future and glory, the paramount idea; and secondly, they wished for something more definite, more satisfying to natural curiosity than promises of a general nature. Could not a definite time be stated when the apparently long-deferred predictions of the prophets should be fulfilled.

This being so, the Lord declines to gratify their curiosity. Time-setting is a matter which lies only in the Father's hands. He directs their attention rather to the process by which the divine programme for the dispensation — whatever it be — may be carried out through the instrumentality of the disciples, and also to the power which would enable them to carry out the process.

It would be, however, a mistake to infer from this that the divine plan is something not to be known by us. Already the Lord Jesus had hinted at it in parabolic language. He, the good Shepherd, had entered the Jewish fold, not to take up His abode there, but to call His own sheep by name, and lead them out, and into a new sphere of life and blessing. He added, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one flock, [R.V.] and one Shepherd" (John 10: 16). The whole of the early part of this chapter must be carefully read if the points of the Lord's words are to be seized. It will then be plainly seen that He indicated the divine plan to be the gathering of Jews by believing out of their Judaism, and of Gentiles by believing out of their heathenism, and forming them into one company around one centre — HIMSELF.

We find also that on an occasion subsequent to the Lord's ascension when the Holy Spirit had been given the same fact was plainly declared by the apostles, showing that they now fully realized the nature of the divine plan. When the first great conference was held at Jerusalem we find James saying, "Simeon [i.e. Peter] hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name" (Acts 15: 14), And he proceeded to show that this conception of the divine plan was in full harmony with the Old Testament Scriptures. From John 10 we have already seen it to be in harmony with the teachings of our Lord.

The divine plan for this dispensation may then be stated in few words. God is sending forth the gospel amongst all nations, to gather out of all a people for the name of Christ, i.e. "the church."

But what about the process by which this end is to be reached? This is simplicity itself. Amongst all nations, said the Lord, "ye shall be witnesses unto Me." No elaborate arrangements were made. No cumbrous machinery was instituted. Christ and all that He stands for is to be the subject of testimony, and every disciple according to his or her measure is to be a witness-bearer. In thus way the plan will be put into execution.

But if so large a programme is to be accomplished by so simple a method, there must be, one would suppose, a great power behind the method. This is precisely what we find. "Ye shall receive power," said the Lord, "after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." In the gift of the Holy Spirit lay their power, and nowhere else. He would endow them with the necessary ability to bear the witness, and would also make the witness effectual in gathering out from the nations a people for Christ's name.

The whole of the Acts of the Apostles may be read as a commentary upon, or illustration of, these words. We find recorded many an act of the Holy Ghost through the apostles, but also acts of the same Spirit through men of much less note, though equally devoted to the Lord. Each servant, whether small or great, looked up to the same Lord for leadership and direction, and relied upon the same Spirit for power and effect, with the result that without human organization or arrangement the men for every enterprise or emergency were to hand as needed, and the work proceeded with signal and supernatural success.

Do we see anything approaching this to-day? Only, it is to be feared, in comparatively rare instances. Why is this? Very largely because we —  present-day disciples — are guilty of misunderstanding the divine plan, or departing from the divine process, or ignoring the divine power; or it may be we are guilty of all three things together.

* * * *

In current missionary literature no phrase is much more common than "the conquest of the world for Christ!" and yet no such phrase is found in Scripture. The kingdoms, of this world are indeed going to become "the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ" (Rev. 11: 15); but this as the result of woes and judgments, and not of the preaching of the gospel. There is a great difference between subduing the world to Christ and gathering people out of the world for Christ. The divine plan must be one or the other. It . cannot embrace both at the same time.

It may be wondered perhaps whether any misunderstanding on this point is of any great moment. Some might urge that it is not, and that if a Christian be real and earnest in propagating the true gospel, his view on this matter is of little account. We venture, on the contrary, to affirm that it will have a serious effect, if upon nobody else, upon himself.

It will alter his whole standpoint in relation to the world, and all through the history of Christianity the most critical point in Satan's attacks upon the church and- individual believers has been just here.

"Now is the judgment of this world" were the Saviour's words anticipating the cross (John 12: 31). The world as a system is a condemned thing. Jews and Gentiles alike were implicated in the rejection of God's Son. Alike they have lost any kind of status they ever had before God. When three thousand Jews became anxious inquirers, Peter said nothing as to conquering the Jewish nation for Christ; he exhorted them in the contrary direction saying, "Save yourselves FROM this untoward generation" (Acts 2: 40).

The plain fact is that faithful adherence to the divine plan keeps the disciple of the Lord himself from the world in separation according to the spirit of the Lord's prayer for him in John 17: 16-19, and it leads to the converts that God may give him as the fruit of his labours being delivered from the world also; whereas "the conquering of the world for Christ" must mean the bringing of Christian light and blessing to subdue and adorn the world, leaving both worker and convert with their world-links uncut.

In this we see a deep-laid plot of Satan, for just as the one essential for charging a wire with electric power is that the wire be insulated from the earth, so one great requisite for spiritual power is that the saint who is to be the vehicle of that power be kept separate from the world.

There is also a tendency with many advocates of this faulty view to still further deflect from the divine plan and substitute "the Christianization of the world" for "the conversion of the world." The latter is, to every unprejudiced onlooker, a remote contingency; growing more remote each year as the rate of increase of converts falls far below the rate of natural increase of population all over the world. What then? Shall we call a halt, and reinvestigate our theory to see if, after all, it does accord with God's word? Alas! in many cases No. The theory is broadened out and adapted to suit these unpleasant facts by the substitution of Christianizing for converting.

Let us make no mistake. At the root of the defection and weakness deplored by all earnest believers in the lands which for long have been looked upon as "the home base of foreign missions," lies the increasing way in which the genuine, old-fashioned God-made converts are being overborne by the incubus of the great mass of merely Christianized professors. Shall we labour to produce the same deplorable conditions in new fields? May God forbid it!

There is but one remedy. Back —  back with renewed fidelity and subjection — to the original plan of God for this dispensation.

It is not easy for any of us to be simple and pursue unswervingly the line of service to which the Lord has called us, looking to Him for the direction and leading which we need. Yet such is the disciple's path as Scripture shows it, both by precept (Acts 20: 32; Rom. 14: 4; 2 Tim. 2: 15) and also example (Acts 8. 26; 11: 19-21; 16. 6-9).

For the Christianizing or converting of the world much may be needed in the way of arrangement. For the taking out of the nations a people for Christ's name, the divine process indicated, though most simple, is most efficacious. Souls are drawn out of the world to Christ by the faithful presentation of Christ Himself in the way of testimony. Granted that such faithful witness unto Christ is maintained, it is only further necessary that immediate and personal dependence upon Christ as Leader and Lord be found with each servant for the service to achieve its object.

From this simple acknowledgment of the leadership of the Lord Jesus we are very apt to stray. Read such words as these:

"A sound missionary strategy is essential if the missions . . . are to accomplish the best results. Small, independent missions, working without a statesmanlike plan, and without adequate knowledge of the field, should be discouraged."

"In such a difficult field only societies possessing a wide experience are able to meet the situation."

"How many missionaries are necessary to evangelise the country in our generation? The answer to this question has been given by the . . . conference . . . The question was considered scientifically. They made this calculation that one missionary for every 25,000 would be necessary."

These sentences were penned by men whom we have every reason to consider earnest Christians. The sentiments they express would doubtless commend themselves to most as being framed upon sound business lines, and being marked by eminent common sense. Yet they plainly reveal a view of the Lord's work out of harmony with that of Scripture.

What has the servant of Christ, be he a first-century apostle or a twentieth-century believer, to do with "sound strategy," "statesmanlike plans," or "scientific calculations"? We venture to say, Nothing — absolutely nothing!

The apostles returned to Jerusalem with those words ringing in their ears, "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." How did they set about it? Did they appoint a committee to gain "adequate knowledge of the field" of operations, so that "scientific calculations" might be made, and "sound strategy" and "statesmanlike plans" decided upon? No, they simply betook themselves to their knees in the spirit of little children, and when they found themselves endued with power from on high they at once commenced their witness to Christ, boldly utilising each opening for testimony as it presented itself to them. Though they had been called by the Lord to positions of authority in the church of God, analogous to the position of an army officer when compared with a common soldier, yet they recognized that it was not theirs to plan the campaign, but to do what they were told. They had supreme confidence in their great Commander; His "adequate knowledge," His "strategy," His "plans" they accepted as sufficient; and they were content to proceed under His direction whether directly or providentially conveyed to them.

The Acts of the Apostles, supplemented by occasional glimpses of Paul's ministry, afforded by his epistles, show us with what astonishing success the great "Prince [or Leader] and Saviour" (Acts 5: 31) conducted His campaign from His seat in the heavens. Within thirty years the gospel had been fully preached "from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum," and that through the instrumentality of one man, the apostle Paul, aided by a few helpers; and if any failure is apparent in the story, it was when that same eminent servant of God in well-meaning zeal for His own nation, insisted upon forming his own "statesmanlike plan" of going up to Jerusalem, feeling that he indeed of all people had an "adequate knowledge" of that field. From that point his liberty was curtailed, and he went a prisoner to Rome.

In Acts 11: 19-21 we read how a few men of no particular note — their names are not even mentioned —  travelled from Jerusalem into the region of Antioch. Had they lived in the twentieth century they would have been described, we fear, as a small, independent mission, "working without a statesmanlike plan, and without adequate knowledge of the field," and as such, according to the authority quoted, they should have been discouraged. Their great Master, the Lord Jesus, however, thought otherwise. His hand was with them and there were wonderful results leading to the formation of one of the greatest churches of primitive times.

But though these men of Cyprus and Cyrene worked in independence of even the apostles, they were evidently thoroughly in dependence upon God. They did not concern themselves about "strategy," since, far from being commanders, they were only common soldiers. Neither did they form plans, statesmanlike or otherwise, and expect God to fall in with their arrangements. They rather sought to discover God's plans, and to exercise that humility of mind which would enable them to fit in to His arrangements. Between these two lines of conduct there is all the difference in the world.

At that moment, Stephen having been martyred, God was definitely passing by the perverse Jewish nation, and sending the gospel to the Gentiles, as witnessed in the case of Cornelius (Acts 10). These men, acting in concert with this divine move, "spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus." They did not indulge in sentimental talk about "Jesus," as do many nowadays; they preached Jesus as LORD. "The hand of the LORD was with them." In result "a great number believed and turned to the LORD."

These humble individuals, belonging to no missionary society and without any of these supposed requirements, did indeed "accomplish the best results." They won many converts, and those converts were attached not merely to the preachers but to the LORD.

* * * *

Probably all Christians would agree that the Holy Spirit of God is the power for Christian service but let us inquire as to the way in which He exercises His power. Does He come to help us in our projects for the Lord, or does He condescend to use us as instruments in carrying out the Lord's own projects? In other words, Do we wield Him, or does He wield us?

The former idea obviously fits in with the ideas which we have ventured to challenge in the preceding section. But then — mark it well! — if, having founded large and influential societies and formed statesmanlike plans, and having learned how to bend and use the Spirit to our arrangements, we conduct a successful campaign, how all will redound to the credit and glory of — OURSELVES!

If, on the other hand, any servant of Christ is content to keep in his own little place, to seek in communion with the Lord to recognize His plans, and to be thoroughly subject to and usable by His Spirit, then the success which certainly will follow — though not perhaps in quite the way of our thinking — will redound to the glory of God!

When, having led Israel over Jordan, Joshua saw the Man with drawn sword in His hand, he assumed that He appeared to act as . helper either for Israel or for Israel's enemies. The mysterious Stranger corrected his thoughts. He had come, not as helper, but as Leader. "And He said, Nay; but as Captain of the host of the Lord am I now come" (Joshua 5: 14). The Spirit's place today amidst the hosts of the Lord is analogous to this.

Do we really believe in the presence and power of the Spirit of God? One wonders! Read, for instance, these extracts:

"The most urgent need . . . is financial support. Without it, no matter what doors are open, no matter what suitable candidates are offering, no matter how loud and urgent the call from those who are perishing in the darkness, we are helpless."

"Nothing is of greater importance than to learn how to loose, by persistent, mighty, aggressive prayer, the money power of the world. Satan knows that if he can only hold the gold in his grip, all such work as we are interested in will languish, and all new victories for our King will become impossible."

"There is nothing to hinder us but finance."

Are these things really so? The Spirit of God has come to earth as THE SERVANT of God s purposes (see Luke 14: 17). He it is who is compelling men to come in to the gospel feast. Will HIS operations come to a standstill if Satan succeeds in engineering a "corner" in gold?

In the apostolic days there was plenty of power, but it most emphatically was not money power. Peter had to say directly after the great triumph of Pentecost, "Silver and gold have I none" (Acts 3: 6). Paul, reviewing much of his life, had to speak of "hunger and thirst," of "cold and nakedness" (2 Cor. 11: 27).

To give of one's worldly goods or money to the work of the Lord is a great privilege from which but few Christians are so poor as to be altogether debarred. Would to God that we were all far more alive to our responsibility as well as privilege in this matter, but let us not unduly magnify the money question. It really is one of the least important.

The fact is that, speaking generally, the hindrances to God's work lie in nearly every quarter except finance. British missionary and evangelistic societies alone handle a million or two sterling every year, and yet astonishingly little is done in the way of results for all this expenditure. Why? Our diagnosis would be:

1. The inroads caused by false doctrine in the professing church at home. These inroads are so great in all directions as to almost amount to apostasy.

2. The invasion of the church by the world, leading to the adoption of worldly methods in the work of the Lord as well as sapping away its spiritual power. The Nazariteship of the church has been lost, hence its former Samson-like power has departed.

3 The state of division and subdivision into which the church has been plunged as the result of the foregoing.

These are the things which lead to "grieving" or "quenching" the Spirit and the decay of power.

If a fourth reason might be added to the above, it would be the large measure in which the Spirit of God Himself is ignored or relegated to the background in this matter. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul reviews and explains his ministry, and seven times over does he lay stress upon the Spirit of God. The brain-power of the "natural man" he rules completely out of court (ver. 9). The natural "excellency of speech" or "wisdom" of a spiritual man like himself he discards (ver. 1). Whilst stirring up the liberality of the saints of God in a later chapter, here he does not even mention money, certainly not the money of the world.

The servant of God runs to the world and begs to be allowed to share in its money-power! A sorrowful spectacle truly! Well might the world scornfully reply, "What! Has not your God the skill and foresight which our captains of commerce possess? Can He not provide for His own work? Or is it that you have run astray from His leadings, and therefore, failing support from Him, you turn to us?"

Let us, brethren, ask ourselves these questions, and allow their force to come home to our souls. Then by His grace we may avoid such mistakes, and with them the humiliation of being asked such questions by the world.

* * * *

Does that which has been stated carry your conscience with it, commending itself as being in accord with the Scriptures of truth? Then see that it fails not of practical result.

Do not be beguiled into treating it as merely religious idealism, something lovely in theory, but unworkable in practice.

Such were the divine instructions and such was primitive Christian practice. "Back to the divine plan, the divine process and the divine power," should be our watchword. Let us not wait for others to adopt it. That is not our responsibility. It is our responsibility to adopt it for ourselves.

Let us ask grace from God so to do.

The World

What is the meaning of “the world” which the disciples of Christ are not of?

That the disciple of Christ is in the world but not of it is a matter of common remark. John 17: 11-16 are verses which supply ample authority for the statement.

But what is the world which we are in but not of?

We are certainly in the world — not only on the earth but in the great world system, i.e. the whole society and structure of things, which has grown up amongst fallen men as a result of sin, and of which Satan is the god and prince. This society carries its own influences, its atmosphere, so to speak, and where civilization has held sway it has taken on an attractive outward appearance; it wears an elegant mask. In all this we are, in a physical sense.

But of it, in a moral and spiritual sense we are not. Born again, redeemed, possessing life and the Spirit, we spring from a new and incorruptible source (1 Peter 1: 23), we stand in new and heavenly relationship (Eph. 2: 13-19). We can discern the true character of the world system and know it to be but the flimsy creation of man’s will, showing, if analysed, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” as its sole ingredients (see 1 John 2: 15-17).

The believer thus is entitled to regard himself as sent into the world by the Lord after His own example, his business therefore being to represent his Master as He represented the Father (see John 17: 18).

A word of caution is needed. There are many matters of daily life which are not of the world system, inasmuch as they have their origin not in man’s will but God’s appointment. Such, for instance, are the institution of work, marriage, authority, vested in “powers that be,” etc. Such matters must not be confounded with the world system.

F.B. Hole

S.T. 1919