Table of Contents

Faith and Works

Peace and Deliverance

Safety and Sanctification

Law and Grace

"Sin" and "Sins."

The New Nature and the Old

"Blood" and "Water."

Grace and Discipleship

Election and Free Grace

Israel and the Church

Worship and Service

The Rapture and the Appearing

FBHOLE - Outlines of Truth

F. B. Hole

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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)

Faith and Works

Outlines of Truth.

F. B. Hole.

Contents.

FAITH AND WORKS

PEACE AND DELIVERANCE

SAFETY AND SANCTIFICATION

LAW AND GRACE

"SIN" AND "SINS"

THE NEW NATURE AND THE OLD

"BLOOD" AND "WATER"

GRACE AND DISCIPLESHIP

ELECTION AND FREE GRACE

ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH

WORSHIP AND SERVICE

THE RAPTURE AND THE APPEARING

Faith and Works.

It has been commonly supposed that between faith and works a deadly feud exists; so much so that they are utterly irreconcilable. This is far from being true. Most mistaken ideas have, however, a grain of truth embedded in them somewhere, and this one is no exception to the rule. It is perfectly true that the popular doctrine of salvation by human merit, in the shape of works of some kind or other, is totally opposed to and inconsistent with the Bible truth of justification by faith. Yet the Scriptures speak of good works? but they are of another order altogether and are as much in harmony with faith, and as intimately connected with it as the fruit and leaves of a tree with the sap which flows through trunk and branches.

If we open our Bibles at Colossians 1: 21, we find the expression "wicked works." These there is no need to define. They are the hideous outcome of the fallen and depraved nature of the children of Adam. The bad fruit of a bad tree.

In Hebrews 9: 14, we get the words "dead works." These are works done with the object of obtaining life and blessing, such as the diligent performance of religious duties and observances. They are man's "righteousnesses," which are only as "filthy rags" in God's sight (Isaiah 64: 6) - the product of the bad tree when cultivated to the utmost. Bad fruit after all, for no amount of skill can produce grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles.

In Titus 2: 7, 9 we have "good works" spoken of, and strongly enforced upon Christians. They are the fruit of that new life and nature of which the Christian partakes, which has its vitality in faith, and of which the Spirit of God is the power. They are the good fruit which grows upon the good tree.

In Romans 3, Romans 4, and Romans 5, justification before God is seen to be solely on the principle of faith. One verse will be sufficient proof.

"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (Rom. 3: 28).

In the second chapter of James we have it laid down with equal clearness that justification - as a public thing in this world before men - is not only or mainly by faith but by works. One verse again will suffice to prove it.

"Ye see, then, how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only" (James 2: 24).

Study carefully the context of these two passages, and you will see a most striking proof of the harmony that exists between faith and works. Both Paul in Romans and James in his Epistle cite Abraham as the great Old Testament example which supports their contention. In the life of that remarkable man called out of God to become "the father of all them that believe" (Rom. 4: 11), we see faith as a living reality between his soul and God; when gazing into the starlit heavens he "believed God" - accepting as certain that which was humanly impossible - "and it was counted unto him for righteousness." We also see a great work of faith when years afterwards, in simple obedience, he went forth to Mount Moriah to sacrifice Isaac, in whom the promises reposed. He believed in God as a God who raises the dead. This public act proved it beyond dispute before men. It was the outward evidence of the inward faith.

The former we find in Genesis 15, and to this Paul appeals in Romans 4. The latter is recorded in Genesis 22, and to it James refers.

Like the fable which tells of two men, one inside a hollow ball, the other outside - one declaring it to be concave, the other insisting upon its being convex - Paul gives us the inside view, and cries "by faith." James viewing things externally, says "by works" - only, unlike the fable, in so saying, they do not disagree over it.

But now for some questions.

What is Faith?

Elaborate definitions might be given, but they would probably be less satisfactory than the answer made by a little child to this very question. She simply replied, "Believing what God says, because God says it."

Faith is like a window. It receives the light. The sunlight is there. It shines upon the wall outside, but in at the window; nothing is added to it, but its rays illumine the otherwise darkened room. To "believe God" like Abraham lets Divine light come streaming into the soul.

But faith is more than this. It means not only to have light, but to wholly repose on the One whom the light reveals to us.

The late Dr. Paton of the New Hebrides used to tell that when translating the Scriptures into the tongue of the islanders he failed for some time to find an appropriate word for "trusting" or "believing."

One day, however, he called an intelligent Christian native, and seating himself on a chair he said, "What am I doing?"

"Master, you are resting," said the woman.

The doctor had heard that word before; it was not what he wanted, but a bright idea struck him.

He lifted both feet off the ground, and placing them under him so that they rested on the rail between the front legs of the chair, he said, "Now what am I doing?"

"Oh, master!" said the woman, "you are resting wholly, you are trusting," using a word quite new to the doctor's ears. That was the word he wanted!

Faith is reposing wholly upon Christ - with both feet off the ground.

What are we to understand by that verse which says that a believer's faith is counted for righteousness? (Rom. 4: 5)

We must not read those words with a commercial idea in our minds, as though they meant that we come to God bringing so much faith for which we receive in exchange so much righteousness, just as a shopkeeper across his counter exchanges goods for cash.

Nor must we entertain a chemical idea, as though they meant that we bring our faith that it may be transmuted into righteousness, after the fashion of the fabled philosopher's stone that turns everything it touches into gold!

No! Abraham is the great example of what is meant (verse 3). He - and we - are accounted or held by God as righteous in view of faith. That is its simple meaning. Faith brings in all the justifying merits of the blood of Christ; these are the great basis of that righteousness; and further, it may safely be said that the first right (or righteous) thing in anybody's life, and the beginning of a course which is right, is when he turns to God as a sinner, and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are verses which seem to connect works with salvation. Philippians 2: 12, for instance. How should we understand them?

Always strictly in relation to their context. Even if we had no context to refer to, we might be sure that "work out your own salvation" is not intended to clash with the truth of Ephesians 2: 8, 9, "For by grace are ye saved through faith . . . not of works lest any man should boast."

Turning, however, to the context we find that the Apostle's subject in Philippians 1 and 2 is the practical walk of the believer. Adversaries were abounding (Phil. 1: 28). Difficulties were thickening in the bosom of the Church (Phil. 2: 2-4). Paul himself, the watchful pastor, was removed far from them (Phil. 2: 12). In effect, he says, "Christ Jesus is your great Example. With fear and trembling, because conscious of your weakness with the flesh within, work out your own salvation from the various forms of evil which threaten you." And lest they should think of their own abilities for one moment he adds, "for it is God which worketh in you." By His Spirit He works in and we work out.

Might not the preaching of "only believe" without demanding good works lead to disastrous results?

Yes. To preach "only believe" in an indiscriminate way may lead to mischief. We shall not improve upon apostolic methods, so let us see what Paul did.

To men generally he testified, "Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20: 21).

When speaking to the anxious jailer of Philippi, in whose soul a work of repentance was already proceeding, he said only, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16: 31). There "only believe" was quite in place, and to have "demanded good works" would have been worse than vain. It is recorded, however, that within one short hour of conversion the jailer performed his first good work, the fruit and proof of his faith (see verse 33). He did it not in order to be saved, but as the result of the change that grace had wrought within.

Paul further tells us that he preached that men should "repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance" (Acts 26: 20). This is most needful. If a man professes repentance we may safely demand that the change shall become manifest in his daily life ere we fully accept his professions. But this has nothing to do with preaching good works as an auxiliary to our justification.

Not only have we "dead works" in Hebrews, but "dead faith" in James 2: 17. What is this latter?

It is human faith, mere head belief, and not the living faith that finds its spring in God. Demons share this faith, as the succeeding verses show. It appears superficially to be much like real faith, but on closer inspection it is seen to be spurious. It "hath not works." It is a fruitless tree, with nothing but leaves.

Scripture furnishes us with examples of this dead faith. Read John 2: 23-25 and compare therewith John 6: 66-71. In that scene, living faith is exemplified by Simon Peter; dead faith by the many disciples who left Jesus, whilst Judas Iscariot gives us a man with much profession and no faith at all!

Many professing Christians have little or nothing to show in the way of good works. What does it mean?

Who can really tell but God alone? Good works are not so much like the works inside the watch as the hands upon its face, which indicate the result of the activity within. Faith is the mainspring of the activity. It may be that such people are only professors, like a toy watch with hands only painted on its face, and no insides at all! Or it may be that something has gone wrong with the works within; they are true Christians, but sunk into a low and carnal condition like the man of whom Peter speaks, who is " blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins" (2 Peter 1: 9).

At any rate, the principle holds good that "the tree is known. by his fruit" (Matt. 12: 33). Remembering also that "the Christian is the world's Bible," we can well understand the stress laid on the importance of good works in Scripture (see Ephesians 2: 10; 1 Peter 2: 9-12; and the whole of Titus 2).

How will the believer's works on earth affect his place in heaven?

Not at all. A place in heaven is his solely on the ground of the work of Christ. The Father "hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col. 1: 12). With that our works have nothing to do. All is of grace. There is only one title to a place in heaven, and that every true Christian has.

Our works will, however, greatly affect our place in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, as shown in the well-known parables of the "talents" (Matt. 25) and the "pounds" (Luke 19). The same thing is clearly taught in 2 Peter 1: 5-11, where, after urging the Christians to whom he wrote to abound in every spiritual grace and work, he says, "For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into" - heaven? No. "The everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

The character of our entrance into that does depend upon our works.

Peace and Deliverance

Peace and Deliverance.

F. B. Hole

Let us begin by comparing two scriptures which will bring our subject fairly before us. The first is Romans 5: 1. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The second, Romans 7: 24, 25.

"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? [margin]. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Peace with God, and deliverance from sin and the flesh within, are two great blessings, which the Gospel of God brings to us all. They go hand in hand, yet they are distinct! It is well for us to understand the difference between them, as also the way in which each is made our own. The cross of Christ of course is the great basis of both.

We may notice in the first place that the mischievous results of sin are seen in two directions, externally and internally.

Externally sin has severed the once happy link that united man, as an intelligent creature, to his Creator. Satan succeeded at the outset in using it to cut the line of communication between man and his true base of operations - God Himself, and ever since the human race has been in the position of the little city of which Solomon speaks. The great king has come against it, besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it (Ecc. 9: 14).

Sin has thus brought in distance, estrangement, and enmity on man's side against God, and all his relations Godward are in the direst confusion.

Internally, the wreck is no less complete. The sources of life have been poisoned; the mainspring of man's will and affection has broken. Chaos reigns supreme in the mind and heart of every sinner. Instead of his being joyous and free, moving with intelligent subjection in the sunlight of God's favour, he is in bondage. Instead of being master of himself, sin is his master. Instead of his spirit being in control of mind and body, it has become like a captain of a vessel, overpowered and battened down beneath hatches, at the mercy of a whole crew of evil passions and lusts.

Not many years ago the eyes of Europe, and indeed of the world, were specially drawn towards Russia. No nation presented just then a more pitiable spectacle. She was involved externally in a disastrous war, and internally in ruinous conflict, upheavals, and anarchy, until it looked as if her very existence as a nation was threatened. Her state at that time not inaptly illustrates our present theme.

Read Romans 1 to 3, and you will find the awful state portrayed, into which sin has plunged man as regards his relations with God. Then the divine remedy in the death and resurrection of Christ is set forth, and the result of this is for faith, "peace with God."

Then read Romans 7. What a revelation of internal anarchy and confusion! Into what a tangle of conflicting desires, emotions, and struggles has not sin plunged us! But out of all this we may emerge, thanks to the cross of Christ and the Spirit's power (Romans 8: 1-4), and the result here is "deliverance from the body of this death."

Peace, then, is "with God," the result of having all our relations with Him placed on a righteous and satisfactory footing through the work of Christ.

Deliverance is "from this body of death," i.e., from this putrid corpse of corruption, which we each of us carry about within ourselves, the result of sin in the flesh.

There is, then, a clear distinction between these two great blessings, and yet both are declared to be "through Jesus Christ our Lord." His cross is the basis of both. It was at one and the same time the complete answer to all our guilt, so that we who believe are justified by God Himself (Rom. 3: 25, 26), and also the full condemnation of all that we were in ourselves as self-destroyed children of Adam (Rom. 6: 6; Rom. 8: 3), so that deliverance might reach us in the power of the risen Christ.

But though the basis of both is evidently the same, there is a difference between the ways in which they are received by us.

Peace, though it is preceded always by the anxiety, which is produced by having the eyes opened to one's dangerous position in regard to God, is distinctly said to be by faith (Rom. 5: 1). Many of us remember - do we not? - when out of the anxious depths our eyes were suddenly opened to gaze in faith on the once crucified, but now risen, Saviour. We saw every question settled, every obstacle removed, every cloud once between us and God rolled away; we could truthfully sing:

"From sinking sand He lifted me;

With tender hand He lifted me;

From shades of night to plains of light,

Oh, praise His Name, He lifted me!"

In one word the result was "Peace."

Deliverance, on the other hand, though it cannot be apart from faith, is largely linked up with experience. We wade through the mire of Romans 7 to reach the rock which rises before us at the end of the chapter.

We learn useful, but painful, lessons of "no good in the flesh" (v. 18), "no power in our best desires" (v. 23), even when those desires are the result of a new nature within, called here "the law of my mind," "the inward man." Then it is that, heartsick of sin and self, the weary soul looks for an outside deliverer, and finds one in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That deliverance is found in the knowledge of the meaning of Christ's cross as the condemnation of sin in the flesh, and in the power of the Spirit of God, who makes Christ so truly "a living bright Reality," that under His warm influence order begins to appear out of chaos, and victory is obtained over sin.

Is it possible to have one's sins forgiven and yet not have peace?

Upon what, then, does forgiveness depend? Evidently upon simple faith in Christ. "Whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins" is what Scripture says (Acts 10: 43).

Upon what does peace depend? Upon faith in the Gospel of God, which sets before us a Saviour "who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4: 25).

The question then resolves itself into: "Is it possible to simply believe in Christ, and wholly trust in Him as a poor sinner, without believing with equal simplicity the Gospel message, which sets before us not only Himself, but His work and its results?"

The answer must be, Alas! yes. All too many pay as much, if not more, attention to their feelings than to the unchanging Gospel, and therefore have not peace, though they fully trust in Christ.

Although this is so, such a state of things is not what God intends, nor what Scripture contemplates. It is the fruit of defective teaching, or the product of unbelief.

Must peace and deliverance always be received together? or may they be possesses at different times?

No rule is laid down in Scripture, though they are evidently treated in quite distinct fashion in the Epistle to the Romans. "Peace" is dealt with fully, Romans 1 to 5, before "deliverance" is dealt with, Romans 6 to 8.

In the actual history of Christians, it would seem that most frequently the question of sins, and how to meet God, entirely fills the vision till peace is known, and afterwards the Spirit of God raises the question of sin, and the flesh, and victory over both.

Yet there are not a few who would testify that in their cases both questions were involved in their anxieties and exercises, and it seemed as if light on both dawned together. The writer would testify that in his case he never had settled peace until light began to break on the subject of deliverance.

Can it be possible for a person to be continually overcome by sin, as detailed in Romans 7, and yet have peace with God?

Not exactly. Taking the chapter as it stands, one cannot but be struck with what the speaker does not mention. In all the verses from 7 to 24, not one allusion does he make to the redemption work of Christ, not one word is uttered as to the Spirit of God. These painful exercises are evidently those of one who, though "born again," and therefore with a new nature, is in his conscience under the law, does not know redemption, and has not the gift of the indwelling Spirit. Hence he is "carnal," "sold under sin," and absolutely nothing is right.

Yet the believer, having peace with God, may have an experience of this order, but modified, since he does know redemption and possess the Spirit. Though not sold under sin, and he may be nearly always in the gloom of ignominious failure, though not without one single ray of light, as is pictured in the chapter.

If a really converted person gets such an experience must it not show that something is radically wrong?

Yes, indeed, but wrong with him, not with his Christianity. The pity is that so many do not seem to have the experience. There is something wrong with them, but they don't seem to feel it.

The fact is, to "get into Romans 7" - as some Christians term it - is a sign of spiritual progress rather than the reverse. It betokens a sensitive conscience, and a real desire to walk in the paths of holiness, and the lessons which are learnt during the experience, though painful, are salutary.

Just as no one gets peace without previously being in the throes of soul-anxiety, so no believer reaches that deliverance from sin and self, which issues in a robust type of Christianity, without such an experience as detailed in Romans 7.

What is the secret of getting this deliverance?

Simply looking away from self to Christ. Note the incessant repetition of "I" and "me" - particularly the former - in verses 7 to 24, and then in this last verse the sudden change. Sickened and hopeless, the speaker lifts his eyes off himself and seeks an outside deliverer. It is not, "How shall I deliver myself?" but "Who shall deliver me?"

Is deliverance a thing which, like peace, we get at a definite moment, and once for all?

No. Peace is the result of receiving God's testimony as to the finished work of Christ, and often comes like the lightning's flash. Deliverance, on the other hand, not only depends on the work of Christ for us, but on the work of the Spirit in us. That is not something completed in a moment once for all, but a gradual work, which has not only to be maintained, but increased.

There is, of course, a definite moment when the soul cries out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?" a moment when it begins to dawn upon us what it means to be "in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8: 1), and we first taste the sweetness of the liberty which is the result of coming under the control of "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (v. 2). That is the moment when deliverance begins, but it has to be maintained, and its measure should be increased so long as we are in this world.

Some believers have spent long years in vain struggles against the power of indwelling sin. What would you advise them to do?

Give it up; and look away to the great Deliverer! Lose yourself in the warm beams of His love and glory - that is deliverance indeed.

A well-known minister of the Gospel uses an allegory which aptly illustrates this. Its substance is as follows: -

"The drops of water on the surface of the ocean looked up at the fleecy clouds passing over the face of the sky, and ardently longed to leave the dull leaden depths and soar with ease in their company. So they determined to try.

"They called upon the wind to help them. It blew fiercely, and the frantic waves flung themselves in all their force against the rocks until it seemed as if the drops, now broken into fine spray, must reach to the clouds and stop there. But no! back at last they fell in fine showers upon the cold, dark waves. At last they sighed and said, 'It never will be.' The wind dropped and the storm was over.

"Then it was that the sun shone forth in its strength, the sea lay placid beneath its hot rays, and lo I almost ere they knew it, the drops were lifted by its mighty power, and without noise or effort they found themselves floating away as vapour into the blue sky."

Deliverance is even thus. Keep in the warm sunshine of the love of Christ to you, and soon you will be saying! "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7: 25).

Safety and Sanctification

Safety and Sanctification.

F. B. Hole.

When God called Israel out of Egypt, the first thing He did was to ensure their safety from judgment by sheltering them beneath the blood of the slain lamb. Next, to sanctify the firstborn who had been sheltered. Exodus 12 gives us details of the one, and Exodus 13 starts with the other. "Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn."

This is the Old Testament type, and in the New Testament safety and sanctification are again connected. In John 17, for instance the Lord Jesus declared the safety of His own. As to the pas/, He said, "Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept." As to the future, He prayed, "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me" (vv. 11 and 12). Immediately following this He prayed concerning their sanctification (vv. 17 and 19).

With these scriptures before us, we shall see that it is God's wish that the believer should be both safe and sanctified. Let us not, however, connect our safety with our growth in grace, neither let us so widely separate them as to make them a first and second blessing, with possibly years of experience rolling between. To understand the proper relation between safety and sanctification we need to know the scriptural meaning of the terms, and upon what each of them depends.

No one who reads these lines will have any difficulty as to what is meant by "safety." With "sanctification" it may be otherwise. Not many words in the Scriptures are more widely misunderstood.

To some sanctification means just sanctimoniousness. It really means nothing of the sort; nor does it even mean becoming very holy, save in a secondary sense. The primary meaning of sanctify is to set apart - to separate from base uses to the service and pleasure of God. For example: -

"Thou shalt anoint the altar . . . and sanctify the altar . . . thou shalt anoint the laver . . . and sanctify it" (Ex. 40: 10, 11).

"I [Jesus] sanctify Myself" (John 17: 19).

"Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" (1 Peter 3: 15).

In what sense can an object constructed of wood or metal be said to be sanctified? It cannot be made holy in the ordinary sense of that word. Inanimate objects have no qualities of mind or character. They can, however, be solemnly set apart for divine use. Moses did so set altar and laver apart, and they were thereby sanctified or made holy in the Scripture use of the term.

Again, how can we conceive of God Himself or the Lord Jesus as being sanctified, in whose presence the angels cover their faces crying, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts"? In this same sense alone the Lord Jesus has set Himself apart in heaven for our sakes, and we can set God Himself apart in our hearts, ever giving Him that place of supremacy and honour which is His by right.

So, too, when sanctification is connected with us believers, it has just this primary meaning. The above-quoted scripture, Exodus 13: 2, shows that sanctification is God claiming for Himself those whom He has sheltered by blood. We are thereby separated, or set apart, for the pleasure and service of God.

We must carefully note, however, that for us sanctification has two aspects. The first positional and absolute - an act of God with which we start our Christian career; the second practical and progressive - continuing and deepening through all our pathway upon earth.

Those scriptures, which speak of the believer as having been already sanctified, naturally fall under our first heading. For instance, Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his first epistle as unto "them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1: 2). And again, "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified. but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6: 11). These are striking sayings, for the Corinthian Christians were in many respects very blameworthy. They had not advanced far in the way of practical sanctification, yet the apostle does not hesitate to remind them that in the name of the Lord Jesus and by God's Spirit they had been sanctified as truly as they had been washed and justified. They had been set apart for God.

Again, in Hebrews 10 we read, "By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (v. 14). Who are these sanctified ones? Are they believers of special attainments in holiness? No. They are all Christians without distinction or class - set apart for God in virtue of the one sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But there are other scriptures where sanctification is presented as an object of attainment and desire. We read, "This is the will of God, even your sanctification" (1 Thess. 4: 3). "Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it" (Eph. 5: 25, 26). "If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master's use" (2 Tim. 2: 21).

In these scriptures, though sanctification still carries its root meaning of "setting apart," it is clearly viewed as something which is God's intention for His people; as something which Christ - not has done - but is doing for His church today; as some, thing which we are to individually seek, and which, instead of being already ours by God's gracious act, is to be ours if we respond to the divine instructions. In a word, it is sanctification of a practical and progressive sort.

Now let us inquire, upon what do these things depend? Safely, in Scripture, ever stands related to the infinite worth and value of the atoning work of Christ, and to His power to keep. Our attainments in practical holiness after conversion, important as they are in their place, have nothing to say to it. On that fateful night in Egypt no firstborn son would have been spared if the head of the household had tacked a paper to the lintel of the door, narrating his boy's excellencies of character or his progress in holy behaviour. The safety of every spared firstborn depended solely upon the sprinkled blood and on nothing else. So it is for us. Our safety, our forgiveness and justification hang entirely upon the precious blood of Christ. We are forgiven "through His name" (Acts 10: 43), we are justified "by His blood" (Rom. 5: 9).

But upon what does sanctification depend? In its positional aspect it is founded on the work of Christ. By His one offering we are sanctified. It also stands connected with the Holy Spirit. We are "elect . . . through sanctification of the Spirit" (1 Peter 1: 2). By the Spirit we are born again, and finally, in believing the truth, we are sealed by that same Spirit. In virtue of all this, we are set apart for God.

In its practical and progressive aspect sanctification depends upon the truth. "Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth" (John 17: 17). Hence the sanctifying of Ephesians 5: 26 is "by the Word." This being so, it is easy to see that diligence, and purpose of heart in departing from iniquity, are very necessary in this connection. If we "walk in the Spirit" (Gal. 6: 16) we do not fulfil the wishes of the flesh. Christ is before us as our Object, and we are brought under the influence of the truth of the Word, and thereby practically set apart for God in mind and affections. This practical sanctification goes on through all our pilgrim days.

If we disconnect safety and sanctification, will not people think they may be saved and yet live as they like?

We will not disconnect them; far from it. Scripture makes it abundantly plain that those whom God shelters from judgment, He separates unto Himself. That one should be sheltered and yet left in the world under the power of sin, is simply unthinkable to the Christian mind. The unregenerate alone would entertain such an idea.

But though we do not disconnect we do distinguish, for Scripture does so. Some there are who hopelessly confuse these two things. In their great desire to keep us humble and walking in the way that is right, they would have us believe that the degree of our attainments in practical sanctification determines the degree of our safety.

Is this so? Is our sanctification of such a doubtful character that we must be kept in perilous uncertainty lest we should shatter it? Let an analogy answer. Is it necessary to terrify little children in order to make them behave themselves? Is this method - sometimes practised by ignorant nursery-maids - the only way to reach that desirable end, or even the best way? Why then should we suppose that God treats His children on such lines? The truth is that all right conduct flows from the knowledge that we are sheltered, and from the right understanding of what we are separated to.

Does good progress in practical sanctification improve the believer's title to a place in heaven?

Not in the smallest degree, though without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Near the close of his strenuous life, marked by so high a degree of holy living and devoted service, the apostle Paul wrote: "to depart and to be with Christ; which is far better" (Phil. 1: 23). To a dying robber, just converted, but without many hours of holy living to his credit, Jesus said, "Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise" (Luke 23: 43)

Which of these two had the better prospects of heaven - that heaven which is summed up in the words "with Christ," "with Me"? Paul? Nay, their prospects were good alike, and as sure and firm as the finished work of Christ and the sure Word of God could make them.

Fitness for heaven is not something the believer works up to - he starts with it. We give thanks to the Father "who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col. 1: 12). HATH, mark you! It is not something He is doing, but something that He has done.

Good progress in practical sanctification does, however, improve our fitness for earth! We are thereby rendered much more able to take our proper place as witnesses and servants of Christ in this world.

When does this progressive or practical sanctification take place? Do we receive it by an act of faith?

It is impossible to name a certain day or hour and say, "Then I was sanctified in a practical sense." For then, how could it be progressive? Nor do we receive it by an act of faith. Faith, of course, there must be; faith in the fact that we are already set apart by God for Himself. And faith is not an act merely to which we attain by a kind of supreme effort. Faith truly acts, but it is itself an abiding and continuous thing. I believed. Yes, but I do believe. I believe today!

Taking Scripture as our guide we learn that the Truth sanctifies, and that God's Word is truth (John 17: 17). Further, that the Spirit of God sanctifies. He is the sanctifying power, inasmuch as He it is who guides us into all truth (John 16: 13). The truth presents CHRIST to us, it opens out to our souls His glory, and as by faith we behold Him we are changed into His image, from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3: 17, 18). That is progressive sanctification indeed!

Can you tell us when a Christian is entitled to speak of himself as sanctified?

Every true believer is sanctified. To each it can be said, "Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" ( 1 Cor. 1: 30). So that if truly converted and "in Christ Jesus," you may speak of yourself as sanctified with as much confidence as you would speak of yourself as redeemed.

If, however, your question refers to practical sanctification, the answer is - Never! Those in whom the largest measure of sanctification is found, who - in other words - are most Christ-like, are the last people in the world to say so. CHRIST, and not attainments, fills the vision of their souls. The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus their Lord (see Phil. 3: 8) is their pursuit as it was Paul's, and if they speak of themselves at all it is to say, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect" (Phil. 3: 12).

We read in Scripture about the believer being sanctified wholly. Would not such a believer be perfect and beyond the reach of temptation?

People, who do not observe the setting of scriptural expressions, sometimes suppose that to be sanctified wholly is to have the old nature completely eradicated. A glance at the passage will, however, help us to seize the meaning of these words. It runs thus: -

"Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very peace of God sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5: 22, 23).

The apostle Paul desired, in regard to each of his converts, that the whole man might be practically set apart for God. Each of the three parts that go to make up a man - spirit, soul, and body - was to be affected, and to such an extent that he not only kept separate from evil, but also from all appearance of it. Nothing less than this should be the object of our prayerful desire even now. But "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1: 8). It goes without saying that if the old nature be not eradicated, no believer can consider himself perfect or beyond the reach of temptation.

Why does the Bible lay such stress on this positional or absolute sanctification which all believers possess to begin with? Of what practical benefit is it to us?

It is of the greatest possible importance. The law may, indeed, set before us an ideal to which we are to strive to attain. God's way in grace is to show us what we ARE in His own sovereign choice, that we may practically be consistent with it.

Two boys are born on the self-same day: one is the son of a king, set apart from his birth to high estate and office; the other is the son of a pauper. Why is it that continually the young prince has it impressed upon him that he is the son of a king? Is there any practical benefit in it? Indeed there is. The two boys may often walk the same streets, but their practical life and behaviour are as different as can be. The prince is practically separated from many low and vulgar ways, because by birth he was absolutely set apart to kingly estate.

So it must ever be with us. Never can we be too often reminded that by the redemption work of Christ, by the Spirit's work and indwelling, we have been set apart for God. Nothing will prove more truly conducive to holy living.

Law and Grace

Law and Grace.

F. B. Hole.

There are two verses which shed such light upon this subject that we must quote them at once.

"The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1: 17).

"Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6: 14).

The first of these shows us the great dispensational change which took place at the coming of Christ. The second, the result of that change so far as the believer is concerned. Under the new regime he obtains freedom from the slavery of sin.

In one respect law and grace are alike. Both set before us a very exalted standard - though even in this the latter excels. In all other respects they are exact opposites.

At Mount Sinai the law of Moses was given (Ex. 19, 20). God - but very little known, because still hidden in thick darkness - then laid down explicitly His righteous and holy demands. If men obeyed they were blessed: if they disobeyed they came under the law's solemn curse (Gal. 3: 10). As a matter of fact the law was broken and the curse merited before there was time for the tables of stone to reach the people (Ex. 32). The succeeding chapter tells us how God dealt in mercy with them. Under law not tempered by mercy they must have instantly perished.

Grace, on the other hand, means that God having fully revealed Himself to us in His Son, all His righteous and holy demands have been met in Christ death and resurrection, so that blessing is available for all. To all who believe forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit are granted, so that there may be power to conform them to the standard - which under grace is nothing short of Christ Himself.

The very essence of law, then, is demand, that of grace is supply.

Under law God, so to speak, stands before us saying, "Give! render to Me your love and dutiful obedience." Under grace He stands with full hand outstretched, saying, "Take! receive of My love and saving power. "

Law says, "Do and live," grace says,  "Live and do."

Now we believers, as we have seen, are not under law, but under grace. Let us see how that has come to pass. Galatians 4: 4, 5 will tell us: -

"When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."

That which has made the change is in one word, redemption. But that involved the death of the Redeemer. He must needs be made a curse for us by dying on the tree, (Gal. 3: 13). Hence it is that the believer is entitled to regard himself as "dead to the law" (Rom. 7: 4). He died in the death of his Representative, the Lord Jesus Christ. The law did not die; on the contrary, never was its majesty so upheld as when Jesus died beneath its curse. Two things, however, did happen. First, the law being magnified and its curse borne, God suspends His wrath, and proclaims grace to all mankind. Second, the believer died to the law in the Person of his great Representative. He is, to use the Scripture language, "married to Another, even to Him who is raised from the dead" (Rom. 7: 4), i.e., He is now controlled by another Power, and that power is in a Person - the risen Son of God.

Connected with these two things are two great facts.

First, the law is not the ground of a sinner's justification. He is justified by grace, by the blood of Christ, by faith. This is fully reasoned out in Romans 3 and 4. Second, the law is not the rule of life for the believer. Christ is that. Our links are with Him and not with law, as we have seen (Rom. 7: 4). This is fully shown in Galatians 3 and 4.

The Galatian Christians had started well, converted under the preaching of the Gospel of the grace of God by the Apostle. Then came along the Judaizing mischief-makers, who were "zealous of the law," and taught circumcision and law-keeping. Into this snare the Galatians fell.

Paul's answer is virtually this, that the law was a provisional arrangement (Gal. 3: 17), brought in to show up Israel's transgressions (v. 19), and acting as a schoolmaster "up to Christ" (v. 24), as it should read. Christ being come, redemption having been accomplished, and the Spirit having been given, the believer leaves the position of a child under age, or that of a servant, and becomes a son in the Divine household, being thus put in the liberty of grace (Gal. 4: 1-7).

Inasmuch as the grace platform on to which we have been lifted is much higher than the law platform which we have left, to go back even in mind from the one to the other is to fall. " Ye are fallen from grace" is the apostle's word to such as do this.

The parable of the prodigal son illustrates the point. His highest thought did not rise above law, when he said, "Make me as one of thy hired servants." He was received, however, in pure grace, and the son's place inside was given. Suppose, however, that a few days after, under the plea of wishing to retain his father's affection and the place and privileges so freely bestowed, he had commenced working as a household drudge and rigidly conforming himself to the laws which governed the servants, what then? He would have "fallen from grace," and sadly grieved the heart of his father, since it would have been equivalent to a vote of "no confidence" in him.

How important, then, for us to have the heart "established with grace" (Heb. 13: 9).

What do you say to the idea that grace came in to help us to keep the law, so that we might go to heaven that way

Simply this - that it is totally opposed to Scripture. In the first place, the idea that keeping the law entitles a person to heaven is a fallacy. When the lawyer asked the Lord, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" he was referred to the law, and upon giving a correct summary of its demands, Jesus answered, "Thou hast answered right; this do, and thou shalt live" (Luke 10: 25-28). There is not a word about going to heaven. Life upon earth is the reward of law-keeping.

Then, secondly, grace came in not to help, us keep the law, but to bring us salvation from its curse by Another bearing it for us. Galatians 3 plainly shows this.

If, however, further confirmation be required, read Romans 3, and notice that when law has convicted and closed man's mouth (vv. 9-19), grace through righteousness justifies "without the law" (vv. 20-24).

Read also 1 Timothy 1. Law is made to convict the ungodly (vv. 9, 10). The Gospel of grace presents Christ Jesus who "came into the world to save sinners" (v. 15.). Not, be it noted, to help sinners to keep the law, and so attempt to save themselves.

If the law was not given for us to keep and so be justified what was it given for?

Let Scripture itself answer:- -

"What things soever the law saith, it saith. . . that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God" (Rom. 3: 19), "The law entered, that the offence might abound" (Rom. 5: 20).

"Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions" (Gal. 3: 19).

The law has, like every other institution of God, signally achieved its purpose. It can convict and silence the most obstinately self-conceited religionist. Grace alone can save him.

Then has grace set aside the law and annulled it for ever?

Grace, personified in Jesus, has borne the curse of the broken law, thereby redeeming all who believe from its curse (Gal. 3: 13).

Further, it has redeemed us from under the law itself, and placed all our relationships with God on a new footing (Gal. 4: 4-6).

Now if the believer is no longer under law, but under grace, we must not suppose that the law itself is either annulled or set aside. Its majesty was never more clearly upheld than when the righteous One suffered as a Substitute under its curse, and multitudes will quail before its impeachment at the day of judgment (Rom. 2: 12).

What harm is there in a Christian adopting the law as a rule of life?

A great deal. By so doing he "falls from grace," for grace teaches as well as saves (Titus 2: 11-14).

He also lowers the Divine standard. Not law but Christ is the standard for the believer.

He further gets hold of the wrong motive power. Pear may impel a person to attempt, though unsuccessfully, to keep the law, and regulate the power of the "flesh" within. The Spirit of God is the power that does control the flesh and conform to Christ (Gal. 5: 16-18).

Lastly, he does violence to the relationships in which he stands by the grace of God. Though a son in the liberty of the Father's house and heart, he insists on putting himself under the code of rules drawn up for the regulation of the servants' hall!

Is there no harm in all this? We venture to say there is.

If you teach that the Christian is not under the law, may it not lead to all kinds of wickedness?

It would, IF a person became a Christian without the new birth, or repentance, without coming under the influence of grace and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Since, however, no one is a Christian without these things, the case wears a different aspect, and to reason in the way suggested only betrays deplorable ignorance of the truth of the Gospel.

The argument simply comes to this: that the only way to make Christians live holy lives is to keep them under the threat of the law, as if they had only a kind of sow-nature, and the only way to keep them out of the mire is to drive them back with sticks. The truth is that though the flesh is still within the believer, he has also the new nature, and it is with that that God identifies him. He has the Spirit of Christ to lead him, and hence he may be safely put under grace; for after all it is grace that subdues.

If people quarrel with this, their quarrel is with the Scripture quoted at first.

"Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6: 14).

Unconverted men may attempt to use grace as a cloak for wickedness, but that is no reason for denying the truth stated in that verse. What truth is there which has not been abused by evil men?

Does Scripture indicate how grace keeps the believer in order, so that he may please God?

It does. Titus 2: 11-15 supplies the answer. In Christianity grace not only saves but teaches, and what an effective teacher it is! It does not fill our heads with cold rules or regulations, but brings our hearts under the subduing influence of the love of God. We learn what is pleasing to Him as set forth in Jesus, and having the Spirit we begin to live the sober, righteous, and godly life.

There is a very great difference between a family of children kept in order by fear of the birch upon misbehaviour and those who live in a home where love rules. Order may reign in the former, but it will end in a big explosion ere the children come to years. In the latter there is not only obedience, but a joyful response to the parents' desires, the fruit of responsive affection.

God rules His children on the love principle, and not on the birch-rod principle.

May we live our lives in the happy consciousness of this!

"Sin" and "Sins."

"Sin" and "Sins."

F. B. Hole.

We have no love for theological hair-splitting, and we shall certainly not be guilty of it in carefully distinguishing between these two things. Though closely connected, there is an important difference between them.

Both are mentioned in one verse of Scripture, Romans 5: 12. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

"Sin" is that which at the fall of Adam gained an entrance into the world. Just as the poison of a snake, once injected into la man's body, will run through his whole system doing its deadly work, so sin - the virus of that old serpent the devil - has permeated man's moral being to his ruin. The result of this is "all have sinned." "Sins," of thought, word, or act, whether of omission or commission, are chargeable to each of us.

"Sin," then, is the root principle, "sins" the shameful fruits that spring therefrom.

This being granted, let us go a step further and ask, What exactly is this "sin" which has entered into the world?

1 John 3: 4 answers this point, but, unfortunately, it is one of the verses where our excellent Authorized Version leads us astray. The one Greek word translated by the phrase "transgression of the law" really means "lawlessness," and is so translated in other Versions. The verse, then, should run thus, "Whosoever committeth sin practises lawlessness; for sin is lawlessness."

There is an immense difference between these two things. "Transgression of the law" is, indeed, the breaking of a clear-cut commandment. There can be no transgression of the law where there is no law to transgress. There was no law in the world from Adam until the days of Moses, hence there was no transgression and sin was not imputed; yet sin was there in awful malignancy, and death its penalty was there. This is just the argument of Romans 5: 13, 14.

What, then, is lawlessness? It is simply the refusal of all rule, the throwing off of all divine restraint. The assertion of man's will in defiance of God's. Sin is just that. Such was the course to which Adam committed himself in eating the forbidden fruit. How bitter the results!

Instead of being like a planet, shining with steady light, and moving evenly onward in its orbit, controlled by the sun, man has become like a "wandering star," pursuing an erratic course he knows not where; though Scripture significantly says "to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever" (Jude 13).

Instead of being master, he is mastered by the evil thing to which he has yielded himself. Sin has dominion over him and continually breaks out into sins. And, sad to say, it exerts such a deadening and stupefying influence upon the conscience that sinners seem unconscious of their plight apart from the grace of God.

When God's grace does act, and the Spirit works in life-giving power in a soul, the first cry is that of need and pain. The past years rise up before it, burdening the conscience. SINS become the question of the hour, and the trouble does not cease until the value of the precious blood of Christ is known and the soul can say, "My sins are forgiven me for His name's sake."

Then, afterwards - this is undoubtedly the experience of most believers - the question of SIN is raised. We discover that though our sins are forgiven, the root principle from which the mischief springs is still within us. What is to be done with that? This is a question indeed.

It is something gained if we discern that SIN lies at the root of our troubles. Some Christians seem to be too much occupied with the fruit to consider the root.

Some years ago a youth approached an elder Christian, complaining that in spite of all his prayers and efforts sins were continually creeping into his life and behaviour. SINS, SINS, was the burden of his cry!

"Upon what tree do apples grow?" was the only answer he got.

"Why, an apple tree," said the astonished youth. The question seemed so ridiculously irrelevant.

"And on what tree do plums grow?"

"On a plum tree." His astonishment deepened!

"And on what tree do sins grow?" was the next question.

A pause. Then, with a smile, he said, "On a sin tree, I should think."

"You are right, my lad," said this friend. "That's just where they do grow."

Note the point. The sins that we Christians have to deplore and confess are not little isolated bits of evil foreign to us, inserted somehow into our lives by the devil. Their cause lies much deeper. They spring as fruit out of that which is within us. Sin is within us. Let no man say otherwise when Scripture says, "If we say that we have no sin. we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1: 8).

What, then, is the remedy for SIN? The answer is, in one word, DEATH.

Death, or better still, the resurrection change, which will be the portion of us, who are alive and remain when Jesus comes. It will end sin as far as we are concerned, absolutely and for ever. The last trace of its presence in us will then be gone. Every Christian looks on in the happy anticipation of that. Do we all as joyfully look back to the hour when death the great remedy came in - the death of Jesus?

"In that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God" (Rom. 6: 10).

The matter, therefore, stands thus: He died FOR our sins, atoning for them; He died TO sin, and therefore taught by the Spirit we recognize that we are identified with our great Representative, and faith appropriates His death as ours. We, too, then, are "dead to sin," and cannot any longer consistently live in it (see Rom. 6: 2). We therefore reckon ourselves "to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6: 11).

There is just this difference: the sin to which He died was purely an external thing. "In Him is no sin" (1 John 3: 5). With us it is not only external, but internal too. Sin is the ruling principle of the world without us; it is also, alas! the ruling principle of the flesh within.

But there is more than this. The death of Christ was not only our death to sin, but it was the total condemnation of the sin to which we died. Romans 8: 3 runs, "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and by a sacrifice for sin [margin] condemned sin in the flesh." At the Cross SIN, in its full hideousness, stood revealed, for lawlessness reached its flood-tide height then; and in that holy sacrifice its judgment was borne, and its condemnation expressed.

Let these distinctions, then, be carefully noted. Sins have been borne and their judgment exhausted. Sin has been exposed and condemned, and to it we have died in the death of Christ. The Cross was all this and more. What heavenly wonders encircle it! How does it stand alone, unapproached and unapproachable!

". .  . the Tree

Centre of two eternities

Which look with rapt adoring eyes

Onward and back to Thee."

We read in John 1: 29 of "the sin of the world," and in Romans 8: 3 of "sin in the flesh." Is there any difference between these two? and how do you distinguish them from the sins of an individual?

The expression "sin of the world," in John 1, is about as comprehensive as can be. Sin, the root of it, and every offshoot, down to its finest ramifications in the world, is to be taken away by the Lamb of God. His Cross is the basis of it, and He Himself will do it, as foretold in Revelation 19-21.

"Sin in the flesh" is somewhat different. Sin is, of course, the same in essence wherever it is found in the universe of God, whether in demons or men, but as far as this world is concerned "the flesh" - the old fallen nature of the children of Adam - is the great vehicle in which it resides and works, producing sins in individuals universally.

Picture to yourself an immense electric power station. Imagine a whole network of live wires, quite unprotected, radiating in every direction from it all over a vast city. Shocks, consternation, death, would be in every direction!

Sin is something like the subtle and indefinable electric fluid making its influence felt in every direction.

The flesh is like the wire, the seat of the electricity, and the vehicle through which it acts.

Sins are like the shocks dealt out in every direction, resulting in death.

The sin of the world is like the whole concern, wires, electricity, power-station and all! A clean sweep of the hateful thing will be made. Such is the value of the Cross. Well might John say, "Behold the Lamb of God!"

We commonly speak of the forgiveness of sins. Might we not as correctly speak of the forgiveness of sin?

No; for Scripture does not speak so. Forgiveness of sins is found continually in the Bible, forgiveness of a sin, too, forgiveness of sin, the root principle, Never!

A simple illustration may help. A mother is greatly tried by her little son, who is rapidly developing a most ungovernable temper. One morning, irritated because his sister is far more interested in her doll than in the motor-car which stands throbbing outside the house, he attempts to make her look at it, and in the struggle brings her head with a crash against the window, shattering the glass, and severely scratching her face.

The boy is sent to his room by his mother, and on his father's return, shortly after, he gets very properly punished.

By evening the punishment has had its desired effect. He comes to his parents in tears, confessing his wrong. Seeing that he is thoroughly repentant, they forgive the angry act. But do they forgive the evil temper from which it sprang? By no means. That would be, more or less, to condone it. No; they strongly condemn it. They lovingly, yet firmly, show him its nature and its consequences, and they seek to lead him to abhor and condemn it as thoroughly as they do.

"God . . . condemned sin in the flesh." He did not condone nor forgive it; and the work of the Holy Spirit in us leads us to condemn it, even as God has condemned it, to the end that we may know deliverance from its power.

How do you reconcile the condemnation of sin in the flesh with the fact that believers may and do sin?

No reconciliation is needed. Condemnation is not eradication. The same Bible that speaks of the condemnation of sin (Rom. 8: 3) also speaks of the fact of sin being still in us (1 John 1: 8), and supposes that the believer may sin, in pointing out the divine provision for such a case ( 1 John 2: 1). It even plainly tells us that as a matter of fact we all do sin (James 3: 2).

It is God's way to leave the flesh and sin still in the believer, that, practically learning their true nature, he may experimentally come into line with God's condemnation of them at the Cross, and find his life and deliverance in Another, so that he can say, in answer to the cry, "Who shall deliver me?" "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7: 24, 25).

Is sin never taken completely out of a believer? It says in 1 John 3: 9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin."

At death, when a believer is "absent from the body and present with the Lord," he is done with sin for ever. At the Lord's coming all believers will get their glorified bodies without one trace of sin being there. Until then we have the presence of sin in us though it is our privilege to be delivered from its power.

The verse quoted does not in the least conflict with the other Scriptures we have considered. It simply states for us the nature of the one born of God. He does not practise sin. ("Practise" rather than "commit " is the real force of the word here). It is not his nature so to do. In so saying the apostle viewed believers in their nature as born of God, without reference to any qualifying feature, which may assert itself in the wear and tear of life.

For instance, a man might walk along the sea-front of some fishing-village with a friend, and, pointing to a large net with innumerable cork-floats attached, say, "What a great boon to the fisherman is a substance like cork, which cannot sink." "Indeed," says his friend, "it can, for only an hour ago I watched the men recovering that very net from the bottom of the sea; the weights attached to the under side were too heavy, and, overcoming the buoyancy of the cork, dragged the whole lot down."

Who was right? Both were, allowing for their respective points of view. The former was thinking of the abstract qualities of cork, the latter of a curious and abnormal thing that happened in practice.

The apostle John writes from the abstract point of view, and sin in a Christian is certainly not a normal, but a most abnormal thing!

Christians, however, do sin all too frequently. Do such sins do away with the settlement reached both as to sin and sins, with which the Christian starts?

No. The cross of Christ is the ground of all. There sin was condemned. There atonement was made, so that forgiveness reaches us when we believe. All, too, is the gift of divine grace, and "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Rom. 11: 29), i.e., they are not subject to a change of mind on God's part. They are for ever.

Sins after conversion do, however, greatly upset the Christian's happiness, and dispel the joy both of forgiveness and relationship with God, until in self-judgment such sins are confessed, and through the advocacy of Christ we get the Father's forgiveness (see 1 John 1: 9: 2: 1). Painful lessons in this way we all have to learn, but there is profit in them. We discover thus the true nature of the flesh within us, and that the only way to keep from gratifying its desire is to "walk in the Spirit" (Gal. 5: 16).

Did the Lord Jesus Christ in dying bear the sins of everybody? Would not that follow from the fact that He takes away the sin of the world, according to John 1: 29?

Scripture puts things thus:

"He died for all" (2 Cor. 5: 15).

"Who gave Himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2: 6).

"He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2: 2).

These verses indicate what we may call the Godward aspect of His work. It includes ALL within the wide sweep of its benevolent intention; and propitiation has been made on behalf, not only of believers, but everybody; the whole world.

When we come, not to the intention or bearing of His work, but its actual results, we find things put differently. When we view things on the largest possible scale, and "think imperially,'' in the best sense of the word, John 1: 29 does indeed apply, but that is quite in keeping with the fact that sin and all that are eternally identified with it find their part in the lake of fire.

If we think of things in detail, we cannot say He bore the sins of everybody, for Scripture says:

"Who His own self bare our [i.e., believers'] sins in His own body on the tree " (1 Peter 2: 27).

Hence it is that again we read:

"Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9: 28). Thanks be to God that we find ourselves amongst them!

The New Nature and the Old

The New Nature and the Old.

F. B. hole.

Many Christians experience a good deal of difficulty in daily life as a result of having no clear understanding of this subject. They are conscious of a whole host of desires and emotions of a strangely conflicting nature. The apostle James may ask the question, "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" They, however, seem to have no difficulty in accomplishing something of this sort; for in thought, word and action they find the strangest possible jumble of good and evil until the whole problem becomes most perplexing.

It is a great help to grasp the fact that the believer is possessed of two distinct natures, the new and the old, the one the source of every right desire, the other the source of only evil. A hen would be sorely distracted if set to mother a mixed brood of chickens and ducklings. Their natures are distinct, and hence their desires and behaviour are very opposite, but not more opposite than the two natures of which we speak. And many believers are like that hen!

When the Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus He insisted upon the necessity of being "born again" - "born of water and of the Spirit," and He added, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3: 6). Let us carefully consider these important words.

In the first place they plainly indicate the existence of two natures, each characterized by its source. "Flesh" is the name of the one, for it springs from the flesh, "spirit" the name of the other, for it springs from the Holy Spirit of God.

Then it is evident that we rightly speak of "flesh" as the old nature, for it belongs to us as coming into the world of Adam's race by natural generation; "spirit" is the new, and it is ours, if born of the Spirit, in new birth.

Again, these words clearly distinguish between "spirit," by which we mean the new nature, and "the Spirit," that is, the Holy Spirit of God. The former is the direct product of His wonder-working power, and never does He indwell a person in whom He has not previously wrought in new birth, producing the new nature which is "spirit." Still, it would be a great mistake to confound - as some are inclined to do - the new nature with the Holy Spirit who produces it.

When you were born again, then there was implanted in you by the Holy Spirit this new nature, which is spirit, and one of the first results of this was the inevitable clashing of this new nature with the old, which you inherited as a child of Adam. Both strive for the mastery, each pulling in a diametrically opposite direction, and until the secret of deliverance from the power of the flesh within is learned, the painful jumble of right and wrong is bound to continue.

In Romans 7 that painful experience is described for us. Carefully read it, noticing especially verses 14 to the end, and continuing your reading as far as Rom. 8: 4. Do you not see in it a good many features which tally with your experiences?

In that chapter the speaker reaches one very important conclusion. "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" (v. 18). The flesh, then, is utterly and hopelessly bad, and God allows us to wade through the mire of bitter experiences that we may thoroughly learn this lesson. "The flesh profiteth nothing," are the Saviour's own words (John 6: 63). "They that are in the flesh cannot please God," are words that corroborate the story (Rom. 8: 8). This being so, out of it nothing but evil will come.

Flesh may be left uncared-for and untrained, it then becomes heathen, savage, and possibly even cannibal flesh. It may be highly refined and educated, it is now curbed, civilized, christianized flesh, but it is flesh, for that which is born of the flesh IS flesh, no matter what you do with it. And in it - high-class flesh though it be - no good dwells.

What can you do with a nature like that, a nature which is simply the vehicle of sin, in which sin dwells and works? Let us answer that question by asking another. What has God done with it? what is His remedy?

Romans 8: 3 supplies the answer: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."

The law from the beginning strongly censured the flesh, but it could neither curb it nor control it so that we might be delivered from its power. But what the law could not do God has done. In the cross of Christ He judicially dealt with it, "condemned sin in the flesh," i.e., He condemned it in the very root and essence of its nature.

Romans 8: 4 gives the practical result of this. The cross being the condemnation of the old nature in the root of its being, we have received the Holy Spirit to be the power of the new nature, so that walking in the Spirit we fulfil all the righteous requirements of the law, though no longer under it as our rule of life.

God then has condemned, in the cross of Christ, the flesh - the old nature. But what can we do with it? We can thankfully accept what God has done, and treat it henceforward as a condemned thing ourselves. The apostle Paul indicates this when he says, "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have NO CONFIDENCE in the flesh" (Phil. 3: 3).

When one reads this scripture commencing so positively with the words "We are," one is inclined to ask, "Are we?" Am I so thoroughly alive to the true character of the flesh - no good thing dwelling in it, on the one hand, and God's condemnation of it in the cross, on the other - that I have no confidence in it, even in its fairest forms? Depend upon it, here lies the crux of the whole matter. That point is not easily reached. Many a painful experience is passed through, many a heart-breaking failure is known, as again and again the flesh, like a Samson refusing to be bound, snaps the seven green withs of pious and prayerful efforts, and the new ropes - so carefully woven - of good resolutions. But when once it really is reached the battle is well-nigh over.

The shattering of our confidence in the flesh is largely the shattering of the flesh's power over us. Then at once we look away from ourselves, and our most earnest efforts, for a Deliverer, and find Him in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has taken possession of us by His Spirit. The Spirit is the power; He not only checkmates the activity of the old nature (see Gal. 5: 16), but energizes, expands and controls the new (see Rom. 8: 2, 4, 5, and 10).

Bear in mind that the new nature has no power in itself. Romans 7 shows that. The new nature in itself gives aspirations and desires which are right and beautiful, but for power to fulfil them there must be this practical submission to Christ and His Spirit - this walking in the Spirit, which is largely the result of coming into real and heartfelt agreement with God's condemnation of the old nature in the cross of Christ.

Some people are good-natured and religious almost from birth. Do such need the new nature of which you speak?

Most certainly they do. The very man to whom the Lord Jesus uttered those memorable words, "Ye MUST be born again," was exactly of that type. Morally, socially, and religiously, everything was in his favour, yet the Lord met him point-blank, not only with an abstract proposition (John 3: 3), but with the same truth in concrete and pointedly personal form. "Ye must be born again" (v. 7).

That settles it. After all, good-natured and religious flesh is only FLESH, and will not do for God.

There is a widespread idea that everybody has some spark of good in him, and that it only needs developing by prayer and self-control. Is this scriptural?

It is very unscriptural, indeed it is anti-scriptural. Many passages might be cited, but I shall content myself with two.

The first shall be negative evidence. In Romans 3: 9-19, we have given us a full-length portrait of mankind in its moral features. The details are culled by the apostle Paul from Old Testament Scriptures. First come sweeping general statements (vv. 10-12), then incisive particular ones in hideous detail (vv. 13-18), and not one word is breathed as to this latent spark of good. How unjust, how untruthful, if really, after all, it be there! The God who cannot lie describes His creatures, and does not mention this supposed spark of good. The inference is obvious. It is not there.

The positive evidence runs like this: -

"God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth; and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only EVIL continually" (Gen. 6: 5).

The apostle Paul puts the same truth in different words when he says; "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. 7: 18) - not even one spark of good.

For those who believe the Bible such evidence is quite conclusive. Nothing more remains to be said.

Does a person get rid of the old at new birth, or are we to understand that a converted person has both the old and the new within him?

The old nature is not eradicated at new birth, else we should not read: "If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1: 8).

Neither is it changed into the new nature. New birth is not like the philosopher's stone, which was fabled to turn every object it touched into fine gold. John 3: 6, already quoted proves this.

Both natures are in the believer just as both natures are in that standard fruit tree in the garden. Indeed, the process of "grafting" not inaptly illustrates the matter in hand, for by it the wild stock into which the choice and cultivated apple shoot is inserted is condemned. The knife is put to it and it is cut hard back for the process to take place. Further, instantly the graft is made the gardener no longer recognizes it as a wild stock, but calls it by the name of the apple variety he has grafted in.

So it is for us; both natures are there, yet God only recognizes the new, and we, having received the Holy Spirit, are "not in the flesh, but in the Spirit" (Rom. 8: 9).

If the old nature is still there, surely we must do something. How should we treat it?

We are not, of course, to be insensible to its presence, nor unaffected by its activities in us, but at the same time no amount of human resolution or effort against it will avail us.

Our wisdom is to fall into line with God's thoughts and to treat it as He does. Begin by recognizing that you are now identified with the new nature and entitled to disown the old. "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me" (Rom. 7: 17). The new nature is your true individuality, not the old, just as the cultivated apple is the tree as soon as the graft is effective.

This being so, your treatment of it is simple. The gardener keeps a sharp look-out on his newly grafted tree. If the old wild stock seeks to assert itself, and throws up suckers from the roots, he ruthlessly cuts such suckers down as soon as they appear. So do you bring the cross of Christ to bear like a sharp knife on the old nature and its sinful desires.

"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth" (Col. 3: 3). The words I have emphasized answer pretty much to the suckers thrown up by the wild stock. What they are the remainder of verse 5 and also verses 8 and 9 of the same chapter specify. Mortify them - put them to death in detail.

For this you want spiritual energy, courage, purpose of heart, which in yourself you do not possess. Your only power is in looking simply to the Lord Jesus, and placing yourself unreservedly in the hands of His Spirit.

"If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live" (Rom. 8: 13).

Is it by a great act of our own will that we finally obtain the Spirit's power and overcome, or is it by yielding to God?

Let Scripture itself answer. "Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Rom. 6: 13).

"Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness" (Rom. 6: 19).

"Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life" (Rom. 6: 22).

The idea that the necessary power is obtained by an act of our own will looks like a last desperate attempt to obtain a little credit for the flesh somewhere, instead of totally condemning it and giving God the glory.

Does the new nature in the believer ever reach such perfect growth as to reader him quite proof against the desires of the old?

2 Corinthians 12 shows very clearly that it does not. In that chapter we read that the Apostle Paul, privileged above all other Christians, was caught up into the third heaven - the immediate presence of God. After hearing there things so transporting that no human language could possibly express them, he was left to resume his ordinary life upon earth, and he tells us that God gave him from that point a thorn in the flesh - some special counter-balancing infirmity - lest he should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations.

Now, admittedly, Paul's Christianity was of a most advanced and extraordinary type, yet, even so, and with a temporary sojourn in the third heaven thrown in, he was not in himself proof against that self-exaltation which is inherent in the old nature.

If he was not, neither are we.

Can you give any hints that will help us to distinguish practically between desires and promptings, which spring from the old nature, and those that spring from the new

I cannot give you any that will enable you to dispense with God's Word, and relieve you of the necessity of continually going to your knees in prayer with an exercised heart.

The Word of God it is which is "living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword." It alone can discern the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4: 12), and the throne of grace stands ever available that we may find grace for seasonable help (Heb. 4: 16). God's High Priest it is who graces that throne.

The Word of God and prayer, then, are absolutely necessary, if we would distinguish and disentangle the thoughts and desires we find within.

Recognizing this, however, it may help us if we remember that just as the mariner's compass is true to the north, so the new nature is true to God, and the old nature true to self. All that which has Christ for its object is of the one, that which has self for its object of the other.

This being so, a thousand perplexing questions would be solved by asking, "What is the secret motive which actuates me in this? Christ-glorification or self-glorification? Which?"

"Blood" and "Water."

"Blood" and "Water."

F. B. Hole.

It is an historic fact recorded by the apostle John (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 eye-witness (see verse 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 instructions 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" (verse 6). And further, in verse 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 it 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 (Heb. 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 (Heb. 9: 15).

3. It has ratified a new covenant of grace (Heb. 9: 15-18).

4. It has removed the believer's sins, and laid the basis for the putting away of sin in its totality (Heb. 9: 22 and 26).

5. It has so completely done so for faith that ONCE purged, the believer's conscience is cleared for ever so far as the judicial question of his sins is concerned (Heb. 10: 2).

6. It therefore gives the believer boldness to enter into the very presence of God (Heb. 10: 19).

7. It has once and forever sanctified - set apart - the believer for God (Heb. 10: 10 and 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 Heb. 9: 12, 26, 28; Heb. 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" (Heb. 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 (v. 4) as well as sprinkled with blood (v. 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 so 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" (v. 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" (v. 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 application of that death to our souls day by day. 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 - the 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, 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 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?

Precious as these are, the 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. It is sometimes urged that Romans 5: 19 teaches otherwise, "By the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." But a careful reading of the whole passage, verses 12 to 21, shows that it exactly confirms the Scripture quoted from Peter. Paul is contrasting the two Heads, Adam and Christ - the sin of the one with its attendant train of disaster; the righteousness, the obedience of the other with its attendant train of blessing. It is a question of the "one offence" and the "one righteousness" (v. 18, margin). Christ's ONE righteousness was obedience even unto His is DEATH.

If the Blood cleanses us from all sin, what need is there for the water?

Let us answer that question by asking another. Are you not conscious that you as much need cleansing from the love of sin as from the condemnation of sin? There is great need for the "water." That Christians should hate sin as God hates it is a crying need everywhere.

Then as to the 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 go to the blood for dally 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 based on 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 of our repeatedly being washed in the water; and if we insist on this distinction it is not for the sake of mere theological accuracy. 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; 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 riper 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, as 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 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. 29: 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!

Grace and Discipleship

Grace and Discipleship.

F. B. Hole.

The very essence of the grace of God is that it is free and unconditional. The way of its reception - repentance and faith - is plainly laid down for us in Scripture, but though there may be conditions for its reception, grace itself is unhampered by any such thing. Some men are adepts at the art of giving with one hand and taking away with the other, of bestowing gifts so hedged about with restrictions and conditions as to be positively useless to the recipients; but this is not God's way.

"The free grace of God" is a common expression, rightly used, and most of us believe in it. Yet it is puzzling to many when, opening their Bibles, they light upon passages in which they are unexpectedly confronted by an "IF." For example, "IF any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9: 23).

What does it mean? Is salvation, after all, as free as we had supposed? Must we make a kind of bargain with the Master after these terms, ere we can be enrolled as His?

Let us answer these questions by turning to Luke 14 and reading the paragraph, verses 25 to 35. The same thoughts re-appear here: "IF any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot by My disciple." Those four closing words are thrice repeated (vv. 26, 27, and 33). Not, mark you, "he cannot be saved," but "he cannot be My DISCIPLE."

Now of all the four, Luke's Gospel is the one which emphasizes grace. Indeed in Luke 14 the very paragraph which precedes the one referred to contains the parable of the "great supper" (vv. 15 to 24), which is a marvellous unfolding of the grace of God. Is it not worthy of note, then, that, having unfolded divine grace in such a way as to bring great multitudes about Him eager to hear, the Lord turns round upon them and tests their reality by proposing to them the terms of discipleship; and shall we not do well, while observing the distinction between them, to keep them together in the order in which He put them?

They may be distinguished as follows:

Grace is a special form or character of divine love. It is the shape it takes when it stoops to flow forth to the utterly undeserving, adapting itself to their need, though far transcending the need in the wealth of its full supplies.

Discipleship is the special form taken by the love that springs up responsively in the heart of a believer. It is the backward flow of divine love to its Source. To be a disciple is to be a learner, and not a learner only, but a follower; and when the grace of God grips a soul and new life begins, its first instincts are to learn of the Saviour and to follow Him.

Granting this, it is easy to see that grace is the mainspring of discipleship, and it is not without reason that they are linked together in Luke 14.

In the parable of the great supper we find the door of salvation swung widely open and the very worst invited. No demand is made upon them, no condition imposed, no bargain struck. Grace shines forth undimmed by any tarnish of that kind. But He who spoke that parable was well aware of two things.

1. That many would profess to receive grace, without being real in their profession.

2. That those who really receive it have thereby had begotten in their souls a responsive love that draws them irresistibly after the One from whom it comes; and such must understand what is needful if they are to follow Him.

Therefore it was that He followed up His declaration of grace with instruction as to discipleship, and added two short parables to show the importance of counting the cost.

"It costs too much to be a Christian," said a gloomy-looking man one day. Was he right?

Did he mean, "It costs too much to be saved"? Then he was totally wrong. The untold cost of salvation has fallen upon One who was able to bear it, and He being made sin for us has borne it all. To us it costs nothing.

Ah! but he used the word "Christian" in its proper sense, for it was the disciples who were called Christians first in Antioch (Acts 11: 26). He meant, "It costs too much to be a disciple." Again, then, he was wrong. It costs to be a disciple, but it does not cost too much! The fact is, our gloomy-looking friend was not saved, he had never tasted grace, and therefore had nothing to spend. When a man goes to market with no money in his pocket everything costs too much I He was putting discipleship before grace, which is equivalent to putting demand before supply, and responsibility before the power that meets it - in everyday language, "putting the cart before the horse."

What does discipleship cost? It costs sacrifice in every direction, and therefore the little parables come in here. It costs a good deal of labour in fortifying one's position, and a good deal of energy in fighting one's foes.

"Which of you intending to build a tower . . ." Have you any such intention? Certainly you have, if you propose to really follow the Lord. A tower speaks of protection; and such we need. Nothing is plainer in Scripture than that, though we are kept by the power of God, it is "through faith" (1 Peter 1: 5). The responsibility to build up ourselves on our most holy faith rest upon us. Therefore "praying in the Holy Ghost" is the only attitude that becomes us, and the result is to keep ourselves "in the love of God" (see Jude 20, 21). With the love of God enveloping us as our tower of defence we are well fortified indeed!

"Faith" is the hand that builds. "The faith" - and we find it in the Word of God - is the mighty foundation on which we build. Prayer is the attitude best suited to these building operations. The love of God, consciously known, is our tower of defence.

But all this is the means to an end. We are well furnished defensively that we may act offensively against the foe. The trowel truly comes first, but after that the sword.

"Or what king going to make war . . . Have you any thought of such an aggressive movement? If a disciple you ought to have. Notice, the king with ten thousand proposes to take the offensive against the king with twenty thousand. A bold movement that! Ah, but behind his back was a well-fortified base of operations, his tower was built. This is ever God's way. David's tower was built in the wilderness experiences of meeting the lion and the bear, and hence Goliath has no terrors for him. Luther, "the monk that shook the world," advances with his tiny book into the hot-bed of animosity at Worms. Yes, but this was his battle cry:

"A mighty fortress is our God,

A bulwark never failing."

Discipleship means all this. It means prayer, and the study of God's Word. It means exercises otherwise unknown, and the shock of battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Sit down and count the cost. Do you tremble? Then recount the cost in the full light of the power of God and the weighty stores of grace, and you will begin to "rejoice in Christ Jesus," and yet more deeply have "no confidence in the flesh."

Thus grace and discipleship go hand-in-hand. Just how, the case of Bartimaeus well illustrates (Mark 10: 46-52). Grace stood still at his cry and gave him all he desired freely. "Jesus said unto him, Go thy way." Then, Bartimaeus, no terms are imposed upon you; go north, south, east, or west, as you desire. You are free! Which way did he go?" Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus in the way." Impelled by grace he entered the path of discipleship. He followed Jesus.

Is every Christian a disciple, or is it only certain favoured ones that have this distinction?

There are no "favoured ones" in Christianity. True it is that the world having invaded and conquered the Christian profession, clergy and laity in numerous grades, corresponding to worldly society, are found on every hand. The Christianity of the Bible, while admitting spiritual gifts and office, knows nothing of these things. The early Christians were believers, saints, disciples, all of them (see Acts 1: 15; Acts 6: 1; Acts 9: 38; Acts 19: 9; Acts 20: 7). And the very foremost of the apostles was just a believer, a saint, or a disciple along with the rest, though gifted from heaven and clothed with an authority that was indisputable.

We may be sure, therefore, that it is a fatal mistake to consider that discipleship belongs only to a few - a kind of clergy - and that we more ordinary folk may rest content with being saved, and getting to heaven presently, and need bestir ourselves as to nothing else. Shame on us if like Bartimaeus we receive our sight, and then, unlike him, go strolling off to amuse ourselves with the novel sights of Jericho!

Yet there is a tendency in that direction, and therefore it was that the Lord said to certain Jews who believed on Him, "If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed" (John 8: 31).

Discipleship does truly belong to all Christians, yet many believers there are who are not "DISCIPLES INDEED."

Can you summarize for us the conditions of Christian discipleship?

Read carefully Luke 9: 23 to 26 and 46 to 62, also Luke 14: 25 to 33 again, if you would gain some idea of them.

The gist of it all seems to be contained in Luke 14: 26 and 33, where we find the one absolutely indispensable condition to be that Christ must be first and the rest - relations, possessions, and particularly one's self - nowhere.

We "hate . . ." not absolutely, but in a comparative sense, of course. Our love to Christ should so transcend the natural love we bear to our relations that the latter appears as hate when compared with the former. (Luke 9: 59, 60 gives an illustrative case).

We "forsake . . ." i.e., the affections are severed from our possessions; they are no longer ours, but our Master's, to be held for Him. It may mean parting with everything, as in the case of the early Christians, or, like Levi, we may leave all and yet still have. Levi's house was still "his own," and his money was used to make a great feast for Christ and draw sinners to Him (Luke 5: 27-29). A very good example for some of us!

But if Christ is to be first, self must go, and so we find that the disciple has to deny himself and to take up his cross daily.

"Deny himself," i.e., say NO to self. Accept death - be as a dead man - as far as the working of will is concerned. An inward thing.

"Take up his cross daily," i.e., an outward thing. Accept death as cutting off from the world and its glory. Say NO to the love of reputation and popularity.

Stern work this. Bitter to the flesh. Sweetened by the love of Christ. These are the conditions of discipleship.

It is easy to see what discipleship meant for the early Christians. We live in different days. What does it mean practically for us to-day?

It means precisely the same now as then. The only difference is one of surface details. It means saying no to our own wills as much as ever. It means the cross - disallowance by the world - as much as ever. The world disallowed them by cross or sword, by wild beast or flame; it may disallow us by silent contempt, a well-timed snub, or social ostracism. The thing is the same; but in their case an acute attack, short, sharp, and all was over; in ours, chronic, not severe, but lingering and protracted.

It means walking in the spirit of self-judgment, and separation from the world, even in its religious forms. It means giving up many things lawful in themselves for the sake of His name. It means making THE question at all times and under all circumstances, not "What do I want?" but "What does He want?"

It looks then as if the true disciple stands to lose a good deal in this world. What does he gain?

He gains "manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting" (Luke 18: 30). The profit will not be of the nature that appeals to the man of the world, who estimates chiefly by the amount of his balance at the bank. It is more real than that. Here are words which indicate its character: "If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will My Father honour" (John 12: 26).

Companionship with Christ; honour from the Father. Who can estimate the gain of those two things? A glimpse of them was granted to the three disciples, when, having been plainly told what discipleship would involve, they witnessed the transfiguration (Luke 9) - when they were "with Him in the holy mount" (2 Peter 1: 16-18).

Small wonder, then, that Paul - who stood in the front rank of disciples and suffered the loss of all things for Christ - when he fixed the eye of faith on eternal things dismissed the loss side of the discipleship account as "our light affliction," and hailed the profit side as "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4: 17, 18).

Is there any difference between a disciple and an apostle? If so, what?

There is a very distinct difference. We read, "He called unto Him His disciples: and of them He chose twelve whom also He named apostles" (Luke 6: 13). The word "disciple" means "one taught" or "trained." The word "apostle" means "one sent forth." Every true follower of the Lord was a disciple; only the twelve were sent forth by Him as apostles. Theirs was a peculiar place, therefore, of authority and service.

Moreover, the apostles had to do with the foundations of the Church (Eph. 2: 20), and have long since passed away; but ever since then and unto this day disciples of Christ are to be found on earth.

Where does the power for discipleship come from, and how can we keep it up?

The necessary power is not to be found within yourself, nor can it be worked up by religious exercises. It is in God alone. It reaches us, however, in a very simple way. Dr. Chalmers it was who spoke of "the expulsive power of a new affection." We may just as truly speak of "the impulsive power of a new affection." Let the bright rays of the love of God break into any heart, however dark, and straightway a new impelling power is known and discipleship begins.

That which starts it sustains it. Read John 14-16. They are a perfect manual of discipleship. You will find that love is the spring of everything. The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, is the power, and obedience, the keeping and the doing of Christ's commandments, is the pathway into which the disciple's feet are led.

Can you give us any hints to help us, as we seek to live as disciples of the Lord Jesus?

I should just say three things:

1. You will need wisdom and discretion. Therefore you must give the Scriptures their proper place. The will of our Master and Lord is therein expressed; our business as disciples is to search out that will in dependence on the Holy Spirit's teaching. The Scriptures must therefore be to us the Word of God, and we must make them our careful study.

2. You must maintain a spirit of dependence upon God. Therefore prayer is necessary. The disciple must needs ever cultivate the prayerful spirit.

3. You must ever seek the pathway of obedience. As disciples our great business is to obey rather than to do the greatest of exploits. Prince Rupert, of historic fame, performed great exploits in the service of Charles the First. But his exploits in large measure contributed to the smashing defeat which Charles suffered at the hand of Cromwell's Ironsides at Naseby. and led to the loss not only of his master's crown, but his head also. If he had thought less of his individual exploits and more of the leader's plan of campaign, results might have been different.

Obedience to God's Word is our first business. Let us lay aside every weight that would hinder us, remembering the words of the great Master Himself: "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them" (John 13: 17).

Election and Free Grace

Election and Free Grace.

F. B. Hole.

From the beginning of Scripture history, two great facts, forming the basis of all God's dealings with men, have been apparent. First, God is absolutely sovereign. Second, man is an intelligent creature with moral faculties and responsible to his Creator.

But these two facts, the sovereignty of God on the one hand, the responsibility of man on the other, have always presented a difficulty to certain minds, particularly when it is a question of the practical work of preaching the Gospel, and of the reception of it by the sinner. Between the sovereignty of God expressing itself in the election of some for blessing, and the free offer of grace that addresses itself to all, there seems to be some contradiction which it is difficult to avoid, some discrepancy not easily explained.

Of course, if we are at liberty to discard one of these facts in favour of the other, and throw ourselves into the arms of either a hard hyper-Calvinism, or a weak Arminianism, as the case may be, the difficulty may vanish. But this would mean the sacrifice of truth. Since we are not at liberty to do this, but have to accept both these facts (for both plainly lie on the surface of Scripture), we must humbly seek the divine solution, assured that the only real difficulty is the littleness of our minds, and of their ability to grasp the thoughts of God.

We have but to open our Bibles at the beginning to find both these truths. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen. 1: 1). Here is declared the one truth. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion" (Gen. 1: 26). Here is declared the other. Man was made in God's image, i.e., as God's representative in creation. He was after God's likeness, inasmuch as he was originally a free, intelligent, moral a gent. And though no longer sinless but fallen, his responsibility remains.

It would be difficult to find a finer confession of the sovereignty of God than that made by Nebuchadnezzar, the great Gentile monarch in whom human sovereignty reached its highest expression. He said, "He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?" (Dan. 4: 35).

Nor can we point to a more striking unfolding of the responsibility of man in his fallen estate than that given by Paul in his powerful argument (Rom. 1: 18 to 3: 19) to prove the complete ruin of the race. If sin and degradation destroyed a man's responsibility there would be every excuse for his condition, but the most degraded heathen is shown to be " without excuse," as is also the polished idolater and the religious Jew.

Thus far all seems plain. The difficulty occurs when we begin to apply these truths. Believers are addressed as "chosen in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1: 4), as "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Peter 1: 2). To His disciples the Lord Jesus distinctly said, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (John 15: 16); and again, "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him" (John 6: 44). Shall we reason from these scriptures that since the choice is God's and no one comes to Christ unless drawn of the Father, therefore all effort in connection with the Gospel is useless; that, in fact, to preach to any except those chosen of God is waste of time?

On the other hand, Peter urged his hearers, when pricked in their heart, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation" (Acts 2: 40). To careless and rebellious sinners he said, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted" (Acts 3: 19). Paul tells us that he testified to both Jews and Greeks "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20: 21).

Shall we disregard these apostolic utterances? Ought they rather to have run something after this fashion: "Men and brethren, you can do absolutely nothing. You are spiritually dead and therefore you must simply wait the pleasure of God. If He has elected you, you will be saved. If not, you will be lost"? Or shall we adopt the opposite view, and do our best to explain away these reference's to God's sovereign work in connection with conversion, saying that they only mean that God, being omniscient, knows the end from the beginning, that He has no particular will as regards anybody, that man is an absolutely free agent, quite capable of choosing the right if put before him in a sufficiently attractive way, and that therefore we ought to do everything possible to make the Gospel palatable and win men?

To incline to either set of scriptures at the expense of the other would be, indeed, to expose ourselves to the keen edge of those searching words, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken" (Luke 24: 25).

Any difficulties we may have as to these things would, we believe, largely vanish if we better understood the true character of the ruin of man and the grace of God.

In what does the ruin of man consist? By sinning he has placed himself under a burden of guilt and has rendered himself liable to judgment. There is more than this, however. He has also become possessed of a fallen nature utterly and incorrigibly bad, with a heart "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17: 9). But even this is not all. Sin has acted like a subtle poison in his veins and has so stupefied and perverted his reason, will and judgment, that "there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God" (Rom. 3: 11). Even in the presence of grace and the sweet pleadings of the Gospel men reject the Saviour provided, and with perverse unanimity prefer the empty follies of the world. Like the "great herd of swine" they rush madly to destruction, and hence the only hope is a sovereign interposition of God.

The parable of the "great supper" (Luke 14) illustrates this. The well-laden supper-table represents the spiritual blessings resulting from the death of Christ. At great cost all is ready, and yet all seems to have been provided in vain. Something else is needed: the mission of the Holy Spirit, pictured by the errand of "the servant." Things were brought to a successful issue, and the house was filled, only because of His "compelling" operations.

If we once realize the full extent of that ruin into which sin has plunged us, we shall be delivered from the "Arminian" extreme, and shall recognize that the sovereign action of God in choosing us and drawing us by the compelling power of His Spirit was our only hope. Instead of quarrelling with this side of the truth, it will bow our hearts in grateful worship before Him.

Poor fallen, self-destroyed man is still, however, a responsible creature. Reason, will, and judgment may be perverted, but they are not destroyed. Hence the largeness of the grace of God.

What is grace? Is it the particular goodness which visits and saves the souls of the elect? No. That is mercy. In Romans 9 and Romans 11, where election is the great subject, mercy is mentioned again and again. Grace is the mighty outflow of the heart of God towards the utterly sinful and undeserving. It shows no partiality. It knows no restrictions. It is a wide and deep sea. "All men" (1 Tim. 2: 3- 6) are its only boundaries, and "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Rom. 5: 20) is the only measure of its depth.

We hear the accents of grace in the last great commission of the risen Christ to His disciples, "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24: 47). How akin were these instructions to those given by the King in that other parable of a feast, recorded in Matthew 22: "Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage." In this parable we have not "the servant," as in Luke, but "the servants." It is not the Spirit of God in His sovereign and secret activities, but saved men who, without knowing aught of these secret things, simply do the King's business. Do they find anyone in the broad highways of the world? Then without raising questions as to their character, or as to whether chosen or not, they give the invitation. All who listen are gathered in, both bad and good: and the wedding is "furnished with guests."

Is there any great difficulty in this? Surely not. Knowing that it pleases God "by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe," the evangelist proclaims the glad tidings far and wide. When men believe his message; he attributes that work to the Spirit of God, and rejoices over them, knowing their election of God (1 Thess. 1: 4).

Nor is there anything to stumble the seeking sinner. The very fact that he is seeking indicates that he is being drawn of the Father. The idea that a sinner may be even in an agony of seeking for the Saviour in this day of grace, and yet be unheard because not elected, is a hideous distortion of truth. The words of the Lord Jesus are as true as ever: "Seek and ye shall find" (Matt. 7: 7).

The fact is, election has nothing to do with the sinner as such. No hint of it is breathed in any recorded preaching of the apostles, though it is frequently referred to, to establish the faith of believers. As a rule, it is only when unbalanced preachers of extreme views take it from its setting in Scripture and thrust it upon their unconverted hearers that it creates difficulty in their minds.

Can it be shown that "election" does really mean anything more than that God knows everything, and therefore knows from the beginning who will believe and who will not?

Most assuredly. In 1 Peter 1: 2 we read, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." Election, then, is distinct from foreknowledge, though based upon it. God's election or choice is not a blind, fatalistic casting of the lot. That is a purely heathen conception. There is some such legend in connection with Buddha. When men were created it is said that he cast a lot saying, "These to heaven, and I care not; these to hell and I care not." But our God and Father does not act like this. He chooses in the full light of His foreknowledge. Hence no sinner, who ever really wants to be saved, finds the door shut against him because he is not one of the elect. His very desire is the fruit of the Spirit's work. And God's choice, as in the case of Esau and Jacob, is always justified by results. (Compare Rom. 9: 12, 13 with Mal. 1: 2, 3).

If God must elect at all, why did He not elect everybody?

How can I tell you that? Is it likely that God will tell us, who are but His creatures, the motives that underlie His decrees? If He did explain, would our finite minds be able to grasp the explanation? We may rest assured that all His decrees are in perfect harmony with the fact that "God is light" and "God is love." For the rest, if any man be contentious we content ourselves with quoting the inspired words: "Behold . . . I will answer thee, God is greater than man. Why cost thou strive against Him? for He giveth not account of any of His matters" (Job 33: 12, 13). After all, being God, why should He?

If man be morally incapable of going or choosing right, how can he be really responsible?

Let me answer by an analogy. If, in the case of that poor creature making her 201st appearance before the magistrates on the old charge, "drunk and disorderly," the plea were raised that since she was so degraded as to be morally incapable of resisting alcohol or choosing a better life, she was no longer responsible, or amenable to punishment, would it avail? Of course not. No sane person imagines that one has only to sink low enough into crime to be absolved from responsibility.

Alas! who can measure the depths of perversity and incapacity into which man has plunged himself by sin? Nevertheless his responsibility remains.

Does "free grace" mean that salvation is ours simply by a choice which lies in the exercise of our own free will?

It does not. It means that as far as the intentions of God's Gospel are concerned, all are embraced. Christ died for all (1 Tim. 2: 4, 6). To all the Gospel is sent, just as freely as if it were certain that all would as naturally receive it, as, alas! they naturally reject it. Multitudes, however, do receive it, and then the righteousness of God which is "unto all" in its intention is "upon all them that believe" in its actual effect (Rom. 3: 22-24). Such are saved by grace, through faith, and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God (Eph. 2: 8). Their blessing is of God from first to last, and they are entitled to regard themselves as chosen of Him.

Has the sinner to choose Christ?

If we wish to speak with scriptural accuracy, the answer must be, No. He has to receive. Christ; but that is a somewhat different matter. Choose is a word with active force. It implies certain powers of discrimination and selection. To speak of a sinner choosing Christ supposes that he has powers which he does not possess.

Receive is passive rather than active in force. It implies that instead of exercising his powers, the sinner simply falls into line with God's offer. It is the word Scripture uses.

The children of God are said to be "as many as received" Christ (John 1: 12), and this receiving was the result not of their freewill, but of God's gracious operation; they were "born . . . of God" (v. 13).

Are we right in urging sinners to repent and believe?

Certainly. Our blessed Lord Himself did so (Mark 1: 15). So did Peter (Acts 3: 19), and Paul (Acts 16: 31; Acts 20: 21; Acts 26: 20). We have not only to proclaim that faith is the principle on which God justifies the sinner, but we have to urge men to believe. The fact that faith is the result of God's work in the soul and that all spiritual enlargement for the believer is through the operation of God's Spirit, in no way militates against the servant of God being much in earnest and persuading men.

Paul preached at Thessalonica "with much contention" (1 Thess. 2: 2) - "with much earnest striving" the New Translation renders it. He speaks of "persuading men" ( 2 Cor. 5: 11), and with Barnabas he persuaded certain converts "to continue in the grace of God" (Acts 13: 43).

These examples are enough to outweigh any amount of reasoning to the contrary.

How would you answer a person who says, "I can't believe until God gives me the power"?

I would remark that both repentance and faith are things which do not require power so much as weakness. To repent, is to own the truth as to yourself; to believe, is to lean your poor shattered soul on Christ.

Again I would point out that God's command is man's enabling. The man with a withered hand its a case in point (Luke 6: 6-10). The power was there instantly the word was spoken.

Does a sinner wish to insinuate that he is very anxious to believe, but that God will not give him ability to do so because of certain fatalistic decrees? Tell him plainly it is not true. He is leaving sober fact for the nightmare of fallen reason. Never does the smallest bit of desire toward Christ spring up in a sinner's heart but there is a grace to bring it to fruition in definite faith. Probably the questioner would prove to be a trifler bent on quibbling, in which case we should have to leave him. A really perplexed and anxious soul I would urge (instead of occupying himself about questions as to God's sovereignty, which are, and must be, above the ken of finite man) to rest with simple confidence in the Saviour, and to give heed to those great verities, which are so plainly declared that "the way-faring men, though fools, shall not err therein."

"Never let what you do not know disturb what you do know," said a wise and good man.

Never forget that He who said "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me," immediately added: " and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6: 37).

ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH.

A knowledge of "dispensational truth," as it is often termed, is indispensable for the intelligent reading of the Bible. Yet many Christians seem to have hardly given it a thought.

God has been pleased to deal with men at different times in various ways. Fresh revelations of Himself and of His will have ushered in new modes of dealing with men, new dispensations.

"Dispensational truth" teaches us to rightly distinguish these changes, and to discern their nature, so that the salient features of each may not be obscured. The importance of this for us Christians is that we thereby learn the true character of the calling wherewith we are called from on high, and of the age in which our lot is cast.

Up to the time of Christ a dispensation ran its course in which the prominent feature was Israel, the chosen nation of the stock of Abraham. The period in which we live, from Pentecost to the coming of the Lord, is marked by altogether different features. Not Israel, but the Church is prominent in God's thoughts to-day.

Before dwelling on the important distinctions between the two, let us be quite sure that we understand exactly what we are speaking about.

BY ISRAEL we do not mean the Jews, the scattered nation as they are to-day, nor as they were in the time of our Lord, a remnant still clinging to their ancient capital, Jerusalem. We do not allude to them as they actually existed at any time, but rather to what that nation was according to God's original plan for them.

When we speak of THE CHURCH we do not refer to any ecclesiastical building nor to any denomination, nor to any number of professed Christians banded together into what is called nowadays "a church." We use the term in its scriptural sense. The Greek word rendered "church" simply means "called-out ones." Those, who are called out of the world by God during this period of Christ's rejection, are by this means, and by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, banded together into God's assembly, the church.

It may be helpful to notice that in Scripture the term " church " is used in three ways: -

1. As denoting the aggregate number of the Christians in any given place (1 Cor. 1: 2; Col. 4: 15, etc.).

2. As the aggregate number of all Christians upon earth at any given time (1 Cor. 10: 32; 1 Cor. 12: 28; Eph. 1: 22, etc.). In this aspect the church is like a regiment which abides the same, though the units which compose it are constantly changing.

3. As the aggregate number of all Christians, called out and sealed with the Spirit between Pentecost and the coming of the Lord (Eph. 3: 21; Eph. 5: 25, etc.).

Of these the last is the sense in which we use the word in this Bible Talk; though, if we speak of the church as it exists on earth to-day, we obviously allude to it in its second aspect.

Be it remembered, however, that we refer, as in the case of Israel, not to what the church actually is, or has at any time been, but to what it is according to the original design and thought of God.

Having defined our terms, let us observe a few necessary distinctions.

1. John, the forerunner of the Lord, was the last of the long line of the prophets of the past dispensation. With him, God's utterances under the old covenant reached their full stop. With Christ, the new utterances began. "The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached" (Luke 16: 16).

The advent of Christ into the world was described by Zacharias as the coming of the dayspring (or, as the margin reads, "sun-rising") from on high. His appearance on earth heralded the dawn of a new day. Not that this new day was there and then inaugurated. The Lord Jesus had a mission to fulfil in the midst of Israel, and He must needs present Himself to that nation as their long-promised Messiah. Moreover, the broad foundations of purposed blessing must be laid amid the sufferings of Calvary. But when all this was past, when the Son of God had died and risen again, when He had ascended to heaven and sent down the Holy Ghost, then was inaugurated a dispensation that was new indeed, utterly different from all that had gone before.

2. The characteristic feature of the old dispensation was law, that of the new is grace. The giving of the law at Sinai ushered in the former. God formulated His demands upon men. He was to receive, and they were to give, that which was His due. The fact that failure came in immediately, failure so great as to amount to a total collapse, did not relieve men of their newly incurred responsibilities in the smallest degree. God, however, announced to Moses that He would have mercy (Ex. 33: 19), and, withhold the threatened destruction in view of the coming of Christ. The law still held sway as "schoolmaster,'' and continued so to-do until Christ came (Gal. 3: 24).

In Christ a power mightier than the law was present. The case of the sinful woman in John 8 beautifully illustrates it. Under the potent influence of grace, the hypocrites were convicted far more effectually than under law, and the sinner was forgiven, a thing which the law never professed to do. Now God gives and man receives. The new dispensation is marked by grace reigning through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 5: 21).

3. The old dispensation centred round Israel, the new is connected with the church.

The law was given not to everybody, but to one nation, Israel. Upon that nation, therefore, God's attention was focused. The privileges of the children of Israel belonged to them nationally rather than individually. God always had His own secret dealings with the souls of individuals, and these dealings came into greater prominence in the days of national apostasy. But at the beginning God took them up nationally without reference to the spiritual state of individuals, and their standing before Him was on a national basis.

On the other hand, there is nothing national about the church. Peter declared, corroborated by James, that the divine programme for this dispensation is the visiting of the nations by God, "to take out of them a people for His name" (Acts 15: 13, 14). God is now making an election from all nations, and those thus gathered out for His name compose "the church."

The church, then, is not national, nor is it international, it is rather extra-national, i.e., altogether outside of all national distinctions, and totally independent of them. Instead of being constructed on a national basis, it is represented in Scripture as "one flock" (John 10: 16, R.V.), as "one body" (1 Cor. 12: 13), as "a spiritual house, an holy priesthood" (1 Peter 2: 5), as a family composed of the children of God (1 John 2: 12; 1 John 3: 1, etc.).

Moreover, in connection with the church God begins with the individual. It is composed of those who have personally been set in right relations with God. Only as forgiven, and as having received the Spirit to indwell them, do they become members of the one body, and "living stones" in the spiritual house.

4. Connected with Israel was a ritualistic worship, the value of which lay in its typical significance. The church's privileges are connected with the eternal realities themselves, with the substance rather than with the shadows. Her worship does not consist of sacrificial offerings, symbolic ceremonies, and the like, but is "worship in spirit and in truth."

The law had only "a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things" (Heb. 10: 1). The good things have come, and are realized by Christians to-day. Christ has established them (Heb. 9: 24; Heb. 10: 12), the Spirit has revealed them ( 1 Cor. 2: 9, 10), and the believer may gaze upon them with the eye of faith (2 Cor. 4: 18).

5. Israel's blessings and privileges were largely of an earthly and material order. the church's are heavenly and spiritual.

In the Old Testament instructions were given as to the way in which the children of Israel should return thanks to God when they were actually in possession of the promised land. They were to take the first of all their fruits and set them in a basket before the Lord their God, with an acknowledgment of His goodness on their lips (Deut. 26: 1-11).

Is the Christian to approach God in this way? On the contrary, when Paul wrote to the Ephesians as to the heavenly inheritance of Christians, far from speaking of material things, he said, "Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1: 3).

How complete the contrast!

6. While Israel's destiny is to be the channel of blessing to all nations, during the golden years of the millennial age, the church's destiny is association with Christ in heaven. Isaiah 60 well describes the future of Israel. Revelation 19 and Revelation 21, under various figures, presents to us the destiny of the church as "the Lamb's wife."

Was there a definite time when God's ways with Israel ended and when the church period began?

It has already been pointed out that the death of Christ marked the close of God's dealings with Israel as a nation; and that His resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost inaugurated the present dispensation. Compare Acts 2: 41-47 with 1 Corinthians 12: 13.

Two qualifying remarks must, however, be made.

Firstly, that though God's ways with Israel reached their great climax in the cross, He, nevertheless, continued certain supplementary dealings with them until the death of Stephen, and perhaps even until the destruction of Jerusalem. Nor were the full designs of God as to the church made known in their entirety at the very outset of the present age. They were gradually revealed through the apostles, particularly through Paul, though the church itself began its corporate existence as stated.

Secondly, that God's ways with Israel have only ended for a time. Later on, in a day still future, they will be resumed, and the glorious promises made to that favoured nation be literally fulfilled. Israel has been side-tracked, as it were, while the church occupies the rails. When the church has been transferred to heaven, Israel will again be brought out upon the main line of God's dealings.

In Acts 7: 38 Stephen speaks of "the church in the wilderness." And the headings to many Old Testament chapters refer to the church. Does it not appear from this that the church was in existence before Christ came?

Israel was undoubtedly "the assembly in the wilderness." Is there anything in this which would warrant our identifying Israel with the church of the New Testament? No more than the use of the same word in Acts 19: 41 warrants our confounding the church in that city with the unruly mob of Diana's worshippers,

The application to the church of prophetic utterances in Old Testament headings of chapters (which are no part of the original text) is due to the mistaken views of well-meaning men.

But the mistake is a serious one, because it is by the confusion of Israel with the church that men have sought to justify the introduction into Christianity of Jewish elements and principles.

Were not such men as Abraham, Moses, and Elijah in the church? Does it not put a slight upon these honoured men to deny them a place therein?

By no means. Their lot was cast in the dispensation that is past. Viewed morally, these men tower as giants, while many of us Christians are but pigmies. Yet even John the Baptist, than whom none was greater, was, when viewed dispensationally, less then the least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 11: 11). He belonged to the age of servitude, we to the age of sonship (see Gal. 4: 1-7).

The Lord's words in Matthew 11 concerning John were followed by those of Matthew 16: 13-18 concerning Himself. He was not a mere prophet like Elijah, Jeremiah, or John, but the Son of the living God, and on that rock, said He, "I will build My church." Mark those two words: "will build." It was a future work of which the Lord spoke, and one in which these great men of old had no part.

What was God's object in calling out Israel into the special place they occupied?

They were called to take possession of the promised land for God, as a kind of pledge that the whole earth belonged to Him, in spite of the fact that Satan had usurped dominion over it. When they entered they crossed the Jordan as the people of "the Lord of all the earth" (Joshua 3: 11, 13).

Further, they were to preserve in the world the stock "of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came" (Rom. 9: 5).

Incidentally also, in that nation as a sample separated from the corruptions of the surrounding peoples, and privileged beyond all others, was made God's last trial of the human race. The records of their own law as cited in Romans 3: 9-18 testified to their irremediable failure, and proved in this way the hopelessly fallen conditions of all. If, as Romans 3: 19 puts it, the law utterly condemns the sample nation of the Jews, who were under it, then every mouth is stopped, and all the world is "guilty before God."

What is God's object and purpose in connection with the church?

The church is Christ's body (Eph. 1: 23). Therefore in it He is to be expressed; just as your body is that in which you live and express yourself.

It represents Him here during the time of His rejection and personal absence in heaven. Satan has got rid of Christ personally from the earth, but He is here as represented in His people. To touch the church, or any who belong to it, is to touch Him. Do not His own words to Saul imply this: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" (Acts 9: 4).

It is God's house, the only house He has upon earth at the present time. God will not be turned out of His own world! He dwells, therefore, to-day in a house which no Nebuchadnezzar, no Titus can burn to the ground, and which no Nero, no Torquemada has been able to destroy.

God's ultimate purpose is to have a bride for Christ (Eph. 5: 25-27), a people who, sharing now as heavenly strangers His rejection, find their eternal portion as sharers of His heavenly glory.

Can you enumerate some of the blessings we Christians have, which even the best in Israel had not before Christ came?

The knowledge of God as Father, fully revealed in Christ, is one of the greatest of these blessings. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1: 18).

Another blessing is, instead of promises, we have the fact of accomplished redemption. The promissory bank-note has been exchanged for the fine gold of the finished work of Christ.

Further, the Holy Spirit now indwells believers (see John 14: 16; Acts 2: 1-4). Though He had always exerted His influence upon earth, His abiding presence here is a new thing.

Lastly, our relationships with God are on an entirely new footing in Christ. We are no more servants, but sons (Gal. 4: 4-6).

Much more might be added, but these four facts will serve to show the wealth of blessing that belongs to the Christian.

Shall we not thank God that our lot is cast on this side of the cross of Christ?

Israel and the Church

Israel and the Church

F. B. Hole

A knowledge of "dispensational truth," as it is often termed, is indispensable for the intelligent reading of the Bible. Yet many Christians seem to have hardly given it a thought.

God has been pleased to deal with men at different times in various ways. Fresh revelations of Himself and of His will have ushered in new modes of dealing with men, new dispensations.

"Dispensational truth" teaches us to rightly distinguish these changes, and to discern their nature, so that the salient features of each may not be obscured. The importance of this for us Christians is that we thereby learn the true character of the calling wherewith we are called from on high, and of the age in which our lot is cast.

Up to the time of Christ a dispensation ran its course in which the prominent feature was Israel, the chosen nation of the stock of Abraham. The period in which we live, from Pentecost to the coming of the Lord, is marked by altogether different features. Not Israel, but the Church is prominent in God's thoughts to-day.

Before dwelling on the important distinctions between the two, let us be quite sure that we understand exactly what we are speaking about.

By ISRAEL we do not mean the Jews, the scattered nation as they are to-day, nor as they were in the time of our Lord, a remnant still clinging to their ancient capital, Jerusalem. We do not allude to them as they actually existed at any time, but rather to what that nation was according to God's original plan for them.

When we speak of THE CHURCH we do not refer to any ecclesiastical building nor to any denomination, nor to any number of professed Christians banded together into what is called nowadays "a church." We use the term in its scriptural sense. The Greek word rendered "church" simply means "called-out ones." Those, who are called out of the world by God during this period of Christ's rejection, are by this means, and by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, banded together into God's assembly, the church.

It may be helpful to notice that in Scripture the term "church" is used in three ways: —

1. As denoting the aggregate number of the Christians in any given place (1 Cor. 1: 2; Col. 4: 15, etc.).

2. As the aggregate number of all Christians upon earth at any given time (1 Cor. 10: 32; 1 Cor. 12: 28; Eph. 1: 22, etc.). In this aspect the church is like a regiment which abides the same, though the units which compose it are constantly changing.

3. As the aggregate number of all Christians, called out and sealed with the Spirit between Pentecost and the coming of the Lord (Eph. 3: 21; Eph. 5: 25, etc.).

Of these the last is the sense in which we use the word in this Bible Talk; though, if we speak of the church as it exists on earth to-day, we obviously allude to it in its second aspect.

Be it remembered, however, that we refer, as in the case of Israel, not to what the church actually is, or has at any time been, but to what it is according to the original design and thought of God.

Having defined our terms, let us observe a few necessary distinctions.

1. John, the forerunner of the Lord, was the last of the long line of the prophets of the past dispensation. With him, God's utterances under the old covenant reached their full stop. With Christ, the new utterances began. "The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached" (Luke 16: 16).

The advent of Christ into the world was described by Zacharias as the coming of the dayspring (or, as the margin reads, "sun-rising") from on high. His appearance on earth heralded the dawn of a new day. Not that this new day was there and then inaugurated. The Lord Jesus had a mission to fulfil in the midst of Israel, and He must needs present Himself to that nation as their long-promised Messiah. Moreover, the broad foundations of purposed blessing must be laid amid the sufferings of Calvary. But when all this was past, when the Son of God had died and risen again, when He had ascended to heaven and sent down the Holy Ghost, then was inaugurated a dispensation that was new indeed, utterly different from all that had gone before.

2. The characteristic feature of the old dispensation was law, that of the new is grace. The giving of the law at Sinai ushered in the former. God formulated His demands upon men. He was to receive, and they were to give, that which was His due. The fact that failure came in immediately, failure so great as to amount to a total collapse, did not relieve men of their newly incurred responsibilities in the smallest degree. God, however, announced to Moses that He would have mercy (Ex. 33: 19), and withhold the threatened destruction in view of the coming of Christ. The law still held sway as "schoolmaster," and continued so to do until Christ came (Gal. 3: 24).

In Christ a power mightier than the law was present. The case of the sinful woman in John 8 beautifully illustrates it. Under the potent influence of grace, the hypocrites were convicted far more effectually than under law, and the sinner was forgiven, a thing which the law never professed to do. Now God gives and man receives. The new dispensation is marked by grace reigning through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 5: 21).

3. The old dispensation centred round Israel, the new is connected with the church.

The law was given not to everybody, but to one nation, Israel. Upon that nation, therefore, God's attention was focussed. The privileges of the children of Israel belonged to them nationally rather than individually. God always had His own secret dealings with the souls of individuals, and these dealings came into greater prominence in the days of national apostasy. But at the beginning God took them up nationally without reference to the spiritual state of individuals, and their standing before Him was on a national basis.

On the other hand, there is nothing national about the church.Peter declared, corroborated by James, that the divine programme for this dispensation is the visiting of the nations by God, "to take out of them a people for His name" (Acts 15: 13, 14). God is now making an election from all nations, and those thus gathered out for His name compose "the church."

The church, then, is not national, nor is it international, it is rather extra-national, i.e., altogether outside of all national distinctions, and totally independent of them. Instead of being constructed on a national basis, it is represented in Scripture as "one flock" (John 10: 16, R.V.), as "one body" (1 Cor. 12: 13), as "a spiritual house, an holy priesthood" (1 Peter 2: 5), as a family composed of the children of God (1 John 2: 12; 1 John 3: 1, etc.).

Moreover, in connection with the church God begins with the individual. It is composed of those who have personally been set in right relations with God. Only as forgiven, and as having received the Spirit to indwell them, do they become members of the one body, and "living stones" in the spiritual house.

4. Connected with Israel was a ritualistic worship, the value of which lay in its typical significance. The church's privileges are connected with the eternal realities themselves, with the substance rather than with the shadows. Her worship does not consist of sacrificial offerings, symbolic ceremonies, and the like, but is "worship in spirit and in truth."

The law had only "a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things" (Heb. 10: 1). The good things have come, and are realized by Christians to-day. Christ has established them (Heb. 9: 24; Heb. 10: 12), the Spirit has revealed them (1 Cor. 2: 9, 10), and the believer may gaze upon them with the eye of faith (2 Cor. 4: 18).

5. Israel's blessings and privileges were largely of an earthly and material order, the church's are heavenly and spiritual.

In the Old Testament instructions were given as to the way in which the children of Israel should return thanks to God when they were actually in possession of the promised land. They were to take the first of all their fruits and set them in a basket before the Lord their God, with an acknowledgment of His goodness on their lips (Deut. 26: 1-11).

Is the Christian to approach God in this way? On the contrary, when Paul wrote to the Ephesians as to the heavenly inheritance of Christians, far from speaking of material things, he said, "Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1: 3).

How complete the contrast

6. While Israel's destiny is to be the channel of blessing to all nations, during the golden years of the millennial age, the church's destiny is association with Christ in heaven. Isaiah 60 well describes the future of Israel. Revelation 19 and 21, under various figures, presents to us the destiny of the church as "the Lamb's wife."

Was there a definite time when God's ways with Israel ended and when the church period began?

It has already been pointed out that the death of Christ marked the close of God's dealings with Israel as a nation; and that His resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost inaugurated the present dispensation. Compare Acts 2: 41-47 with 1 Corinthians 12: 13.

Two qualifying remarks must, however, be made.

Firstly, that though God's ways with Israel reached their great climax in the cross, He, nevertheless, continued certain supplementary dealings with them until the death of Stephen, and perhaps even until the destruction of Jerusalem. Nor were the full designs of God as to the church made known in their entirety at the very outset of the present age. They were gradually revealed through the apostles, particularly through Paul, though the church itself began its corporate existence as stated.

Secondly, that God's ways with Israel have only ended for a time. Later on, in a day still future, they will be resumed, and the glorious promises made to that favoured nation be literally fulfilled. Israel has been side-tracked, as it were, while the church occupies the rails. When the church has been transferred to heaven, Israel will again be brought out upon the main line of God's dealings.

In Acts 7: 38 Stephen speaks of "the church in the wilderness." And the headings to many Old Testament chapters refer to the church. Does it not appear from this that the church was in existence before Christ came

Israel was undoubtedly "the assembly in the wilderness." Is there anything in this which would warrant our identifying Israel with the church of the New Testament? No more than the use of the same word in Acts 19: 41 warrants our confounding the church in that city with the unruly mob of Diana's worshippers.

The application to the church of prophetic utterances in Old Testament headings of chapters (which are no part of the original text) is due to the mistaken views of well-meaning men.

But the mistake is a serious one, because it is by the confusion of Israel with the church that men have sought to justify the introduction into Christianity of Jewish elements and principles.

Were not such men as Abraham, Moses, and Elijah in the church? Does it not put a slight upon these honoured men to deny them a place therein?

By no means. Their lot was cast in the dispensation that is past. Viewed morally, these men tower as giants, while many of us Christians are but pigmies. Yet even John the Baptist, than whom none was greater, was, when viewed dispensationally, less then the least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 11: 11). He belonged to the age of servitude, we to the age of sonship (see Gal, 4: 1-7).

The Lord's words in Matthew 11 concerning John were followed by those of Matthew 16: 13-18 concerning Himself. He was not a mere prophet like Elijah, Jeremiah, or John, but the Son of the living God, and on that rock, said He, "I will build My church." Mark those two words: "will build." It was a future work of which the Lord spoke, and one in which these great men of old had no part.

What was God's object in calling out Israel into the special place they occupied?

They were called to take possession of the promised land for God, as a kind of pledge that the whole earth belonged to Him, in spite of the fact that Satan had usurped dominion over it. When they entered they crossed the Jordan as the people of "the Lord of all the earth" (Joshua 3: 11, 13).

Further, they were to preserve in the world the stock "of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came" (Rom. 9: 5).

Incidentally also, in that nation as a sample separated from the corruptions of the surrounding peoples, and privileged beyond all others, was made God's last trial of the human race. The records of their own law as cited in Romans 3: 9-18 testified to their irremediable failure, and proved in this way the hopelessly fallen conditions of all. If, as Romans 3: 19 puts it, the law utterly condemns the sample nation of the Jews, who were under it, then every mouth is stopped, and all the world is "guilty before God."

What is God's object and purpose in connection with the church?

The church is Christ's body (Eph. 1: 23). Therefore in it He is to be expressed; just as your body is that in which you live and express yourself.

It represents Him here during the time of His rejection and personal absence in heaven. Satan has got rid of Christ personally from the earth, but He is here as represented in His people. To touch the church, or any who belong to it, is to touch Him. Do not His own words to Saul imply this: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" (Acts 9: 4).

It is God's house, the only house He has upon earth at the present time. God will not be turned out of His own world! He dwells, therefore, to-day in a house which no Nebuchadnezzar, no Titus can burn to the ground, and which no Nero, no Torquemada has been able to destroy.

God's ultimate purpose is to have a bride for Christ (Eph. 5: 25-27), a people who, sharing now as heavenly strangers His rejection, find their eternal portion as sharers of His heavenly glory.

Can you enumerate some of the blessings we Christians have, which even the best in Israel had not before Christ came?

The knowledge of God as Father, fully revealed in Christ, is one of the greatest of these blessings. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1: 18).

Another blessing is, instead of promises, we have the fact of accomplished redemption. The promissory bank-note has been exchanged for the fine gold of the finished work of Christ.

Further, the Holy Spirit now indwells believers (see John 14: 16; Acts 2: 1-4). Though He had always exerted His influence upon earth, His abiding presence here is a new thing.

Lastly, our relationships with God are on an entirely new footing in Christ. We are no more servants, but sons (Gal. 4: 4-6).

Much more might be added, but these four facts will serve to show the wealth of blessing that belongs to the Christian.

Shall we not thank God that our lot is cast on this side of the cross of Christ?

Worship and Service

Worship and Service.

F. B. Hole.

Christianity in its practical outworkings is a well-balanced combination of the passive and active sides of divine life in the soul. Every Christian is of necessity a receiver, not only at conversion, but all through his career. He must daily sit at Jesus' feet and hear His Word (Luke 10: 39), cultivating that quiet passivity of soul which ensures a receptive state. Otherwise he has nothing to impart.

On the other hand, having received, he finds himself constrained to give. Is he rejoicing in the knowledge of sins forgiven? His joy will not be complete until he has told the news to some one else. Has some fresh truth of Scripture burst upon his view? It will not be fully his until he has acted upon it. To practise any truth is to possess that truth indeed.

So the two things go hand in hand. A Christian resembles a reservoir, inasmuch as he must have an inlet and an outflow. If he becomes so enamored of the activities of Christianity that he is always attempting to give out without stopping to take in, spiritual emptiness and bankruptcy are the result. If he degenerates into a dreamy mystic, decrying all forms of Christian activity under cover of zeal for larger reception of divine truth, spiritual surfeit will supervene, and his ultimate loss will be great.

"From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath" (Matt. 25: 29). This was said of the servant who received a talent, but did not give it out to usury.

"For we must share if we would keep

That good thing from above;

Ceasing to give we cease to have,

Such is the law of love."

All activities of a distinctly Christian character flow from one source: LOVE, the love of God known and produced in the soul. They range themselves under two heads. First, there are those activities which have God alone for their object and end. Second, those which, though God's glory is their end, have man in some way as their immediate object.

Let us briefly consider these two things.

WORSHIP must stand first. It is a spiritual activity which, having God alone as its object, confers no tangible benefit upon any one in the world. Therefore, in this utilitarian age it is greatly neglected, and its true character little understood. Let Christians, be they few or many, assemble together, drawing consciously into the presence of God and pouring out their hearts in thanksgiving and worship, and there will be not a few ready to rebuke them and say) "Why was this waste of the ointment made?" They will be told to go out and do something that will confer a practical benefit upon somebody, and abandon that which does nobody good.

But things have gone even further than this. There are many professed ministers of Christ who so fully "mind earthly things" (Phil. 3: 19) that they have no thought for "the things which are above" (Col. 3: 1), which the believer is bidden to seek. Their aim is limited to the benefit of men, and that in the most material way. Mark the pitiful spiritual degradation to which they have sunk as witnessed by their activities. Here is a flagrant example.

"By training people in music, developing orators and athletes, starting 'Bible classes - with heaps of fun,' and making the church a social centre, the writer has created a new community spirit, and as a result land-values are going up."

Thus an article in an American magazine describes how a church may be "run" so as to benefit the whole community.

Such activities are neither worship nor service. There is nothing in them for God, and nothing for the spiritual benefit of man. Such "ministers" and "churches" must have long ago practically banished the word worship from their vocabularies; the idea which the word properly conveys they probably never had.

What, then, is worship? In the Old Testament the term frequently occurs and is often used in a purely ceremonial sense. The Hebrew word most frequently used means literally "to bow oneself down." In the New Testament the word gets the inward and spiritual meaning with which we are concerned, and signifies the up-flow of responsive love, in adoration, from the believer to God, now known as Father.

In John 4 the Lord Jesus, speaking to the woman of Samaria, carefully distinguishes between the "true worshippers" and the worshippers according to the ancient rites, whether at Jerusalem or Samaria, and instructs us as to the essentials for true worship. After speaking of the Father as the object of worship, He adds: "God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

Do not these words plainly show that it is God as Father that we are to worship? and, further, that He is only to be worshipped according to what He has revealed Himself to be?

"In spirit," for "Spirit" is what God Himself is. True worship, then, is not a matter of religious emotions roused by impressive ritual or sensuous music. "Spirit" is the highest part of man, and unless we worship in spirit we do not worship at all.

"In truth." What is truth? We may answer Pilate's famous question thus: The realities of God Himself, that which God has revealed Himself to be: this is truth. The One who stood, crowned with thorns that day, in the judgment hall was Himself the truth, though Pilate knew it not, nor cared to know. He, and He alone, could say: "I am . . . the Truth" (John 14: 6), for He alone is the perfect revelation of God, and it is as Father that He has revealed Him. Therefore He said: "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14: 9).

The Father, then, is to be worshipped "in truth," in the light of that revelation which has come to us in Christ. That which does not give Christ His right place is no true worship. Worshipping God and rejoicing in Christ Jesus go hand in hand (Phil. 3: 3).

All this is of great importance. Let the soul firmly grasp the fact that true worship is "in spirit" and it will be delivered from the ritualistic idea which supposes that God can be worshipped by men's hands, that the more imposing the ceremony, the more gorgeous the surroundings, the more acceptable the "worship" is.

On the other hand, to know that only worship "in truth" is acceptable to God is to have the rationalistic idea dispelled. Neither the torchlight of science nor the study of God's handiwork in nature gives rise to worship. The knowledge of God Himself, revealed in Christ, is essential.

After worship comes SERVICE, the outcome of the gracious activity of divine love in the hearts of believers, leading them to an endless variety of labour for the glory of God and the good of souls.

Let us make no mistake here. The very essence of true service is that, while undertaken that others may be benefited, it is done for the pleasure and under the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In service our one motive should be to please the Lord, who has in this Himself become our great Example. Speaking of the Father, He said: "I do always those things that please Him" (John 8: 29). To do right things is not enough. Right things done with a wrong motive are wrong in the sight of heaven.

Neither is it enough to act even with a right motive, if we are acting simply on our own initiative and doing what seems right in our own eyes. A man employed in a workshop may be a good workman, but a poor servant. If he is opinionated and independent, he will be continually running counter to his master's wishes and will give no end of trouble. Again, the Lord Jesus comes before us as our Example, saying: "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work" (John 4: 34). Service, then, is not merely work, not even good work, Christian activity of the most scriptural sort, but rather such activity under the direction of the Lord.

If an illustration of our theme be wanted, John 12: 1-9 presents us with an excellent one. "Martha served." There was hard work connected with that supper, and many benefited by it, but she performed it for Him. "They made Him a supper." That was true service done out of a full heart of gratitude to the One who had brought her brother from the tomb.

Lazarus "sat at the table with Him," a type of that communion with the Master which alone gives point and character to either service or worship.

Mary took the costly ointment and anointed the feet of Jesus. Upon Him she lavished it all. It was the outflow of a heart concentrated upon Christ, though the odour of the ointment filled the house. The worship of the heart is fragrant everywhere.

The Father is seeking worshippers (John 4: 23). The Lord has need of servants (2 Tim. 2: 1-7). May we respond to both desires!

In speaking of worship, do you intend to refer to your form of worship as compared with that of other people?

Not at all. I have no form of worship, whatever other people may have. To the Jews of old God gave what might be termed a "form of worship." But it was of a national, outward, ceremonial sort, though acceptable to God, if carried out with all the heart. Alas! it was not so, and soon Jehovah had to say: "In vain do they worship Me."

But the shadow dispensation has passed away and the substance has come. Christian worship is not national, not a mere matter of the lips, not a thing made up of certain ceremonies and observances. You can no more confine worship in forms than you can keep new wine in old bottles. The thing has been attempted times without number, for again and again have even true believers drifted back in mind and understanding to pre-Christian days. The result, however, must either be that if true worship be retained the forms are burst and discarded, or that if the forms be rigidly adhered to the new wine of true worship is spilled and quickly disappears.

You speak of worship and service Is there such a very great difference between them? Ought we not to worship God whenever we go to a service?

There is a very distinct difference. But just as we are speaking of worship and not "a form of worship," so we are speaking of service, and not "a service." The fact is, in the minds of many the whole subject is obscured and confused to a surprising degree, until no clear scriptural idea is left.

We have heard of a preacher who rose from his seat one Sunday morning and said: "Let us commence the worship of Almighty God by singing the hymn -

"Come ye sinners poor and needy,

Weak and wounded, sick and sore."

To him "worship" evidently meant any kind of religious meeting. But it does not! It may be a true service to the Lord on the part of the preacher to conduct a meeting for the edification of believers or the conversion of sinners. It is no service (in the proper sense of the word) for the listeners. And for neither preacher nor hearers is it worship. Worship is not hearing sermons nor preaching them. Nor is it praying, or singing Gospel hymns. It is that up-flow of adoration which rises from a redeemed soul to God.

Are worship and service confined to any particular class, or may all Christians have part in them?

All Christians are both priests and servants. We read, for instance:

"Ye also . . . are built up . . . an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2: 5).

And again:

"Ye are . . . a royal priesthood . . . that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light" (1 Peter 2: 9).

These words were written not to clergy, but to Christians. All such are a holy and a royal priesthood. Mark their activities! In the one character they OFFER UP spiritual sacrifices to God, i.e., worship. In the other they SHOW FORTH the praises of God, i.e., service.

In connection with service it is, of course, true that not every Christian has a gift according to 1 Corinthians 12, or is an evangelist, pastor, or teacher according to Ephesians 4. Yet every Christian can serve according to Romans 12. If he cannot prophesy or teach, he can show hospitality, or mercy; he can bless his persecutors, or weep in sympathy with a weeping saint, and thus be "serving the Lord."

Are there any special qualifications needed for us to rightly worship or serve God?

As to worship, Hebrews 10: 19-22 speaks of "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," and we are exhorted to draw near with "a true heart in full assurance of faith." These are two important qualifications. Faith must be in active exercise, so that there is full assurance based upon the work of Christ, not a doubt or fear left. Then a true heart would indicate that sincerity and transparency of soul which is the result of a tender conscience and self-judgment.

As to service, read Acts 20: 17-35. Here is one of the most eminent of Christ's servants reviewing his career. Our service may be of the most insignificant description, yet the things that marked him should characterize us. Here are some of them: "humility of mind"; "many tears" - expressive of much exercise; "none of these things move me" - stability of soul; "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel" - the strictest possible righteousness before the world; "I have shewed you all things" - the practice of what is preached. These are important qualifications indeed.

If a person recently converted desires to serve the Lord, how would you advise them to start?

I would encourage all young believers to serve the Lord by just doing that thing which, in His ordering of their lives, is next to hand. "Do the next thing," is a very sound motto, albeit that, as a rule, it is the very thing we do not wish to do.

Years ago there was living in a mountainous district of Virginia a humble servant-girl who had never had more than three months' schooling in her life. She earned four dollars a month. Out of this, one dollar went to her chapel, and one dollar to foreign missions. She was the largest local contributor in both these directions. The other two dollars went to her father, who was very poor and had a large family. She clothed herself by taking in sewing and sitting up late to do it.

An earnest minister visited the place. Accommodation was scarce, so her room was handed over to him. On the table lay her Bible. He opened it and found it marked on nearly every page. But what struck him most of all was her note against "Go ye into all the world" (Mark 16: 15). In firm, clear letters it stood, "Oh, if I could!"

Next day he spoke to her about it, whereupon she broke into crying, and for the moment he could get nothing out of her. Later on he heard this story.

She was converted at the age of fourteen, and on reaching home found a paper, "China's Call for the Gospel," lying about. Where it came from nobody knew. That had coloured all her thoughts. For ten years she had prayed the Lord to send her to China.

But lately a change had come over her. Just two weeks before, she had come to the conclusion that she had made a mistake, and that, after all, the Lord's plan for her was that she should be a missionary in the kitchen. At once her prayer became, "Make me willing to be a missionary for Thee in the kitchen," and the Lord had answered that prayer.

For ten years she had longed for the big thing, while not neglecting smaller things, as her contributions showed. At last she became willing to accept the very little thing, to shine for the Lord in that narrow circle as kitchen-maid, and then the Lord despatched her to some very blessed service in China! For the minister became convinced that he was specially sent there of God to help her, and to China she ultimately went.

May service of that kind be greatly multiplied on every hand!

"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much" (Luke 16: 10).

The Rapture and the Appearing

The Rapture and the Appearing

F. B. Hole.

It is an actual fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back again! Yet many people, even true believers, seem hardly to believe it. It seems to them a dreamy, visionary, mystical idea, and they cannot help thinking that the enthusiasts who announce it must be mistaking figures of speech for sober facts.

But, after all, why should you be surprised? You believe that He has been here once. Then why not twice?

Consider for a moment what happened when He first came. He was rejected, and His life was cut short. His public mission of three and a half years closed in His sudden death. But being God manifest in flesh, in dying He wrought redemption for His people; He rose again. Is it likely that the story ends there as far as this earth is concerned? Shall the ejection of the Creator from the world by the creature be the last word? By no means. Men despised Him in His humiliation. He will surely return in His glory.

We are not left, however, to consider what seems likely or reasonable. The doctrine of the Second Advent is one of the commonest themes of Scripture. The Old Testament frequently refers to it. In the New Testament the full truth of it is plainly revealed. From the great mass of texts that might be quoted, let us select one which is singularly explicit.

"Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1: 11).

This message has about it almost the sound of a legal document. Lawyers write a very simple statement in a rather lengthy way because they find it needful to hedge about their words from possible misinterpretations. So here there is a fulness and almost a redundancy of expression, especially designed to foil any attempt to evade or mystify this great fact.

It is evident from this verse that the Lord Jesus is Himself coming just as He went. How did He go? Personally; then personally He will come. He went actually as a living Man - it was no spirit manifestation. Then actually as a living Man He will come. He went visibly; visibly He will come. He went from the earth. Then to the earth He will return.

The attentive Christian reader, however, is often puzzled as he pursues his studies into this great truth, by seeming discrepancies between different passages, and he needs to have placed in his hands the key that unlocks the door of difficulty.

That key is an understanding of the difference between the two stages of the Second Advent, which for the sake of brevity we term "The Rapture" (i.e., "the catching-up") and "The Appearing."

Take the trouble at this point to thoughtfully read 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 to 1 Thess. 5: 3. Notice that the Thessalonian believers were troubled because some of their number had died, and they thought that they would therefore miss the glory of the appearing and reign of Christ. Paul tells them not to sorrow, because as certainly as Jesus died and rose again, God will bring WITH Jesus all such when He comes (v. 9). Then the Apostle explains how this is to be brought about, by what means the formerly dead in Christ are found with Him in bodies of glory so as to be able to share in His glorious appearing.

This explanation is prefaced by "this we say unto you by the word of the Lord," indicating that what follows is not something which had been previously made known, but something newly revealed: his authority for stating it being not Old Testament scripture, nor any previous utterance, but the direct revelation of the Lord.

And this is the explanation: "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout . . . and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

Now compare these words with what is written in 1 Corinthians 15: 51-54, and you will find an additional fact stated. "The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

In the light of these two scriptures we gather that:

(1) The Lord Himself shall descend into the air with an assembling shout.

(2) His shout will awaken the sleeping saints and raise them in bodies of glory.

(3) We, the living, will then undergo a corresponding change into a glorified condition.

(4) All believers, whether previously dead or living, will be caught up together, to be for ever with the Lord.

Oh, most blessed hour, the fruition of our long-cherished hope!

All this, however, leaves the great world untouched, save as the sudden disappearance of multitudes of saints may affect it. But the hour of retribution follows on. Hence 1 Thessalonians 5 opens by drawing a distinction between the coming of the Lord for His saints with which chapter 4 has dealt, and "the day of the Lord." That comes, not as a bridegroom for his bride, but "as a thief in the night."

When the Lord Jesus in humiliation was led as a lamb to the slaughter, He said to His enemies, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness" (Luke 22: 53). But the tables are to be completely turned. He comes not in humiliation, but in glory; not as a lamb to the slaughter, but as the Lion of the tribe of Judah; not solitary and alone, but "with ten thousands of His saints"; not submitting to the will of His enemies, but that His enemies may be made His footstool. It is not man's little hour, and the short-lived triumph of evil; it is the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

"The day of the Lord" is not a day of twenty-four hours, but an interval of time like "the day of salvation." It is a period in the cycle of "times and seasons" marked by the absolute supremacy and authority of the Lord. It starts with His public manifestation in the clouds of heaven - His appearing with His saints.

It is to this public appearing that Old Testament prophets so frequently refer, being the consummation of God's ways with Israel and the earth. It ushers in a short, sharp work of judgment whereby the earth is purged of its dross before the shining forth of glory in the millennial reign of Christ.

Before this public appearing certain things must take place as foretold in Scripture. The Lord Jesus Himself. plainly predicted certain things (Matt. 24.; Mark 13; Luke 21). Again 2 Thessalonians 2 shows us that before the day of Christ comes there must first be "a falling away," an apostasy, and connected with that, the revelation of the man of sin, commonly called "antichrist." In him sin will find its culminating expression. He will be its very embodiment.

When the iniquity of man rises then to its full height God will smite in judgment. The Lord Jesus, who once bore judgment for our sakes, is then to be its Executor, and that oldest of all prophecies given through the lips of a man will be fulfilled: "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all" (Jude 14, 15). Previously the saints will have been "changed" according to 1 Corinthians 15, and "caught up" according to 1 Thessalonians 4, hence they are with Him in a glorified condition, and when the heavens open and reveal Him in the "flaming fire" of judgment, they are with Him, and He will be "glorified in His saints" and "admired in all them that believe . . . in that day" (2 Thess. 1: 7-10).

Meanwhile our business is "to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven" (1 Theses. 1: 9, 10).

May not what you call the Rapture be just a beautiful and poetic way of speaking of the death of a saint, and the Appearing be what is commonly called "the end of the world"?

The death of a saint is thus described in Scripture: "To depart and to be with Christ" (Phil. 1: 23). Is there no difference between our going to be with Christ and His coming for us? Further, when the saint dies and goes to be with Christ, his body is laid IN the grave. When Christ comes for His saints according to 1 Thessalonians 4, He takes all their bodies OUT of the graves. Are these one and the same thing?

No. The coming of the Lord for His saints is not death, but the deliverance of His people from the last vestige of death. The appearing of Christ with His saints is not "the end of the world," by which people generally mean the winding up of the heavens and the earth in their present condition. Revelation 19, speaks of the Lord's appearing in glory. Revelation 20 shows the result, Satan restrained and a thousand years of blessing for this weary old earth. After that - the end.

In this case would there not be two comings, a third Advent after the second?

No. Frequently in Scripture the coming of the Lord is spoken of in a general way without referring definitely to either of its two stages. The Rapture and the Appearing are only two parts or stages of the one coming. When the King visits the City of London in state, the Lord Mayor and sheriffs meet him at Temple Bar, and after certain ceremonies they take their place in the procession behind him and re-enter the City, accompanying him to the Guildhall or wherever he is going.

Even so will it be at the coming of Christ. Caught up into the air to meet Him, we shall shortly after return with Him to share in His glorious kingdom.

What signs should we look for as indicating that the Lord's coming is near?

If the appearing be in question, then such scriptures as 2 Thessalonians 2, 2 Timothy 3, and Matthew 24 supply the answer. The rising tide of apostasy in Christendom; the prevalence of false prophets deceiving many; the extraordinary awakening of the Jewish race, i.e., the fig tree putting forth leaves according to Matthew 24: 32; the increasing carelessness of the world deceived into false security by its own achievements and saying "Peace and safety"; all these things and others of which we are witnesses indicate that we draw nigh to the end of this age.

But all these things are portents of the Appearing. As to the Rapture which precedes it, no signs are to be looked for. It is an event outside the calculation of times and seasons. These belong to the earth, as the opening verse of 1 Thessalonians 5 shows, and there was no need for the apostle to write to the Thessalonians on the subject. But as to the Rapture, which is not connected with times and seasons, there was a very distinct need that he should write to them.

There is nothing awaiting fulfilment before Christ comes for His saints. He may come at any moment.

Must not the world be converted first?

That question would not be asked were it not that an unscriptural idea exists on the subject. Nowhere in the Bible is the conversion of the whole world by preaching of the Gospel either stated or implied. The Gospel is preached by command of God for the gathering out of the nations a people for His Name (Acts 15: 14). The world will not be converted, but rather purified by judgment which will remove the workers of evil and subjugate the earth to God. "When Thy judgments [not Thy Gospel] are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness" (Isa. 26: 9).

Will all Christians be caught up at the Rapture?

Undoubtedly. To illustrate the truth of the Rapture, the effect of a strong magnet held over steel filings when mixed with sand has been used. It is a good illustration, only this must be remembered: Christians are not only like so many individual steel filings, they are by the Holy Ghost livingly connected together. They are "one flock," one family, "one body." When the Lord Jesus comes He will take His Church as one living entity, His body and His bride. Mutilated fragments will not be left behind.

The idea that some Christians will be left behind seems to crop up in two directions.

First, we have the prophets of various latter day apostasies from the truth. Some of them teach that only "living," "faithful," "watching" Christians will be taken. Their "faithfulness" is manifested by their reception of the teachings of the false prophet in question! Comment on this is needless.

Secondly, true Christians have run away with the idea that only "watching" believers are caught up, from such a Scripture as the following: "Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation" (Heb. 9: 28).

After all, however, where can you find a true Christian who is not looking for Him? You can find many who are very unintelligent, who do not understand the truth of His coming, who have never heard of "the Rapture." Yet they look for Christ. He is the hope of their hearts, though they know not how that hope shall be fulfilled.

The fact is, the expression "them that look for Him," like "them that love God," (Rom. 8: 28) is just a Bible way of describing believers. If a man does not love God, nor look for Christ, he cannot be called a Christian.

After all, is not this teaching concerning the Second Advent rather speculative? Is there any real use in it?

It is no more speculative than the teaching divinely given to Noah concerning the approaching flood, or the prophecies given to Israel during centuries concerning the first coming of the Saviour. Difficulties may be raised as to details where Scripture is silent, and men may disagree and mystify matters as to the second coming just as the scribes succeeded in mystifying their generation as to the first coming. But the broad outlines of the truth as to it stand clear and plain in Scripture, and the event is sure.

As to the use of this truth, it will be found in practice that no fact exercises a more solemnizing effect on the consciences of sinners. No truth has a more separating effect upon believers. Shall we join hand in hand with the world which is shortly to come under judgment? No. "Every man that hath this hope in Him [Christ] purifieth himself even as He is pure" ( 1 John 3: 3). He whose hope is in Christ and His speedy return puts far from him every defiling thing.

Do you believe that the "Rapture of the saints" is now very near?

Yes. Foolish attempts have been made to fix dates for the Lord's return, thus contravening His own words. Earnest believers, too, have allowed themselves to use extravagant language, giving the impression that they were certain it could not be distant more than a year or two. Years have passed, and those who listened to these expressions have become sceptical as to the whole thing.

The truth remains, however: He is coming, and that quickly. Everything, both in the church and in the world, points to the closing up of this age. Therefore we lift up our heads and expect Him.

Entering a Christian's room the other day my eye fell on these words framed like a text and hung on the wall,

"PERHAPS TODAY."

I knew what it meant. That is the right attitude. His coming is certainly near. May we rise each morning with this thought: perhaps He may come to-day; and may we so purify ourselves in holiness before Him that our unchecked response may gladly be: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."