Table of Contents

Forgiveness

The Great Salvation

Foreword.

Contents

Forgiveness.

It has been asserted that everybody is forgiven. Is there any sense in which such a statement is true?

In His parable of the two debtors in Luke 7, the Lord did teach however that both were forgiven by the creditor. Was not Simon, the self-righteous Pharisee, as much forgiven therefore as the repentant sinner?

Is it a fact that when a sinner repents and believes he receives forgiveness once and for all?

To this it is objected by some, that if a believer is taught that at his conversion he obtained complete forgiveness, it is sure to provoke him to carelessness and license. Might it not be better to say that all is forgiven up to the point of conversion?

What then is meant by, "the remission of sins that are past," which we read of in Romans 3: 25?

Justification

You have not alluded to the righteousness of Christ being imputed to us? Why?

But surely righteousness is imputed, for we read in Romans 4 that, "God imputeth righteousness without works," and again that, "it was imputed to him for righteousness.  What then do these expressions mean?

That verse has been taken to mean that just as Jesus died because we were sinners, so He was raised again because we had been justified in His death. Is this a correct view of it?

Redemption

We sometimes hear people speak of "the finished work of redemption." Is it quite correct to speak thus in view of the fact that we still wait for the redemption of our bodies?

On the other hand, seeing there is this future aspect of redemption, is it quite right if we speak of ourselves as having been redeemed? Ought we not rather to speak of ourselves as being redeemed?

Is it not a rather uncomfortable doctrine that redemption, a certain part of it at least, lies in the future? Might there not be a loophole here for just a little uncertainty to creep in?

Is redemption the great end that God has in view for His people?

The book of Ruth shows us that in Israel only certain kinsmen had the right of redemption. Has this any significance for us?

We read in Ephesians 1: 14 of "the redemption of the purchased possession." Should we then draw a distinction between purchase and redemption?

Reconciliation

An old hymn states the matter thus:

"My God is reconciled,

His pardoning voice I hear."

that is hardly in keeping with what we have been seeing, is it?

Do we understand then that reconciliation has more to do with our state before God than with the guilt of our sins?

Why then, in Hebrews 2: 17, do we read of Christ as "a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people"?

We have been dwelling on the fact that believers are reconciled now. What about the reconciliation of all things, spoken of in Colossians 1: 20?

There seems to be a sense in which the world is already reconciled, according to Romans 11: 15, What does that passage mean?

Does the reconciliation which we receive today involve more than this?

Salvation

The Philippians were bidden by Paul, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." How do you reconcile this injunction with what we have had before us?

On the day of Pentecost Peter exhorted the anxious enquirers saying, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation;" and those who received his word were baptized. In his first Epistle he again speaks of baptism as saving us. What is this salvation which baptism effects?

"He that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved." In the light of this is it not premature to speak of ourselves as saved, while we are still on our way to the end?

Why is "confession with the mouth" so definitely connected with salvation in Romans 10: 10?

Is that why Cornelius, God-fearing man though he was, needed Peter to come to him that he might be saved? He was told that Peter "shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved."

You do not wish us to understand then that salvation is a higher order of Christian blessing into which we may come subsequent to conversion? — so that, for instance, a man might be forgiven yet not saved.

Almost all that we have been considering is

in connection with what we are saved from. What are we saved to?

Sanctification

Again and again in the Scriptures we are exhorted to holiness. What is the difference between this and the sanctification we have been considering?

Believers in Christ are frequently called "saints" in the New Testament. Is the popular use of this term in keeping with the Scriptural use?

Do justification and sanctification go together?

Seeing that they do go together, are we right in speaking of sanctification by faith, just as we speak of justification by faith?

What then are these elements? How is practical sanctification or holiness produced?

We sometimes meet those who speak of being "wholly sanctified," in a way that suggests a claim to entire freedom from the presence of sin. Is there any support for this in the Bible?

The New Birth

We read of cleansing by the blood of Christ in 1 John 1: 7. Do you differentiate between this and the cleansing we have been considering? And, if so, how?

You do not think then that the "water," in John 3, has anything to do with baptism?

We have had before us different terms: — "born again," "born of water and of the Spirit," "born of God." Do they all mean the same thing?

New birth is evidently an act of God; but is it wrought by the Spirit altogether apart from the preaching of the Gospel?

Then are we born again by simply believing the Gospel? Some hold that we believe to be born again, others that we must be born again to believe.

But is not new birth the very beginning of God's work in the soul? Are we not absolutely dead, without the smallest motion Godward, until we are born again?

Are new birth and regeneration — as in Titus 3: 5 — the same thing?

Quickening

guilt

forgiveness

condemnation

justification

bondage,

redemption;

alienation

reconciliation;

peril

salvation;

profanation

sanctification;

corruption,

new birth.

God

how

In the Old Testament we read of quickening. Ten times or more the Psalmist speaks of it in Psalm 119. Are we to differentiate between that and what we find in the New Testament?

Some have thought that quickening is very advanced truth; that, for instance, a man may be born again and yet quickening lie ahead as something to be reached much later, as a kind of climax to God's work in him. Does Scripture indicate this?

In John 5: 26, we read that the Father (1) raises up the dead, and (2) quickens them. Are we right in differentiating between the two things? And, if so, what is the difference?

We have in Romans 8: 11, a word about the quickening of our "mortal bodies." Is that something that takes place in the present, or is it to be in the future?

Some people however claim that this quickening of our mortal bodies has to do with the healing of disease: that it is what shall be done for us in the present, if only we claim the fulness of the Spirit.

The Lord Jesus, as the Last Adam, quickens  according to 1 Corinthians 15: 45. We are right, are we  not, in connecting this with the present?

The Gift of the Holy Spirit

At the outset the power of the Spirit was very largely displayed in signs and wonders. Seeing that He is God and unchangeable, should it not be so to-day?

But are not these miraculous signs the very greatest display of His power?

Paul's preaching was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Can we speak of modern preaching in this way?

But even where the Gospel is faithfully preached, and that without reliance upon these human expedients, there does not seem to be much power manifested. How can we explain that?

Power for service, though important, is by no means everything. How may we know the Spirit's power for victory in our lives?

Some of us would say that though we desire to "walk in the Spirit" we hardly know how to set about it. how does it work out practically?

Still, many a Christian who is not guilty of serious lapses in outward conduct, is not particularly marked by the liberty or power of the Spirit. How is that to be accounted for?

New Creation.

Are we right, in dealing with the new creation, if we give the same literal and full meaning to the word "create," that we give to it when dealing with the creation of Genesis 1?

The fact that we have been created "in Christ Jesus" has been mentioned. Are we to deduce from this the stability of the new creation?

In Hebrews 8: 13. it is pointed out that the fact of a new covenant being introduced makes the first covenant old, and the deduction is, "Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." Can we reason in the same way in regard to the new creation?

Are the new creation scenes predicted in the opening part of Revelation 21,  to be distinguished from the scenes of millennial blessedness, of which the prophets have so largely spoken?

Will all differences between men disappear in the new creation?

FBHOLE - The Great Salvation

F. B. Hole

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

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

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

Forgiveness

Forgiveness

F. B. Hole.

The Great Salvation

F. B. Hole.

Foreword.

The Scriptures themselves speak of the "great salvation," which has reached us through the Gospel. We, who have experienced the saving grace of God, know something of its greatness, but it is only as we search the Scriptures and investigate its details that the magnitude of what God has brought to pass begins to dawn upon us.

In these pages the main details are taken up one by one. If all be put together, the great salvation of God is before us; and it is important to remember that each is but one part of a great whole. They are considered separately in order that we may gain a fuller understanding of each part, and thereby more fully understand the whole.

We can no more apprehend the whole Divine plan at one moment than we can see all four sides of a building from one viewpoint. We have to content ourselves with one thing at a time. If this book helps any Christians to a deeper appreciation of the wonders wrought of God through the Gospel, not only will they be spiritually helped but God will be glorified.

Contents

Forgiveness

Justification

Redemption

Reconciliation

Salvation

Sanctification

The New Birth

Quickening

The Gift of the Holy Spirit

New Creation

Forgiveness.

When the first stirrings of the Spirit of God took place within us, the effect in almost every case was that we became conscious of our sins and of the guilt that attached to them, and consequently we became seekers after forgiveness. We wanted to be forgiven, and to know it.

The reader has, we trust, the knowledge of forgiveness, yet it may be well if we begin by surveying the teaching of Scripture on this subject, and thus aim at obtaining an orderly understanding of this great, fundamental blessing of the Gospel.

First of all then, let us observe that when sin entered into the world by the transgression of Adam, and the human race consequently lapsed into an utterly fallen and sinful condition, its effects were manifold and went far beyond the incurring of guilt. Yet the first and most obvious effect was that Adam became a guilty and conscience-stricken man. As men multiplied it had to be said that, "all the world" was "guilty before God" (Rom. 3: 19), and this means, since guilt is an intensely individual matter, that every individual composing the world, every one of us, is guilty.

But the Scripture speaks of, "them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth" (Rom. 2: 8). Many such are to be found, who are by no means disposed to acknowledge their guilt, but rather challenge the foundations on which rests the very idea of being guilty before God. They assert on the contrary the innate goodness of all men, who are, so they say, always struggling upwards. Some of these contentious folk go so far as to deny all fixed standards of right and wrong. Good and evil are words of only relative force, since to them "good" is that which is approved by the most enlightened sections of humanity in any given age, and "evil" is that which their mind repudiates. It therefore follows that "right" and "wrong" are values which fluctuate according to the fashions of the age in matters of morality. The human mind is left the whole arbiter of such questions, and consequently the only guilt they know is that which may be incurred before men as the result of flouting the standards erected by the most enlightened and advanced amongst them. The utmost verdict that they can approve of is therefore, guilty before men.

The epistle to the Romans, on the other hand, begins with GOD, and we do not have to travel far into its contents before we arrive at the verdict against us of, "guilty before God."

In its opening chapter we read of,

"The Gospel of God"

"The Son of God"

"The power of God"

"The righteousness of God"

"The wrath of God"

"The glory of God"

"The judgment of God"

and God, whose power and righteousness and wrath and glory and judgment are revealed, is "the Creator" (Rom. 1: 25). At once therefore we leave the quagmire of human standards and opinions for the sure rock of divine truth, and we find ourselves standing in the presence of the Creator, who is marked by fixed and unalterable righteousness.

Much may be needed indeed before the conviction of guilt is driven home effectually into the consciousness of the individual sinner. This may not be so difficult a matter with peoples who have lapsed into the barbarism that so frequently accompanies heathenism. Such are in view in Romans 1: 18-32, and they stand without excuse, and consequently their mouths are shut. The mere recital of the enormous evils into which they had fallen, as a result of turning away from the knowledge of God, is sufficient. In their case no reasoning is necessary in order to convict and silence.

But at different times in the world's history, nations, though pagan, have evolved amongst themselves systems of natural culture and civilization. Such were the ancient Greeks, and to these Romans 2: 1-16, is addressed. In their case the dark cesspool of iniquity was partly covered up by fine systems of philosophical thought and ethical teaching. They condemned the poor, unlettered barbarian yet they themselves did the same things in a more refined way. They too are pronounced to be "inexcusable," yet some very pointed reasoning, coupled with sharp home-thrusts of the keen blade of truth, is necessary before the conviction of it can be driven home. In the course of reasoning they are reminded that, "The judgment of God is according to truth;" that the day is coming for the revelation of "the righteous judgment of God;" and that "there is no respect of persons with God."

By the combination of these three facts their escape from the judgment of God is rendered impossible. If His judgment were sometimes according to mere outward appearances, or if it occasionally lapsed from strict righteousness, or deviated because of favouritism or other personal considerations, then there might be some chance of escape. It is however "according to truth," and hence the exact reality of things will be dragged into the light of day. It is "righteous," and hence absolute and inflexible justice will prevail. There is "no respect of persons," hence nothing will turn God from a judgment of absolute righteousness in the light of absolute truth. This must shut the mouth of the most civilized and the most cultured, and convict them too as "guilty before God."

Lastly there were the Jews, a people brought under a culture which was not merely natural but divine. Romans 2: 17 - 3: 20, is addressed to such, and in this passage we have not merely reasoning but the decisive evidence of their own Scriptures. Their indictment is couched in terms culled from their own law, and at the close the weight of this Scriptural evidence is driven home into their consciences by the fact that "what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law;" that is, to the Jews. The sweeping accusations and condemnation of the law was aimed therefore, not at the barbarian nor the Greek, but at the opinionated and self-righteous Jew, that even his mouth might be stopped, and thus all the world become "guilty before God."

Guilt being established, forgiveness becomes an urgent necessity. Hence we find it placed in the very forefront of the instructions given by the risen Lord to His disciples. In Luke 24: 45-48 He told the eleven that "remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations." In Acts 26: 16-18 we have the apostle Paul's account of how in a heavenly vision he heard the voice of the Glorified One, sending him to the Gentiles, "to open their eyes . . . that they may receive forgiveness of sins." How these commissions were carried out the Acts bears witness. To the multitude in Jerusalem, who on the day of Pentecost were pricked in their heart, Peter spoke of "the remission of sins" (Acts 2: 38). Before the council he again testified of "forgiveness of sins" (Acts 5: 31). Again to the Gentile Cornelius and his friends he proclaimed that "through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 10: 43). To the mixed crowd in the synagogue at Antioch Paul declared, "Be it known . . . that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins" (Acts 13: 38).

In each case, of the six quoted above, the same Greek word occurs in the original, though translated both as remission and forgiveness in the Authorized Version. It signifies simply "a sending away" or "a release" and this is just what a guilty sinner needs as regards his sins. Let them be sent away or dismissed by the One against whom his guilt has been incurred, and what a happy release is his! Now this is just what every child of God is entitled to enjoy. "I write unto you little children" said the aged apostle John, "because your sins are forgiven you [are dismissed and sent away] for His name's sake" (1 John 2: 12).

It is in the epistle to the Romans, as we have seen, that the Holy Ghost pronounces the verdict of "guilty before God" against the whole human race. We might naturally have expected therefore that immediately following this we should have found a full unfolding of forgiveness. As a matter of fact however the word for forgiveness only occurs once in the whole epistle, and that when the Apostle cites David's words from Psalm 32. The blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works is described by David saying, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven" (Rom. 4: 6, 7). This shows us however that the imputation of righteousness — i.e justification — is in this passage practically equivalent to forgiveness.

The words that are so much used in the early chapters of Romans are righteousness and justification, and they are on the whole words of great fulness. One cannot have one's sins forgiven without being justified, nor vice versa; yet in the main the force of forgiveness is negative — we lose our sins: the main force of justification is positive — we gain righteousness.

It has been asserted that everybody is forgiven. Is there any sense in which such a statement is true?

No. It is of course a wonderful fact that, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them" (2 Cor. 5: 19). Hence the Lord's words to the sinful woman, "Neither do I condemn thee" (John 8: 11). God's overtures of mercy, in Christ present upon earth, were however rejected. It is also a wonderful fact that, His overtures being rejected, He has taken advantage of the death and resurrection of Christ to send out a world-wide message of forgiveness, so that in the Gospel today forgiveness is preached to all, and He is presented as a forgiving God. (See Luke 24: 46, 47).

Instead of the rejection of Christ being followed by a declaration of war, and the hurling of Heaven's thunderbolts against a rebellious world, God has, as it were, established a lengthy armistice, during which time an amnesty for all rebels is being proclaimed. If any rebel humbles himself and turns to the Saviour in faith, he is forgiven. It is true therefore that there is forgiveness for everybody; but in no sense is it true that everybody is forgiven.

In His parable of the two debtors in Luke 7, the Lord did teach however that both were forgiven by the creditor. Was not Simon, the self-righteous Pharisee, as much forgiven therefore as the repentant sinner?

"He frankly forgave them both." Both therefore were frankly forgiven. The two words "frankly forgave" are the translation of one Greek word — not the usual word for forgiveness but a word meaning, "to show grace to." The Lord Jesus therefore in His parable represented God as acting in a forgiving spirit and showing grace towards men, no matter what the depth of their sin. This is exactly God's attitude to-day.

Later in the story the Lord did utter the usual word for forgiveness. He said of the woman, "her sins, which are many, are forgiven." To her He said, "Thy sins are forgiven." Her sins, then, were definitely dismissed, for she believed in the Saviour and came to Him.

Grace was indeed shown even to proud Simon, and he was not brought instantly and summarily into judgment for his sins. In that sense he was "frankly forgiven," but the Lord never told him that his sins had been definitely dismissed. Only the repentant sinner is thus forgiven, in the ordinary meaning of the word.

Is it a fact that when a sinner repents and believes he receives forgiveness once and for all?

Certainly it is. In the argument on the subject of sacrifice, contained in Hebrews 9: 1 - 10: 18, that fact is one of the main points. In that great passage it is affirmed no less than six times that the sacrifice of Christ was one and offered once. It is also asserted that those who approach God as worshippers on the ground of His sacrifice are purged once, and consequently draw near with perfected consciences (Heb. 10: 1, 2). The perfection of which the first verse speaks is "pertaining to the conscience" (Heb. 9: 9), and founded upon the one perfect cleansing, or purging, that has reached them. We stand before God in an eternal forgiveness.

To this it is objected by some, that if a believer is taught that at his conversion he obtained complete forgiveness, it is sure to provoke him to carelessness and license. Might it not be better to say that all is forgiven up to the point of conversion?

No one would object in this way but those who deny, or at least overlook, the fact that we are not converted without being born again and thereby becoming possessed of a nature that hates evil. Once give this fact its due weight and the whole case wears a different aspect. Further, not only are we born again and forgiven but we receive the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in us, and we come under the teaching of grace, of which Titus 2: 11-14, speaks.

We must remember that though forgiveness is ministered to us when we believe, yet it was procured for us by the sacrifice of Christ; and all our sins not only those up to the point of conversion — were future, when He died and rose again.

We must remember also that God, as Father, does deal with us, His children, as and when we

sin. Upon confession we are forgiven and cleansed, for "we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 1: 9 - 2: 1). But this is the Father's forgiveness, restoring us to communion, and not the eternal forgiveness, which we receive at the outset from Him as Judge of all.

What then is meant by, "the remission of sins that are past," which we read of in Romans 3: 25?

All depends upon what is the fixed point, in relation to which the sins are past. If verse 26 be also read, it will be apparent that the contrast is between what God did as to sins in the past time and what He does "at this time;" the great event dividing the two times being the first advent of Christ. It is evident therefore that in speaking of "sins that are past" the apostle Paul referred to the sins of the believers who lived in the past dispensation. His words had no reference to certain sins of a believer being past, if viewed from the standpoint of his conversion.

The sins of these pre-Christian believers were remitted by God. "Remission" here is not the ordinary word for forgiveness, but one which means, "a passing by." The meaning of the passage is, that when the propitiatory work of Christ became an accomplished fact, it at once showed forth that God had been righteous in passing by the sins of Old Testament believers, just as it also vindicates His righteousness in this Gospel age in justifying the believer in Jesus.

Justification

Justification.

F. B. Hole.

To be justified is to be cleared from every charge that could be brought against us. That this is the meaning is very apparent in the Apostle's words, recorded in Acts 13: 39, "By Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." The law could most effectually impeach us. It could lay sins to our charge and bring a righteous condemnation upon us. Only by Christ can the believer be righteously cleared from every charge in the impeachment, so that the sentence of condemnation is lifted off him.

Condemnation then is the state and position from which we pass when we are justified. It is evidently the opposite to justification, just as guilt is the opposite to forgiveness. Yet justification, as set before us in Scripture, implies more than the negative blessing of our being completely and righteously extricated from the condemnation under which we lay: it involves our standing before God in Christ, in a righteousness which is positive and divine.

We must again turn to the Epistle to the Romans. In Romans 3: 19 we find that, "all the world" stands convicted as "guilty before God." In verse 20 we find that the law can only convict: there is no justification for us in it. In verse 21, begins the unfolding of God's way of justifying the ungodly.

Inasmuch as "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," it is not surprising that God should bring into manifestation His righteousness. Man having manifested his sin in all its blackness it was to be expected that, by way of contrast, God would manifest His righteousness in all its brightness; condemning the sinner, and thus clearing Himself of the smallest suspicion that He in any way condoned the sin. What is so wonderful is that now God's righteousness has been manifested in such a way as to be "unto" or "towards all, and upon all them that believe." Righteousness, God's righteousness, is, as it were, stretching out its hands benignly towards all men instead of frowning upon them; and as for those that believe, it descends upon them as a robe, so that in the presence of God they stand invested in it. And all this is done without righteousness in any way losing its own proper character, or ceasing to be what it is.

Upon first hearing this, our impulse might be to exclaim, "Impossible! Such a thing as this is absolutely impossible!" We might be disposed to reason that, while mercy might act in this fashion, but at the expense of righteousness, righteousness itself could never do so.

Yet righteousness does so act, since it has now been manifested in Christ, who has been set forth by God as a "propitiation," or "mercy-seat," (verse 25). When upon the cross His blood was shed, there was fulfilled the Antitype of the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat of Tabernacle days. Redemption was wrought "in Christ Jesus," (verse 24), and the greatest display of divine righteousness, which the universe will ever witness, took place. By and by the righteousness of God will be manifested in the judgment and everlasting overthrow of the ungodly. That solemn hour will witness no mean display of divine righteousness, yet not so profound and wonderful as in that yet more solemn hour when God judged and put to grief His own spotless Son for us. The cross of Christ will remain to all eternity the greatest manifestation of the righteousness of God. It manifested equally His love of course, as Romans 5: 8 declares, but had it not manifested His righteousness it could not have manifested His love.

The death of Christ has displayed the righteousness of God in a twofold way. First, as regards His dealings as to the sins of believers in the past dispensation (verse 25); and second, as to the sins of believers in this present age (verse 26). Before Christ came God passed over the sins of His people, though as yet no perfect satisfaction for them had been made to Him. In this present time He is justifying the believer in Jesus. Have all these dealings on God's part been conducted in strict righteousness? They have, and the death of Christ declares it; showing that when God passed over sins during the bygone dispensation He was absolutely justified in doing so, as also He is just in justifying the believer to-day.

The death of Christ was primarily the offering of Himself to God as a sacrifice of infinite value and fragrance. Propitiation was thereby effected, and satisfaction made, so that the claims of divine righteousness have been met and vindicated in regard to the whole matter of man's sin.

Secondarily, however, His offering was for us, i.e. for all true believers. Such are entitled to view the Saviour as their Substitute, and to translate Romans 4: 25 out of the plural into the singular, and say, He "was delivered for my offences, and was raised again for my justification." He was delivered to death and judgment with our sins in view: He was raised again from the dead with our justification in view.

Many there are who in this matter cut the Gospel in half, and ignore the second part of it to their own great loss. Full assurance cannot be enjoyed if the meaning of Christ's resurrection be overlooked. The bearing of our sins and their penalty was indeed accomplished in His death, but the declaration and proof of our clearance is in His resurrection. Without this second part settled peace cannot be known.

To illustrate the point, let us suppose a man condemned to six months' imprisonment for an offence, and another as a substitute permitted to take his place. When the prison gates swing to, shutting the substitute within and leaving the offender in liberty without, the latter might well exclaim of his friend, "He has been delivered to prison for my offence," but further than that he cannot go for the moment. It would be premature for him to add, "and consequently it is impossible that I should ever see the inside of that prison, as the penalty for what I have done."

What if his good friend breathed his last at the end of two months, leaving four months of the sentence unexpired? The Authorities would righteously lay their hands on the original offender and demand that he himself should work out the remainder of his term.

But, on the other hand, if a week or so before the six months were up he should suddenly come upon his kindly substitute walking in the street, and on expressing his surprise, learn that, having by good behaviour earned a small remission of the sentence, he was really discharged as a free man, he would instantly be able to say, "Why, you are released from prison for my justification!" He would argue in his own mind, and rightly, "If he is discharged from prison as free from all further liability, completely cleared in regard to my offence, then I am discharged, I am free, I am cleared!"

Viewed in this light, the resurrection of Christ is seen to be the Divine declaration of the complete clearance of the one who believes in Him. It is, we need hardly say, much else besides.

Having said this much, we must now observe that God Himself is not only the Source of our justification but He who justifies us. "It is God that justifieth" (Rom. 8: 33). From His lips came the sentence against us as sinners. Equally from His lips comes forth the declaration of our clearance as believers in Jesus. Our justification therefore is complete and authoritative. No one can condemn us.

But on our side faith is necessary; for only believers are justified. In this sense we are, "justified by faith" (Rom. 5: 1). Only as yielding "the obedience of faith" to our Lord Jesus do we come in under the benefits of His work. He is "the Author of eternal salvation" only to "all them that obey Him" (Heb. 5: 9). Faith is the link which connects us with Him and the justifying merits of His blood.

One further thought as to justification is presented to us in Romans 5: 18. In nearly every other passage where justification is mentioned it stands in relation to our sins — "of many offences unto justification," as Romans 5: 16 puts it. In verse 18, however, another view of the matter appears, and sin, the root, rather than sins, the fruit, is in question. The one righteousness of the cross has its bearing "towards" all "unto justification of life" (New Trans.).

To understand this phrase, the whole passage — verse 12 to the end of the chapter — must be considered. By nature all men stand related to Adam, as the head and fountain of their race. By grace, and through Christ's death and resurrection, all believers stand related to Him, as the Head and Fountain of that spiritual race to which they now belong. As grafted into Christ, if we may so speak, they participate in His life and nature; and as in the life of Christ they are cleared judicially from all the consequences that formerly lay on them as in the life of Adam. A very wonderful thing, this, and one that is too often overlooked by us all.

Justification then, as the Epistle to the Romans presents it, not only means a complete clearance from all offences and the condemnation they deserve, but goes to the length of a complete clearance from all the condemnation attaching to our fallen Adamic nature, inasmuch as now, by God's act, we stand in Christ risen from the dead. Blessed be God, for such a clearance as this!

You have not alluded to the righteousness of Christ being imputed to us? Why?

Because that idea is not found in Scripture. There is no difficulty in finding there the righteousness of Christ. That was absolutely perfect, and hence, being without blemish, He was qualified to be the "Lamb" of sacrifice on our behalf. But we are justified by His blood and not by His perfect life. He died far us, but in no place is it said that He kept the law for us. Had He done so we should after all be standing in a merely legal righteousness before God; and by that we mean, a righteousness which merely goes to the length of keeping the law of Moses. Our righteousness before God would after all be just that righteousness of the law, of which Moses speaks (see Rom. 10: 5); though worked out, not by ourselves, but by Christ on our behalf.

The righteousness in which we stand is, "the righteousness of faith," described in verses 6 to 9 of that chapter; and that is connected, not with Christ on earth keeping the law for us, but with God raising Him from the dead after He had died for our sins.

But surely righteousness is imputed, for we read in Romans 4 that, "God imputeth righteousness without works," and again that, "it was imputed to him for righteousness.  What then do these expressions mean?

If that chapter be carefully read it will be noticed that the words, counted, imputed, reckoned, occur several times. They all three have the same force, being translations of the same word, which is most nearly expressed by the word reckoned. "Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness." That is, Abraham was reckoned righteous or held to be righteous by God, in virtue of his faith. The little word "for" is apt to mislead, as it may suggest the idea of faith being a kind of substitute for righteousness, something which may be transmuted into righteousness. "Reckoned to him as righteousness," more nearly gives the sense. If you have a New Translation (J. N. Darby) with full notes, turn up this verse and consult the footnote as to the translation, which is very illuminating.

The argument of Romans 4, then, is that whether it be Abraham of old, or believers in Christ today, there is only one way by which we may be reckoned righteous before God, the great Judge of all; and that is, by faith without works. Without works, mark you! Not even the perfect works of Christ, everyone of them done in righteousness, come in here: another proof, if it were needed, that we are not made righteous by a certain quantity of His law-keeping being imputed to us. What does come in is His death and resurrection. This underlies the whole of the chapter, and is plainly expressed at the end. Read verse 25 and see.

That verse has been taken to mean that just as Jesus died because we were sinners, so He was raised again because we had been justified in His death. Is this a correct view of it?

You have but to read on into Romans 5 to find that it is not correct. Our chapter divisions are sometimes not natural but artificial, breaking into the middle of a paragraph. This is a case in point. He "was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God."

The interpretation you mention presents our justification as an accomplished fact when Jesus died, and His resurrection to be the consequence of it. But this entirely eliminates our faith from the question; and our faith cannot be eliminated thus, in view of the first verse of chapter 5. His death was in view of our sins, and is the basis of our justification; but that is another matter.

His resurrection was, in the first place, the declaration of the blessed fact, that He who stooped under the weight of God's judgment against sin, is for ever clear of it. In the second place, it was in view of the clearance of all who believe in Him.

This we have just been enforcing and illustrating. He was delivered to death with our sins in view: He was raised again with our justification in view. But the justification of each individual only becomes effective as and when they believe.

Redemption

Redemption.

F. B. Hole.

Not only has sin plunged us into guilt, and brought us face to face with condemnation, but it has entangled us in bondage of a very fearful sort; a bondage from which we are utterly unable to extricate ourselves.

Then, as regards the Gospel, not only does it proclaim forgiveness in relation to our guilt, and justification instead of condemnation, but it reveals to us God, acting as a Redeemer, delivering His people from bondage, and thereby freeing His inheritance from all the encumbrances under which formerly it lay.

There is a good deal about redemption in the Old Testament, and one of the words used for it has the meaning, it is said, of, "freeing, whether by avenging or repaying."

In Exodus we find the great type of redemption. To the children of Israel, who were just downtrodden slaves, Jehovah said, "I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and with great judgments" (Ex. 6: 6). So this was clearly a case of redemption by avenging their wrongs upon Egypt; though we also see the repayment of what they owed to God as sinners in the steed blood of the lamb. When all was effectively accomplished we find Israel on the further banks of the Red Sea, singing, "Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth Thy people which Thou hast redeemed" (Ex. 15: 13).

A striking illustration of redemption is given to us in the book of Ruth. Boaz redeemed Elimelech's inheritance by payment, and this involved the raising up of the name of the dead by the taking of Ruth. Boaz took both to himself — the wife and the inheritance — by right of redemption.

Both in the type and in the illustration bondage of one sort or another was in question. In the type, Israel were in sore bondage under Pharaoh, and again and again in reference to them Egypt is called, "the house of bondage." In the illustration, the inheritance of the dead Elimelech was in danger of passing into other hands, and the widow and daughter-in-law of lapsing into a condition of servitude. This disaster was averted by the action of Boaz as their kinsman-redeemer.

Turning to the New Testament, we find that redemption as well as justification is mentioned in Romans 3. We are said to be, "justified . . . through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." This serves to emphasize an important point; namely, that these different aspects of the work of Christ and its effects are most intimately connected, so that we cannot have one without the other. Yet, though never to be divided the one from the other, they are clearly to be distinguished. The earlier part of Romans 3 has brought before us not only the guilt and condemnation of sin, but also its bondage. The word itself is not actually used until chapter 8 is reached, yet the idea is there, for the Apostle says, "We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." To be "under sin" is to be under the power of it, that is, to be in bondage to it. Christ has done the great work which avails to pay off all the liabilities under which we lay, and thus redemption is in Him for us.

If we read on through the Epistle to the Romans, we discover, in Romans 6, 7 and the early part of 8, how we are actually set free from the tyranny of sin and the yoke of the law; all of which had proved us to be in "the bondage of corruption." This phrase is actually used in Romans 8: 21, where we learn that the whole earthly creation lies under its thrall, but that all shall be delivered and brought into "the liberty of the glory of the children of God." When the Lord comes and the children of God stand forth in their glory, then there will be proclaimed a jubilee of liberty for all creation.

For that moment we wait, and in verse 23 it is said that for us it will be, "the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Here again redemption appears, since the point in question is deliverance from bondage; and the redemption of our bodies is presented to us as a freedom gained by avenging, as it says, "I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction" (Hosea 13: 14). This scripture is alluded to and applied to the resurrection of the body in 1 Corinthians 15: 55. In that glad day the bodies of all God's saints will be delivered from the grip of death, the last enemy.

The redemption work of Christ also comes rather prominently before us in the Epistle to the Galatians. We read that, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law" (Gal. 3: 13), and this was by paying the price on our behalf, for it adds, "being made a curse for us."

But not only did we lie under the curse of the law but the law itself held us in bondage. We were "in bondage under the elements of the world" (Gal. 4: 3). Lower down in the chapter, Paul speaks of, "the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage" (Gal. 4: 9). The word translated "elements" has the force of "principles," and is so translated in Hebrews 5: 12. We may at first be inclined to wonder that such terms as these — almost contemptuous terms — should be applied to the law, which was given of God, but the "we" of Galatians 4: 3, clearly indicates Jews, just as the "ye" of verse 6 indicates the Galatian Gentiles. Both were under bondage to the principles of the world. The law of Moses made no difference as to this. It brought in the demands of God, but they were to be met according to the principles of the world. The root principle of the law was that the favour which men were to receive from God was to be wholly determined by what they rendered to Him in obedience. This is altogether a principle of the world, whereas grace is not. There was no bringing in of principles which lie outside the world altogether, as is the case in Christianity.

From the principles of the world, whether found in Judaism or elsewhere, weak and beggarly as they are, Christ has redeemed us that we might receive the adoption of sons. Such is the mighty grace of God.

Redemption, as we have seen, extends even to the resurrection of the body, and this side of the matter we again find in the Epistle to the Ephesians. While we read of, "redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Eph. 1: 7), we also read of the earnest of the Spirit being, "until the redemption of the purchased possession" (Eph. 1: 14), and of our being, "sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. 4: 30). The first of these passages speaks of that which is ours today, and which never will be more ours than it is to-day. The second and third speak of redemption in a form for which we wait. All that Christ has bought by His death shall be taken from beneath the sway of the usurper and of every adverse power. As far as our bodies are concerned the moment will arrive at the coming of the Lord Jesus for His saints. That having taken place, the Lord will set His hand to the work of redeeming by power from the hand of the enemy all the rest of the possession which. He purchased by His blood.

This coming redemption by power is a great theme of Old Testament prophecy. It is particularly prominent in the latter part of Isaiah. Israel needed redemption for he was being trodden down by the Gentiles and hence is addressed as "thou worm Jacob;" and Jehovah announces Himself as, "thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 41: 14). Having introduced Himself in this light, He continues to speak of Himself as Redeemer until Isaiah 63 is reached, where the prophet sees Him in vision, coming forth from Edom and Bozrah, because at last, as He says "The day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the year of My redeemed is come." The redemption of the true Israel of God means vengeance upon all their foes.

Yet in the midst of these striking chapters with their many promises of a coming redemption by means of the avenging might of God, we get a most marvellous prediction concerning the yet deeper matter of redemption by means of the death of Christ. We read, "Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money" (Isa. 52: 3). This is followed by the heart-moving chapter wherein the blessed Servant of Jehovah is portrayed as the suffering, dying One, whose soul is made an offering for sin by Jehovah Himself. The Redeemer is going to "come to Zion, and to them that turn from transgression in Jacob;" (Isa. 59: 20), but this is only possible inasmuch as He has first redeemed them without money as the result of the travail of His soul.

It is to this scripture perhaps that Peter referred when he wrote, "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1: 18-19). Isaiah 52 speaks of our being "redeemed without money." Isaiah 53 of the One who "had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth," and yet "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter" for our redemption.

We sometimes hear people speak of "the finished work of redemption." Is it quite correct to speak thus in view of the fact that we still wait for the redemption of our bodies?

Not quite correct, no doubt. But when people speak thus they are probably dwelling in their minds exclusively upon the work of redemption by blood. That part of the great work is indeed finished, and never to be repeated. Propitiation has been made once and for ail, so when it is a question of that, or of forgiveness, or of justification, there is no future aspect to be considered. But there is a future aspect of redemption, as we have seen. And it is well to remember that, and to speak with care lest we obscure the finishing touches which are to be given to the work of redemption in the days to come.

On the other hand, seeing there is this future aspect of redemption, is it quite right if we speak of ourselves as having been redeemed? Ought we not rather to speak of ourselves as being redeemed?

"We have redemption through His blood." So says the Scripture twice over — in Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1. Therefore we cannot be wrong if we say with all boldness that we have it. But it is through His blood, you notice. Redemption, in that aspect of it, is wholly in the past. The redemption of our bodies is wholly in the future. But redemption is never presented in Scripture as a process which is going on. It is never said that we are being redeemed day by day, though there is such a thing as day-by-day salvation.

Is it not a rather uncomfortable doctrine that redemption, a certain part of it at least, lies in the future? Might there not be a loophole here for just a little uncertainty to creep in?

If redemption were a human work, or if even a small human element entered the question, there would be uncertainty right enough — not just a little creeping in, but floods of it sweeping everything before them. We may well thank God that it is a work not human but Divine. God never leaves His work uncompleted: this we may see in the history of the typical redemption which He wrought in Egypt. He did not redeem the children of Israel by the blood of the Paschal lamb and then forget them, so that they remained under the taskmasters of Egypt. No. All those whom He redeemed by blood He also redeemed by His mighty power clean out of Egypt. Each, down to the youngest child, had to go; not even a hoof was to be left behind. God will complete His work concerning us. Every one redeemed by the precious blood of Christ will be there when at His second coming He redeems the bodies of His saints.

Is redemption the great end that God has in view for His people?

No. It is not the end in view, but rather the all-important means to that end. In the old dispensation the purpose that God had in view was that Israel should be His own peculiar nation, serving Him in the land He had given them. He had to redeem them out of Egypt in order that this might be brought to pass, for they could not serve Him so long as they were in servitude to Pharaoh. In our case the end in view is of a much higher order.

It is His purpose that we should be sons before Him in love. Ephesians 1: 5-7 speaks of this; and we find that redemption is necessary as a means to that end. Colossians 1 shows that we are made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light; and again redemption is mentioned as necessary for this. Peter, in his first epistle, instructs us that God purposes to have us as a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to Him by Jesus Christ; but as a preliminary to this he speaks of our having been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.

Other scriptures to the same effect might be cited. God has many thoughts for us His people, but their fulfilment is only possible upon the basis of redemption. First we must be redeemed from every adverse power. Then God has His way with us to carry out His bright designs.

The book of Ruth shows us that in Israel only certain kinsmen had the right of redemption. Has this any significance for us?

Undoubtedly it has. To purchase was one thing — anyone might do that: to redeem was another. The nearest kinsman had the first right, but one had to be a kinsman to have any right of redemption at all. There is no kinship between angels and men: hence no angel could redeem a man even if he had possessed the power to do so. The Lord Jesus did not become an angel; He became a Man and thereby established that kinship which qualified Him to become our Kinsman-Redeemer. How important then is the true Manhood of our Lord.

Hebrews 2 does not contain the word redeem. But it tells us that He did not take hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham, when He undertook through death to annul him that had the power of death and deliver us — that is, to accomplish our redemption.

We read in Ephesians 1: 14 of "the redemption of the purchased possession." Should we then draw a distinction between purchase and redemption?

We believe that we should. We might put it in this way — redemption involves purchase, but purchase very often has nothing to do with redemption. Believers are said to be "bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6: 20). But false teachers will go so far as "denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2: 1). The buying of believers involves their redemption. The buying of the false teachers, who go to destruction, did not involve their redemption; had it done so destruction would not be their end. By His death the Lord Jesus has acquired purchase rights over all things, even where He has not redeemed them.

In Ephesians 1: 14 however the point is not exactly this, but rather that what He has purchased by His death He will ultimately redeem by His power from every adverse force. It is really the distinction between redemption by blood and redemption by power.

Reconciliation

Reconciliation.

F. B. Hole.

A number of different words have been employed by the Spirit of God to convey to us the far-reaching effects of the work of Christ. Reconciliation is one of them, and it possesses great definiteness of meaning. It carries us further into the positive blessings of the Gospel than do justification or redemption. The very idea it expresses belongs to the New Testament.

At first sight this hardly appears to be the case. A good concordance (such as "Young's") shows us that the word occurs nine times in the Old Testament; but on closer inspection we discover that in seven of these it is used to translate the ordinary word for "atonement." In one case it is used for a word that has to do with offering or receiving a sin offering. The remaining occurrence of the word comes nearer to the New Testament meaning (in 1 Samuel 29: 4), but there God is not n question.

In the New Testament there are three passages that deal with reconciliation — Romans 5, 2 Corinthians 5, Colossians 1 — and there is also a reference to it in Ephesians 2.

Justification is needed by us because of the guilt of sin and the condemnation thereby incurred. Redemption is needed because of the bondage which sin has produced. Reconciliation to God we must have because one of the gravest effects of sin has been the way it has alienated us from God, producing utter estrangement of heart on our side. The word "alienated" occurs in Colossians 1: 21, where it stands in full contrast to the fact that we now have been reconciled. We shall better understand the fulness of the reconciliation if we begin by grasping the full tragedy of the alienation.

One other passage refers to the state of alienation into which man has fallen — Ephesians 4: 18. We get right to the bottom of things when we discover that we have been "alienated from the life of God." Connected with this alienation are such things as vanity, darkness, ignorance, blindness, lasciviousness, uncleanness. This is not surprising for the life of God is the exact opposite of all these things. Sin, having alienated us from God, has cut us off from all the things that go to make up life according to Him.

Alienated from God, we have naturally no desire for Him, nor for the light and life that His presence brings. This came out most clearly directly sin had entered and the alienation had come to pass. Genesis 3 bears witness to it; the action of Adam and his wife plainly declared it. Directly the voice of the Lord God was heard in the garden they hid themselves. God did not instantly destroy them. He dealt with them in mercy; still they had erected a barrier between themselves and Him which nothing on their side could surmount, and which He ratified by placing a barrier on His side in the shape of cherubim and a flaming sword.

Sin thus spoiled the Divine pleasure in man. To say this puts the matter too mildly. We have only to turn on to Genesis 6 to find that, mankind having been given sufficient time in which to develop their sinful propensities, an utterly unbearable state of affairs was produced, so that, "it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart." At the end of Genesis 2 everything, man included, was pronounced to be "very good." Once man had been very good in the Divine eye, now he was a perfect grief to contemplate. The alienation was complete.

And it was complete on man's side also. God had become as distasteful to man as man had become to God. The latter part of Romans 1 unfolds the dreadful story of man's alienation from God. The sunken state of mankind is attributable to this, "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge" (verse 28). Romans 3 corroborates this by telling us that, "there is none that seeketh after God." When we get to Romans 5 it is plainly stated that when the reconciliation reached us we were "enemies."

Here we must carefully draw a distinction. On our side the alienation was not only in life but in heart also. On God's side the alienation in life was felt far more acutely than ever we could feel it, but there was no alienation in heart. In other words while we as sinners hated God, He never hated us. Had He hated us He could have just damned us, and left it at that. Instead of which He has Himself made available for us the reconciliation; a reconciliation brought to pass at so great a cost as "the death of His Son."

The Lord Jesus came into the world in the spirit of reconciliation. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them" (2 Cor. 5: 19). This characterized His life and ministry. Not judgment but forgiveness was His work; and even where guilt was most pronounced and manifest, He did not impute it: see for instance John 8: 11, and Luke 23: 34. All that God could do was done by Him, yet every overture was rejected by men and He was crucified. But it was just then that God's reconciling mercy registered its most signal triumph.

Then it was that God "made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Now it is evident that if we are made in Christ — in the Christ who died and rose again — the very righteousness of God, there can be no longer before Him that which is obnoxious and distasteful to Him. It cannot be any longer a grief to His heart to look down upon us, but the exact reverse. Christ was identified with us and our sin under the judgment of God. We are identified with Him and His acceptance as risen from the dead.

In Colossians 1: 21, 22, the same truth is stated, but in other words. We have been reconciled "in the body of His flesh through death," for He became a Man, thereby possessing Himself of the body of His flesh, in order that He might die. As the result of reconciliation we can now be presented "holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight."

"In the body of His flesh" may seem a rather peculiar expression, but a similar form of words occurs elsewhere; Romans 7: 4; Ephesians 2: 15; Hebrews 10: 10 and 20. If we understand the matter aright, the thought is that the Lord Jesus in His grace identified Himself with our place and condition in assuming Manhood apart from sin, so that He might lay down His life, presenting His sacred body as a sacrifice for sin; and then take up life again in resurrection, in which life believers may now be identified with Him. His death was thus the judgment and judicial ending of the old order; His resurrection the real beginning of the new.

This mighty change then has been brought about for us "in the body of His flesh through death;" and consequently our whole standing before God is manifestly altered. Once we were exactly in the position of fallen Adam, and nothing could be worse than that, nothing more repugnant to God. Now, being in Christ, we have the position that is Christ's as risen from the dead, and nothing could be better, nothing more delightful, more pleasing to God than that. This is what we may call God's side of reconciliation; the work which He has Himself effected in the death of Christ. It is perfect and absolute; accomplished for us, accomplished for ever. It is work of a new creation order, as 2 Corinthians 5: 17 shows.

But there is our side of the matter which had equally to be met. It was we who were "alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works," and consequently there had to be a complete and fundamental change of mind and attitude as regards God with every one of us. There was no need that His heart should be turned towards us, but there was every need that our hearts should be turned towards Him. Hence the Gospel was committed to the Apostles as "the word of reconciliation." They carried on that ministry as "ambassadors for Christ," praying men "in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5: 19, 20). When we believed the Gospel, the ministry of reconciliation became effective with us, and it could be said, "we have now received the reconciliation" (Rom. 5: 11, margin). As the fruit of having received the reconciliation we "joy in God," whereas formerly we feared and even hated Him.

We may sum up, then, this most blessed truth by saying that everything about us which was obnoxious to God and deserving of judgment has been judged in the death of Christ; and as the fruit of reconciliation we stand in a perfect acceptance before Him. His work it is, for "He hath made us accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1: 6). Christ's acceptance is the measure of our acceptance: and the measure of His acceptance may be discerned in the title given to Him — "the BELOVED." And further, since we do not believe the Gospel apart from the work of the Spirit in us, by which new birth is effected, we receive the reconciliation in believing. Our thoughts Godward are altogether altered; the enmity that once filled our hearts is removed, and we joy in Him. A new day has dawned in which He can look down upon us with complacency, and we look up in answering love to Him.

We can now see more clearly perhaps how reconciliation does carry us more fully into the positive blessings of the Gospel. As forgiven, we know that our sins have been dismissed. As justified, that we have been cleared from all charge. As redeemed, that our days of slavery are over. But as reconciled, we have full entrance into the wealth of the favour and love of God. It is the introduction into blessing of the highest order.

An old hymn states the matter thus:

"My God is reconciled,

His pardoning voice I hear."

that is hardly in keeping with what we have been seeing, is it?

It is not. It was we who needed to be reconciled. It was God who did the reconciling through the Lord Jesus Christ. But though this is so, we must not overlook the fact that God had to be propitiated in regard to sin. The publican of our Lord's parable knew this, for he said, "God be merciful [propitiated] to me a sinner" (Luke 18: 13). God had to be propitiated inasmuch as sin was an outrageous challenge to His righteousness and holiness. He never hated us however. His heart was not estranged from man, for had it been He would never have sent His Son to be the propitiation, which was needed to meet the claims of His righteousness and holiness.

Do we understand then that reconciliation has more to do with our state before God than with the guilt of our sins?

It certainly has. It is worthy of note how the fact of our enmity comes into view when reconciliation is in question. The passage in 2 Corinthians 5 is an exception to this, but even here enmity, though not mentioned, is inferred, for it says, "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Old things are passed away wherever new creation comes to pass, though they are very much in evidence in the world at present. As new creation beings we are reconciled to God. Nevertheless we must not overlook the fact that "the blood of His cross" is the basis of the reconciliation, for it was there that sin met its judgment, and everything in us that was offensive and obnoxious to God was condemned. Our guilt is not overlooked, but even here it is more a question of the judgment of our sinful state than the expiation of our innumerable sins.

Why then, in Hebrews 2: 17, do we read of Christ as "a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people"?

Simply because the translators of the Authorized Version inserted here the wrong word. It is "to make propitiation for the sins of the people," as the Revised and other versions show. Under the law Aaron the high priest made atonement by sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice on the mercy-seat. The Lord Jesus has fulfilled the type, but on an infinitely grander scale. It is an interesting fact that in the Old Testament the word for "mercy-seat" is one closely allied to the word for atonement; whereas the word in the New Testament is as closely allied to propitiation. This shews that the propitiation of the New Testament embodies the idea of atonement, yet going beyond it. Reconciliation is to be distinguished from both, though not to be disconnected from either.

We have been dwelling on the fact that believers are reconciled now. What about the reconciliation of all things, spoken of in Colossians 1: 20?

That far-reaching reconciliation is coming in its season. You will notice that the verse limits the blessing to "things in earth, or things in heaven." The "things under the earth," of Philippians 2: 10, who are to bow at the name of Jesus, are not mentioned here. The blight of sin has affected certain parts of the heavens, through the fall of angelic beings. Wherever sin has been, there reconciliation is needed. A time is coming in which all that is evil will be swept into the place of judgment, there to lie under God's fiery indignation; and then all things purged and reconciled both on earth and in heaven will be delightful to God, and themselves delight in God.

The blood of His cross, that has already brought us into reconciliation, has power and value to accomplish even this.

There seems to be a sense in which the world is already reconciled, according to Romans 11: 15, What does that passage mean?

The whole passage has to be read and carefully considered if we would arrive at the Apostle's thought. He is discussing God's ways with Israel as a nation, showing how they have been set aside for the present in order that He may pursue His purpose of extending mercy to Gentiles. Throughout the dispensation of law, God concentrated His favour and His dealings exclusively upon Israel: they were in the light of His countenance, and the nations were left in their darkness — the darkness which they had chosen for themselves, according to Romans 1: 21. But with the advent of Christ and His rejection by Israel a great change in God's ways came to pass. Israel is fallen from their place of national favour, and this has led to what is called "the riches of the world," in verse 12, and to "the reconciling of the world," in verse 15.

The "world" here has evidently the force of the Gentile world as distinguished from Israel. The reconciling has been brought to pass by the change in God's dealings which has led Him to set Israel aside from their special place of national favour, and to bring the Gentile world before Him for blessing. Formerly the position was that the Gentiles had deliberately turned their faces from God, and He had turned His from them. Now He has turned toward them; and as Paul elsewhere said, "The salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and . . . they will hear it" (Acts 28: 28). This dispensational reconciliation has taken place and Paul was the chosen servant, sent to offer salvation to the Gentile world.

Does the reconciliation which we receive today involve more than this?

Most evidently it does. When we receive it we "joy in God," as we are told in Romans 5: 11. This is a thing which the world cannot do, in spite of the fact that the mercy of God is active towards it in connection with the Gospel. When God gave His only-begotten Son He had the world in view' and love to the world was behind the gift. This dispensational reconciliation brings to all the ministry of reconciliation, of which 2 Corinthians 5 speaks; and that is not dispensational but intensely vital. Believers are really brought to God in righteousness and love, with every stain and discord removed, and every fear banished for ever.

Salvation

Salvation

F. B. Hole.

We now come to a word of very large meaning, so large indeed that it may be used in a sense that covers other gospel words such as justification, redemption, reconciliation. An instance of the large meaning which may be attached to it is found in Hebrews 2: 3, where the mighty intervention of God on man's behalf, which first began to be spoken by the Lord Himself, is spoken of as "so great salvation." In Acts 13: 26, the Apostle Paul speaks of "the word of this salvation," using the term in just the same broad sense. So also in Ephesians 1: 13, the whole deliverance which has reached us, in all its parts, is summed up in that one word. The Gospel which announces that mighty deliverance is, "the Gospel of our salvation." It is with this large meaning that we use the word in the title of this book.

Salvation is largely spoken of in both Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament it is nearly always salvation from enemies that is before us, as Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, stated. In his prophecy he declared that the holy prophets, raised up since the world began, had said that Israel should be saved from their enemies and from the hand of all that hate them. (See Luke 1: 70, 71). The New Testament in its very first chapter speaks of Jesus saving "His people from their sins" (Matt. 1: 21). This at once lifts the whole matter on to a much higher platform.

But, whether in the Old or the New, the very fact that salvation is offered infers that those to whom it is offered are in peril of some sort: they are in danger of perishing. Indeed in 1 Corinthians l: 18, the contrast is drawn between "them that perish, and "us, which are saved;" and the same contrast in almost exactly the same words appears again in 2 Corinthians 2: 15: Again we read, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19: 10). "Lord save us: we perish," was the cry of the disciples when in the storm on the lake of Galilee. It was only a matter of temporal deliverance, but then it was only in view of temporal danger Salvation and perishing are clearly directly opposed as to their meaning.

As guilty, we need forgiveness. As under condemnation, we need justification. As having lapsed into bondage, we need redemption. As enemies in our minds by wicked works, utterly alienated from God, we need reconciliation. As lost and perishing, it is salvation we need.

When we considered ourselves as guilty or condemned, we had a perfectly crisp and definite thought before our minds. We saw ourselves arraigned at the bar of God. We stood, as it were, in a criminal court, charged with our sins. The thought was equally definite when we thought of ourselves as being in bondage to sin and Satan or as being alienated from God. Sin now appeared to us as a taskmaster on the one hand, and as a dark cloud, shutting us out from God, on the other.

But now we have to consider ourselves as lost, as threatened by innumerable dangers both present and future, and consequently in danger of perishing. We cannot deal with this matter in quite the same crisp way. But what we have lost in definiteness we have more than made up in largeness and breadth of thought. God's salvation is a deliverance from every peril which in the past or present or future could possibly threaten us.

Still, though there is this comprehensiveness of meaning about the word, we must not miss the fact that it always carries the thought of deliverance from peril; and inasmuch as sin lies at the root of every peril that threatens us, the New Testament very appropriately opens with salvation from sins. This salvation is not merely from the penalty of sins, but from the power of sins, and even from the love of them. The Gospel does not offer an exemption from sin's penalty while leaving us free to continue under the power of sin, or in the enjoyment of sin's temporary pleasures. Were it to do so, it would be no true salvation, for it would just encourage us to continue in sin: which God forbid!

Yet again and again we find in Scripture that salvation does mean exemption or deliverance from the wrath of God. The Gospel is "the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth . . . for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven" (Rom. 1: 16-18). A little later in the same epistle we read, "We shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Rom. 5: 9). Again we read, "God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5: 9). And yet again in 2 Thessalonians 2: 12, 13, we find that salvation is put in direct contrast with damnation.

The fact is that the Old Testament has as its chief theme the dealings of God with Israel His people in view of the coming of the Messiah. Hence the consequences of sin as regards God's governmental actings are mainly in view. When Israel sinned, God in His government brought up enemies against them, and when they repented He saved them. The New Testament brings into view the eternal consequences of sin, and the way in which every individual soul of man is subject to God's judgment and the infliction of wrath from heaven. From that wrath we are saved.

It is in this connection that salvation may be spoken of as a past and completed thing, so that believers can speak of themselves as, "us, which are saved." The Lord Jesus is our Deliverer from the wrath to come, and we can never be more secure than we are to-day, before the wrath actually falls. Yet when we speak of ourselves as saved the emphasis seems mainly to lie on the fact that once we were engulfed in every kind of evil and defilement and now we are rescued out of it all. "We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But . . . He saved us" (Titus 3: 3-5).

It is very evident however, that though we can speak of God as the One who "hath saved us," (2 Tim. 1: 9), we are still in a world that is full of seductions, with the treacherous flesh within us, and Satan the astute adversary without. Hence we need salvation daily — salvation of practically a continuous sort. Scripture speaks very plainly of this present salvation. The Lord Jesus is living in heaven as our High Priest to minister it to us. He is able to "save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Heb. 7: 25).

The present salvation, which we need and get as believers, is of course based upon the death of Christ, but it actually reaches us by His priestly activities on our behalf as He lives for us on high. We are being "saved by His life" (Rom. 5: 10); and inasmuch as He ever lives we shall be saved to the uttermost. We shall be saved completely, to the extremes" point of time; to the moment when the last foe has disappeared, and we are beyond the need of any further salvation forever.

In order that we may enjoy this practical, everyday salvation we are granted the instruction which is furnished by the Word of God. The Holy Scriptures are able to make us "wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3: 15). The next verse speaks of the Scriptures being profitable not only for teaching but also "for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." This shows the kind of salvation that was in Paul's mind when he wrote, and emphasizes the great part which the Scriptures play in our daily salvation.

When Paul wrote these words he of course alluded to the Old Testament Scriptures, which Timothy had known from his childhood. They abound with salutary warnings for us, and if we heed them we shall be saved from a thousand snares and dangers. We need hardly add that what Paul asserts of the Old Testament is equally true of the New, which some of us have been privileged to know from our youth.

We might sum up the matter as regards this daily and present salvation by saying it is ours as the result of Christ's High Priestly intercession, and of our having the Word of God, coupled with the possession of the Holy Spirit, whereby we may understand it and accept its instructions and its warnings.

There remains a further group of Scriptures that clearly speak of salvation as a future thing. It is our hope, and is to be worn "for an helmet" (1 Thess. 5: 8). Our hope of salvation will be realized at the second advent of Christ. It is true that He is coming as the Judge, but we do not look for Him in that character. For us it is written, "We look for the Saviour . . . who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body" (Phil. 3: 20, 21). Hence it is that we are left here to "look for Him" when He shall "appear the second time without sin, unto salvation" (Heb. 9: 28).

This future salvation altogether depends upon the crowning act of mercy which will reach us as the last delivering act of the Lord Jesus on our behalf. It will involve the raising of the dead saints, and the catching away of the living saints before the full storm of God's righteous wrath breaks on the earth. Then all of us — both dead and living — are to be found forever with Christ in bodies of glory like to His own. This will be the final thing. Salvation as regards ourselves will be absolutely completed.

The Philippians were bidden by Paul, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." How do you reconcile this injunction with what we have had before us?

A long passage leads up to this injunction. If we want to get an idea of the context we have to go back as far as Philippians 1: 27. The Philippian believers were threatened by adversaries without and dissension within. The close of Philippians 1 alludes to the one. The opening of Philippians 2 alludes to the other. The former is easily disposed of: to meet the latter the whole weight of the matchless example of Christ has to be brought in. And then the Apostle himself was no longer present for their help, for he was in a Roman prison.

Under these circumstances they were to show their spiritual mettle and work out their salvation from the threatening dangers: but not as being cast upon their own resources, for "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (ver. 13). If the next three verses were fulfilled in them, they would indeed have worked out their salvation.

A present, daily salvation is in question: and our side of the matter is emphasized here. The Divine side must come first — the Priesthood of Christ, the work of God in us by His Spirit, the instruction and correction of His Word. But the human side has its importance. We have to diligently avail ourselves of the grace that God provides.

On the day of Pentecost Peter exhorted the anxious enquirers saying, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation;" and those who received his word were baptized. In his first Epistle he again speaks of baptism as saving us. What is this salvation which baptism effects?

It is salvation from "this untoward generation," as Peter said. Another translation puts it, "Be saved from this perverse generation." Now baptism is, in one word, dissociation. It is only an outward ordinance, yet it has a meaning: and that is its meaning. It is based upon the death and resurrection of Christ, for we are "baptized into His death, " (Rom. 6: 3), and so we are "buried with Him" (Col. 2: 12). Nothing more effectively dissociates us from the present order of things, cutting our links with the world, than death and burial.

The particular point that Peter makes, both in his sermon and his epistle, is that baptism cut the link between the repentant and believing Jews and the unrepentant and unbelieving mass of that nation. That lies upon the surface of Acts 2, and is involved, we believe, in 1 Peter 3: 21; for his epistle was addressed to believing Jews. He tells them that baptism is a "like figure" unto the waters of the flood that of old cut the link between believing Noah with his house and the world of the ungodly. Noah and his house had been saved "by" or "through" the water from the ruin and death that came in upon the godless earth. Those to whom Peter wrote had been saved through baptism from the godless mass of their nation. They suffered much from the ungodly mass but they were saved from their fate, whether in this life, at the destruction of Jerusalem, or in  the world to come.

When a big ship is sinking, it is not enough to let down small boats by ropes and then get into them. Unless the ropes are cut there will be no salvation. Baptism cuts the ropes, and in that sense saves.

"He that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved." In the light of this is it not premature to speak of ourselves as saved, while we are still on our way to the end?

It certainly would be, IF these words of our Lord referred to the way in which sinful men might receive the salvation of their souls. These words however, which occur in the course of His prophetic discourse recorded in Matthew 24, and Mark 13, do not refer to that. The Lord was not addressing sinners but men who already had been brought into relationship with Himself — His disciples. At that moment they were representative of the chosen remnant of Israel, who will be found on earth at the time of the end.

"The end" in this passage is not the end of this or that individual life, but the end of the whole time of persecution, trial and sorrow, which end will be brought about by the second coming of Christ. Endurance is the supreme virtue which is to mark these saints, for their salvation is sure when Christ appears.

That is the primary bearing of this passage; but there are of course many profitable applications of it which we may make for ourselves. However to apply it so as to teach that one cannot be really sure of salvation until one dies is not one of them.

Why is "confession with the mouth" so definitely connected with salvation in Romans 10: 10?

Because salvation is a term of such wide meaning, and includes deliverance from the world, amongst other things. We believe on Christ as risen from the dead with our hearts, and that means our justification before God. Both these however — the faith and the justification — are not observable by men. Our salvation is observable, for it is not so much a judicial fact as a practical fact — we are really saved from the power of world, flesh, and devil. The very first step towards a salvation of such a sort must be the confession of Christ as Lord, made with the mouth so that men may hear it. A silent confession of Christ in the mind — just thinking it — obviously would not do.

The distinction made in this passage between the faith of the heart leading to righteousness and the confession of the mouth leading to salvation is very striking. It greatly helps to show the special force of salvation.

Is that why Cornelius, God-fearing man though he was, needed Peter to come to him that he might be saved? He was told that Peter "shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved."

No doubt it was so. Until Peter arrived with the Gospel message concerning the risen Christ, Cornelius could not believe in his heart that God had raised Him from the dead. Again, if he had thought of Him in any sense as Lord, it would doubtless have been as Lord of the children of Israel. Peter preached Him in the house of Cornelius as "Lord of all."

Cornelius had turned from his heathenism to the fear of God very sincerely; but salvation came to him when he believed on and confessed the risen Christ as Lord.

You do not wish us to understand then that salvation is a higher order of Christian blessing into which we may come subsequent to conversion? — so that, for instance, a man might be forgiven yet not saved.

Such a deduction as that from the case of Cornelius would be quite unwarranted. Yet we must not miss the instruction conveyed by the fact that though he had the fear of God, and faith in Him, and even knew certain facts about Christ's ministry on earth, he was not saved until he heard and believed the glad tidings of the risen Christ and forgiveness in His Name. Then it was that he was delivered clean out of the old world system which had held him and was brought to God.

Almost all that we have been considering is

in connection with what we are saved from. What are we saved to?

We are saved to every blessing that is ours in Christ. And yet, if we carefully follow Scripture phraseology, salvation is mostly, if not always, connected with what we are delivered from; and if it is a question of what we are brought to the word used is "calling." God has "saved us, and called us with an holy calling" (2 Tim. 1: 9).

Israel was saved out of Egypt in order that they might enjoy the land to which God called them. We are saved from the world, the flesh, the devil, and the wrath of God which is to come, in order that we may enjoy God's call to the place of sons and share the coming glory of Christ. The salvation which is ours in Christ is a very mighty and wonderful thing; and thereby we are liberated to enjoy our calling. Yet all those things to which we are called according to the sovereign purpose of God are more wonderful still.

Sanctification

Sanctification.

F. B. Hole.

The Scriptures have a good deal to say to us as to sanctification, in the Old Testament as well as in the New; and wherever we find it the word has the fundamental meaning of a separation, or a setting apart. In the Old Testament the word is freely used of things as well as persons. In the New Testament it is mainly, though not exclusively, used of persons; and as applying to believers it has a double significance — a primary meaning and a secondary. The trouble with so many is that the secondary meaning has obliterated the primary in their minds. Hence the difficulties which they feel in relation to this important subject.

The sanctification of believers means to many people, perhaps to most, a process by which they are made more and more holy and pleasing to God; whereas its primary meaning is that by an act of God they have been set apart for Himself, and according to this their growth in holiness becomes a necessity.

The root idea of the word then, whether we take its Old or New Testament use, is that of setting apart for God. A sanctified person or thing is one set apart from ordinary uses to be for God's own possession and use and enjoyment. In contra-distinction to sanctification stands profanation. The priest of Aaron's time was not to "defile himself . . . to profane himself" (Lev. 21: 4). The priests of the coming millennial day are to "teach My people the difference between the holy and profane" (Ezek. 44: 23). The very word used there means "common or polluted," and of course it is just when a thing is put to common use that it does get polluted. That is easily seen in connection with the ordinary affairs of life. When a piece of ground is thrown open freely to the public it becomes a "common," and at once rules must be made to keep it decent. Left to itself it would soon become more or less of a rubbish heap.

In the primary sense of the word, every believer has been set apart for God. It is a fact of an absolute nature. We may speak of it as positional sanctification.

In the secondary sense, every believer is to be set apart for God. It is not positional but progressive sanctification.

The primary is an objective fact: the secondary is a subjective experience, which must always follow and flow out of the objective fact. Things are bound to get out of place and distorted in our minds, if we allow the subjective experience to eclipse the objective fact, as so many do.

If any of our readers are inclined to doubt what we have just laid down as to the primary meaning of the word, let them consider three facts.

(1) Inanimate things — altar, laver, vessels — were sanctified under the law. There could be no subjective change, no increase in holiness, in them. But they could be put in a separate position, wholly devoted to the service of God.

(2) The Lord Jesus Himself was "sanctified, and sent into the world" (John 10: 36); and again leaving the world He said, "I sanctify Myself" (John 17: 19). There could be no subjective change in Him — no sanctification in the progressive sense. Holiness of the most intense order, divine and absolute, was ever His. But He could be set apart by the Father for His mission as Revealer and Redeemer, and then sent into the world. Also, as leaving this world and entering the world of the Father's glory, He could set Himself apart in a new position as the pattern and power of the sanctification of His followers.

(3) The instruction comes to us, "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" (1 Peter 3: 15). Here too the only possible sense of "sanctify," is to set apart positionally. In our hearts we are to set the Lord God apart in a position altogether unique. He is to be exalted without a rival there.

Now as to ourselves we have to begin with this absolute and positional sanctification which is ours by the act of God. If we do not, we are sure to get defective, if not perverted, ideas of the practical and progressive sanctification which is to be ours, since the one flows out of the other. The practical sanctification expected is according to the character of the positional sanctification conferred.

The first mention of sanctification in the Bible is in connection with creation, when God sanctified the seventh day in which He rested (Gen. 2: 3); the second is in connection with redemption, when He brought Israel out of Egypt. Here persons were in question, for He said, "Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn" (Ex. 13: 2). Those who had been redeemed by blood were set apart for God positionally, and because they were, a very special manner of life became them, or rather became the Levites, who later on were substituted for them (see Num. 3: 45; Num. 8: 5-19).

The type, with which the book of Exodus furnishes us, is a very instructive one. In Exodus 12 the children of Israel are sheltered from judgment by the blood of the lamb, which foreshadows the forgiveness and justification which reaches us by the Gospel. In Exodus 15 they are brought right out of Egypt, the power of Pharaoh being broken, which illustrates salvation. Both chapters together foreshadow redemption. But in Exodus 13 we get sanctification. The people justified by blood are set apart for God; and because He claims them for Himself, He will brook no rival claim. He made good His claim against Pharaoh's claim. He broke the might of Egypt and, delivering His people, He brought them to Himself. All their later history had to be governed by this fact.

In all this God showed very plainly that when He intended to bless a people He would set them apart for Himself, instead of allowing them to be common, polluted profaned. They were sanctified to Himself.

How utterly man has been profaned by sin, His mind, his heart, the whole course of nature with him, has been overrun with every kind of evil. If grace sets itself to win him, he must, in the very nature of things, be set apart for God.

We begin then by laying hold of the great fact that we have been sanctified. Scripture is very definite and plain as to this point, and perhaps the most striking example it furnishes us with is the case of the Corinthians. Of all the Christians of the apostolic age, that we have any knowledge of, they stand out as the least marked by sanctification of a practical sort. Their behaviour was open to much censure, and they got it from the Apostle Paul in very plain language. Yet in his first epistle to them he calls them "saints," as "sanctified in Christ Jesus,'' (1 Cor. 1: 2). Later in the same epistle, after mentioning many of the abominations that filled the heathen world, he said, "And such were some of you: but . . . ye are sanctified" (1 Cor. 6: 11).

Nothing could be clearer than this. We do not become God's sanctified people by attaining to a certain standard of practical holiness. We are God's sanctified ones, and because of it, holiness, or practical sanctification, is incumbent upon us. If the former were God's way it would be according to the very principle of law. The latter is God's way and it is according to the principle of grace.

This absolute sanctification reaches us in a twofold way. In the first place it is by the work of Christ. "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb. 10: 10). "Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate" (Heb. 13: 12). Believing in Him, we stand in the value of His offering and are thereby set apart for God just as fully as we are justified.

In the second place we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit. To the Thessalonians Paul wrote in his second epistle, "God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thess. 2: 13). Peter also wrote in his first epistle, "Elect . . . through sanctification of the Spirit" (1 Peter 1: 2). There are the workings of the Spirit in our hearts, culminating in the new birth of which we read in John 3, when "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Then further, when the Gospel is received in faith the Spirit indwells the believer, sealing him until the day of redemption. By that seal the believer is marked off as belonging to God: he is sanctified as set apart for Him.

To the Corinthians Paul wrote in his first epistle, "Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification" (1 Cor. 1: 30). We are set apart in Him, inasmuch as His was the blood shed for us, and also we have received the Spirit as the fruit of His work. We, as well as the Corinthians, have been, "sanctified . . . in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6: 11).

When once we have laid hold of the fact that we have been sanctified in this absolute sense we are prepared to face our responsibilities as to practical sanctification, which are based upon it. One of the requests for His own, uttered by the Lord, as recorded in John 17 was, "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is truth." Hence the importance of giving all due heed to the Word of God, for the more we really know it the more its sanctifying power is exerted in our lives.

"This is the will of God, even your sanctification," is what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4: 3), showing that it is not something that is optional for the Christian, something to be pursued or avoided as fancy dictates. Moreover God Himself works it out for His saints, and it is all-embracing in its scope, for Paul went on to pray for them, "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly" (1 Thess. 5: 23). Everything about us is to come under the sanctifying touch of the God of peace.

But, on the other hand, there is our side of the matter. There are measures which we are to take for the promotion of it. We are to "shun" certain things; we are to "depart from iniquity;" we are to "purge" ourselves from vessels unto dishonour, who teach error of a sort that overthrows faith; then we may be vessels "unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use" (2 Tim. 2: 21).

In all these ways the practical work of sanctification progresses. Indeed it is the great work which the Lord is carrying on with His church; His object being to "sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word" (Eph. 5: 26). The work of sanctification and cleansing is taking place to-day in the individuals of whom the church is composed.

Again and again in the Scriptures we are exhorted to holiness. What is the difference between this and the sanctification we have been considering?

There is no real difference. The same Greek word is translated by both English words, and like sanctification holiness is spoken of (1) as positional and absolute, and (2) as practical and progressive. For instance, when we read, "Wherefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling . . ." (Heb. 3: 1), we are not to understand this to mean that they were far advanced in practical holiness, but that they were a people set apart for God as partaking in the heavenly calling. Hebrews 5: 11-14, indicate that they were not very far advanced, and presently we find that they are exhorted to "follow peace with all men, and holiness" (Heb. 12: 14), which infers the same thing. The holy brethren are to follow holiness. In the first epistle of Peter we find just the same thing. He says, "Be ye holy," (1 Peter 1: 15) to the very people to whom he says, "Ye are . . . an holy nation" (1 Peter 2: 9).

Because we are holy we are to be holy. The holiness, which is to characterize us practically, is according to the holiness which is ours by the call of God.

Believers in Christ are frequently called "saints" in the New Testament. Is the popular use of this term in keeping with the Scriptural use?

By no means. A "saint" is popularly supposed to be an eminently holy person. The Romish authorities still make saints by a lengthy process called "canonization." If we lived amongst Romanists and spoke of "going to visit the saints" they would probably imagine we are going to visit some local shrine and invoke the aid from the spirit world of some of these canonized people. And many who are not Romanists have not quite shaken off these ideas. A saint is not a person of unusual piety, who after death is entitled to be represented in effigy or picture with a halo round his or her head, but the ordinary, simple believer — each one who has been set apart for God by the blood of Christ, and by the possession of the Holy Spirit.

Every true believer being a saint means that we each are responsible to pursue holiness. Perhaps one reason why the Romish idea lingers so strongly is that it leads people to feel that holiness is no particular concern of theirs, but only of a few. These special ones may pursue holiness; the rest of us can live easy-going lives in the world!

Let us be careful to maintain the scriptural thought.

Do justification and sanctification go together?

They do, as far as positional sanctification is concerned. In 1 Corinthians 6: 11, where the work wrought "in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God," is in question, sanctification is mentioned even in advance of justification. The Corinthians had been cleansed and set apart for God on the same ground and by the same agency as they had been justified, and so also have we.

Seeing that they do go together, are we right in speaking of sanctification by faith, just as we speak of justification by faith?

We have in Scripture the definite statement that we are "justified by faith" (Rom. 5: 1), but we do not anywhere read that we are sanctified by faith. Nevertheless, just as, having been justified, we know it by faith and not by our feelings, so too we know that we have been set apart for God by faith and not by feelings. God declares us to be justified as believers in Jesus, and we believe Him. He declares us to be sanctified to Himself as believers in Jesus, and again we believe Him.

If practical sanctification be in question it is another matter. That is progressive, and there should be increase in it to the end. We are to be "perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor. 7: 1), and Paul prayed for the Thessalonians to the end that they might be sanctified "unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Holiness is not, of course, apart from faith, but to speak of holiness by faith, as though faith alone produced it, is to shut out elements of Christian living which ought by no means to be excluded.

What then are these elements? How is practical sanctification or holiness produced?

In the latter part of Romans 6, holiness is presented as being the "fruit" of our being emancipated from the slavery of sin. Now it is "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" which makes us free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8: 2). The more we are under the law, or control, of the Spirit the more do we enjoy freedom from the control of sin. Evidently therefore the control of the Holy Spirit is a very important element in practical sanctification,

Again, when the Lord was praying for His own, as recorded in John 17, He said, "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth" (verse 17). The Spirit of God and the Word of God are intimately connected. They were in creation, as the first three verses of Genesis 1 show. They are together also in the new birth, and again in the matter of practical sanctification. We can speak of holiness by the Word of truth as well as of holiness by the Spirit.

We can also speak of holiness by love in the light of 1 Thessalonians 3: 12-13. As love increases so are our hearts established in holiness.

And yet again there is holiness by separation from all that is unclean, coupled with cleansing from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. 2 Corinthians 6: 14 - 7: 1 tells us this And 2 Timothy 2: 16-22, tells us the same thing, but in a somewhat different setting.

Here then are four elements in addition to faith by which holiness is produced.

We sometimes meet those who speak of being "wholly sanctified," in a way that suggests a claim to entire freedom from the presence of sin. Is there any support for this in the Bible?

There is 1 Thessalonians 5: 23, to which we have already referred. But the context shows that the word, "wholly" refers to the whole man in his tripartite nature — "spirit and soul and body." There is nothing partial about God's gracious work. Its sanctifying influence reaches every part of us, and is carried on "unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." When He comes the sanctification of the whole man will be carried to its completeness and perfection; but not before.

As long as we inhabit these bodies, derived from Adam, sin is still in us; yet the more we experience God's sanctifying work the less we come under its power. There is no excuse for the believer when he sins, inasmuch as ample power is at his disposal to preserve him. Yet we all often offend, as James has told us in his Epistle; and we shall all confess it, unless our sense of what is sin is sadly blunted, or we are just deceiving ourselves.

A life of practical holiness is indeed proper and normal Christian life; but the one who most lives it talks least about his holiness. He does not live to himself nor talk about himself. The end of his living and the theme of his tongue is CHRIST.

The New Birth

The New Birth.

F. B. Hole.

We are introduced to this theme by the Lord Himself, who put it in the very forefront of His teaching when He had the talk with Nicodemus by night. It is alluded to by John in the preface to his Gospel (John 1: 13), but not in any way expounded until we come to John 3. Having heard of it more fully from the lips of the Lord, we find further details as to it both in 1 Peter and 1 John. We also discover from what the Lord says to Nicodemus that Ezekiel 36 alludes to it, though the term, "born again," is not used there.

Nicodemus was amongst those who were convinced that Jesus was "a Teacher come from God," but he went further than the men spoken of at the end of John 2, by becoming an enquirer. Nicodemus himself was "a master [i.e. teacher] of Israel," and it was something that he should recognize in Jesus a Teacher, who spoke and acted with an authority far above his own. But recognizing it, he came as one who would make a very good scholar, being a privileged person, a member of the most favoured nation. To such a man as this the pronouncement was made that, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

The word translated "again," in this passage has also the meaning of "from above;" it is so translated in John 3: 31, and elsewhere; but evidently Nicodemus did not understand it in this sense, or he would hardly have asked the question recorded in verse 4. In Luke 1: 3 the same word is translated, "from the very first," and in Acts 26: 5, "from the beginning," and that seems to be the force of it here. Nicodemus needed a birth which should be new in the very beginnings of its origin. Nothing short of that would do.

He had been born of the stock of Abraham, and so his pedigree was of the best. He was a very fine specimen of the Abrahamic strain of humanity, yet he would not do for God. The Lord's words clearly put the sentence of condemnation upon him as a child of Abraham, for if that first birth had sufficed there would have been no need for a new one. We Gentiles cannot boast of being children of Abraham, the friend of God: we are just the children of Adam, the man who disobeyed and fell. The new birth cannot be less necessary for us than it was for Nicodemus. He too, of course, was a child of Adam, just as Abraham was.

Adam's nature was corrupted by his sin, and all his race, generation after generation, partake of that fallen and corrupt nature. Spiritual blindness is one of the forms that the corruption takes, and so we are quite unable to "see the kingdom of God." When Jesus was on earth the kingdom was present amongst men, for He was the King; but men did not see this apart from the new birth. Nicodemus only saw a Teacher in Him, and needed to be born again to see Him in the true light. It is just the same to-day though Jesus is no longer here. Men see in Him a religious Teacher or a Reformer, but they do not see God in Him, nor do they see the kingdom of God, unless they have come under Shat Divinely wrought process of cleansing which the new birth involves.

In John 3: 5, the Lord carries His teaching a step further. We need not only to see the kingdom but to enter it, and for this we must be born "of water and of the Spirit." The water is the agent employed, and the Spirit the Actor who employs it. These further statements apparently only puzzled Nicodemus the more, and he asked incredulously, "How can these things be?" The Lord's reply took also the form of a question, "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" His teaching on this point was not something entirely new — unheard of up to this point. It had its roots in what the prophets had testified, and notably Ezekiel in his thirty-sixth chapter, where both water and the Spirit are mentioned. The surprising thing was that Nicodemus had remained in ignorance of the prophet's meaning.

The meaning of the word, "water," in John 3 has been much in dispute. We believe its true meaning is to be discerned by referring back to the Scripture to which the Lord alluded. He doubtless used the word as being just that which ought to have put Nicodemus into possession of the key which should unlock His meaning. We ought to read at this point Ezekiel 36: 21-33.

Having read it, we note that the passage speaks of what the Lord will do when at last He gathers Israel His people out of the lands of their dispersion and brings them into their own land. Then He will sprinkle "clean water" upon them and they shall be clean. All their filthiness and their love of idols shall be gone, for He will thereby have put "a new heart" and "a new spirit" within them. The cleansing effected by the water will be of so radical and fundamental a nature that their whole nature will be different. Once this mighty work has taken place they will look back on that which formerly they were with disgust — "Then shall ye remember your own ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations" (verse 31). A moral renovation will have been accomplished.

By discarding bad habits and acquiring good habits, men sometimes achieve a considerable measure of that kind of moral alteration which lies on the surface. The moral renovation which Ezekiel predicts goes down to the deepest foundation; putting a man into possession of a new heart and a new spirit, so that instinctively he desires what is good and walks in obedience. Verse 27 shows this. No wonder then that the Lord Jesus spoke of it as a new birth; inasmuch as it is not the altering of a nature already existing, but the impartation of a nature which is entirely new. The new heart is "given." The new spirit is "put within you." It is to start anew from the very first.

Verse 27 speaks of "My Spirit" which is to be put within born-again Israel in that day. Though not printed with a capital in our Bibles, it clearly should be, as it refers to the Spirit of God, and hence is to be distinguished from " new spirit" in the previous verse. So the prophet clearly shows us that only when Israel is born again and receives the Spirit of God will they see and enter into the kingdom of God.

All this Nicodemus should have known, though the Lord's words to him carry the truth concerning it a good deal further. Now we discover that new birth is actually produced by the Spirit of God. He who is born again is born of the Spirit, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit as to its own nature and character. In other words, the new heart and new spirit, of which Ezekiel tells us, is the product of the Holy Spirit and partakes of His holy nature. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, in spite of all that may be done to it in the way of refinement, education, civilization, or Christianization. When all is done, flesh it still remains: it cannot be transmuted into spirit. That alone is spirit which is born of the Spirit. It cannot be found apart from the new birth.

When Ezekiel prophesied of how God would "sprinkle clean water" upon Israel in the coming day in order that they might be clean, the mind of those who read his words would have been carried back to the book of Numbers where twice we get the sprinkling of water mentioned. In Numbers 8 we get the way in which the Levites were cleansed in order that they might enter upon their service. Moses was told to "Sprinkle water of purifying upon them." In Numbers 19 we get the way in which the ordinary Israelite was cleansed from various defilements which he might contract. From the ashes of a red heifer "a water of separation" was to be made, and that water was to be sprinkled upon people and things that were defiled. The "water of separation" which purified was made from "the ashes of the burnt heifer" — typical of the death of Christ — and "running [or, living] water" — typical of the Spirit.

So we pass from the type in Numbers to the prophecy in Ezekiel, and from thence to the Lord's declaration in John 3. Putting all together the significance of the "water" begins to appear. It is the Word of God which brings the death of Christ in its separating and purifying power to bear upon the soul. Of that Word, as well as of the Spirit, we must be born if we are to enter the kingdom of God. In later chapters of the Gospel we find the Lord connecting water with His Word in a way that confirms the matter. Compare the scene recorded in John 13: 5-11, with His words, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John 15: 3). A further confirmation occurs in Ephesians 5: 26, where "water" and "the Word" are brought together as identical.

Man needs, then, to be born anew from the very beginning. The agent used for this is the Word of God, which applies to us the cleansing virtue of the death of Christ. And He who acts in this matter is the Spirit of God. In John 3 the water is mentioned but once: the remainder of the instruction concerns the action of the Spirit.

But when we turn to 1 Peter 1: 22-25, we find that though the Spirit is mentioned, the main emphasis lies upon that which the water symbolizes  - the Word of God. We have obeyed the truth by the Spirit, and thereby purification has reached us — verse 22 views that which is accomplished from our side. Verses 23 25 view it from God's side. The purification is effective by reason of His work in us by His Word, which, as we know from John 3, is wrought by the Spirit. We are born "by" the Word, but also "of" incorruptible seed; and we must not confuse these two things. "By" indicates agency; "of" indicates origin.

As children of Adam we were born of seed which is not merely corruptible but actually and fatally corrupted. We are born again of seed which is incorruptible, because Divine. Isaiah the prophet was given a glimpse of the Servant of Jehovah, who should die and rise again; and he predicted, "When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed" (Isa. 53: 10).

He shall see those who take their spiritual origin from Himself. A thought akin to this seems to lie in these words in Peter. As born again we have a new origin which is incorruptible in nature; and the Word by which we are born again, "liveth and abideth for ever." That which is produced as the result of new birth is characterized by these wonderful things — life, eternity and incorruptibility.

From all that we have seen it is very evident that new birth is that work of the Spirit of God in us which is necessitated by the corruption of our nature through sin. It was not enough that a work should be wrought for us which should bring us justification and reconciliation; there must also be this work of moral cleansing, this lifting us out of the corruption of our nature. No external work of cleansing would meet the case; nothing short of our becoming possessed of a new nature springing from an incorruptible source. No deeper or more fundamental purification than that could be conceived.

From the passage in Peter, with its statement as to our being born of incorruptible seed, we pass on naturally to 1 John, where we read, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (1 John 3: 9). This verse gives us perhaps the fullest development of the whole matter. No mention is made of the agent employed, the Word of God. Nor is the Spirit of God, who acts in the work, mentioned. The emphasis is concentrated upon God Himself as the Source of all. As born of God, His seed remains in us; it is irrevocable. And we partake of His sinless nature. The born again one cannot sin, just because he is born of God.

In so speaking John views us abstractly, according to the essential character of the new nature which is ours. He is entitled to do so, inasmuch as when God has completed His work concerning us we shall be this not merely abstractly but absolutely. The last trace of the Adamic nature will be gone when our very bodies are glorified. Elsewhere John views us practically, and insists that we have sin in us, and that we do sin: — see, 1 John 1: 8 - 2: 2. This practical view of things is very necessary of course; but so also is the abstract view, which we have before us. It is most important that we should know the sinlessness of the nature that is ours as born of God.

Not only is it sinless — for that is a negative virtue: it is also righteous (1 John 2: 29), and loving (1 John 3: 10, 11). It is marked by faith (1 John 5: 1), and by overcoming the world (1 John 5: 4). These are positive features of great worth. Only let these characteristics come clearly into display in the believer and it becomes manifest to all men that a mighty moral renovation has been effected: a thorough-going cleansing and purification has been accomplished indeed.

We read of cleansing by the blood of Christ in 1 John 1: 7. Do you differentiate between this and the cleansing we have been considering? And, if so, how?

The blood of Christ signifies His holy life laid down in death for the bearing of the judgment due to us. Thereby we are cleansed judicially. The cleansing wrought by new birth and presented as accomplished by water, touches our characters, and involves our having a new nature. We are cleansed morally. We could not do without either. Both are ours as having received the grace of God.

You do not think then that the "water," in John 3, has anything to do with baptism?

We are sure that the Lord did not allude to baptism in using the word "water." There would have been nothing surprising in Nicodemus not knowing about it, had that been His meaning. No, He alluded to Ezekiel 36, which Nicodemus ought to have known, and that has nothing to do with baptism. John 3: 5 has no more to do with baptism than John 6: 53 has to do with the Lord's supper: though in both cases we may be able to discern in the outward ordinances some reflection of the truth stated in these passages. In both cases however we have not the ordinance but the truth, to which the ordinance makes some reference.

We have had before us different terms: — "born again," "born of water and of the Spirit," "born of God." Do they all mean the same thing?

They all refer, we believe, to the same great work of God, wrought in us by His Spirit. There is no such thought in Scripture as there being two more different kinds of "new birth;" as though, for example, one might be "born again," according to John 3, and yet not "born of God," according to 1 John 3. On the other hand, each of these different expressions has its own significance and force. The first emphasizes the new and original character of the birth. The second, who accomplishes it, and the agent employed. The third, the Source whence all springs. Indeed we think an orderly progress of doctrine may be observed in the four passages, beginning with Ezekiel.

New birth is evidently an act of God; but is it wrought by the Spirit altogether apart from the preaching of the Gospel?

There is a plain answer to that question in the passage in Peter. It says, "Born again. . . by the word of God. . . and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." Whatever may have been the word by which the Spirit worked in the past dispensation, in this day the word by which we are born again is that which reaches us in the Gospel.

Then are we born again by simply believing the Gospel? Some hold that we believe to be born again, others that we must be born again to believe.

That is so. He who inclines to Arminianism would hold the first view. He who inclines to Calvinism would hold the second. This raises the whole question of how to adjust in our minds the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. We should answer the question by saying, No, not by simply believing the Gospel; for, if by believing only, we should be shutting out factors of even greater importance. But of course we should be equally wrong if we said it was simply by the Spirit; for then we should be shutting out the Gospel, which must not be excluded according to the passage in Peter.

The fact is we need carefully to note the word of our Lord in John 3: 8, where He warns us that the Spirit's work in new birth is something beyond us. We can no more gather it all together in our minds than we can gather the winds in our fists. The passage in Peter gives us a view of things from the human side — especially verses 22 and 23 — and the Arminian seizes them. The passage in John's Epistle views things from the Divine side, and the Calvinist seizes it. For ourselves, we seize both, and are not troubled by finding that we can no more mentally adjust the two sides to perfection than we can adjust and explain the Divine and the Human in Christ Jesus our Lord, or in the Scriptures of truth.

But is not new birth the very beginning of God's work in the soul? Are we not absolutely dead, without the smallest motion Godward, until we are born again?

We all of us started in a state of absolute spiritual death: there was no hope for us except God began to work. The story of God's work in blessing men begins with God and not with man. We are as sure of this as we are that the story of creation began with God and not with man. God took the initiative with each of us, and His Spirit began to move on our hearts just as of old He moved on the face of the waters. But, in the light of the scriptures we have considered, we can hardly call that first moving of the Spirit new birth. New birth is a larger and more comprehensive thing, if we take it as presented in Scripture.

And further, new birth is not the antithesis to a state of death, but to a state of corruption. The word which in Scripture stands in antithesis to death is quickening. By new birth we become possessed of a nature which cannot sin, and, hence we have "escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust" (2 Peter 1: 4).

Are new birth and regeneration — as in Titus 3: 5 — the same thing?

They are not. The word translated "regeneration" only occurs twice in Scripture, and both times it has the significance of the new order of things to be brought about in the millennial age. Titus 3: 5 however speaks of "the washing of regeneration," and we believe that though the regeneration is not the new birth, the "washing" is; and that verse is just Ezekiel 36: 25 - 27 put into New Testament language. Israel will be born again, and thus cleansed from their corruptions in view of the millennial age. We have not had to wait till that age dawns. The washing connected with that coming age reached the heathen Cretians so that they might be cleansed — no longer, "liars, evil beasts, slow bellies," — and therefore should "live soberly, righteously and godly."

That same washing has reached us. We are no longer dominated by corruption, since born of incorruptible seed.

Quickening

Quickening

F B Hole

Only when we take a wide view of our fallen estate can we realize in an adequate way the complete havoc that has been wrought by sin, or the fulness of God's answer to it all which reaches us in the Gospel. We have already seen that sin has brought in: —

guilt

, and so

forgiveness

must reach us;

condemnation

, so

justification

is needed;

bondage,

and we need

redemption;

alienation

from God, so we need

reconciliation;

peril

of many kinds, so we need

salvation;

profanation

and pollution, so we need

sanctification;

corruption,

which has affected the deepest springs of our nature, so we need the

new birth.

We have now to see that it has plunged us into spiritual death, and we must be quickened if we are to live to God.

Our state is set forth in Ephesians 2: 1, as "dead in trespasses and sins." The next verse remarkably enough goes on to speak of walking in those trespasses and sins; but that is because the death there spoken of is death towards God. Those who are dead Godward are very much alive to "the course of this world," and "the prince of the power of the air," who operates in the "children of disobedience." To be dead towards God is entirely consistent with being alive towards the world and the devil: indeed the one springs out of the other.

This is the fact that underlies the solemn statement made in Romans 3: 11, that, "there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God." That there should be none righteous (verse 10) is bad: it is worse that none should understand, for that means a state not only of ignorance but insensibility. It is worst of all that none should desire to understand or seek after God, with whom is righteousness and understanding and life. To the natural man there is nothing that is desirable in God. Man is not right: he does not understand that he is not right: he has no desire after God who is right. In one word he is dead towards God.

Once these solemn facts lay hold of us, we realize that our only hope is in God taking the initiative with us in His sovereign mercy. We are quite well able to take the initiative in evil, but as regards all that is of God we are dead; and hence all movement must spring from Him.

God

then must act. But

how

must He act? Will reformation, education or instruction meet our case? By no means: there can be nothing until He quickens, for quickening simply means the giving of life. The very word translated "quicken" in the New Testament is one compounded of the noun "life," and the verb "to make" — to make to live.

Now it is a striking fact that Ezekiel 36, which shows the corruption and moral filth in which Israel lay, and prophesies as to the new birth which consequently must be theirs, is followed by the vision of the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37. This sets forth the death towards God, in which Israel lies as a nation, and it prophesies concerning God's work of quickening, which must touch them before they enter into millennial blessedness. They will be brought up by Him out of the graves among the nations where they lie. There will be a national resurrection, and, says the Lord, "Ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it" (verse 14). Once they are quickened they will understand and they will at once seek the Lord.

The "wind," or "breath," of verse 9 seems to be identified with "My Spirit," of verse 14: indeed, the same Hebrew word is translated, wind, breath or spirit, according to the context. It is interesting to compare these verses with John 3: 8. There the blowing of the wind is connected with the Spirit's action in new birth. Here it is connected with His action in quickening. This should show us how closely new birth and quickening are connected one with the other, and that they must not be divided from each other, though they should be distinguished and separately considered, as they are in chapters 36, and 37 of Ezekiel.

Now if John 3 answers to Ezekiel 36, John 5 answers to Ezekiel 37. That chapter opens with the cure of the impotent man. It was as though a fresh stream of life entered his powerless limbs, and he took up his bed and walked. When challenged as to this miracle, the Lord Jesus proceeded to speak of far greater works than this which were His to do — the quickening of whom He will and the raising of all men. The former is a limited work. Those among the spiritually dead who hear the voice of the Son of God — and only those — shall spiritually live. The latter is universal. All in the graves shall hear His voice and come forth in two classes, to life and to judgment respectively. This will take place at different times, as we learn from other scriptures.

In verse 21 of this marvellous chapter in John, quickening is attributed to both the Father and the Son whereas in the next verse the work of judgment is said to lie wholly in the hands of the Son. The Son, and the Son alone, came forth into this world to suffer and be set at naught. To Him alone then shall the supremacy and majesty and honour of executing judgment belong. In the giving of life however the Son acts according to His own will equally with the Father and — we hardly need add — in fullest accord with the Father. Equally with the Father is He the Source of life, for verse 26 is evidently parallel with verse 21 in its sense. As 1 Corinthians 15: 45 says, "the last Adam . . a quickening Spirit."

Verses 24 and 25 give us the way in which the Son acts in life-giving power at the present moment. He quickens by means of His word. There are those who really hear His word; that is, they hear in it "the voice of the Son of God," and consequently they believe on the Father who sent Him, and they live. Quickening is not presented here as a work of the Son altogether apart from the use of means. Were it so presented we should read, "they that live shall hear." But what we read is, "they that hear shall live." Life is indeed His gift, but it reaches us in the hearing of His voice in His word.

In the light of this chapter we believe we may speak of quickening as the most deep-seated and fundamental aspect of God's work in us. Such is its importance that the Father and the Son act together as to it in a special way. A wrong use is sometimes made of our Lord's statements in verses 19 and 30; "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do;" and " I can of Mine own Self do nothing." These words do not mean that He disclaimed all power, just as a mere prophet might have done. They expressed in the first place the fact that in becoming Man the Son had taken the place of dependent service, acting wholly by the Spirit in subjection to the Father. This thought seems specially prominent in verse 30. But in the second place they also emphasized the fact that His essential place in the unity of the Godhead was such that it was impossible that He should act apart from the Father. This thought seems more prominent in verse 19.

From this inner and more hidden aspect of things it was as though He said, "I am so essentially one with the Father that it is in the nature of things impossible that I should act apart from Him." It was really the strongest possible affirmation of His essential Deity. The Father and the Son must ever act together as the end of verse 19 says. Thus did the Lord accept the charge of "making Himself equal with God," and not only accept it but amplify the thought of it. So both the Father and the Son act together in life-giving power.

In John 6: 63, we discover that the Spirit of God also quickens. The fist occurrence of the word "Spirit" in that verse should evidently be printed with a capital, the second occurrence of the word is rightly printed without a capital. Comparison may be made with verse 6 of chapter 3, where the distinction is rightly made. The very words of the Lord are spirit and life but it is the Spirit Himself who quickens. We may say therefore that the whole fulness of the Godhead — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — is involved in the work of giving life to such as ourselves.

One further thing has to be noted. We meet with it both in Ephesians 2: 5, and Colossians 2: 13 — we have been quickened "together with Christ." Being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2: 1), and. "dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh" (Col. 2: 13), nothing short of quickening would meet our case. Quickening was thus a necessity, but there was no necessity that we should be quickened together with Christ: that is the fruit of the counsels of God in grace.

Life "together with," — in association with  - Christ was His thought for us, and this goes far beyond the bare necessity of the plight we were in. Life of some sort we must have, if ever we were to be in conscious blessedness; but life of this sort is the highest and most intimate that can be known by the redeemed creature. Therefore it is that we read of this quickening as being the fruit of the richness of God's mercy, and because of His great love wherewith He loved us. Rich mercy and great love are thus expressed.

We have been made to live in association with Christ, inasmuch as our life as quickened is of His own order — His life is ours. Since this is so, it is possible for us to be raised up and made to "sit together in heavenly places" in Him. Having life of such an order as this, we are fitted for such exalted seats. The wonderful story of our quickening ends in our sitting in heavenly places in the life of our Quickener.

In the Old Testament we read of quickening. Ten times or more the Psalmist speaks of it in Psalm 119. Are we to differentiate between that and what we find in the New Testament?

We believe that we have to do so. The Psalmist says that God's Word has quickened him in verse 50, yet again and again he desires to be quickened. The word is evidently used more in the sense of being revived, of being restored to more vigorous life. In Old Testament times man was still under probation. The law had been given to test him, and life on earth was still proposed as the result of perfect obedience to the law. Only when we come to the New Testament is the probation period over, and man formally pronounced to be dead in trespasses and sins. Hence only in the New Testament does the full truth of quickening appear.

Some have thought that quickening is very advanced truth; that, for instance, a man may be born again and yet quickening lie ahead as something to be reached much later, as a kind of climax to God's work in him. Does Scripture indicate this?

It clearly does not. Until quickened by Divine power we are dead. It is the very beginning of God's work in us rather than the climax. It would however be true to say that it is truth into the full import of which we are slow to enter. Almost invariably we begin by understanding truth as to the forgiveness of sins and salvation. This matter of life, and more especially life together with Christ, begins to impress us later in our spiritual history. We must not however attribute to the thing itself, what may quite rightly be stated as to our apprehension of the thing. The thing itself is the fruit of a Divine act: our apprehension of it the fruit of Divine teaching.

In John 5: 26, we read that the Father (1) raises up the dead, and (2) quickens them. Are we right in differentiating between the two things? And, if so, what is the difference?

We believe that there is a distinct difference. In John 11: 25, the Lord Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life." Resurrection is one thing and life another; though for us they are very intimately connected. For the unconverted dead they will be divorced. They will be raised and their once dead bodies reanimated, though not quickened, since their resurrection will be that of judgment and not of life, as verse 29 shows. Colossians 2: 12, 13, also presents resurrection and quickening as quite distinct things We are quickened already but resurrection in its fulness is before us. When that moment comes our bodies will be instinct with life, in keeping with what has already taken place as to our souls.

We have in Romans 8: 11, a word about the quickening of our "mortal bodies." Is that something that takes place in the present, or is it to be in the future?

That is in the future. It is that God "shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." In the previous verse we have, "The Spirit is life because of righteousness." Both statements refer to the indwelling Spirit. He is life to us in an experimental and practical way now. He will quicken our mortal bodies presently, whether He does it in resurrection, for the saints who have died, or by the change of which 1 Corinthians 15: 51 speaks, for the saints alive when Jesus comes.

Some people however claim that this quickening of our mortal bodies has to do with the healing of disease: that it is what shall be done for us in the present, if only we claim the fulness of the Spirit.

Yes; and in so saying they read into the passage what is not there. There is nothing about disease or healing in the context. It is not our diseased bodies but our mortal bodies that are to be quickened. In our present condition our bodies are liable to death; when quickened they will no longer be subject to death. If the mortal body of the believer really were quickened now, he would be immortal as to his body; that is, beyond death, and not merely beyond disease.

So our reply can be twofold. First, there is an "if" in the verse, but it is not, if we claim the fulness of the Spirit, but, if the Spirit dwell in us — which He does, if we really are believers. Second, it is not healing that is in question but the giving of life from a Divine source. When quickened the mortal body is no longer mortal. It is perfectly obvious that this has not yet taken place with any saint living on earth. If Paul's mortal body had been quickened, for instance, the heads-man's axe would never have laid him low. He would  still be walking amongst us!

The Lord Jesus, as the Last Adam, quickens  according to 1 Corinthians 15: 45. We are right, are we  not, in connecting this with the present?

Certainly. He stands in contrast to the first Adam  in that verse; not merely in being "spirit," in contrast  with "soul," but in that He is not merely "living," but  the Life-giver. Verse 36 of this chapter reminds us  that quickening only applies to that which is dead.  Now we were dead spiritually, and quickening of a  spiritual sort has already reached us from the last Adam. As the Head of a new race, He has already  imparted life — His own life — to us who are of His race.

But then this chapter goes on to consider the case  of our bodies which are still mortal. We must bear  the image of the heavenly Adam even as regards our  bodies, and so the great change will reach us at the  coming of the Lord. Then "this mortal" will "put on immortality," and this will be the quickening of our  mortal bodies, of which Romans 8: 11 speaks.

When that is accomplished, and "Death is  swallowed up in victory" (verse 54), the work of  quickening as regards ourselves will be carried to its  final completion. Then the word that we "shall reign  in life by One, Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 17), shall be  fulfilled. Not only in life, but reigning in it, and  that for ever.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit

The Gift of the Holy Spirit.

F. B. Hole.

We have considered many of the direful consequences of sin; there remains one further effect to be emphasized. It has reduced men to a state of powerlessness. Not only are we fallen into bondage to sin, as we saw when considering redemption, but we are totally without power to please God or to serve Him. Now one thing is certain: the creature should within its own limits perfectly serve the Creator.

Power we must have; both to deliver us from the paralysis internal to ourselves, which sin has produced, and to enable us to go rightly through external circumstances, as those who serve the will of God. Power is conferred upon us, and the wonderful thing is that it should be by the indwelling of the Spirit of God. Something much less than this might have sufficed for us, but nothing short of it has been given of God. The risen Christ, about to go on high, said to His disciples, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me" (Acts 1: 8). This promise was fulfilled ten days later on the day of Pentecost, as Acts 2 records.

In Ezekiel 36 and 37, as we have seen, there are prophecies as to the work of new birth and quickening, which will be wrought in the remnant of Israel in a coming day, preparing them for millennial blessedness. In both chapters there is mention also of the gift of the Holy Spirit — "I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them" (Ezek. 36: 27): "And shall put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live" (Ezek. 37: 14). As a consequence of this there will be spiritual life in Israel, which will express itself in active obedience to God's will. As God directs, so they will do. Other Old Testament scriptures have similar predictions, notably the end of Joel 2, which Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost, saying that what had just occurred in their midst was a sample of what Joel had foretold. We shall see however that the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost has in it a fulness and permanence hardly contemplated in Old Testament times.

New birth is produced by the Holy Spirit, and in result we have, as John 3: 6, indicates, a new nature which is "spirit" in its essential character. That which is produced by the Spirit's action partakes of His own nature. This must of course be distinguished from the Spirit indwelling men already born again, which is what occurred at Pentecost; and it is very necessary to observe that power is connected, not with the new nature produced by the Spirit, but with the Holy Spirit as a Person, actually indwelling the believer's body. This is quite manifest in the passage, Romans 7: 7 - 8: 4.

In Romans 7 we are given the experience of one who is born again, for he possesses "the inward man," which delights in the law of God (verse 22). Consequently he approves what is good and earnestly desires it, yet finds himself unable to practise it. It is not until we reach the Deliverer in "Jesus Christ our Lord" (verse 25), and go on to read of "the law [or, control] of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," that we find power to overcome "the law [or, control] of sin and death" (Rom. 8: 2), and to fulfil those things which the law so righteously required (Rom. 8: 4). The power that delivers is found in Christ, and in His Spirit, who has been given to us.

This passage in Romans shows us the power that delivers us from the internal paralysis that sin induces, and this of course is a prerequisite, it we are to be marked by power in witness to our risen Lord, which is what is contemplated in Acts 1: 8, and also in Luke 24: 49. It should be a very sobering thought for all of us, that even as saints no power is vested in us. All power for us is vested in the Spirit of God, who has been given to us.

The eleven men to whom the Lord spoke were Apostles, on whom as a foundation the church has been built. There had been a powerful work of the Spirit in them, and for three years or more they had been under special instruction, such as no men before had ever had. Yet none of these things conferred the necessary power upon them. However eager they may have been to start their great work of witness, they were at a standstill until the Spirit was given. Not one word of witness did they utter until then. But then, their mouths were immediately opened, and with what astonishing results!

We must not overlook the fact that on the day of Pentecost the disciples not merely received the Spirit to indwell them, but "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2: 4); and when a believer is filled with Him there is no force active within, as a check on His power. This filling of the Spirit is not permanent like His indwelling, for Peter was again filled with the Spirit in Acts 4: 8, and yet again, as we find in verse 31 of the same chapter. When the Spirit does thus fill a believer, the flesh in him is judged and quiescent, and His power is irresistible. Stephen illustrates this; for being full of the Holy Ghost, he was "full of faith and power," and his opponents "were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake" (Acts 6: 8, 10). Unable to resist, they flew to violence, and their stones battered his body to death, thus destroying that "temple" of the Holy Spirit.

Though the history, recorded in Acts, shows that in practice the filling of the Spirit was occasional, even with the Apostles, we must not forget that all Christians are exhorted to be filled with the Spirit, in Ephesians 5: 18. It may surprise us to find such a thing put in contrast with being "drunk with wine," but the fact is that when wine is taken in excess it assumes control of the man and carries him outside himself. All that is from beneath and is evil. The Spirit of God however can control, and carry a man outside himself, in a way that is good and divine. The very good is contrasted with the very evil. If filled with the Spirit, all that is not Himself and of Him obviously must be excluded.

Now it is in these other things, that fill so much of our thoughts and time and energies, that the hindrances to the realization of power are to be found; and in this connection we have to contemplate not only things positively evil but many things that are trivial and profitless. Hence we get the word, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God" (Eph. 4: 20). If we grieve Him, we do not lose His indwelling presence, for the verse continues, "whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." We do however lose much of the benefit of His presence. Both spiritual joy and spiritual power are lost until the grieving thing is put away. Some of the things which grieve are mentioned in the verses which precede and which follow. How much the Spirit of God has been grieved by malice, evil-speaking and bitterness amongst saints. The wonder is that His power is manifested at all!

The Apostle Paul was called and saved that he might be a pattern to us. This 1 Timothy 1: 16 informs us. So in his life of service and witness we can see how the power of the Spirit wrought.

Romans 15: 15 shows the extraordinary range of his service. From Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum — the modern Albania — he fully preached the Gospel. Within about 25 years he had fully evangelized peoples living in territories covering hundreds of thousands of square miles, travelling on foot with the occasional help of a boat on the sea and an animal on the land. A miraculous feat indeed! One only possible for him as energized by the Spirit of God.

1 Corinthians 2: 1-5 shows the simplicity of his preaching. All merely human adornments were discarded, that the central fact of the Cross of Christ might be the more plainly revealed. What marked his preachings was "demonstration of the Spirit and of power:" so that as regards those who received his message, their faith should stand not in "the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

2 Corinthians 3: 1-6, and 2 Corinthians 4: 1-7, show us the life-giving power of Paul's new covenant ministry. His converts were "the epistle of Christ," written "with the Spirit of the living God," and, says he, "the Spirit giveth life." Both life and light are connected in this passage, for he says, "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" shines through "earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."

2 Corinthians 10: 1-6 shows us the power of spiritual weapons in the aggressive conflicts of the Gospel. Satanic powers have entrenched themselves in human minds and formed strongholds of human reasonings and lofty thoughts, which can only be overthrown by such weapons as are employed by the Spirit of God.

1 Thessalonians 1 and 2 give us a lovely picture of the spiritual fruits in the characters and lives of the converts, when the Gospel comes "not . . . in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." The Thessalonian believers became followers of the Lord, ensamples to all other believers, and propagators of the Word that had saved them; as they served the living and true God and waited for His Son from heaven.

2 Timothy 1 shows us the Holy Spirit as characterized by "the spirit . . . of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (7); so that the believer is enabled to be a "partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God" (8), and also to "keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us" the good deposit with which he has been entrusted (14). The Spirit of God is the power of endurance and for fidelity.

The gift of the Spirit on God's part, as well as the gift of His Son, may well be spoken of as "unspeakable" (2 Cor. 9: 15).

At the outset the power of the Spirit was very largely displayed in signs and wonders. Seeing that He is God and unchangeable, should it not be so to-day?

God is indeed the unchangeable One, but this does not mean that He cannot vary His ways and dealings according to His wisdom, as He meets the changing situations that arise amongst men. He has most evidently done so in past dispensations. The display of His power in miracles has never been constant, indeed only in three great epochs has it been manifested thus. First, when through Moses He intervened to bring Israel out of Egypt and into Palestine, inaugurating the law system. Second, when He intervened through Elijah and Elisha, recalling the people to the broken law, and testifying of His goodness. Third, when He intervened in Christ, and the church was subsequently formed through the Apostles. Practically all the miracles that Scripture records come into these three periods. Of John the Baptist we read, "John did no miracle" (John 10: 41). His lot was cast just before the third great miracle epoch began in connection with Christ.

But are not these miraculous signs the very greatest display of His power?

By no means. Most of these visible displays of miraculous energy were only temporal in their effects. In Acts 9, for instance, Aeneas was raised up from his sick bed, and Dorcas from her bed of death; but in both cases the passage of years brought them into death, and the miracles were as though they had never been. That chapter opens with the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. His fellow-travellers were speechless with amazement, yet they do not seem to have discerned the miracle. It was of course a spiritual miracle of the first order, the effect of which is felt all over the earth today — just nineteen centuries later. Every true conversion is a miracle which abides to eternity; and miracles of this sort are taking place today.

Paul's preaching was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Can we speak of modern preaching in this way?

Only in a very minor degree, we fear. The fact is that so much modern preaching is marked by the very things which Paul tells us he avoided, in order that his preaching might be in the power of the Spirit. He not only renounced the things of deceit and evil, as he tells us in 2 Corinthians 4: 2, but also things of a very reputable sort, such as excellency of speech, and wisdom according to man.

But even where the Gospel is faithfully preached, and that without reliance upon these human expedients, there does not seem to be much power manifested. How can we explain that?

There are two scriptures which may help to explain it — Ephesians 4: 30, and 1 Thessalonians 5: 19. All too often the Spirit is grieved in the servant of God who labours, and hence there is little fruit in what he does. And even when this is not the case, the Spirit is grieved by the state of things that prevails amongst the mass of professing Christians. There is also a quenching of the Spirit by the introduction of much human organization, which gives no place to His free action. Then beyond this there is the terrible incubus of unbelief, and often utter infidelity, on the part of multitudes of professed servants of God, who deny practically everything they are pledged to uphold. The Spirit is grieved and quenched in the bosom of the church, and this fact alone would account for His withholding any great manifestation of His power.

However, it is happily a fact that He is still working, and souls are being blessed, though His work is proceeding in quieter and less noticed ways.

Power for service, though important, is by no means everything. How may we know the Spirit's power for victory in our lives?

By walking in the Spirit, as Galatians 5: 16 bids us. We learn from Ephesians 1: 13, that He is given to us when we believe the Gospel of our salvation. He marks us off as belonging to God. But also we are to walk in Him; that is, He is to be in a practical way the Source and Energy of our life and activities. Walking is the first and earliest activity of mankind, hence it becomes a figurative expression for our activities. Our thoughts, speech and actions are to be under the Spirit's control. Then we shall not be fulfilling the desires of the flesh, as otherwise we should. This is what Galatians 5: 17 says. The Spirit of God wields a power that is superior to the downward drag of the flesh; and we experience it, if we walk in Him.

Some of us would say that though we desire to "walk in the Spirit" we hardly know how to set about it. how does it work out practically?

Galatians 6: 7-9, may help to answer this. Our lives in a practical way are made up of sowing and reaping. It is as though we go forth each day with a seed basket on either side of us. We may put our hand into the basket of the flesh on that side and sow to the flesh, or into the basket of the Spirit on this side and sow to the Spirit: that is we may be yielding to the things which merely gratify the flesh, and so scatter the seeds of the flesh, or we may give ourselves to the things of the Spirit, and sow seeds that will be fruitful to His glory.

This is not something that God does for us, but what we do ourselves. All day long we are doing it in one or other of these two directions. In which direction does our choice lie? Into which basket are we continually placing our hand? The resolute refusal of the one, and the cultivation of the other, is the secret. That is the way to set about it.

Still, many a Christian who is not guilty of serious lapses in outward conduct, is not particularly marked by the liberty or power of the Spirit. How is that to be accounted for?

Such are probably marked by lack of concentration upon the things of God, or by positive laziness. They are easily diverted to things of trifling worth. The Spirit is here to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us, and He may be grieved by inattention or sloth on our side. If you went to an acquaintance with important tidings from a much roved friend, and in a few moments he were to interrupt your glowing story with irrelevant remarks about trivialities, or you found him inclined to sleep in his chair, you would cease your story, grieved and indignant.

The Spirit of God is sensitive as to that which concerns the glory of Christ. Inattention will grieve Him as well as open sin. Let us each ask God to show us how much of our spiritual poverty and powerlessness is to be traced to this.

New Creation.

F. B. Hole.

As we have considered in detail most of the features that go to make up the "great salvation" which has reached us, we have hitherto been able to point out how each is designed of God to meet and overcome some particular result or penalty of sin. But now as we reach the last, this feature has to be absent. We have left "new creation" until the last as it seems to be the ultimate thing to which the Gospel conducts us, but at the same time it is evident that God is going to establish it, not because it meets some definite need on our side, but because it meets the need of His holy nature — it is the thing which is suitable to Himself.

The havoc wrought by sin has been such that we needed forgiveness, justification, reconciliation, redemption, salvation, sanctification; and all these are brought to us in the Gospel as the fruit of the work done for us by our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. Equally did we need the new birth, the quickening, the gift of the Spirit; and the first two of these are ours by the work of the Holy Spirit in us, while His indwelling follows the other two, and is based upon the work done for us. We could hardly say however in the same way that we needed to be newly "created in Christ Jesus;" that wondrous event has taken place to satisfy the heart of God.

As in other cases so again here, we can go back to the Old Testament and discover prophecies which foreshadow the full truth, which can only be discovered in the New. For instance, we read, "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65: 17): yet when we examine the context we soon see that what is predicted in Revelation 21: 1-5, is hardly contemplated in the passage, for the prophet goes on to speak of the new conditions that will prevail in Jerusalem in the millennial age, when death may possibly take place; whereas in the scene pictured in Revelation death is gone for ever.

The fact seems to be, that just as with new birth and quickening, so again here, God introduces His thought; but in a limited way as befitted a dispensation in which His government of the earth was the prominent thing. In this Gospel age, life and incorruptibility have been fully brought to light, and in connection with that His full thought and action, both as regards the work of Christ for us and the work of the Spirit in us, has been manifested. The New Testament does not stop at the millennial age but carries us into the eternal state.

The first mention of new creation in the New Testament is in 2 Corinthians 5: 17, where we find that every one "in Christ" is brought into it. It is "new creation" in this verse rather than "a new creature," and the language of Paul here appears to be very vigorous and emphatic. He omits the verb altogether, and exclaims, "So that, if anyone in Christ — new creation!" as one who exults in this glorious fact. Nothing short of this is involved in our being in Christ Jesus.

That the believer is in Christ Jesus and beyond all condemnation is made very plain in the Epistle to the Romans, but we are not carried on to the full implication of that fact until we reach this scripture. We are in Him because we are of Him, and this by an act of God Himself. This comes very definitely to view when we reach Ephesians 2: 10, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus." The old creation of which we read in Genesis 1, was God's workmanship and created by the Son. It was created by Him, but not created in Him, as the new creation is, at least as regards ourselves. Sin was able to gain an entrance into the old creation, but it will never enter the new, which derives its life and nature from Christ.

The passage in 2 Corinthians 5 shows that there is a very close connection between reconciliation and new creation. The former is one of the fruits of the work of Christ for us; the latter the fruit of God's work in us. Yet of course the act of God in making "Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin," with which the chapter closes, is the basis on which rests new creation no less than reconciliation. There must be the complete meeting of every liability and the whole state characterizing the old creation, if the new creation is to be introduced on a righteous basis.

There is no patching up of the old things in connection with new creation. They pass away, and new things which are wholly "of God" are introduced. Once even Christ Himself stooped into old creation circumstances, when He was amongst us "after the flesh," though His flesh was holy and without the least taint of sin. Now, in His risen glory, he has entered into new creation circumstances, and from Him as Head the new creation proceeds.

The main point in this passage however seems to be the subjective effect of new creation in ourselves. We know Christ in a new way, all things are become new to us, our lives are diverted into a totally new channel, so that we live not unto ourselves but unto Him — all this, because of God's new creation work wrought in us. As an illustration we might take the Apostles, as they were in the Gospel and as they became in the Acts. Between the two came the new creation in-breathing of the Last Adam, of John 20: 22, and the indwelling of the Spirit, of Acts 2. Formerly they knew Him after the flesh; now their knowledge of Him is according to the Spirit of God. There was undoubtedly a change in His condition, but we must not overlook the great change in their condition.

This side of things is emphasized by the fact that we are said to "know . . . no man after the flesh." Now with the great mass of men there is no change at all in their condition, the only change is in ourselves. It is because we are a new creation in Christ that we know everyone in a new way. We look upon all men and everything with new creation eyes — if we may so put it.

What we have just been looking at is the new creation mind found in the saints; whereas Ephesians 2: 10 brings us to new creation practice and action. We are created "unto good works," in which God purposes we should walk. James, in his second chapter, speaks not of good works but of the works of faith; that is of work energized by faith, and consequently manifesting it before the eyes of men. Here we do have good works; that is, works that express the goodness of God. Being God's workmanship, created by Him in Christ Jesus, we have the inward capacity to do works of this exalted character, and the obligation to do them rests upon us. These good works were supremely and perfectly done by Christ, and as created in Christ, we are to walk in them — works of that order, though of course not in the same measure as He.

What we find in Ephesians 4: 21-24, and in Colossians 3: 10, is in keeping with this. The former passage agrees with the latter, for the New Translation renders it, "Your having put off.... and being renewed.... and your having put on;" that is, in both passages the great transaction is viewed as one accomplished in every believer. Formerly we belonged to the old order of man and wore his corrupt character: now we belong to the new order of man and wear his character, marked by holiness, righteousness, truth. It is not something merely external, for the very spirit of our minds is renewed. The passage in Colossians corroborates this, though it has distinctive differences. It also speaks of the new man as created.

It is because we have put on this new creation character that we are to behave as indicated in the context of both passages. The things to be utterly repudiated, and the things to be cultivated, are all determined by the character we wear by God's new creation act.

We may go one step further, and in the light of Ephesians 2: 15, speak of the church as God's new creation production. By the Gospel, God is calling an election out of both Jew and Gentile, and of the two He is making "one new man." The word translated in that verse "make" is the word for "create." That one new man is God's creation by the Lord Jesus, for He is the Actor in that verse. And He creates this one new man, which is virtually the church, "in Himself." So we may speak of the church, as well as the individual saint, as a new creation in Christ Jesus.

Lastly, in Revelation 21: 1-6, we are permitted to know that there are to be new heavens and a new earth, and amidst these new creation scenes the new creation church will have her eternal home, as the tabernacle of God, when He dwells with men.

Are we right, in dealing with the new creation, if we give the same literal and full meaning to the word "create," that we give to it when dealing with the creation of Genesis 1?

We believe that we are. Any difficulty that is felt about it probably springs from the fact that as yet God's new creation work has not touched any of the material things round about us. It has so far only affected us spiritually: we are renewed in the spirit of our minds. It is quite certain we are not yet newly created as to our bodies, and that probably accounts for the scripture saying, "renewed in the spirit of your mind," rather than, "renewed in your mind;" for the mind cannot be altogether dissociated from the brain, which is a part of the body. When we are in our glorified bodies, in the likeness of Christ, and dwelling in the new heavens and new earth, we shall see that no word short of "creation" will meet the case. But what we are to-day in a spiritual way, as the fruit of God's workmanship, is exactly of that order. God says it, and we may happily believe it.

The fact that we have been created "in Christ Jesus" has been mentioned. Are we to deduce from this the stability of the new creation?

We certainly are: but more than that also, we believe. Since it is created in Him, it will be as stable as He is; but also it will bear His character in other things. It originates in Him, for He is the Source whence it springs. He is "the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead" (Col. 1: 18), "the Beginning of the creation of God" (Rev. 3: 14). Even the inanimate things of the new heavens and the new earth will spring from Him, yet we are created in Him in a deeper sense. He has entered heaven in His risen Manhood, and we now are men of His order, participating in His life, "all of one" with Him, as we are told in Hebrews 2: 11. Hence the church is His body, for in it corporately He is to be expressed. The new creation will be expressive of Christ and as stable as He.

In Hebrews 8: 13. it is pointed out that the fact of a new covenant being introduced makes the first covenant old, and the deduction is, "Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." Can we reason in the same way in regard to the new creation?

We believe so; with this modification perhaps, that not all the heavens created in Genesis 1, have been touched by sin, consequently not all will be newly created. All that has been spoiled by sin is old and ready to vanish away. Nothing less than new creation will meet the case, just as nothing short of it meets our spiritual needs to-day, because all has to be lifted to the level of the Divine thoughts. In principle it is so to-day, as we see in Galatians 6: 15. The Galatians were being diverted to the ordinance of circumcision as practised under the law. But any such ordinance or other fleshly observance is entirely beside the mark to-day. It might be all right so long as men "in Adam" were recognized as having a standing before God; but "in Christ Jesus" neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any account; a new creation alone avails. Because of what God is, once a thing has been touched and tarnished by sin, it has to go and a new creation take its place.

Are the new creation scenes predicted in the opening part of Revelation 21,  to be distinguished from the scenes of millennial blessedness, of which the prophets have so largely spoken?

The two scenes are clearly distinguished in that chapter in Revelation. Verses 1-8, deal with the eternal state, whilst verses 9-27, gives us a more detailed description of the heavenly Jerusalem in its relations with the millennial earth. Hence in the second section we read about nations and kings of the earth, and walls and gates which shut out any defiling thing. This supposes of course that there are defiling things which might enter. In the earlier part all sin and sorrow and death are gone from God's fair new creation, and all evil lies under God's judgment, segregated in its own appointed place.

Nations, too, only exist as the result of God's judgment upon men at Babel; so they disappear, and God will revert to His original thought and just dwell with men. He will dwell as their God in holy freedom because righteousness will then be dwelling, as 2 Peter 3: 13 tells us, and not merely reigning, as it will in the millennial age. As long as there is anything to challenge its supremacy it must reign: when the last challenge is met, it will dwell in undisturbed repose.

Will all differences between men disappear in the new creation?

It may be that on the new earth they will: as to that we cannot dogmatize. But at all events there will be the difference between those whose seat is to be in the heavens and those on the earth. In that day the holy city, symbolic of the church, will be the dwelling-place of God.

Again, in 1 Corinthians 15, where we find that already we have been quickened by the Last Adam, we also learn that His great work with us will reach its completion when we "bear the image of the Heavenly." It is a most marvellous fact that we, who belong to the church, shall enter those new creation scenes bearing the image of our Head even as regards our bodies. We do not find this asserted of others, besides the heavenly saints.

It is quickening which is actually mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15, though we have referred to it in connection with new creation. This rather raises the question as to what is the relationship between the two things; and indeed between all the things we have considered. How can we put them all together?

There are things connected with our most holy faith which are quite beyond our powers, and this is one of them. We contemplate our Lord Jesus, we confess His Deity, whilst recognizing His true Humanity, yet our minds are not equal to the task of explaining how both go together. We see the sovereignty of God plainly taught in Scripture, and the responsibility of man taught with equal plainness, yet how exactly to adjust them together we know not. This inability of ours does not disturb us. We expect it, because the faith, which we believe, comes from God. Could we bring it all within the compass of our little minds we should thereby prove it was not Divine.

Now how can we put together all the things we have been surveying in cursory fashion? We may do so in part, but we cannot do so in any complete way, especially when we deal with the work wrought in us. The attempt to do so in the past has often led to unprofitable contentions, as might be expected. We repeat that we can no more see all round the subject at the same moment than we can see all four sides of a house at once.

The truth is one; of that we are sure. It is given to us in parts; and as we trace out these parts in Scripture we are instructed and profited. If we fail to distinguish things that differ, and lump them all together in a kind of indiscriminate mass, we lose a great deal. On the other hand if we divorce and divide the various parts we soon run into erroneous notions, as also we do if we attempt to work out theories as to the order in which they take place.

Without dividing we distinguish, and thereby understand more fully how rich and varied is the great salvation which has reached us. And the more we do understand, the more our hearts are moved in praise and thanksgiving to God.