Table of Contents

16. Longings after God

17. The Secret of Strength

18. Spiritual Conflict

19. Walking in the Spirit

20. Walking in the Light

21. Walking as Christ Walked

22. Fellowship with the Father and the Son

23. Fellowship with the Father and the Son. — Practical Considerations

H. F. Witherby - The Child of God - His Path

Practical [2]

H. Forbes Witherby

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16. Longings after God

The Child of God

By H. Forbes Witherby.

His Path.

16. Longings after God.

God gives desires — christian desire — Christ himself the object of the christian's heart — decadence.

The new nature which God has given His children yearns after Himself, its Origin, its Strength, its Joy. In God's presence, delighting in His light and love, unclogged by worldly burdens, free from all hindrances to the full consciousness of who and what God is, the new nature has perfect pleasure. In creation, the happiness of the creature depends upon its life being in freedom, and vigorous. Certainly such is the case with the children of God. "The life of God," which they have, distinguishes their place in the new creation; and according to their freedom, in the presence of God their Father, is their joy. Life, under restraint, is ever burdensome: a child of God weighted with worldly cares, or half choked with worldly pleasures, is a contradiction of his new nature, and a denial of its yearnings.

The child of God, in the normal, right state of his affections, looks on to the future, when all hindrance shall be abolished, and when he, spirit, soul, and body, shall be like the Lord in the liberty of the glory. He also yearns after the conscious favor of his God's presence day by day, and longs to know more of Christ, and to live in His enjoyed communion until the glory comes. This, though varying in intensity, and though interrupted by the influences of the world, is true of everyone who has divine life, for, as the waters of one fountain, so do the desires of this life spring from God, their source. The measure of the desires may differ, and does differ, according to the practical godliness of each child; but the eternal life itself, as acted upon by the indwelling Spirit, rises up to the Father and the Son.

God gives desires after Himself to His people. The eternal life which He has communicated to His children is unlike natural life, for that goes on independently of our parents from whom we derived it. Each human being has his own natural life in his own individuality; but the eternal life, while the possession of each believer, is immediately connected with its source and origin, God; it is not ours in ourselves apart from its source, but it is in the Son. "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." (1 John 5: 11.)

New affections, new motives, new longings pertain to this life, and all of these God sustains by His Spirit. The wanderings, the turnings aside, the world-borderings of the child of God, however dishonoring to the Father, and however sad in their results to the child of God himself, must not be confounded with the unchangeable truth of his having eternal life in Christ.

We turn to the book of Psalms, the Old Testament treasury of longings after God, and see, as it were, inscribed upon its golden walls, that the nature, God communicates to His people cannot be satisfied save in the conscious presence of God. God Himself — according to the measure of the divine revelation of what He is — is the delight of His children; fellowship with God, whom fallen human nature shuns, is even in this world rest and joy for all who are His; in eternity the rest and the joy of the children of God will be unbroken fellowship with the Father and the Son in glory.

The measure of rejoicing in God experienced by the psalmists was according to the revelation of Himself given to them by God. We are not referring to the spirit of prophecy, for the Holy Ghost moved holy men of old to express words, the meaning of which they longed to comprehend (1 Peter 1: 11), but we are considering divinely wrought desires and the Spirit stirring up the heart towards God. The Spirit had touched the chief musician's affections when he sang, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God." (Ps. 42: 1, 2.) And most blessed desires are these, the uprising of the affections of the new nature to God their source, their end. Again, when David said, "My soul, wait thou only upon God" (Ps. 62: 5), he spoke out of the depths of a heart that knew God, as his rock, his salvation, and his defence. Ht was the result of having dealt with God and of God having dealt with him; of deep and real searchings of soul, and of deep and real trusting in God. Indeed, such was David's confidence in God, that he was called the man after God's own heart! Such also was Abraham, the friend of God. The divine nature being communicated to these men, the Spirit led them to trust in, to delight in, and to walk with God.

No bars can imprison desires; and though the day of liberty had not dawned in the times of these songs, which are so frequently intermingled with lamentations and fear, the affections implanted within those souls of His people rose up to God.

Desires after God all God's people assuredly have; but until God be known in the person of His Son, the affections of the nature which He has given His children are restrained, and the believer is barred from fully delighting in the light of the full revelation of God. Right desires after God are such as are in accordance with God's revelation of Himself; and the child of God cannot be really happy save as he is longing after God in the spirit of that revelation, and save as God is satisfying those longings. Thus, it is of the utmost practical importance for the joy of the believer, and for the glorifying of God, that his desires should flow in the channels made by his God and Father; and this ever leads to His own word, and teaches us to submit our hearts to the instruction of His Spirit, that we may recognise what are the divinely-made channels.

Coming to the New Testament, we open upon those pages of the word of God which give us the yearnings of the child of God in some of their highest forms. We find that the most intense desires are after the Son of God in heaven, in and by whom God has now revealed. Himself, and to whose image in glory His people shall be conformed. Here we find a character of longings such as those which the psalmists never expressed, and a freedom in the presence of God of which they never sang. The channels made by God in His children are of a heavenly character. Our Lord, a Man in heaven, Jesus in glory, object for the affections, rest for the heart, known and delighted in through the Spirit, forms in the heart these channels for the flowing of christian longings.

True christian desire may be summed up in these few words: "That I may know Him" (Phil. 3: 10), words which are the expression of the apostle's panting after the Son of God. David longed after Jehovah in the sanctuary: Paul longed after Jesus in the glory. He strained forward after Him. For Him Paul had cast aside all things, eager, as a racer, to "win Christ," his prize. He had seen Him in the glory; he knew Jesus in heaven; and his soul bounded forward in divinely-given energy to reach the goal of the Christian's affections. When this goal shall be reached by all, the realized hope of eternal life will be the rejoicing of the children of God.

We have endeavored to set before our reader, in some of our previous chapters, truths which free the spirit from legalism and self effort, and establish the believer in Christ. These delivering truths may be termed chiefly positional, relating as they do to what the believer is in Christ, which position is not affected by the practical condition of the soul. But if freed by the truth, the need is great, that the soul he stirred up to the things which relate to the believer's condition day by day on earth. With this in view, we place the desires of the heart first, for the head follows the heart, and the whole being goes where the heart leads. The actual condition of each soul is brought to the test by the Lord's own question, "What think ye of Christ?" (Matt. 22: 42.) Personal intercourse with Him makes each believer what he really is; we do not say what he may seem to be.

Various theories are often submitted to the believer, in order to enable him the better to live a godly life. The apostle, in the treasury of christian longings referred to, gives the only true principle in this one word, "To me to live is Christ." (Phil. 1: 21.) Christ is our life, and the believer desires to live Christ. God the Father gives the power to do this, by strengthening the affections, by His Spirit, in such a way that Christ may be their continual occupation. "Strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." (Eph. 3: 16, 17.) In proportion as Christ abides in our hearts, by faith, our hearts are truly taken up with Him as their object; and thus Christ becomes the principle of christian living. If the many things of sight are filling our hearts, the world is the object we have in view; and when such is the case, the christian, at the best, speaking practically, is like a heavily burdened man trying to run a race.

Christ Himself and not even truth about Christ, must be filling our hearts, if we wish to thrive. This is no unnecessary caution in a day when knowledge of the most sacred truths may be intellectually attained by so small an effort. It is a happy thing to understand the word of God, but, with that word treasured, the aim of the Christian's affections should be, "That I may know Him." Desires after Christ, desires to live Him on earth, and to live with Him in heaven, make the christian separate from the world, and separate him to the Lord. Practise flows from affection. If the heart sleep, the christian, like a locomotive without fire or water, is at a standstill; he is a name only for speed and strength. The once ardent Ephesians slept to their first love of Christ, and from the centre of lukewarm affections spiritual decay spread, till at length their privilege of light-giving for Christ was removed.

Christ died for us, and rose again; it is for us, not to live to ourselves but to Him. His love awakens ours; His love is the motive power of ours, our lamps are lighted by the flame of His love to us. "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again." (2 Cor. 5: 14, 15.)

Truly, to reckon oneself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ (Rom. 6: 11); to set the affection on things above, as risen with Christ (Col. 3: 1, 2), and to live Christ on earth (Phil. 1: 21), who is in us the hope of glory (Col. 1: 27), should be the high ambition of the child of God. Let other things stream out from this freedom, let service, walk, motives, be governed by Christ's love to us!

Decadence is, alas, so common to all, that at the very outset of our thoughts upon things practical we cannot omit to speak of it. There are children of God, who once were absorbed in overwhelming desires for rest of conscience; they were burdened by the sense of sin and fettered by legality; they yearned after and wept for, the knowledge of divine favor in Christ to them personally; yes, with greater intensity than ever slave longed for liberty. God, in grace, gave them the knowledge of pardon and of deliverance, and gave them to rejoice in His freedom, and for a short time they ran well. What has hindered them, and where are they now? Sleeping among the dead!

At one time it seemed almost impossible that these eager seekers after God should ever be found in the ranks of commonplace christians, hardly distinguishable from the world which crucified Christ, and which is under God's judgment. Truth took the place in the mind which Christ should occupy in the heart. The facts of life and liberty were accepted; going on in heart with the Lord was deficient; there was not walking in Christ Jesus the Lord as He was received. Hence the lamps of these believers have dwindled into sparks, and they shine not as bright lights in the world.

Life and liberty may be known, nay, there is not a truth in the scriptures that may not be known, and yet the soul sink down into a state of supineness. Unless Christ be dwelling in the heart by faith, the practical outgoings of the christian life are at a standstill; and to return to our illustration of the locomotive, there is nothing more damaging to delicate machinery than the rust of idleness; and no idleness is so disastrous to the christian as that which proceeds from languor of the affections.

As with a nation, so with an individual, peace and liberty not infrequently induce ease and carelessness; and solemn, indeed, as it is to express it, many a believer forsook his earnestness shortly after having been delivered from doubts and fears as to his salvation. "Ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh." (Gal. 5: 13.) So long as the believer was occupied with his own deliverance, lie was like a caged bird beating against its prison bars, he could not settle down; the liberty being given, it is his privilege to fulfil its law in loving bonds to Christ. The bird flies from twig to twig and sings its songs in liberty; it does this in the fulfilment of its nature's pleasures. The loving child delights to run its parent's errand, and the parent bids it run the errand — the service is liberty. The bondsman of Christ rejoices in the will of his Lord, he obeys His word, and so fulfils the law of liberty.

It is not too much to say, that with many it seems easier to come to the Lord as a Saviour at the first, and to die trusting Him as a Friend at the end, than to keep plodding on, day by day, in dependence upon Him. The beginning and the ending of many a Christian's course are brighter than the middle. Is it because at the extremes there is such felt nothingness in self that Christ is necessarily all?

We are not automatons, or pieces of machinery wound up upon the day of our conversion, to move like the hands of a clock till we leave this world. We are responsible to Him who loves us; and the only way to live the daily life of a true christian is to do so by living by the day, by walking by faith, and keeping on going to God moment by moment, even as we breathe the air moment by moment.

What Christ's work has effected may be understood, yet Christ Himself not be laid hold of by the heart. To know all that Christ has done for us is not sufficient; we must have Him dwelling in our hearts by faith. May it be true of each of us, as said the apostle, "To me to live is Christ!"

17. The Secret of Strength

The Child of God

By H. Forbes Witherby.

His Path.

17. The Secret of Strength.

Christ keeping his own while he was with them on the earth — the Spirit dwelling in the believer now — faith in Christ risen the secret of strength — living by faith — trying what faith is.

We have reached the point where we have the believer rejoicing, not only in the possession of eternal life and the knowledge of the divine way of liberty in Christ, but also his having divinely given desires, of greater or less intensity, to live to God.

The more we consciously know what the eternal life is, and the more assured we are that the only liberty of this life is in Christ risen, the more we shall feel that the power for our daily walk and thought must be outside ourselves. Our flesh profits nothing, and in ourselves we are absolute weakness. We may say that the believer, who has reached the knowledge of liberty in the risen Christ, has had en-graven upon his heart, "In my flesh dwelleth no good thing," and walking in true liberty, finds his strength in Christ, and altogether outside his own powers.

Nothing of sight or sense can contribute one single particle of strength to the new man. Spiritual life draws not its support from the exterior world; it has to do with God. Faith is the unseen and divinely given power in the believer which lifts him out of himself and up to God. Faith detaches him from earthly things and influences, and, by faith, his ways and his thoughts obtain a heavenly character. It is not that he becomes peculiar and un-natural; far less that he elevates himself upon spiritual stilts; but his thoughts, words, and acts are colored by the presence of Christ, who dwells in his heart by faith.

The Lord maintained His disciples, to whom He had given life, in their daily path, when He was upon earth; He was their strength. They asked Him their questions, went to Him for direction, hung upon His words, and followed His steps. Apart from Him they had no power whatever. While He was in the world He kept them in His Father's name. (John 17: 12.) Though no longer on earth, He is still the strength of His people, He supplies power to them through the Spirit, hence His absence, instead of being a hindrance to their spiritual knowledge of Himself and the Father, is their gain through the presence of the other Comforter.

When about to leave this world, Jesus said to His disciples, "It is expedient for you that I go away" (John 16: 7); for His departure from earth was the occasion for His sending the Holy Ghost from heaven to dwell in them. And now, this very hour, the Holy Spirit so works in the children of God that they are taught to depend upon Christ, and to go continually to Him in a way which those who knew the Lord before His ascension to heaven could not.

If we abide in Christ, Christ abides in our hearts; if our hearts are filled with Christ, we are drawing upon Christ, who is our power. In the records of the evangelists we find how that the disciples fell into difficulties when they were ever so short a time away from Christ; and when He is not our object, He is not dwelling in our hearts by faith, and we are absolute weakness. Christ sustains us; apart from. Him we can do nothing.

The Holy Spirit is given to us in addition to the eternal life. The life is not in itself strength for holiness, though without the life there cannot be holiness. A dead man cannot do anything; and until we possess the new life we have no power to do good. The life is in itself holy, for it is divine; it cannot be tainted by sin, which dwells in us; it is a fountain which the soil of indwelling sin cannot defile; but if sin be allowed and unconfessed, the life is like a fountain hidden under the ground.

The life itself is perfect of itself, but the practical manifestation of it in the children of God is often sorely hindered; and when the indwelling Spirit is grieved by the believer, such is the case. There is a capability for illimitable expansion in the believer of the joy and the holiness, the virtues and the activities of the new life; and this expansion takes place by the power of the Spirit in us. We see in some of God's children the life expressed in its abundance; Christ in them shines out of them. Where the life is but faintly manifested, the Spirit is grieved, as in worldly, self-seeking, or self-asserting christians. Some believers seem to belong to a race of giants, compared with the puny stature of others, but, like giants, they are rare.

When we speak of giants, we mean Christ-like christians, men of humility, grace, tenderness, long-suffering, goodness, peace, holiness, righteousness, truth — all of which fruits mark the presence of the Holy Ghost in His unhindered action in the child of God. But why is it that the race is so rare? how is it that each believer who may have for himself Christ as his strength, does not live by this strength? The answer is, that continuous faith in the risen Lord Jesus is so small. Daily living is too little by the faith of the risen Son of God.

Faith in Christ is the secret of the strength of the christian. Each believer has the illustration of the practical result of this principle before him in his own conversion. How did he find himself freed from the load of sin? By believing, looking to Jesus! Explain the mystery none can, but realize it, all may.

The most learned physician in Israel could not have explained how it was that the Israelite bitten by the fiery serpent, upon looking at the serpent of brass, lived; but the simplest stricken sufferer, who believed God, could easily say why it was. Again, how was it that liberty became ours? What opened the dungeon door? Believing! We looked to the risen Christ and gave faith's assent to God's truth concerning Him, and ourselves in Him. Believing, we then and there out of the dungeon came, out of self-thrall into liberty in Christ. Explanation is impossible, but the believer knows it just as a man knows that he sees, because his whole body is full of light. The only answer that the man born blind, of whom we read in John 9, could give to the questions of the Pharisees was, that Christ had opened his eyes; he knew that he saw because he saw!

Many a christian who is thoroughly well assured in his soul that faith in Christ is the only possible way by which a sinner can find pardon and peace, fails to believe that faith in Christ is the only way by which he himself can live to God. Such a believer has faith in Christ, as his Saviour from the doom of sin, but not faith in Him as his Strength from the power of sin. He has faith that Christ has magnified the claims of divine righteousness respecting the sins he has committed, but not faith that the Lord works righteousness and holiness in him. The evidence of a man's faith lies in its fruits. A sinner comes to Jesus, the sacrifice for sinners on the cross, and finds forgiveness; a saint comes to Christ, the risen Lord in glory, and finds strength for living to God.

The life of faith is not simply looking once to Christ for salvation, but going on with Him hour by hour. Being justified by faith, we live day by day on the principle of faith. We do not receive life from the once crucified Lord, and then go on in our own power: "As ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Col. 2: 6) — by faith. Every day the believer needs Christ as his strength; and living by faith, he is living outside his own resources, and by the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him.

There is an association of the closest intimacy effected by the Spirit between Christ in heaven and His people on earth: "He that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit." (1 Cor. 6: 17.) And the Lord is ever at hand, ever near; and the Spirit makes us conscious of His presence; and thus faith is encouraged and stimulated to draw upon Him.

Living by faith is, really, practical dependence. The strength of the believer vanishes when the dependence is interrupted. Samson's strength departed, and he became as another man, so soon as he was shorn of the external sign of subjection. And so it is to this hour; the believer's spiritual strength flies away immediately he trusts in himself. Yesterday's strength is of no support in today's difficulties. Christ, alone, makes us strong moment by moment. The apostle could say of his path, in its details, its sorrows, and its joys, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4: 13); and He is the same yesterday, today, and for ever: Christ was not different eighteen hundred years ago from what He is today; He waits to be proved by all those who trust in Him.

We received the new life being born of the Spirit; we cannot sustain that life by our own strength; self cannot uphold our relation to God; but God has given us the Spirit to enable us to live by faith; and the divine way for holy living is in the Spirit by the faith of the Son of God, who is in heaven

Each day calls for continuous exercise of faith in Christ. It is all important that, as each day passes by, our thoughts should be freshly associated with our Lord, who is looking into our hearts to find there trust in Himself. The strength itself comes from Christ; it is ours according to our faith. The believer, by daily dealing with the Lord, proves where strength is found. We are saved in a moment; we receive life at once; but we are strong simply as moment by moment we live the life of faith. Faith is a mighty tonic for the soul, but must be tried.

The lesson of dependence is not learned all at once; and in this sense, as there is growth in the knowledge of God and of Christ, there is growth into the way of strength. Let the believer cast himself upon the Lord for the passing moment, for the difficulty of the hour, for the state of his soul, for all the thousand little things that make up one day of living here on the earth, and he will soon find what Christ is for him. Let him really try Christ as his strength.

Who but the Lord Himself can still the tumultuous waves within the human breast? who else shall say, "Peace, be still," and create a great calm within? The peace of Christ is known in seasons of life's deepest anguish, and may be known none the less sweetly in the calm hours of this brief pilgrimage. Faith is the setting to our seal that God is true; living by faith we prove what it accomplishes. Let its principle be tried for one brief hour, let Christ be believed as the strength of the heart, as the believer's power, and then what cannot be explained will be realized.

Faith shines brightest in the dark; it is the star of the night: but the stars are in the sky all day, as well as all night; the darkness makes their presence apparent. We do not mean to hint that there is not special faith granted for special occasions, but would insist upon the need of that even tenor of spirit that arises from continual intercourse with, and dependence upon, the Lord, which is really the outcome of the life of faith, or living by faith.

Trying what faith is, is really trusting what Christ is. The most searching exhortations follow the apostle's declaration to the Colossians that Christ is our life, and we are risen with Christ. These exhortations bid us to set the mind on heavenly things where Christ is, and to practise, putting to death the members which are on the earth, and putting on the heavenly things which were expressed in Christ when below. Let the believer who would thus live believe the scriptures, and not look for any evidence in his own soul, and it will be like coming out of the tunnel into the sunshine.

Christ is "in all," He is the life of all. Let the realization of the soul be compared to the condition of men groping about in the dense, dark fog; still we know that it is clear daylight above the fog, and all we want is to get up high enough. Now, the fact is, we are risen with Christ, then may we set our affection on the things above where Christ sits at the right hand of God; and though the secret power is unseen, faith in Him will lift the spirit of the believer into the clear light where He is.

18. Spiritual Conflict

The Child of God

By H. Forbes Witherby.

His Path.

18. Spiritual Conflict.

Liberty leads to conflict — greater power for the believer than against him — the Spirit of God searches us — the Spirit is opposed to the flesh — the way of victory — spiritual prosperity.

We will speak of the conflict which, in greater or less intensity, every believer has to go through daily. It is not the struggle for deliverance of soul that now is to occupy us — of that we have already spoken — nor the conflict which is against Satan, wrestling with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places — but the inward conflict in the child of God.

It may be said, "What, if a man knows his sins to be forgiven, and more, liberty" (which some call "sanctification," "higher life," "full peace," etc.), "then, surely, every spiritual desire must be gratified, and thenceforward, till heaven be gained, there can be nothing more to be wished for." In things spiritual, as in things natural, when children have grown up to manhood, to ripe age, or, as scripture speaks, are "perfect," they do not find that thenceforward there is nothing to do, nothing to suffer. Quite the contrary; in one sense they may be said to begin life only when perfect. Until the great and terrible "I" be held by grace to have been crucified with Christ, the believer can hardly be said to have begun to live the new life in its liberty; but liberty attained, conflict is acutely entered into.

Greater power exists for the believer than against him. The believer knew the bitterness of inward strife before he knew his standing in Christ risen; but having been brought into liberty, he is subject to conflict. Sin is in him, Satan is active, the world attractive. But there is a vast difference between the character of the conflict in the believer who is in liberty, and in him who is in bondage. The difference is this: before he knew himself to be in Christ, the believer was like a helpless cripple in the clutch of a giant; after his deliverance, having the Spirit as power to deal with sin in him, the Spirit within him is stronger than his flesh. Mark, we do not say that the believer is stronger in himself than he was, but that the Spirit in him is power. And by the Spirit's power he overcomes.

Before we were brought into christian liberty the power of the indwelling Spirit was not known, but, being delivered from thrall to self, we are in the moral position which should gain the victory. Not that the position itself is victory, it is the vantage ground for victory; victory is obtained by the Spirit. Still, it is no little good to know what the vantage ground is, and a greater thing to occupy that ground.

The Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, knows our hearts. When He has taken up His abode in the child of God, He does not suffer the child to pursue his own course through this world at his list. The child of God has his natural inclinations, his tastes, his wishes, he is the self-same person, with the self-same tendencies as before. His nature is unchanged; it is the identical selfish, or vain, or rash, or timeserving nature as hitherto. He may be beset with the sins of love of money, or ease, or applause. His new birth does not correct his old nature, with which he came into this world, but the Spirit of God, who at the first made him feel what he was by the word, and produced in him repentance, gives the word effect in his everyday life, cleansing and purifying, and causing self-judgment by its means.

The Spirit of God dwelling within us stimulates the desires of the holy nature which He has implanted in us. He leads to humility, gentleness, and courage, and all in a divine way. We do not mean such qualities apart from God, which in that case may be merely traits of human nature.

When our flesh stirs us up to desire its old things, the Spirit of God does not remain passive in us, but occasions conflict within: "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other [in order] that ye should not (lit.) do the things that ye would." (Gal. 5: 17.) He restrains the believer from doing the things which the flesh likes, and constrains him to do the things which God loves, and effects this by acting upon the new man.

The believer is not, and never will be, free from having sin in him in this world; nor will he be free from the danger of committing any kind of evil: and he is never, practically, safe except when he feels his weakness, and walks in the dependence of faith in God. Should he say, "I cannot help doing evil," then he denies the Spirit of God in him as the power for holy living, and remains in the mire of wrongdoing. Should he say, "I am holy, or spiritual, or heavenly," and in his heart think of what he is in himself, then it is self at work in another and more dangerous form, and he has denied the Spirit of. God in His power producing holiness, spirituality, and heavenly-mindedness. This last is worse than the first, for the first is unbelief in God, the last belief in self. The truth is, there is constant conflict proceeding within the child of God, and the Spirit is continually restraining from evil, as well as leading to good; and truth is the effect of the work of the Spirit of truth.

The Spirit is opposed to the flesh. The Spirit dwells in us, and in our flesh dwells no good thing. We have been called to liberty, to be free before God — not to be satisfied with, or to give way to ourselves. This condition of liberty is to be used for God; the flesh is not to be allowed to place the believer again under the religious thrall of ordinances, or law; neither is it to be allowed to run in its own evil likings of a base sort; — the liberty is to be used for serving God and walking before Him. Divinely-given liberty is marked by humility and holiness, by peace and joy.

The flesh in its pride would say, "I can live to God by means of law-keeping and religious observances;" the flesh in its lusts would say, "I am safe for eternity, and thus can live for myself." The new life God has given us has no affinity for either the one or the other of these evils, and the Spirit of God opposes the flesh in each.

The way of victory in everyday life for the believer is solely by the power of the Spirit, and the first step on the way is, putting to death the deeds of the body. There are evil things to which we naturally incline; it is the pleasure of our old Adam to commit specific bad and sinful deeds. The members of our bodies are the servants of our desires; we have absolutely to refuse and put to death those activities, and the power for this action is the Spirit who dwells in us.

The tree itself God has cut down judicially in the cross of His Son; this truth is not affected by our daily walk; what we are as men in the flesh, God has judged and condemned in Christ when occupying our place; but we have grave responsibility before God as to our ways, we have to cut off the sprouts of the tree. God condemned our nature once for all, when His Son was made sin for us; but sin is in us, and we have continually to keep the shoots down or they will become branches. We were noticing the other day a felled and branchless elm tree, yet it was sprouting all over! "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. 8: 13.) No natural power can put to death the results of nature, the Spirit of God is the believer's only force to effect this great end.

Having the divine nature, the child of God abhors the evil, and the indwelling Spirit of God is his strength for not doing evil and for doing good. The scriptures set before us this power of the Spirit of God affecting our every detail of life. Be the deeds of the body those of the gross kind, or those of a more subtle nature, still the Spirit of God gives the strength enabling the child of God to get the victory.

The Spirit is opposed to the conceptions of our evil hearts, and by Him we subdue and slay our evil actions. There is no practical living the life of faith without this conflict, and, no doubt, every child of God does, more or less, put to death these deeds. Living to God, practically speaking, does not take place in the believer's life on earth unless he set aside the ways of his flesh. We say practically, for, as we have shown, the life which we have is in the Son of God, and secure before God, hid with Christ; but having the new life, and living out the new life in these mortal bodies, are widely different facts. All the children of God have the life; we cannot affirm that all truly live it out daily.

Spiritual prosperity depends greatly upon spiritual weeding. Cost what it may, the weeding must be done, else there will be no golden harvest. Children, when they see poppies and other weed flowers amongst the corn, may say, "How pretty they look!" but every weed sucks strength from the harvest. Weeding is not done once and for a lifetime, but is a continuous and laborious work, and weeds increase according to soil and seasons. Some soils and seasons make weeds with terrible rapidity. So it is with the believer; but get rid of the weeds he must. He cannot get rid of the soil, his flesh, in which no good thing dwells, he cannot free himself of sin in him; but by the Spirit of God he can put the weeds to death as they come up, he can avoid giving way to what it is natural to him to do.

The flesh produces weeds more rapidly than the sourest land, and, at times, the devil and circumstances favor their rapacious growth in such a way that the strength of the soul seems eaten up; but "if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." There seem to be times for special kinds of evil growths amongst christians generally; Satan is permitted to make certain assaults on the prosperity of souls in different ages. Thus we find that the difficulties disturbing believers are frequently of the same sort over large sections of Christendom While men sleep Satan sows his evil seed, hence the need of constant prayerful watchfulness in each child of God for what may be springing up in his own soul. Laxity or indifference as to the truth of the scriptures, and laxity or indifference as to morals, are prevalent weeds of these our times.

Though weeding be toilsome, heart-breaking, and afflictive work, it is the only way to spiritual prosperity; and let us remember, that as old fields grow weeds as well as new, so it matters not how old a christian may be, he is always to be putting to death the deeds of his body. There is no safety from sinning unless we walk according to God, whether we be young or old.

The endeavor to live to God will cause deep heart-searchings and conflict in each individual believer. It will cause work as painful as judicial to self; but it is written, "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." (Gal. 5: 24.)

Victory over our ways introduces us to, as well as springs from, the enjoyment of the presence of Christ. The deeds our natural hearts delight in, caused our Lord His cross and suffering for us. He was crucified, and being risen with Him, it is our privilege to reckon ourselves to be alive unto God, and to put to death those members of our bodies which are sin, and the Spirit of God is our only power for this end.

19. Walking in the Spirit

The Child of God

By H. Forbes Witherby.

His Path.

19. Walking in the Spirit.

In the Spirit — the Spirit in us — walking — no mingling of flesh and Spirit — no confidence in the flesh — the Spirit of God gives power for fulfilling the requirements of the law, hinders the fulfilment of the lusts of the flesh, and produces holiness — going on in Spirit.

"Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." (Rom. 8: 9.) The fact of the Spirit of God dwelling in him marks off the position of the child of God from that occupied by man in his nature state. We may illustrate this truth by supposing a man residing in different countries. He could not be both in England and France at the same time, and he would be subject to the laws and government of the one country in which he was. Being in the Spirit, the child of God is subject to the divine laws and principles connected with his position, and is responsible to walk in obedience to those laws and principles.

Now, while the position of favor is ours, we are like men who, being naturalized into a country, have still in them likings for, and habits of, their old land, which are utterly foreign and abhorrent to the country where by favor they are placed. Sin is in us, the flesh is in us that is, our old nature which sins and loves sin is in us. Though we are in the Spirit the principle is in us which inclines to the things that are hateful to the favored place into which we are brought.

Here, then, we have the fact of the child of God not being in the flesh, but being in the Spirit, and also of the flesh being in him. How, then, shall he live for God, and, in some degree, according to the favored place in which by grace he is? For his fallen nature is altogether foreign to the place he is brought into by grace. He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world, and by the power of the Spirit the believer lives to God.

The Spirit is in us, as well as the flesh. Not only has the strong delivering arm of the Lord brought us out of "in the flesh," but the Spirit of God Himself dwells within us. He is mightier than the inclinations of our evil hearts; and it is our privilege and responsibility to walk not in our own poor strength, or by the force of our own resolutions, but in the Spirit.

In the word of God we find the laws and principles for daily behaviour which should govern the practical conduct of the child of God. We have no liberty to set up a code of regulations of our own manufacture, we have to conform to the principle of living our daily lives according to the favored place into which we have been brought. Where this is not done, unhappiness of soul and dishonor to God must result. Men may set at naught the laws of the land in which they dwell, and make new laws, but no child of God can thus act in respect to God's kingdom. God changes not; it is not possible for His people to make and unmake the principles of His house. In dependence and obedience is our only strength.

In perfect grace the Holy Spirit dwells in the children of God, abiding with them for ever, He never leaves nor forsakes them, He teaches them, helps them; and the practical concern of the child of God should be so to conduct himself that the Spirit may act in him unhinderedly.

Walking indicates the inward as well as the outward energy of a man; it is the working of his heart as expressed by his actions; it betokens the general bent of his soul, demeanor and conduct; it indicates that which directs the spiritual man, as well as the course which the spiritual man is taking. Unless there be walking in the Spirit, there cannot be spirituality.

"They that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Rom. 8: 8.) God is not to be pleased by any acts performed by any man outside the circle of "in the Spirit." However earnestly a runaway child might address himself to do the things his father bade him while he was yet at home, his efforts would be worse than useless so long as he remained away from his parent's presence. The only course open to the unconverted sinner is to repent as God has commanded. (Acts 17: 30.)

The question for the child of God is not whether an unconverted man can please God, but the practical issues arising from the fact, that he in his old Adam strength cannot do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God; neither can the child of God by the power of the flesh please God. "The flesh profiteth nothing." (John 6: 63.) Whether in saint or sinner, in child of God or child of disobedience, the flesh remains ever the same.

There is no mingling of the forces of flesh and Spirit. It is a solemn question of nature, and of power relative to nature. A man cannot fly because he is a man, the power of flying is foreign to the nature of man; neither has the flesh wings to rise to God. A bird which flies may or may not exercise the power which pertains to its nature; and broken or clipped wings mar the act of flying. We expect the bird that flies to be seen flying, and if the power is not exercised we know something is amiss.

The children of God have a power — even that of the Spirit of God — connected by sovereign grace with the divine nature communicated to them; and, saith the scripture, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." (Gal. 5: 25.)

The broad principle of life being in Christ, and power for walking before God being supplied by the Spirit of God, are truths generally accepted by all true christians; the practical difficulty for the child of God lies rather in the application of these truths to his own daily life. Say what we may as to divine doctrine, when the test of daily behaviour is before us, there is a sorrowful tendency to lean upon the flesh, to look to it, to hope from it, even when there is looking to Christ also.

No confidence in the flesh we should therefore place at the very forefront, if the child of God would really and truly walk in the Spirit. By thus speaking we are fully aware that we return to the A B C of the gospel; but who gets the first letters of this alphabet so perfectly as never to want to go over them again! We have to come back not only daily but hourly to this point; and there is no greater danger than to suppose we are fixed for life in having "no confidence in the flesh." There are all kinds of back-doors open to return to it; we do not speak of trusting in the flesh for eternity, but trusting in it for the difficulties of the day. An unconverted man, who rests his hope for divine favor on turning over a new leaf, is trusting in the flesh for eternity, and thereby rejecting Christ's work of redemption. A child of God who is trusting in his strength of resolve, for example, is, so far as that extends, having some confidence in the flesh, and hence is setting aside the power of the Spirit in him.

Any attempt at spiritual progress, made in the power of the flesh, is like that of sinking men. We live in the Spirit; let our actions be by His power. What should we say of the voyager who began his journey to America by trusting himself to the strong Atlantic steamer, and who, towards the end, thought the best plan to finish his voyage would be by the strength of his own arms, and so leaped overboard? "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal. 3: 3.) Having begun in divinely-given power, are we to finish in our own?

Child of God, faith is necessary! We draw upon God by faith as we walk by faith; it is a divine truth that,

The Spirit of God gives power to the believer to act holily; let us walk in the faith of this fact. "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" (Gal. 3: 2.) We have to go on as we began, by faith. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him." (Col. 2: 6.)

The believer's power for fufilling the requirements of the law is of the Spirit. (Rom. 8: 4.)

Though not under the law as a rule imposed upon him, the child of God, being made partaker of the divine nature, fulfils the law's demands. Its holy and righteous claims are according to God's nature, for God gave the law; and walking in the Spirit, the believer simply and happily obeys these demands. When the moon is high in the noonday sky we do not walk in her light; her glory is lost in that of the sun. But the sunlight does not contradict the moon-light because of its greater brilliancy; it apparently absorbs it; so, since the true light shines, we walk not in the light of the law, which was not made to rule the day of christian liberty, but in that of the gospel. We see the law, as it were, in the heavens of the christian revelation, and fulfil its requirements by the power of the Spirit of God who dwells in us.

Take as an example this command, "Thou shalt not steal." By the law, the sin of theft is forbidden, but compare with this the exhortation of the gospel wherein the command lies: "Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." (Eph. 4: 28.) Here shines a ray of the light of divine love. Giving has taken the place of stealing. The thief by nature has become generous by grace. The gospel exhortation contains far more than the demand not to steal, it expects him to whom it is addressed to be like God — a giver. The light of the gospel day has not contradicted that of the legal night, but he who walks in the light of the gospel fulfils the demands of the law.

The believer's power for not fulfilling the lust of the flesh is of the Spirit: "I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not (in no way) fulfil the lust of the flesh." (Gal. 5: 16.) It might be objected, if a christian were not under the restraint of the law that his life might be careless. The "no way" of the above verse forbids such a notion. Our blessed Lord lived out the life which was in Him — the eternal life. He fulfilled the law and the prophets, and did His God and Father's will; and so long as the child of God is walking in the Spirit he is living in the excellence of the law of liberty, doing with joy, though feebly, as Christ did.

Keeping to the principles of the place — in the Spirit — where the believer is by grace, he, on the one hand, fulfils the requirements of the law, and on the other, does not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Here is positive and negative of the utmost importance for christian living. So long as the flesh in us is active, holiness is hindered. We must not limit fleshly activity to mere animal propensities; there is religious as well as gross flesh. To be sure, people do not care for the taste of the leaves of the apple tree, but whether leaves or fruit, all grow out of the one stock. The tree has to be rejected, and all that it produces. So long as we walk in the Spirit the cravings of the flesh are, as it were, nipped in the bud and its activity suspended.

The believer's power for holiness is of the Spirit: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace; longsuffering, gentleness, goodness; faith, meekness, temperance." (Gal. 5: 22, 23.) Such fruits do not grow out of the old condemned stock of the flesh, but out of the new life which is ours in Christ. How long together a believer walks in the Spirit is not our enquiry, but the principle of holiness. If a man says he has not sinned for a month or a year, he is a deceiver of himself. Spiritual pride is not of the Spirit of God. Spiritual elation is dangerous imitation of Satan. Christ in glory is the standard of perfection, Christ on earth the pattern for the christian's walk. No one's walk is perfect, but the Spirit of God who dwells in us is perfect, and as the child of God yields himself to God, as one alive from the dead, the desires and cravings of his flesh are not fulfilled, and the Holy Spirit in him brings forth fruit out of him.

Being led by the Spirit is favor common to all christians, it is the principle upon which God now deals in grace with His people. Outside the circle wherein God dwells by His Spirit, men are led by Satan; under the law His people were in bondage, and under the schoolmaster. Now, in christian privilege, the Spirit leads: "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." (Gal. 5: 18.)

The two principles of being under the law and being led by the Spirit cannot run side by side; they are quite distinct from each other. They are different ways of God's dealing with His people. When God brought up Israel from Egypt He led them by the cloudy pillar, He guided them and prepared their way, they were entirely at His charges, and altogether in His hands. So is it now with His people, He leads them — "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." (Rom. 8: 14.)

As has been already shown, the title son implies the favor of position; it does not say, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God. Sonship is the special privilege which now pertains to all the children of God. The gracious and tender dealing of God expressed by the leading of His Spirit is that which marks His ways with His people now.

Undoubtedly the Spirit of God directs in the countless details of life. Those who have faith, and are on the look-out for His hourly direction, will not be disappointed. But the Spirit of God leads according to directions of the word; hence that which is called the leading of the Spirit, and which has not the truth of the scriptures for its line of thought or action is necessarily false.

If we are truly walking by His power we shall act in obedience to the truth. This fact needs emphasizing, for the way in which some speak of being led by the Spirit to do what they like is truly sorrowful. The Lord's name is taken in vain, and the Holy Spirit trifled with. The first element in spirituality is obedience to the scriptures.

Diligence of soul is required. The life of faith and walking in the Spirit convey the thought of continuous going on in dependence upon God. A good start is not enough; we must keep plodding on according to one principle, till we reach the glory. Truths have certain attractions for many while new. At one time the Galatians would have plucked out their eyes, had it been possible, to give them to the apostle Paul. Then he was, to them, a veritable messenger from God; but in some way they lost their blessedness, and so when the attraction was offered them to give up going on in the Spirit, and to seek to become perfect in the flesh by means of placing themselves under the law, they were ready for it.

A believer who begins in the Spirit, and runs well, and then goes to the law to become perfect, is beguiled by enemies of liberty in Christ risen. We have to keep going on by the rule that the flesh has been brought to its end for us in the cross of Christ, and that new life in Him is ours; hence that in Christ neither circumcision availeth, nor uncircumcision, but new creation. (Gal. 6: 14-16.) We have to frame our conduct by the rule of walking in the Spirit, as well as to practise its path. The principle must never be lost sight of, however we may fail in carrying it out. We must steer by divinely-given principles, even if winds and waves at times do throw us out of our course: to give up God's principles because of opposing elements is to court shipwreck.

The rule of the christian life is self out of sight, in Christ crucified; "I have been crucified with Christ" — Christ in heaven, our all; "In Christ." And the power for daily behaviour; Christ only. Keeping on thus, we are walking in the Spirit, who gives power to fulfil God's will. "If we live in (or by) the Spirit, let us also walk in (or by) the Spirit." (Gal. 5: 25.)

20. Walking in the Light

The Child of God

By H. Forbes Witherby.

His Path.

20. Walking in the Light.

What is the light? — who are in the light? — light and life immediately connected — who walks in the light — the ever-cleansing blood.

We must be in the light in order to walk in it. The light is the full revelation of God; christianity; the truth, as now unfolded by the scriptures; and the children of God are before God according to what God is. To be in the light is to be in the Christian position now occupied by the people of God.

God is light; such is His nature. He has fully made Himself known in the person and through the work of His Son; therefore the true light now shines amongst men. As the full revelation of God is light, anything obscuring that revelation is of darkness. Before God had made Himself fully known He dwelt in the thick darkness; and at that time neither His light nor His love could be understood.

The children of God are in the light, being before Him according to the measure of His full revelation of Himself. It is not the measure of our knowledge of God that constitutes the light. What we may see of the sunlight does not determine what it is: the sunlight of the truth of who and what God is, now shines; the night of Judaism, illumined by types and shadows, is passed; our privilege is to walk in this light. In this light every child of God now is; the children of God are the "we" who walk there. There is no other place before God which a believer can occupy in relation to light and darkness save light. Twilight may exist in the souls of christians, who do not fully believe the truth of the gospel, but there is no such existence now as a twilight revelation of God.

That the true light shines, we see declared, for example, in the vail of the temple being rent from top to bottom, from heaven to earth, when our Lord died. God, who had been hidden, was then revealed according to the measure of the fulness and perfection of Christ's completed work of sin-bearing; and from that day to this, the light of His righteousness shines forth in relation to His judgment against sin.

Being perfectly cleansed by the blood of Christ, the holiest of all is the believer's place before God, and it is so simply upon the ground of what the sacrifice of Jesus has effected. It is the Christian's position by virtue of Christ's work. Our dwelling-place is in the light and the holiest of all, not by reason of our subjective condition of soul, but because the Lord has made the place or standing ours by the putting away of our sins by the sacrifice of Himself, and by His bringing us to God: "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh." (Heb. 10: 19, 20.)

An unconverted man, one whose sins are not taken away, who is not brought to God, is in the darkness of his nature state, and in ignorance of God; and he is in this position, entirely outside the question of what his conduct may be. He is not in the light, and therefore cannot walk in it. The first question is, where a man walks; the next, how he walks. Is he in the golden palace where the full blaze of the divine light shines, or is he still outside the palace and in the darkness of the world?

A Christian's walk may often be faulty, but just because he is in the light he is responsible to walk as a child of light: "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light." (Eph. 5: 8.) Such a spiritual position as that of neither darkness nor light does not exist; there is no intermediate place, either here or hereafter. Divine facts and our apprehension of those facts must not be confounded together. We need faith in the divine truth, not faith in our apprehension of the truth. Many stumble over this stumbling-stone, but faith in what we believe to be true because we believe it, is really faith in our own faith, not faith in God.

Light is immediately connected with eternal life. We have already seen that when the truth of God first reached us it was as light discovering to us our darkness. In a word, it was by grace, the discovery to us of God, who is light. If we bring a candle into a large dark room, the light proves its own presence and discovers the darkness also. The first work of God in the soul is by His word, "Let there be light." The entrance of God's word gives light, teaching who He is; and the effect thereof in the soul, as each child of God can witness, is that in him "God divided the light from the darkness," when by the truth he began to be discovered to himself.

The blaze of the light at the first only makes the awakened soul feel his sinfulness; it is a disturbing and searching word, but its effect is to make the soul forsake his sins and repent; and then the light and the darkness are both known as absolutely different within. The theories and fancies in which we once indulged, concerning our old Adam nature becoming improved or rendered less dense by illumining influences, disappear by reason of the truth having convinced us that the nature of God is light, and that the fallen nature of man is darkness.

When by grace the believer discerns, by the witness of the precious blood of Christ, that God is light, he knows — at least so far as he enters into the truth God's thoughts about sin. He knows those thoughts too, in twofold force; first, the utter and absolute abhorrence the divine nature has of sin; next, the satisfaction the divine nature has in the blood by which sin is put out of God's sight. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, proclaims to sinners the impossibility, in time or in eternity, of God passing over a sinner's sins, turning aside and not dealing with sin; it also proclaims a mercy-seat for the whole world, upon the sure basis that sin has been dealt with, and answered for, by the sacrifice of the perfect offering — the Lamb of God. If the sinner neglects the mercy-seat, he enters eternity, courting eternal wrath.

The child of God having life, is taken out of darkness and placed in the light. This is his position before God, and is so, we repeat, exclusively by virtue of the Lord's work for him. The truth of the believer occupying this position is entirely distinct from that of his being in the condition of having the window of his soul open to receive the full brightness of the truth, and hence of his being full of light. The condition should agree with the position, but the position is not determined by the condition; such a thought is really placing our walk before Christ's work, and judging of what God is for us, by what we are for Him!

Those who walk in the light are the children of God. Walk according to the light as God is in the light none can, for that standard would be absolute perfection according to the very nature of God Himself. The first consideration is where, the second how we walk.

In nature there are creatures of the day and creatures of the night; each class moves either in the light or in the darkness; some are at home in the one, others in the other. But if we saw a bird of the day roused from her resting-place and fluttering through the darkness, we should not declare, because of her unwonted flight, that night was day, or she of the night. God has made His own children of the day, and His work is perfect. No one can walk as a child unless he be a child.

Alas! that so much of the lives of many christians is taken up with the enquiry, "Am I a child?" We are partakers of the divine nature, and all is of grace. Should not the love and ways of our own children forbid such questionings? they do not continually ask us whether they are really our children. They are in our homes, even as we are in our homes, and their pleasure is to behave according to their parents' wishes.

God has been revealed; and what is the truth concerning Him? "This then is the message which we have heard of [or from] Him [i.e., the Lord], and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1: 5.) The Lord taught His disciples who God. is; and His teaching or message is communicated to us. There had not been a full revelation of God given to men until the lips of Jesus declared Him. Sin cannot be tolerated in His presence. Man in the darkness of his sinful nature cannot dwell in the presence of God. The world, and the wicked one, in whose embrace it lies, cannot approach Him.

The child of God belongs to God, and is before Him according to the measure of the perfection of Christ's work. According to this standing should his walk be; he is in the golden room illumined by the flood of perfect light, and should comport himself according to the place where God has put him.

God knows exactly what we are, He knows every thought, every motive, and nothing is or can be hidden from Him. In this assurance the child of God walks; he knows God is looking into his heart, and sees all things. He does not fear the look of God, who is light; nay, he is glad of it. All that he is in himself, his God knows, and he is aware that he can never take God by surprise by what he does, because God knows what he is, though very often he is a wonder of evil to himself. There is not the thinnest gossamer wail between him and God, nor yet a single step which he can ever take away from the eye of God.

We have eternal life, the life of God; God dwells in us, and we in God; He has given us of His Spirit, so that it is ours — poor, weak, feeble, and, in our own selves, sinful creatures as we are — to be found practically walking as those who are in the light. Scripture never tells any one to exercise activity in that to which he does not belong. It does not bid dead men walk, or children of darkness to do the works of the sons of light; legalism and doing are not consistent with the revelation of God that He is light, but scripture exhorts us to act as what we are — "Ye are all the sons (lit.) of light, and the sons (lit.) of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others." (1 Thess. 5: 5, 6.)

Sleeping and walking do not naturally go together. In the reality of divine things the mechanical action of somnambulism is unknown. We do not say that there is not sleepwalking at times amongst the children of God, for, alas, there is a sad amount of formalism, and performance of religious observance, which may well go by such a description; and any religious observance may be turned into formalism. Let us see to it that we are real, and, because we do not belong to the night let us not sleep as do others. Hence also the exhortation, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" — or shine upon thee — (Eph. 5: 14), which exhortation is based upon the believer being light in the Lord, and commences with a "wherefore" in relation to that position.

By these and similar exhortations we see that the invariable and unchangeable position of the christian by virtue of Christ's work for him, and his state consequent upon his spiritual watchfulness, are quite distinct. And we see, that while the believer is in the light, still he may fall into a low state of soul and go to sleep among the dead, i.e., the unconverted: and thus, though he be of the light, yet, by having closed his spiritual eyes and lost his spiritual activity, he may become to all appearance like the dead, he may resemble them as much as is possible for the living to do so he may be asleep among them.

The ever-cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. As the sun ever shines, so does the blood ever cleanse. The light of God's own nature cannot tolerate sin in the ever-present cleansing of the blood, the child of God is maintained before the holy God. There is a continuous efficacy in this precious blood, an ever-abiding value, a constant maintaining power before God. We are before God according to His nature, and in the blood of His Son we have the everlasting equivalent in relation to our every sin. Such is the intrinsic worth of the blood of Jesus Christ.

We need perfect purity before God, as we are brought into fellowship with Him, and thus the light and the blood are connected. The light is our place, and there in that light, where God is unveiled in absolute holiness and in perfect love, the blood of His Son cleanses us.

We do not need to be washed by that blood again and again, for Jesus "hath washed us from our sins in His own blood" (Rev. 1: 5); but none the less do we need its ever-cleansing character in His presence, before whom the very heavens are not clean, and who charges His angels with folly. We do not need to be brought to God again by the Lord's work or by Himself, for Christ has "once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3: 18); but being so brought to God, being "perfected for ever" (Heb. 10: 14), we do need that cleansing blood which ever maintains us where we are according to God's own purity. The essential worth of the blood of Jesus, its own intrinsic worth, its ever present value, is of all importance for us.

The very holiness of God, the very light itself, is honored by the precious blood. We, in ourselves as black as night, are now whiter than snow. The brighter the noon-day sun shines upon the unstained snow, the whiter and the more glistening does it appear. The brighter the light, the more does it make manifest what the child of God is made in Christ. No trembling of conscience comes in here. The child of God has liberty and joy in the nature of His God.

If there be any doubting, the child of God has not yet fully appreciated that he is IN the light as God is IN the light. No further than this, surely, can our thoughts travel along the road of perfect acceptance. We are before God in Christ according to what God is as the holy God.

21. Walking as Christ Walked

The Child of God

By H. Forbes Witherby.

His Path.

21. Walking as Christ Walked.

Christ our example — obedience the characteristic of the Lord's steps — obedience and happiness — obedience and holiness — hidden springs of peace and joy.

Christ is our life; He also is our pattern. The life, which is ours in the Son, and the character of that life expressed in us, are not to be sundered from each other in our thoughts: "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." (1 John 2: 6.)

We see the Father in the Son. The Son, who was ever with the Father, having come to earth and become a man, not only is that eternal life, but by His every step He is the manifestation of it. By the walk of the Son on earth we know what the nature of the eternal life is, possessing which we shall uninterruptedly delight in God. What is the eternal life in its essential character? Christ. And what its characteristics expressed so that we can see it? Christ's walk as a man on this earth.

Our Lord was what His words declared. His life in its activity is the expression of His own sayings. "Who art Thou?" inquired the Jews, and Jesus answered, "Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning." (John 8: 25.) In us there is self, fallen human nature, evil; nevertheless, what was true of Christ, "the word which ye have heard from the beginning" is now true of each child of God, "true in Him and in you" (1 John 2: 8), for Christ is our life.

The Holy Spirit is in us, who have the life of Christ, and we are called to walk by the Spirit's power, according to the principle and after the pattern of the Lord's path; to be the exponents of this saying, "Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, written . . . with the Spirit of the living God." (2 Cor. 3: 3.) Christians read God in Christ, the world reads Christ in christians. If the epistle is blotted and indistinct, if the life led is unchristlike, no wonder the world understands not christianity.

Obedience characterised each step of the Son. He came from heaven to do God's will in the body God prepared Him: "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." (Heb. 10: 7.) He lived a life of perfect obedience. As disobedience to God characterizes the energy of man's fallen life, so obedience to God characterizes the new life, which is in Christ. The first man, Adam, started off on his career in wilfulness; the Lord, who came from heaven, began His path on earth in obedience, and continued that obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. He came "from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him." (John 6: 38.) Having received life from Him, we are in the Spirit's sanctification, which is to the obedience of Christ (1 Peter 1: 2), to walk as He walked.

The practical effect of the Holy Ghost sanctifying- the child of God is the production in him of Christ-like character. The child of God follows the pattern, but, of course, he never actually attains to the perfection of Christ's steps, though he is called to do so; and we must not argue from the stand-point of our failures. A little child learns to do as his father does, follows, alas! his mistakes as well as his better example; but the little child cannot fulfil the completeness of the grown man's strength. Our Lord and Master has taught us how to walk even as children of obedience. We are poor, weak followers of Him at the best, and every step is more or less faulty; we follow with tottering feet; but when the life of Christ in the child of God is rising to its source, there is obedience and walking as Christ walked.

Having the new nature, obedience is rendered in the power of the Spirit. It is as natural to the new nature to do as God loves, as it is for the old nature in us to do as the flesh likes. The principle of a perfect walk is obedience to God, and that principle should guide us. Spiritual progress is impossible, if attempted on a wrong road; obedience to God is the only road to practical holiness, and as we pursue this way, we, in our feeble manner, are walking as did Christ.

The obedience of the child is his happy liberty. Disobedient children are miserable, while the child who learns to love its parents' will derives its highest pleasure in fulfilling its parents' wishes. In our own homes the child who most sincerely loves his parents' will, and the least loves his own, is the happiest and brightest of the circle. And in the family of God the principle holds good — obedience and happiness are the cause and effect of true Christ-like character.

Our Lord was the truly obedient Man, and His human heart was full of God the Father's love. It is a great thing, to be practically filled with the effect of true christianity, namely, divinely given happiness. A child of God so filled is wealthy with heavenly joy, and does not want the world; he has the love of the Father in him, not the love of the Father for him only, but in him. Every child has the love of the Father for him; those who are obedient have His love in them. He does not reckon what he has given up or suffered for the Lord, the excellency of what he has is his delight. Even a child does not tell us how many handfuls of sand he has thrown down, as, with sparkling eyes, his hand grasps the treasure.

He is not ever fault-finding with his fellows, but rather is helping the weak, and seeking the good of the tried and suffering. The fountain of divine love filling his soul wells up and overflows to the refreshment of others. In his small measure, he is a slight expression of what Christ was on earth. Exquisite, divinely-beautiful indeed, are the rays of this light; great the privilege amid sin and darkness to hold forth the word of life shining as lights in the world.

Too often the idea of obedience to God, even in the minds of christians, carries with it the notion that the unbroken colt is at last subdued into a quiet religious drudge, and is so broken, by sheer strength of superior force. God would not have His children like the horse or mule, which have no understanding, and whose mouths have to be held in with bit and bridle, but guided by His eye, as the dear child who watches the movements of his parent's countenance. The submission of obedience is not all that the child of God should seek for, the joy of obedience should also be his desire. "I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart" (Ps. 40: 8), teaches us not only of the principle of the Lord's steps, but also of His joy in walking.

Jesus was the perfect man — all His thoughts and ways were of God. His obedience was therefore absolute according to the divine standard. If, when we speak of our obedience, our old Adam-life, our flesh, our sinful nature be in consideration, a hopeless end is before us. "The flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6: 63), "it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8: 7), no bit or bridle can curb or hold it. The child of God obeys his Father, haying a nature which delights in his Father's will and does so by the power of the Spirit of God who is in him.

The flesh cannot be made to obey the law. This we have sought to show in previous chapters, certainly it is never asked to obey the Father. The law was given by Jehovah to men in the flesh, as a restraint upon evil and a demand for good; the Father's will is communicated in His love to His children. The law is part of the revelation of God's moral requirements from His creature man, and these requirements being according to God's nature are unalterable in their character. Having the life which is of God, and the Spirit dwelling in him, the child of God fulfils these requirements. It is according to the new nature, the divine nature given him, to do so.

Jehovah said to Israel, Do this and thou shalt live (see Deut. 5: 33, Gal. 3: 12), but the children of God are exhorted to obey because they are children. Obey and live" implies the maintenance of life on the condition of rendered obedience; but "obey because you are a child" implies godly living by reason of an existing relationship. To man innocent, the word in effect was, Disobey, and you shall die; to man under the law, Obey, you shall live; now to the children it is, Living, your privilege is to obey.

The commandments of the Father are addressed solely to His children, even as we do not bid the neighbours' children do what we require of our own. Our requirements are according to what we are, and are enforced by reason of the relationship between us and our own. A may must be a child of God before he can obey the Father's commands; no one becomes a child by obedience, for we are born of God, and until born of God we have not life capable of obedience. There must be the nature, before the obedience of the nature can be rendered.

When an unconverted man sets himself to walk as Christ walked, he merely seeks to imitate Christ's actions, he does not so much as attempt to walk on the principle of the joy of obedience that governed the Lord's heart and affections. The most precise outward resemblance to Christ in fasting, weeping or suffering, would be after all only the cold, lifeless statue, the form but not the breath of life; its imitation, not its reality. To seek to imitate Christ in the power of the flesh, is a far more hopeless task than attempting to fulfil the law in that power. Every step of the pathway of Jesus was willing obedience to His Father — what sinner in his sins ever dreamed of such a principle of pleasing God as this? No spirit of the unconverted man ever gets beyond the idea of rigid exteriorism, beyond the lifeless marble, the cold, dead thing which can never live.

Holiness results from obedience. We have a holy nature given to us, and grow in practical holiness by obeying. The soul becomes clean by the word, "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth." (1 Peter 1: 22.)

Obedience needs to be definite and specific. A general kind of obedience does not prove practical godliness. Great discoveries are to be made by the child of God about himself; by truly acting out the precise instructions of the written word. If we had a precious jewel to keep bright, we should carefully remove each spot and speck from it, thus do God's jewels require the removal of each stain from them.

The more we use the laver of the word, the more shall we find the need of it. Spots must be removed from the soul one by one. God has to be dealt with about the special thing which dims the lustre of the affections towards Himself. "I have sinned," means a great deal: a general confession means, usually, very little. The former brightness of many a child of God is now lost, because of his not dealing with himself about his own ways by means of the truth; many are now scarcely distinguished from the world because they failed in obedience to the word of God respecting specific details in their lives.

True holiness abounds in love and good works. Purification of soul in obeying the truth has not merely negative results. It is not only that special evil is avoided, abstained from, or purged out of the ways of the child of God, but positive good follows — "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren." The Spirit not only restrains from evil, but effects good; renders in the child of God some resemblance to the Father, and this expresses itself in love. Love of the brethren comes, if we may use the words, naturally, to those who are born again: "Love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love." (1 John 4: 7, 8.)

On the one hand, we see in Christ's walk absolute separation from evil, and on the other, continuous doing good. The sick, the suffering, the poor, the heart-broken, were ever in His thoughts; He "went about doing good." (Acts 10: 38.) Men's consciences, minds, hearts, as well as their bodily needs, were His gracious care; while the condition of the souls of His disciples was continually before Him. What is the one great word that can alone express our blessed Master's path, His whole life below, from the manger to the cross? — Love. "He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him." (1 John 2: 9, 10.) Holiness without love is not Christ-like, and love without activity and object, is a well without water. It is important to have before us, the well-doing of true holiness.

Who, save the child of God, is there now on earth to witness, by works of love to men, what divine love is? And in the inner circle, even the family of God, the witness to being the Lord's disciples is His love in us working out from us to His beloved people. "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John. 13: 35.)

There is a forming work going on in every believer daily. Just as little children's characters are formed by the effect upon them of the ten thousand incidents of their homes and associations, so are the spiritual characters of the children of God being formed hour by hour, by nearness to God or contact with the world.

The likeness to the old Adam lessens, or is held back, in proportion as that to God increases. Spiritual growth is becoming more like to the Son of God and to God the Father. "As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." (1 Peter 1: 14-16.)

Love and light, grace and truth, marked the steps of the blessed Lord, and though it must of necessity be but feebly expressed, still a similar beauty of holiness should characterize the path of the child of God.

Peace and joy are the hidden springs in those children of God, whose spirits are near their Father. If a child of God sink down into the world, he is a daily contradiction to the desires of the nature which God has given him. He can never be happy save when delighting in God, who would have His children full of the peace and the joy which filled His blessed Son as a Man when he was here upon earth.

The Lord gave His own peace to His disciples, not peace only, but His peace. (John. 14: 27.) What was this? That unbroken re pose, which, as a man ever doing the Father's will, He experienced in His life below. No adverse wind ever ruffled the absolute calm of the soul of the perfect Man, for we are not now referring to His sin-bearing on the cross.

Did sinners reject His testimony, He communed with His Father, and thanked Him that He had revealed to babes what the wise and prudent could not see — did religious hatred seek to stone Him; He gave sight to the blind as He passed through the midst of His persecutors — did His accusers clamor; He answered not a word — did brutal hands smite, and human lips spit and curse; still He was silent — and when at length He was nailed to the cross, He prayed to His Father to forgive His tormentors. Such was His peace. The still waters of His spirit were never ruffled, His soul was ever at rest in His Father's love. This is His peace, "My peace"; and this He gives to His own.

Peace, perfect peace, ever dwelt within His breast, and walking as Christ walked, His people have the character of peace He had. No turmoil reaches up to the dwelling-place of God in light. The God of peace dwells in peace, and even on this tumultuous earth the peace of God garrisons, and holds against all troubles, the hearts of truly obedient children. Peace is a hidden spring, which wells up within the soul: "Great peace have they which love Thy law; and nothing shall offend them." (Ps. 119: 165.)

A heart not only at peace with God by reason of what Christ did on the cross, but in peace on this earth, because walking with God, is a lovely testimony to God and to heaven. A heart sensitive to every sorrow and sympathetic with every grief, and yet so filled with the love of God the Father that it has not a ruffle on it, is indeed a happy epistle of Christ. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keeps the hearts of those who do as Christ did.

Happy are they who take their cares to God and leave them there. It is not necessary that the christian should be fretful and worrying, as if the concerns of time and eternity were not in God's hands. True, some have easier dispositions than others, but the peace of which we speak is not common to nature, it comes from God in heaven: faith in God, and rest in the Father, will produce it in the soul.

Joy as well as peace dwelt in the Lord. Jesus was the man of sorrows; the presence of sin, the disobedience of the world, rendered Him such while here below. Satan's temptations could only occasion Him grief. Alas! Satan's temptations please our natures, and frequently humble us by showing us what we are; Jesus "suffered being tempted."

Satan brought the temptation to Him when hungry, to make stones bread, but the hunger natural to man was not the deeper pain to Jesus; that was occasioned by the temptation to satisfy Himself by means of His own power, and not by the direction of God. Satan brought out all the glory of the world before the King. The kingdom was His by right, but God's time had not yet come for Him to take it; hence, deep was the suffering caused by the temptation to take the world from the enemy's hands. Satan dared tempt Him to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, thereby to test God in His care of Him! Even at that moment, being so sorely tried, He doubted not Jehovah's care over Him as a man. But, as He refused the temptation and resisted the tempter, He suffered by means of the thought presented to Him. Such in His blest perfection of dependence was Jesus, the obedient man; yet, while the man of sorrows, Jesus was the man in whom was divinely-given joy.

The world did not bring Him joy, the joy that filled His heart was from heaven. The Man of sorrows had not only the spring of peace ever fresh within His soul, but the joy of the Father's presence, of His Father's love and companionship. He speaks of His joy which as a man He so fully knew; and it may be ours. (John 15: 11.)

We think of Him wearied at the well of Sychar, giving there living waters to a lost sinner, and we consider His joy. He had then meat to eat His disciples knew not of. (John 4: 32.) Our Lord had heavenly joy while on His path of suffering; earth did not offer Him any gladness, but giving of heaven's treasures to men, and receiving as a man the complete satisfaction arising from abiding in His Father's love, He had His joy. In our small measure, and according as we walk as He walked, the Father is with us, and thus the joy in which the Lord rejoiced is ours.

The Father is always our Father; the relationship is not disturbed by the child's behaviour; but the joy of the Father's presence is broken in upon, when the child does not walk in obedience. The sovereignty of the grace of God, which has made us His children, is not affected by any shortcomings on the child's part, but the possession of that heavenly joy with which the Father fills our hearts depends upon our walking as Christ walked.

22. Fellowship with the Father and the Son

The Child of God

By H. Forbes Witherby.

His Path.

22. Fellowship with the Father and the Son.

The key to the truth of fellowship with God — life the first necessity for fellowship — light marks its sphere — love characterizes it.

The three key-words to unlock the mystery of fellowship with the Father and the Son are life, light, and love.

Of all the marvels of God's grace, none is more marvellous than the fact of His bringing men into fellowship with Himself. That God should interest Himself in the concerns of our daily lives, and number the very hairs of our heads, is wonderful indeed; that He should give us glory in heaven above the angels is a wonder deeper still; but that He should call us to like thoughts, wishes, feelings, and to common objects with Himself is beyond all conception! Yet such is the case; and the reality of this fellowship is for every child of His; for it is not the portion of the great and the mighty of His family merely, but the blessedness of all His children.

Life is the first necessity for fellowship with God — new life, divine life. We must be born anew before we can have common thoughts with God. It is important clearly to recognize the truth that in no sense whatever, can our sinful and fallen nature have intercourse with God. There must be a nature capable of having like-mindedness with God, before there can be communion with Him. The lower animals may be made to serve man, and to be subject to him; but there is nothing in them capable of thinking morally with man. In this, however, is inferiority of nature only; but with man in his sins, there is direct moral opposition of nature to God. Man is darkness and God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. The very holiness of the nature of God is prohibitive of man in his fallen state, having like thoughts with Him.

Fallen human nature has not, and cannot have, one like thought, wish, or feeling with God; nor has man in the flesh one aim, purpose, or action according to the divine nature. Not only is this true of the time when the children of God were in the flesh — that is, before they were born of the Spirit — but it is also true of the fallen nature in them so long as they are upon earth; for the flesh in them ever remains flesh. The fallen nature, the flesh in the child of God, maintains its character to the end; in the glory, the flesh, the evil principle in us, will be no more.

Before the new life was communicated to us we were in the flesh, and could not enter into God's mind; we are now in the Spirit, but the flesh in us is what it always was. The flesh sins: the new life sins not; it cannot sin. So long as the flesh in us is kept in its true place of death, the believer is not sinning; sin is in him, but he is not committing sin; moral activity of his flesh is suspended. As a practical fact, it is, alas! the case, that we swiftly become restored to fleshly activity by the influences of the world, and too little reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. When this is the case the activity of the Spirit's work within, in leading us to joy in God, is hindered, and instead, the Spirit is making us to feel how sorrowful a thing it is, for the child of God to live to himself.

God, in His infinite grace, has brought His people to Himself; they were of Adam fallen, but now, having eternal life given them, they are partakers of the divine nature. They were, by reason of their wicked works, children of Satan, but now they dwell in God and God in them, and entirely because God in His sovereignty has made them His. Far more than salvation is theirs. Salvation from sin, the world, and Satan, is a theme of intense gladness, every word of which redounds to the grace of God; but the Father's name and association with Himself and the Son of His love opens up such thoughts of future joy and understanding of God, that its lengths, breadths, depths, and heights are utterly overwhelming. The love of the Father and the Son are simply inconceivable, save when entered into from the only centre whence they can be rightly known.

Turning to the Epistle of John, that apostle, having spoken of the Word of life, and that life manifested on earth, and now declared to us through the scriptures, teaches us that he speaks as he does, in order that the children of God may have fellowship with the apostles, "us"; adding, "and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." (1 John 1: 1-3.) First, he speaks of the life, then of that life manifested on earth, and then he introduces the children of God into the fellowship with the Father and the Son.

Life is ours by the free favor of God, and having the life, we have the privilege of the fellowship. It is true that some of the children enjoy the fellowship but feebly; but let us not limit God by our limited apprehension of Him. The best thing in the family is the parent's love, and this is the common portion of all the children.

The new and eternal life is that which each child lives; other divine life there is none; "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." (1 John 5: 11.) Growth of the child there is, but the privilege of the fellowship flows from the possession of the life. As this fellowship is enjoyed, so is the measure of true christian joy. Let the heart be ever so large, divine joy shall fill it to overflowing. The greatest measure in common with the smallest, will be filled brimful when dipped into the ocean. There is boundless joy for the child of God; his heart may be filled with it by means of fellowship with the Father and the Son.

In the glory that awaits the children of God, when the eternal life will be fully enjoyed by them, the joy of each will be full indeed; for then fellowship with the Father and the Son will be complete, still, while here in the world, in trial, daily difficulty, and weakness, the portion of each child is fellowship and its consequent joy.

Light marks the sphere of this fellowship. The message which the Lord, the Life, declared was, that "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." There cannot be fellowship with God, save according to what He is. We do not read that the Father and the Son have fellowship with us, as if God walked with us according to our poor, mean thoughts or attainment, but He leads us in spirit to His own thoughts of love. Having the nature which He has communicated, His children have, by His Spirit's indwelling, the capability of enjoying common thoughts and companionship with God.

The very first requirement in this fellowship is holiness. The holy nature of God prohibits every evil thing and thought in our hearts to approach His presence. Man's nature is darkness, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth" (1 John 1: 6); we should deny the very truth of what God is — light, for "in Him is no darkness at all."

In the full blaze of what God is, as revealed by His Son, and made known to us through the scriptures, fellowship with Him is had. Here it is that the child of God walks — "If we walk in the light as He is in the light." How he walks is a question to be settled after it is determined where he walks. And walking in the light, fellowship follows, not as an attainment, but as a consequence. Nor, let us repeat, is this privilege for a few only; it is the common portion for the family of God, and is enjoyed by all who are obedient.

The truth of what the light is, is unalterable. It must not be weakened in the soul to suit the sense we may have of our individual practical state. God is God. He is what He is, and ever will be what He is; and His children have fellowship with Him. He leads us up, by His Spirit, to His thoughts. He has compassion on us. in our feebleness, not fellowship with it. Our state often hinders practical communion with God, but God has brought us to Himself in His sovereign grace, and He changes not, His nature is ever light and love; He has made us His children and brought us into close connection with Himself, and this is our absolute portion.

According as the believer enters in spirit into what God is — even Light, we may be sure he will more and more deeply feel what he is in himself. We do not mean in a legal way, or in a constrained manner, for God's perfect love casts out fear; but all things are made manifest by light, and the presence of God brings out the truth about everything. The people of God will be perfectly transparent in heaven; sin indeed will no longer be in them, as is the case now; they will then "know as known" (1 Cor. 13: 22); yet now, even upon this earth, where the old man is in each child of God, unless darkness has blinded the eye, true thoughts of God and real fellowship with Him must render the heart deeply sensible of what he is and acutely sensitive to what he does. He needs no darkening glass through which to look at his sun; he is a child of light and belongs to the light.

The truth goes with the light — it issues from the light. The word of God has opened up His truth to us, and any thought which rejects the word, or denies the truth, is darkness. It is unbelief to seek to modify the revelation of what God is, because we find what is in us. Divine truth is absolute, and brooks no denial, no tampering with, no toning down. God is what He is — light; and He has given to His children eternal life, and brought them into the light even as He is in the light.

If we should say that we have no sin, the assertion would demonstrate that the truth was not in us, for such darkness respecting man's fallen nature would be proof of ignorance of God's nature. He who has the divine life communicated, cannot be blind to the fact of his own nature being evil. Again, if we should say we have not sinned we should make Him a liar, for God tells us that we do sin. Such assertions when made, demonstrate that those who make them are astray concerning who and what God is. The very fact of the child of God having the new nature, and the Holy Spirit of God in him, makes him awake to the reality of what his fallen nature is. The word of God would not be in us, the work of the Son would be repudiated, and His propitiation ignored, by the vain boast of the sinlessness of the old man, or of a believer not having sinned.

Professed fellowship with the Father and the Son, together with denial of the truth of the word of God, is terrible evidence that the message declared concerning God by His Son has never been received in the heart, and that he who makes it is not in the light. If not in the light, no man can have fellowship with God. We are sure that the simplest believer will be clear of all such practical denials of God's nature. We may say that "God is light" is a truth which every child of God knows to be true, and knows because he has the eternal life which is in God's Son. The life of God communicated to the child of God and the nature of God can not be separated. We have the life of God, and are made partakers of the divine nature. He is light, and we have fellowship with Him in what He is, and in no lower standard.

Love characterizes the fellowship. "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 John 4: 16.) God has given us the eternal life, brought us into the light as He is in the light, and being there, we have communion with Him as our Father, and with His Son, in the love of the divine nature. Our thoughts of love may be measured by our own standard; the love of God is holy and perfect as Himself.

Human ideas of love are like all else human, imperfect and soiled by evil; weakness and very faint apprehension there is in our fellowship, but no taint of sin can possibly enter into the hallowed association of the child of God with his Father. As to what the love is, let the soul who knows the Son answer, for the Lord has said, "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the very work's sake;" and He has thus addressed us as to what He was as seen on earth — the eternal life which was with the Father, and which was manifested to us. His grace and truth explain to us God as light and love. The Son in the bosom of the Father has revealed Him: Jesus has not only taught us by words that God is love, He has lived out on this earth the love of God, and He who has seen the Son has seen the Father. Jesus Himself is the explanation, in His own person, of God as love.

The Spirit of God teaches our hearts who and what God is: "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit" (1 John 4: 13) — of His Spirit, of what He is Himself in His nature. The child of God knows and believes the love that God has to him; he knows what God is, having the life of God and the Spirit of God. "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (ver. 16.)

"Grieve not the holy Spirit of God" (Eph. 4: 30), says the word, and when the Spirit is ungrieved in us, we enjoy perfect repose before God in His love, and delight in what He is. In the family circle, the child's delight is his parents; and the little child, however simple, finds its happiness with them. The children grow in knowledge; but the characters of the parents color the home and form the joys of the family. We are supposing a home on earth, where the parents are worthy, where the children are obedient in love: the illustration does not go far enough, but it faintly expresses the repose of the children of God in the Father's love, out of which repose fellowship issues. The love of God the Father is our joy.

What is it which marks the ripening of age in the child of God? For as there is growth, so will the fellowship increase. That which characterizes the "fathers" is, they "have known Him that is from the beginning." The aged apostle has but one reason for his writing to them, "because ye have known Him that is from the beginning." (1 John 2: 14.) What a clearness as to who and what God is does the knowledge of Christ give to the children of God! The ripest age returns to the person of the Son, and there remains to rest for ever. Heart knowledge of Jesus, the Son of the Father, marks the maturing of the children of God.

As we consider the search of modern infidelity after life, we mourn over these poor seekers for the beginning of what men value. In Jesus only is true and divine archaic knowledge — Jesus, who is the Word of life, from all eternity the same. Human wisdom and research stand in no stead here: "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." (Matt. 11: 27.)

"From the beginning"; ponder over these words, having such emphatic force in our days of Christianized infidelity; "from the beginning," that is from the coming of Jesus into this world, from the incarnation of Him, in and by whom the eternal life was manifested, and the Father revealed. The beginning for the people of God is the person of the Lord, and all that is He is, and declared to us to be, by penmen inspired of the Holy Ghost. The histories of what He is, the tale of His life below told fourfold, is the unfolding of that which is "from the beginning;" and only by acquaintance with the Son can we know what the eternal life is, and who God is, and have real fellowship with the Father and the Son. The present and the future of the new life are before us in these words: "This is the life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." (John 17: 3.) The present — this brief lifetime, where we become acquainted by faith with Jesus, and through Him with the Father; the future — the endless ages, when we shall more deeply know Him and the Father. In so far as this knowledge is ours now, so far is our fellowship with the Father and the Son; and no further.

With the thought of the future before us, the vastness of the divine nature and of our unlimited joy in the knowledge of the Father and the Son, open out before the soul. Even on earth there seem to be such depths and lengths in the heart and mind of a great and noble companion, that could we daily enjoy his companionship we should not exhaust what he is; we come back ever to find him more lovable, more admirable than before, and yet ever to find him himself; "So like himself," are our words as we wonder at his ways.

But "what is man"? That which is true and lovely in him is what God made when He made him upright; to know God is to dwell in love. The more the child of God knows the Father and the Son, the more he longs to know. He comes to his Father to find fresh delight, and to be filled anew with joy. "That your joy may be full," is a word for eternity as well as for time. Here our capacity is limited, and too often our hearts are filled with other things to our sorrow; there our capacity will be according to the stature of the fulness of Christ, and nothing shall ever hinder our joy; still, however vast that which is known, the vastness of what is to be known about God will ever remain exhaustless. Our state will be perfect, our enjoyments infinite.

Let us attempt, by an outlook into the measureless space around us, to aid the meditation of what the endless enjoyment of the child of God will be. The works of God surpass all, but who shall compass Him! A man's mind awakens to the fact, that this earth hangs amongst the myriad lamps of heaven, in space so vast, that the nearest moon and planets, separated from it by thousands of miles, are close to his touch, compared with the unutterable distances lying between this globe and the countless stars which the eye can but faintly see. His opened mind grasps the idea of greatness: immensity is before him. He feels that human thoughts of time are but as a drop of the ocean's fulness, and the length of thousands of years of this world's history but as a pin's point in the presence of the circling journeys of the suns and stars. His imagination travels from star to star, above, beneath, and returns at length wearied with its flights; he wonders at the immeasurable, and feels that his most fertile conceptions of what eternity is, are as nothing compared with the fact of the space which lies above, beneath, and on either side of this globe.

The overwhelming greatness of these works of God are such that eternities could not exhaust the joy of the creature who might be enabled to visit them and study their wonders. Yet even should this be possible, what would journeys from star to star and sun to sun be? Simply research into the Creator's works. The child of God has a far nobler portion; he has for his eternity fellowship with the Father and the Son, communion with God in what God is as made known. Those heights, those depths, those lengths and breadths of what God is, who shall declare them? An expanse of eternal occupation and joy opens out before the astonished soul. It is not merely a seat in heaven, a place amongst the glories; not simply a song to sing which knows no ending, a harp to strike which shall never be unstrung; but having the eternal life, and having like thoughts, and feelings, and common objects with God the Father, and God the Son, by the indwelling Spirit.

In its full enjoyment, the eternal life will be knowing the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent to this world. The child of God will enter into the divine mind by the Spirit, he will think with purest joy like thoughts with God, travel on from wonder to wonder, learn greater depths by every fresh marvel learned; never wearied, never sated, ever satisfied. What a portion awaits the possessor of the new life! The fullest joy in the unclouded love of God is his prospect, dwelling in the blaze of the light of what God is, possessing the eternal life.

23. Fellowship with the Father and the Son. — Practical Considerations

The Child of God

By H. Forbes Witherby.

His Path.

23. Fellowship with the Father and the Son. — Practical Considerations.

Obedience the first practical principle of the new life — the love which seeks communion — the grace that restores — the way that true fellowship with the Father and the Son expresses itself.

The child of God, as he looks on to the future and then around him at present things, must have his heart filled with practical considerations. He is not in heaven yet, but in the world which lies in the arms of the wicked one; sin is in him, and he often sins. He possesses the eternal life; he is in the light, and he knows it is his portion to dwell in the love. But he knows, too, that frequently his realisation of what is his portion is but feeble. Well, then, may his heart enquire, How shall this fellowship with the Father and the Son be better known; how shall the child of God more fully enter into it?"

This question has been put already, though not in the words of our enquiry. A disciple once asked Jesus, "Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" Jesus had just said, "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him," (John 14: 21.) The idea of a public manifestation in regal glory and power to the world, was to this disciple intelligible, but at that hour he knew not the meaning of a private manifestation to himself. The Messiah's throne, and His ruling over the world's kingdoms, he had heard of in the prophets; but the deeper mystery of the Son entering into the heart of an obedient child and, with His Father, filling that heart with peculiar joy, was new to him. Then "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him."

The Father and Son dwell with the obedient child; They come to him and make Their home with him. In the glory the children of God will abide in the Father's house, and in the Father's presence, and He shall fill their hearts; on earth, where the Lord is loved and His words treasured, the manifestation of the Father and the Son to the heart of the child of God make earth heaven to him. It is by obedience to the Lord that the fellowship which the child of God so deeply desires is consciously known and entered into.

Obedience to the word is the first sign of the presence of the eternal life, the first requirement from God of His children. Adam lost his all on earth by disobedience, we enjoy our all by walking as Christ walked, in obedience. "Hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments." (1 John 2: 3.)

The commandments of the Lord are precise and clear. Keeping "His commandments," and more still, keeping "His word," is that which is set before us. The commandments are His definite instructions, the word the general expression of His mind. A child obeys his father's formal commands, not to do or to do given things; he also keeps his father's word, that is not doing or doing things according to the general tenor of his father's mind: "Whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him." (1 John 2: 5.)

Christian character is formed by occupation with Christ. The Lord sets before us the secret of joy in these words, "If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love." (John 15: 10.) Obedience is the practical means for maintaining this fellowship, which is the full joy of the children of God.

Fellowship with the Father and the Son and love of the world are incompatible. The world is that system which has grown up on this earth without God, and "All that is of the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1 John 2: 16.) The world around each one of us will assume different colors according to our different tastes. That which we individually like the most, will, as a rule, be the world to us, and the world we shall least willingly give up. It is easy to give up things we do not care for, and to call ourselves unworldly and it is easy to see love of the world in other christians, and to be blind to our own love of it We may say, that anything which would not be happily carried on in the presence of God is of the world; and the word is, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John 2: 15.) A child, while disobedient, would not have the love of his parent in his heart; for if that love were in him, he would be doing his parent's will.

The child of God is left in the world for the purpose of glorifying God, He is not of the world, even as Christ is not of it. (John 17: 16.) Such is his position by grace, and it is his to say, "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness." (1 John 5: 19.) The love of the Father in him separates him practically from the world. No man can love good and evil at the same time; the love of two opposites could not be simultaneously within one breast. The all-powerful holy love of the Father draws the child to Himself and His love; and consequently separates from the world. True separation to God comes about by the affections being attracted by the love of the Father to the Father.

"Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth." (John 17: 17.) The Lord was addressing God the Father when He thus prayed for His own. All the scriptures are truth, but the specific truth that makes the child of God unworldly is that revelation of the Father's name to his heart which sanctifies or separates him to the love of the Father. It is not simply that the child of God has the place Christ occupies — that he is not of the world as Christ is not of it — he has in the infinite kindness of God, the love that Christ dwelt in, for his portion. So long as that love is filling his heart, there is not room in him for the world.

Real sanctification is wrought by the positive blessing to the heart that follows the known love of the Father. The Father's love filling the heart of the child of God, by the power of the Spirit in him, detaches him from the world by its own almighty attraction. A loving parent makes his child so bright and happy by his presence and love, that the child does not want the evil things his father hates.

The Father and the Son wait in gracious willingness upon the children of God, wait upon them for the purpose of manifesting themselves and making their abode with them; and this is one of the highest love-proofs of the marvellous position which the child of God occupies. In the earthly family circle we see how the parents wait upon their children, what pains they take with them, how tenderly they correct and seek to remove that which is evil in them, and how they seek the absolute confidence of their own. This fact in nature may be reverently used as a humble illustration of the grace of God which seeks all the confidence and love of His children. Each child is the object of the unwearied care of the Father; we do not now refer to such care as we may perceive exercised over us in our temporal affairs and difficulties, but in the deeper things which pertain to Himself in the training of our spirits.

Each child is watched over, and led on into heart knowledge of Himself. What the thoughts of the Father and the Son concerning the children of God are, we find expressed in the seventeenth chapter of John, in those words which Jesus spake as He lifted up His eyes to heaven. For He was at that moment, not teaching them how they might live in love together (see John 13: 14), nor of their home above (John 14: 2) and peace below (John 14: 27), nor yet of their fruit-bearing (John 15), nor testimony to the world (John 16); He was not speaking to them, but about them — not even teaching them of the Father, but speaking to the Father concerning them and us. Here, then, in these words, as He looked up to the Father and off from the earth, we learn how the Father's name maintains in holy association with Himself and with His Son, the children who truly know that name. "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are" (John 17: 11); the title holy, and the name Father, combine the character and the relationship of God towards His people in the world.

Restoration to fellowship comes before us at this point, for though the believer should not sin, yet who is not conscious of erring ways and wandering thoughts? that is, provided he be indeed in the light. But, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." He is our Comforter in heaven, the gracious person there who undertakes our affairs in the presence of the Father. He maintains the child of God before His holy Father by His constant and gracious presence on high. The Father beholds perfection in Him, and Jesus Christ, the Righteous, takes up every detail of our poor, faulty, erring lives, and makes us to judge ourselves in our path below. He brings about confession, softens our hearts, and produces reality in us.

Alas! how poor are our thoughts as to "our sins"; but more deeply entering into the fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, we shall more truly know what we are, and more intensely value the present work of the Lord as our Advocate. And the deeper the acquaintance with Him, the more true will the confession of "our sins" be. It will be direct personal work.

We shall be ready to tell our Father what we have done. It is not for pardon, or to be saved from wrath, the child confesses his sins, but in grief of heart for dishonoring the God who loves him. Too many of the children, by non-confession of their sins, allow a tissue, as it were, to be set up between their spirits and the Father's love; and this will grow with lack of genuine dealings with Him about sins, till it becomes a thick dark pall, through which the affections cannot see the love of the Father. Then the spirit of the child of God becomes like that of the wanderer who is far off from the parents' home.

The child of God is only truly happy as he is practically in the light, before God, according to what God is. It is of the highest importance for spiritual prosperity, that he have no reserves with his Father, and no secrets before Him. God who knows all things knows our hearts, and in His presence we get to know consciously what our hearts are.

True fellowship with the Father and the Son expresses itself in living practically the eternal life, in walking as Christ walked, not pleasing ourselves. Love divine is the moral sphere wherein the child of God moves. This love is no abstraction, but a reality; love without an object is a loneliness of soul impossible to the child of God. On this earth the members of the family of God are the persons for whom the child of God specially cares. "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4: 20.)

"If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another." (1 John 1: 7.) The life, the light, the love are for all the children, and fellowship one with another follows the fact of being in the place in which we are by grace. "One with another" allows not the notion of monk-like isolation. "One with another" embraces all the children of God, denies that inherent selfishness which occupies itself with our own small circle or coterie. One with another" gently refuses the spirit of self-exaltation which assumes a spiritual superiority, to the exclusion of the "babes" from the portion of the "fathers" in Christ.

How we are able to deport ourselves before the members of the family, is a test as to our real fellowship with God. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him" (1 John 5: 1), for the nature of God expresses itself through His children. The children have the divine nature; loving the Father, they love the children of the Father. We do not love the evil ways of that child of God who may be careless in his walk, yet the erring child should be, of all others, upon our hearts in prayer. The unruly will be warned, the feeble-minded comforted, the weak supported, and patience toward all exercised (see 1 Thess. 5: 14), when true fellowship with God the Father and His Son are enjoyed.

The character of the love borne by child to child is of the same nature as that which the Father bears to His children; it is not human, but divine love in a human heart; it is therefore regulated by what God is: "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments." (1 John 5: 2.)

The unwearied care of God for us, His patient grace, His gentleness, His leading us on from the world nearer, in spirit, to Himself, indicate what should be the character of our love's activity towards one another. Our joy in the Father's presence, as He Himself and His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, are made manifest. to our hearts, gives us the character of the joy of true fellowship one with another. Christ-like behaviour and occupation with the Father and the Son, are bright evidences of the existence of the fellowship which belongs by grace to the child of God on earth, and which will be his uninterrupted portion in eternity.