AND NOT IN SELF.
TO have life in Himself is the prerogative of God alone, and of the Son, to whom the Father hath also given it. To seek life, not in itself, but in God, is the highest honour of the creature. To live in and to himself is the folly and guilt of sinful man; to live to God in Christ, the blessedness of the believer. To deny, to hate, to forsake, to lose his own life, such is the secrefc of the life of faith. 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me;' *Not I, but the grace of God which is with me:' this is the testimony of each one who has found out what it is to give up his own life, and to receive instead the blessed life of Christ within us. There is no path to true life, to abiding in Christ, than that which our Lord went before us — through death.
At the first commencement of the Christian life, but few see this. In the joy of pardon, they feel constrained to live for Christ, and trust with the help of God to be enabled to do so. They are as yet ignorant of the terrible enmity of the flesh against God, and its absolute refusal in the believer to be subject to the law of God. They know not yet that nothing but death, the absolute surrender to death of all that is ' of nature, will suflBce if the life of God is to be manifested in them with power. But bitter experience of failure soon teaches them the insufficiency of what they have yet known of Christ's power to save, and deep heart-longings are awakened to know Him better. He lovingly points them to His cross. He tells them that as there, in the faith of His death as their substitute, they found their title to life, so there they shall enter into its fuller experience too. He asks them if they are indeed willing to drink of the cup of which He drank — to be crucified and to die with Him. He teaches them that in Him they are indeed already crucified and dead — all unknowing, at conversion they became partakers of His death. But what they need now is to give a full and intelligent consent to what they received ere they understood it, by an act of their own choice to will to die with Christ.
This demand of Christ's is one of unspeakable solemnity. Many a believer shrinks back from it. He can hardly understand it. He has become so accustomed to a low life of continual stumbling, that he hardly desires, and still less expects, deliverance. Holiness, perfect conformity to Jesus, unbroken fel- lowship with His love, can scarcely be counted distinct articles of his creed. Where there is not intense longing to be kept to the utmost from sinning, and to be brought into the closest possible union with the Saviour, the thought of being crucified with Him can find no entrance. The only impression it makes is that of suffering and shame: such a one is content that Jesus bore the cross, and so won for him the crown he hopes to wear. How different the light in which the believer who is really seeking to abide fully in Christ looks upon it. Bitter experience has taught him how, both in the matter of entire surrender and simple trust, his greatest enemy in the abiding life, is SELF. Now it refuses to give up its will; then again, by its working, it hinders God's work. Unless this life of self, with its willing and working, be displaced by the life of Christ, with His willing and working, to abide in Him will be impossible. And then comes the solemn question from Him who died on the cross: 'Are you ready to give up self to the death?' You yourself, the living person born of God, are already in me dead to sin and alive to God; but are you ready now, in the power of this death, to mortify your members, to give up self entirely to its death of the cross, to be kept there until it be wholly destroyed? The question is a heart-searching one. Am I prepared to say that the old self shall no longer have a word to say; that it shall not be allowed to have a single thought, however natural, — not a single feeling, however gratifying, — not a single wish or work, however right?
Is this in very deed what He requires? Is not onr nature God's handiwork, and may not our natural powers be sanctified to His service? They may and must indeed. But perhaps you have not yet seen how the only way they can be sanctified is that they be taken from under the power of self, and brought under the power of the life of Christ. Think not that this is a work that you can do, because you earnestly desire it, and are indeed one of His redeemed ones. No, there is noway to the altar of consecration but through death. As you yielded yourself a sacrifice on God's altar as one alive from the dead {Rom. vi, IS J xii. i), so each power of your nature — each talent, gift, possession, that is really to be holiness to the Lord — must be separated from the power of sin and self, and laid on the altar to be consumed by the fire that is ever burning there. It is in the mortifying, the slaying of self, that the wonderful powers with which God has fitted you to serve Him, can be set free for a complete surrender to God, and offered to Him to be accepted, and sanctified, and used. And though, as long as you are in the flesh, there is no thought of being able to say that self is dead, yet when the life of Christ is allowed to take full possession, self can be so kept in its crucifixion place and under i«ts sentence of death, that it shall have no dominion over yon, no, not for a single moment. Jesus Christ becomes your second self.
Believer! wouldest thou truly and fully abide in Christ, prepare thyself to part for ever from self, and not to allow it, even for a single moment, to have aught to say in thy inner life. If thou art willing to come entirely away out of self, and to allow Jesus Christ to become thy life within thee, inspiring all thy thinking, feeling, acting, in things temporal and spiritual. He is ready to undertake the charge. In the fullest and widest sense the word life ever can have. He will be thy life^ extending His interest and influence to each one, even the minutest, of the thousand things that make up thy daily life. To do this He asks but one thing: Come away out of self and its life, abide in Christ and the Christ life, and Christ will be thy life. The power of His holy presence will cast out the old life.
To this end give up self at once and for ever. If thou hast never yet dared to do it, for fear thou mightest fail of thy engagement, do it now, in view of the promise Christ gives thee that His life will take the place of the old life. Try and realize that though self is not dead, thou art indeed dead to self. Self is still strong and living, but it has no poiver over thee. Thou, thy renewed nature — thou, thy new self, begotten again in Jesus Christ from the dead — art indeed dead to sin and alive to God. Thy death in Christ has freed thee completely from the control of self: it has no power over thee, except as thou, in ignorance, or nnwatchfulness, or nnbelief, consentest to yield to its usurped authority. Come and accept by faith simply and heartily the glorious position thou hast in Christ. As one who, in Christ, has a life dead to self, as one who is freed from the dominion of self, and has received His divine life to take place of self, to be the animating and inspiring principle of thy life, venture boldly to plant the foot upon the neck of this enemy of thine and thy Lord's. Be of good courage, only believe; fear not to take the irrevocable step, and to say that thou hast once for all given up self to the death for which it has been crucified in Christ {Ro?n, VI. 6). And trust Jesus the Crucified One to hold self to the cross, and to fill its place in thee with His own blessed resurrection life.
In this faith, abide in Christ! Cling to Him; rest on Him; hope on Him. Daily renew thy consecration; daily accept afresh thy position as ransomed from thy tyrant, and now in turn made a conqueror. Daily look with holy fear on the enemy, self, struggling to get free from the cross, seeking to allure thee into giving it some little liberty, or else ready to deceive thee by its profession of willingness now to do service to Christ. Remember, self seeking to serve God is more dangerous than self refusing obedience.
Look upon it with holy fear, and hide thyself in Christ: in Him alone is thy safety. Abide thus in Him; He has promised to abide in thee. He will teach thee to be humble and watchful. He will teach thee to be happy and trustful. Bring every interest of thy life, every power of thy nature, all the unceasing flow of thought, and will, and feeling, that makes up life, and trust Him to take the place that self once filled so easily and so naturally. Jesus Christ will indeed take possession of thee and dwell in thee; and in the restfulness and peace and grace of the new life thou shalt have unceasing joy at the wondrous exchange that has been made, — the coming out of self to abide in Christ alone.
In his work on ^' Sanctification,'* Marshall, in the twelfth chapter, on 'Holiness through faith alone,' puts with great force the danger in which the Christian IS of seeking sanctification in the power of the flesh, with the help of Christ, instead of looking for it to Cnrist alone, and receiving it from Him by faith. He reminds us how there are two natures in the believer, and so two ways of seeking holiness, according as we allow the principles of the one or other nature to guide us. The one is the carnal way, in which we put forth our utmost efforts and resolutions, trusting Christ to help us in doing so. The other the spiritual way, in which, as those who have died, and can do nothing, our one care is to receive Christ day by day, and at every step to let Him live and work in us.
^Despair of purging the flesh or natural man of its sinful lusts and inclinations, and of practising holiness by your willing and resolving to do the best that lieth 171 your own potver^ and trusting on the grace of God and Christ to help you in such resolutions and endeavours. Bather resolve to trust on Christ to work in you to will and to do hy His own power according to His own good pleasure. They that are convinced of their own sin and misery do commonly first think to tame the flesh, and to subdue and root out its lusts, and to make their corrupt nature to be better-natured and inclined to holiness iy their struggling and wrestlijig with it; and if they can but bring their hearts to a full purpose and resolution to do the best that lieth in them, they hope that by such a resolution they shall be able to achieve great enterprises in the conquests of their lusts and performance of the most difficult duties. It is the great work of some zealous divines in their preachings and writings to stir up people to this resolution^ wherein they place the chiefest turning-point from sin to godliness. And they think that this is not contrary to the life of faith, because they trust in the grace of God through Christ to help them in all such resolutions and endeavours. Thus they endeavour to reform their old state, and to be made perfect in the flesh, instead of putting it ofE and walking according to the new state in Christ. They trust on low carnal things for holiness, and upon the acts of their own will, their purposes, resolutionSj and endeavours, instead of Christ; and they trust to Christ to help them in this carnal way; whereas true faith would teach them that they are nothing, and that they do but labour in vain/*
* The Highway of Holiness. An Abridgment of the Gospel Mystery of Sanctiflcation, by Rev. W. Marshall, p. 58.
AS THE SURETY OF THE COVENANT.
OF the Old Covenant Scripture speaks as not being faultless, and God complains that Israel had not continued in it; and so He regarded them not {Hei. viii. 7-9). It had not secured its apparent object, in uniting Israel and God: Israel had forsaken Him, and He had not regarded Israel. Therefore God promises to make a New Covenant, free from the faults of the first, and effectual to realize its purposrf. If it were to accomplish its end, it would need to secure God's faithfulness to His people, and His people's faithfulness to God. And the terms of the New Covenant expressly declared that these two objects shall be attained. 'I will put my laws into their mind:' thus God proposes to secure their unchanging faithfulness to Him. *Their sins I will remember no more' (see Heb. viii, 10-12): thus He assures His unchanging faithfulness to them. A pardoning God and an obedient people: these are the two parties who are to meet and to be eternally united in the New Covenant.
The most beautiful provision of this New Covenant is that of the surety in whom its fulfilment on both parts is guaranteed. Jesus was made the surety of the better covenant. To man He became surety that God would faithfully fulfil His part, so that man could confidently depend upon God to pardon, and accept, and nevermore forsake. And to God He likewise became surety that man would faithfully fulfil his part, so that God could bestow on him the blessing of the covenant. And the way in which He fulfils His suretyship is this: As one with God, and having the fulness of God dwelling in His human nature. He is personally security to men that God will do what He has engaged. All that God has is secured to us in Him as man. And then, as one with us, and having taken us up as members into His own body. He is security to God that His interests shall be cared for. All that man must be and do is secured in Him. It is the glory of the New Covenant that it has in the person of the God-man its living surety, its everlasting security. And it can easily be understood how, in proportion as we abide in Him as the surety of the covenant, its objects and its blessings will be realized in us.
We shall understand this best if we consider it in the light of one of the promises of the New Covenant.
Take that in Jer. xxxii. Jfi: *I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that / will not turn away from them., to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that fhey shall not depart from me,'*
With what wonderful condescension the infinite God here bows Himself to our weakness! He is the Faithful and Unchanging One, whose word is truth; and yet more abundantly to show to the heirs of the promise the immutability of His counsel, He binds Himself in the covenant that He will never change: *I will make an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from them.' Blessed the man who has thoroughly appropriated this, and finds his rest in the everlasting covenant of the Faithful One!
But in a covenant there are two parties. And what if man becomes unfaithful and breaks the covenant? Provision must be made, if the covenant is to be well ordered in all things and sure, that this cannot be, and that man too remain faithful. Man never can undertake to give such an assurance. And see, here God comes to provide for this too. He not only undertakes in the covenant that He will never turn from His people, but also to put His fear in their heart, that they do not depart from Him. In addition to His own obligations as one of the covenanting parties, He undertakes for the other party too: 'I WILL CAUSE you to Walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them' {EzeJc. xxxvi.
7). Blessed the man who understands this half of the covenant too! He sees that his security is not in the covenant which he makes with his God, and which he would but continually break again. He jBnds that a covenant has been made, in which God stands good, not only for Himself, but for man too. He grasps the blessed truth that his part in the covenant is to accept what God has promised to do, and to expect the sure fulfilment of the Divine engagement to secure the faithfulness of His people to their God: 'I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. '
It is just here that the blessed work comes in of the surety of the covenant, appointed of the Father to see to its maintenance and perfect fulfilment. To Him the Father hath said, *I have given thee for a covenant of the people.' And the Holy Spirit testifies, *A11 the promises of God i^ Him are yea, and in Him are Amen, to the glory of God by us.' The believer who abides in Him hath a Divine assurance for the fulfilment of every promise the covenant ever gave.
Christ was made surety of a better testament. It is as our Melchisedec that Christ is surety (see Heh. vii.), Aaron and his sons passed away; of Christ it is witnessed that He liveth. He is priest in the power of an endless life. Because He continueth ever^ He hath an unchangeable priesthood. And because He ever Uvetli to make intercession, He can save to the uttermost, He can save completely. It is because Christ is the Ever-living One that His suretyship of the covenant is so effectual. He liveth ever to make intercession, and can therefore save completely. Every moment there rise up from His holy presence to the Father, the unceasing pleadings vrhich secure to His people the powers and the blessings of the heavenly life. And every moment there go out from Him downward to His people, the mighty influences of. His unceasing intercession, conveying to them uninterruptedly the power of the heavenly life. As surety with us for the Father's favour. He never ceases to pray and present us before Him; as surety with the Father for us. He never ceases to work, and reveal the Father within us.
The mystery of the Melchisedec priesthood, which the Hebrews were not able to receive {Hei, v. 10-lJi)^ is the mystery of the resurrection life. It is in this that the glory of Christ as surety of the covenant consists: He ever liveth. He performs His work in heaven in the power of a Divine and omnipotent life. He ever liveth to pray; not a moment that as surety His prayers do not rise Godward to secure the Father's fulfilment to us of the covenant. He performs His work on earth in the power of that same life; not a moment that His answered prayers — the powers of the heavenly world — do not flow downward to secure for His Father onr fulfilment of the covenant. In the eternal life there are no breaks, never a moment's interruption; each moment has the power of eternity in it. He ever, every moment, liveth to pray. He ever, every moment, liveth to bless. He can save to the uttermost, completely and perfectly, because He ever liveth to pray.
Believer! come and see here how the possibility of abiding in Jesus every moment is secured by the very nature of this ever-living priesthood of thy surety. Moment by moment, as His intercession rises up, its eflBcacy descends. And because Jesus stands good for the fulfilment of the covenant, — *I will put my fear in their heart, and they shall not depart from me,' — He cannot afEord to leave thee one single moment to thyself. He dare not do so, or He fails of His undertaking. Thy unbelief may fail of realizing the blessing; He cannot be unfaithful. If thou wilt but consider Him, and the power of that endless life after which He was made and is a High Priest, thy faith will rise to believe that an endless, ever-continuing, unchangeable life of abiding in Jesus, is nothing less than what is waiting thee.
It is as we see what Jesus is, and is to us, that the abiding in Him will become the natural and spontaneous result of our knowledge of Him. If His life unceasingly, moment by moment, rises to the Father for us, and descends to us from the Father, then to abide moment by moment is easy and simple. Each moment of conscious intercourse with Him we simply say, 'Jesus, surety, keeper, ever-living Saviour, in whose life I dwell, I abide in Thee.' Each moment of need, or darkness, or fear, we will say, '0 thou great High Priest, in the power of an endless, unchangeable life, I abide in Thee.' And for the moments when direct and distinct communion with Him must give place to needful occupations, we can trust His suretyship. His unceasing priesthood, in its Divine efficacy, and the power with which He saves to the uttermost, still to keep us abiding in Him.