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Even today a clear understanding of the Body of Christ is not fully comprehended among many, as seen in an insufficiency to differentiate it from all other systems, which even those attempting admixture of it with other systems, i.e. Judaism, Romanism and other religions. It is faith in the Lord Jesus that brings one into Christianity, and not the addition of any other doctrine. Good works have nothing to do towards being saved, because being saved is what effects good works.
Until Paul, the Jews didn’t know this was the beginning of Christ’s Body, the Church (Col 1:18; Eph 1:22, 23; 5:23; Col 1:24)! There will be a temporary millennial kingdom, with Christ and Christians ruling (Mat 19:28). At which expiration, eternity will be established with a new Heaven and a new Earth (Rev 21:1). Israel will inherit the new Earth and continue as God’s people, but no Fatherhood, for not believing in His Son; with the Christians inheriting the new Heaven, with Christ as the Head of the eternal Body and Church (Col 1:18)!
NC
The doctrine of the Church’s heavenly character was developed in all its power and beauty by the Holy Spirit in the Apostle Paul. Up to his time, and even during the early stages of his ministry, the divine purpose was to deal with Israel (“to the Jew first” - Rom 1:16; 2:9, 10). There had been all along a chain of witnesses, the object of Whose mission was exclusively the house of Israel (Mat 15:24). The prophets bore witness to Israel, not only concerning their complete failure (Deuteronomy 31:16-18; Isaiah 1:2-4; Jeremiah 2:13; Hosea 4:1-2; Amos 4:1-3; Ezekiel 16:30-32: 2 Kings 17:13-14), but also the future establishment of the kingdom agreeably to the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David. They spoke not of the Church as the Body of Christ. How could they, when it was still a profound mystery, “not revealed to the sons of men” (Eph 3:5)?
The thought of a Church composed of Jew and Gentile, “seated together in the heavenlies” (Eph 2:6), lay far beyond the range of prophetic testimony. Isaiah speaks in very elevated strains of Jerusalem’s glory in the latter day; he speaks of Gentiles coming to her light, and kings to the brightness of her rising (Isa 60:3); but he never ascends higher than the earthly kingdom. We may range through the inspired pages of the law and the prophets, from one end to the other, and we will find nothing concerning the “great mystery,” the Church (Eph 5:32).
In the ministry of John the Baptist we find the same thing. The sum and substance of his testimony was, “Repent, for the kingdom is at hand” (every time the word kingdom appears it’s in reference to the millennium kingdom on the old earth, not the new heaven—NC). Nothing of the Church—the kingdom is the highest thought. The Lord Jesus Himself then took up the chain of testimony. The prophets had been stoned; John had been beheaded; and now “the Faithful Witness” (Rev 1:5) enters the scene, and not only declared that the kingdom was at hand (Mat 4:17), but presented Himself to the daughter of Zion as her King. He too was rejected, and like previous witnesses, sealed His testimony with His Blood. Israel would not have God’s King, and God would not then give Israel the kingdom.
Next came the Apostles. Immediately after the resurrection they inquired of the Lord Jesus, “Wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” Their minds were filled with the thought of the kingdom. “We trusted,” said the two disciples going to Emmaus, “that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel (Luk 24:21).” The Lord does not rebuke the apostles for entering the thought of the kingdom: He simply tells them, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons” (Acts 1: 6, 7).
Peter, in his address to Israel in Acts 3 offers them the kingdom. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, and the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets since the world began.” It had always been the kingdom, and never the Church (for unbelieving Jews—NC)
The Church as seen in the opening of Acts exhibits but a sample of lovely grace and order, exquisite indeed in its way. In a word, it was still the kingdom, and not the great mystery of the Church. Those who think that the opening chapter of Acts presents the Church in its essential aspect have by no means reached the divine thought on the subject (there was a great deal more to reveal than what was introduced at its beginning).
Peter’s vision in Acts 10 is decidedly a step in advance of his preaching in Chapter 3. Still, however, the grand truth of the heavenly mystery was not yet unfolded. In the council held at Jerusalem (Acts 15) for the purpose of considering the question that had risen in reference to the Gentiles, we find the apostles all agreeing with James in the following conclusion:
“Simon (Peter) hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, “After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of man might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom My name is called, said the Lord, who doeth all these things” (Acts 15:14-17). Here we are taught that the Gentiles, as such, are to have a place with the Jews in the kingdom. But did the council at Jerusalem apprehend the truth of the Church, of Jews and Gentiles so truly formed in “one Body” that they are no more Jew or Gentile? A few members might have heard it from Paul (Gal 2:12), but as a whole they do not seem to have understood it.
The preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles by the mouth of Peter was not the development of the great mystery, the Church, but simply the opening of the kingdom, agreeable to the words of the prophets, and also to his commission in Matt 16: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Peter received and used those keys, first to open the kingdom to the Jew, and then to the Gentile. But he never received a commission to unfold the mystery of the Church. Even in his Epistles we find no word of it. He views believers on earth, having their hope in heaven and being on their way there, but never as the Body of Christ, seated there in Him (the Lord only mentioned the Church but did not expound on it - Mat 16:18—NC)
It was reserved for Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, to bring out, in the energy of the Holy Spirit, the mystery of the Church, the heavenly Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. To him was committed what he emphatically styles his Gospel (Rom 16:25; 2Tim 2:8). But he could not, even in the midst of the Church at Jerusalem, speak openly on this grand subject; not wanting to develop it prematurely, few having sufficient spiritual intelligence or largeness of mind to enter into it. His fears, as we know, were well grounded. There were few in Jerusalem who were at all prepared for Paul’s gospel. Even some years later we find James, prominent in the leadership of the Church of Jerusalem, inducing Paul to purify himself and shave his head according to the law. What was this for? Just to prevent a breakup of the earthly Jewish religion.
“Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: And they are informed of thee that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? The multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law” (Act 21:20-24). Here then, we have abundant proof of the fact that the great mystery was not understood and would not be received by the Church at Jerusalem.
Sad to say, Paul acceded to James’ Jewish wishes (“unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law” - 1Co 9:20). Later, when Paul returned again to Jerusalem, after being warned by the Spirit to refrain (Act 21:4), the very thing that James dreaded and sought to avoid came upon them: an uproar was raised, and Paul was delivered over into the hands of the Gentiles. The Lord would send Paul to the Gentiles (Gal 2:7, 8) and if he would not go as a free man, then he must go as an “ambassador in bonds.” He could say, however, that it was for “the hope of Israel that he was bound with this chain” (Act 28:20). If his heart had not longed so after Israel, he might have escaped the bonds. He rendered Israel without excuse, and he himself became a prisoner and a martyr.
Both as free, and in bonds, Paul insisted upon seeking out “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” persistently offering them, in the first place (Rom 1:16), “the salvation of God,” But, consistently, “they agreed not among themselves,” and at last Paul was constrained to say, “Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it” (Acts 28:25-28).
Thus closes the Acts of the Apostles, which, like the gospels is predominantly connected with the testimony of Israel. So long as Israel could be regarded as the object of testimony, so long the testimony continued; but when they were shut up to the judicial blindness, they cease to come within the range of testimony, wherefore the testimony ceased and was offered to the Gentiles. Enter Romans.
Now let us see what this “mystery,” this “Gospel,” this “salvation” really was, and where its peculiarity consisted. It was not so much in reference to God’s way of dealing with the sinner as with the saint; it was not so much in how God justified a sinner as what He did with him when justified. It was the position into which Paul’s Gospel conducted the saint that marked its peculiarity: into the Body of the glorified Lord Jesus Christ, rather than into His earthly kingdom. As regards the justification of a sinner, there could be but one way, namely, through faith in the one offering of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross.
A saint in the opening of Acts had higher privileges than a saint under the Law. Moses, the prophets and John the Baptist, our Lord in His personal ministry (Jesus ministry was only to the Jews, thus all were taught via the Twelve - Mat 15:24), all brought out various aspects of the believer’s position before God. But Paul’s gospel went far beyond them all. It was not the kingdom offered to Israel on the ground of repentance, as by the Baptist and our Lord (if Israel repented at that time, the kingdom would have begun then, but it would still be on the earth until the new earth—NC); nor was it the kingdom opened to the Jew and Gentile by Peter in Acts 3 and 10; but it was the heavenly calling of the Church of God composed of Jew and Gentile, in one Body, united to a glorified Lord Jesus Christ by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
The Epistle to the Ephesians fully develops the mystery of the will of God concerning this. There we find ample instruction as to our heavenly position. Paul does not contemplate the believer as a pilgrim on earth but as sitting in heaven: not as toiling here, but as resting There. “He hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6). This in the counsel of God, is to be actualized in the process of time by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.
But it may be asked, how can believers be said to be seated in heavenly places when they are yet in the world, experiencing its difficulties, its sorrows and temptations? The same questions may be asked in reference to the vital doctrines of Romans Six: How can believers be represented as dead to sin when they find sin working in them continually? The answer to both is one and the same.
The Father sees the believer as having died unto sin with the Lord Jesus, and He also sees him as raised with and seated in the Lord Jesus in glory; but it is the province of faith in those truths to lead the believer into the reality of both. Reckon yourselves to be what the Father says you are (Ro 6:12). The believer’s freedom from the “reign” of indwelling sin consists in his reckoning himself dead to it, coupled with his reckoning himself to be raised and seated with the Lord Jesus before the Father.
We must never forget that every tendency of the human mind (carnal mind—NC) not only falls short of, but stands actually opposed to all this divine truth about the Church. We have seen how long it was before man could take hold of it, how it was forced out, as it were, and pressed upon him (Mat 11:12); and we have only to glance at the history of the Church for the last nineteen centuries to see how feebly it was held and how speedily it was let go. The heart naturally clings to the earth, and the thought of an earthly corporation is attractive to it.
It is not to be supposed that the Protestant Reformers exercised their thoughts on this momentous subject (spiritual growth—NC). They were made instrumental in bringing out the priceless doctrine of justification by faith from amid the rubbish of Romanish superstition (Roman Catholic doctrines—NC), and also in letting in upon the human conscience the light of inspiration in opposition to the false and ensnaring dogmas of human tradition (e.g. “teachings of men” - Mat 15:9). This was doing not a little; yet it must be admitted that the position and hopes of the Church engaged not much of their attention (The majority of Christians are not as concerned as they should be concerning spiritual growth matters—NC).
It would have been a bold step from the church of Rome to the Church of God; and yet it will be found in the end that there is not distinct different ground between the two; for every Church, or, to speak more accurately, every “religious” denomination, reared up and carried on by the wisdom and resources of man, be its principle ever so pure and ever so hostile to Catholicism, when judged by the Word of God, to partake more or less of the element of the Romish system—the usurper of Judaism.
Hence those who will maintain Paul’s gospel will find themselves, like Christ, deserted and despised amid the splendid pomp and glitter of the world. The clashing of ecclesiastical systems, jarring of sects, and the din of religious controversy, will surely drown the voices of those who would speak of the heavenly calling and rapture of the Church.
But let the spiritual believer who finds himself in the midst of all this heart-sickening confusion remember the following simple principle: Every system of ecclesiastical discipline, and every system of prophetic interpretation, which would connect the Church in any one way with the world, or things of the world, must be contrary to the spirit and principles of the great mystery (the Church is the Body of Christ—NC) developed by the Holy Spirit in the Apostle Paul to the Gentiles. “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His” (2Tim 2:19).
— Charles Henry Mackintosh (1820-1896)
MJS daily devotional for February 13
“The great secret of the Christian life is found in ceasing from self, in which the power of the Cross manifests itself in us (the “old man” is still on the Cross yelling orders” - Rom 6:6—NC). We all know how our Lord Jesus, ere He could receive the new life from the Father in glory, and the gift of the Holy Spirit through whom He could impart His life to His people, had first to give up the life He lived upon earth. He had to take His place among the dead in utter weakness and helplessness before He could live again by the power of God. His death on the Cross was indispensable to the life of the Spirit.
“And as it was with Christ, so it must be with us. As we yield ourselves to be united with Him in the likeness of His death, we can share with Him in the glory and power of the life of the Spirit. To know what the Holy Spirit means, implies the knowing of what death means. The Cross and the Spirit are inseparable. The soul that understands that the death to self is in Christ the gate to true life, is in the right way to learn what and who the Holy Spirit is.” -Andrew Murray (1828-1917)
Until Paul, the Jews didn’t know this was the beginning of Christ’s Body, the Church (Col 1:18; Eph 1:22, 23; 5:23; Col 1:24)! There will be a temporary millennial kingdom, with Christ and Christians ruling (Mat 19:28). At which expiration, eternity will be established with a new Heaven and a new Earth (Rev 21:1). Israel will inherit the new Earth and continue as God’s people, but no Fatherhood, for not believing in His Son; with the Christians inheriting the new Heaven, with Christ as the Head of the eternal Body and Church (Col 1:18)!
NC
Paul and Christianity
The doctrine of the Church’s heavenly character was developed in all its power and beauty by the Holy Spirit in the Apostle Paul. Up to his time, and even during the early stages of his ministry, the divine purpose was to deal with Israel (“to the Jew first” - Rom 1:16; 2:9, 10). There had been all along a chain of witnesses, the object of Whose mission was exclusively the house of Israel (Mat 15:24). The prophets bore witness to Israel, not only concerning their complete failure (Deuteronomy 31:16-18; Isaiah 1:2-4; Jeremiah 2:13; Hosea 4:1-2; Amos 4:1-3; Ezekiel 16:30-32: 2 Kings 17:13-14), but also the future establishment of the kingdom agreeably to the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David. They spoke not of the Church as the Body of Christ. How could they, when it was still a profound mystery, “not revealed to the sons of men” (Eph 3:5)?
The thought of a Church composed of Jew and Gentile, “seated together in the heavenlies” (Eph 2:6), lay far beyond the range of prophetic testimony. Isaiah speaks in very elevated strains of Jerusalem’s glory in the latter day; he speaks of Gentiles coming to her light, and kings to the brightness of her rising (Isa 60:3); but he never ascends higher than the earthly kingdom. We may range through the inspired pages of the law and the prophets, from one end to the other, and we will find nothing concerning the “great mystery,” the Church (Eph 5:32).
In the ministry of John the Baptist we find the same thing. The sum and substance of his testimony was, “Repent, for the kingdom is at hand” (every time the word kingdom appears it’s in reference to the millennium kingdom on the old earth, not the new heaven—NC). Nothing of the Church—the kingdom is the highest thought. The Lord Jesus Himself then took up the chain of testimony. The prophets had been stoned; John had been beheaded; and now “the Faithful Witness” (Rev 1:5) enters the scene, and not only declared that the kingdom was at hand (Mat 4:17), but presented Himself to the daughter of Zion as her King. He too was rejected, and like previous witnesses, sealed His testimony with His Blood. Israel would not have God’s King, and God would not then give Israel the kingdom.
Next came the Apostles. Immediately after the resurrection they inquired of the Lord Jesus, “Wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” Their minds were filled with the thought of the kingdom. “We trusted,” said the two disciples going to Emmaus, “that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel (Luk 24:21).” The Lord does not rebuke the apostles for entering the thought of the kingdom: He simply tells them, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons” (Acts 1: 6, 7).
Peter, in his address to Israel in Acts 3 offers them the kingdom. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, and the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets since the world began.” It had always been the kingdom, and never the Church (for unbelieving Jews—NC)
The Church as seen in the opening of Acts exhibits but a sample of lovely grace and order, exquisite indeed in its way. In a word, it was still the kingdom, and not the great mystery of the Church. Those who think that the opening chapter of Acts presents the Church in its essential aspect have by no means reached the divine thought on the subject (there was a great deal more to reveal than what was introduced at its beginning).
Peter’s vision in Acts 10 is decidedly a step in advance of his preaching in Chapter 3. Still, however, the grand truth of the heavenly mystery was not yet unfolded. In the council held at Jerusalem (Acts 15) for the purpose of considering the question that had risen in reference to the Gentiles, we find the apostles all agreeing with James in the following conclusion:
“Simon (Peter) hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, “After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of man might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom My name is called, said the Lord, who doeth all these things” (Acts 15:14-17). Here we are taught that the Gentiles, as such, are to have a place with the Jews in the kingdom. But did the council at Jerusalem apprehend the truth of the Church, of Jews and Gentiles so truly formed in “one Body” that they are no more Jew or Gentile? A few members might have heard it from Paul (Gal 2:12), but as a whole they do not seem to have understood it.
The preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles by the mouth of Peter was not the development of the great mystery, the Church, but simply the opening of the kingdom, agreeable to the words of the prophets, and also to his commission in Matt 16: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Peter received and used those keys, first to open the kingdom to the Jew, and then to the Gentile. But he never received a commission to unfold the mystery of the Church. Even in his Epistles we find no word of it. He views believers on earth, having their hope in heaven and being on their way there, but never as the Body of Christ, seated there in Him (the Lord only mentioned the Church but did not expound on it - Mat 16:18—NC)
It was reserved for Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, to bring out, in the energy of the Holy Spirit, the mystery of the Church, the heavenly Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. To him was committed what he emphatically styles his Gospel (Rom 16:25; 2Tim 2:8). But he could not, even in the midst of the Church at Jerusalem, speak openly on this grand subject; not wanting to develop it prematurely, few having sufficient spiritual intelligence or largeness of mind to enter into it. His fears, as we know, were well grounded. There were few in Jerusalem who were at all prepared for Paul’s gospel. Even some years later we find James, prominent in the leadership of the Church of Jerusalem, inducing Paul to purify himself and shave his head according to the law. What was this for? Just to prevent a breakup of the earthly Jewish religion.
“Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: And they are informed of thee that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? The multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law” (Act 21:20-24). Here then, we have abundant proof of the fact that the great mystery was not understood and would not be received by the Church at Jerusalem.
Sad to say, Paul acceded to James’ Jewish wishes (“unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law” - 1Co 9:20). Later, when Paul returned again to Jerusalem, after being warned by the Spirit to refrain (Act 21:4), the very thing that James dreaded and sought to avoid came upon them: an uproar was raised, and Paul was delivered over into the hands of the Gentiles. The Lord would send Paul to the Gentiles (Gal 2:7, 8) and if he would not go as a free man, then he must go as an “ambassador in bonds.” He could say, however, that it was for “the hope of Israel that he was bound with this chain” (Act 28:20). If his heart had not longed so after Israel, he might have escaped the bonds. He rendered Israel without excuse, and he himself became a prisoner and a martyr.
Both as free, and in bonds, Paul insisted upon seeking out “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” persistently offering them, in the first place (Rom 1:16), “the salvation of God,” But, consistently, “they agreed not among themselves,” and at last Paul was constrained to say, “Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it” (Acts 28:25-28).
Thus closes the Acts of the Apostles, which, like the gospels is predominantly connected with the testimony of Israel. So long as Israel could be regarded as the object of testimony, so long the testimony continued; but when they were shut up to the judicial blindness, they cease to come within the range of testimony, wherefore the testimony ceased and was offered to the Gentiles. Enter Romans.
Now let us see what this “mystery,” this “Gospel,” this “salvation” really was, and where its peculiarity consisted. It was not so much in reference to God’s way of dealing with the sinner as with the saint; it was not so much in how God justified a sinner as what He did with him when justified. It was the position into which Paul’s Gospel conducted the saint that marked its peculiarity: into the Body of the glorified Lord Jesus Christ, rather than into His earthly kingdom. As regards the justification of a sinner, there could be but one way, namely, through faith in the one offering of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross.
A saint in the opening of Acts had higher privileges than a saint under the Law. Moses, the prophets and John the Baptist, our Lord in His personal ministry (Jesus ministry was only to the Jews, thus all were taught via the Twelve - Mat 15:24), all brought out various aspects of the believer’s position before God. But Paul’s gospel went far beyond them all. It was not the kingdom offered to Israel on the ground of repentance, as by the Baptist and our Lord (if Israel repented at that time, the kingdom would have begun then, but it would still be on the earth until the new earth—NC); nor was it the kingdom opened to the Jew and Gentile by Peter in Acts 3 and 10; but it was the heavenly calling of the Church of God composed of Jew and Gentile, in one Body, united to a glorified Lord Jesus Christ by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
The Epistle to the Ephesians fully develops the mystery of the will of God concerning this. There we find ample instruction as to our heavenly position. Paul does not contemplate the believer as a pilgrim on earth but as sitting in heaven: not as toiling here, but as resting There. “He hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6). This in the counsel of God, is to be actualized in the process of time by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.
But it may be asked, how can believers be said to be seated in heavenly places when they are yet in the world, experiencing its difficulties, its sorrows and temptations? The same questions may be asked in reference to the vital doctrines of Romans Six: How can believers be represented as dead to sin when they find sin working in them continually? The answer to both is one and the same.
The Father sees the believer as having died unto sin with the Lord Jesus, and He also sees him as raised with and seated in the Lord Jesus in glory; but it is the province of faith in those truths to lead the believer into the reality of both. Reckon yourselves to be what the Father says you are (Ro 6:12). The believer’s freedom from the “reign” of indwelling sin consists in his reckoning himself dead to it, coupled with his reckoning himself to be raised and seated with the Lord Jesus before the Father.
We must never forget that every tendency of the human mind (carnal mind—NC) not only falls short of, but stands actually opposed to all this divine truth about the Church. We have seen how long it was before man could take hold of it, how it was forced out, as it were, and pressed upon him (Mat 11:12); and we have only to glance at the history of the Church for the last nineteen centuries to see how feebly it was held and how speedily it was let go. The heart naturally clings to the earth, and the thought of an earthly corporation is attractive to it.
It is not to be supposed that the Protestant Reformers exercised their thoughts on this momentous subject (spiritual growth—NC). They were made instrumental in bringing out the priceless doctrine of justification by faith from amid the rubbish of Romanish superstition (Roman Catholic doctrines—NC), and also in letting in upon the human conscience the light of inspiration in opposition to the false and ensnaring dogmas of human tradition (e.g. “teachings of men” - Mat 15:9). This was doing not a little; yet it must be admitted that the position and hopes of the Church engaged not much of their attention (The majority of Christians are not as concerned as they should be concerning spiritual growth matters—NC).
It would have been a bold step from the church of Rome to the Church of God; and yet it will be found in the end that there is not distinct different ground between the two; for every Church, or, to speak more accurately, every “religious” denomination, reared up and carried on by the wisdom and resources of man, be its principle ever so pure and ever so hostile to Catholicism, when judged by the Word of God, to partake more or less of the element of the Romish system—the usurper of Judaism.
Hence those who will maintain Paul’s gospel will find themselves, like Christ, deserted and despised amid the splendid pomp and glitter of the world. The clashing of ecclesiastical systems, jarring of sects, and the din of religious controversy, will surely drown the voices of those who would speak of the heavenly calling and rapture of the Church.
But let the spiritual believer who finds himself in the midst of all this heart-sickening confusion remember the following simple principle: Every system of ecclesiastical discipline, and every system of prophetic interpretation, which would connect the Church in any one way with the world, or things of the world, must be contrary to the spirit and principles of the great mystery (the Church is the Body of Christ—NC) developed by the Holy Spirit in the Apostle Paul to the Gentiles. “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His” (2Tim 2:19).
— Charles Henry Mackintosh (1820-1896)
MJS daily devotional for February 13
“The great secret of the Christian life is found in ceasing from self, in which the power of the Cross manifests itself in us (the “old man” is still on the Cross yelling orders” - Rom 6:6—NC). We all know how our Lord Jesus, ere He could receive the new life from the Father in glory, and the gift of the Holy Spirit through whom He could impart His life to His people, had first to give up the life He lived upon earth. He had to take His place among the dead in utter weakness and helplessness before He could live again by the power of God. His death on the Cross was indispensable to the life of the Spirit.
“And as it was with Christ, so it must be with us. As we yield ourselves to be united with Him in the likeness of His death, we can share with Him in the glory and power of the life of the Spirit. To know what the Holy Spirit means, implies the knowing of what death means. The Cross and the Spirit are inseparable. The soul that understands that the death to self is in Christ the gate to true life, is in the right way to learn what and who the Holy Spirit is.” -Andrew Murray (1828-1917)
