Page images
PDF
EPUB

the day breaketh." But Jacob answers, "I will not let Thee go!" Mark the immediate revival of Jacob, the defeated one. He, the defeated, disabled, powerless one, the out-of-joint one,-helpless in the hands of God's grace! It is of him God begs, it is to him God cries, "Let me go! You have me now, Jacob! I cannot go unless you give me leave!" Friends, it is the disabled ones who have God in their power! the broken out-of-joint ones who can claim Him. It is like a father returning home, and all the hearty, strong children run out with vigorous limbs, and eager bound. And the father greets them all with love; but within, there is a cripple child, a poor broken one, who cannot run out with the others, and the father comes in with his firm, steady step, and goes straight over to his poor broken child, saying, "I come to thee, my child! Thou art not able to come out to me, but I come and give myself to thee. I take thee up in the arms of my strength. All mine is thine now. Thou art no more disabled and helpless, for all the power of God is thine!" I speak because I know that it is thus that God deals with His broken child. How was Jacob brought from the place of defeat, into the place of desperation? By a giving body, and a going God. God going stirred him to desperate faith, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me." The desperation of faith is Divine faith. When everything else is abandoned, and with both arms you give yourself to Him, and cling only to Him, this is Divine faith, Divine despair. "Let me go! Thou sayest? Nay, I will not let Thee go!" "I will not!"-Strong words from the poor, disabled, out-of-joint one! The Lord had His reward now, when He heard it, for this was what He meant. When He makes as though He would go, further, it is that His children may constrain Him to tarry with them. You notice this in His words, "Let me go, for the day breaketh." The very word speaks encouragement. It is as much as to say, "Day is breaking-is it possible you can let me go, Jacob Help is coming, dawn is at hand, the victory is near!"-" Nay, my Lord, I will not let Thee go, for to Thee only I look. Disable me as Thou pleasest, dislodge me Thou canst not, Thou shalt not!" The blessing is near now. It is when we are shut up to this, to expect only from Him; when we are brought to the point of waiting wholly upon Him-when our own hope is gone, our own strength has failed, and everything has given way, so

that we are brought to depend only upon God, then we are close to the place of blessing. When our self-will is brought down, our power of resistance broken, and we are utterly out of joint so that we can wrestle no more, then we fall right over upon God, and we cling because we cannot claim. Then we prevail, as Jacob did, not by the strength of his wrestling, but by the weakness of his clinging; not by muscular strength of limb, but by the adhesive power of faith's arms and the hungry hands of prayer; crippled he clings, unhinged he hangs. The touch of of the cross is the first touch of kingly power.

Have you held God thus in solitude, in the dark? Have you clung to Him in desperation, and said to Him, "I will not let Thee go?" You did cling so once, at the beginning of your Christian life, when you were first brought to God. Was it not when you were brought to the end of yourself, that you abandoned everything and accepted the Blood for your justification? It is just the same in the matter of sanctification. It is when you find you no power left, when you are utterly drained out after ten long days' waiting, as at Pentecost, it may be, then you take yourself to God, and are made strong by His strength. This is one of the main principles through Scripture, the Old Testament is the book of the strong made weak, and the New Testament is the book of the weak made strong.

have

[ocr errors]

IV. There is another room still. The place of confession: for Jacob is not low enough yet for the blessing. Not only must he be brought into the place of solitude, the place of defeat, the place of desperation, but now there is reached the place of confession; and now God saith to poor broken-limbed Jacob-defeated, desperate Jacob, clinging to Him by the invisible hand of faith-" What is thy name? The answer was not merely as we read it in English, "Jacob." It was as though he said—“ My name is The Dishonest Supplanter." When he gave his name, he expressed the character of his life, for the Jew wore the secret of his life in his name (and we find this custom running over into the New Testament), and when he answered " Jacob," he said in it 'I am that false forger, the supplanter, the sinful one, deceitful, designing Jacob." This is what He does before He fully blesses. He brings us into the place of confession. He is that wondrous Lord who draws out of us what we are, extracts our shame from our own lips. Like that poor woman who pressed up to Him and drew virtue out of Him

[ocr errors]

by her touch, she was slipping away silently, but He recalled her, and by His look He drew out of her "all the truth," "for what cause she had touched Him." And I believe that it is because the Church is so behind-hand in this most needful and blessed exercise of confession, that she has so little sense of forgiveness. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Many a soul is festering in the dark because he will not confess. He sees the sin, he knows the sin, but he will not come to the point of confessing in distinct words, not only that he is a poor broken sinner in general, but that he has failed in this and that definite particular.

66

V. There is something still further. The next room (the darkest of all) is the place of death. "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel." Jacob is no more; he is gone; he is dead; buried by the hand of God. Oh, how blessed it would be if this were true in each of our lives! And it is what God intends; it is what the Epistles dwell on so strongly. I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." "Ye are not your own." "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin;" therefore mortify your members daily, and let mortification set in now. When Jacob left Jabbok, how would he act? Surely he would think, "I am Jacob no more, no more Jacob. I am Israel. I reckon my old self dead." And just as he ignored Jacob, Israel the prince would prevail. This is denying self. But you say, "It is so easy in theory, but so difficult in practice." Precisely so. But you must begin in theory and then go on to practice. They are very close. "Reckon yourselves dead; mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." Having put yourselves into the place of death, keep yourselves there in all definite cases of daily detail as they arise. If here now you accept the place of death, when you leave the room, and come into practical dealings with others, there will be plenty of use for the "theory." Contradicted or opposed, you will say, "I am dead." You cannot permit your appetites to rise as before. "I am dead, Jacob no more, Israel now." No more Jacob, planning in his own strength, full of power, to get his own ends in his own way; no more Jacob, full of prayers for blessing, even blessed as they are, but Israel for ever; a broken one, given away to God; so broken that you cannot keep out God anywhere

any more.

Blessed funeral where Jacob dies, and God Himself alone buries him!

Then see the sequel. "As a prince hast thou power with God, and with men, and hast prevailed." Here is the Resurrection Israel, risen from the dark tomb of Jacob. Like the grub, dull and unsightly, only able to crawl, which, wrapt in its own chrysalisshroud, dies, and lo, there emerges a beautiful butterfly-a thing of life that soars aloft in God's free air and sunshine, with spirit wings all glowing and diamonded with the breathing hues and heraldries of heaven. And so the "worm Jacob" is transformed into winged Israel. The prince Israel has risen from the ashes of dead Jacob. There is no power he has not now, he prevails both with God and man, far behind indeed, yet after the image of the Divine Israel to whom all power is given in earth and heaven.

This is the way to arrive at "the place of blessing." He calls you ever down, down these dark stairs, until you reach the place of death, and then He calls you forth from your grave, "Lazarus, come forth!" and the living Israel comes forth from dead Jacob, a risen man, a new creation, a servant of God now, but self's servant no more!

Jacob has yet

VI. But there is one step further. to know something deeper still. "And Jacob asked Him, and said, Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name. And He said, Wherefore is it thou dost ask after My name?" He had passed through death and resurrection, now he has come to the place of unsupported faith; the most magnificent place in all the universe of God; the place of boundless wealth, where all the riches of God are at our disposal. "Wherefore is it thou dost ask after my name?" Jacob has to go forth without knowing. We must walk by faith, not by sight; our life is to be a literal faith-life. Many who have been brought thus far are trying to see the faith by which they came. They know what it is to have been brought low by the touch of God, they have been buried with Christ, they know many things of death and resurrection, they have confessed like Jacob, “I am the false forger," and they know what it is to have been made a prince with God; but now they want to see who it is who has been doing all this with them; they want to see their faith. Nay, my friend, you began right by faith-live on fully by faith. Through every dark difficulty, through every unsolved problem, believe your way upward, by

unsupported faith, and the victory shall be yours; for "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."

VII. Now read the next words: "He blessed him THERE." Now he has got that which all his life long he has been looking for, the splendid secret of the blessing. Now he has that for which he acted falsely at the instigation of his mother. This is the burden he has borne all his life. How would he think? "I, Jacob, blessed by God, I who have seen God's shining ladder set up from earth to heaven at my very feet, the outcast at one end, Jehovah at the other; I, who have seen heaven opened and the angels travelling up and down, nothing between me and it but the Mediator Christ; I who could climb the heights of Deity by the wounded Christ, I blessed like this, and yet unblessed! Why is it?" "Jacob, I have more to show you yet." God says to him, and to every Jacob here, to every stealer of blessing without a surrendered will and life, every dishonest appropriator of the promises of God, every purloiner of mercy without amendment, "Follow me through these dark rooms. Follow me first into the place of solitude and darkness, and through that into the place of defeat. Follow me again into the place of desperation, and you will find that it opens into the place of confession, and this will further lead you into the silent room of death. Then rise at my Voice and follow me into the dewy garden of resurrection, and now stand at the spot of unsupported faith. Thou art ready now, Jacob; thou art fit for My blessing now. I bless thee HERE!"

"And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." God called him down these six dark deep steps, and now this is the place He brings him to, the place of seeing God, Peniel, the Face of God. The blessing is given, then he sees Him face to face. He had been to Bethel, the House of God; he had been to Mahanaim, and had seen the hosts of God;" but he had never seen Him as now he sees Him. He lives by death now; he sees God by death. "No man shall see my face and live," so he dies and sees Him. Jacob is dead, it is the birthday of Israel now, and as he passes over Peniel "the sun rose upon him," the dawn of the glad bright resurrection day. As the great sun leapt out upon him on the plain from below the ridge of the far horizon a new day began, a new life for ever was

before him, to be lived by unsupported faith alone, by believing his way through every obstacle. A new day had indeed dawned, "the clear shining after rain"; a new path, even the path of the just, shining more and more unto the perfect day.

"He halted upon his thigh." He bears the mark of the Hand of God upon him henceforth. He lives by death. Like the risen Lord he bears the death marks evermore. It must be so. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our body." "Always bearing about the dying," that is our side. The other side is God's, and when we do our part the full torrent of life from Him shall rush in and fill every thirsty crevice of our being. It is for this reason they eat not of the sinew that shrank unto this day. God would keep us always in the place of death. God would erect a danger signal in the neighbourhood of every besetting sin. Thus God blesses; thus He fulfils His promises of blessing; may He thus bless every broken, defeated child of His here to-day.

[ocr errors]

"Lame as I am, I take the prey,

Heaven, earth, and hell with ease o'ercome,

I leap for joy, pursue my way,

And as a bounding hart fly homeThrough all eternity to prove,

Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love!"

LORD, speak to me, that I may speak
In living echoes of Thy tone;
As Thou hast sought, so let me seek
Thy erring children lost and lone.
"Oh use me, Lord, use even me,

Just as Thou wilt, and when, and where ; Until Thy blessèd face I see,

Thy rest, Thy joy, Thy glory share. "No service in itself is small,

None great, though earth it fill;
But that is small that seeks its own,
And great that seeks God's will.
"Then hold my hand, most gracious Lord,
Guide all my goings still;
And let this be my life's one aim,
To do, or bear, Thy will."

CHRIST CRUCIFIED.

PART II.-CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST.

BY PASTEUR THEODORE MONOD.

N.B.-It is of importance that the passages not given in full should be read in full, at the points in the Addresses where they occur.

In speaking of "Christ Crucified" we were reminded of the manner in which the Apostle Paul preached to the Galatians-a manner so vivid that he was able to write to them afterwards that Jesus Christ had been openly set forth, crucified before their eyes. In the same Epistle we find these words: "I through the law died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Gal. ii. 19, 20, R.V.)

To have the Revised Version in our hands makes this whole subject wonderfully clear. We have not to stop every moment and say, "The translation says this, but the text correctly translated says that; " which sounds to some as though we said, "The Bible says this, but I say that." But here we have what the Bible does say. Paul writes: "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live." What can it mean? We understand that Christ was crucified, but how can another man have been crucified with Christ? Why, my dear friends, every time we say, "Christ died for me," we say that very thing. We mean that, in the sight of God, everyone who believes in Christ is identified with Christ; so real is the oneness- between the Lord and the believer that God uses every possible comparison to make us understand it-as, for instance, the bridegroom and the bride, the vine and the branch, the body and the head, Christ and His people one. So that His death is our death, and His life our life.

And that is true, observe, first of all, as regards forgiveness. It is because Christ took our place, took us into Himself, as it were, upon the cross, that we are forgiven, that we escape in Him and through Him from the penalty of the law. Of course this would have no meaning at all if Christ was not "God manifest in the flesh;" I admit that. But He is God manifest in the flesh, therefore He could sum up in Himself the sinners for which He came to die. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself."

and

Let us look a little further into the subject; of course we have nothing to do but inquire what the Scriptures say. In 2 Cor. v. we read, "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." (R.V.) Now here is the new life

the resurrection-life. There is not a Christian in the world who does not admit that we no longer live unto ourselves, but unto Him who, for our sakes, died and rose again. How are we going to do it? In this way: by believing what we are told here— that One died for all, and therefore all died. Not "therefore, all were dead," or "all ought to die," but "therefore, all died." The Apostle begins with a matter of fact.

Let us go on, and it will become plainer still. "Therefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh; even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more. Wherefore if any man is in Christ he is a new creature." (2 Cor. v. 16, 17, R.V.) He knows nobody after the flesh-that is, on the old or natural platform. He has gone over, as it were, because of the death of Christ, into another country; he lives in another atmosphere. And the Apostle adds that what is true of himself is true of anybody. "If any man is in Christ there is a new creation (marg.); the old things are passed away: behold they are become new."

"But all things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ," &c. Mark what comes next: "We are ambassadors, therefore, on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God." Now listen to this, not as to an address, but as the Word of God to you; you will have enough if you just take to heart these words-" HIM WHO KNEW NO SIN, HE MADE TO BE SIN ON OURr behalf, THAT WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM." Here there is, first, a fact stated-the thing that God has done. Second, there is an entreaty on the Apostle's part, or rather on God's part through the Apostle, that they should take hold of that fact and turn it into an experience. Since God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, therefore every man in the world should take hold of that reconciliation as his very own, and be reconciled to God. As Christ tasted death for every man, so every man should receive that gift of

God in Christ, and not remain exposed to the wrath of God.

Now, in this subject of being crucified with Christ, we find exactly the same order. First, it is a fact, that if One died for all, therefore all died. What is the inference? Shall we say then, as regards our salvation, "We have nothing to do; it is all right; we have all died to sin"? We might as well say, "Since God reconciled the world unto Himself, we have nothing to do." We have to receive and take hold of the message. In fact, the Apostle gives an example of how that truth ought to be treated, in the chapter that was read to us: "If then ye were raised together with Christ seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When, Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory." (Col. iii. 1-4, R.V.) See how complete the identification between Christ and the believer. Christ died, therefore you died; Christ rose, He is hidden in God, He will be manifested: so with you. What | is the conclusion? "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the carth."

What are we to do to take possession of this inestimable gift of God? First of all, is it a second gift of God? It is not a second gift of God in one sense ;-for there are not two Christs. But this is true, that we are slow to understand, and more slow to consent. Nobody wants to go to perdition; but many are not yet willing yet to die unto sin. Therefore, we find it much easier to understand those promises that speak to us of being forgiven, than those that speak of being crucified, and thereby sanctified.

What, then, are the conditions? The first condition is to wish for it. Let me speak of conversion by way of illustration. No man is converted to God who has not some desire to have his sins forgiven, who has not begun to feel that he is a sinner, and wishes to be at peace. Secondly, you have to believe what God says on the subject. No man can be converted unless he believes what God says about the death of Christ. But thirdly, you have to consent, which is still another thing. Many want to have peace, and they believe what the Bible says about peace, but it humbles them too much to receive peace and forgiveness as an absolute gift of the free grace of God-to be converted as paupers. They must bring something in their hands. As long as they do so they cannot have peace. They must come to this

Now, do you not see that we have just to go over the very same road that we have travelled once "I am a poor sinner, and nothing at all," before? We have to take hold of what the Word before they will consent to say—

of God tells us: in that way we shall in very deed be "crucified with Christ." What is a fact in the purpose of God will become a fact in our own experience.

But the central passage on this subject is Rom. vi. There we read: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" (Read to end of verse 10.) See the argument. No one questions that Christ died once unto sin, and that He lives for ever unto God. "Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus." Now surely, brethren, we need hardly add any words to these. I am honestly afraid to add anything, lest I should make obscure what is so perfectly clear. It is the explanations that are hard to understand, not the passage itself. There it is: God has done all in Christ for you; if He has done it, take hold of it; reckon yourselves to have died with Christ unto sin, and to be alive in Christ unto God.

"But Jesus Christ is my all in all."

When they do that, they have taken the first stepnamely, to trust themselves to Christ, to be forgiven and to be saved.

It is exactly the same with reference to this matter of our evil nature. What are we to do with it? First, we must desire to escape from its bondage. Do we desire it? That is a fair question. There is a great deal in our evil nature that is agreeable to the natural man; if it were not, everybody would be converted at once. But man loves sin. He loves darkness better than light. And as long as there is not an honest desire to escape from the dominion of sin, there can be no true sanctification or deliverance.

In the next place, we must believe what the Bible says about this deliverance. Do we believe it? Have we looked at it again and again till we were obliged to believe it? or do we explain it away, so as to leave freedom for our self-will and

« PreviousContinue »