In reasoning with unbelievers, answer their conscience not their questions, as the Lord did when one asked Him, "Are there many that be saved?" He said, "Strive to enter in yourself."
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 46.
It is much harder to believe that I am "without strength," than that I am "ungodly;" conscience tells me that I am a sinner, but I must have my will broken before I know that I have no strength.
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 56.
The great thing to take hold of is that I have got a totally new state; not only that life has been given to me, but that I am raised with Christ altogether out of the place that I was in. I am not united to Christ by faith, but by the Holy Ghost. And here we get two things: "the body" - union to Christ in heaven: "the habitation," - the dwelling-place of God on earth. There is no dwelling of God with man, except upon the ground of redemption: He only visited Adam; but He dwelt with Israel. (Ex. 29.)
Source: Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 71.
The world is an immense system kept up by Satan to blind the eyes of men, and to keep them away from God.
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 71.
The chief thing in a trial is submission; at the time of trial I may not understand it, but when I become spiritual I rejoice.
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 95.
Tell me that this poor world hinders me, that the flesh hinders me, that Satan hinders me, I admit it; but that ought not to blind my eyes to what His mind and purpose ever was, and is: that He will bring us into this glory of Christ, and that He has wrought us for it already. Do not suppose for a moment that God does not mean you to have the joy of it. The moment I believe that Christ the Son of God has died for me on the cross, nothing is too great for me. The question is, What is that worth? People talk of presumption! There is nothing too great for me to expect in Christ, Do not let yourselves be persuaded that you cannot have the sense of what God gives. He would have us have "a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us."
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p.183.
It is not only pretty morality that you want: there is the question of your responsibility to God. It is not only a matter of mending your manners, but of getting your guilt put away. We are both guilty and responsible, and at the same time enemies to God. What we are has been brought out; our enmity has been proved; and that we can hate God, shows that there is some relation between us and God.
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 204.
Men will take the water of the gospel to purify Adam's children, and leave the blood on one side. But He came "Not by water only, but by water and blood;" and the blood comes out of a dead Christ - the witness of the judgment of Adam and his children, and a total breach with God.
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 217.
"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." Except ye own that flesh is judged; and so it is His flesh and blood separate, for that is death.
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 217.
The world could not understand Christ; but He knew the world thoroughly. He was ever mixing with everybody, but always Himself, and never of the world; and we are by rights as much strangers in it as He was. Flesh, and Satan; and the world always go together; but he was ever drawing round Him everything that was of God, and judging all that was not. If you were a great man you would get a good place in an inn, if you were a little man you would get a little place; but He got no place at all. Have your souls got the thorough conviction that you have none either? and that all that you have got to do in it is to overcome.
Even if we do not cling to the world, how it clings to us! If Christ had His place it could not. If it were last night that the Lord Jesus had been put to death by the world, would any of us be hail fellows well met with it? What matters it whether it was last night or 1800 years ago? Some are insisting on belonging to this world and to Christ too. I say you are wonderful people if you can. Christ could not. All I do is to get through it as earnestly and as fast as ever I can.
Food for the Flock 1 (1874), p. 301.
Christ comes and, in grace, dies for my sins; and, if I am quickened, I am quickened with Him, and they are all left behind and forgotten; but I am quickened, not to live to myself at all. Now you will find that will cut to the root of many and many a thing. You say: What is the harm of it? I say: Is it living to Christ? What do I find in Christ's life? Why, that He never did a single thing for Himself. "He died that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again;" carry that into everything, and, if you can say about anything, it is for myself, then it is not for Christ. Where Christ is all, as He is in all, then He is the object. The claim that He makes is not a legal claim that comes upon me, but that He died for me.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 74.
He was the loneliest Man, but the most accessible Man, because He was love itself. He does not set Himself apart in the wilderness, but in heaven, and we are with Him there; every affection and moral feeling of my heart is linked up with Him who is on the throne of God.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 89.
It is well for our souls, especially going through such a world as this, that the Father has thought of us, and the Son come to us, and the Holy Ghost been given to us, and all this not for a small thing. Can we suppose that the blessed Son of God could have given Himself for us for small blessing? It is the heart getting hold of this, the clinging to Him, that delivers from the world. It has put us into a place where the world is crucified to us and we unto the world, not by the law, but by the object that governs our hearts. God has come down into this world and put Himself close to our sins, and has presented His Son to us as an object that fixes our hearts and affections, and takes them into heaven with Himself.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 96.
God was in Christ down here, revealing Himself in Him. He was showing man in Him that the heart that had a need might trust Him with that need. All His words and miracles were to lead the heart to this, that it might trust God in love. This was in the world. When once my eyes have been opened to know He is there, as the poor woman at the well, I get to know God, and I can trust Him.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 96.
We come to God first as beggars or not at all, but, once inside, God can tell us things that do not concern us. God deigns to call us friends, and I do not only go to my friend to talk to him about business, but to tell him what I have in my heart, even if it do not concern him at all. "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" "I have called you friends."
It is not a matter of indifference to be treated by God as His friends; but we must be in the place first; when there, the Christian's heart gets an occupation that makes him grow. Our hearts want something to think of. Not only is our salvation settled, but God introduces us into a new world, where our heart is opened and enlarged by occupation with Himself until it can take in His thoughts.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 101.
What the world calls mercy (when they speak of hoping in the mercy of God) is simply indifference to good and evil; the hope that God will think as little about sin as I do.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 112.
Christ is the expression of what divine perfection is in a man going through the world.
If I look up I am perfect; if I look at myself here I am very imperfect; but still I am not of the world just as Christ is not of the world. What are we of? We are of God. We are of God in the midst of a world that is not of God; and in which now, what is religious and what is worldly are so mingled together that you cannot tell what is black or white; it is all grey. So the word has to he applied in a thousand ways to things of which the true character must be discerned.
The Spirit applies the living word to every motion of my heart. He comes and says: I delight in you, but I cannot delight in this and that. The Father's word has to be applied to everything in me - things in which will has to be broken; and, because I am going to be in the glory, I purify myself even as He is pure; I have got to keep company with Him. I am not sent into the world but in the measure in which I am able to testify for Christ. It may be but a little testimony that I am able to bear, but still that is all I am sent into it for - all that I am required to go into it for.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 132.
The whole question, abstractly I mean, of good and evil came out at the cross. All the fulness of evil, on the one hand, in the rejection of Christ; and, on the other, the infinite love of God in giving His Son, in divine righteousness withal against sin; and the same love seen in the Son giving Himself. Perfection also in man in the Son's love to the Father, and His perfect obedience. Satan's full power over man was displayed too. Everything was brought to a point in a kind of summing of it all up together. There I find all the perfect love of God, and the perfect evil of man brought out. But that is all over and done: "He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin." And then I find the second Man, in virtue of this, gone up to sit on the right hand of God.
As I look up at Christ in glory I find that He so glorified God Himself in this work, that He has put man into His own glory. I get thus my own place in Him; I give up my place as a child of Adam. Christ has been made sin for me, and all my sins are gone. But we are brought out utter sinners in heart and act. Shall I tell you why you commit sins? Because you like them! That is what you are by nature. I have altogether given up all hope, and fled to the cross. I have given up what I am. I have got all He has done.
Where is righteousness then? It is not in man; it is in God. Law and judgment are against me. Yes, but Christ has been made sin. If Christ was made sin on the cross, it is on the cross that righteousness against sin was shown. That is as to sin it was; but, when I get Christ at the right hand of God as man, there I see righteousness manifested and glorified in Him. In that which Christ did I find God perfectly glorified; as He says in the sixteenth of John: "Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more." It is part of God's righteousness to put me into glory - the glory of Christ - because Christ has earned me for Himself by giving Himself for me; and has earned the glory for me. He would not have the travail of His soul, and be satisfied, if He had not got me. He is sitting there at the right hand of God in virtue of what He has done for me, and I am in Him; and, if in Him, then I am in the righteousness of God. Sins looked at as my responsibility are gone, and, as the apostle triumphantly reasons: "Who is he that condemneth?" How can you condemn what is in Christ? All that He has done for me, and has shown me the glory and the blessedness of my place, that it is not in Adam but in Christ, consequent on all that the second Man has done for me - made sin for me that I might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
It is because of the full efficacy of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the Holy Ghost has been sent down to me. God has wrought me for the self same thing; and, if I say, How can 1 be sure that I shall be there? my answer is, Because it is the effect of what Christ has done. The day of judgment would have referred to what I have done. My place now is the effect ox what Christ has done. If I am a new creature I am made the righteousness of God in Christ God has wrought me for that; it was His mind, His thought, His intention, and He has given me the earnest of the Spirit.
Never rest without the consciousness in your soul that you are, in Christ, this new creation, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 169-172.
The hope of righteousness is not the hope of getting righteousness, but the hope of glory which belongs to righteousness. God says: You are my children; I have brought you to myself, and you are going to hear about the glory of Christ, and are joint heirs with Him in it. When I think of the apostles to whom God revealed such things as these, I think how, with such power of God in them, they could go safely. But thus laden with Christ, they could go safely and steadily through the world; they were fully ballasted with Christ.
Have Christ in yourself. Christ everything to us enlarges the Christ in us, and then we can go steadily along. If I have a full Christ in myself, then I can look safely out. If I have Christ as the centre of glory in my heart, I can look out and see the glory all around.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 247.
"Make the tree good and his fruit good." I cannot do that; the only thing is to kill it. And indeed I cannot do that either. But God has done it, and I can therefore say, I am dead, 'and my life is hid with Christ in God'.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 337.
What is service? It is having part in Christ's ministry of love.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 337.
Supposing that everything in us were judged, we should be all one; it could not be otherwise. And this is not attainment: a family is not disunited because there are old men, young men, and little children in it.
Food for the Flock 2 (1875), p. 358.
How do you get the comfort of God? By believing in Him; not by seeing Him. It is: "Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." And then He puts before our hearts that where the children are is home - the Father's house - the many abodes, and He comes again to bring us there, because His redeemed ones are everything to Him. But He tells us, too, all that we have as realizing this while He is away, so that our souls may live in these things, though we are not yet in them. For the Father and the world are now in direct enmity because of the rejection of the Son; the accepted of the Father is the rejected of the world, and it is all over with the world now.
We know what the Father's house is. The Lord says to us: You know where I am going, for I am going to the Father; and you have seen Him, for you have seen me. So I know where I am going, for the Father to whose home we are going is revealed in the Son, and the Son is the way, and I have got Him. He is the way, for I have found the Father in coming to Him. A poor vessel He is in, but it is one that is cleansed and made fit for God: and God comes and dwells in it, by His Spirit, which is the second comfort in His absence, as it is said: "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God."
And not this only, but I have got Christ back again. He says: "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Ye see me; because I live, ye shall live also." He must die before I can die spiritually; and, if He lives as triumphing over all, I shall live too. We hear it from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ, anxious to make us happy. Thus as to my standing before God, I have the consciousness that I am in Christ where God's delight is. As to my standing before the world, it is Christ in me.
Food for the Flock 3 (1876), p. 78-79.
The Holy Ghost can reveal nothing to me that is not mine.
Food for the Flock 3 (1876), p. 174.
God never allows the faith of man to go beyond the grace of God. It may reach into it, but it can never get to the bottom.
Food for the Flock 3 (1876), p. 219.
The love of Christ was above all the wretchedness of His poor disciples, above all their failure; and thus if it were a right feeling, He could feel with them; if it were an infirmity, He could feel for them. He can enter into it all in a divine way, and with divine goodness, just because He is above it all. When I am not above a thing it acts upon myself; but when I am, I can think for it all as well as with it. And He says to us, "Love one another as I have loved you." By clinging close to Him we can love in the same kind of way in which He loved, and thus recognize anything good, and of Him, in our brethren, and learn to esteem others better than ourselves.
Food for the Flock 3 (1876), p. 265.
The way to be preserved from, sinning is to be full of Christ. If my heart be full of Christ evil cannot come in. Satan has nothing to do with the new man; therefore if any one keepeth himself, that wicked man toucheth him not.
Food for the Flock 3 (1876), p. 280.
How far are our hearts prepared to take our place before all the world and say, I belong to Christ alone? Let it be a strong pressure on the conscience that we should not take that name to dishonour it.
Food for the Flock 3 (1876), p. 280.
This is not the place for rest, but for watchfulness - watchfulness over our every thought. But what is heaven? It is where I can let my heart flow out. That is an immense comfort! But here I must have my loins girded - my heart and every affection kept in order by the Word of God.
Food for the Flock 3 (1876), p. 327.
Whenever grace gets into the heart I justify God; my hearts says, That is right. The world sets up to judge God, because it is far from Him; but, if I am near Him, I must justify Him even though He condemn me. It is easy to judge God at a distance from Him; it will be a different story in the last day! When the word of God reaches the heart it proves itself. I do not need to judge it, it judges me.
Food for the Flock 3 (1876), p. 327.
There is an undistractedness of object that humanly speaking is in itself power.
Food for the Flock 4 (1877), p. 157.
I do not think a man could exactly "joy in God," and then get into the seventh of Romans. You see joy in God is not joy in salvation. We do not generally get joy in God until we have done with ourselves. You get joy in salvation first in Rom. 5, and then troubles by the way, and then joy in that. Joy in God is another thing. In Rom. 8 it is we are set before God; it is not exactly what God is for us. The man in the seventh of Romans is "none of his." The ground of sealing is the remission of sins. God cannot have me in Christ without having Christ in me, and when Christ is in me there is liberty. And if Christ be in me the body is dead as to will; I do not own the body at all.
Food for the Flock 4 (1877), p. 247.
To hold myself dead is my privilege, for Christ has died; but it is my necessity for my testimony. Death so wrought in Paul, that only life wrought from him to the Corinthians: that is testimony.
Food for the Flock 4 (1877), p. 324.
It is said, Did not God make these things? Of course He did, who else could? God made the trees in the garden, but Adam used them to hide himself from Him. Man takes these things and uses them to separate himself from God if he can, and the question is, not whether God made them, but the use man puts them to. Cain went out from the presence of God and built a city, and then used the things God had made in order to make himself happy without God, It is a great delusion to speak of God making the world as it is. He put man in Paradise, not in the world. The world is the fruit of sin and Satan. The point is this: we have a world which has rejected the Son; what has it to do with the Father? All we can do with the world is to go through it as Christ did - a testimony for God in it.
Food for the Flock 4 (1877), p. 341.
"Christ is all and in all." Who can be this except God? "All" excludes everything else. In getting Christ we get eternal blessedness, and life, and knowledge of the Father - all that will make heaven blessed. The object on which we look gives perfect rest to the conscience and heart. The One in whom the Father delights I know has given Himself for me, and has satisfied, not only the Father's love, but God's righteousness. I start with the consciousness of being perfectly loved and perfectly cleansed. My relationship and standing with God are not founded on anything that I am, but on what Christ has done. The law put life at the end of the course; Christianity puts it at the beginning. The Christian has redemption behind him; and he is walking through the wilderness, waiting and watching for Him who is the object of his heart; for Him who gave not merely something for him, but Himself; who kept back nothing.
The distinct character of the Christian is that of one in a state of expectation. "Like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately."
The state of the soul is the first thing; it must precede service. It is, "Let your loins be girded about and your lights burning." Before we can serve our own state is in question; not the service but the quality of the service depends on it; Christ, the revelation of Christ, must be applied to everything: it is a dirty world, and you must have your heart rightly tucked up as you go through it - "your loins girded." There must be these two things: the heart in order (kept so by the word of God), and no will of our own. The instant we are not in the consciousness of God's presence self comes up - will is there; but, if we are in earnest, running to attain, we are glad of the removal of every hindrance to our running. Try your heart by this. Do you think a man running a race which he cared to win would weight himself by keeping even gold upon him? I judge everything by one object; Christ being my object I judge all by Him, and I say, If this hinder me in running after - in apprehending - Christ, let it go.
Then, when you have got your heart in order comes the full and unqualified confession of Christ before men: "Your lights burning." If the heart be not first right within of course profession is useless, but where it is true let us have it out. There is always a shrinking from confession when there is not power within.
A Christian is one whose affections are fixed upon Christ and who is waiting for Him. If He have bought us with a price it is that we may be as men that wait for their Lord. Every one should be able to see that you are a man waiting for Christ. If we were so, it would cut up by the roots ninety-nine out of a hundred of the things people so live for down here. Can the world say of all of us as of the Thessalonians of old: These are a people who have given up every idol to wait for God's Son from heaven? The world ought to think so. It is, blessed are those servants whom He finds, not only waiting but, watching for Him.
There was not one act for self in all Christ's life; He was always at the service of everyone. It is difficult for us to believe in the love of Christ, we are so selfish. Love likes to serve, selfishness to be served. Christ was love; He delighted to serve; He took upon Him the form of a servant; He took it as a man, and He never gives it up: even in that day "He will come forth and serve them." He says, You shall never make me give up this delight of myself - to serve you.
First we have, "Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching;" and then we get, "Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing" - serving in the place where his Lord has set him. Where their affections are watching, they get Christ's affections in return serving them in heaven; where they are doing they get the ruling all that He has. Where we serve we rule; where we watch we sit at the table and He serves us.
Christ shows His perfect love. If I love a person a little I give him a little - a small thing; if I love him much I give him more; but if I love him perfectly - which of course I cannot do - I give him everything I have. But more, when the world gives anything it has to part with what it gives; but He says: "Not as the world giveth, give I unto you." He brings us into the enjoyment of everything that He has.
But at the same time He came "to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled?" The cross brought in what man will never accept: he will not have the reproach of it; and they despised and rejected Him even before the cross; the fire was "already kindled." But that thing which tests the heart of man and exposes it, sets free the heart of God. When He was baptized with that baptism it opened the flood-gates of God's love.
Verse 53 is a quotation from the prophet, describing the most horrible state of things. And this the cross will do; take care that your own will does not do it. But the state of man is such that when God gives His Son, this is the effect of it.
Food for the Flock 5 (1878), p. 34-37.
Knowledge of God's will is connected with my spiritual state; if I could have it without being spiritual it would only be mischief. I increase in the knowledge of God's will by increasing in the knowledge of God in His nature.
Food for the Flock 5 (1878), p. 75.
Whenever you get sanctification and justification mentioned together, sanctification comes first.
Food for the Flock 5 (1878), p. 176.
I never can meet a cross, that I do not meet a blessing, if I take it up as such.
Food for the Flock 5 (1878), p. 186.
Christ is not yet sitting on His own throne; God said to Him when He had accomplished the work on the cross, "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." But the day is coming when He will put down His enemies and sit on His throne. The present state of things according to the Scriptures is this, that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God- until He makes His enemies His footstool. When you see all the wars and tumults and misery, and wretchedness, and superstition that there is all round us, do you think that Christ is sitting on His throne?
But He is doing a more blessed thing; if He were to come at once, He would have to execute judgment on all this; but He is gathering out now His joint heirs; this is what He is doing whilst He sits there. The Holy Ghost has come forth to gather those that are to he entirely associated with Christ in glory, and therefore God bears with the evil and wickedness of the world. That is the great condition of things now: the world has rejected Christ; God has received Him. Peter is constantly telling us this; this is the Holy Ghost's controversy with the world. Christ, God's blessed Son, that the world rejected, God has raised up, and declared Him to be the Son of God with power. The Holy Ghost from the day of Pentecost - from the day that Christ was rejected - comes to bear the blessed testimony that He who was thus refused here, God has received there.
Food for the Flock 5 (1878), p. 234.
I would notice a beautiful thing as to those words "made of a woman, made under the law." It shows how completely Christ met the whole case. The woman brought in sin, and the law brought in transgression, and Christ meets both: come of a woman, and made under the law.
Food for the Flock 5 (1878), p. 234.
"He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." It is a present manifestation which is an anticipation of heaven; as if He said: Till you can abide with us, we will abide with you. "We will come unto him, and make our abode with him."
Food for the Flock 5 (1878), p. 263.
Keep your feet in the narrow path, and your heart as large as you can. A Christian ought to be like a horse with blinkers on, going on and looking straight before him.
Food for the Flock 5 (1878), p. 290.
Priesthood is that I may behave well. Advocacy is when I do not behave well. Priesthood keeps my heart in constant dependence in my walk. Its exercise is that I may not go wrong. Advocacy is when I have gone wrong.
Food for the Flock 6 (1879), p. 53.
You cannot separate power from the state of the person; you must be near God to have power. He will not allow the effectual activity of Christians to be independent of their spiritual state.
Food for the Flock 6 (1879), p. 58.
God looks for might now, not in doing, but in suffering; as one of our poets has said in prose, "The irresistible might of nothingness;" to take scorn in a day when not only man but Christendom has departed from God. There is no triumph so great as that of suffering, when it is God's own people who have departed. Nothing gives such power to do and to suffer, as the certainty of what the will of the Lord is. We have all, as children of God, as bright, and brighter, opportunities still for victory as had any who have gone before us. Oh may we win victories! The only victory He values is one won under the shadow and in the power of the cross.
Food for the Flock 6 (1879), p. 70.
Very soon we shall find that what was not Christ was not life at all.
Food for the Flock 6 (1879), p. 204.
There must be preparation of heart to apprehend the ways and thoughts of God. Walking in the path in which Christ sets us, we can see all things; walking with Christ we get the apprehension of the things belonging to us through Christ.
Food for the Flock 7 (1881), p. 19.
Eph. 4:21-24. "The truth as it is in Jesus" is the "putting off" and the "putting on." It is not a question whether I have done it; it is not speaking of people - not of Christians, but of Christianity.
Food for the Flock 7 (1881), p. 34.
Only those who know God can worship Him. I get into the place of perfect acceptance through the work of Christ, and then I worship. None can worship unless in this place of divine favour; but if I sing in the sense of the acceptance of Christ I cannot be out of tune.' The essence of worship is that the Holy Ghost can take up our praises and prayers to God in perfect association with Christ. (See also Words of Faith, Vol. 3, 1884, page 71.)
Is all I have got of God His being satisfied with the blood? I want my soul in the sense of relationship with him when I worship. And there is no worship without desire; desire goes ever beyond present ability. Restricting it to mere praise is impossible; it is never unmixed with prayer, though not the place properly of prayer; but you cannot separate it from it; it would not be genuine if you did, and that is the thing that is wanted.
Food for the Flock 7 (1881), p. 88.
The tide of apostasy has set in, and we have to lift our heads and be faithful for Christ, and be nothing till He makes us everything, but as nothing then as ever; perhaps I should say more so, but possessing Him.
Food for the Flock 8 (1882), p. 33.
The world which Christ has left must be to us a place of patience. We do not want the flesh-pots of earth, if Christ have a place in our hearts. We are not only waiting for something; we are waiting for Himself. Our hopes and joys are all packed up and gone. I do not wait for events, though they will come; I wait for God's Christ, and I love Him, and He possesses my soul, until He who has emptied Himself for me, and has emptied my heart for Himself, shall come and take me to Himself.
Food for the Flock 8 (1882), p. 96.
We know very little outward suffering; but "If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him." It is not suffering for, but with.
Food for the Flock 8 (1882), p. 141.
There is no true holiness without peace. I do not say there is no holy nature, but certainly there are no holy affections.
Food for the Flock 8 (1882), p. 177.
You never get sanctification apart from the glory in which Christ is. God has set one single Man apart, so that I may know what sanctification is in this world; He has given me a model Man according to the Father's heart.
Food for the Flock 8 (1882), p. 258.
When you have no will and no strength, then you can follow Christ, and then He can trust you.
Food for the Flock 9 (1884), p. 22.
Righteousness, as to forgiveness, is negative before sealing; but righteousness positive I learn in Christ.
Food for the Flock 9 (1884), p. 331.
That Christ was made sin for us, and that we having died with Him are reckoned dead to sin, in that He was there for sin, for so scripture expresses it, is quite true; but it is not said He took a place outside the presence of God, as to the extent of the suffering in His soul. It is said He was forsaken of God, but that is a different thing from His taking a place outside, which does not appear to me scriptural. God made Him to be sin for us, and He made His soul an offering for sin. Nor is He ever spoken of consequently as taking it as leprous and unclean, but suffering, the Just for the unjust. Scripture is careful when it speaks of Him as made sin, to set up His sinlessness, not to represent Him as leprous by reason of our leprosy. "Who knew no sin" - "the just" - "as a lamb without blemish."
There is a sense of the value of the work which hangs on the spotless perfectness of His Person, which would hinder such expressions.
Leprosy is a disease and a foul one, a state, not imputed guilt - a nature can hardly be said to be imputed. I might understand what a person meant; but just reverence and a just estimate of His holy grace would, I think, hinder such an expression; and scripture does not sanction it, but on the contrary brings out not merely the holiness of His nature, but the spotlessness of the victim. Taking upon Him the sin of our nature even on the cross, can hardly be justified either by scripture, because it confounds nature and imputed guilt, though the terms be not so objectionable. God condemned sin in the flesh when He died and was for sin, yet it is our dying with Him that is made the deliverance here.
Helps in Things concerning Himself 3 (1893), p. 278-288.
"I am very, very weak," he remarked; "and, humanly speaking, my life is gone from the earth, but the Lord holds the thread of it."
I said, "Yes, dear Mr. -, you are just in the hands of the Lord Jesus, and all you have loved and laboured for these fifty years and more is in His hands too."
"Yes, yes," he replied; "and I see three things. The Father has given me to His Son; Christ is my righteousness, which settles everything; and then (what is more outside one) Christ is my object."
"Absent from the body, present with the Lord." April 29th, 1882.