R. B.
1892 120 In these scriptures are the two termini of the christian course here below. At the starting point the chief of sinners receives salvation, accepting that worthy saying; and at the end the same man anticipates a crown of righteousness, which he is assured is laid up for him. And let us mark well that He, Who gives salvation at the beginning as the Saviour, gives the crown at the end as the righteous Judge to all that loved and do love His appearing.
If we did not know the converting power accompanying the grace that bringeth salvation, we might wonder how he who calls himself the chief of sinners, when he speaks of the beginning of his course, can at the close look forward to a crown. It was not self-confidence; for while the righteousness spoken of in the above scriptures is the practical righteousness of a saint, yet it is the language of one who rejoices in Christ, Who alone gives the assurance of salvation. And that blessed assurance is not because of the saint's own faithfulness, but through faith in Him Who has accomplished eternal redemption, Who thereby delivers the believer from all fear. For His perfect love casts out fear, and sets him free to devote himself with all his energy to the service of the Lord, that when he is arrived at the finishing of his course he may be able to say, I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.
This righteousness is not that which every believer is made. Believing in Christ he is made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5), and also his faith is imputed to him for righteousness (Rom. 5). But it is the practical righteousness of a faithful believer. Every believer may rejoice in the perfect righteousness with which he is clothed and in which he stands before God, even the righteousness of faith in Christ; but not every one can say, I have fought the good fight. It is well, by the sustaining and persevering grace of God Who never leaves him, if he may say, I have kept the faith, that is, if grace keeps him in the faith. Paul could say both.
Redemption, even the forgiveness of sins, through His blood we have, but conversion or change, turning from darkness to light, is the work of the Spirit of God, Who dwells in us because we are redeemed by the blood of Christ. The work of the Holy Spirit, important and indispensable as it is, in no way redeems us, or adds any value to the precious blood of Christ. This alone reconciles. Man thinks to add his own imperfect works to the infinite worth of His blood. Even God does not add the perfect and necessary work of the Holy Spirit as increasing the value and efficacy of His (Christ's) redeeming (and this eternally) death on the cross; but the Spirit dwells wherever that blood is applied. He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, but works savingly on every soul that receives the faithful saying. We are forgiven for Christ's sake, but that is not the being turned from darkness to light, from idols to serve the living and true God; if we are in Christ, we are a new creation.
Conversion and redemption are indissolubly joined in the grace that brings God's salvation to us; for he who is saved is converted, and he who is converted is also redeemed, and we so speak and understand. Nevertheless conversion and redemption are two things distinct from each other, inasmuch as redemption is done for us, a work outside of us, on the cross, but the work of the Holy Spirit precedes and follows within us. The Spirit of God works in all believers because the blood of Christ has washed away all their sins, to be moulded and fashioned according to the will and purpose of God. There is no difference in the relative standing of every believer before God, all are redeemed, all forgiven, all made the sons of God through faith in Christ. But in the actual condition, seen even in the sons, what lack of faith! What failure! What worldliness among those who profess separation from the world! But thanks he to God, the blood abides, and in spite of failures and hardness of heart, the Holy Spirit in us works till all is judged morally and we transformed according to the mind of God.
To receive the crown is not the special privilege of an apostle. There is a crown laid up for every believer to be given at the appearing. The word of God places it in view now, as an incentive to endurance and perseverance whatever may be the roughness and sorrow in the way between the two termini, and with it as an encircling scroll — let no man take it. For while the Lord Jesus as Saviour gives salvation to the chief of sinners at the beginning of the course, He holds the crown, as the righteous Judge to be given in due time, and this in connection with the saint's responsibility.
But the saint, the believer, is converted and redeemed before his new responsibility. There is the responsibility of the unconverted man (a fearful account he will have to render), yet that is not here, but the believer's, now that he is a new creature. For the grace of God appears first bringing salvation to the lost and dead; then when alive again by the quickening voice of the Son of God, that grace teaches the believer to deny all ungodliness, and to live soberly, righteously and godly, I and to look for the appearing of His glory (Titus 2). To deny all ungodliness, to live soberly and righteously, is with many the sum-total of Christianity, reducing it to the level of duty. Not so. For here godliness is added, and no law or commandment ever made a man godly. It might make him apparently righteous (provided that temptation was not too strong) but never godly, and this is joined to the looking for (i.e. waiting) His glorious appearing, that is, the appearing of His glory; when that comes, righteous retribution and judgment also come, There can be no completeness without looking for the appearing. This is not possible but for him who loves it unless as a criminal condemned looks for the execution. To live godly, and in heart to love His appearing is the normal condition of every believer — to love it and live in the light of it. Is this our condition? Are we pressing onward with undeviating step, amidst sorrows and trials, hastening (as Peter says) the coming of the day of God?
1892 137 What a difference between Saul of Tarsus as he left Jerusalem, and the same Saul as he entered Damascus! He left Jerusalem breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples, he entered Damascus a blind helpless man, led by his companions, and his physical condition emblematical of his mental, his rage and his purpose completely overthrown. He was a changed — a converted roan, though he might not have had any peace or joy till Ananias came three days after, during which he neither ate nor drank. Not until the scales fell from his eyes could he rejoice in full salvation. Then he arose and washed away his sins, and his baptism was just the symbol of his new standing before God.
The Lord Jesus met him on the way and takes him captive, he was the most jealous, and the fiercest, and the leader, of that band of persecutors; such is the one that the Lord takes, and the great enemy cannot prevent it. The chief of sinners, of persecutors, becomes the chief of disciples. The leader of the hand, armed with authority to bind and slay all the disciples whom he could seize, becomes the leader of the band that bowed to the Name of Jesus. What an instance of the converting power of the grace of God as manifested in Christ! The glory of God appearing causes Saul to exclaim, Who art Thou, Lord? The voice out of the glory could be no other than the voice of Jehovah; yet that voice said, Why persecutest thou Me? Saul thought he was doing God service (John 16:2) and is astonished and confounded to find himself fighting against God; he finds himself as a criminal caught red-handed in his crime. He is overcome, fettered hand and foot, henceforth to be the Lord's bondman. The Lord Jesus appeared. Saul saw and heard, and at once says, Lord!
Who can tell the thoughts and feelings of Saul who, when cast to the earth, heard the words, "I am Jesus?" What was the visible effect on him? The discovery that he had been fighting against God prevented his taking food for three days. But afterwards the revelation of the Son in him (Gal. 1:16) filled him with zeal and energy to announce the glad tidings, yea, far more than the zeal and energy he had shown in opposition to the disciples; for he had been as he says, exceedingly mad against them.
The words, "I am Jesus," and the remembrance of the bright and heavenly vision, were always dominant in Paul's mind; as he said, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; in his Epistle he takes his stand as an apostle upon this ground, a called apostle, by the will of God, not appointed by man. It was the Lord Who appointed him, He Who speaks and calls from heaven (Heb. 12:25). And it is from heaven that He has sent the Holy Spirit to call and form His church. So that now emphatically every sinner is called by the word of the Son of God, every saint is called to be a member of the church of God, and every servant is called, as it were, by a mandate from heaven, after the pattern of the call of Saul of Tarsus, not by the Lord appearing in the glory of heaven, but by His own voice to the heart. It was a similar display on the day of Pentecost, when the power of the Lord was made manifest in the cloven tongues of fire. Although there be not such visible manifestations now, the power and the reality is essentially the same and ever abides; and He still calls and adds to the church and will until it is complete. The voice of one crying in the wilderness called Israel to repentance. It is the voice of the Son of God from heaven that quickens dead souls and calls them to sit in heavenly places. His voice from the glory Saul heard, and it changed him from a bitter enemy into a devoted and loving servant. If the called ones now are destined for heavenly glory, what more fitting or better way than the calling them out from among Jews and Gentiles by His own voice?
Here it is not Jesus saying, I am Jehovah. Impossible for Saul to doubt that it must be Jehovah's voice out of that vision of brightness. But is Jehovah saying, I am Jesus? Both essentially and divinely true; but the latter may be the more emphatic form. Assuredly it was the exact and perfectly suited way to reach the conscience and heart of Saul. It was in this way that the Son was revealed in him, in this way was he prepared for becoming the great apostle of the church. That "God was manifest in flesh," and that Jesus is the Son of the living God, are the two forms of truth as above, that is, Jesus saying, I am Jehovah, and Jehovah saying, I am Jesus. Upon this the church is built.
To Israel it was prophesied that to them a child should be born, a son given, and one of His glorious names should be the mighty God. This was their hope and expectation (i.e. of the righteous remnant) in the darkest time. And they spake often one to another, they feared Jehovah, they hoped and expected; and the Mighty God will come and make up His jewels, and these godly ones shall be numbered among them (Mal. 3:16). But Messiah on the earth is the hope of Israel. The hope of the church is to be with the Lord Jesus in the heavenly glory. When the Lord Jesus was here on the earth and presented to the Jew (to Israel) as their promised Messiah, His words and His works constantly asserted and proved that He was the Son foretold by the prophet, and that He was the Mighty God. What greater proof than the healing of the palsied man (Matt. 9:6)? No greater assertion of divine power, or of His Godhead during His life and ministry. It was the same power that healed the paralytic, as raised the dead Lazarus. His own resurrection is the greatest of all, and is declared by God as that which declares Him to he the Son of God. But this was after the Jew had rejected Him. The proof that He was the mighty God, had been sufficiently given before in His mighty works.
Moreover He said, "If ye believe not that I am" (the incommunicable name), "ye shall die in your sins." The blind unbelief of the Jew is attested by the disciples, for when the Lord asked them, "Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?" some said, John the Baptist, some Elias, some Jeremias, or one of the prophets: any name but the true one. None confessed Him to be the Son of the living God, but he to whom the Father had revealed it (Matt. 16:14-16). It is this truth which is the special foundation on which the church is built, which gives stability to it, so that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. That Messiah must be the Mighty God is as necessary for His Messianic glory, as that, for the calling and formation of the assembly of God, Jehovah should be Jesus. There could be no church, no restoration for Israel without Him. This was the proclaimed truth of both, during the Lord's life and ministry here below. He the Messiah, manifesting His Godhead, was the Jewish aspect of it. Met by unbelief then, but when He appears to them, they will shout, "this is our God, we have waited for Him" (Isa. 25:9). For the church, it was the Son of man delivered to earth, and then to rise again for heavenly glory, the Son of the living God withal.
For, now, we are not called to know Christ after the flesh (2 Cor. 5) but as the risen Lord in heaven. In the first three Gospels it is Jesus the Messiah presenting irrefragable proofs by His teaching and by His miracles that He was the promised Son, the Mighty God, Whom the chosen few heard and believed. To Saul and through him to the church, it is the Mighty God saying, I am Jesus. The special point for Israel is to believe their Messiah is God. For the church it is to know that God was in Him, that He Who in the beginning was with God and was God did also become flesh and dwell among men, the First-born of all creation, but yet more, as risen the First-born from the dead to be Head of the Church. The one truth is the converse of the other. Both together, what a Divine reality, both for the glory of God, and for the salvation of man!
How blessed, yet how divine and unsearchable the truth: on earth His humanity asserts His Deity; from heaven His Deity proclaims His humanity.
Saul was conscious, in measure, Who it was that appeared to him, and he refers to it when giving the Galatians the account of his call to the apostleship. It was neither from nor through man, but direct and immediate from the Lord. "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen" (Gal. 1:15-16). It was truly the revelation of the Son in him, sudden, effectual, and eternal. From that moment every opposing thought was cast down, and there was the absolute and unconditional surrender of himself to the Lord for His service; and he says, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? He had been following his own will in going to Damascus; now if the Lord bid him return to Jerusalem, he is ready, but it must be what the Lord would have him do. Saul of Tarsus was slain, and there arose, soon to be developed, instead of him, the apostle Paul. The Lord no doubt tells him what he must do, but His word is (Acts 9:16) "suffer." He both did (26:15-19), and suffered, beyond any other man.
1892 154 In many cases it is harder to suffer than to do; and therefore it may be that endurance is more prominent in New Test. writings than zealous activity; but both patience in suffering, and energy in doing, are characteristic of the faithful disciple. And the sphere for the exercise of faith, hope, and love, is measured by the suffering and the doing appointed by the Lord. This patience, yea pleasure, in suffering for the Lord's sake, this zeal in His service, marked and distinguished Paul all the way from 1 Tim. 1:15 to 2 Tim. 4:6-8.
How soon he felt the reproach of Christ! How soon he was tested as to the reality of the change! His former friends seek his life, and he escapes by being let down in a basket through a window over the city wall. Imagine proud Saul, avoiding his foes in this ignominious manner! But whether from friends (who if they become enemies are generally the most bitter) or from idolatrous mobs in heathen cities, or from fanatical and murderous persecutors in Jerusalem, always and everywhere he was content to bear all things for Christ's sake. None of these moved him. He had seen the Lord, and every thing else was dross.
His companions with him had also fallen to the earth and were overpowered by the brightness of the light, and, for the time, could not either hear or see (Acts 9:7, Acts 21:7, Acts 27:14). They all fell, but the men with Saul soon recovered, rose and stood, and heard the sound, but not the words. Saul heard the words, but lay on the ground till the Lord bade him "Rise, and stand upon thy feet" (Acts 26:16). They heard the sound, but could not distinguish the words; it was not intended that they should. Saul both saw and heard (though the effect was to blind him for three days), as he says, "Have I not seen the Lord?" and "last of all He appeared to me also." And when Ananias came, he says, "the Lord that appeared to thee." Such was the effect of the heavenly vision that, not giving heed to any caution, the result of human prudence, he went straightway into the synagogues in that city, the very centre and stronghold of Jewish enmity and pride, and there he preached that Christ is the Son of God — this to the Jew, and to the Gentile — that God was manifest in flesh, and has brought salvation for all.
As an apostle he was a prominent object for the shafts of the enemy; and tells Timothy in this same epistle, wherein he rejoices beholding the crown, "But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came upon me at. Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra." But song these may be discerned some of those sufferings, yea, and graces too, which are or maybe the common lot of all. There are patience and longsuffering for any with more or less of persecution in some shape. But there were trials and sufferings special to him as an apostle, and by which to the Corinthians he proves his call to the apostleship, that his doings and sufferings were so great that he came not a whit behind the very chief of them, that he was in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. He was nothing behind them in all these things. Then he adds to the list of sufferings, for he particularises, "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned [Acts 14. The three towns, Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, have a prominence among Gentile cities in the persecutions of Paul], thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and day I have been in the deep, in journeyings of ten, in perils of waters, perils of robbers, perils by countrymen, perils by the heathen, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches."
All these things were the result of his having seen the heavenly vision on the road to Damascus. The word "I am Jesus" so filled his heart that to him to live was Christ; it not only dominated but eclipsed every other thought, The power of Rome made him think of Christ the power of God, the philosophising Greek turned him to Christ the wisdom of God. The furious persecutors among his "own countrymen" only made Christ the more precious to him; for if they threatened his, life it was his to say not only to live is Christ, but to die is gain. How could death turn him aside? Whether as a believer simply, or as an apostle, it mattered not what obstruction lay in his course, he pressed onward to the mark set before him. There was the crown in view. It mattered not by what means he might attain the prize, "if by any means": not that he was not assured of it, but that he was content to suffer now, certain of the crown in that day. Whether as an apostle, or as an ordinary Christian, the devoted bondman spending and being spent, or like a humble, unknown disciple, he pressed on toward the mark. Let the pressure from without be what it might, there was the endurance of faith and confidence. If there were no visible way of escape, he knew that he was not entirely shut up; he might be perplexed but not destroyed; persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed. Nay, he was more than a conqueror, and was anticipating the overcomer's crown.
But if our pathway between the two termini is not so prominent as his, nor so rough and stony, our fight not so valiant, yet we set out from the same starting point, and each on to the end to receive the crown appointed for us. Such as Paul can say that the crown is laid up for him, and to such as him, the Lord will say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
"And not for me only, but unto all them that love His appearing." Here is our portion), the crown is laid up for all that love His appearing. All such, more or less, fight the good fight, keep the faith, all will enter into the joy of the Lord. Can there he Christians who do not love His appearing? Nay, but their affections are too mach occupied with the present world. May this mark of vital Christianity become more prominent, as we feel increasingly the contrariety of all things below, and as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The love of His appearing must be in the heart of every Christian. It may be for the time overshadowed by caring for the world — for who has not to watch against this? — yea, by the disappointments in the world — in each case occupying the mind to the exclusion of the thought and desire, the longing desire of His appearing. There are things here below which are good enough in themselves; but when they overshadow the heart so as to hide the characteristic mark of Christianity — the coming and then the appearing of our Lord — do they not become positively evil. The ordinary teaching of the present day seldom prevents the heaping up of worthless lumber where none ought to appear. The returned Jews could scarcely build the wall through much rubbish (Neh. 4:10); and it is a great hindrance (even insuperable save where the grace of God removes it) to the love of His appearing. We all know how prone we are to set our mind on things on the earth; yet it would be indeed anomalous — an impossible thing — for a saved man not to love the appearing of his Saviour. The Spirit of God dwells in every believer and leads him on in desire and love to the day when He who is our life shall appear. For when He appears, we shall appear with Him. May we be obedient to the Spirit's leading.
Yet the looking forward is not to the saints' appearing, but His; because when He will take His kingdom and reign, every enemy will be his footstool, the groans of creation will cease, all be delivered front the bondage of evil and corruption, wickedness no longer triumph, Satan no more enthrall, and from all the redeemed creation the shout will arise "Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Surely the true believer in Christ loves to look forward to the day of His triumph and of glory.
The crowning of the saint is not when he departs this life; then he is present with the Lord, and truly tar better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord; nor is it when the Lord comes and gathers up all that are alive and remain, but when He appears. This appearance is for the world, when we also shall be the trophies of the Lord, the victor over Satan, sin, and the world. Then is the time of judging the quick (not the great white throne judgment, but as in Matt. 25, Acts 17:31, etc.)
When the Lord was here, the world crucified Him and put Him into a grave; the world never saw Him come out. When next they see Him, it will be when He appears to take vengeance on His murderers, and His appearance will be as the lightning which shines from the east to the west. That is, all shall see Him then. Before that day comes, the Lord will descend and we shall ascend to meet Him in the air; so that when fie appears, He will bring us with him. This is what we wait for. The world did not see Him come out of the grave, but the testimony of it was given. It was the joy of the disciples, the utter discomfiture of the enemy, who to cover his defeat led the priests to tell the soldiers to say, "His disciples stole his body while we slept."
The world will see Him come out of heaven. Then will he its judgment, then the saints' crowning to His glory, fruit of that complete salvation of which the apostle speaks, when he says that it is nearer than when we believed (Rom. 13:11). R. B.