"Pleasures for evermore."

These are the closing words of Psalm 16, and they depict the crowning joy of the Lord as the Man who trod the earth in perfect dependence on God. "At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." The heart ponders what it must be to Him as the perfect and obedient Man to have reached that spot, after the scene of all His earthly toil and rejection was over. And we should remember that we share in His present portion, that is, in all that He has won as man. (John 17)

But how can we be brought in any sense to understand what this is? I have no doubt that it is by the Holy Ghost alone. Hence if "pleasures far evermore" are connected with His session at the right hand of God, I read also of what is connected for us with His exaltation there. "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." In order that we might be brought to know what our present portion is, as contained in the closing words of this psalm, it was necessary that the Lord should take His seat as man at the Father's right hand, and that He should thence send down to us the Holy Ghost. He has done both.

The Lord trod the earth in perfection in two ways, first as a Son, and secondly as a Servant. The Holy Ghost puts us, as both sons and servants, into Christ's place on earth. He is also the power in us for the enjoyment and carrying out of these two relationships in which we stand. And first as to Sonship. "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." I must know first that I am regarded (poor, feeble, as I am, and conscious only of entire weakness in myself) as God regards Christ. I must remember that He said, "And hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me"; and again, "I ascend unto My Father, and your Father," putting me thus into His own place on earth and in heaven. Thus I think I am fitted to the highest joy on earth, and to serve Him also until He come.

To know how Christ is regarded of the Father as the One who, faithful in all, has reached the top; to know as a son something of what His path ever was as God's SON on the earth; to know something of His path through this scene as the lowly, perfect servant of God, all of which the Holy Ghost is here to lead us into; in a word, to be in all this joy of true Christian liberty before God; these things are to me what He would have His people know, and what is contained in those words (may the Spirit make known to us more of the joy of them!), "At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." H. C. Anstey.