This is the washing of regeneration, which is never repeated. We have a figure of this in the case of the priests of the Mosaic economy. On the great day of their inauguration they were washed in water. This action was never repeated. But after this, from day to day, in order to fit them for the daily discharge of their priestly functions, they had to wash their hands and their feet in the brazen laver in the tabernacle, or the brazen sea in the temple. This daily washing is the figure of the action in John xiii. The two washings, being distinct, must never be confounded; and being intimately connected, must never be separated. The washing of regeneration is divinely and eternally complete: the washing of sanctification is being divinely and continually carried on. The former is never repeated; the latter is never interrupted. That gives us a part _in_ Christ, of which nothing can rob us; and this gives us a part _with_ Christ, of which any thing may deprive us. The one is the basis of our eternal life; the other is the ground of our daily communion.
Beloved brethren, see that you understand the meaning of having your feet washed, moment by moment, by the hands of that blessed One who is girded as the divine Servant of your present need. It is utterly impossible for any one to overestimate the importance of this work; but we may at least gather something of its value from our Lord"s words to Peter; for Peter, like ourselves, alas! was very far from seizing the full significance of what his Lord was doing. "Then cometh He to Simon Peter; and Peter saith unto Him, "Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?" Jesus answered and said unto him, "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto Him, "Thou shalt never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part _with_ Me.""
Here is the grand point--"part with Me." The washing of regeneration gives us a part _in_ Christ: the daily washing of sanctification gives us a part _with_ Christ. In order to full, intelligent, happy communion, we must have a clean conscience, and clean feet. The blood of atonement secures the former; the water of purification maintains the other. But both the blood and the water flowed from a crucified Christ. The death of Christ is the necessary basis of every thing. He died to make us clean; He lives to keep us clean. We are made as clean as His death can make us; we are kept as clean as His life can keep us.
And, be it remembered, this marvelous ministry of Christ on our behalf never ceases. He ever liveth to act _for_ us on high, and to act _on_ us and _in_ us by His Word and Spirit. He speaks to G.o.d for us, and He speaks to us for G.o.d. He came from G.o.d, and traveled down to the profoundest depths of our need. He has gone back to G.o.d, to bear us ever on His heart, to meet our daily need, and to maintain us in the integrity of the position and relationship into which He has introduced us.
This is replete with solid comfort for the soul. We are pa.s.sing through a defiling world, where we are constantly liable to contract evils of one kind or another which, though they cannot touch our eternal life, can very seriously affect our communion. It is impossible for us to tread the sanctuary of the divine presence with soiled feet; and hence the deep and unspeakable blessedness of having One ever in the presence of G.o.d for us--One who, having been in this scene, knows its true character; and One who, having come from G.o.d, and gone back to Him, knows the full extent of His claims, and all that is needful to fit us for fellowship with Him. The provision is divinely perfect. Sin or uncleanness can never be found in the presence of G.o.d. If we can make light of either the one or the other, G.o.d cannot and will not. The holiness that shines in the demand for purity is as bright as the grace that provides it. Grace has made the provision, but holiness demands the application thereof. The goodness of G.o.d provided a laver for the priests of old, but the holiness of G.o.d demanded that the priests should use that laver. The great washing of inauguration introduced them to the office of the priesthood; the washing in the laver fitted them for the duties of that office. How could acceptable priestly service be discharged with unclean hands? Impossible. And we may say it is as impossible that we can walk in the pathway of holiness if our feet are not washed and wiped by that blessed One who has girded Himself to serve us in this matter perpetually.
All this is divinely simple. There are two links in Christianity; namely, the link of eternal life, which can never be snapped by any thing; and the link of personal communion, which can be snapped in a moment by the weight of a feather. Now, it is as our ways are cleansed by the holy action of the Word, through the Holy Ghost, that our communion is maintained in its unbroken integrity. But if I am afraid to face the Word of G.o.d, or if I am willfully refusing its action, how can I enjoy communion with G.o.d?
I am not speaking now of ignorance of the Word of G.o.d. The Lord bears with a wonderful amount of ignorance in us--far more than we could bear with in one another. I do not now refer to the question of ignorance.
But suppose a case. A young person entered these walls a few weeks ago, and took her seat on one of these benches. She was dressed out in all the fashion of this world--her head adorned with feathers and flowers, and her fingers with jewels. Her heart full of vanity and folly. Here the grace of G.o.d met her in all its fullness and freeness. The arrow of divine conviction entered her soul. She was broken down under the mighty power of the Word, in the hands of the Holy Ghost. She was brought to repentance toward G.o.d, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. She was saved, there and then, and left the place rejoicing in a full salvation.
This joy continued for many days. She was engrossed with her newly found treasure. She never thought about her feathers, her flowers, or her jewels. True, she continued to wear them, simply because she as yet saw nothing wrong in so doing. She knew not as yet that there was so much as a single sentence in the Word of G.o.d bearing upon such things.
Brethren, let me just remind you that we should be prepared for such a case as this, and be prepared to meet it. Some of us, I fear, have but little wisdom or patience to deal with cases of this type. We are in undue haste to enter upon what I may call the stripping process. This is a mistake. We must allow time for the hidden virtues of the kingdom of G.o.d to develop themselves. We must not attempt to reduce the Christian a.s.sembly into a place in which a certain livery is adopted. This will never do. We really cannot reduce all to a dead level. We must allow the Word of G.o.d to act on the life which the Spirit of G.o.d has implanted. I do nothing but mischief to people if I get them to adopt a certain style of dress merely at my suggestion. The grand thing is to allow the kingdom of G.o.d to a.s.sert its holy sway over the entire character. This is to His glory and the soul"s genuine progress.
Let us pursue our case. Our young friend, in the course of her reading, is arrested by the following pointed pa.s.sage: "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing G.o.dliness) with good works." (I Tim. ii. 9, 10.) And again, "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of G.o.d of great price." (I Pet. iii. 3, 4.)
Now, here, brethren, we have ill.u.s.trated for us the present ministry of Christ--the action of the Word upon the soul--the application of the basin to the feet--the washing of water by the Word. It is Jesus stooping down to wash the feet of this young disciple. The question is, How will she receive the action? Will she resist it, or yield to it?
Will she push away the basin? Will she refuse the gracious ministry? "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part _with_ Me."
This is very solemn, and it demands our most serious attention. Next in moral importance to having the conscience purged by the blood of Christ stands this cleansing of our ways by the action of the Word, through the power of the Holy Ghost. The former gives us a part _in_ Christ; the latter, a part _with_ Christ. That is never repeated; this must never be interrupted. If we really desire fellowship with Christ, we must allow Him to wash our feet moment by moment. We cannot tread the pure precincts of the sanctuary of G.o.d with defiled feet any more than we can enter them with a defiled conscience.
Hence, therefore, dearly beloved in the Lord, let us look well to it that we have our ways continually submitted to the purifying action of the precious Word of G.o.d. Let us put away every thing which that Word condemns; let us abandon every position and every a.s.sociation and every practice which that Word condemns, that so our holy fellowship with Christ may be maintained in its freshness and integrity. Nothing is more dangerous than to trifle with evil in any shape or form. Ignorance G.o.d can and does most graciously bear with, but the willful resistance of His Word in any one point is sure to lead to disastrous results. The heart becomes hardened, the conscience seared, the moral sense blunted, and the whole moral being gets into a most deplorable condition. We get away from the Lord, and make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.
May the Lord keep us near to Himself, walking with Him in tenderness of conscience and uprightness of heart. May His Word ever tell in living formative power upon our souls, that so our way be cleansed according to the claims of the sanctuary of G.o.d.
(2.) But let us now inquire for a moment into the spring of this action on which we have been dwelling. This is presented with touching sweetness and power in the first verse of John xiii.--"Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end."
Here, then, brethren, we have the mighty spring of Christ"s present ministry. It is the changeless love of His heart--a love that was stronger than death, and which many waters could not quench. "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word." (Eph. v. 25, 26.) This is the blessed basis and the motive-spring of that marvelous ministry which our Lord Jesus Christ is now carrying on for us and toward us. He knew what He was undertaking when He uttered those words in the fortieth Psalm, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O G.o.d." He knew what it would cost Him when He took up our case. But His love was and is divinely equal to all. We need not be afraid of exhausting that love which triumphed over all the unutterable horrors of Calvary, and went down under the deep and dark waters of death and judgment. We may at times feel ashamed to have so often to bring our defiled feet to that blessed One to cleanse them; but His love is equal to all, and that love is the spring of His precious and indispensable ministry.
It is a common saying that love is blind, but I look upon it as a libel upon love. Most certainly it does not and could not apply to the love of Christ. He knew all that was in us, and He knows now all our ways and all our weakness and all our follies; but He loves us notwithstanding all, and in the power of that love He acts toward us in order to deliver us from all that He sees in us and about us which would hinder our holy fellowship with the Father and with His Son.
Brethren, of what use, may I ask you, would a blind love be to you or to me? Surely, none whatever. How could we ever repose in a love which only acted toward us in ignorance of our blots and blemishes! Impossible.
What we want is a love superior to all our imperfections, and a love that can deliver us from them. This love we have in Christ, blessed be His name! It is a love that, however it may expose us to ourselves, will never expose us to another. It is a love that comes to us with the basin and towel, and stoops down in infinite tenderness and lowly, matchless grace to wash away every soil, and give us the comfortable sense of being "clean every whit." This, brethren, is the love which you and I need, and this is the love which we have found in divine fullness and power in the heart of that perfect Servant who is girded for us ever before the throne. "Having loved _His own_ which were in the world, He loved them"--how long? As long as they behaved themselves, and walked with unsoiled feet? Ah, no! this would never do for such as we. "He loved them _unto the end_." Precious, perfect, divine, everlasting love!
a love that overlaps and underlies and outlives all our blots and blemishes, our failings and falterings, our wants and weaknesses, our wanderings and waywardness; a love that has come to us armed with all that our condition could possibly demand; a love that will never cease to act for us and toward us and in us, until it presents us in unblemished perfectness before the throne of G.o.d.
(3.) And now one word as to the measure of Christ"s present action for us and toward us. This is a point of unspeakable value and importance.
It is essential for us to know that, whether it be a question of Christ"s service for us in the past or His present service, the measure of both the one and the other is and can be nothing less than the claims of the sanctuary, the throne, and the nature of G.o.d. We might suppose that the measure would be our necessities, but this would never do. If we think of Christ"s atoning work, we know, and rejoice to know, that precious work has done very much more than meet the deepest measure of our necessities as sinners. Blessed be G.o.d! the work of the cross has divinely met all the claims of G.o.d. It could never give solid peace to our souls merely to know that the very highest claims of human conscience had been met by the atoning death of Christ. We must be a.s.sured on divine authority that the highest claims of the government, the character, the nature, and the glory of G.o.d have all been perfectly met by the precious work of Christ.
Thus it is through infinite grace, and here every divinely exercised soul can find settled and eternal peace. Nor is it otherwise in respect to Christ"s present work for us. It could never satisfy our souls, brethren, to be told that that work is measured by our very deepest need. That need is met, no doubt; but it is because Christ"s present ministry goes far beyond that need, and reaches to, and satisfies the claims of, the sanctuary of G.o.d.
Unspeakable mercy! Here we may rest in perfect tranquillity. We have One on high undertaking for us, ever living in the presence of G.o.d for us; One who not only knows our necessities, but knows also the claims of G.o.d. He knows what this scene is through which we are pa.s.sing, and He knows what that scene is into which He has entered; and, all praise to His name! He meets in His own perfect ministry both the one and the other. He must needs meet all our claims since He meets all G.o.d"s claims, for the less must ever be included in the greater.
What solid comfort is here! What unruffled repose! We have One in the presence of G.o.d for us, in whose hands all our affairs are perfectly, because divinely, safe. They can never fall through, never go wrong. We may say that ere ever the very weakest of those whom Christ calls "His own in the world" can fail, Christ Himself must fail, and that can be _never_. His own are as safe as Himself.
What a grand reality! With what perfect confidence may we refer every objector, every accuser, every opposer, to this blessed manager! And what folly, on our part, to attempt to answer such ourselves! Oh, beloved brethren, may we learn to lean more confidently on that blessed One who thus presents Himself before our souls as the girded servant of our deep and manifold necessities. May we prize His precious ministry more and more--His ministry for us, His ministry to us. May we repose more sweetly in the a.s.surance that He is speaking to the Father for us, in all our failures, in all our shortcomings, in all our sins. May we remember, for our exceeding comfort, that even before we slip, He has been pleading for us, as He pleaded for Peter. "I have prayed for thee,"
said the loving One, "that thy faith fail not." Oh, the matchless grace of these words! He did not pray that Peter might not fall, but that, having fallen, his confidence might not give way, his faith might not fail. Thus, too, He pleads for us, and thus we are sustained, and thus we are restored when we fall, else we should very speedily go from bad to worse, and make shipwreck altogether. "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." We are sustained by His precious and powerful ministry every moment. We could not stand for a single hour without Him.
Things are continually turning up which would prove destructive of our fellowship, if we had not that blessed One acting for us, whose intervention on our behalf never ceases. He knows not only our need, but He knows what the sanctuary demands; and not only does He know it, but He provides for it, according to His own infinite perfectness and acceptance before G.o.d, meeting His people"s necessities.
Now, there are some people--I do not know whether there are any here to-night--but there are some people who have got such a one-sided notion of the standing of the believer, that they throw the Lord"s priestly ministry overboard altogether. I say it is one-sided, and there is nothing more dangerous than one-sided truth--nothing. I would far rather see a man going through the length and breadth of London publishing palpable error, such as the simplest mind could detect. I would have far less apprehension of the mischievous result of his ministry than of the teaching of a man who takes up one side of a truth, and presses it in such a way as to interfere with some other truth.
Now, there is an adjusting power in the truth of G.o.d--an adjusting power in Scripture that const.i.tutes one of its brightest moral glories; and hence we find that while the Word of G.o.d most fully and blessedly establishes the truth that the believer stands complete in Christ, justified from all things, accepted in the Beloved, "clean every whit,"
it, at the same time, with equal clearness and fullness, sets forth the fact that the believer is, in himself, a poor feeble creature, exposed to manifold snares, temptations, and hostile influences; liable at any moment to fall into error and evil; utterly unable to keep himself, or to grapple with the difficulties and dangers which surround him; liable at any moment to contract defilement, which would unfit him for the holy fellowship and worship of the sanctuary.
How, then, are all those things to be met? How is the Christian to be kept in the face of such things? Having an evil nature, a crafty foe, and a hostile world to cope with, how is he to get on? How is he to be kept? How is he to be restored if he wanders? How is he to be lifted up if he falls? The answer to all these questions is found in that ever-precious sentence of inspiration, "He ever liveth to make intercession for us;" and again, "He is able to save to the uttermost;"
and again, "We shall be saved by His life;" and again, "Because I live, ye shall live also;" and again, "We have an advocate with the Father."
Brethren, how the heart delights to give forth and to ponder over such utterances as these! They are marrow and fatness to the soul. How can any one, in the face of such pa.s.sages--to say nothing of his own necessary experiences as to himself and his surroundings--think of calling in question the grand foundation-truth of the priesthood of Christ, in its application to believers now? I can only say, I know not.
But alas! alas! there is no accounting for the depths of error into which we may fall, if we allow our minds to work, and get away from the direct authority of holy Scripture. And we may truly say that a most palpable proof of our need of the intercession of Christ is to be found in the sad fact that any of His servants should be found to deny it.
I shall add no more on this point, save to warn all the Lord"s dear people against the terrible error of denying our continual need of the priestly ministry, the precious intercession and all-prevailing advocacy of our Lord Jesus Christ--an error second only to the denial of His atoning work. For most surely our need of His priesthood is second only to our need of His atoning blood.
III. Having then briefly, and, alas! imperfectly, glanced at our Lord"s ministry in the past and in the present, we cannot close without a reference to His ministry in the future. Some may feel disposed to say, I do not understand how our Lord can ever be found serving us in the future. I can understand His serving us now on the throne, but how He is to serve us in the kingdom is, I confess, beyond me.
No doubt it is most marvelous, and had we not His own veritable words for it, we might well hesitate in our statement of the fact that our Lord Christ shall serve His people in the very brightness of the glory.
But let us hear what He Himself saith to us. Turn for a moment to Luke xii. 35: "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves 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. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that _he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them_."
This is distinct and unmistakable. Most marvelous, no doubt, but as plain as it is marvelous. Christ will serve us in the kingdom. He will serve us forever. His ministry overlaps our entire history. It reaches down to the very deepest depths of our need as sinners, and up to the very loftiest heights of the glory. It goes back to the past, it covers the present, and it stretches away into the boundless future. Blessed be His name! He loves to serve us, and He gives us the a.s.surance that the very moment, as it were, that He enters upon the glory of name! has given us a whole heart, and nothing can satisfy Him in return but a whole heart from us. His entire service--past, present, and future--is the fruit of His perfect love; and nothing can meet His desire, with respect to us, save a heart responsive in its affections to Him. And where there is this, it will express itself in an anxious, earnest longing for His coming. "Blessed are those servants, whom their lord when he cometh shall find watching."
May the eternal Spirit fill our hearts with genuine love to the Person of our own adorable Lord and Saviour; that so our one grand and undivided purpose may be to live for Him in this scene from which He has been cast out, and to wait for that moment when we shall see Him as He is, and be like Him and with Him forever.
_C. H. M._
PRAYER AND THE PRAYER-MEETING
In considering the deeply important subject of prayer, two things claim our attention; first, the moral basis of prayer; secondly, its moral conditions.
I. The basis of prayer is set forth in such words as the following: "_If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you_, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (John xv. 7.) Again, "Beloved, _if our heart condemn us not_, then have we confidence toward G.o.d. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, _because we keep His commandments_, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." (I John iii. 21, 22.) So also, when the blessed apostle seeks an interest in the prayers of the saints, he sets forth the moral basis of his appeal--"Pray for us; _for we trust we have a good conscience_, in all things willing to live honestly." (Heb. xiii. 18.)
From these pa.s.sages, and many more of like import, we learn that, in order to effectual prayer, there must be an obedient heart, an upright mind, a good conscience. If the soul be not in communion with G.o.d--if it be not abiding in Christ--if it be not ruled by His holy commandments--if the eye be not single, how could we possibly look for answers to our prayers? We should, as the apostle James says, be "asking amiss, that we may consume it upon our l.u.s.ts." How could G.o.d, as a holy Father, grant such pet.i.tions? Impossible.
How very needful, therefore, it is to give earnest heed to the moral basis on which our prayers are presented. How could the apostle have asked the brethren to pray for him, if he had not a good conscience, a single eye, an upright mind--the moral persuasion that in all things he really wished to live honestly? We may safely a.s.sert, he could do no such thing.
But may we not often detect ourselves in the habit of lightly and formally asking others to pray for us? It is a very common formulary amongst us--"Remember me in your prayers," and most surely nothing can be more blessed or precious than to be borne upon the hearts of G.o.d"s dear people in their approaches to the mercy-seat; but do we sufficiently attend to the moral basis? When we say, "Brethren pray for us," can we add, as in the presence of the Searcher of hearts, "For we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly"? and when we ourselves bow before the throne of grace, is it with an uncondemning heart--an upright mind--a single eye--a soul really abiding in Christ, and keeping His commandments?
These, beloved reader, are searching questions. They go right to the very centre of the heart--down to the very roots and moral springs of our being. But it is well to be thoroughly searched--searched in reference to every thing, but especially in reference to prayer. There is a terrible amount of unreality in our prayers--a sad lack of the moral basis--a vast amount of "asking amiss."
Hence, the want of power and efficacy in our prayers--hence, the formality--the routine--yea, the positive hypocrisy. The Psalmist says, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." How solemn this is! Our G.o.d will have reality; He desireth truth in the inward parts. He, blessed be His name, is real with us, and He will have us real with Him. He will have us coming before Him as we really are, and with what we really want.
How often, alas! it is otherwise, both in private and in public! How often are our prayers more like orations than pet.i.tions--more like statements of doctrine than utterances of need! It seems, at times, as though we meant to explain principles to G.o.d, and give Him a large amount of information.
These are the things which cast a withering influence over our prayer-meetings, robbing them of their freshness, their interest, and their value. Those who really know what prayer is--who feel its value, and are conscious of their need of it, attend the prayer-meeting in order to pray, not to hear orations, lectures, and expositions from men on their knees. If they want lectures, they can attend at the lecture-hall or the preaching-room; but when they go to the prayer-meeting, it is to pray. To them, the prayer-meeting is the place of expressed need and expected blessing--the place of expressed weakness and expected power. Such is their idea of "the place where prayer is wont to be made;" and therefore when they flock thither, they are not disposed or prepared to listen to long preaching prayers, which would be deemed barely tolerable if delivered from the desk, but which are absolutely insufferable in the shape of prayer.
We write plainly, because we feel the need of great plainness of speech.