But that is a truth and a blessed revelation far deeper than our mind can fathom or our pen could describe. No saint has ever sounded the depths of this wonderful call of G.o.d nor can G.o.d"s saints fully know what that fellowship all means, until the blessed day comes when we shall see Him as He is and when joined to Him we shall be like Him.
And yet we can remind ourselves of the little we know and through it encourage our hearts. Faith loves to dwell upon the blessed Person, whom faith alone through the Spirit"s power can make a living reality. And G.o.d, the faithful G.o.d, loves to hear His children speak much of Him, whom He loves, the Son of His Love, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Fellowship means to have things in common. And that is what G.o.d has done. He has taken us through His Grace out of the fellowship in which we are by nature, the things we have in common as enemies and children of wrath and has called us into the fellowship of His Son.
And now called of G.o.d into this fellowship we have things in common with His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. This brings before us once more the old story, which never grows old, but is eternally new and becomes more blessed the more we hear it. The Son of G.o.d, He who is the true G.o.d and the eternal Life, came to this earth and appeared in the form of Man. "The Life was manifested; and we have seen, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us" (1 John i:2). And He who is the true G.o.d and the eternal life, by whom the worlds were made, gave Himself for our sins. He came to give His life as a ransom for many, to make propitiation for the whole world. He who knew no sin was made sin for us and on the Cross peace was made. There in His own body on the tree He bore our sins. All who believe on Him, who have accepted Jesus as their Saviour, are taken out of that in which they are by nature and are brought into Christ. And here we can with praising hearts and full a.s.surance sing of our blessed position in Him.
Lord Jesus, are we one with Thee?
Oh height, oh depth, of love!
And crucified and dead with Thee, Now one in heaven above.
Such was Thy grace, that for our sake Thou didst from heaven come down; With us of flesh and blood partake, And make our guilt Thine own.
Our sins, our guilt, in love divine, Confessed and borne by Thee; The gall, the curse, the wrath, were Thine, To set Thy ransomed free.
Ascended now, in glory bright, Life-giving Head Thou art; Nor life, nor death, nor depth, nor height Thy saints and Thee can part.
But the fellowship of His Son into which the Grace of G.o.d has brought us means more than this blessed new relation and the positional truth that as believers we have been crucified with Christ and that we are risen with Him. The life we possess as born again is His own life. We possess the life of Him, who died in our stead. Christ is our life. This means fellowship of His Son, we are one with Him. We also possess His Spirit. The Spirit of Christ dwelleth in us and we are "one Spirit with the Lord."
This oneness with Christ, the fellowship of His Son, that we belong to Him and He to us, that we have an inheritance in Him and He has an inheritance in us, is a great truth. Like every other revealed truth it must be a reality in our lives. We are called by G.o.d to walk in this fellowship. We know we are in Him, and through Grace we abide in Him. But it is also written, "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." His own life must be manifest. In this fellowship of His Son we have the strength to walk as He walked, because we have His life and His Spirit. There is no need to walk after the flesh, but we can always walk in the Spirit and walking thus we walk as He walked. And this spiritual walk becomes possible as our hearts dwell in faith on the fact that we are called into the fellowship of His Son. We must have this wonderful fact constantly before our hearts as a real thing. Then all we do will be governed by it.
If this is real how can we be conformed to this world? The world in all its aspects is the enemy of G.o.d. In that fellowship we walked once "according to the course of this world." Should we then turn back to it and enjoy its pleasures and ambitions? If we do, we walk in the flesh and then we do not know the joy and peace of the fellowship of His Son, but are joyless and miserable. But if the fact of the fellowship of G.o.d"s Son is a reality in power, it will keep us from being conformed to this world.
We believe the Spirit of G.o.d presses this home to the consciences of His people and calls us to a separated walk.
And this must lead to another phase of the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. It is written "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body" (2 Cor. iv:10). This stands in connection with persecution and suffering. Walking in the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ the Apostle had one great desire, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death" (Phil. iii:10). To the Colossians he wrote "who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body"s sake, which is the church" (Col. i:24). He suffered and bore His reproach. His heart in the enjoyment of the fellowship desired the fellowship of His sufferings. We know little of these because we are conformed to this world and not loyal to our Lord and G.o.d"s calling. But if we walk in conscious fellowship with Him and are loyal to Him we too will know a little of the fellowship of His sufferings. Then our hearts long that we may "bear His reproach." The blessed One of G.o.d is rejected, can our hearts be satisfied with anything less than being rejected too? Perhaps if we were to lift up our voices now against the Christ dishonoring things, both in doctrine and practice, which are the leading features of the present-day religious world, we would know a little more of this fellowship.
Called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord means also to share His work. We are called to serve. He was here as One that serveth, and we are "to serve one another in love." "Whosoever will be great among you let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant" (Matt. xx:26-27). We can be servants with Him. He is intercessor and burden-bearer and we have a share in this likewise.
And there is the fellowship of His Son in its eternal aspect. G.o.d"s calling is to be like His Son. "For whom He did foreknow, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans viii:29). We shall be with Him forever and like Him.
And is it so--I shall be like Thy Son?
Is this the grace which He for me has won?
Father of glory, (thought beyond all thought!)-- In glory, to His own blest likeness brought!
Oh, Jesus, Lord, who loved me like to Thee?
Fruit of Thy work, with Thee, too, there to see Thy glory, Lord, while endless ages roll, Myself the prize and travail of Thy soul.
Yet it must be: Thy love had not its rest Were Thy redeemed not with Thee fully blest.
That love that gives not as the world, but shares All it possesses with its loved co-heirs.
May the Holy Spirit hold these great truths before our hearts and in His power may we be consciously and constantly enjoying the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, till we are called by Himself to be with Him.
Out of His Fulness.
John i:16.
"AND of His fulness have all we received, and grace upon grace"
(John i:16). This precious word was not spoken by John the Baptist.
It must be looked upon as an outburst of praise, similar to the one which stands in the beginning of Revelation (Rev. i:5-6). It is the adoring utterance of all believers acknowledging the reception of that unfathomable and never failing grace, which flows from the eternal fountain, the Son of G.o.d. Out of the fulness of Himself believing sinners receive grace upon grace. His own fulness is the source, which supplies all the need of those, who by Him believe on G.o.d, that raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory (1 Pet. i:2).
That exhaustless fulness is always ready to sustain, to help, to comfort, to strengthen and to fill those, who are in Christ, one with Him.
But what is this fulness of which we receive and receive so abundantly? The blessed Son of G.o.d possessed in all eternity fulness. The Holy Spirit in this chapter bears a testimony to this fact by a great revelation. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with G.o.d, and the Word was G.o.d. The same was in the beginning with G.o.d. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made "that was made." In Him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John i:1-4). What a wonderful revelation this is!
The Word which was in the beginning, which ever _was_ G.o.d, by whom all was made, without whom nothing came into existence, is the Son of G.o.d. The fulness of the G.o.dhead was His before the world was made, for He is G.o.d. Then we read in this chapter, "and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." He came to this earth, He took on the form of man, the eternal Word was made flesh, G.o.d manifested in the flesh. And as He walked on the earth the fulness of the G.o.dhead was pleased to dwell in Him (Col.
i:19). But before we could ever receive out of His fulness grace upon grace, the Son of G.o.d had to die. If He had not died and accomplished the great work for which He came into the world, His fulness would have been forever inaccessible to sinners. But He went to the cross and finished there the great work. Christ died for us; He who knew no sin was made sin for us. And now it is written of Him, the glorified One, the Man in Glory. "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the G.o.dhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all princ.i.p.ality and power" (Col. ii:9-10). He, who possessed eternally all fulness, who came to this earth and in whom the fulness of the G.o.dhead dwelt, who died on the cross the just for the unjust, who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, is now as Man in glory and there dwelleth in Him bodily the fulness of the G.o.dhead. It is all for us; we can now receive grace upon grace, because of Him who is the Second Man, the Head of the new creation and with whom G.o.d has made us, who believe, one. This is the deep and yet simple Gospel. G.o.d gave His blessed Son, who was forever one with Him, that through Him we might receive of the fulness of the G.o.dhead, grace upon grace. Brought to G.o.d in such a way, washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our G.o.d, we are receiving all we need. We receive it not on our merit, because we labor or agonize for it, but we _receive of His fulness_. But who can begin to tell out what that is, grace upon grace? Pages upon pages might be written and filled with the good things, the spiritual blessings, the joy, the peace, the comfort, the power and the wisdom and many other things, which are included in "grace upon grace." And after we mentioned all these precious things, we would have to put the pen down and confess our insufficiency to tell out the riches, the fulness and vastness of "grace upon grace."
This expression brings a great cataract like Niagara to our mind.
Here we stand and behold the mighty waters rushing down. Oh! the mighty rushing waters, who can measure them! What a vast, inexhaustible supply! Water upon water dashing down. For ages this has gone on. Hundreds of years, more than that, thousands of years have witnessed the same mighty waters. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second, every fraction of a second--incessantly mighty rushing waters upon waters!
In the same way there is pouring forth out of His fulness, the fulness of the Lord in Glory--grace upon grace. There is an unlimited, inexhaustible supply of the water of life from Him who is the life. For ages the saints of G.o.d, saved by grace, have received grace upon grace. A never ceasing stream of grace has been flowing forth and it has not impoverished the marvellous eternal supply.
Still it flows undiminished--still there is grace upon grace. Yea it is grace upon grace by which G.o.d"s people live. Every hour, every minute, every second, every moment it is His grace, grace upon grace which keeps us, surrounds us, flows upon us and overshadows us. And the more we take and enjoy the more we learn to sing.
More and more, more and more, _Always_ more to follow!
Oh, His matchless, boundless _Grace_, Still there"s more to follow!
Will it ever stop? No, never! We shall keep on singing in all eternity "still there"s more to follow!--still there"s more to follow." Hallelujah! "That in the ages to come He might show the _exceeding_ riches of His Grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Eph. ii:7). _Always more to follow!_ Still there"s MORE to follow. All Praise to Him who died to have it so for us poor lost sinners, whose lot should have been, as it is the lot of all who reject this marvellous grace--always more to follow--in eternal darkness and despair.
And how simple it is to receive "of His fulness grace upon grace."
Look at this never ceasing spring of pure water, it never fails. You approach it a weary, thirsty, dustladen traveler. You need to be refreshed. You need the cooling drink. You need washing. What then is necessary? Oh! to fill your cup. Just to take for it is for you.
And so this wonderful grace which flows out of His fulness. It is for you, just come and take. Fill your cup, fill it again! Drink oh drink! "Of His fulness have all we received, grace upon grace."
The Twenty-second Psalm.
The Cross of Christ.
THE Twenty-second Psalm contains a most remarkable prophecy. The human instrument through whom this prophecy was given is King David.
The Psalm does not contain the experience of the King, though he pa.s.sed through great sufferings, yet the sufferings he speaks of in this Psalm are not his own. They are the sufferings of Christ. It is written in the New Testament that the prophets searched and enquired diligently about the coming salvation. The Spirit of Christ, which was in them testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter i:10-11). David was a prophet, and in this great prophecy the Spirit of Christ testified of the sufferings of Him, who is both David"s Lord and David"s son.
The book of Psalms, so rich and full of Himself, so inexhaustible in description of our ever blessed Lord, is divided into five books, which correspond to the five books with which the Bible begins, the Pentateuch. The first book (Psalm i-xli) contains some of the great prophecies about the Christ of G.o.d; these prophecies are in the so-called messianic Psalms. Perfect and divine is the order in which they are revealed. _Son of G.o.d_--The Second Psalm. _Son of Man_ --The Eighth Psalm. _Obedient One_--The Sixteenth Psalm. _Obedient unto Death_, the Death of the Cross--The Twenty-second Psalm.
_Highly exalted by G.o.d_--Revealed in each of these Psalms. This is the order in which the Holy Spirit describes the path of the Lord in Phil. ii:6-11. How perfect the Word of G.o.d is!
The Twenty-second Psalm, the center of the first part of the book of Psalms, the Genesis portion, corresponds to the twenty-second chapter in the book of Genesis. There we see Isaac bound upon the altar having been led there and put upon the altar by his Father while he opened not his mouth. Here we behold the true Isaac on the cross. Everything in this Psalm speaks of our blessed Lord; in the first part of His sufferings, in the second part of His Glory and exaltation.
And we must not overlook the two Hebrew words the Holy Spirit has put over this Psalm: _Aijeleth Shahar_. The margin tells us they mean "the hind of the morning." This has a beautiful, though hidden meaning. Some have thought of the innocent suffering of a wounded hind and the dawn of the morning brings relief. They have applied this to the death and resurrection (in the morning dawn) of the Lord. But the meaning is better still. The oldest Jewish traditions give us the key. They take the expression "Aijeleth Shahar" to mean the Shechina, the glory cloud, which was visible among His people and they speak of "the hind of the morning" as being the dawning of redemption. The dawning of the morning is compared by them with the horns of the hind, on account of the rays of light appearing like horns. According to their tradition the lamb was offered as the sacrifice in the morning as soon as the watcher on the pinnacle of the temple cried out "Behold the first rays of morning shine forth."
But what pen can describe the predictions and the fulfilment of His sufferings, the sufferings of the Holy One! Here we behold what it cost Him to redeem us. Here we have the full description of what His atoning work meant. Here we see the full meaning of the sin-offering.
Well may we bow our heads and hearts here and worship as we gaze upon this picture. The opening word of the Psalm expresses the consummation of all the sufferings of Christ, that word which came from the darkness, which surrounded the cross and in which we are face to face with the unsearchable depths of His atoning work. "My G.o.d, My G.o.d, why hast Thou forsaken Me." He who was ever with the Father, one with Him in all eternity, who could say on earth "I am not alone" was left alone. He was forsaken of G.o.d. But more than that. Jehovah bruised Him; He put Him to grief. The spotless One bore the wrath of G.o.d alone. It was then that He who knew no sin was made sin for us. How significant it is then that the Holy Spirit puts that word of the Lord Jesus Christ before the predictions of His physical sufferings. They tell us what our redemption cost Him --the awful price, forsaken of G.o.d. The Psalm also emphasizes what man under the terrible instigation of Satan did unto Him. We glance at some of these sufferings as expressed by His own Spirit.
"But I am a worm, and not man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people" (verse 6). This is His own complaint. No longer a man but writhing on the ground like a worm, the subst.i.tute of sinners, thus the Holy One felt when He was numbered among the transgressors.
The Hebrew word "worm", means the small insect, the coccus, from which the scarlet color is obtained by death of this worm, that color which was used in connection with the tabernacle. Thus He died as our subst.i.tute that our sins though they are as scarlet might be white as snow. Men reproached Him; His own people despised and rejected Him. Then we read how He was mocked and scoffed at. They "laugh me to scorn," they "shoot out the lip," they "shake the head." The very language of the leaders of the people as they surrounded the cross is given by the Spirit of G.o.d. "He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him"
(verse 7). What depths of the depravity of the human heart they reveal! And in all this, while He suffered thus from man His sole trust was in G.o.d (verses 9-10). His whole life was to trust in the Lord to lean upon Him, till that moment came when G.o.d could no longer know Him as His own, when the sword, the sword of judgment awoke against the Man, the fellow, the companion of the Lord of hosts (Zech. xiii:7). What that sword did to Him is expressed by the cry of the forsaken One.