Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

There are two very important links in Christianity which we should seek to understand. First is the link of everlasting life; secondly, the link of personal communion. These links, being distinct, should never be confounded, and being intimately connected, should never be separated. The former is the ground of our security; the later, the secret spring of our enjoyment and the source of all our fruitfulness. The first can never be broken; the second may be snapped by a thousand things.

Seeing that these links are of such immense importance, let us reverently and prayerfully enter upon the examination of them in the divine light of inspiration.

First, as to the precious link of everlasting life, we cannot possibly do better than quote a few plain passages of Scripture, setting forth from where it comes, what it is, when and how it is formed.

First of all, it must be distinctly borne in mind that man in his natural state knows nothing of this link. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” There may be much that is truly amiable — great nobility of character, great generosity, strict integrity — but there is no eternal life. The first link is unknown. It matters not how you cultivate and elevate nature, you cannot form the grand link of everlasting life. You may make it moral, learned, religious, but so long as it is mere nature, there is no eternal life. You may select all the very finest moral virtues and concentrate them in one individual, and that individual may never have felt so much as a single pulsation of everlasting life.

It is not that these virtues and qualities are not good and desirable in themselves; no one in his senses would question that. Whatever is morally good in nature is to be estimated at its proper value. No one would think for a moment of placing a sober, industrious, amiable, well-principled man on a level with a drunken, idle spendthrift. Looked at from a social and moral point of view, there is a wide and very material difference. But, be it clearly understood and well-remembered that we can never by the finest virtues and noblest qualities of the old creation purchase a place in the new. We can never by all the excellencies of the first Adam, even if concentrated in one individual, establish a title to membership in the second. The two are totally distinct, the old and the new, the first and the second. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” “Therefore, if any man be in Christ he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”

Nothing can be more explicit, nothing more conclusive than the last quoted passage from 2 Corinthians 5. “Old things,” of whatever kind, “are passed away.” They are not recognized as having any existence in the new creation wherein “all things are of God.” The old foundation has been completely removed and new foundations laid in redemption. Nor is there so much as a single particle of the old material worked up into the new. “All things are become new”, “All things are of God.” The old creation “bottles” have been flung aside and redemption-bottles set in their stead. The old creation “garment” has been cast away and the new, the spotless robe of redemption, substituted. In this fair robe, man’s hand never wove a thread nor set a stitch. How do we know? How can we speak with such confidence and authority? For the best of all reasons, because the divinely authoritative and therefore absolutely conclusive voice of Holy Scripture declares that in the new creation, “All things are of God.” The Lord be praised that it is so! It is this that makes all so secure, that places all so entirely beyond the reach of the enemy’s power. He cannot touch anything or anyone in the new creation.

Death is the limit of Satan’s domain. The grave forms the boundary of his dominion. But the new creation begins at the other side of death. It opens upon our enraptured gaze at heaven’s side of that tomb where the Prince of Life lay buried. It pours the brilliant beams of its glories around us in the midst of a scene where death can never enter, where sin and sorrow are unknown, where the hiss of the serpent can never be heard, nor his hateful trail be seen. “All things are of God.”

It would remove a host of difficulties and perplexities, and simplify matters amazingly, if this point of the new creation were clearly understood. If we look around on what is called the religious-world or the professing Church, what do we see? A large amount of effort to improve man in his Adamic, his natural or old creation condition. Philanthropy, science, philosophy, religion, are all brought into play. Every species of moral leverage is brought to bear for the purpose of raising man in the scale of existence. What do men mean when they talk of “elevating the masses?” How far can they go in their operations? To what point can they elevate them? Can they raise them into the new creation? Clearly not, seeing that in that creation all things are of God.

Further, who or what are these “masses” that men seek to elevate? Are they born of the flesh or born of the Spirit? Of the flesh confessedly and assuredly! Well then, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” You may elevate it as high as you please. You may apply the most powerful lever and raise it to the very loftiest point attainable. Educate, cultivate, sublimate it as you will. Let science, philosophy, religion (so-called) and philanthropy bring all their resources to bear, and what has been done? You cannot make it spirit. You cannot bring it into the new creation. You cannot form the first grand link of everlasting life. You have done absolutely nothing towards man’s best, his spiritual, his eternal interests. You have left him still in his old Adamic state, his old creation circumstances. You have left him in his liabilities, his responsibilities, his sins, his guilt. You have left him exposed to the righteous wrath of a sin-hating God. He may be more cultivated in his guilt, but he is guilty all the while. Cultivation cannot remove guilt, education cannot blot out sins, civilization cannot remove from man’s horizon the dark and heavy clouds of death and judgment.

Let us not be misunderstood. We do not want to belittle education or civilization, true philanthropy or true philosophy. We say distinctly, let them go for what they are really worth, let them be estimated at their true value. We are ready to allow as large a margin as may be demanded in which to insert all the possible advantages of education in all its branches; and having done so, we return with accumulated force to our grand thesis, namely, that in “elevating the masses,” you are elevating that which has no existence before God, no place in the new creation. We repeat with emphasis and urge it with energy, that until you get the soul into the new creation, you have done absolutely nothing for it with respect to eternity, to heaven and to God.

True, you may smooth man’s way through this world, you may remove some of the roughnesses from the highway of human life, you may place the flesh in the delusive lap of luxury and ease. You may wreath man’s brow with every species of laurel that ever was won in the various arenas in which men have carried on the competitive struggle for fame. You may adorn his name with all the titles that ever were bestowed by mortal upon his fellow mortal, and after all this, you leave him in his sins and exposed to death and eternal damnation. If the first grand link is not formed, the soul is like a vessel broken from her moorings and driven over the watery waste, without either rudder or compass.

We most earnestly desire to press this point upon the attention of the reader. We deeply feel its immense practical importance. We believe there is hardly any truth to which the devil offers more fierce and constant opposition than the truth of the new creation. He knows well its mighty moral influence, its power to lift the soul up out of present things, to produce deadness to the world, and practical and habitual elevation above the things of time and sense. Hence his effort is to keep people ever engaged in the hopeless work of trying to elevate nature and improve the world. He has no objection to morality, to religion as such, in all its forms. He will even use Christianity itself as a means of improving the old nature. Indeed his masterpiece is to tack on the Christian religion as a “new piece” upon the “old garment” of fallen nature. You may do what you like, provided you leave man in the old creation, for Satan knows full well that as long as you leave him there, you have left him in his clutches.

All in the old creation is in the grasp of Satan and within the full range of his guns. All in the new creation is beyond him. “He that is born of God keeps himself and that wicked one touches him not.” It is not said that the believer keeps himself and the wicked one touches him not. The believer is a complex being, having two natures — the old and the new, the flesh and the Spirit — and if he does not watch, “that wicked one” will speedily touch him, upset him and cut out plenty of sorrowful work for him. But the divine nature, the new creation, cannot be touched, and so long as we walk in the energy of the divine nature and breathe the atmosphere of the new creation, we are perfectly safe from all the assaults of the enemy.

Now, let us proceed to enquire how we get into the new creation, how we become possessed of the divine nature, how this link of everlasting life is formed. A quotation or two from the Word will be sufficient to open this point to us. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Mark these words, reader, observe the connection, “Believes in Him” … “Have everlasting life.” This is the link: simple faith. Thus it is we pass from the old creation with all its belongings, into the new creation with all its belongings. This is the precious secret of the new birth — faith wrought in the soul by the grace of God the Holy Spirit; faith that takes God at His word, that sets to its seal that God is true; faith that links the soul with a risen Christ, the Head and beginning of the New Creation.

Take another quotation, “Verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears My words and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life.” Here is the link again. “Believes on Me” … “Has everlasting life.” Nothing can be more simple. By natural birth we enter the precincts of the old creation and become heirs of all that pertained to the first Adam. By spiritual birth we enter the precincts of the new creation and become the heirs of all that pertains to the Second Adam. And if it be asked, what is the secret of this great mystery of the spiritual birth? the answer is, “Faith.” “He that believes on Me.” Hence, if the reader is one who believes in Jesus, according to the language of the above passages, he is in the new creation. He is a possessor of the divine nature. He is linked on to Christ by a link which is perfectly indissoluble. Such an one can never perish. No power of earth or hell, men or demons, can ever snap that link of everlasting life which connects all Christ’s members with their risen Head in glory, and with one another.

Let the reader note particularly that, in reference to the link of eternal life and its formation, we must take God’s thoughts in place of our own. We must be governed exclusively by the Word of God and not by our own vain reasonings, foolish imaginings and ever changing feelings. Moreover, we must be careful not to confound the two links which, though intimately connected, are completely distinct. We must not displace them, but leave them in their divine order. The first does not depend upon the second, but the second flows out of the first. The second is as much a link as the first, but it is second and not first. All the power and malice of Satan cannot snap the first link; the weight of a feather may snap the second. The first link endures forever; the second may be broken in a moment. The first link owes its permanency to the work of Christ for us, which was finished on the cross, and to the Word of God to us, which is settled forever in heaven; the second link depends upon the action of the Holy Spirit in us, which may be and sadly is interfered with by a thousand things in the course of a single day. The former is based upon Christ’s victory for us; the latter is based upon the Spirit’s victories in us.

Now, it is our firm conviction that thousands get shaken as to the reality and perpetuity of the first link of everlasting life, by reason of failure to maintain the second link of personal communion. Something occurs to snap the latter, and they begin at once to question the existence of the former. This is a mistake, but it only serves to show the immense importance of holy vigilance in our daily walk so the link of personal communion may not be broken by sin in thought, word or deed; or if it should be broken, of having it instantly restored by self-judgment and confession, founded upon the death and advocacy of Christ. It is an undeniable fact, confirmed by the sad experience of thousands of true saints of God, that when the second link is snapped, it is next to impossible to realize the first. And this, though so vitally important to us, is in reality only a secondary thing; for surely, the suspension of our communion is a small thing when compared with the dishonor done to the cause of Christ and the grief given to the Holy Spirit by that which occasioned the suspension.

May the Spirit of God work in us mightily to produce watchfulness, prayerfulness, seriousness and earnestness, that nothing may occur to interrupt our communion, but that the two links may be understood and enjoyed in their due place and order, to the glory of God by us, the stability of our peace in Him, and the integrity and purity of our walk before Him!

In order to unfold somewhat more fully on the subject of “the two links,” we would like to call our reader’s attention to a very important passage in 1 Corinthians 5. “For even Christ our passover is slain for us; therefore let us keep the feast.” In this brief quotation we have a wide range of truth presented. We have, first, a great fact stated, “Christ our passover is slain.” Secondly, we have an earnest appeal, “let us keep the feast.” In the former, we have the ground of our security, in the latter, the true secret of personal holiness.

Here again, we have the two links in their proper distinctness and yet in their proper order. We have a sacrifice and a feast, two things quite distinct, but yet intimately connected. The sacrifice is complete, but the feast is to be celebrated. Such is the divine order. The completeness of the sacrifice secures the believer’s title, and the celebration of the feast involves the whole of the believer’s practical life.

We must be careful not to confound these things. The feast of unleavened bread was founded upon the death of the paschal lamb. It typified that practical holiness which is to characterize the whole of a Christian’s life down here. “Christ is slain.” This secures everything as to title. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” God as a Judge was fully met and satisfied by the blood of the lamb. The destroying angel passed through the land of Egypt at the midnight hour with the sword of judgment in his hand, and the only means of escape was the sprinkled blood. This was divinely sufficient. God had declared, “When I see the blood, I will pass over.” Israel’s salvation rested on God’s estimate of the blood of the lamb. This is a most precious truth for the soul to dwell upon. Man’s salvation rests upon God’s satisfaction. The Lord be praised! “Christ our passover is slain for us.” Mark the words “is slain” and that, “for us.” This settles everything as to the great and all-important question of salvation from judgment and wrath. Thus the precious link of salvation is formed, a link which can never be broken. The link of eternal life and the link of eternal salvation is one and the same. The Lord Jesus Christ — the living Savior, the risen Head — maintains and ever will maintain this link in unbroken integrity. He says, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” “If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” “He ever lives to make intercession for us.”

Now a word or two as to the exhortation of the apostle, “therefore let us keep the feast.” Christ keeps us, and we are to keep the feast. He was slain to spread a feast for us, and that feast is a life of personal holiness — practical separation from all evil. Israel’s feast was composed of three things — a roasted lamb, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. Precious ingredients! They set forth in typical language, first, Christ as having endured the wrath of God for us; second, those deep, spiritual exercises of heart which flow from our contemplating the cross; and third, personal holiness or practical separation from evil. Such was the feast of God’s redeemed, and such is our feast now. Oh that we may have grace to celebrate it according to its due order! May our loins be girded, our feet shod and our pilgrim staff in hand.

Be it remembered, it is not a feast celebrated in order to reach a sacrifice, but a sacrifice slain to provide a feast. We must not reverse this order. We are very prone to reverse it because we are apt to regard God as an exacter instead of a giver — to make duty the basis of salvation instead of making salvation the basis of duty. An Israelite did not put away leaven in order to be saved from the sword of the destroyer, but because he was saved. In other words, there was first the blood-stained lintel and then the unleavened bread. These things must not be confounded, neither must they be separated. We are not saved from wrath by unleavened bread, but by a blood-stained lintel, but we can only enjoy the latter as we are diligently and jealousy maintaining the former. The two links are ever to stand in their divine order and in their inseparable connection. Christ Himself infallibly maintains the one; we by the grace of His Spirit, are to maintain the other. May He enable us so to do!