We have spoken already of the purpose of
God in creation and have said that he's
embraced far more than Adam ever came to
enjoy.
What was that purpose?
God wanted to have a race of men
whose members were gifted with a spirit whereby
communion would be possible with himself who is
spirit.
That race, possessing God's own life, was to
cooperate in securing his purposed end by defeating
every possible uprising of the enemy and undoing
his evil works.
That was the great plan.
How will it now be effected?
The answer is again to be found in
the death of the Lord Jesus.
It is a mighty death.
It is something positive and purposive, going far
beyond the recovery of a lost position.
For by it, not only are sin and
the old man dealt with and their effects
annulled, but something more, something infinitely greater is
introduced.
Now we must have before us two passages
of the word, one from Genesis 2 and
one from Ephesians 5, which are of great
importance in this connection.
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon the man and he slept.
And he took one of his ribs and
closed up the flesh instead thereof.
And the rib which the Lord God had
taken from the man made he a woman
and brought her unto the man.
And the man said, this is now bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman because she was
taken out of man.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also
loved the church and gave himself up for
it, that he might sanctify it, having cleansed
it by the washing of water with the
word, that he might present the church to
himself, a glorious church, not having spot or
wrinkle or any such thing, but that it
should be holy and without blemish.
In Ephesians 5, we have the only chapter
in the Bible which explains the passage in
Genesis 2.
What we have presented to us in Ephesians
is indeed very remarkable if we reflect upon
it.
I refer to what is contained in those
words, Christ loved the church.
There is something most precious here.
We have been taught to think of ourselves
as sinners needing redemption.
For generations that has been instilled into us.
We praise the Lord for that as our
beginning, but it is not what God has
in view as his end.
God speaks here rather of a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such
thing, but holy and without blemish.
All too often we have thought of the
church as being merely so many saved sinners.
It is that, but we have made the
terms almost equal to one another as though
it were only that which is not the
case.
Saved sinners, with that thought you have the
whole background of sin and the fall.
But in God's sight, the church is a
divine creation in his son.
The one is largely individual, the other corporate.
With the one the view is negative, belonging
to the past.
With the other it is positive, looking forward.
The eternal purpose is something in the mind
of God from eternity concerning his son.
And it has as its objective that the
son should have a body to express his
life.
Viewed from that standpoint, from the standpoint of
the heart of God, the church is something
which is beyond sin and has never been
touched by sin.
So we have an aspect of the death
of the Lord Jesus in Ephesians, which we
do not have so clearly in other places.
In Romans, things are viewed from the standpoint
of fallen man.
And beginning with Christ died for sinners, enemies,
the ungodly, we are led progressively to the
love of Christ.
In Ephesians on the other hand, the standpoint
is that of God before the foundation of
the world.
And the heart of the gospel is Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for
it.
Thus in Romans, it is we sinned and
the messages of God's love for sinners.
Whereas in Ephesians, it is Christ loved.
And the love here is the love of
husband for wife.
God forbid that I should suggest that the
Lord Jesus did not die for the purposes
of atonement.
Praise God he did.
We must remember that today we are in
fact in Ephesians 5 and not in Genesis
2.
Ephesians was written after the fall to men
who had suffered from its effects.
And in it, we have not only the
purpose in creation, but also the scars of
the fall, or there would need to be
no mention of spot or wrinkle.
Because we are still on the earth and
the fall is a historic fact, cleansing is
needed.
But we must always view redemption as an
interruption, an emergency measure made necessary by a
catastrophic break in the straight line of the
purpose of God.
Redemption is big enough, wonderful enough to occupy
a very large place in our vision.
But God is saying that we should not
make redemption to be everything, as though man
were created to be redeemed.
The fall is indeed a tragic dip downwards
in that line of purpose.
And the atonement, a blessed recovery whereby our
sins are blotted out and we are restored.
But when it is accomplished, there yet remains
a work to be done to bring us
into possession of that which Adam never possessed
and to give God that which his heart
desires.
For God has never forsaken the purpose which
is represented by that straight line.
Adam was never in possession of the life
of God as presented in the tree of
life.
But because of the one work of the
Lord Jesus in his death and resurrection, we
must emphasize again that it is all one
work.
His life was released to become ours by
faith.
And we have received more than Adam ever
possessed.
The very purpose of God is brought within
reach of fulfillment by our receiving Christ as
our life.
Adam was put to sleep.
We remember that it is said of believers
that they fall asleep rather than that they
die.
Why?
Because whenever death is mentioned, sin is there
in the background.
In Genesis 3, sin entered into the world
and death through sin.
But Adam's sleep preceded that.
So the type of the Lord Jesus here
is not like other types in the Old
Testament.
In relation to sin and atonement, there is
a lamb or a bullock slain.
But here Adam was not slain, but only
put to sleep, to awake again.
Thus he prefigures a death that is not
on account of sin, but that has in
view increase in resurrection.
Then too, we must note that Eve was
not created as a separate entity by a
separate creation parallel to that of Adam.
Adam slept and Eve was created out of
Adam.
That is God's method with the church.
God's second man has awakened from his sleep
and his church is created in him and
of him to draw her life from him
and to display that resurrection life.
God has a son who is known to
be the only begotten.
And God is seeking that the only begotten
son should have brethren.
From the position of only begotten, he will
become the first begotten.
And instead of the son alone, the entrance
of thy words giveth light.
Some servant of God has been used by
him to confront us with his living word.
And that word has made an entrance into
us.
Or perhaps we ourselves have been waiting before
God, whether from our memory of scripture or
from the page itself, his word has come
to us in power.
Then it is, we see something we've never
seen before.
We're convicted.
We know where we are wrong and we
look up and confess, Lord, I see it.
There is impurity there.
There is mixture.
How blind I was.
Just fancy that for so many years I've
been wrong there and have never known it.
Light comes in and we see light.
The light of God brings us to see
the light concerning ourselves.
And it is an abiding principle that every
knowledge of self comes to us in that
way.
Light has one law.
It shines wherever it is admitted.
That is the only requirement.
We may shut it out of ourselves.
It fears nothing else.
If we throw ourselves open to God, he
will reveal.
The trouble comes when we have closed areas,
locked and barred places in our hearts where
we think with pride that we are right.
Our defeat then lies not only in our
being wrong but in our not knowing that
we are wrong.
Wrong may be a question of natural strength.
Ignorance of it.
You can see the natural strength in some
but they cannot see it in themselves.
And we need to be sincere and humble
and to open ourselves before God.
Those who are open can see.
God is light.
We cannot live in his light and be
without understanding.
Let us say again with the psalmist, oh
send out thy light and thy truth.
Let them lead me.
We praise God that sin is being brought
to the notice of Christians today more than
hitherto.
In many places the eyes of Christians have
been opened to see that victory over sins
as items is important in Christian life.
And in consequence, many are walking closer to
the Lord in seeking deliverance and victory over
them.
Praise the Lord for any movement toward himself,
any movement back to real holiness and to
God.
But that is not enough.
There is one thing that must be touched
and that is the very life of the
man, not merely his sins.
The question of the personality of the man,
of his soul power, it is the heart
of the matter.
To make the question of sins to be
everything is still to be on the surface.
Holiness, if you only regard sins, is still
something on the outside, still superficial.
You have not yet got to the root
of the evil.
Adam did not let sin into the world
by committing murder, that came later.
Adam let in sin by choosing to have
his soul developed to a place where he
could go on by himself, apart from God.
When therefore God secures a race of men
who will be to his glory and who
will be his instrument to accomplish his purpose
in the universe, they will be a people
whose life, yea, whose very breath is dependent
upon him.
He will be the tree of life to
them.
What I feel more and more the need
of in myself, what I feel that we
all need, as the Lord's children need, to
seek from God, is a real revelation of
ourselves.
I repeat that I do not mean that
we should be forever looking in on ourselves
and asking now, is this soul or is
it spirit?
That will never get us anywhere.
It is darkness, no.
Scripture shows us how the saints were brought
to self-knowledge, was always by light from
God, and that light is God himself.
Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Peter, Paul, John, all came
to a knowledge of themselves because the Lord
flashed himself upon them, and that flash brought
revelation and conviction.
We can never know the hatefulness of sin
and the hatefulness of ourselves unless there is
that flash of God upon us.
I speak not of a sensation, but of
an inward revelation of the Lord himself through
his word.
It does for us what doctrine alone can
never do.
Christ is our light.
He is the living word.
And when we read the scriptures that life
in him brings revelation, that life was the
light of men, such illumination may not come
to us all at once, but gradually.
But it will be more and more clear
and searching until we see ourselves in the
light of God and all our self-confidence
is gone.
For light is the purest thing in the
world.
It cleanses, it sterilizes, it kills what should
not be there.
In its radiance, the dividing asunder of joints
and marrows becomes to us a fact and
no mere teaching.
We know fear and trembling as we recognize
the corruption of man's nature, the hatefulness of
our own selves, and the real threat to
the work of God of our unrestrained soul,
life, and energy.
As never before, we see now how much
of us needs God's drastic dealing if he
is to use us.
And we know that apart from him as
the servants of God, we are finished.
But here, the cross, in its widest meaning,
will come to our help again.
And we shall seek now to examine an
aspect of its work which meets and deals
with our problem of the human soul.
For only a thorough understanding of the cross
can bring us to that place of dependence
which the Lord Jesus himself voluntarily took when
he said, I can of myself do nothing.
As I hear, I judge.
And my judgment is righteous because I seek
not mine own will but the will of
him that sent me.