CHAPTER 1

 

That Blessed Trio of Triumph:

The KNOWLEDGE of GOD: the POWER and the SUFFERING

 

 

It is in Philippians 3:10 that we read of Paul’s intense desire that

 

“I may know Him and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
if by any means I might attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

 

This is Paul’s express desire as shown in Philippians 3:10. It is not to be sure, that which all would express. Some might say: I want to know God, the power of His help and the fellowship of His joys. However, the apostle is not interested in self-fulfilment, but divine joy, not in avoidance of sufferings so that the register of selfishness might be better filled, but in encompassing them IN and FOR Christ as the case might require. It is better so, far better so. Self-pleasure-pain is no worthwhile trinity, but KNOWING YOUR PLACE in your Creator, and HIM in whom this places you is good and godly: KNOWING HIS POWER FOR HIS PURPOSES IN YOU and finding FELLOWSHIP in doing what you are bidden, for so exalted an aim, this is the way of the person who trusts in God, and for whom God is God, not convenience utility.

 

In this volume, these three phases of Christian life, KNOWING GOD, knowing the POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION and the FELLOWSHIP of His sufferings, DV will form a core of conception, an avenue of exploration and an emphasis for application. In this present chapter, some of the thrust of this passage will be contemplated so that its beauty may be felt, its point appreciated and this life the better fulfilled.

 

After that, this theme may pulse through news and presentation, apologetic emphasis and application in this world as it develops in its throes of torment, before judgment, in its scope for salvation before that day, and in its hope for mankind, always lively, always available and always Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. But there is an end: Christ is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the word express word of the living God, and when the time comes, as when time began, there is no more time, and heaven and earth shall flee away. It is time to be timely about time, and not so to time your days that you leave untimely, truant from truth.

 

It is better to KNOW GOD, the POWER of His resurrection, and to share the FELLOWSHIP of His sufferings. 

 

 

 

THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION

 

The power

 

You see this power which had raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead (Luke 8:41ff.), and the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11), as well as Lazarus (John 11), and in concert with His Father and the Holy Spirit, had raised Christ from the dead like a rocket blasting its way through rock, that of the tomb into a life which seized the apostles and astounded the world (Luke 24).  Thus Acts 1:1 tells us that in Luke we were told what Christ had BEGUN to do; now in this APPLICATION of His risen power, we find what He continued to do.

 

It is this same power from this same Jesus which was assuredly shown in Paul’s dealings as the book of Acts in grand and minute detail attests (Chapter 2 below), in healings, in guidance, in church foundings, in corrections, in self-discipline, in ardour, in effectiveness, in love, in grace, in courage, in testimony, as a “master builder” (I Corinthians 3:10-11), and yet as one who would build as directed, since no man CAN build what endures as truth, on any other foundation “than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 3:11).

 

Nothing else lasts from the first (Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, TMR Ch. 3), or moves from then till now unchanged: but oh so elaborated, so activated, so fulfilled, in such detail, in such thematic splendour, with such practicality of things only God could do, in such coverage of history, of holiness and of sacrifice, in such blessedness and coherence, validity and authenticity, confirming itself on all points so that no man, rational and open to truth, can withstand it (cf. SMR, TMR). Alas however, there is no man without sin, and the greatest of sins is that resistance to the Holy Spirit which in the end, leads to a blasphemy so intense that there is no escape (cf. Acts 7:51ff., Hebrews 6, 10).

 

What is the kernel of blasphemy ? It is an unwilling heart and a contorted mind which clings as to the flesh of the victim like a leach, disturbs his spirit and disquiets his nature; but in this case, alas, the victim is man himself. It is to Christ he must cling, and this, not  to suck the blood, but to receive its message, accept its cover and being sacrificially bought by a price which only the sinless Saviour could pay, live with,  in,  for and through the Lord Himself.

 

But what of this passage in Philippians 3:10, and Paul’s great yearning of heart ?

 

No Gospel but one was there (cf. Ephesians 4:4, Galatians 1, 3, 5), and no rest but in the Christ to whom this pointed is there. So Paul strove in shipwrecks, in imprisonment, as unknown yet well known, as knocked down but not out (though on one occasion he was left for dead), as reviled, as a sort of offscouring of the universe (cf. I Corinthians 4:13), along with the other apostles, and they were of one mind, not dividing, but learning from one another when needed, yet always firstly and finally from the Lord and in His name acting. As with David, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, but now under the summary sovereign power of the sacrificial Saviour, they worked in the name of that ONE GOD who alone has put His power to His word and His word to work to do whatever He has said.

 

 

THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS

 

The sufferings

were as the above equally shows, experienced to the full, and this, as Paul put it
(whether for himself or for us who are Christians now) was partly that he might

 

“fill up in my flesh what lacks in the afflictions of Christ,
for the sake of His body,
which is the Church” –

 

Colossians 1:24. And in what could anything be lacking (Colossians 1:22)? In this: that the love of Christ might be felt NOW via contemporary disciples, and be seen and impactive on the world, yes, and be more realised, as the globe grows weary and soiled, toiling in its turnings to the doom that awaits its inhabitants.

 

Doom ? (Matthew 24:35, II Peter 3), yes it is this,  except they receive that mercy from God which He has sent by ONE person in ONE human form for ONE purpose that ONE result might be obtained for that ONE place, by His side in heaven, which is the due result for man, though not with the appendage of sin; so that without the attribution of sin, in Christ’s redemption he might there appear (cf. I Ephesians 4:4, Corinthians 15:50 cf. … Immutable Faith Ch. 11, I Thess. 5:9-10, Titus 2-3, John 14:1ff., Romans 3:23ff., Ephesians 2, 4).

 

This love, it is this in which the Father sent Christ to finish redemption (Hebrews 9:12ff., John  3:16, I John  4:9), which in anguish and triumph, He accomplished (Hebrews 5:7, John 19:13-30); and it is this in which His people must live and act, so that others might in our time the more readily realise that it was because GOD SO LOVED the world that He gave His Son (John 3:16); and it was because He was pleased so to act as to enable the reconciliation of “all things to Himself by Him,” yes, “whether things in heaven or in earth” (Colossians 1:19ff.), such was His love, that He gave.

 

Do you notice notice it ? Many seem to fail to do so. It is immediately after EMPHASISING that Christ created ALL THINGS that are “in heaven and earth,” in that extensive fashion, “whether principalities or powers”, whether “visible or invisible” that we learn that IT PLEASED the Father to reconcile the same ALL THINGS, in the same sort of manner emphasised and itemised (1:15 with 1:19-20). His grandeur of conception, creation and salvation as far as His love is concerned, is total, parallel and profound. Anything less not merely parodies the precision of scripture, but distorts the very love of God. SO it is said to be; so it is. That is the sort of love YOU NEED to SHOW! That is the Person with whom you deal, in Christ! With whom you have fellowship!

 

Moreover, though not all things will come to Him, yet God has gone to the uttermost in seeking; and without the travesty of creation to be made if it were treated as if it were mere robots, the robotic in the hands of the despotic, He brings His love to the issuance. Though He has foreknown all who are HIs, it is the method which matters: and though before time, He knew it, it is in Christ that this foreknowing is done, and He ? He does not change (Hebrews 13:8).  While therefore dealing with man as in His image, however defiled by sin, He stops as He stopped at the barrier of breach, as love does: though His love cries as Christ did, saying,

 

 “How often would I have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathers her chickens, but you were not willing…” (Matthew 23:37 cf. SMR Appendix B).

 

While our wills are by sin rendered inoperative at the level of ‘choosing’ God before our salvation (Romans 9:16, John 15:16, 1:12ff., I Corinthians 2:14, I John 3), yet God in choosing His own people (I Timothy 2:19, Ephesians 1:4) is multiply on record^*1 about His love towards all, that HE WOULD HAVE all to be reconciled to Himself. The limit lies not in God but in man; and if in God, it is then that love will not prostitute itself, or so demean its object that not love but lust or force is involved. Moreover, that is not to reduce the love, but to ensure that love is what it is, and that love is what man gains; for GOD IS LOVE (I John 4:7ff.). In Him, it is neither possessive nor vacuous, and His own He finds, and binds them to Him with cords of love.

 

How does one who is held in this love then act ? It is as love will. Thus in that love (cf. Ephesians 3:14ff.), Christians today cannot rightly say, I will do this or that because I fear this, or impute evil in this way or that, or my church does not want this or that: for who made YOU or YOUR CHURCH to occupy some blasphemous position as an alter ego to God! It is to do what we are TOLD that shows and expresses best the love of God (John 14:21-23, I John 5:1ff.); and it is in obeying His commandments, the first of which is whole-hearted love to God and the second under it,  to our neighbour as ourselves, that we best help others. Oneness in Christ CANNOT go beyond His word, but within it, it is to be sought ardently (John 17:6, 17:17,21-23). After all, whom do we represent, ourselves, our church, our hopes, our pleasure, our penchant, or our God: and as to Him, HE SPEAKS!

 

Thus, making up “what remains” of this contemporary testimony to Christ the only Redeemer (Acts 4:12-13), God as man (Isaiah 40:10-11, Isaiah 53), provides an amplification of the eternally complete redemption, in one point, not in its nature, but in its exhibition. Suffering is one attestation of love which any may read, and when it is wrought in that Spirit of Christ which He sends, then is the flower flourishing which any may savour.

 

Love hopes all things, bears all things. In such love and with it, the children of God may attest in word and deed, what it is that animates them, SHOW its ultimately divine basis of real and practical determination for man’s good,  and SEEK the lost in that love. In this and such ways, there is a constant updating of the love that never changes. It is not in its nature, but in its exhibition that ever renewing resources flow!

 

The work of redemption is done; its presentation continues in the POWER | of the Holy Spirit and in the FELLOWSHIP of Christ’s sufferings.

 

The DESIRE of God was shown in this, that indeed having been pleased to incarnate His eternal Word so that as the Son of God He might redeem within the beauty of humility of disposition, serviceability in power, healing of heart and body, soul and spirit, mind and capacity, unanswerability of wisdom, glory of heart, tenderness of solicitude His continual attestation: yet it was by the blood of the Cross that He made peace. It is “in the body of His flesh through death,” that He acts, “to present holy and unblameable, and unreproveable in His sight.”  The QUALITY is perfection; the OPERATIVE MEDIUM, it is blood.  The desire is to shield and save; the means is death, dire ransoming death. For that purpose it was shed; and for this, it is applied.

 

Yes with all the delicacy of the flower, the beauty of the garden of life, He came, yet as the evil powers of hell resisted all goodness and raged their condemnations of man, He consummated and achieved the crux of His coming with the surgical horror of presenting His very body, not to deny the sin, but to cover it. “So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:28). There is that “many” for the third time already.

 

He was not offered to bear the sins of all; NEVER was such a ludicrous abuse of His efficacy in view. The personal animal sacrifice in the Old Testament most clearly had to have the confession and transference of sins made upon it, before it was slain; and without that, there was mere nothing, a dispersion of the covenant and an annulment of the offer. ONLY then was sin borne, only then was the deed done (Leviticus 4). To be sure, there was provision for the annual sacrifice for sins (Leviticus 16), but this was not for ANYONE but for ANYONE who BELIEVED (Deuteronomy 29:18ff.).

 

Those without faith have nothing to do with the blessings of the covenant. Imagining you can breach your way in (contrary to John 10:1ff.), by sheer will power, and so contact the sacred in any efficacious manner is ignoring the fact that the new birth as in John 1:12, is NOT according to the will of man,  or the flesh or any such thing, but as in all birth, wrought without the contrivance of what is to be borne, carried into birth. All is provided from without.

 

Again, you cannot TELL where the wind which signifies the work of God, comes from: and YOUR WILL you CAN tell! Hence the operation of your will is not a condition or criterion of faith; it is the expression of what you are, and it is God who knowing all, calls effectually whom He will. It is neither by virtue of implicit superiority of character or of will. The case is neither a denial of the love to all which He categorically affirms, that they might be saved, nor is it an emplacement of eternal destiny in the blind wisdom of man in his sin. It is GOD who chooses; but THIS, in His unlimited LOVE, is HOW He chooses.

 

Thus it is in Christ before all time (Ephesians 1:4), and not in some other way; it is in the One who wept for Jerusalem and who cried for His people as a hen for chickens (SMR Appendix B), yes it is in Him that predestination was STATEDLY made; and just as it is central to the reality of the incarnation that He who has seen Christ has seen the Father (John 14:9), so it is central to realise that it is THIS Christ who shows the true heart and mind, character and disposition of God. Hence in predestination as in all other things, as He was on earth in spirit and character and word, SO He was in heaven; as He was in time, so before it. Accordingly, SO it was when in this love, many were elected, and so predestinated. These, then, they are known; they are foreknown; then the case is set: His blood has availed for them, just as it was freely offered to all, with a sincerity amounting to passion, with a depth amounting to weeping that they do not come.

 

OPEN to all, then, He is SAVIOUR TO SOME, and in so doing, He pays for those who in receiving His sacrifice, render it operative for themselves, for as to those who reject Him, of them He says this, “You shall die in your sins” – John 8:24.

 

For them, not a flicker of the register occurs, not a drop of blood is spilt, shed or oozes from the lacerations of the body of Christ, no death avails, and no redemption is provided. It is not that it is not THERE and AVAILABLE; but it is not touched. It is not that it is on the other hand, activated or applied at all, in such a case; the love is expended, but the blood is not received.  What is not received does not achieve transference. Redemption is as close as the brotherhood, while its offer is as wide as the earth, and yet wider, for it “pleased the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell, and having made peace through the blood of the cross, through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, through Him, I say, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:19).

 

The DESIRE of the loving heart of God is UNIVERSAL, and He says so in language frequently found, emphatic, and dramatic. The PAYMENT is adequate for all, apt for all, and interpretative of the love in this, as I John 2:2 so abundantly clearly proclaims. Thus it is, this sacrifice, “on behalf of all”, for there is none who is excluded who would come, as in the sacrifices of the Old Testament precisely;  but it is equally, effective only for many, for the whole of heaven is the inheritance of those whose sins He bore as Romans 8:32, with precise and perfect clarity, attests. “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ?”

 

Not only so, but Paul  proceeds to expatiate in the very terms of the elect: “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect ? It is God who justifies. Who is He who condemns ? It is Christ who died.”

 

Those for whom He was delivered up not merely have all of heaven as their inheritance, but are spoken of in terms of His elect! It is not for some exhibition of feeling that Christ died, though His death certainly DOES attest that feeling. To be sure, His desires and protestations as in Ezekiel 33:11 do mean that in dying He has attested His love to the uttermost; but He has not invested it in a redemption inapplicable to those for whom it is made. It is statedly for those to whom He will “also freely give all things”, that He is delivered up as a sacrifice.

 

All sacrifice indeed is meaningless to the spiritual recipient, without faith. Just as the individual in the temple patterns, would offer sacrifice on a personal substitutionary base, and would act as a believer within the terms of the covenant, so now also, it is to faith, by faith, on Him as objective, the object of faith (cf. Romans 4:24ff.). Again, just as a sacrificial offer  was made for Israel annually, so He once for all was offered; and just as only some believed (cf. Hebrews 4:1-2, I Corinthians 10:1ff.), so the sacrifice had no efficacy for such, but rather the contrary (Deuteronomy 29:18ff); and without contest, hell has no such conferment to present to any of its lonely inhabitants, nor have those eventually to be lost, any such celestial inheritance as those to whom Paul speaks in Romans 8:32ff., nor yet are the sons of hell,  the elect. It is these, the elect, for whom He is statedly delivered up, and it is to the world that He has come, out of love, proclaiming in all sincerity, “Whosoever …”

 

For God did not disdain the world, in order to send His Son, but so LOVED. He was not befuddled, but He bought. He did not pay for what He did not get, but obtained His purchase. Nor did He withhold that which might avail, but announcing love to all, He provided enough for them, but paid only for His own, not ashamed to pick up the cheques of divine credit. Where the offer is avoided, it is void.

 

The frequently found Calvinist contention is quite wrong in limiting the amplitude of that unlimited love, so that it does not relate at all to salvation^*2 (cf.  Repent or Perish Ch. 1, *2, which being amplified recently, is here added as an Excursion). When God says He would have all to be saved (I Timothy 2), it is what He means.

 

His restraint is not the same either as frustration or diffuseness. The love is real, but so is its purity, and it proceeds as love does, as far as it may; and how far is that ? It is as far as He who IS love wishes to send it, though in yearning for His misspent creation, He would that it might yet reach further. Yet He will not breach His own nature, nor the natures of those for whom He has sought. The resurgence of His love, like giant rolling breakers, is most powerful and intense; but it does not fly, as if it forgot that to which it was directed. Its sincerity is towards all; its purity may reach only some, NOT because they were more meritorious, with any X-factor of desirable character, or superior operative will for that matter, but because He will not breach what He has made, and having made, both loves without limit, and acts without sullying.

 

SO He loves without limit, as He has indicated when treating of this aspect, repeatedly; and He loves also without violation of love (I John 4).

 

On the other hand, the Arminian^*2 trend to expand the amplitude of His love into a deficiency of attainment, as if He paid for what is yet lost, is as bad if not worse. Here you have a flat contradiction of scripture, just as in the other case. No wonder they do war, have warred and presumably will war on and on. They are both wrong. It is as in a divorce: both parties may have sinned, each against the other and the truth, and without repentance what can be done ? So they separate.

 

In fact however, the love is as great as Wesley ever desired to express, and the sovereignty as sure as Calvin ever set his heart on expounding. Neither conflicts, neither is occasion for addition to the word of God, or for contraction of it (cf. Predestination and Freewill, Section  II and Section  III). In one point Wesley was right against Whitefield, and in one, Whitefield was right against Wesley. Love and sovereignty, each unembarrassed, each utterly integral and with utter integrity, is alike rule in this, that nothing breaches either, and each is what it is and not another.

 

 It is in this love that one works by suffering; and because it  IS this love, so ample, so vast, so unrestricted but not unrestrained in its purity, then when one proceeds thus,
it is indeed in fellowship with the Lord, a fellowship which the sufferings interpret
and their fruit depicts, for it is Christ only who saves.

 

The fellowship is not one of some synergistic symphony, as if one were a participant in providing others with salvation. Rather is it one of beautiful comradeship, so that the person speaking of Christ Jesus is provider of the word, testifier of the truth, but this as one who shares the research product of some great firm, to which one has contributed, and can contribute, NOTHING. Wrong is the often used phrase, “go out and convert someone”, or as one minister inadvisedly once applied it when as a teacher the author was speaking to a Science specialist, ‘Donaldson is converting so and so…’  

 

Yet how could I convert anyone ? If a man ministers, it is God who commands the light to shine out of darkness (II Corinthians 4:6). It is the word of God which is presented which does not return void (Isaiah 55:1-11), and the power of the Holy Spirit in His threefold work (John 16:9-11), which converts. I for my part am no more ‘converting’ someone than is the one who flies with an atomic bomb, either creating it or making its power (Romans 1:16). He merely brings it to the place where it does what it is to do. With the glorious gospel of Christ however, one is making a far greater explosion of grace,that the worst bomb of destruction; for this grace is priceless, while that may be purchased for a few millions.

 

Further, though Christ ALONE died for sins, a ransom (cf. Matthew 20:28), there is a spirit of service which endues this action, to which the Christian must come, and as Christ suffered to the most excruciating degree, in providing a redemption which hit the universe like a galaxy in collision with the earth, and its Milky Way, so the Christian may need to suffer in ways unthought of, though they could never begin to find equality with the suffering of God for man, in the form of a man, without sin and yet bearing its impact in order to dismiss it.

 

Suffering now,  for the purpose of seeking the application of His redemption by His word, this however is aptly dispensed with a liberality if required, that attests the One in whose name one comes.

 

 

Yes there is even more than this to be found in this phrase. What then do we find ?

 

In Philippians 3, Paul not only speaks of the power of God and of the sufferings which he is to endure in its exhibition and application to a suffering world; he also speaks of the “fellowship” of the sufferings of Christ, of that participation in this work of the Lord as a chief aim. In what sense then is there “fellowship” in sufferings, and how may we understand it more intimately than we have as yet ?

 

Fellowship of His sufferings: This is the easy part to SAY; but it is the hard part to DO! SINCE Christ as God is love, then His desire for the lost is most intense. WHEN you experience such a desire, and act to apply it, then you are one with Christ and He is one with you, as you follow His word, His Spirit in you (if you are a Christian – Romans 8:9). You toil for HIM, and He toils in YOU (cf. Philippians 2:12-13), and toiling together, He in you, and you to present the Gospel, expound the word, give reason for the faith, show the love of Christ, and find the self-discipline which is thus required, there is FELLOWSHIP. He acts to give power, grace and understanding, direction and joy with peace, you to implement His will in His friendship, which being divine, is incomparable.

 

There is a blessed peace between you and Him, as His life and love are shared, as a branch shares in the vine, and His power is propelling you as the sap moves through the vine to the leaves, and you rejoice in His desire, and He in your implementation.

 

He joins with you in this great project, and you with Him, and there is a cordial collaboration which engenders a friendly joy and a brotherly delight (cf. Hebrews 2:10-11,17).

 

With such a brother as this, who would not rejoice! Rejoice and again I say rejoice! says Paul (Philippians 4:4), and what is missing in that ? It is this phrase, “in the Lord” :

 

“Rejoice in the Lord, always. Again I say rejoice.”

 

 

 

KNOWING GOD

 

Yet now we return to the

 

KNOWLEDGE of GOD: that I may KNOW HIM, says Paul, and this the first point, we revisit and thus consider last.

 

 

This, to know God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent – not some philosophical speculation, some theosophical compilation, some vacuous visionary deposition as if this were for man to rely upon (and hence not least, no doubt, Paul’s extreme reticence on talking of his visions – II Corinthians 12:1-7).  To be sure, one may have visions (Acts 2:17), for this reference used by Peter at Pentecost and taken from Joel is one of the signals of our age, and it is to the young it is given, whilst in parallel, dreams to the old, and it is associated with the outpouring of the Spirit in a non-restrictive fashion.

 

The author had vision of God at the first leading to conversion, and it was associated at first with Gospel conviction and then with commission for ministry; and it was well to have such a commencement to such a ministry which in so much by so many for so long has been so assailed, as if simply INSISTING on the scripture of truth, the Bible as the sole authorised revelation of God to man, on its reliability and its sole efficacy, and on Christ as there presented, were fatal. It is as if it were in some way extraordinary, though it is this and must remain so to the unbelieving world, and this the more as it wanders into isolation from God with more fraud and falsity, emptiness and urbanity, terrors and acquired immunity to truth as its regress progresses to its own fatal finish. Does it not find itself outraged, inflamed, exasperated, hostile or alien even to the simplest of demonstrable propositions, which touch its pride, vainglory and false hopes!  

 

Despite all such things, like headwinds experienced by an aircraft on its journey,  there has been result, and there must be with the word of God: one naturally applies it, expounds it, expresses it point, preaches it, teaches it; but in this Age of Confusion there has been such a traditional air of this, linked to an innovative air of that,  as if the camp and not the Christ were important, or as if novelty and not necessity mattered, that it reeks of the false prophets and false christs whom Christ attested as the affliction of the times to come.

 

Visions as we read in Joel and Acts, will come. It is not at all, however, in such visions that one glories, but in God who gives the knowledge of Himself in MANY ways, as does any friend, and this One being my Creator, has inimitable ways and illimitable power: and He acts for those who wait for Him and keep His ways (Isaiah 64:5), and with what wonderful action! Moreover He has provided the decisive and definitive scripture, the incisive Christ and the expository experience of life in accord with this and with Him, just as He calls for a fellowship of sufferings; and as we proceed, who could fail to KNOW Him who calls, who enables, who delivers, who instructs the heart and teaches the mind! On the “highway of holiness” (Isaiah 35), it is of inexpressible delight that EVEN FOOLS do not err!

 

 

To know God and in particular Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3) is entirely crucial to salvation (John 17:3), just as knowing you are a man, is important in being one; for if you were confused, and thought perhaps you were an animal, you might indeed be so denatured as to be dehumanised into proportions at last contemptible. With contempt, alas, the scripture is quite clear, many will make their way to their ends (Daniel 12:2, II Peter 2:10-3:7, Matthew 7:21ff., Mark 9).

 

Imagine if a Volkswagen were convinced that it was a Boeing 747, or vice versa. Vice versa of course is the apt analogy for those who think of themselves as animals. Only recently, in conversation, one had to point out that a man could certainly DECIDE, CHOOSE to act as an animal, or a devil, or as one for whom the means of living were taken instead of the life to which they minister, but in being able so to CHOOSE, he shows that he is not this. An animal has NO CHOICE. It acts as it is. The spirit of man (Christ Jesus: the Wisdom and the Power of God, Ch. 7), enables this comedy and this tragedy of pretension; and so to act  is as mad in spirit (Hosea 9:7 gives this sense) as is its converse, where a man, being a mere sinner, comes to act as if he were God! So they RISE in folly, or FALL in baseness: astray!

 

God Himself may act as man by CHOOSING to become one; but for a man to act as God or a god, is for the Volkswagen, seeing it is popular, to decide that it is a car factory.

 

To know God means that you know what you are, whose you are by creation, whose you are by adoption as a Christian, whose blood was shed for you (Acts 20:28), whose Spirit inhabits you (Romans 8:9). You know whose inheritance is given to you (Ephesians 1:11) – though some may have seasons of confusion, alas, which should be quickly remedied in faith in Him according to His word, which is MOST clear as here shown – whose ways delight you, whose works enable you, whose finished work of atonement has paid for you, whose love embraces your spirit, whose understanding enables your mind and whose tender compassions and mercy uphold you despite your weakness, giving you strength for the day, patience for the task and rest for your soul (Matthew 11:28-30). And this ? It is indeed glorious (Isaiah 11:10, which is thus verified daily).

 

You then can know what it means that the young men will faint in their weakness, while you may be gray-headed, yet not forsaken, and with those who wait on the Lord,  INCREASE your strength, rise up with wings like eagles, run and not be weary, yes, walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:28ff.). Do you recall the word of Christ to Peter as in John 21, when finding him active anew in his earlier profession of fishing, and that after denying Christ three times at the dramatic crisis ? It was so gracious and pleasant, this word, if searching. 

 

The events were like the workings of a compressed spring. Peter realising from the very boat where he fished that it was the Lord, jumped in and swam to Him on the shore, enjoying in this way the POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION. Christ cooked the meal for them from the fish caught, just as He had eaten with them earlier (Luke 24:43), proclaiming that He was not spirit, but flesh and blood (Luke 24:39), exhorting them to HANDLE ME AND SEE!

 

Now later, in the fishing episode, when they were again led to catch many fish in a way so reminiscent of the earlier actions when He had now long known them, He proceeded to recommission Peter in terms of that love and loyalty in which He had failed, asking three times in different terms, similar questions. IF there was the warmth of friendship, and if the devotion to the Lord, then this was to be the spur for service, like that a shepherd, considerately caring for the sheep.

 

From the dead came this voice, in the living it came; and to the living to gave a privilege, for to have as employer the One who broke death leaves all knowledge in abeyance and meekness by comparison, and all power puny.  It is the power of One who was dead and is alive (Revelation 1:18-19), and having taken the whole course of triumph, the tour of duty, having visited the human form and lived in it, sickness and cured it, death and raised the dead, He then went through that supreme sacrifice of actually dying Himself, that in the breach of death, not only as an event and power, but as something having grounds in divine justice, there might be met the breath of life: and He lived. Would a manm forget this ? Would such a commission pall, or would it be inadequate ? for what power is greater, and what can threaten more than this, which is quenched, like flames, and what confidence could excel the trust in the One who did it!

 

“Because,” said Christ, “I live, you shall live also!” (John 14:19, Romans 3:23ff.).

 

The knowledge of God, to know Him, it is not a phrasing or a clutter of speech, but an experience so utterly exceptional, a function so truly unique, that one can understand, even before Christ put His seal on it all, the Psalmist well saying, as in Psalm 73:25:

 

“Whom have I in heaven, but Thee;

and there is none whom I desire on earth, beside Thee.”

 

If a tree were a man, would it not know the river by which it lives, as some giant red gum by an Australian stream (the Holy Spirit as in the imagery of Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22 q.v.). Would he not know the fishermen who were by his side ? Would he not provide shade for them ? Would he not know the ground of his roots (“other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 3:11) ? Would he not know the skies above (we are sitting in heavenly places IN CHRIST – Ephesians 2:6) ? Would he not sense the profundity of peace as the stream ran on its course, bringing blessing on all sides (cf. Isaiah 48:18, Psalm 1),  beauty in arcades about it ?

 

	So when a man is IN Christ, and Christ in him (Colossians 1:27),
	does he not know it ?
	Or when he knows WHO forgave his sins and pardoned his iniquities,
	WHO suffered for him and WHO gave His life for Him,
	WHO being sent by the LOVE of God, loved His own to the end (John 13:1) and offered His salvation freely to all; and when he realises
	WHO lives in Him and
	WHOSE He is,
	is he unconscious of these specifications and dynamics of living ?

 

Further, when the Holy Spirit sent by Christ from the Father (John 15:26) works in Him, at times striving mightily (Philippians 2:13-14, Ephesians 3:16), does he not know it ? Indeed, in knowing Christ in this way, he does more than assent to propositions, though these do truly express reality when from the Bible they come; he knows the One who made them.

 

Some use some conception of this to try to ADD to the word of God, as if knowing God made you an apostle, or being saved gave you sanction to invent: but the canon is indeed closed (cf. SMR Appendix  C and  D, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 11, Sparkling Life … Chs. 1-2), and irreversibly the portrait of Christ is once for all made in history, and indited in word form, by those whom saw Him. It is useless trying to paint a portrait with your mind; for you must see the One concerned.

 

Some use it to subtract from the word of God, so that the authority of Him who came to make manifest who God is, what His love is and His salvation, is to be excluded in behalf of this great and sensational presumption, that someone neither witnessing His splendour nor living in His time, if it were possible would pare off, like some beauty surgeon, the divine face till it fits his own preferred philosophic and arrogant moulding. If such a task is purely spiritual, it is neither spiritually pure nor much to be preferred to that other remoulding which snatched out His beard and acted so to deform His physique that the residue, we read, was scarcely recognisably human (Isaiah 52:12ff.).

 

Some use it in seeking to evade what God has said. They use the reliability and definitive character of the word of God written, the Bible, to evade the personal reception of Christ, just as He Himself said when on earth! In John 5:39-47, we see it clearly, the incalculable intimacy of the word which depicts and the Christ whom it depicts like partners in marriage, and the failure of some to follow the one given, to the One shown:

 

“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. “But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.I do not receive honor from men.
 

“But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you.
 

“I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.
 

“How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?

 

"Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

 

You have perhaps watched sheep dogs at trials, trying to put the sheep into this gate or that,

and it is a splendour of insubordination,

a marvel of cross-grained lack of desire

that leads the sheep even to seem creatures of some initiative

as they find almost any way other than the one indicated,

as if a fear of rightness gripped them.

 

So with men: like sheep they go astray,

and some seem even to glory in staying that way.

To them, then, it is not to know God,

or the power of His resurrection

or the fellowship of His sufferings.

 

They can have life without meaning,

and without liking their beginning as creations,

can have desecration their diction, and their end.

 

NO BLACK HOLES IN THE LOVE OF GOD BUT A SHINING TRACK

 

§      There are, then, no black holes in this way, in this love, in this sovereignty, in the God of truth and mercy; there is nothing collecting, but not dispersing light. It is rather more, in analogy, like a white hole, irrepressible broadcasting light.

 

§      No cardinal – or any other – weakness appears, but rather luxuriance of harmony, exuberance of truth, cardinal  and original vigour, as in a four-lane highway.

 

§      Again, as a train track surmounting the thrusting uprisings of the Rockies in Canada, soaring to the heights, curving about vastnesses, so this word adorns the beauty to which it carries you, its words as these rails, carved in Rock

 

§      And what more fitting for Him who and who alone, is the impenetrable Rock (II Samuel 22:32, Psalm 62), yet who in a radiance of love has divulged the heart of His eternal ranges, not of mountains but of originality and power, tenderness, compassion and pity, the uttermost reaches of limitless divine intelligence and the plan of salvation which like mountain lightning, illuminate the scene for man.

 

§      To know this beauty of holiness is to come to know the source of earth’s glory, the cause of its self- betrayal, the seeds of its plagues and the hope for the hearts, becoming certainty for those who join the train of His Majesty, Jesus the Christ. He does not rest in His searching for souls; but in His heart is a rest so profound that all the lakes of serenity can merely suggest its majesty,  scope, grace, quiet and contentment.

 

§      To know God, the fellowship of His sufferings and the incalculable resources of His power, this is the mind of God for man; and it is this to which man will yearn, from which so often in simplistic selfishness, many turn from, but to which Paul set his heart, assured that his citizenship being in heaven, the body itself at the day of the Lord’s return, will rise transformed just as Christ’s was brought with incalculable power, back to this earth and its ways, more elevated, but no less communicative in word, in fellowship of eating, in touchability, yet in facility for grasping! (Phililippians 3:20-21, Luke 24, Matthew 28).

 

§      This too is no privilege unique to the apostle, but the plateau of faith for all whose heart’s

desire is set there, like eagles in their eyries, their eyes seeming the land that is far of, by faith (Isaiah 33); and the rarified air is pure with the touch of heaven.

 

§      Such is the knowledge of God.

 

 

§      This then is knowing God, and not doing so. It is health when present, and absent,  it is parody; and when the parody is of the divine, then the result is a parody of man. Cutting God into pieces, in thought, does not alter Him; but it renders the one who does it, so parallel to a murderer, that it is small wonder the results prove appalling in a negative wonder, to reflect with justice, the height of the positive (cf. Hebrews 10:26-29).

 

§      In our next chapter, we shall plan to look at the POWER of GOD, as shown in Peter, and consider the fascinating extension of the very resurrection power (cf. … Immutable Faith
Ch. 11) which raised Christ, in confrontations both numerous and supernatural indeed, with the powers of that day. As to these, they were to fall; while Christ, having arisen, dies no more but acts with vigour, always able to make intercession for His people, until the time comes, the wheel of the Age turns, to turn no more, and the day comes for His return.

 

 

NOTES

 

*1 See for example, SMR Appendix B, The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4, Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 11 and Predestination and Freewill.

 

 

*2

 

EXCURSION from Repent or Perish Ch. 1, *1, recently amplified.

 

A Post-script of Encouragement:

See Predestination and Freewill pp. 79ff., re Calvin's declaration in Institutes Book 3, Ch.XXIV, 17. Calvin's endeavour to make metaphors a conveyor of what is not the case, as if we did not know metaphor for what it is, a CORRECT depiction of the POINT to which it refers is wholly irrelevant, and not admirable. "Stretching forth one's arms" is not a reference, one might without much difficulty discern, to God's having arms. If so, what is the use of metaphor at all! It is however a clear reference to what THIS ACTION IMPLIES, when it is performed, and so conveys this.

God does indeed have most deep thoughts, as Calvin indicates, and it is indeed entirely possible to misread this depth, which is infinite, and to imagine that some item on the agenda means something final, when it is merely an incident to alert, a device to sensitise and so forth. Indeed this equally is quite true. What however is not at all true is this: that God who in depth is so vast, in speech is not accurate.

When therefore He declares that something is so, it is His VERY DEPTH and righteousness, in whom is no unrighteousness at all, which MEANS that we CANNOT and DARE NOT and in all modesty SHOULD NOT attempt to "READ" it like the scribes of old, to MEAN something other than what it says. It is nothing to do with being literal, but only with handling the word of God with soft fingers, so that a declaration that HE WOULD, on the part of Christ, MEANS that He would, and not that His disfigurement was not only OF  Him, on the Cross, but even BY Him, of the Father also, a blasphemous thought, when you tease it out and look it in the face.

The FORM of Christ STATEDLY involved Him in what as a servant was not found in the FORM of God: that is, He could thirst and be arrested. The declarations of Christ however are not even His own invention, but He provided what His Father commanded (John 12:48-50). This then would make even the Father a communicative failure. It is time such nonsense was ousted from the realms of theology, where its philosophic intrusion is barred rightly by Paul in Colossians 2:8.
 

·       Philosophy ? From the heart of man,

·       it is indeed "vain", as is anything which

·       tempers the word of God with human wit, and

·       tampers with direct statements as to the nature of the heart and will of God.

·       Christ became man not to distort or disorientate, but to declare and lead the Father forth, so that he who knew Him, knew the Father likewise, NOT some first beginnings in which error could creep, so that what was declared to be SO, in terms of principle and approach on the part of God, was NOT so.

That is not theology, it is philosophy. The so-called five points of Calvinism, if read in the context of Scripture as always for all things necessary in doctrine, are indeed excellent. They help to exhibit many errors. But this is no reason for elevating Calvin to a pinnacle of which men will say, "I of Apollos, I of Calvin!" It is quite simply by the word of God FORBIDDEN to do this (I Corinthians 3:4,21-23).

How long does it take for this word to be obeyed! Does the word of God owe something to Augustine or to Calvin or to Apollos? Of course not, for as Paul states, he received it by revelation from God, not of man at all, neither from what he was taught, and in I Cor. 2:9-13 he traces how the wording itself is provided by God, whose is both the substance and its expression, preserved to His entire quality specifications for the word of God. (See SMR, Appendix D on this topic.) If this word is not heeded, then the errors, few though they may be, of one saint of great power and service to the church, may be imbibed as if the fluid of his speech were the very pure milk of the word. (Cf. The Kingdom of Heaven, Ch.9, pp. 174ff., items 12-13, The Biblical Workman Ch.8, including *2.)

Enough! It is forbidden and it is done, and it ought not to be done, and one of its results is not only a limitation of restrictive vision, as by blinkers on a horse, concerning the very word of God itself, but a restless divisiveness which can afflict the church. It is not merely wholly unnecessary, but to the praise of God let it be clearly stated, it COULD NOT HAPPEN IF THE WORD OF GOD WERE OBEYED. You are simply not permitted to develop a form of doctrine based on the correctness of any theologian, though you may choose of his works for formulations, always susceptible to testing.

These however, even these, may not be "of Calvin" or of "Augustine" or "of Apollos", but merely helps. Moreover, following such a stringently Biblical path as here recommended, and indeed divinely commanded, could only stimulate the real uniting church - not one in fellowship with Rome , but one ruled by the word of God, outside the philosophical and often personalised camps that conflict often both with each other and the word of God, minimising or adding to it. (Cf. Biblical Blessings Ch.3, end-note 1, and "moderation" in the Topical Index for "The Twenty One".)

Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for there is simply nothing comparable (Colossians 3:17). It is one of the features of churches like the Presbyterian Church of Australia, at least before it developed novel features and changed its way, that it ADDED this emphasis on the love of God TO the Westminster Confession in the so-called Declaratory Statement, which in this was a wonderful refinement. The system was not wrong: that was not the point. The addition of this pre-systematic reality of the love of God in its Biblical force was needed, and efforts were made to ensure it was there. This was an excellent and discerning move. Let us however revert to Calvin.

Unfortunately, Calvin was carried away here. CHRIST WOULD HAVE GATHERED THEM UNDER HIS WINGS, just as He says, and these, the daughters or current generation of Jerusalem, her children, WERE NOT WILLING (Matthew 23:37, cf. SMR Appendix B and below). It is true that Calvin was dealing with some saucy doctrine of the flesh, and seeking to refute it, but to invent one's own doctrine is not the way to declare that of the Lord! The full analysis of this matter is found in Predestination and Freewill where shown, and in what follows throughout its presentation.. He wants to show that it does not "follow that God's plan was made void by man's evil intent", and this is a good objective, since He states that He works all things after the counsel of His own will, and does what He pleases in heaven and earth, albeit it is a good pleasure (Ephesians 1:11, Psalm 115, Ephesians 1:5). The objective does not however sanction the method taken to refute that error: it is not good to make one error to refute another.

God's restraint in love is shown throughout the whole Bible in such terms, in so many images, through so many deeds, in such declarations, with such pathos, poignancy, amid such protestations, with so many devices to delay judgment, that a failure to perceive that this Sovereign is so loving that John declares "God is love", is a lapse sufficient to have sent shock-waves through Christendom for long enough. It is time the striving ceased and the word of God ruled, and that the pugilistic "certainties" of philosophic camps, somehow arrayed within the walls of what is called the church, made peace first with the word of God, and then with each other.

Meanwhile, the word of God is true, and harmonious, and like God, it is wonderful, it is His, and as we read in our dissertation on the Song of Solomon, "His mouth is most sweet" (The Kingdom of Heaven... Ch.11). It is the textual certainties which do not vary, and cannot with truth be invaded. These have a harmony (as demonstrated in Predestination and Freewill) which is profoundly arresting and unique in this field. That is good. But it is HIS word; and that is better.

As the Psalmist puts it,

·       "Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart" - Psalm 119:111, and again,

·       "The righteousness of Thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live" v.144;