1 Cor. 15 :48.

Salvation is a deliverance wrought by divine power, so as to bring us out of one condition into another.

It is true we are morally changed by new birth; but we want more than that; though whoever has that, will surely have all the rest. But having the new nature, with its desires after holiness, what is the effect ? It gives me the consciousness of all the sin that is in me. I want to be righteous, but I see that I am not righteous, and I bow under the power of sin, and of the knowledge of such holiness, which I have learnt to desire, only to find out that I have not got it. Where can I find a resting-place for my spirit in such a state as this ? It is impossible; and the very effect of having this new nature, with all its holy affections and desires after Christ, brings me to the discovery of the lack of what this new nature cannot of itself impart. I have the cravings of the new nature-all its holy and righteous desires; but the thing craved for I have not. I say, " Oh that I could be righteous!" but then I am not righteous; "Oh that I could be holy! " but I am not holy.

I hate sin; but the sin that I hate is in me. I long to be with God, to be forever in the light of His countenance; but then I have sin, and know that the light of His countenance cannot shine upon my sin. It is then God meets our need, in the cross. In Christ, He gives us not only the nature, but the perfect Object that nature needs, and that in power.

We get, as the expression of this, a remarkable thing in this chapter:" As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy:and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." It is not, there, what we shall be in point of glory; for afterwards he adds, "and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. " We have borne the image of the first Adam, in all the consequences of his sin and ruin; and we shall bear the image of the second Adam in glory. But he lays down first this great truth for our hearts, "As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." It is what we are now. Righteous in Christ now. Holy in Christ now. Seen by the eye of God now in all the perfection of what Christ has done by the cross, and of what He is before Him in resurrection; for Christ is there, the accepted Man for us all, He of whom alone God could say, '' Sit Thou at My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool."

It is this with which God satisfies our longings and cravings. He puts us into a new position before Himself, and then makes us judge all that is inconsistent with that. Then, besides that, power is given; not a new nature merely, with cravings after what we have not got, but a new position, with power to judge practically all that is inconsistent with it. There will be that which will have to be judged within me, but I shall judge it in the consciousness of what God has given me in Christ.

There is the first Adam, of the earth, with those that pertain to him-earthy; and there is the second Man, the Lord from heaven. There are these two Adams, and I get in both the pattern and model of all other men that are after their image. I get the first Adam, fallen, wretched, corrupt; then I get the other Adam, that becomes, in a spiritual sense, the head of a race, as having taken that place in glory, according to God's counsels. I say, there is the pattern, and model, and head of that race. It is not merely a truth that the atonement has been made for us, in respect of what we were as belonging to the first Adam; but God has been glorified in respect of our sins; and having been glorified, He takes His great power to Himself, raises Christ out of the depths of death, and sets Him at His own right hand in heaven; and all His own are linked with Him there. Here, then, I have found a positive, actual deliverance; and so truly was this the case, that Christ can celebrate the name of God in association with others. "I will declare Thy name unto My brethren:in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee."

He can celebrate that name, in the presence of God His Father, in all the full blessedness of the light of His countenance, after He had taken the full weight of sin upon Him. Power had come in, as is said in Psalm 16:"Thou wilt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption." And He did not see corruption.

True, He had there to say, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?" But He trusts Himself to God His Father, and God puts His seal upon Him by raising Him from the dead. Then I get in the resurrection of Christ the coming in of divine power in the very place where we were lying in ruin and helplessness, and where Christ was in grace for us; and it takes Him entirely out of it, and all His own with Him. Now I have the Man Christ Jesus in heaven, after atonement has been made, and after the question of sin has been settled in virtue of His having glorified God about it. I get Him now, in the place of power, as the object of God's counsels. For it is in Christ that all things are to be gathered together in one; and even now God has set Him head over all things to the Church.

The whole question of sin is thus settled in the resurrection of Christ. " If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins; but now is Christ risen from the dead"; and we are not in our sins. There I find the heavenly Man that has been down here and borne my sins, in power of resurrection in the presence of God. He is " the Lord from heaven" too. Mark this. Afterwards the apostle says, in the .Ephesians, that the very same power that wrought in Christ when God raised Him from the dead, is exercised in every one that believes. He desires that they may know "what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places." Exactly the same power that wrought when God took Christ from the dead and set Him at His own right hand, has already wrought in you that believe, and you have a place with Him there; and therefore, "as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly." We are in Christ in the presence of God. Now I get not desires only, but the answers to them. I have not merely a new nature, but I have what the new nature wants, because I have Christ. I want righteousness and holiness, and that is what I have, because I am in Christ. I want to be without fear in the presence of God, and I am in it because I am in Christ. God has taken me out of the place in which I was in misery and helplessness in the first Adam, and has put me in the place of the second Adam, before Himself, without a sin upon me, because all was judged in the person of Christ. Such is the condition into which Christ has brought us. The old Adam condition has been judged and set aside, and in the new Adam God has given us a place before Him.

I shall still feel the workings of the old nature, and have to judge it, but I see Christ taking it for me, and judgment executed upon it in His person on the cross; and now He is out of it all and alive for evermore, and so am I, for I am "in Him." Abridged from J. N. D.