"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus" (Heb. 3:1).
" The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth " (John 4:23).
" By faith Abraham . . . sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country … for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:8-10).
That man, having proved himself incapable of continuing in Eden, and in Canaan, should be made fit to dwell forever in heaven, is a surpassing wonder of the grace and power of God. Bearing as we do the elements and image of the earthy, though by faith made new creatures in Christ Jesus, no wonder we need continually to remind ourselves of our calling on high.
In keeping with this thought, I have lately been impressed by the simplicity of the ordinance of the Lord, wherein He has desired His own to remember Him, and thus show forth His death; for it is His death which has opened heaven to us. No words could be brought together of such significance as "The Lord's death," nor could anything be more simple than "This do in remembrance of Me." The
weakest intellect, taught of God, may most heartily respond; at the same time, the highest powers of thought cannot exhaust the significance of what is therein set forth. Bread is what has been ground and passed through the fire; and wine, the out-pressed blood of the crushed grape. The one loaf, the oneness of the Church, which is' the Body of Christ; broken, His body is given for us. The cup, the memorial of His blood shed for us, and also the joy of salvation; while we look back in remembrance of His sorrow, we know Him as now risen, ascended and exalted to the Father's throne. Besides, He vouchsafes His presence among His own gathered to His name, and thus brings in a halo of heavenly glory. While so significant and suited to the purpose, could anything instil within us a slighter hold on earth ?-especially as we have it through Paul from a glorified Christ, and linked with His coming again for us.
How thankful it becomes us to be, for having had recovered to us, in these last days, the first ways of the Church of God on earth. Everything committed to man by God has been spoiled, and surely nothing has been more encumbered with human thoughts than this ordinance, so that little of its real meaning is left. Indeed in Romanism, as all know, a flat contradiction is substituted. In the Mass, the stronghold of that dark system, a pretended sacrifice is offered, and as one has remarked, their saying that the wafer contains both the body and the blood, "recoils on themselves," for the word is, "Without shedding of blood is no remission."
God gave indeed an earthly system of ordinances to His earthly people to illustrate the eternal and unseen things. But as soon as Christ came and introduced the eternal things, the earthly order was brought to an end. It was made up of shadows, and now the reality had come. But with what tenacity man clings to what appeals to his senses. How slow the Jewish disciples were to relinquish the sensuous worship of the Temple for the one "in spirit and in truth " brought in by our Lord. And in spiritual declension, Christians have ever drifted toward ceremonials, whether Jewish or Pagan.
I think there is significance in the incident of the eunuch coming that long journey to the city of God. Apostles were there, but we are not told that he saw any of them. He was returning unsatisfied; but God saw it and sent Philip, from the midst of successful evangelizing, to meet this seeking soul in the desert way, and to tell him that the One led like a lamb to the slaughter, was Jesus, on whom believing he would be saved. The unnamed eunuch believed, confessed, was baptized, and went on his way rejoicing without requiring any material thing, as Naaman of old did, to worship God in his African home. The nominal church has fastened her roots in the earth, and reared the monuments of her shame to the sky, forgetting her true calling to strangership on earth, and her life and home in heaven. Midst all this, the Lord knows His own, and regards every worshiping thought, and every sigh for something better.
There is no thought of holiness attached to any material thing on earth to-day, except the bodies of saints, to be rendered a living sacrifice to God, as is due. Our bodies are not " vile," as our common translation has it, but bodies of humiliation, looking to be changed by our Saviour to the likeness of [His own. For this may all we tie found waiting; for though it seems long delayed, it is ever nearer, and never so near as now. B. Emslie