At least two persons are in view when we speak of communion. One speaks, tells out his thoughts, and the other hears, enjoys them, and responds to them. Such is communion with God. In His word He has communicated His mind to us. We hear Him; we enjoy what He says; we respond in praise and prayer.

Then there is "the communion of saints." Each having communion with God, we come together to enjoy in common what we enjoy in private. This is a moral necessity to every healthy soul; for we are not merely children of God individually, but "by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body," and thus made "members one of another." This makes us need one another.

Heaven Opened.

In Luke 3:21 we are told "the heaven was opened" over Jesus as He was being baptized, and praying. The Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove, "and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased."

Here was one Man upon whom God could put His seal. Even His best men before had proved themselves sinners too well. In this One was no sin. Thirty years of a spotless, lovely life had He already lived, to God's delight. So He puts His seal on this by causing the Holy Spirit to descend upon Him.

But there is vastly more. He is being baptized; that is, He is identifying Himself (He who knew no
sin) with all the sinners who come to John the Baptist confessing their sins, and are baptized of him. He pledges Himself there to fulfil that righteousness which demands the death of the sinner. Only the awful baptism of the cross, three years later, could fulfil that. He bows in obedience to it, and expresses His obedience by praying. By that cross He will enable His Father to throw wide open to men the flood-gates of His love without trespass against His holiness. This, too, is delightful to God, and He seals His delight in it by the Dove alighting upon His blessed Son, and by opening the heaven over Him to proclaim that delight.

In Rev. 19:11-16 we see the "heaven opened" again. This time it is to let out of it, riding upon a white horse, and heading the armies of heaven, the same Person over whose head it had opened before. He comes now out of the opened heaven as ''King of Kings, and Lord of Lords," to clear the earth of all His enemies. They who have despised Him in the day of His cross; the "Beast" and his "False Prophet," who have usurped His crown, must now, with all apostate Jews and Christians who have followed them, prove that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He has the right and the power to execute judgment, and that He has come to use it.

Between these two great and marvelous occasions for heaven to open, there is another which is no less wonderful, though of a totally different character. It is recorded in Acts 7:55, 56. Stephen, a poor sinner saved by the cross of Christ, washed from his sins by the blood shed there, a subject of grace, "a man in Christ," who is bearing faithful testimony to those around him, being "full of the Holy Ghost," looks up into heaven and sees the glory of God, with Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and he says, " Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. "

Reader, every other sinner saved by the cross of Christ is "a man in Christ" as well as Stephen, and free to look with him into the opened heavens and, by faith, enjoy the glorified Jesus there, as by faith he enjoys the peace made by the crucified Jesus.

A wondrous time this is for believers, between the two openings of heaven for our Lord, with those heavens now open over us to gaze into them upon our adorable Saviour and Lord.

A Self-asserting Principle.

There is an extraordinary effort being made all over Christendom to hush up the undeniable declaration by Scripture of everlasting punishment. No amount of theories, however, of twisting and turning, or of quoting the Greek to carry along people who are ignorant of it, can do away with such plain words as, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal" (Matt. 25:46). Men, increasingly rebellious against God and every authority established by God, are everywhere pleading for love against justice, as though the two could not dwell together in one Being. That God is " a just God and a Saviour," having in love provided for man a means of escape from the inflexible claims of justice, they willingly ignore. The acknowledgment of this necessitates repentance; and pride forbids repentance. Rejecting the provision of God's love, they rebel against the judgment which justice demands. And this affects every other relation of man. It affects the government of the household, of the State, and also of the Church. It destroys justice-the foundation of everything that is good. It produces anarchy. It turns the popular feeling on the side of crime if crime does not come too near themselves; and the end is not yet. When the full results of this are come upon them, men, in terror and unspeakable anguish, will find that, already here, justice is an eternal principle which will not be denied. And if it asserts itself even here in awful retributions, what will it be in the day when, having returned to the hands of Him who sits supreme upon the throne, it summons at its bar every unforgiven offender, and metes out to each according to his deeds ?

Blessed be God for the provision of His grace, and for the present opportunity it gives! Blessed, also, be our Lord Jesus Christ for having so met every claim of divine justice by His cross that He can say to us, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life" (John 5:24).