Objections

Several objections to our answer to question 32, August number, have reached us. The difficulties in the minds of the objectors evidently arise from failing to apprehend the grace of God, the government of God among the subjects of His grace, and the desperate evil of the flesh in the saint as well as in the sinner. Gross manifestations of the flesh therefore they comfortably ascribe to the "mere professors of religion " around them, and, unbeknown to themselves, slip into a subtle species of pharisaism. If they can tell the day and hour when they were born again they think this is proof against what in the saint may bring upon him not only the chastening discipline of the Father, but also of the people of God-and all this discipline, sore as it may be, and manifestly needful as it may be, without ever questioning that the subject of it is a child of God.

In such a mind they would cast off most sinful David, and the most sinful brother of 2 Cor. 5, as being no children of God at all. God does not do that. He bears the shame His children put upon Him; He chastens them according to their ways, but He never disowns them.

Our objecting friends would deny that the sinful man of i Cor. 5 was a child of God because he was guilty of sin beyond many men of the world. Again we say this is a comfortable way of shutting our eyes to the same evil nature which is in every one of us who are children of God. We would disown him and cut him off from our company because he has committed that which none of us who are children of God could commit. Is not this the genuine spirit of the Pharisee ?

But how different the true discipline of God! The man is a subject of His grace. Taking advantage of that grace, he has gratified his lust instead of judging and denying it. He has displayed openly the nature which is in every child of God. It puts us all to shame. God hates such sin. So do we if we walk with God. What shall we do about it ? God says, "Judge this evil; put the offender away from your midst, as a proof that you hate sin, as I do. In that outside place given him, where My and your hatred of sin is manifested, I will deal with him in My holy government ' for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus ' " (verse 5).

Thus is the grace of God made good. "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord " (Rom. 8:38, 39).

Thus too is the holiness of God proclaimed in His government upon His offending children. "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth " (Heb. 12 :6-9).

In this way too we learn to judge ourselves in the deep depths of evil which lie within us, and we learn as well the deep depths of the grace of God and of the provisions of that grace in Christ our great Advocate and High Priest. It humbles and blesses us. He increases, and we decrease in our own estimation. The Pharisee's mind gives way to the Christian's. May the beloved brethren who have induced these lines learn in time, and we with them, these holy lessons of eternity!

Every Christian should indeed be at the Lord's table, proclaiming there the death of Crist by which he has been saved; but, for plain reasons, not every one is admissible there. And Scripture leaves not this to his own judgment, but to that of the Christian assembly. Once admitted there, he is, whenever he presents himself at the Lord's table, to search himself, and so "eat of that bread and drink of that cup" (i Cor. ii:28)

"The Bishop of your souls." 1 Pet. 2:25.

Christ is not called the Bishop of the Church but "The Shepherd and Bishop The Bishop of the Church would be officialism; that which is so pleasing to man; which enables him, under cover of serving the Church, to beat and drive the sheep of Christ and gratify the fiercest lusts. There is no need of spirituality for that.

To be the Bishop of souls is a very different thing. It requires the love that can stoop down to any self-denial to serve the sheep. It is self-abasement from end to end, as can be seen in John 13, where our Lord washes the disciples' feet. " If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."

"God is one" Gal. 3 :20.

We read in the passage quoted that "a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one." That is, wherever there is need of a mediator (as between God and man), there are of necessity two parties; but here, while two opposite covenants are seen to proceed from God, it is shown that God is no less
one-one in mind and purpose. Law and Grace are opposites, for one condemns and the other saves; but the proof that '' God is one " nevertheless is in this, that the Law was given to be a schoolmaster; to teach us our guilt in the violation of its commands, and our need of a Saviour to deliver from that guilt.

The other covenant declares that Saviour has come, that He has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13), and that therefore God can say to every believer in Jesus, "Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more" (Heb. 10:17).

"Ye receive Me not" John 5:43.

A great prophecy lies in this passage. The Lord says, "I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not:if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." This, no doubt, refers to the Antichrist who, when he arises, will find the Jewish nation ready to receive him as their Messiah. See 2 Thess. 2:8-10; Rev. 13, etc.

The same principle is at work now in Christendom. The light of a true Christianity rejected, all manner of antichristian doctrine finds entrance. This only can explain the success of such things as Mormonism, Russellism, Eddyism, and the like.

How serious it is to come in contact with Truth; for if, because of what it costs, it is rejected (and its moral cost is always the reason of its rejection), how deep the gloom which follows! Fear not, timid soul, the cost of Truth. Confess it fearlessly, and He from whom it proceeds will see to it that you are sustained.