"I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" (2 Cor. 11:2,3).

The subject that is before me is that of affection for Christ, or the state of heart which the Spirit is here to produce in the saints, and by which they answer to the present thoughts of Christ. I am afraid that when we speak of being here for Christ it is often the thought of our service or conduct that is prominent, and therefore it is well to be reminded that there is something over which Christ is more jealous than He is over our conduct or our service. It is the hidden spring of those affections which alone satisfy His heart, or render conduct and service acceptable to Hun.

This is very strikingly expressed in the passage we have just read, where we see the object of the true evangelist. He is a man bent upon a present result for Christ. He is not anxious to have a number of converts whom he can count as his own; he is not thinking of himself, but of his Master; he is wanting those whom he can present "as a chaste virgin to Christ." It is not that he loses sight of the eternal result, but the immediate object on which his heart is set, and for which he longs with intense fervency, is a present result in a people whose affections are altogether for Christ. "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."

This is the great object before the heart of God at the present time_to have a people saved not only from judgment and the lake of fire, but from the world; saved not only for heaven by and by, but for the heart of Christ now. The work of Christ on the cross has settled every question that sin raised between God and our souls, and the future is bright with the glory of God into which we shall be brought according to all the value of that work. But there is another thing, and that is the interval between the cross and the glory_an interval marked, so far as this world is concerned, by the dishonor and rejection of Christ. Satan cannot touch the value of the work of the cross, nor can he mar the perfection of the eternal glory, but the whole force of his power is put forth to hinder a present result for Christ. On the other hand, all the energy of the Holy Spirit is active to produce a present result for Christ. Every believer is looking to be to the satisfaction and joy of Christ in the eternal future; and surely none of us would like to say that we did not care whether we were to His satisfaction now or not, and yet, alas! practically it very often comes to this.

At what point in our Christian lives do we enter into this blessed truth of being espoused to Christ? Perhaps it may be some time after we have been converted; we may have been under the shelter of the blood for years before coming to it. But there is a moment_never to be forgotten_when Christ risen comes before the soul, and the greatness of His victory, and the share we have in it, and the wonderful purposes of God for us_all secured by that victory_take possession of the heart. We are brought to One who has been raised again for our justification, and through Him we find ourselves clear of the judgment land and the oppressor’s power. There is no sense of need in the soul that is in the presence of Christ risen; there is a sense of boundless favor, for the soul is conscious (though it might not know how to explain it) that we share in the victory as belonging to the One who has won it. Through Him we have access into favor. But the soul who has come to this is not thinking so much of the favor or blessing as a thing in itself, but as that which we have in connection with Him, and as belonging to Him. If I belong to Him, the more wonderful His victory and position, the more wonderful mine is, but I think of it all as His. I do not think that we rightly get a sense of belonging to Him until we come to Him as the risen One, but I believe every heart that knows Him as risen from the dead has the consciousness, "I belong to Hun." I believe Thomas had it when he said, "My Lord and my God." I am not speaking of knowing truths or doctrines at all, but of a consciousness in the soul that has really reached Christ risen. I believe that to be the moment of the soul’s espousal unto Christ, or at least of the soul’s appreciation of that blessed fact.

I trust many of you understand the blessedness of a moment when Christ is really known by the heart, outside everything here, in the infinite greatness of His own triumph, and you are conscious that you share in it all because you belong to Him. You have found a Person outside everything here who is infinitely more to your heart than all the things of earth. You have stepped on to the shore of a new world and found yourself supremely happy there, and the old world is totally eclipsed and superseded. It is "the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals" (Jer. 2:2). There is One "Whom having not seen, ye love; in Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Pet. 1:8). The vain things that have charmed you are forgotten, or only remembered with shame. You gladly accept a part in the rejection of Christ here because of the satisfaction you have found in Him on the other side. I trust many of you have known the reality of such a moment in your history. Now that is the true beginning of a Christian, and the Spirit of God is jealous over us that these affections should be maintained in freshness and fervency in our souls. It is thus_and only thus_that Christ has His true satisfaction in us, for if the day of espousal yields deep and holy joy to us, it yields a deeper and a fuller joy to Him whose matchless love has drawn forth the responsive affection of our hearts. It is "the day of his espousals, … the day of the gladness of his heart" (Song of Solomon 3:11).

We can easily understand that if the devil has succeeded in turning Christ out of this world, it will be no pleasure to him to see a people here to whose hearts Christ is everything. Therefore it is his great object to corrupt our minds from simplicity as to the Christ; and this he seeks to accomplish, not by an open attack upon Christ, but "as the serpent beguiled Eve through subtilty." He had introduced among the saints at Corinth men who pretended to be the apostles of Christ, and had all the appearance of ministers of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:12-15). These men were going about amongst the saints discrediting Paul, and under a great show of doing the Lord’s work they were craftily bringing in fleshly and worldly principles; and so far as they were accepted and tolerated, the saints’ minds were corrupted from simplicity as to the Christ. I dare say they were careful not to assail what we call foundation truths. The devil knows better than to put in the thick end of the wedge first. It would not do for them to show their colors openly at first; but everything would be modified, and more or less humanized, and stripped of its proper force and bearing.

I am sure this is of great importance to us all, for I think we should all be prepared to admit that there is a great lack of the simplicity of affection to which Christ in resurrection is everything. The question arises, Why is it so? Why do saints who have known what it was to be espoused unto Christ get so cold in their affections? How are they brought to be satisfied and comfortable again in worldly and carnal things? I do not believe that any person who had known what it was to be espoused unto Christ would go in for worldliness until his mind had been corrupted by something that lessened his judgment as to what the world is. Before the outward departure the corrupting influence is at work within; the mind is being occupied and permeated with thoughts and principles that connect themselves with man and with things here, and all this is done in such a subtle way that very often no alarm is felt in the conscience during the process. It is a solemn thing to say, but I believe that the decline of affection for Christ, and the corrupting process which precedes that decline, can often be traced to the influence of ministry that is not on the line or in the current of the Spirit of God. I think the chapter before us shows plainly that there are two kinds of ministry:the true and the false, that which is of Christ and the Spirit, and that which is of Satan, the one flatly opposed in its tendency and effect to the other. All true ministry in the power of the Spirit tends to draw our hearts away from man and from things here to Christ in resurrection. False ministry occupies us with man and with things here, and hence draws our hearts away from Christ, for He can only be known as outside everything here, in resurrection.

If we wake up and find that we have left our first love, have lost our affection for Christ, may we immediately turn to the Lord seeking restoration to Himself. It is important to realize that we are as dependent on the Lord for restoration when we wander as we were at the beginning for salvation. How sweet to know that He does not, and will not, give us up. The secret of all His gracious dealings with us lies in the fact that He loves us, and nothing but love will satisfy love. He is jealous over us; He must have the affection of our hearts.

I know that when the heart has long been a stranger to the joy of first love, there is a great tendency to settle down and go on with things as they are, as though it were hopeless to expect to be restored. I am sure that if the Lord gives your heart a fresh consciousness that He really loves you, that despairing and depressing idea will be banished from your soul. You will awake to the blessed reality of the fact that He yearns over you in rich and boundless love, and that He is ready to lead you into communion with Himself in the judgment of the things that have turned you aside, and of yourself for giving them a place in your thoughts. Your heart will leap for joy to think that His love is really unchanged. Thus restored, "first love," with all that it means for you and for Him, will again fill your heart. You will sing as in the days of your youth. You will come back with a subdued and chastened spirit_with a humbled heart and a broken will_to the joy of that moment of espousal when Christ was everything to your heart. C.A. Coates

FRAGMENT
Jesus! Thou art enough
The mind and heart to fill;
Thy patient life_to calm the soul,
Thy love_its fear dispel.

O fix our earnest gaze
So wholly, Lord, on Thee,
That, with Thy beauty occupied,
We elsewhere none may see.