My Dear ______:
In my last letter I attempted to show you our place--as
believers--before God; and now I desire to direct your attention to our
place here upon the earth; and we shall see, I think, that this is also
connected with Christ. Just, indeed, as we are identified with Christ
before God as to standing, so also are we identified with Christ before
the world. In other words, we are put in His place down here just as we
are in Him before God; and I cannot but think that it would be very
helpful to us all to have this truth continually before our souls. But
there are two aspects of our place on the earth, both of which are
important to be understood; the first in relation to the world, and the
second in relation to the "camp"; i.e., organized professing
Christianity, which has succeeded in this dispensation to the place of
Judaism, as the professing witness for God. (See Rom. 11, and compare
Matt. 13.)
1. Our place in relation to the world. The Lord Jesus, speaking to
the Jews, said, "Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this
world; I am not of this world" (John 8: 23). Afterwards, when
presenting His own before the Father, He said, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John
17: 16) ; and you will see that, in the section from the 14th to the
19th verses, He essentially puts His disciples in His own place in the
world, just as in the previous paragraph (from the 6th to the 13th
verses) He puts them into His own place before the Father. And they
have His place in the world, be it remarked, because they are not of
it, even as He was not of it; for having been bom again they are no
longer of the world. Hence He speaks continually of their having to
encounter the same hatred, and the same persecution, as befell Himself.
Thus, to cite an example, He says, "If the world hate you, ye know that
it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world
would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember
the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his
lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they
have kept my saying, they will keep yours also" (John 15: 18-20). The
apostle John in like manner indicates the utter contrast between
believers and the world, when he says, "We know that we are of God, and
the whole world lieth in wickedness"--or "the wicked one" (1 John 5:19).
But there is more than even yet appears from these weighty
scriptures. Every believer is regarded by God as having died and been
raised together with Christ (Romans 6; Col. 3: 1-3). He has thus been
brought, through the death and resurrection of Christ, as completely,
in the view of God, out of the world, as Israel was brought out of
Egypt through the Red Sea. Hence he is no longer of it, though he is
sent back into it (John 17:18), to be for Christ in the midst of it.
Paul therefore could say, while active in service for Christ in the
world, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom" (or whereby) "the world is crucified unto me,
and I unto the world" (Gal. 6: 14). By the cross of Christ he saw that
the world was already judged (John 12: 31); and by the application of
the cross to himself he regarded himself as dead--crucified to the
world--so that there was separation between the two as complete as
death could make it.
To sum up these teachings, then, we see that the Christian while in
the world is not of it--he is not of it in the same sense as Christ was
not of it, he belongs to another sphere--for if any man be in Christ it
is a new creation; he has been, as already seen, brought clean out of
it through the death and resurrection of Christ. Hence he is to be
wholly separate from it; he is not to be conformed to this world (Gal.
1: 3; Rom. 12: 2) in spirit, habits, demeanor, walk; in everything he
is to show that he is not of the world. Even more, by the application
of the cross he is to hold himself as crucified to it; and there cannot
be any attraction or assimilation between two judged things. But again,
he is in the world in the place of Christ; i.e., he is in it for
Christ, and as identified with Christ. Consequently he is to witness
for Christ, to walk as Christ walked (Phil. 2: 15; 1 John 2: 6, etc.),
and he must expect the same treatment as Christ. Not that we look to be
crucified as Christ was; but if we are faithful we shall encounter the
same spirit in the world as He did: indeed, in proportion as we are
like Christ will be the degree of our persecution; and the fact that
believers now meet with so little hatred from the world can only be
accounted for from their being so little separate from it.
Before I pass to the other branch of the subject, I cannot but urge
upon you the importance of breaking with every link that connects you
morally with the world. It needs but little penetration to perceive
that the spirit of the world, worldliness, is creeping rapidly over
God's assemblies, and vauntingly proclaiming itself even at the table
of the Lord. What dishonor, yea, what grief, to Him whose death we are
gathered to show forth! And what a call upon all the saints to humble
themselves before God, and to seek anew for grace to be more devoted,
and more separate, so that the world itself may see that we belong to
Him whom it rejected, cast out, and crucified! How many of us have the
spirit of Paul, who desired "the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, and
to be made conformable to His death" in the view of a glorified Christ,
the object of his heart, and the goal of all his hopes? May the Lord
restore to us, and all His beloved saints, more of this devotedness to
Himself in entire separation from the world.
2. Our place in relation to the "camp." In the epistle to the
Hebrews we read, "The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought
into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the
camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His
own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing
His reproach" (chap. 13: 11-13). Two things are very evident in this
passage--blood of the sin-offering was carried into the sanctuary, and
the bodies of the beasts which were sacrificed were burnt without the
camp; and the apostle points out that these two things have their
correspondences in the death of Christ, the antitype indeed of these
offerings. Hence we have the double place of the believer--his place
before God being in the sanctuary, where the blood was carried; and his
place on earth being without the camp, where Christ suffered. In other
words, as before explained, if we are in Christ before God, identified
with Him there in all the savor of His own acceptance, we are also
identified with Him on earth in His place of shame, reproach, and
rejection. The place of the believer on earth, therefore, is without
the camp; as the writer of this epistle says, "Let us go forth
therefore unto Him without the campt, bearing His reproach."
You will perhaps ask me, What is the camp? In the passage which I
have just cited, it is clear, from the whole connection, that it is
Judaism. What, then, answers to it now? Judaism was of God, and
occupied the place of testimony for Him on the earth. Judaism failed;
and after Pentecost, on the final rejection of Christ in the preaching
of the apostles, was set aside, and Christianity, the outward
professing church--which includes all denominations, from corrupt roman
Catholicism to the smallest sects of Protestantism. On what ground, you
may further ask, are we called upon to go outside of this camp? On the
ground of its utter failure as a witness for God. "He that hath an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches" (Rev. 2: 11,
etc.). This is our warrant for, and, indeed, our responsibility of,
measuring all that claims to be of God by the written Word; and testing
thus all these denominations, they are all convicted of disobedience
and failure. For the believer, therefore, who would act according to
the mind of God, there remains nothing but to take his place outside of
all these, apart from the confusion and error of this evil day, with
those who are gathered simply unto the name of Christ, in obedience to
His Word. Exodus 33 is very instructive in this connection. When Moses
came down from the mount (chap. 32), he found that the whole camp had
fallen into idolatry, and after returning to intercede for Israel, he
came back with "evil tidings" for the people. And he "took the
tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp,
and called it the tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass,
that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of
the congregation, which was without the camp" (v. 7). Moses acted thus,
because he had the mind of the Lord in the presence of the failure of
the people; and hence it is that we find in this scene a moral picture
of our own times. Let me commend it to your careful consideration.
Enough has now been said to enable you to understand the place of
the believer on earth, On the one hand it is to be in separation from
the world, and on the other it is without the camp. To occupy it will
involve hatred from the former, and reproach from the latter. But if
so, we are but more fully identified with our blessed Lord. In Hebrews
it is thus called, "His reproach." May we neither shun the one, nor be
ashamed of the other; nay, may we be enabled to rejoice when we are
counted worthy to suffer shame for His name (Acts 4: 41).
Believe me, dear ______,
Yours affectionately in Christ,
E.D.