Subjectively
and
Objectively
the
pre-ordained walk of the Christian
The Christian is a heavenly person
though walking through the wilderness, and he is the epistle of Christ in it.
What is his rule? To walk as Christ walked. Every part of scripture, law and
all, may furnish him light, and he may use it to convict of sin, for natural
conscience owns the righteousness of it. Paul governed his conduct by a
prophecy of Isaiah 49. And thank God the New Testament abounds in precepts to
guide us. Nor are we to let slip the word commandment. Because if we did
everything right, nothing would be right if it were not obedience, and command
expresses authority. Still we ought to be filled with the knowledge of His will
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. The spiritual man judges all things.
I can only speak of the principle and standard here. I may surprise perhaps my
readers when I say that the conduct of God is made our standard, as
being made partakers of the divine nature. It is not the perfect rule for man
in the flesh, but the divine conduct for man in the Spirit. The apostle can
say, "When we were in the flesh," and describe in the seventh of
Romans the conflicts of a renewed man who is not set free by known redemption,
but is still under his first husband — the law, knowing it is spiritual,
consenting to it, delighting in it, but never keeping it. But he can, when he
has known deliverance, say, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
hath set me free," knowing that God has not forgiven but condemned sin in
the flesh, but in Christ a sacrifice for sin, and that, now a Christian, not in
the flesh but in the Spirit, his place and standing are changed — alive thus in
Christ, created again in Christ Jesus unto preordained good works that he may walk
in them, renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. What are
these good works? I have said, scripture has said, he, perfect before God in
Christ, is to imitate God. Where to find the image of this in a man? Christ is
the image of the invisible God. United with Him in heaven, the Christian is to
walk like Him on earth, in grace as manifesting God, looking to Him above, and
so changed into His image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Let us see the scripture account of this. First, the
Father's* name being revealed, not the legal name of Jehovah, we are to be
perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect. He loves them that do not
love Him, He is kind to the unthankful, and to the evil. But more precisely in
Ephesians 4, 5, this is fully developed. We have subjectively and objectively
the pre-ordained walk of the Christian:
subjectively — the putting off the old man, and putting on
the new, and, secondly, our bodies being the temple of the Holy Ghost, the not
grieving the Spirit of God by which we are sealed to the day of redemption;
then the objective rule — Be ye kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ hath forgiven you. We have then the two essential names of God, given as that to be realized, and Christ presents the realization of them in man: "Be ye imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ hath loved us, and given himself for us, a sacrifice and an offering to God for a sweet smelling savour." We are to be imitators of God, His love in Christ being our pattern.
{*This is the name of christian relationship in eternal
life, and was revealed by Christ even when here. Jehovah was the name of
relationship for Israel, Almighty (El Shaddai) for the Patriarchs. The Most
High will be God's millennial name.}
jnd