Christ and the Church.

(Delivered at the Mildmay Convention, June 1889)
It has come to my mind to read these few verses, not in order to expound them, but to have the weight of their testimony bearing on our minds and hearts in connection with the subject under consideration to-day. I desire to restate some of those Divine testimonies that bear upon this fundamental truth of Christ’s death and resurrection and our identification with Him therein. I desire to view it in connection with its evangelistic bearing upon our souls’ present welfare and future hope. We cannot forget that this doctrine of the believer’s death and resurrection with Christ is a doctrine that is denied and ridiculed by the world, and lightly esteemed by many professing Christians. Nor is this to be wondered at, since the artillery of scepticism is just now concentrated upon the glorious person, work, and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, the import of His death, and the fact of His resurrection. Now if Christ be not what He declared Himself to be, the Divine Son of God, and His work is not what it has been affirmed to be, a work in which He accomplished the redemption of the world by the sacrifice of Himself—then it is sheer folly and nonsense for us to talk of any union with Christ in death or resurrection. For, if Christ be not raised, we are yet in our sins; and if Christ has not died for our sins, what possible benefit could we derive from His death at all? But—
WE KNOW WHOM WE HAVE BELIEVED.
We know His Word, and we know that we have not followed cunningly devised fables in believing and making known the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the triumphs of His Cross, in the accomplishment of our redemption and His resurrection power. Nay, we  are “not mad,” as Paul said to Festus, “but speak forth the words of truth and soberness,” when we affirm that every believer is identified with Christ in the wondrous death He died, and in the power of His resurrection.
Again, it is no wonder that this mysterious and glorious doctrine should be misunderstood by the world who seek to judge of it in the light of their own reason; for are we not distinctly taught by the Holy Spirit in 1 Cor. ii. 6-16 that spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned? Therefore, we need the teaching of God’s Holy Spirit in order to understand this great doctrine of Christ’s death for sin, our union with Him in that death, and Christ’s resurrection for our justification, and our resurrection in Him, the blessed risen Christ.
Oh! how much is suggested by this short sentence—“with Christ in death and resurrection.” We seem to stand, when these words are uttered, on the shores of a boundless ocean. We do at best but gather a few shells thrown up by its wavelets and draw in the cups we cast into the ocean the few drops that have gladdened our hearts. But who in the Church of God has ever fathomed the depths of this Divine truth—Christ in death, Christ in resurrection? None! Surely, we must wait till that day when the whole Church of the Redeemer shall be gathered home from every shore, and they shall stand where “with all the saints” they may comprehend “what is the breadth, and length and height and depth, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, and be filled unto all the fulness of God.” How expressive, I say, the words—“With Christ in death and resurrection.” What do they bring before us? They bring before us Christ the Immanuel, Son of man yet Son of God the Holy One in the place and on behalf of sinful man. This weighty sentence expresses more than tongue can tell. It means—
CHRIST AT HIS LOWEST, AND CHRIST AT HIS HIGHEST.
It means Christ in His weakness and Christ in His might. It means Christ in His poverty and Christ in His riches. It means Christ in His humiliation and Christ in His exaltation. It means Christ in the sowing (when He sowed Himself), and Christ in the reaping (when He rose, bringing forth fruit many hundredfold). It means Christ in His soul travail, and in the joy of the wondrous result, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the Cross, despising the shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. It means Christ in the darkness of death, and in the brightness of everlasting life. It means Christ at the gates of hell, and Christ on the throne of the universe; Christ as the emptied man, obedient unto death, and the One whose name is declared to be above every name; in short it is an expression of the fact that in Christ’s death and resurrection, we have the theme of the book, the theme of the ages, the theme of time, the theme of eternity—
THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST AND THE GLORIES THAT SHOULD FOLLOW.
It means nothing less than this. It means vastly more—a thousand things more. Oh! when we take up our hymns, do we not sometimes express our worship in these words—

Man of Sorrows! what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim!
Hallelujah! what a Saviour!”

And ere we finish the service we sing—

“Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious;
See the Man of Sorrows now
From the fight return victorious:
Every knee to Him shall bow!
Crown Him! crown Him! angels crown Him!
Crown the Saviour King of kings!”

In all this we are associated “with Him” in that death and in that resurrection—that is, in the counsel of God and in the reckoning of faith—for the reckoning of faith is the acceptance of the Divine counsel—worshipping, wondering, loving, adoring, before a great mystery of godliness, without any ability to apprehend its full meaning. We lose our souls in the great sea of the Divine mystery, and with a simple “Amen, Amen,” take God at His Word, and rejoice in His everlasting love. God help us to launch out into the deep and let down our net for a draught. But it is only in that counsel of God and in the reckoning of faith, we are identified with Him in all this, for as to actual fact, like Peter, and James, and John, the Lord has to say to us, ‘‘Stand ye here and watch while I go and pray yonder.” In to that “yonder” we do not go with Him. We had to stand at a distance, for only the Son of God could stand in that place for us.

“His be the victor’s name,
Who fought the fight alone;
Triumphant saints no honour claim;
The conquest was His own,
He hell in hell laid low;
Made sin, He sin o’erthrew:
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death, by dying, slew.”

If the beloved Apostles could not endure with Him Gethsemane’s sorrow, which was the shadow and forecast of the Cross, much less could they follow Him to those deeper, darker shadows of Golgotha! He went forth alone to bear the judgment of God against our sin. He went forth alone where He alone could stand. He went forth to bare His breast to the sword of judgment.

“There Christ suffered for my guilt:
This through faith may be believed;
But the horrors which He felt
Are too vast to be conceived.
None can penetrate through Thee,
Dark and dreadful Calvary.”

What saint in this hall will move his tongue to claim any part of Christ’s great victory? The whole multitude in Heaven sing, “Not unto us, not unto us;” but “unto Him that loved us, and loosed us from our sins, and made us kings and priests unto God, to Him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

‘Alone He bore the Cross,
Alone its load sustained;
His was the shame, the loss;
And He the victory gained!”

Alone He stood there for us, and cried, ‘‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Are there any unconverted hearers? Then let your eyes be lifted to that Divine Saviour, for you have an interest in this matter. He stood where you could not stand—where you would have been consumed with the fierceness of God’s displeasure. Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and now, through God’s mighty grace, we look back and say He died for us. We were, every one of us, dead in sin. Behold Christ there dead for sin. That was the world’s midnight hour; that was the moment from which life and immortality were to spring forth to our sin-bruised souls. As we look at Calvary, we know that there He bowed beneath the load, and bridged the gulf between God and man, and there opened the kingdom of Heaven to all believers. We were one with Him in this sense, that the curse He bore was for our sins. ‘‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Gal. iii. 13), and every believer may say, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live” (Gal. ii. 20). We were identified with Him once and for ever; we were furthermore with Him in all the— 
MYSTERIES OF THE NEW CREATION
which we have indicated early in the history of God’s dealings with man. You remember how it is written in Gen. ii. 21-23: “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.” In this we see a picture of our union with Christ—how in that great sleep of death, God brought about the creation of His Church from out of the sleeping Christ.
In Eph. v. 23-32, we are told how Christ “Loved the Church, and gave Himself for it,” and giving Himself for it, He provided that by which the whole Church was fashioned, formed, and perfected, as the sharer of His throne and the partner of His joys for ever. If we “have been planted in the likeness of His death, we shall be also of His resurrection’’ (see Rom. vi. 5-11); if He died for all (2 Cor. v.), then all have died. Our death hath passed away. The curse of a broken law is gone. Our darkness and death are gone, and we are dead to sin, and to the law, and to the world, and oh! that we might be dead to self, for we as well as our sins were judged in Him,—and so, go forth with Him from under that judgment, clean as He is clean, clear as He is clear.
And, through God’s grace, what do we find? We find that in His resurrection, we are associated “with Him,” as the subject for the day declares, we are raised in complete justification; our sin is gone and gone for ever, so that we leave the court without a stain upon our character. Christ having “died unto sin once,” and “being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him.” The question has been eternally settled, so that to-night, there is the Gospel of a free and full justification proclaimed for the guiltiest of men that may be within these walls, or elsewhere, through this Man who “was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.”
But with Christ in resurrection, we have also full acceptance and Divine favour. The Apostle teaches us this in Eph. i: ‘‘Wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.” Is Christ accepted of God? So is every believer in Christ—the weakest, the youngest, the most ignorant, the most inexperienced; and the measure of his acceptance is nothing less than the measure of Christ’s, acceptance. In Christ, the Son of God,—
WE ARE MADE THE SONS OF GOD.
Is Christ before God in Divine righteousness? Then we are before God in righteousness. And if, with all the measure of Christ’s acceptance, we are accepted of God, what does it mean? It means that we have a righteousness such as our beloved friend, Mr. Denham Smith, whose voice has so often been heard in this place, exalting Christ his Lord and Saviour, wrote—

“Just as Thou art, how wondrous fair,
Lord Jesus, all thy members are;
A life Divine to them is given,
A sure inheritance in Heaven.

“Just as I was, I came to Thee,
An heir of wrath and misery;
Just as Thou art, before the throne
I stand, in righteousness Thine own.”

Which of us have plumb-lined the ocean depths of this love of God? He stooped down, and upon the vilest repentant sinner, He put the best robe, and the shoes upon his feet, and rejoiced. It strikes me that many of us have lost our first love as to these Divine realities. We have gone after our favourite teachers, and theories, and dogmas, and churches, and parties, and conferences; and our souls are not living in the great sea of the Divine love that can take a sinner out of his sins and give him acceptance—not with an earthly monarch, but with the King of kings and Lord of lords, who makes us sons with His Son, joint-heirs with the Heir of all things—places us before Him in Divine acceptance, in righteousness, such as the very angels look upon with wonder and delight. Yet further: “with Him” we are associated in the bonds of a closer and more intimate relationship. We are the bride, and He is the bridegroom. How easily spoken the words, but oh! the profound meaning at the back of them! You hang out all your bunting, keep holiday, and rejoice when a princess comes from Denmark to be united to England’s royal prince. What do you do when you consider that the Son of God, before whom the angels veil their faces, the Son of God who lends brightness to the throne on which He sits, the light and life of the universe, the joy and delight of His Father’s heart, has elected, not to have angels share His throne, but sinners redeemed by His blood, raised and presented faultless, without spot or wrinkle, before the throne of His glory with exceeding joy?
May God bring us on our faces confessing if a dignity so marvellous, a blessing so stupendous, a gift purchased at such cost, has been received by us as though it were a trifling gift, such as we would give to a poor needy beggar. O God, forgive us! When shall the eyes of our hearts be opened to know what is “the exceeding greatness of His power toward us which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places”; that in the ages to come, He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus (Eph. i. 11). And that time is soon coming, brethren. I do not know whether you will have another conference; but I know this, that the moment is coming, when the angels shall stand back, and all the harpers who are now rehearsing shall be prepared for the grand oratorio that shall swell forth over the ransomed Bride about to be led home by Him who shall present us to His Father without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing. Yes, Denham Smith did well to sing:—

“Soon, soon ’mid joys on joys untold,
Thou wilt this grace and love unfold,
Till worlds on worlds adoring see
The part Thy members have in Thee.”

The poor wretched waif of St. Giles shall be given a suit of respectable apparel, and invested with all the wealth of a Lombard-street banker or a millionaire, And will he then live at the poor, wretched, starving rate he lived at before? Call him not a fool; we are the fools. We live like beggars and starvelings, and, are proud as peacocks, picking each other’s feathers and putting one another down so nicely. “God forgive us! We play with Divine truth. Yet, oh! amazing Grace, our relationship is with Him who meanwhile is not ashamed of His poor relations. He is—
NOT ASHAMED TO CALL US BRETHREN.
He does not drive us into a corner, but acknowledges us before an assembled universe as those for whom He gave up His throne and embraced the Cross, gave up His Heaven and had our hell. We cannot penetrate Calvary, my friends; it is beyond our poor feeble conception. But, on the other hand, who shall describe the joys that shall arise when God brings home His elect Church in all the glory of her relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ! It strikes me, there are three things mightily impeding the spread of this glorious Gospel—cash, caste, and culture. In these refined days, men desire to hear ‘‘refined preaching” from those who do not speak of the blood of Christ, nor talk of hell, and do not utter the word ‘‘damnation,” who tell us that we have a life that only needs developing. No, no; the pride of the world is its ruin; and the preaching of the Cross, in the judgment of the world, is foolishness. And the pride of pocket keeps men strutting along in self-satisfaction, indifferent to the charms of the Gospel or to the welfare of others. These, my brethren, are, in some cases, the little flies in the ointment, even. with the people of God. The Lord be praised for culture; the Lord be praised for cash; the Lord be praised for position. I am not for abolishing any of these, but for holding them all for God, realising the great relationship that obtains amongst God’s people, being united with Christ in the inheritance that is undefiled, that is ‘‘reserved in Heaven” for us, and of which Christ has said, ‘‘Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory, for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.”
THIS INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS.
We have got the title-deeds in our possession, and when we “come of age”, we shall be manifested as the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty, and with one sweep of His heavenly hand, He shall say: ‘‘All things are yours; and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” And if this be the case, I call every unsaved one here to come and take this great salvation which Christ has purchased—this priceless possession which Christ in resurrection has secured; and, if you have done that, let that other phase of the union be yours, as our Lord Himself said: “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” And thus yoked with the Lord Jesus Christ for practical service, we shall be able to do His bidding, and go wherever the Master sends us, to St. James’s or St. Giles’, Belgravia or Bethnal Green, or even to the ends of the earth. We shall be willing to leave all the pleasantries of Conferences like this, and say: “Here, Lord, am I; send me.”
“The Christian” July 1889